by Sibel Hodge
‘Looking for my handbag. My mobile phone would be in it and my purse and keys.’
He mutters something under his breath I can’t hear then says, ‘They’re not here. I already checked for you.’
I slump into a leather chair at the glass-topped kitchen table.
‘I cancelled the bankcards and changed the locks, so there’s no need to worry.’
I laugh then, even though nothing is remotely funny. ‘No need to worry? That man might have them. And if he does, he’ll know where I live.’ My voice escalates.
Liam walks over to me and crouches down, resting on his haunches. He takes my hand in his and strokes it gently. ‘Darling, nothing is going to happen. There is no man.’
‘Why don’t you believe me?’ I shriek, pulling my hand away.
He stands upright, walks to the window, and looks out into the garden. ‘Do you really want to know?’
‘Yes! I can’t remember anything that happened. I want to know what’s going on. I have to know!’
He swings around and stares at me for a moment. The room is silent except for the clock ticking annoyingly in the background. Then he walks out of the room, and his heavy footsteps pound the stairs. When he comes back down, I’m pacing the floor, hands clutched to my elbows.
‘Here.’ He thrusts a piece of paper in my hand. ‘This is why I don’t believe you.’
I tentatively reach out and take it from him. It’s a regular piece of A4 paper, the kind we use for printing things off the computer. It’s got my handwriting on it, but it’s an odd scrawl, as if I’ve written it in a hurry or I was drunk.
Or drugged.
Liam
I can’t go on like this anymore. I need to end it all.
I’m sorry
Chloe
‘It’s a suicide letter, Chloe. I found it in the kitchen when I came back from Scotland.’ His voice sounds weird to my ears, slowed down and distorted.
My knees buckle and I collapse to the floor, grasping the letter. I look up at him with a questioning gaze. ‘I don’t…I don’t remember this.’
‘You obviously intended to kill yourself while I was away. I think you tried to take an overdose of sleeping tablets and had another reaction to them before you could take enough to finish off the job. Depression runs in families, Chloe, and you’re suffering with it, too. You’re taking after your mum, don’t you see? You were just hallucinating that you were kidnapped.’
No. No, no, no. I wouldn’t do that. Would I? I press my hands over my ears to block out what he’s saying. But Dr Drew said I was still grieving over the miscarriage. What if the grief escalated? What if I felt the only way to cope was to kill myself?
And I had thought of it before, after mum died and I was in the children’s home.
At nine, I was still small for my age. I was shy, painfully so. Quiet, meek Chloe, who didn’t like to speak anymore, even though her voice had returned. A perfect target for some of the bigger, older children who wanted to assert their authority. They bullied me mercilessly, and I blamed myself for everything. Thought it must be my fault the other kids didn’t like me. It was my fault Mum did what she did. It was all something I was doing wrong.
Growing up I learned to hate myself, and my self-esteem hit rock bottom. So, yes, I’d thought about suicide a few times over the years. Thought about jumping in front of a train or drowning myself or slitting my wrists. No one wanted me, and the world would just be better off without me.
I’m dizzy now. My chest tightens as I gasp for air.
Liam kneels next to me, pulling my hands away from my ears. He wraps his arms round me and rocks me gently. ‘This is why I wanted you to stay in the hospital. You need to get some help.’
‘But Dr Drew...Dr…Drew.’ I fumble for some sort of coherent thought. ‘He said…he said…I wasn’t mad. Not going mad. No.’
‘All right. Just take some deep breaths.’ He cups my face in his hands and makes me look at him. ‘Breathe slowly.’
I nod frantically. In. Out. In. Out. Tremors spread through every muscle.
‘Come on now, calm down.’ He strokes my hair.
The panic subsides but the confusion remains, bright and burning in my head like a blinding light blocking out everything else.
‘Did you tell Dr Drew you wanted to kill yourself?’ Liam asks softly.
‘No, because I don’t. I don’t feel suicidal. I don’t want to kill myself.’
