Nobody Knows

by Rebecca Barber

  “No. I have absolutely nothing to say to you, Mr. Matthews,” she sung sweetly, pushing back from her chair and standing up.

  Joel had to admit that this chick had balls. She was right in his face. The further he puffed out his chest, the further she stuck out hers. He was impressed. Not only by the attitude confronting him, but also by the ample size of her bust. He was slightly mesmerized by it and couldn’t stop his eyes from looking straight down the front of her top.

  “Good!” He smiled seductively at her, licking his lips. “’Cause if you did I would invite you to do it to my face rather than muttering your sly, smart-ass comments under your breath, Becky.”

  Joel noticed the goose pimples that dotted her exposed skin. They made him feel powerful and in control. “No, Joel, I have nothing to say.” She backed up. As she stepped backwards, he came towards her, quickly closing the gap between them.

  “I have work to do. I should get back to it,” Becky said, slipping back into her chair and staring at the blank computer screen. Strangely enough, Joel felt completely confident and aroused. He loved the power he possessed. He could see that he was dominating Becky in every way. And she had nowhere to go. She was under his spell. Like his bitch wife had once been. But now she was too fat, too pregnant, and too complacent to be of any use to him. She wasn’t even an ego boost anymore.

  With the overpowering stench of Becky’s cheap perfume, Joel’s confidence and erection grew. He bent over her, gently pushing some of the wild strands of her blonde locks away from her face and whispered suggestively to her. “I know you want me. It’s only a matter of time.”

  “You’re…you’re married,” Becky stuttered, hers eyes darting back and forth, searching for a savior. “So what?” he whispered again, nibbling her ear. As he turned to leave, Joel just couldn’t help himself. He reached down over Becky’s shoulder and helped himself to a handful of her breast, freezing Becky where she stood.

  Shocked, Becky gasped. Frozen to the spot

  As she fought back angry, bitter tears, Becky grabbed her bag and ran out the door. She was already frantically dialing her boss’s phone number as she pushed through the double glass doors and out on to the street.

  Completely oblivious to the distress he’d caused or the tears streaming down Becky’s face, Joel ducked into the kitchen and poured himself a juice. He wasn’t sure whose it was, but he helped himself anyway. He had a content smile on his face—so far, a great day. He had started with a detox, getting rid of his wife’s shit, before putting that tart sitting out in front filing her nails in her place. He finished his juice and dropped the dirty cup in the sink. Someone else would take care of it. They always did.

  Stalking back into the office, Joel slipped into his leather recliner and put his feet up on his desk. He had a mischievous but satisfied smile on his face. So far today he had “cleansed” his room and his life as much as possible of his wife, and still managed to scratch an itch with the bosomy idiot sitting at the reception desk. He felt invincible. The phone lines were quiet, which was unusual, but not eerily so. It was still early and most solicitors he knew wouldn’t have finished their morning coffee and gossip sessions.

  Joel sat there completely relaxed. He glanced around his office and saw a lifetime of his achievements. The top of his filing cabinets were covered in trophies from years of hard work, dedication, and manipulation. Photos lined the walls from award ceremonies and half-famous clients. The only indication that he even had a family was a small photo of Bianca and Charli on the back of the door. There was no sign that Gillian was even in his life.

  The phone rang and Joel was jolted out of his daydream. As he began to swear and curse down the phone, his boss appeared in the doorway. After a few more moments of bitter words and half-hearted cajoling, he slammed down the phone. “Asshole,” he cursed.

  “Something up?”

  “Yeah, the bitch from 46 McKinley Way just withdrew her property,” Joel snapped a little too forcefully for Samantha’s liking.

  Joel and Samantha had never gotten along. Not since the day she was promoted from below Joel to his boss a little over twelve months earlier. She despised the way Joel spoke to and about women. Sometimes he was just rude and other times he was so damn offensive it took all her strength and will power not to slap him across his perfect face.

  “You mean the emotionally fragile single mum with three kids, one of which has Down syndrome, whose husband just died in the Middle East building bridges?” Samantha asked, attempting to remind Joel that the woman he was so angry with wasn’t doing this just to piss him off.

