‘Well, we really must be off,’ I say to Janice instead. I give Millie a last hug. ‘You can think about what dress you’d like to wear to the party and tell me when I see you next week,’ I tell her, hoping to cheer her up.
‘What time would you like us to arrive on the ninth?’ Janice asks.
‘Around one?’ I say, looking at Jack for confirmation.
He shakes his head. ‘The earlier the better, I think. Besides, I can’t wait to show Millie her room. So why don’t we say twelve-thirty?’
‘Lovely,’ Janice smiles.
In the car on the way home, I brace myself for whatever is to come. Jack doesn’t say anything for a while, perhaps because he knows that the anticipation of his anger is sometimes, but not always, worse than the event. I tell myself that I can’t afford to let fear muddle my thinking and concentrate instead on finding a way of deflecting his fury. The best way, I decide, is to make him think I’ve given up, that there is no hope left and I take comfort from the thought that my lethargy over the last few months, which I’d been berating myself for, might actually have served me well, as a slide into total apathy won’t seem so contrived.
‘I hope you realise that you’ve made everything much worse for yourself by inviting Janice along,’ he says when he feels he’s let me sweat enough.
‘The reason I invited Janice along is so that she’ll be able to report back to Mrs Goodrich that our beautiful house is perfect for Millie,’ I say tiredly. ‘Do you honestly think that the school where Millie has lived for the last seven years is going to wave goodbye to her without checking up on where she’s going?’
He nods approvingly. ‘That’s very noble of you. But now I have to ask myself why you should choose to be noble, given the circumstances.’
‘Because I suppose I’ve accepted that there’s nothing I can do to prevent the inevitable,’ I say quietly. ‘I think I realised it long ago, actually.’ I let a sob choke my voice. ‘For a while, I honestly thought that I would be able to find a way out. And I tried; I tried so hard. But you’ve always been one step ahead of me.’
‘I’m glad you’ve realised it,’ he says. ‘Although I must admit that I’ve missed your futile attempts to escape from me. They were amusing, if nothing else.’
The small glow of satisfaction I feel at having out-manoeuvred Jack is precious. It gives me the confidence that I can do it again, that I can turn a bad situation around and turn a negative into a positive. I don’t quite know where I’m going to find the positive in Millie coming to the house for lunch, but at least it is only lunch. Her inevitable delight when she sees the house will be hard enough to bear during the few hours she’ll spend with us. To have to endure it for any longer when I know what Jack has in store for her, and when I don’t know if I’m going to be able to find the solution that I promised her, is unimaginable.
My throbbing toes make me want to ease my shoe off but I don’t dare for fear I won’t be able to slip it back on easily when we arrive at the house. In the light of her imminent visit, the pills Millie gave me take on a new importance. I had planned to leave them safely tucked into the toe of my shoe, until the time came when I could use them, but I no longer have time for such luxuries. If I am ever to use them, I need to get them into my bedroom, where they will be more easily accessible. But with Jack watching my every move, it’s going to be almost impossible.
I use the rest of the journey to consider what I can do. The only way the pills are going to be of any use to me is if I manage to get enough of them into Jack to render him unconscious. But if getting them into my bedroom seems impossible, administering them to him seems even more so. I tell myself that I can’t afford to look that far ahead, that all I can do is take one step at a time, and concentrate instead on the present.
We arrive at the house and, as we’re taking off our coats, the phone starts ringing. Jack answers it, as he always does, while I wait obediently, as I always do. It would be no use me carrying on up the stairs to try to take the pills from my shoe because Jack would simply follow me.
‘She’s fine today, thank you, Esther,’ I hear him say and, after a moment of puzzlement, the events of the previous evening come flooding back and I realise Esther is phoning to see how I am. He pauses a moment. ‘Yes, we’ve just walked in the door, actually. We took Millie out for lunch.’ Another pause. ‘I’ll tell Grace you called. Oh, of course, I’ll pass her to you.’
I don’t show my surprise when Jack hands me the phone, but the fact is I am surprised, as he normally tells anyone who asks to speak to me that I’m unavailable. But I suppose that as he’s told Esther we’ve just walked in the door he could hardly say that I was in the shower or asleep in bed.
‘Hello, Esther,’ I say cautiously.
‘I know you’ve just got in so I won’t keep you long, but I wanted to see how you are, you know, after last night.’