‘Well, that’s obviously why he thought you were safe to be released from hospital, then. Perhaps with the amnesia, and the things you’ve forgotten, it’s made your urge to commit suicide disappear, too.’
‘I don’t…’ I trail off. ‘Did you tell Dr Drew about the letter?’
‘Yes. I spoke with him before I saw you last night.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘That you weren’t showing any signs of suicidal tendencies. The opposite, in fact, that you’d shown a will for survival.’
‘Yes. He wouldn’t have let me come out of hospital if he thought I’d harm myself, would he?’ I say, trying to reassure myself.
‘I’m not convinced Dr Drew is competent. Maybe we should get a different psychiatric opinion from someone else. Dr Traynor agrees with me and thinks everything that’s happened while I’ve been away points to you trying to take your own life. He’s also agreed with my concerns that depression and suicidal behaviour runs in families, and after what happened with your mother, it’s likely you’ve inherited some kind of dysfunctional depressive gene.’
I close my eyes briefly. I don’t want to open them again, but I do. ‘And the police? Did you show them the letter?’
‘Yes. DI Summers took a copy.’
‘What did he say?’
‘That this sheds a very different light on things, and they would be winding up their enquiries.’
Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. What is happening to me? What has happened to me? Did I really fantasize the whole thing?
I curl my fingers in the lapels of Liam’s suit jacket, pulling him closer to me. My limbs are loose; my movements strangely slow, as if I’m wading through water. ‘I need you to tell me everything that happened before you left for Scotland.’
12
I sit at the kitchen table. Somewhere in my head, a pneumatic drill is going off. Drum. Drum. Drum.
Liam opens a bottle of fruity white wine from the fridge and pours himself a large glass. I want one, too. After everything I’ve heard so far, I want to drink a whole bottle. Maybe two. Then just sink into blissful oblivion and not have to think. Pull the duvet over my head and never get out of bed again. Have someone pamper me. Bring me hot chocolate and food, stroke my forehead, and tell me everything’s going to be OK.
He sits down in front of me.
‘I want one.’ I stare at the condensation already surfacing on his glass.
‘That’s not a good idea.’ He takes a sip and looks steadily at me over the rim.
‘The last thing I remember is your party.’ I tear my gaze away from him and stare at a thread pulled loose on my leggings. I twist it into a ball then untwist it again. Twist. Untwist. ‘What happened after that?’
‘Well, Jeremy and Alice stayed the night, since neither of them wanted to drive back to Kent after having a drink. When they left the next morning, you presented me with a package wrapped up in gold paper. I thought it was another birthday present.’ His lips curl into a smile, and his eyes light up. ‘It was a pregnancy test. A positive one.’
I touch my hollow stomach with trembling hands. I had a life inside me. Our life. Ever since I was young, I knew I wanted children. Longed for them. A whole brood. Someone to love and nurture, as I never was growing up. Now I feel like my insides have been scooped out and left to rot. ‘Were you happy about it?’ I ask, dreading the answer.
The subject of children had come up before, of course. Liam made excuses because he was happy with it just being the two of us. At first, he wanted to wait until he got his promoti
on, then when the pressure of work lessened, then when we had more money, when we were more settled. It was never the right time for us to try, according to him.
And things changed between us. His moods, for one. The way he was so up and down. Volatile sometimes. Shouting at me if things weren’t right. That was no environment in which to bring up a child. I thought maybe he was right. Perhaps it would never be a good time. But then it happened by accident. I’d had a stomach bug—vomiting, diarrhoea—and I forgot to supplement my contraceptive pill with a condom like they always tell you to.
Liam takes my hand in his, gently tracing the cuts on my fingertips, dragging me back to the present. ‘I was ecstatic.’
I release a breath caught tight inside.
‘You thought you were about eight weeks pregnant when you told me, and you were feeling fine. No sickness or anything.’
A strangled cry escapes from my lips.
