‘Was it my problems that made you hit me, and hurt Maddie?’ Rose asked him, the sudden rush of years of pent-up emotion, words, feelings and questions, which she had been forced to clamp behind closed lips to safeguard herself as best she could, pouring out. ‘Or was it just that for once I wouldn’t give in to your bullying, Richard, that for once you couldn’t get control over me any other way?’
There was a long silence on the other end of the line, crackling with frustrated, impotent fury.
‘That didn’t happen, Rose,’ Richard said finally, his voice taut and strained. ‘Not the way you remember it. I only wanted what any normal man wants from his wife. You over-reacted, went crazy! You are the one who hurt Maddie.’
Rose was so shocked, so completely flattened by his incredible statement, delivered as if it was utterly incontrovertible, that it took her several seconds to be able to gasp in enough air to be able to reply. What was he planning, what was he trying to do?
‘She still has the bruise, Richard!’ Rose said, her voice rising in panic as the realisation slowly dawned on her.
‘You gave it to her,’ Richard said calmly, regaining his composure and the sense that he was regaining control.
‘She’s old enough to know what happened herself. She will tell anyone who asks her,’ Rose countered.
‘She’s a confused child, with problems of her own, probably brought about by her unstable and unaffectionate mother,’ Richard said. ‘No little girl wants to make her mother angry. She’ll say anything to try and stop being hurt again.’
‘You … you … liar!’ Rose cried, tears springing into her eyes, as yet again Richard twisted out of shape everything that was good in her life.
‘Who do you think they will believe, Rose?’ Richard inevitably said. ‘The family doctor, the loving, patient husband and father? Or the crazy woman who ran away without even stopping to pack her child a change of clothes? Come home now and we’ll say no more about it. It’s been a long time, I miss my wife. You belong at my side.’
Rose closed her eyes, the room spinning around her.
‘Why?’ she said quietly. ‘Why do you want me, when you hate me so much?’
‘Because you are mine,’ Richard said simply, almost tenderly.
Despite all her fear, her anger and resolve, Rose found herself wavering. She could almost feel the weakness spreading through her, as if Richard’s words were sapping her strength. Perhaps she should just go back, go back to the life that she knew so well, that she knew how to endure, to survive. Perhaps that would be easier than trying to exist alone in a world where she had never fitted in. And then Rose remembered the bruise still flowering on Maddie’s shoulder, and she knew she could never go back. No matter what Richard threatened to do to her, she could never, never go back.
‘No,’ Rose breathed, her voice trembling, but strengthening with every syllable she found the strength to utter. ‘I’m not yours. I’m not anyone’s, and I am not coming back. Say what you want, do what you want, Richard, but you can’t frighten or bully me any more. I am finished with you.’
‘You will regret this, Rose,’ Richard said, his voice icy cold, laden with menace. ‘The next time I see you, which will be very soon, you will regret ever speaking to your husband that way.’
Once she was certain that he had gone Rose threw the phone across the room, where it skittered along the carpet and shot under the dressing table. Flinging her arms around herself, she held on tightly until her breathing regulated and she could remember that Richard was not there, not in the room with her. His threats, as menacing as they might be, could not reach her here. He still did not know where she was, and even if he did, she wasn’t alone now. There were people here for her. People to stand between her and him.
‘No, for the last time I am not going to let you paint my portrait,’ Shona was saying as she guided a very talkative Maddie into the room. Instantly, she saw the look on Rose’s blanched face, sensed the tension in her clenched body.
‘I’ve forgotten my … um, shoes,’ Shona said to Maddie, putting a hand on her shoulder to stop her advancing any further into the room. ‘They’re downstairs in the living room. Will you get them for me?’
‘What do you need shoes for?’ Maddie asked her. ‘It’s bedtime.’
‘Bedtime for children, not for grown-ups. I want to go for a walk.’
‘Where?’
‘Maddie, just get my shoes?’ Shona told her in such an authoritative way that Maddie turned on her heel and went.
