Christmas for One: No Greater Love

by Amanda Prowse

She exhaled deeply.

  ‘To tell you the truth, Roland, I have always thought that the dead might watch over us in some way, even have the capacity to protect us. If my parents have been watching over me, then I am ashamed for all that they have had to witness, mortified by what I have become. On the other hand, if they were able to protect me from their viewing gallery on high, why didn’t they? I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve asked for help, prayed for help, all to no avail. So I tend not to bother. It’s far too confusing and that’s one thing that I haven’t needed any more of – confusion.’

  ‘If you did it, Kathryn, then it begs the question, why? Why did you do it?’

  With the small smile of one uncertain of where to begin, yet aware that she had to, Kathryn slowly formed her response.

  ‘It’s quite simple, really. I did it so that I could tell my story, unafraid.’

  ‘Your story?’ Roland was baffled.

  ‘Yes, Roland. I needed to tell my story to my children, to our family, our friends, even our community, without fear.’

  ‘Fear of what exactly?’

  He had been listening to her for a while now, yet was still no nearer to understanding.

  A small laugh escaped her lips. At the same time an unbidden tear rolled down her face.

  ‘Oh, Roland, I don’t know where to begin! Fear of pain, death, but most importantly fear that I would disappear inside myself and never resurface. I don’t know where I have gone, you see. I don’t know where the person that used to be me is any more. It’s as if I have become nothing, like I have been living outside society even though I am within it. My life has felt so inconsequential, as if it doesn’t matter what happens to me. I have become invisible. Very often I speak but no one hears me. Earlier today something happened that changed me, Roland. I can’t say that it was a big, momentous or even a particularly memorable thing, but something happened and I knew that I had had enough. It was time, it was my time.’

  He contemplated her words and decided not to ask just yet what that ‘something’ was that had changed her.

  ‘You need to consider what you are saying, Kathryn. I want you to think very, very carefully about what you say and who you say it to. Your words and actions from now on can dramatically affect how things turn out for you. Every scrap of information that leaves your mouth will be recorded and will affect your future.’

  Again the small laugh.

  ‘Oh my goodness. My future? That’s another funny thing: the fact is I don’t have to think about anything very carefully now. I’ve already thought about it. I’ve had years to think about it.’

  Roland paused and weighed up the options, trying to decide on the best course of action. His eyes widened suddenly. There was one possible way out for the headmaster’s wife.

  ‘I think it would be a good idea for you to see a doctor, Kathryn. For your own good.’

  ‘Ah, yes! A psychiatrist, I assume? That would be fine. You will see that I am very good at acting on suggestions, agreeing with statements and following orders. In fact, I can’t tell the difference between them any more! But I should warn you that after careful assessment and diagnosis, he or she will write you a long-winded, expensive report that will tell you I am one hundred per cent sane, rational and in full control of all my faculties. The fact is, I acted alone and with complete knowledge and understanding of both my actions and their consequences. But you go ahead; get this confirmed by someone with a gilt-framed certificate hanging behind their comfy swivel chair, if it makes it easier for you.’

  ‘It’s not about what is easier for me! Jesus Christ, Kathryn, I can only assume that you’ve had some kind of breakdown and that your actions are the result of some form of madness, temporary or otherwise.’

  She laughed then.

  ‘Temporary or otherwise? I like that. The fact is, Roland, I am speaking the truth and I do so from a lucid mind. Can I tell you something?’

  He prayed for some revealing rationale, a fact or piece of trivia, anything.

  ‘Yes, yes of course.’

  ‘There have been times over the last two decades when I could quite easily have lost my marbles, times when things felt so bleak and sad that I wondered if it wouldn’t be easier to let myself sink into depression and opt out. Two things stopped me from giving in to that, no matter how tempting. Dominic and Lydia. They have been my reasons for keeping sane and keeping going. I would have been no use to them if I’d gone a bit loopy. It’s been a battle, though, I can’t say it hasn’t. I would stare at my distraught face in the mirror day after day and wonder how long I could keep up the pretence. Turns out for quite a while!’