‘In the early hours of the morning after you told me, you had the miscarriage. Then you started to get depressed. You were crying a lot and didn’t want to get up in the mornings. Your sleep was erratic. You didn’t want to talk. Couldn’t be bothered to get dressed. You didn’t even want to teach anymore. The doctor signed you off work and prescribed antidepressants and sleeping tablets, but a few days in to taking the antidepressants you had some kind of reaction to them. That’s when I came home and found you out in the garden.’ His expression softens as he shakes his head. ‘It was awful to see you like that.’
I try to imagine what I looked like then, scratching away at the path with wild eyes, screaming at the top of my lungs about people chasing me. Dying to get away. Dying inside. Losing Chloe and turning into a crazy woman. My mind disintegrating into paranoid delusion. I can’t picture it at all.
‘I called the doctor, and you were sectioned. Dr Drew treated you with anti-psychotic drugs before they realized it must’ve been some kind of side effect of the antidepressants. So they stopped the anti-psychotics and waited for the antidepressants to be purged from your system.’
‘And when I came home?’
‘You were coping better. You were functioning, getting dressed, making dinner, and you had an interest in certain things. But you were still very sad, understandably, and you couldn’t sleep. You said the baby was haunting you at night.’
‘Did I write a journal? Dr Drew said he encouraged me to write one to help with the grief.’
‘A journal? No, not that I know of.’
I swallow past the golf ball-sized lump in my throat and lick my lips to bring back some moisture. ‘Then what happened?’
‘I was working hard getting this new diabetes drug ready for production. I had to visit our manufacturing plant in Scotland, but you assured me you would be OK for the week I’d be away.’
‘DI Summers mentioned that you didn’t phone me when you were in Scotland like you said you did.’
‘Well, you were already very upset at the hospital. I didn’t want to upset you more by telling you what really happened.’
‘That’s very considerate of you,’ I say.
His eyebrow quirks up a fraction.
‘What really happened with the argument before you left?’ I grip his hand. ‘I need to know.’
He lets go of my hand and lifts his glass to his mouth. Takes a sip. I watch his Adam’s apple bob up and down, and it’s as if he’s delaying his answer, forming it in his head before he says it aloud. ‘I brought you breakfast in bed before I left.’
‘How thoughtful of you.’ I smile. ‘What did you make me?’
‘Pardon?’
‘What did you make me for breakfast?’
He shrugs dismissively. ‘Tea and toast with marmalade.’
I bite my lip to stop myself speaking.
‘Anyway, you just freaked out and started going mental at me. You said I’d given it to you on the wrong plate. That you never used the one I brought up to you, and it wasn’t what you wanted. You were being irrational, angry. You knocked the plate out of my hand, and it smashed on the floor. Then you started crying. You curled up under the duvet and told me to get out. That you wanted some time on your own, and that I shouldn’t call you while I was away.’ He takes another swig of wine, his fingers tight against the glass. Any tighter and it might break. ‘I thought it might agitate you more if I tried to calm you down, so I left to go up to Scotland.’ He pauses for a moment. ‘And that’s all I know. When I left you were upset and in bed. When I came back home after the hospital called, I found your suicide note.’
I stare at my feet, ignoring the queasiness lurching up to my throat. The thing is I hate marmalade. Never touch the stuff. Can’t stand the smell or the texture. He’s never once given it to me in all the time we’ve been together, because he knows how much I dislike it. He’s just said the first thing that popped into his head because he always has marmalade for breakfast.
And that’s when I first suspect he’s lying to me.
13
‘Are you coming to bed?’ Liam’s voice echoes down the stairs.
I’m standing in the kitchen with the lights off, staring out into the dark garden. Right at the end, behind our own wooden fence and mature trees, is a three and a half metre chicken wire fence that separates it from the Council tennis court behind. Our neighbours’ houses either side also have thick trees and bushes along their boundaries. The path that runs along the side of our house to the front driveway has a high wooden gate with a lock and a couple of bolts. So it would be hard for some unknown assailant to get into the garden. Hard, but not impossible.
