I am sitting at a bus stop; he is on the other side of the street, waiting for someone outside a shop. When he sees me, he waves and crosses the road. The nearer he gets, the harder my heart throbs beneath my dress. For years at school no one noticed him; he was hidden behind unfashionable lengths of dark hair that kept his face concealed, but when he returned from the summer holidays with it chopped back from his eyes, he found himself the sudden focus of half the school’s female population.
We speak for a while – his lift is late – and when he asks me if I would like to meet up for a drink sometime, I hesitate. ‘Yes’ is on my lips, with all the false optimism of the summer sun that heats my back, but I know I can’t bring myself to say it. It is too late, I am with someone else – I have married young, encouraged by my mother and prompted by the expectations of my class and gender – and I am bound to Damien not only on paper but in ways I am unable to describe and won’t be able to name until much later, after the education of hindsight. I am playing at being an adult, not yet realising that adult life doesn’t need to involve endurance and acceptance.
I remember feeling my face flush as a string of thoughts that I felt a married woman shouldn’t have about a man who wasn’t her husband flitted through my brain. I wanted to be looked at in the way that other man was looking at me then; I longed to be wanted in the way I could see he wanted me. But I also wished for all these things from Damien, as he had been not that long before, because once the marriage papers were signed and I was legally bound to him, everything was different.
I told the man I was sorry, that it was lovely to see him again but I was married now, and hurried home, feeling dirty in the shadow of my adulterous thoughts. I waited for Damien to change, not realising then that people don’t change.
Five months later, lying in that hospital bed with an orchestra of buzzes and bleeps playing out in the ward around me, I wondered how different things might have been if I had only said yes to that drink with the other man. At worst I might have been branded a cheat, but the gossip would have faded once someone else’s scandal surfaced. I might have been happy, if not with him then with someone else. My son might have lived.
‘Please,’ Lydia says, dragging me back to the present. She turns to make sure there is no one close enough to hear us having this conversation on the doorstep. ‘Five minutes, that’s all.’
I am so frustrated with her, but I try to remind myself that she is not to blame here. No matter what she is guilty of, her actions have been forced by the treatment she has received from her husband. This woman needs me – I saw that yesterday, as I have seen it so many times since she and Josh started coming to me. I can’t let another woman fall prey to a man like Damien Hunter. Right now, nothing else matters.
I nod, and she follows me into the house. She looks nothing like she did last night: her hair is scraped back into an untidy bun that sits on the top of her head, and her face is pale, free of any make-up. She looks tired, her eyes red-rimmed and glassy with the need for sleep. She looks once again like the woman who has been coming to this house every week for the past couple of months.
‘Does Josh know you’re here today?’ I ask.
She shakes her head. ‘He’d kill me,’ she says quietly.
It is just a turn of phrase – a few simple words thrown together carelessly – and yet I wonder whether in Lydia’s case they are meant literally. Does she really fear that her husband might be capable of such extreme violence? Does she fear for her life? Does she fear for her children’s? Surely if the latter were the case, she would leave him before things escalate.
I reflect on the tragic irony of my thoughts, wishing I had done as much; and I realise that no one can make Lydia leave her husband. She will only do so when she is ready, when she sees for herself just how toxic this marriage is. All I can do is hope that she sees it before it’s too late.
‘It’s not his fault,’ she says, as though she is able to read my thoughts. ‘So much has happened to him over the years. He can’t help himself sometimes. He needs help.’
I see my own face as it once was – the girl I was before my marriage to Damien Hunter. How many times did I make excuses for him, trying to convince myself that he was vulnerable in some way, that he was afflicted by a condition over which he had no control? He’d had a terrible childhood. It wasn’t his fault. I told other people the same things that Lydia tells me now, always finding a way to remove blame from him. Despite everything he put me through, Damien managed to make me sympathise. No matter what he did, no matter how much he hurt me, there was always a justification for it, one that would somehow make sense to me and would succeed in blinding me to everything he was and everything he had led me to become.
I stop in the hallway, making it clear without words that I won’t be inviting Lydia down to the consultancy room; not yet, anyway. I feel now as though I have been coerced into the problems woven within the Greens’ marriage, and it is a feeling of powerlessness I never wanted to experience again. The thought that I need to end their sessions creeps up on me once more, filling me with doubt.
Then, with just one look, Lydia changes everything. Her eyes meet mine, their former glassiness now replaced with tears, and I see so much of myself in her that I know I can’t abandon her while she so desperately needs my help.
‘That man last night,’ she says. ‘He doesn’t mean anything to me, I swear to you. I love Josh, you’ve got to believe that. I just … I’d forgotten how it felt to feel normal. I’d forgotten what it felt like to have someone want me, to have someone look at me in a way that isn’t just filled with contempt and resentment. But I want those things from Josh, not him. I think you understand me, don’t you? Please, Karen …’
Don’t beg, I think, and I remember saying the words before, to someone else so many years ago: a woman like me, a woman like Lydia, who needed the advice I wish someone had given me. Christine Blackhurst’s face is in front of me, the details of her features as sharp as though she stands before me now, as though I have been transported back to that final session with her.
