The Seven Stars

by Anthea Fraser

  She, privileged to be his other self, had rejected him. He would, with some justice, have seen her defection as cruellest treachery, and he was making her pay. How could she have imagined he had forgiven her? How could she have forgotten that Jay Darke never let an injury go unpunished?

  His possessiveness was prompted by revenge, not devotion. Their little house was a prison, not a love-nest. Their partnership wasn't a marriage, but a custodial sentence.

  She was the victim in one of his games, one of his bizarre, cruel, endless games. And she didn't know what to do.

  In her precious breathing space, when he went to the Friday morning meeting, she phoned Laura, married now with an infant, but still living in London. Perhaps if she went to see her next week she could resurrect the old friendship, talk about her problem, get some of Laura's down-to-earth advice which might give her a proper perspective on things.

  Laura was delighted to hear from her; it was easily arranged. She said nothing about it to Jay, but the next week he didn't leave at his usual time.

  `Aren't you going to the office today?' she asked, carefully casual.

  `There's nothing much on at the moment,' he said without looking up from the sports page of the Independent. `We decided I might as well stay here.'

  Juliette had no choice but to confess.

  `Oh, that's nice,' he said blandly. 'We haven't seen Laura for ages. How lucky that I can come too.'

  She saw that he had known about it all along. With his skills, bugging the phone would be child's play.

  She could bear the elaborate deception no longer. Gathering her courage she said as temperately as she could, `You're spying on me, aren't you, Jay?'

  His anger, like sudden lightning tearing the sky, tore their marriage apart. She cowered under the lash of his spite and contempt; he didn't strike her, though she felt she would almost have preferred honest physical violence. At least the injuries he inflicted would have been visible.

  After the storm, the calm. He phoned Laura to cancel the visit, citing a forgotten engagement and laughing about Juliette's forgetfulness, promising they would both come and see the baby some other time. Then chillingly, he went on as if nothing had happened.

  In the weeks that followed, he took her out, talked to her, made jokes and made love, as if this had been a married tiff like any other. Yet he didn't trouble to veil the cruelty in his eyes any more. He was playing with her, like a cat with a defenceless mouse.

  Then he had the security cameras installed, which covered upstairs and downstairs in the little house, so there was no privacy at all any more. Even when he was asleep he could be party to her sleeplessness, review her restless wandering about the house, savour her wretchedness as she sipped tea in the middle of the night. He took to security-locking the windows and front door and taking away the keys on the mornings when he went to the office.

  Juliette's work was suffering. She could settle to nothing; like a hamster in a wheel, her mind scrabbled round and round the problem without finding any fresh answers, and she was terrified of what in his ingenuity he might do if she tried to leave him and failed.

  She could phone the police, but they were notoriously reluctant to interfere in domestic matters, and how could she claim imprisonment when their neighbours would declare that she was out with her husband almost daily? She could phone her father — but Jay would know before ever he arrived, and she didn't trust Harry not to do something outrageous, something that would get him into trouble. Jay would love that.

  If she broke out, ran away, she had no money. She had looked, during one of his absences, for her cheque book on their joint account, but he must have destroyed it. He had taken even the small change out of her purse now.

  If the money order from one of the French companies she did translations for hadn't arrived during one of his Friday morning absences, she would be his prisoner, his plaything, still. She had laid her plans meticulously, and, mercifully, it hadn't occurred to him to remove her passport.

  When she arrived in Ambys, she had phoned her father, despite her grandmother's bristling disapproval, to tell him what had happened. He had exploded in protective rage, as she had known he would, but she made him promise to do nothing until he met her in London when she came home. With his support she felt she could confront Jay and finish the whole sad game.

  ‘But don't go by yourself, Dad, he's dangerous,' she warned again. 'Clever.'

  Harry Cartwright had snorted. 'He's a sick bastard,' he said. 'He may have brains, but I can tell you when it comes to dealing with unpleasant customers I wrote the textbook. No —' as she protested, 'don't worry. I use the sort of lawyers who have boys like him for breakfast. They'll have him tied in so many legal knots he'll fall flat on his face if he takes a step in your direction.'

  She still feared Jay's vengeance, but Dad's confidence was comforting. After all, he hadn't got where he was without making enemies, and all the evidence suggested that he could handle it.

  She'd stay for another couple of days, and then she'd go home to draw a double line under that strange part of her life, and start over again. Perhaps she might even think about working in France. Grandmère would love that.

  To the monotonous lullaby of the crickets, Juliette fell asleep.