  She knew that Joel had a temper. Samantha had watched as he grew more destructive and more obnoxious. Controlling him had become a full-time job. She didn’t even have time to sell anything herself. The less she sold, the less she earnt. The less she earnt, the more she hated the fact that these days she was pretty much a glorified babysitter, making sure Joel didn’t do anything that would get them sued was infuriating and unnecessarily time consuming.

  “Yeah, that stupid bitch. She’s got no idea how much time and effort and marketing I spent trying to sell that place. And I was so close…” he muttered under his breath.

  Samantha could feel the tension brewing. Joel was at boiling point and she knew she only had a short time left to diffuse him before he caused something more than the usual nightmare. “Just give her some time to get everything together. I’m sure she’ll come back,” Samantha attempted to reassure him. Although she said all the right things out loud, internally Samantha knew that it was all bullshit. After hearing the way Joel spoke to her, Joel had no chance of getting this one back.

  “Whatever,” Joel grumbled before waving his hand dismissively at Samantha. She gave up and walked out, shaking her head. Things were getting worse, but there was nothing that she could do for now.

  Joel watched on with bemusement as his boss stumbled in her stilettos. The cynical part of him wanted to annoy her to such an extent that she couldn’t help but spin so fast that her heels wouldn’t keep up and she fell on her fat arse. In Joel’s mind, that was where she deserved to be. But if anyone asked, no, he wasn’t at all bitter that she had been promoted ahead of him.

  For a few moments Joel watched on, not sure how he was supposed to feel. A combination of thoughts floated about inside of him and all of a sudden the room was too small. Too closed in. There was no air. No windows. He needed to get out of there. The claustrophobia was nauseating. Jumping up from his seat, Joel flew out of the office, barely pausing to glance back.

  Outside in the fresh air, Joel slumped over, hands on his knees, sucking in long deep breaths. Something wasn’t right but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Then it struck him, like a tonne of bricks. This time he had gone too far. And as fear gripped him, Joel heard whimpering.

  Becky was sitting on the garden edge behind him, her face streaked with mascara lines, her eyes wide and red. He could hear the short, sharp, shallow breaths as she gasped between sobs.

  Joel couldn’t help but steal glances in her direction. He found himself wondering if it was his fault she was out here, sitting alone in the icy wind, sobbing to herself. Or did she have some other issues, bigger problems than he knew? Surely it wasn’t his fault. She wasn’t that pathetically fragile, was she? But a niggling in the back of his mind made him pull himself together and walk over to stand in front of her.

  Becky looked up at him with pure terror. Gone was the pain and anguish, now only all-consuming and paralyzing fear was left. And it wasn’t just fear, it was unadulterated panic. Joel was towering over her, arms folded across his chest, an unreadable expression on his face.

  “Please…please just leave me alone,” she whimpered desperately.

  Joel scrunched up his face in disgust. He could see that she was clearly distraught, but the only remorse he felt was the concern for his own career. Whether Becky knew it or not, she could destroy everything he had worked for. With one word, all the late nights, weekends,
all the hours spent on the phone, all the lies he had told, the very thing that he had molded his whole life around could be gone.

  “Becky.” He smiled softly at her. He had been around long enough to know how to play the game. With women it was simple, he’d been taught. And after years of honing his skills, his arrogance made him believe that this would be no harder than closing a deal. A young, dumb girl just had to be played the right way. He lowered himself slowly onto the ledge beside her. “Are you okay?” he offered.

  Joel watched with interest as tiny bits of spittle coated her face as he spoke, causing her to recoil. “I’m fine,” she stated matter-of-factly. The instant the words passed her lips, Becky began wiping at her eyes. She squared her shoulders and looked up at Joel’s softening face defiantly.

  Without pausing to consider the consequences, Joel reached out and put his hand on Becky’s thigh.

  Jumping up from the ledge, she backed away from him, daggers in her eyes. “Don’t you ever touch me again!” she snarled.