Don’t beg him to change. He won’t.
I hear the words as I spoke them then, echoing in my head with all the clarity of a sentence that has only just been uttered and is still ringing in my ears, powerful and alive. The memory provokes a physical response, and I feel sweat pool at the base of my neck, soaking the back of my sweater. I glance at my watch, wondering how long we have before the clients who are due at eleven a.m. arrive. I want to help Lydia, but she needs to leave. I want to protect her, and yet I want to be on my own. I don’t know what I want.
‘Are you okay?’
She is looking at me with such concern that for the briefest of moments I think I might forget the feeling of sickness that has swelled in my stomach and threatens to make me retch. Yet I don’t. I can’t forget, not now the memory of that day and of the ones that followed has been planted and is taking root so deeply in my brain.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I have clients arriving soon.’
Lydia looks so hurt that I feel guilty for suggesting she isn’t wanted here. I am the last person who should make her feel that way, not when she so obviously feels rejected in her own home and by her own husband. Perhaps she is used to everyone shunning her. I can’t be another person who does so.
‘Come through to the kitchen,’ I tell her, knowing that I can’t turn away now.
I don’t usually invite clients into any part of the house other than the designated consultancy room, but in this instance, I feel Lydia would be better placed away from the memories of everything that has been said within the four walls of the room in which we usually meet. Josh’s presence seems to linger there: I have felt his eyes still watching me when I have returned there alone.
‘We had a fight,’ she tells me.
‘A fight?’ Not an argument, I think. ‘Fight’ suggests that things became physical, and I already know how that ends for her.
‘He wanted to
know what I’d said to you yesterday,’ she tells me, ignoring a response to my question; instead leaving me to wonder just how far this fight escalated.
I put the bunch of violets down next to the sink, not knowing what else to do with them. I would like to throw them straight into the bin outside – I imagine taking a pair of scissors to them and snipping the heads from the stems one by one – but I can’t do that with Lydia here. It would only lead to questions for which I don’t want to have to search for answers.
‘And what did you tell him?’
‘I told him it was between us, that that was the point of me coming here alone. He just went nuts.’
She falls into silence, reluctant to share with me exactly how ‘nuts’ Josh became.
And then she does something I’m unprepared for. As she raises her top, I don’t know where to look, not at first, but then my eyes can’t help but rest upon the bruised flesh that marks her body, blotting the previously pale flesh that lies taut across her stomach. I think she’s going to stop, but she doesn’t; she crosses her arms and lifts her top over her head, standing in my kitchen exposed in just her bra, allowing me to see the end results of her argument with her husband.
‘Oh, Lydia.’
For everything I should be able to say – for all the words I should be able to articulate – this is all I find myself able to expel.
‘How can he do this to me?’ she asks through silent tears. ‘You can’t love someone and treat them this way, can you? You can’t do this to someone and then act as though nothing has happened.’
You can if you’re a narcissist, I think. Increasingly, I believe Josh may fall into this category, despite what happened during their last session here together and the loving son that was presented when he spoke about his mother. Yes, he loved her, but this love could never be enough to negate the way he treats his wife. He is egotistical and selfish and disarmingly charming when it suits. I have wondered just how dangerous he is, given the right – or wrong – circumstances.
Now I need to wonder no longer.
She puts her top back over her head and pulls it down to cover herself, embarrassed now at having exposed so much of herself to me.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.’
‘You haven’t. I’m just very concerned, obviously.’
She recognises the understatement, I hope. I want to take this woman to her children; I want to lead them all to a safe place, somewhere nothing can hurt any of them. I want to see her husband rot in prison for everything he is and everything he is responsible for.
Lydia crosses the kitchen and goes to the sink. ‘Do you have a vase?’ she asks. ‘You should get these in some water.’
‘I’ll do it later,’ I say, not wanting to be reminded of the presence of the violets. The words of those emails are repeating in my head, taunting me with their refusal to leave me. They grow louder with each moment, surging with the force of a migraine.
‘I’d like to do it for you,’ she persists. ‘I’ve got an eye for flower arranging.’
There is little to arrange – they are all the same – but rather than try to find an excuse that will explain my not wanting the violets on display, I take a vase from the back of the cupboard beneath the sink and pass it to her. I watch as she fills it with water from the tap before setting about the task of removing the cellophane from the flowers.
‘You need to get help,’ I tell her. ‘I know you love Josh and I know you think he can change, but you also know that what he’s done to you just isn’t right.’
She turns and looks at me with confusion, as though she has forgotten the scene that she was responsible for just moments earlier. ‘That’s why I’m here. I thought you could help me.’