  She laughed in a short, unnatural burst.

  Roland stared at her, convinced she really had lost her reason, despite her protestations.

  ‘I have to say, Kathryn, that as a friend, and not as a chief inspector, I am worried about you, very worried about you.’

  Her laugh interrupted him. She sighed, rocking slightly as she retrieved a damp square of kitchen roll from the sleeve of her cardigan and blotted her eyes and nose.

  ‘I am so sorry, Roland. I shouldn’t be laughing, I know. I’m a tad emotional. It’s been a difficult forty-eight hours.’

  Neither of them commented on the gross understatement.

  ‘The reason I laugh is that I have been wanting someone to worry about me and help me for the last eighteen years. But now, for the first time since the day I got married, I don’t need anyone to worry about me because I am finally safe.’

  She placed her palms flat against the table, as if taking strength from its solidity, to emphasise the point that she could stand alone now.

  Roland stood and paced the small police-station interview room; his hands were on his hips, his arms sticking out at right angles. He was starting to lose his patience, his frustration level rising in direct proportion to the lack of progress. He had the feeling that their conversation could meander like this for hours and that was time he didn’t have to waste.

  ‘Okay, Kathryn, I am going to level with you. I find myself in a very difficult position. I don’t mean professionally, but psychologically. I am having great difficulty in understanding what is going on with you. I have known you and Mark for… how long? Nearly ten years?’

  Kathryn pictured the arrival at Mountbriers Academy of his daughter Sophie at the age of eight, with her little leather satchel, frightened eyes, freckles and swinging plaits. She was now a confident sixteen-year-old who had not only caught the eye of her own son, but every other boy in the year. Kathryn nodded. Nearly ten years.

  ‘And in all that time you and Mark have always been seen as a very close couple, a devoted couple. He speaks – spoke – very highly of you, Kathryn, always. So can you understand why this seems…?’

  Roland stared up at the ceiling momentarily, steadied himself, and tried a different tack.

  ‘God, Kathryn, I am struggling to word this politely, so I’m going to stop trying and cut to the chase. Mark is… was… a much-respected and loved member of this community. He was the headmaster, for God’s sake! Only recently nationally recognised, well regarded by all. And you expect me… everyone, in fact… to believe that for the last eighteen years you have been living a life of misery behind those high flint walls and sash windows? When all we have seen is a strong, happy couple who appeared devoted to each other? Do you see why people might have some difficulty with this?’

  She smiled her hesitant smile and chose her words carefully.

  ‘I can see that some people will only ever see what they want to see, Roland. I do know that. But it’s also important to recognise that some people are great deceivers. Mark was a great deceiver and, to a certain extent, so was I. He was a monster who pretended to be otherwise and I was a victim and pretended I was not. Guilty as charged.’

  ‘Kathryn, do try not to use that phrase, please.’

  She didn’t know if he was joking.

  ‘Okay, Roland. The point that I’m making is
that it doesn’t really matter to me what people think or what people think they know. I know the truth and one day my kids will know the truth, and that is the only thing that matters to me. The fact is, I amguilty, and I do expect to pay the penalty. You should know that for me there is no punishment that would match the life that I have lived as Mark’s wife. None. I am not afraid, not any more.’

  Roland sat down on the opposite side of the rectangular table. He stretched out his legs and crossed them at the ankles, clasped his hands behind his head and sighed. His mind flitted to the numerous times that he had sat at the table in the Brookers’ warm family kitchen, Kathryn wearing her floral apron and serving tea from a dotty pot. Mark would hold court and dish out the banter after Sunday service, debating the latest on the cricket while Classic FM hummed quietly behind the delicate clink of china on china.

  None of it made any sense. Roland was fully engaged and prepared to listen. It was essential that he listened because he needed to hear. More importantly, he needed to understand.