‘What?’ Shona said, crossing to sit beside Rose on the bed, and hooking a protective arm around her. ‘What’s happened?’
‘Richard called. I spoke to him. He … he’s saying terrible things, things he’ll tell people if I don’t go back – that I hurt Maddie, that I’m unstable, a bad mother. But I can’t go back to him, Shona. I just can’t.’
‘Rose, you’re trembling,’ Shona murmured, the way a mother might comfort a frightened child, pulling Rose tight into her body as if she could physically stay her shaking. ‘What did he do to you the night you left? What was it that’s frightened you so badly, made you leave after all these years of his bullying and put-downs? Did he … did he hit you? Did he?’
Rose nodded. ‘Yes, I made him so angry, he knocked me across the room. And Maddie too when she came down to see what the noise was. But that’s not the worst of it,’ she whispered, the terrible scenes that had preceded Maddie entering the room flashing through her head in a series of dreadful tableaux.
‘What then?’ Shona asked her in barely more than a whisper.
‘He tried to rape me,’ Rose whispered, the words making her want to gag as she spoke them. ‘When I fought back, when I refused him, that’s when he hit me. I made him so mad. That was the first time, you see.’
‘The first time he tried to rape you?’ Shona asked her, appalled.
‘No, the first time I fought back.’
By the time Maddie returned with Shona’s shoes, Rose was in the shower, the hot water riveting into her, scalding her white skin, and imprinting it with red welts. Shona was sitting on the bed, her mouth set in a thin grim line, her fists still clenched. As Maddie approached she literally forced herself to unclasp her fingers, prising a smile onto her face as she took the shoes and slipped them on.
‘Jenny doesn’t like you wearing shoes inside,’ Maddie reminded her. ‘Where’s Mummy gone?’
‘Mum’s just jumped in the shower,’ Shona said. ‘So I said I’d tuck you in, and put the telly on for you for a bit.’
‘Can I do drawing?’ Maddie said, wielding the outsize sketchbook that John had given her that afternoon. As soon as she had caught on to the idea of drawing what she saw around her, she had become obsessed with it, and the book was already filling rapidly with really quite accurately executed sketches of the countryside, sheep, trees, rocks, teapots, shoes, books and even John. It was the first time in her life Maddie had discovered something she was naturally good at, and she was loath to give it up for something as mundane as sleep or even the treat of television in bed.
‘Go on then,’ Shona said with a shrug.
‘Can I draw you?’ Maddie persisted.
Shona sighed, glancing anxiously at the closed shower room door and sitting down heavily on the bed. ‘Go on then.’
Just then Rose’s mobile phone sounded from underneath the dressing table. Maddie and Shona both stared at where the noise was coming from, neither making a move to retrieve it.
‘Should we …?’
‘Just leave it,’ Shona said. ‘If it’s important they’ll leave a message.’
Rose had no idea why she couldn’t cry. She wanted to, she could feel it there like a heavy stone embedded in her chest, the grief over what she had endured for so many of her married years, but it would not be dissolved by tears. Richard’s abuse of her had not been constant, nor daily, nothing like the gruelling regime of violence that Shona had lived under for so long.
There had been ra
re, sporadic attacks, if that was what they could be called, that came months apart, a year apart once. For the most part, after Maddie was born Richard showed no sexual interest in her at all, as if once she had borne him a child Rose had become less than the perfect flawless girl he’d first admired, and she had been secretly relieved. Their adult married life had been less than passionate, to say the least, first making love a week or so before the wedding. Inexperienced and clumsy, Rose had been tense and uncertain, and Richard had done his best to be kind. Although he was so much older than her, he didn’t seem to know enough to put her at her ease, or ignite any more emotion in her than sheer nerves and uncertainty. And yet it had been a sweet union, the first time, and one that Rose remembered feeling was full of love. Richard so wanted her to be his alone, his wife, his lover, and she had felt cherished and safe for the first time in a very long while. How ready she had been to marry him, how gladly she went down the aisle, alone, without anyone to give her away and not a single relative on her side of the church. And that was how those first almost featureless years of their marriage had passed, Rose unaware of how Richard gradually controlled more and more of what she did, who she knew or where she went, or even how she thought or felt, so willing was she to trust in him. And their sex life wasn’t ever earth-shattering, but neither was it unkind or cruel. After years of marriage, it petered away to once or twice a month, and Rose, who never felt any kind of desire other than to please her husband, was content with that, letting him always take the lead. And then she became pregnant.
