‘Are you alright?’ Dave’s voice breaks through. I realise I’ve been sitting on the edge of the bed lost in my own thoughts for some minutes.
‘I will be. I hope. It’s knowing that every aspect of my childhood and life up to losing my baby was based on lies, Dave.’
He nods.
‘None of it was how it appeared. It feels like a waste of all those years of my life.’
Dave places his arm around me. ‘Mel. Were you happy? When you were living with your parents, and you had Jarrod. Right up until it went wrong. Were you happy?’
‘Yes,’ I tell him. ‘My life felt perfect.’
‘Then that’s all that matters,’ he assures me. ‘You felt loved, and you were happy. No matter what came after. At the time of your childhood and young adulthood, you had health and happiness. Yes, people kept secrets. Most of us have secrets. Skeletons in cupboards.’
‘Did you have a secret when you were younger?’ I ask him.
‘I did,’ he says but adds nothing further.
I bump him with my hip. ‘Tell me.’
‘No.’ He smirks.
I twirl my hands in his hair, ‘I’ll make it worth your while.’
He looks down at me. ‘When I was in my late twenties, a young woman moved in across the street. Now, I was happily married with two young children, but hey, I wasn’t blind. When she came to our house to get cooking lessons from my first wife, I used to try and sneak a peek down her top because her nipples used to show through her blouse. I used to imagine sticking her breasts in my mouth instead of the buns she used to offer me.’
‘Is that right?’ I ask him, removing my top to reveal my bra. Then I pull my bra down to reveal a breast.
‘Were they like these?’
‘Smaller, but I’m sure I can get just as excited at imagining these in my mouth,’ he tells me.
And he does.
The following day is a Saturday, and Dave busies himself fixing the study and the wall of the front bedroom. We keep the windows open all day, despite the continuing rain, to let fresh air in and the smell of paint out. I clean and dust as if I can wipe out all traces of Edward having been in this house.
At one point, we break off for coffee and cake. I watch as Dave finishes eating but continues to chew his lip.
‘What?’
‘I don’t quite know how to ask this, but it’s bugging me.’
‘So ask.’
‘Bobby,’ he says. ‘You spent years with him. Was there ever anything between you?’
I stare at the lines of grief etched on my husband’s face, so visible to me right now with the light cast from the window. He’s spent all these years imagining the worst.
‘You’ll have to meet Bobby sometime. You’ll like him. He’s a character. But since we got together, there has never been anyone but you.’ I move over to him and sit at his feet. ‘There never will be, as far as I’m concerned, anyone but you.’
‘There was Jarrod again. The video,’ he says.
‘I barely tolerated that. It made me sick to my stomach, but I had to do it. Do you understand that? I did what I had to do for the video, and I’ve regretted it ever since. I felt soiled.’
‘But that’s the point I’m trying to make, Mel. If it comes to it, for revenge, again, would you do it?’
‘No.’ I reach up and caress his lip. ‘I only want you. Only you, Dave.’ I undo the fly of his trousers and take him in my mouth, vowing to worship his body until the day he believes me again because right now he doesn’t trust me and I don’t trust myself.
I think back to the original Inez Bonham’s words. There shouldn’t be any doubt in a relationship, should there? There should only be trust.
I need to know that’s what Dave and I have, and we can only have that if Edward is no longer in our lives.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Inez
I’ve been having counselling, and I’m feeling so much better. Of course, I’ve not been able to talk about everything that’s happened the past few years, but I’ve been able to discuss my feelings about not living the life I want. Ed is coming to visit today. I phoned him. Told him I wanted to chat. I’ve been told I can be discharged when I have a place to go and so I’m going to talk to Ed and see if I’m able to come home.
When he walks through the door at visiting time he looks weary. He approaches me, but where he would normally place his arms around me and gather me to him, he’s hesitant. I don’t blame him.
‘Take a seat,’ I say.
We’re in the day room. A small room with large windows to one side that faces the industrialised city. There are a few nondescript chairs, a coffee table, and a television set.
Ed takes a seat at the side of me.
‘How have you been?’ he asks.
‘I’m feeling a lot better.’ I smile at him. ‘They say I can come home. That’s why I’ve asked you here. I need to tell you how I’m feeling now and see whether you want me back.’
‘Inez-’
‘No’. I put my palm up. ‘My name is Lynne now.’
‘The house was badly damaged in a fire.’
I place a hand to my mouth. ‘What?’
‘It needs thousands of pounds’ worth of repairs. The fire brigade and insurers are insisting it was my fault, that I left a pan on, but I know I didn’t. It would take all my savings to repair the house. All of them. She’s fucked my life up properly.’
‘No. We fucked her life up,’ I answer.