  He ran his hand over his face and finished by raking his scalp and patting his side parting.

  ‘I have been in this job for a long time and I know that things can happen. Sometimes on the spur of the moment; bad things, accidents—’

  ‘I think I know where you’re going with this,’ Kathryn interrupted, ‘but I should stop you right there. This was no accident. Not that I planned and plotted or anything like that, but it wasn’t an accident. I intentionally stabbed Mark and as I held the knife in my hand, I wanted to kill him. Thinking about it, I’ve probably wanted to do it for a long time, deep down. So whilst it was “spur of the moment”, as you say, it really wasn’t an accident.’

  Roland shook his head; she wasn’t exactly helping herself.

  ‘I tell you what would help me greatly… why don’t you give me some examples?’

  ‘Examples?’

  ‘Yes, anything that will help me to fully comprehend what you have been through. Give me something typical.’

  ‘Something typical?’

  ‘Yes. A snapshot, if you like. Paint me a picture to help me get it; tell me exactly how it was. Explain to me what he did to you that was so bad. Enlighten me in simple terms as to what he put you through. You talk of fear and torture, but I need you to make it real. Tell me what he did that made you so afraid. Tell me what he did that pushed you to take his life.’

  Roland had abandoned the friendly angle and was now in full copper mode.

  ‘You want a snapshot?’

  ‘If you like, yes.’

  ‘Let me think. A snapshot, things that were typical…’

  She paused.

  ‘It’s difficult to know where to start, how much to give you.’

  ‘Give me anything, Kathryn, other than the phrase “my husband was a monster”, which is a bit too generic and dramatic to be of real use. Give me something tangible, something that will help me to understand, any detail that will help me explain it to others.’

  ‘Righto. There is one thing that I would like to say before I start, and that is that I will neither exaggerate nor understate the facts. I have told you and will continue to tell you only the whole truth and nothing but the truth – is that the phrase?’

  Roland nodded. ‘Yes, that’s close enough. Ready when you are.’

  Kathryn breathed in sharply and used her left thumb to spin her wedding band around her finger. It hadn’t occurred to her to remove it, but she now decided to do so as soon as she was alone. She pushed the gold sliver upwards and briefly pondered the groove it had notched into her finger, wondering how long it would take for the tiny track to disappear. That would mark a big step towards her emancipation.

  ‘Well, Mark was very fussy, obsessive, really. I wasn’t allowed to wear jeans or trousers, only skirts. Every minute of my day was more or less accounted for; there was very little time for free choice. I could decide what route to take to the supermarket or what veg to prepare for supper, but that was pretty much it. How and where I stored the groceries, when I served dinner, these things were all prescribed. I had to complete a round of chores every day, often pointless and repetitive chores that were designed to exhaust me and break my spirit…’

  Roland pinched his eye sockets with his thumb and forefinger. He could just picture those words being repeated in court: ‘I killed my husband because he was a little bit fussy, preferring me in skirts. And I had to do household chores.’ Jesus, if she got away with it, most of the women in the country would have justification. He hoped she had something better than that.

  ‘At the end of every day, we would climb the stairs together. With only a plaster wall between me and my children, I would kneel at the foot of our bed and Mark would allocate me points according to how badly he thought I had executed the chores that day. Extra points would be added if I had done anything to irritate or anger him.’

  She had his attention.

  ‘These points would be on a scale of one to ten and depending on how badly I had scored – ten being bad – would determine what came next.’

  Kathryn’s tears snaked their way into the waiting square of kitchen roll. Her breath stuttered in her throat, her distress as much for the shame in telling as for the memory of the events.

  ‘Points?’

  Roland shook his head. Kathryn couldn’t gauge whether this was in pity or disbelief.

  ‘Yes. And then he would hurt me.’

  This she whispered. Roland strained to hear.

  ‘How long had he been doing this to you, Kathryn?’

