A little over three years ago we escaped to Cornwall. We simply packed our belongings, discarding the contaminated, and closed the weighted door firmly behind us. I bequeathed our dirty possessions to appreciative good causes. Soiled by life; lies and debauchery. It was all far too easy to do. Sometimes, the most difficult deeds are also the easiest to embrace. We both yearned for new beginnings. To cast away from the dark waters that nearly consumed us. Jack was just ten, but had witnessed and heard things to choke his conscience for the rest of his life. Like a polluted smog.
My son Jack; how unfair he was born into this. He’s fourteen now; it’s been almost ten years since he was in your grip. The white-collar psychopath, clever, manipulating and sinister. My ex-husband. Jack’s father. You embezzled years from us both. You took me in, chewed me up and tried to swallow the mangled remains. Until I hit you where it hurt the most, and you spat me out. Before vanishing. So many years, looking over our shoulders, waiting, wondering. You didn’t return.
Are you dead? I truly hope so. And so does Jack; he told me so. I hope you died a slow and painful death. I suspect I’m not the only one who lives in hope.
It wasn’t always this way. I only want to look after you, you told me. I believed you, believed you loved me. Chosen and special. Only now, I understand there was always something not quite right about you. Initially, I found you to be sweet and protective. Unaware it, I, was all part of your game, mistaking your rule for care, your lies for truths. I was nothing more than a tool; you needed a wife. In actuality, you were not capable of loving anyone but yourself. Eventually, Jack became your tool too, to keep me even further under your jurisdiction. Imprisoning me for further years.
Deluded, I stood.
By the time I opened my eyes, it was too late.
We followed the conventional path of dating, to marriage. The trodden path of Hansel and Gretel, with no obvious way back. You laid the way, I stupidly followed. Though the birds didn’t eat the crumb trail; I cleared it myself. Blinded by the charm, flattered by the engineered care and hoodwinked by my virtue. You’re mine now, you’d tell me softly, and I will take care of everything.
You have everything, you’re so lucky, friends would say from their observation point. Friends, whom I later betrayed; let go of. Because I was nothing more than a prisoner in a figurative cell, with no key. I couldn’t accept visitors; I was too ashamed, too lost. The worst I have to live with is knowing it was me who locked myself in. Now, it makes me shiver, my skin crawl. How could I have been so pathetically stupid? I truly hate hindsight.
We were married in less than a year. Fraudulent vows disguised by context. The perfect couple, weren’t we? Two professionals in their twenties, everything ahead of us. Wasted dreams and fruitless hopes fell at the mercy of power. Greed. Ego. It only took a year to tread the path to my cell. Then, soon after, the arrival of Jack opened my heart but firmly locked the door. Trapped. If you could only learn to behave yourself, Eve, you wouldn’t need to be punished, you’d kindly advise me. You know, you only have yourself to blame, if only you would do as you’re told. Be less pig-headed. Argumentative. I still wonder – how can an apparently intelligent person find herself as ensnared as I did? This still bites at my scars. But things aren’t always what they seem: we don’t always tell the truth; we don’t always see the truth. Even when we’re honest, the truth deceives.
Easier to lie. Often to ourselves, but especially to others.
Everything turned black; this was the last time we saw you. That night in the car, etched into my mind. Not the only scar but one of the deepest. The screeching brakes, the cracking of my skull, then you were gone. I can’t remember anything after the impact; until the bright fluorescent lights, only subdued by the high-pitched bleeping. The harsh smell of disinfectant. Fear smacked me across the face and woke me: where is Jack? To this day, I’m not sure how much Jack has buried away in his subconscious I don’t think he realises either. Time will tell.
Time isn’t always a healer; it can be an incubator too.
You disappeared after this. Though you made one final visit to our house. Sometime between the disinfectant and us returning, or at least someone did. The house was ransacked. I knew what the perpetrator was looking for. They never would have found it; it was submerged deep in the dirt. A little like me: deep in the dirt. I didn’t call the police; it was too soon. Why would I hand over my most valuable weapon? You were not the only one with something to hide.
For some years after, Jack and I tried hard to rebuild, but our existence in Warwickshire was soiled. It was no longer the happy place I grew up in, deep in family traditions and teenage escapades. Home-made picnics under the sweeping willows gracing the river Avon. Yearly thespian visits to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. Then, frivolous, drunken nights queuing outside the nightclub on the river, having sampled alcoholic pleasures from a pub on the riverbank. All became smothered memories. Instead, palpitations would grab me, simply driving familiar lanes, or strolling through the town. Needlessly pumping adrenaline. As if you were still with me. Maybe you were? Watching and waiting. Either way, we were unable to escape the superficial grasps you left behind. We needed a fresh start, but could that ever really be? When lies and dark secrets churned like pea soup. I continued to lie, hoping to convince me and Jack everything would be okay. Deep down I knew it wasn’t over. Psychopaths never give in, never forget. In your eyes, I owe you, don’t I?
If you were still alive, you would find us. Barefaced. Unashamed. Bastard.
Chapter Three
Before
I observed you getting ready most mornings; the 06.00 rise through to the 07.10 departure paralleled a military operation. Hindsight nags me: how did I not see the signs? Everything planned, nothing happened in your world. When I think back, even simple bathroom procedures exposed fanatical behaviours. Me, an expert on the human mind?
You stood, a white fluffy towel wrapped around your waist.
Steam filling the air. ‘What the…?’ You interrogated your aftershave balm. ‘Bloody cleaner, for Christ’s sake, why do I have to be landed with the thickest cleaner? Leave my goddam things where they belong, woman. Have you ever wondered why she’s just a sodding cleaner? Jesus, how hard can it possibly be?’
You always hate the cleaners, I thought. In your eyes, she meddled with your day, challenged your authority.
Your eyes met mine through the mirror. ‘Are you listening to me, Eve?’
‘Of course,’ I told you. ‘I was just…’ wondering if Jack was awake, I was going to say.
‘If I wanted my shaving balm there, I would have bloody put it there, wouldn’t I? How many times before she gets it?’ You caressed the lavish ointment into smooth skin. ‘You’d think even she has the intelligence to work it out. How am I supposed to get ready when my stuff is all over? Simple-minded idiot.’
You grabbed at my face wash and launched it from your perfect shelf into my basket on the floor. ‘That’s not even mine. Eve, perhaps if you were not so bloody chaotic with your things, she might have got it right.’ Past tense, the cleaner was in trouble.
I liked my chaotic basket. I wanted a home, not a clinic. I wanted a husband, not a computer. Your personal vindictiveness towards others made me blush. But then, you didn’t often reveal it in person; you were far too shrewd. Everything occurred behind the scenes. Meddling cleaners came and went. So did the gardeners, window cleaners and anyone else who interfered. Frequently replaced, discarded as easily as a once-used dish cloth.
‘Having strangers in the house... It’s not right. I don’t trust any of them. Perhaps, if you were at home a little more often, we—’
‘I work too, Gregg!’
‘Hmm. So you say.’
‘I think you’re being a little harsh, to be honest, if—’
‘For pity’s sake, why do you always have to try and understand people? Drives me insane.’ You moved towards your dressing area, running frustrated hands through your hair. ‘Get shot of her before I return this evening.’