  “Becky,” he began, standing up and inching towards her. Instinctively Becky found herself backing up until she crashed into the brick building behind her, knocking the corner of her elbow on the rough surface. It wasn’t a deep gash, and there was no blood, but it still stung.

  “Fuck off, Joel!”

  “Excuse me?” Joel retorted, surprised that she had the audacity to speak to him like that. Didn’t she know who he was?

  “I said ‘Fuck off, Joel.’ You ever come near me again and I guarantee a few tears will be the least of your concerns. Not only will you be squirming about on the ground in so much pain you will wish you had been desexed years ago, but by the time you’re able to drag your sorry ass up off the ground, you’ll only be standing up to greet the police.”

  “Listen here, you stupid little tart. I don’t know who you think you are or who you think you’re threatening, but I won’t stand for your drama queen antics. You might think you are all that, but you are nothing. Completely replaceable. We can always just get some other big boobed, blonde Barbie to do your job. God knows it’s not fucking hard. So you just keep your mouth shut,” he snapped, tiny bits of spittle covering Becky’s face.

  Joel should have quit while he was ahead. The more he spoke, the more Becky grew in confidence. She had him rattled and she knew it. He was making threats and back tracking. He was worried.

  “I don’t know how your wife puts up with your bullshit.”

  “Don’t you dare mention her!”

  “Why not? Do you remember that you actually have a wife?”

  “Shut up!” he threatened menacingly.

  “What? Doesn’t she know about all the skanks you parade through the office before closing the blinds? Do you think we’re all stupid?”

  “I told you to shut up!” Joel roared as he back handed her, leaving a stinging red hand print on her cheek.

  Seeing the shock on her face, Joel realized that he had gone too far. He had never meant to hit her. He wasn’t a violent man, he reassured himself. “I’m sorry, Becky,” he apologized as he backed away, embarrassed. “I never meant to…I’m so sorry…” Joel turned and fled.

  “This isn’t finished,” Becky stated, but he was already too far gone to hear.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Gillian

  By the time I got home I had calmed down. Well, as much as anybody who had just had their life packed into boxes by their husband and been evicted from their own bedroom could. I knew Joel was going through something and had been for quite some time, but I didn’t care anymore. I know that’s a horrible thing to say about your husband, but in all honesty that was the only emotion I could muster towards him. For months I had played the supportive wife. I hadn’t complained when he fell into bed, drunk beyond words and reeking of cigarette smoke in the early hours of the morning. I’d stopped asking if he would be home in time for dinner. I’d even passed the point of trying to make him feel guilty about missing our lives. To me, it seemed that Joel had long ago forgotten those words we’d exchanged when we’d made our wedding vows. I’d stood by him when no one else had. But enough was enough. My girls needed me and they deserved a better life than this one.

  It’s funny, I never would have thought of packing my things and moving out. Despite all our problems, it just never occurred to me. But once Joel had made the first move, once my life was in boxes, I realized I didn’t want to go back into that room. It was the last place I wanted to be. And with that I raced into the laundry, threw on my old gardening clothes, and got to work.

  Within an hour all my boxes were out of what would now be known as Joel’s bedroom. My stuff was neatly packed away in the guest bedroom. My pillows on the bed, my toothbrush in the holder next to Bianca’s and Charli’s, and my perfume stashed on the highest shelf in the cupboard out of reach of little princesses. My clothes, the ones Joel had decided not to shred or destroy, now hung neatly in the closet. Honestly, I thought it would hurt more than it did. I’ll admit I was completely shell shocked that I didn’t feel a thing. It was like, in some strange way, I knew this was the best thing for me. Separation. Being Alone. Now I just hoped that I could stop being scared.

  Stepping back and looking at my handiwork, I wiped the sweat from my brow. Suddenly I felt okay again, as if it was over. I wasn’t stupid enough to think that he would never come home and we could just be happy here without him. But even something as simple as moving down the hall seemed like an enormous achievement. At least for now. I would just have to wait and see what happened from here.

