When the police came around, they found blood on the garage floor – except I’m certain I cleaned everything away. I washed what was on the car, letting it all run into the drain, and then checked the surrounding area and the ground in case I’d missed anything. I even scrubbed a few extra spots around the garage that were likely oil. It was about as clean as it’s ever been. I’ve been doubting myself in recent days but how could I have overlooked something so obvious?
Then there are the smaller things – my missing work pass that magically reappeared where I’d left it; my car keys turning up in the fridge; the ￡50 that might or might not have vanished. I know I’m not the person I was when I was half my age. Remembering a name is occasionally a challenge. I make lists of things I have to do because, if I don’t, there’s a pretty good chance something will slip my mind. I know there’s a chance I might have put my keys in the fridge for some reason. Perhaps I’d gone to put them away and then wanted a drink and got mixed up. Things like that do happen – but with everything else going on, it’s one more odd occurrence.
Then there’s the fact that, assuming Mr Rawley is correct about his days, Dan was home when he told me he wasn’t – on the very day that the glass in the back door was smashed. When I thought someone might have broken in. What reason could Dan have for not admitting he’d popped home at lunch? It might have helped narrow down a time for whatever happened with the glass. Unless, for some reason, he was the person who broke it.
As ever, the internet gives me an answer quickly enough. I can barely remember what life was like without it.
It’s called gaslighting and I find myself scrolling with increasing horror through the stories of various women. For whatever reason – and I could be looking in the wrong place – it always seems to be women who are the victims. That’s not to say the other party is always a husband or boyfriend; there are a terrifying number of accounts where a parent is the manipulator.
Gaslighting is making someone think they’re going mad. It’s moving someone else’s things and then denying it, making them question where they left it. It’s saying something and then claiming it never happened. It’s doing something like leaving a light on and then asking the other person why they left the light on. It’s a collection of small things that grow and grow until the victim is convinced they’re losing their mind.
I continue to look through the sites and eventually stumble across one with a checklist that would indicate possible gaslighting.
Q1: Are you constantly second-guessing yourself?
It feels like a light bulb going off, because the obvious answer is yes. Everything in the past few days feels exactly like that.
Q2: Do you frequently ask yourself if you’re overly sensitive?
This is more complicated but I could say yes. There’s the incident in which I was certain I was being followed by a car, for instance.
Q3: Do you find yourself withholding information from friends and family?
This is unquestionably true – but is that somebody else’s fault? I’ve not told anyone about waking up in that field because I’m afraid of the trouble it might put me in.
I keep reading through the list but each corresponding question leaves me less sure. I definitely don’t ‘make excuses for a partner’s behaviour to friends and family’ because there’s no need.
It also says that this type of behaviour would have likely been going on over a lengthy period of time but I can’t with any conscience claim that’s the case. Dan and I have had our problems but it was never about these sorts of things. At its core, it was a lack of compatibility.
That first question still feels as if it’s been written for me, however.
On another website, there’s an article that says gaslighting is often down to clingy husbands or wives; boyfriends or girlfriends, who are desperate to make their partner remain with them.
That doesn’t ring true, either. Dan and I are separating. We’ve spoken about it for a while and now it’s happening. Why would he want to convince me that I’m having some sort of breakdown?
And then it dawns on me.
It’s about this. The house, the road on which we live, the handful of mutual friends we have, the social standing of him being a deputy headteacher.
When we get divorced, there’s a stigma. It’s not what it might have been in decades gone by – but society is obsessed by winners and losers. If I remain in the house with Olivia, then, to an outsider, it looks like I win. If he can convince me I’m losing the plot, then perhaps I’d concede I’m not able to look after a house of this size. I wouldn’t be able to manage the bills, the maintenance and so on. Perhaps it’d be better if I moved out.
Could it be that?
I put the laptop down, telling myself it’s ridiculous. I’ve known him half my life. We’ve been married most of that time; we have an adult daughter. But then I realise I’m second-guessing myself once more. It’s question one all over again.
I don’t know details of things like how Dan could’ve arranged for me to wake up in that field, but perhaps the method can be figured out when I discover if it is something to do with Dan.
The drawers on Dan’s side of the bed feel like a good place to start. At first I decide I’m looking for other things of mine he might have hidden, though I have no real idea what I’m expecting to find. It quickly becomes apparent that there’s nothing other than socks, underwear, our passports, his birth certificate, some old photographs of Olivia, deodorant, ties… boring, usual things.
I check under the mattress and the bed itself. I look in the wardrobe where he keeps his suits and the drawers where his other clothes are stored.
Nothing unusual.
Our downstairs is a cluttered mess of a design. The kitchen and the living room are more or less the same room – but there’s a separate area that was billed as a ‘guest room’ back when we bought it. We’ve turned it into a junk room, containing everything from Olivia’s old toys to a bike I never ride to various electrical items we never use. There are old TVs, an outdated stereo, a DVD player, and so on. The only reason I ever go in there is to get the vacuum, which is too big to store anywhere else.
This time when I enter, I move the vacuum to one side and take in everything else. It would be an easy room in which to hide something, largely because it would be in plain sight. I’d never go out of my way to come in here.
I still can’t find anything incriminating, though. There are all sorts of old letters, bills and bank statements in a box and I stop to read some of the correspondence. There are some of Olivia’s old school reports and I suppose the signs were always there. ‘Knows her own mind’, ‘impressive creativity but often unwilling to listen to others’ ideas’, ‘frequently reluctant to put her hand up, even when she knows the answer’ – and so on. It was Olivia then and it’s still her now.
More than an hour has passed when I realise I’ve achieved nothing other than feeling a little silly.
Except, if this is something to do with Dan – and I’m not convinced it is – why would he keep any evidence at home? He could keep anything at work, though he shares an office with another deputy head, so perhaps that’s unlikely. The other option is much more of a possibility.
He’d keep it in his locker at the gym.
Chapter Twenty-Six
It’s the first time in a long time that the his and hers gym membership is going to come in handy. Up until now, it’s largely been a ‘his’ membership.
Dan might have misplaced his pass but mine has been in the top drawer on my side of the bed for months. I grab that, stuff some barely used gym gear into a bag and set off.