  She coughed, collected herself and continued quite brightly, as if she could fool herself that all was well.

  ‘Well, looking back, I can see that I was bullied from the moment we met. It was little things at first: criticising the clothes I wore, the way I styled my hair, and disliking all of my friends. He put a halt to my career as an English teacher, which was a shame. He broke or threw away anything that I had owned prior to meeting him, monitored my calls, that sort of thing. I was slowly alienated from my family. All his actions were designed to destabilise me and make me more dependent on him, cutting off all my allies and destroying my self-esteem so that when he started the real abuse I was already a victim and quite alone. I had become unable to confidently make a decision, such was my confusion. I had no voice. At least that’s how it felt.’

  ‘And what you term as “real abuse” – how long had that been going on?’

  ‘Oh, let me see… since I was pregnant with Dominic.’

  ‘Who is now sixteen?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right, although it doesn’t seem possible! Sixteen… it goes so quickly, doesn’t it? You must find that with Sophie. Sometimes I feel as if I was chasing a chubby toddler around the house, then turned my back for a second to find he’s suddenly become this invincible life force, “a teenager”. Sorry, Roland, I’m going off-piste a little, aren’t I?’

  She watched his expression, understood his predicament. Kathryn knew that it didn’t sound plausible; it sounded completely bonkers that she had been talking about Mark Brooker, the headmaster! She knew that Roland and every other parent would only ever be able to picture Mark offering a firm handshake and a clever quip. They would all agree that the whole affair was most shocking. What would Mark’s PA, Judith, make of it all? Kathryn smiled to herself as she considered the woman’s reaction, she could just imagine her statement: ‘Mark didn’t look like a nasty man, in fact he was quite gorgeous…’

  Kathryn hoped that in time and once all the facts had been revealed, people would ask themselves one important question: if her life had been as perfect as Roland and everyone had thought, why would she have done it? Why would she fabricate the whole nightmare and then ask for punishment if it weren’t true? Unless she was crazy, of course. And Kathryn was determined to prove that she was anything but.

  Roland took a deep breath and prepared to repeat his questions.

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  Forbidden love in 1960s London has heart-wrenching consequences. The next powerful page-turner in Amanda Prowse’s No Greater Love sequence.

  1

  It was cold, the pavement was covered with a sugar-like dusting of frost and the January wind that blew off the water felt like it could cut your cheeks. A large ship painted gun-metal grey was moored against the jetty and its unwieldy hawser stirred and scraped against the wall as the Lightermen’s barge made the water swell. The clouds were dark and threatened to burst at any moment. Dot Simpson and Barbara Harrison perched on the flat-topped bollards that stood in rows along the brow of the dock, just as they did in all weathers, in all seasons. When they were little, they had invented elaborate games using the bollards as everything from safe posts during battle to chairs at imaginary tea parties. Now in their late teens, they were more likely to be found sitting there with their faces covered in baby oil, holding up tin-foil reflectors to catch the sun’s rays. Tonight, however, they pulled their cardigan sleeves down over their hands and with shoulders hunched forward shouted to each other as their voices navigated the wind.

  ‘I’m bloody freezing!’

  ‘Me too! Dot, look – my fag’s stuck to my lip!’ Barb opened her mouth wide, to show her mate that her roll-up was indeed hanging free of assistance from her gob. They laughed loudly. This wasn’t unusual, they laughed at most things, sometimes because they were funny, but mainly because the two of them were young and free and life was pretty good.

  A sailor waved from the deck and the girls waved back before collapsing in giggles. He looked foreign in his dark, woolly cap and double-buttoned pea jacket. He ran up the deck towards them and as nimbly as his heavy boots would allow, clambered up the metal ladder and onto the wharf.

  ‘Shit! He’s coming over!’

  Barb yanked her fag from her lip and threw it into the wind, where it was carried along a few feet before getting lodged in Dot’s hair.