  My back ached and I was exhausted, but a mum didn’t get a choice. Jobs had to be done. And if you couldn’t rely on anyone else to do them that just meant you had to do them yourself. So I did. Every day. I did whatever it was that needed to be done. I dragged my weary body into the laundry and threw in yet another load of washing. It was a never-ending mountain. Sorting through it I found Joel’s underwear buried amongst our clothes. Socks and jocks, probably a week’s worth. No doubt he would have found them as he cleaned me out of his life. They would have been hidden behind the bedside tables, under the bed or wherever they landed as he kicked them off.

  I stared at them amongst the pile. It was like they were taunting me. If I washed them, would he expect it to continue like he always had? Was he naïve enough to believe that he could cut me out of his life where I no longer fit, but when it came to being his house bitch, I would still do?

  Storming out of the laundry, I hadn’t resolved anything. In the end it had just been too hard a day. I’d deal with that later or tomorrow. Or when I felt like it. Suddenly I was a wreck. I curled up on the sofa and sobbed to myself. Things had been bad before. The bruises and scratches had hurt, but this was worse. And what was I supposed to tell our son? I didn’t want him thinking this is what a family was. My kids would not grow up thinking this was normal. Hugging a pillow tightly to my chest, I let my hands rest on my stomach and spent the next hour talking to my baby boy. Not yet born, still my confidant.

  Sometime in the afternoon I must have fallen asleep because the vibrating of my mobile phone woke me with a start. “Shit,” I exclaimed, wiping the drool from the corners of my mouth and attempting to tame my hair.

  “Good afternoon. Is this Mrs. Matthews?” a pleasant woman asked politely.

  “Yes, this is Gillian,” I replied, confused.

  “This is Audrey Anderson, Bianca’s teacher.” I felt myself gulp, wondering what was wrong. I was ashamed at myself for instantly assuming the worst. “It’s just that neither you nor your husband have picked the girls up this afternoon.” Instantly I was humiliated. I had never before forgotten to get the girls, but today I had just slept through it.

  “Oh my god! I am so sorry. I’m leaving right now. I’ll be there in ten minutes.” I slid into my sandals and grabbed my handbag from the chair.

  “No troubles. We’ll wait for you. See you soon.” She hung up.

  I cursed myself all the way to the school. By t
he time I pulled into the parking lot I had never felt worse. I must be the worst mother in the world. Who forgets their kids? Seriously?

  By the time I leapt from the car and headed towards the picnic table in the sun where they were seated quietly, I had managed to completely destroy myself. I would never forgive myself for this.

  “Again, I’m so sorry,” I apologized, reaching the table. I had read somewhere a long time ago that said the more times you apologize the less meaning it has, but I couldn’t stop myself. The words just kept tumbling out of my mouth.

  “Don’t worry about it. There were a few other kids whose parents were running a little late today.” She smiled. In that moment I hated her. She was judging me. And if she wasn’t, I definitely was. I was a bad mum. I walked over to the girls and noticed they were already doing their homework. Charli’s homework sheet was already half completed and I hadn’t even read the questions yet. I felt like a failure, and the flame-haired beauty in the sundress and the wide brimmed straw hat wasn’t helping at all, no matter how much she pretended to be.

  “Hi girls, sorry Mummy’s late,” I found myself saying yet again. “Come on, pack your things away and we’ll go home,” I began as I roughly started shoving Bianca’s colored pencils back into her pink pencil case.

  “I called your husband but I couldn’t reach him. I left a message, so you may want to call him and let him know that you have your daughters so he doesn’t worry,” she offered softly.

  Holy Fuck! were the only words racing through my brain. Fuck! Joel knew that I was a crappy mother. Yet another example of my failures. It seemed that I was just feeding him ammunition these days. It was something I would have preferred to hide from him right at that moment. “Thanks, I’ll get in touch with him,” was all I managed to mumble through the forced smile.

  “Bye Bianca, bye Charli.” Ms. Anderson waved as I tossed both their backpacks over my shoulder and shooed them into the car.