Richard was furious with her, more angry than Rose could have imagined, even if she had suspected that this was how he would react, which she hadn’t. Happily she went to him one evening with her news, sitting at his feet as he watched the ten o’clock news in his favourite armchair, and told him, with a small quiet smile, that they were to become parents.
His anger was shocking and disorientating. How had it happened? he demanded. Why wasn’t she taking her pill? Did she think she could trick him into something she knew he never wanted? Bewildered, Rose said she wasn’t sure how it happened, there had been that time she’d had food poisoning a month or so ago, perhaps then, but anyway, did it really matter?
Pushing her away from him, Richard got up and paced the floor furiously, telling her that now nothing would be the same. It wouldn’t be just the two of them any more; she would not be his perfect unspoilt girl any more. There would be a mewling brat constantly demanding attention from her. A child would change everything and force them apart. He did not want to be a father; he’d made it clear from the start that he never wanted children.
Rose sat on the floor watching him, baffled and upset, her ideal of what this moment would be like utterly shattered. Unable to recall the moment Richard had told her his opinions on parenthood, she asked him to remind her.
‘If I’d wanted you to become pregnant,’ he told her, ‘I would have told you. That should be enough.’
And then he picked up a bottle of port from the drinks cabinet and took it upstairs to the bedroom. Rose curled up on the sofa for a long time after that, uncertain of what to do next, shocked by his last words. Gradually it dawned on her that the man she married was more than merely protective, adoring, concerned. Until that moment she’d always rather enjoyed knowing that she belonged to him, like some precious possession, that was until she realised that was exactly how he saw her: his possession, his to direct in all things – what she should wear, do, eat, cook, think, and now whether or not she should get pregnant – and she had been complicit in allowing him to treat her this way. She’d willingly let him take complete control of her without even realising it.
Shuddering with icy cold as the truth of her life dawned on her in one moment of awful clarity, Rose realised she felt like an interloper in her own home, her house of which she had happily signed half over to her husband on their wedding day. At least he hadn’t mentioned abortion, not yet, and Rose didn’t think that he would. The local medical network was too small and too insular for him to want to force her to a clinic locally. It came as something of a shock to Rose to realise that the idea of Richard forcing her to abort their baby was horrifying, frightening, but not altogether surprising. He was utterly capable of doing just that. The question was, would he?
The very last scales dropping from her eyes, Rose sat upright on the sofa, wrapping her thin arms around herself, and wondered how to adjust to living in this new world, this birdcage, that Richard had created for her, now that she was aware of the bars. At least now she had a focus, a purpose that was her own. She must think of what she could do to protect the baby, protect herself, to keep Richard happy and at arm’s length. She had to find ways to placate him, please him, make him see that a baby would be an asset, not a disadvantage. She stared up at the ceiling, where she could hear Richard shifting in bed. Should she go to bed now, be meek and apologetic, deferential and willing? Would he even want her there? Perhaps it would be better to stay out of his way until he called down for her? Rose sat on the edge of the sofa, watching the ceiling and listening for sounds of movement until eventually the house fell quiet and she was almost certain that Richard was asleep. Her heart in her mouth, she tiptoed into the bedroom and undressed in the dark, slipping into bed beside him with the minimum of disturbance. Only the sheer exhaustion of early pregnancy dragged her off to sleep, and even then she dreamt all night of what terrors the morning might bring.