Is he out there, the man who took me? Is he watching me now? I half expect his face to loom up in front of the window like in a horror film.
‘Did you hear me?’ Liam shouts.
‘I’ll be up in a minute,’ I call out.
‘Don’t wait too long.’ His footsteps creak on the hallway as he enters our bedroom above the kitchen.
I open the fridge, grab the half-empty bottle of white wine and swallow it in big gulps. Then I put it back. Close the door, climb up the stairs, and get into bed. Liam reaches for me under the covers, pulling me into his arms so my head rests on his shoulder. If he feels me stiffen, he doesn’t show it.
‘I can’t take any time off work at the moment to look after you. I’m swamped with all the stuff going on for this new drug.’
‘I’m fine. Really. I’m fine. I’m not suicidal. You don’t have to worry.’
‘If anything happens, I want you to ring me. Or ring Dr Traynor or Dr Drew. OK? If you feel like hurting yourself, ring someone.’
‘I’m won’t hurt myself.’
He kisses my forehead. ‘Good girl.’ He turns over onto his side, facing away from me. Within minutes, his breath is deep and slow, snoring softly.
I lie there, staring into the darkness, one thought chasing another. Round and round I go, my head in tortuous turmoil. I’m not going to hurt myself. The thought couldn’t be further from the truth. But I wonder just who is going to hurt me.
The letter makes it all easy. Makes it look like I’ve lost my mind. That I thought the only way out was to kill myself.
Did I really write it? It’s my handwriting, even though it’s messy. It could’ve been forged, I suppose, and it sounds like a suicide letter.
I go over what it said in my head: Liam, I can’t go on like this anymore. I need to end it all. I’m sorry. Chloe.
But what if it wasn’t me writing my last words? What if I meant I wanted to end our relationship instead? What if I was leaving him? And if I was, why? Why now? What had finally given me the courage to get away from him?
~~~~
I pretend to be asleep when Liam gets up the next morning. I close my eyelids tight, slowing my breathing as the weight on the bed shifts. He pads to the en suite and takes his morning shower.
I need to think. Do something. Make phone calls. Search the house for clues of my disappearance. Because even though Dr Drew’s been sympathetic and is the o
nly one who seems to be on my side, he still concurs with Dr Traynor and Liam that I’ve taken sleeping tablets voluntarily and had another reaction to them. He still believes I’ve made up this whole thing and that there isn’t a madman out there somewhere who could still be after me.
The police probably think I’m a raving lunatic, too, after what they’ve heard from Liam and reading the letter I wrote. So, the only one who really believes me is me, and until I know the truth, my life is in danger.
Sometime later, Liam reappears in the bedroom. ‘Chloe?’ He nudges my shoulder. ‘I’ve made you some tea.’
I open my eyes, stretch, sit up. I even give him a yawn for good measure. ‘Thank you.’
He puts the mug on the bedside table and looks at me with concern. ‘Will you really be OK?’
I feign a smile and say as convincingly as possible, ‘Yes. I’ll be fine.’
‘I’ll call you later from work to check up on you.’ And the way he says it sounds like a threat.
I bring the mug to my lips so I don’t have to speak.
When I hear the front door shutting, I pull the covers back and hastily grab the first thing I see in the wardrobe—a yellow sundress with red flowers. The early summer means the morning is already full of promising heat.
Downstairs, I make another cup of tea, strong and bitter. I pop two slices of toast in the toaster, and as I’m waiting for it to brown, I take butter from the fridge and grab a knife. I carry my breakfast to the kitchen table and take a bite, staring out into the garden. No one is there, but it doesn’t make the fear go away. It oozes out of my pores like a cold sweat.
Trying to swallow the toast is like swallowing sandpaper. I wash it down with mouthfuls of tea so hot I burn my throat. I have to eat, though. It won’t help me to collapse from weakness. I have to be strong. Have to be competent, methodical, in-control-of-my-life Chloe.