‘I mean specialist help,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘There’s only so much I can do. I know that sounds like a cop-out, and I wish things were different, but you need to be kept safe. There are organisations I can refer you to, and I’ll come with you, if you like. You don’t have to do this alone.’
When she smiles, I’m not sure how to read it. The expression is neither happy nor sad. It is empty somehow, all the energy drained from her. She turns back to the flowers and begins placing them individually in the water, handling each with care.
‘I’ve lived most of my life alone,’ she tells me. ‘A little longer won’t hurt. Things aren’t as bad as they look.’
I say nothing, knowing she doesn’t really believe this. I told myself the same once, though deep down I knew different. Things were worse than I could ever put into words, worse than I was ever able to make anyone see.
‘He had a difficult childhood. It’s not his fault he’s the way he is, is it? His mother was an awkward woman, we’ve talked about that. He finds it hard to get close to people, but beneath it all he’s a good man.’
I have heard and seen all this before, far more times than is comfortable to accept. Her words are those of a woman who has lost her sense of what is right and wrong, what is acceptable and what is not. She is a textbook example of someone who has been blindsided by what she believes to be love, and Josh continues to manipulate her with his excuses because her desperate need to be accepted by him makes her vulnerable to his narcissism. Because that’s what Josh is, I am certain of that now. Handsome, yes. Charming, when it suits. A narcissist, most definitely. I saw it in our first meeting, in his aloof manner and the way he spoke to his wife. I saw it when he talked about his arrest. Didn’t he refer to ‘other people’s mistakes’ when he spoke about the young woman who had accused him of sexual assault? It seemed such a strange choice of phrase at the time, yet in hindsight it says so much about him. He will never believe himself accountable for anything he does, because in Josh’s eyes he is never wrong about anything. I remember my reaction to his attention when he was here alone, and I feel a wave of shame wash over me.
‘You’re hoping he can change, Lydia. You probably think you can change him, am I right? I don’t think that’s possible. People like him generally can’t change.’
It is the most honest I have been with her in all the weeks I have been working with the couple. I am angry, and it must be obvious to her. She has wasted my time and wasted her own. And yet she must love Josh, she must want to save the marriage; there is no other reason for her being here other than that she wants to avoid the outcome of a divorce. And yet I believe that she already knows the truth: that her marriage to Josh is doomed and that now, with her injuries on display between us, there is nothing she can do but walk away. While he refuses to accept any fault, she is fighting to rescue something that cannot be saved. She knows all this; she just wants to hear it from someone else’s mouth.
‘He’s hurt me so much, you know that,’ she says, her back to me as she continues her task of flower arranging. ‘But despite everything, I still love him. That man you saw me with last night …’ She stops, and I hear her swallow, as though gulping down her guilt and the bitter taste it leaves in her mouth. ‘He made me feel the way Josh used to make me feel, but it’s not him I want. Please, Karen,’ she says, turning to look at me. ‘You won’t tell him what I’ve shown you, will you? I want my marriage to work. The kids need him.’
You can’t stay with a violent man for the sake of your children. You may think that by holding the family together you are doing the right thing, but what are you teaching them about marriage if they see you staying with a man who treats you so badly and makes you feel the way your husband clearly does? Show your children courage and strength. Show them you are worth more than this. They may not thank you for it now, but they will realise in time that leaving him was as much for their sakes as it was for your own.
But of course, I don’t say any of this. I lied to her when I said I always tell the truth, because the truth is that I can’t. The words are all there, lined up in perfect sequence in my head and desperate to escape, but I keep them held back, suppressed by the rules my profession dictates and by an experien
ce that has taught me when it is necessary to say nothing. These words have fallen from my mouth before, the truth has tripped from me so easily; later, it came back to haunt me. I learned from my mistake, maintaining since then a neutral position, merely watching blindly – listening with the ears of a person whose tongue has been severed from her head – as people pour their lives out in front of me, their eyes almost always willing me to pass opinion. They want to be told when something is worth saving. They long to be given permission to leave.
When I chose my profession, I did so in the hope that I would be able to make a difference. Marriage seems to mean less now than it once did: it is easily entered and quickly abandoned; it can be worn and removed with the changes in seasons, an accessory that is soon replaced when it becomes outdated and unfashionable. Usually, in most marriages, there is something worth saving: often all that is required is a trip back in time to retrieve what has been lost, that element of something special that was sufficient to unite two people who might otherwise have passed each other by, and though the path back to the beginning may be longer for some than others, it is usually a journey that is worth taking. Yet I have seen marriages in which there is nothing left to cling to: when the right thing for everyone is to walk away in different directions. I see it, but I can only wish I was able to say it. Instead, I repeat back. I listen, I interpret, I rephrase and I regurgitate. Most of the couples I see seem to realise by the end of their third session that I am nothing more than an automaton, programmed with generic phrases and open-ended questions. Their disappointment is tangible, their frustrations justified.
The Divorce: A gripping psychological thriller with a fantastic twist Page 14