What she had not expected was Richard’s silence, his complete refusal to acknowledge her with a look, a touch or a word, which was somehow worse than if he’d screamed and shouted at her.
Richard didn’t speak to her for weeks after that night, unable to look at her changing body or forgive her for what she had done. And it was at the height of her isolation, her punishment for unwittingly disobeying him, that one morning a kind softly spoken young man came to the door and asked her about her father. That hour with Frasier became her one bright spot, her beacon shining in impenetrable darkness, the memory that, whenever she recalled it, which was often, gave her another layer of resolve. Resolve that one day, life for Rose and her baby would not be like this.
For a while Rose wondered if Richard might leave her after all, leave her free to get on with life alone with her child, and the prospect didn’t frighten her as much as she might have expected. Except that the moment Maddie was born, he fell in love with his new image of being a proud father, drunk on his own godlike powers of creation to bring this tiny, screaming, mostly angry little being into the world. Perhaps it would be a new beginning, Rose hoped, as Richard fussed over her and their baby. Perhaps it would be a clean slate and life could go on as it had before – better, perhaps, because Richard would pour all his love and attention onto their child and leave Rose herself alone. But that hope ended a few months after Maddie was born and Richard noticed his wife again.
Exhausted, Rose had just got Maddie off to sleep one evening. She was a difficult baby, who seemed rarely to sleep, and when she did it was never deeply. She never fed for long, or seemed very satisfied, and she cried persistently, as if even at that age she was aware of the injustice of her situation. Resting her in the bassinet beside the bed, Rose breathed a quiet sigh of relief, looking forward to a much-needed half-hour or so of rest. And then Richard came into the room and looked down at the sleeping baby.
‘She gets in the way a lot, doesn’t she?’ he said, not unkindly. ‘It’s been months since we’ve … you know.’ He sat next to Rose on the bed, putting his arm around her and kissing her neck.
‘Richard … no,’ Rose said, taken off guard by his sudden interest in her. The months since Maddie had been born could in no way be described as restful, but Rose had grown used to Richard’s lack of interest in her, allowing herself to believe that perhaps she had overreacted before, that perhaps his behaviour at the news of her pregnancy was understandable if extreme, and that now life, while it might never be happy – happiness being an elusive dream that Rose had c
aught the merest glimpse of during her hour with Frasier McCleod – could at least be tolerable. Rose so wanted to believe her own scenario that she shrugged him off with utter disinterest. Later she realised that had been a mistake.
‘I’m so tired, I thought I might get a little sleep now while I can,’ she told him with a weary smile.
‘Come on,’ Richard said, pushing her back onto the bed. ‘It’s been so long, Rose. You don’t want me to look elsewhere, do you?’
‘It’s just she’s only just gone to sleep,’ Rose whispered anxiously. ‘And anyway, don’t you think it might be too soon? The stitches, and … I’m just not sure I’m ready yet.’
‘It’s been well over six weeks, there’s no excuse,’ Richard said, his intention set like stone in his expression as he tugged her top up round her neck. ‘I want you now.’
Pinning her to the bed, he did not let her move until he was done, not even when the baby started crying. And from that moment on, when he came to her, as rare and unpredictable as it was, it was always that way. It was always by force.
Rose did her best not to show him any sign of resistance because she knew that he preferred it if she did. The trouble was that Richard also knew she couldn’t bear him to be near her, she couldn’t stand him touching her. And knowing that was enough satisfaction for him. It wasn’t about sex, Rose realised quite soon. His desire for her had not increased in the slightest; if anything it was less now than it had ever been. No, it was that he had found another way to control her, a way that she couldn’t predict or escape, plan to avoid or put off. And it was then, with Maddie crying in her Moses basket, as Rose stared up at the ceiling waiting for him to be finished, that she realised somehow, one day, if she were to do the best she could for herself and her daughter, she would have to find the courage to leave him.
Dearest Rose Page 21