His jaw tightens and his eyes narrow, but he stays silent. ‘I’ve rented a place around the corner from our house. It’s furnished. It’s obviously not our house, but it’s the same layout. I hope you’ll come back to me, Inez.’
‘My name is-’
‘Stop it,’ he yells, spittle flying from his mouth. ‘You’re Inez to me. That’s all you have been. Please, if you need to change, can you give me some time?’ He puts his head in his hands. I wait while he focuses, calming himself down. He peers back at me. ‘I’m coming to terms with what that woman has done to us. Can we go to our new home and be us – the normal us – for a little while? Then we’ll talk about who you want to be. I can’t handle this right now. I can’t.’
I nod. Then I bite my own lip. I’m the same subservient person I’ve always been. He orders me, and I obey. That’s the reality of my life. I may as well accept it. I have no backbone. But no matter how controlling he is, I love him.
‘Let’s go home,’ I tell him.
Ed is worrying me. I hear him muttering to himself as he walks around the house.
The place might have the same room formation, but with its dirty and broken furniture, it’s not our comfortable home. I bought cleaning materials and did the best I could to clean the place up, but it’s not the same.
I fix us an evening meal, and we sit at the small table. I have questions that feel like they want to burst out of me and I decide to ask them. Ed can only refuse to answer.
‘How did Melissa capture you?’
His eyes narrow. ‘She had a bloke helping her. The same one who tried to knock my work reputation. They knocked me out. Next thing I knew I was in a house in the middle of nowhere.’
‘It sounds like her house at Handforth.’
‘I don’t know where I was. I wasn’t conscious to see my entrance, and I was blindfolded for my exit. I had an occasional view out of the window.’
‘Were there other cottages nearby, but in ruins?’
‘I don’t know. There were never any other signs of life, and the view from the window was the garden and then dirt.’
‘It sounds like her parents’ home. They left it to her when they died.’
For some reason this makes Ed clutch his plate so hard, the end of his fingers turn white. ‘It’s her parents house? She took me there? She tortured me in the family home? Oh, my God. She put me in the bed. Was it my mother’s bed?’
‘What are you talking about, Ed?’
‘Melissa. I wanted to tell yo
u but I couldn’t until she’d suffered. I knew you’d try to protect her. She’s my half-sister. Her mother had me out of wedlock, shoved me to one side, then had Mel and lived happily ever after.’
‘You’re lying.’
He backhands me across the face. I jolt back in my seat and put my hand on my cheek where it smarts.
‘I do not lie.’ Ed’s face is mottled, his eyes wide, showing the whites of his eyes. I’ve never seen him like this.
‘I- I’m sorry, I’m just, um, confused. Don’t forget all that’s happened lately. You’ve brought me home from a psychiatric ward, Ed. You’ll have to forgive me if I’m questioning everything around me.’
He falls to his feet and grasps my hands. ‘I’m so sorry. I never should have struck you. Please, forgive me, Inez. I love you.’
I nod and stroke the top of his hair. Why am I comforting him when I’m the one who got hurt?
When we go to bed, Ed wants to get close, intimate, but I tell him I’m not ready for that yet. He leaves the bedroom, and I hear a banging noise downstairs. I daren’t see what’s happening, so I lie in bed until the night turns dark and Ed comes back up and goes to sleep. Only then do I feel I can close my own eyes. The next day I find pieces of a dining room chair outside, and chunks of plaster out of the wall.
While Ed is at work today, I’m going shopping. I’ve agreed for him to call me Inez still, but I want to explore a different look again. I laugh as I realise I miss my friend Selma. She’d have advised me on what to buy. Then I shake my head. No. I tell myself. This is about you, and what you want. For God’s sake decide for yourself.
I cook Ed’s favourite meal for dinner, shepherd’s pie, and wait for him to come home.
When he walks into the dining room that night, he stares at me as if I’ve grown an extra head. I’m wearing a new ash-blonde wig in a layered bob shape. It appears so much more natural than the long dark wig. I visited the makeup counter again, and they were very patient with showing me how to apply my makeup. I look a lot more how I’d always imagined myself. With a pair of grey wide-legged trousers and a white blouse, I still have a classy look in the style Ed always asked of me, but I’ve made it my own.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ he growls.
My forehead creases. ‘I’m not sure what you mean. Pull up a chair, I made your favourite, shepherds pie.’
He stalks towards me. ‘Well, perhaps it’s not my favourite anymore, Lynne.’ Sarcasm drips from his lips when he says my new name. Perhaps I’ve decided on a change too?’
He grabs hold of the back of my neck with venom. His fingers pinch the top of my backbone. ‘Has my money bought this shit?’ he bellows. ‘Last I knew, you weren’t working. We’re fucking skint, you silly bitch. You can take that back tomorrow. You look a complete cunt in it anyway. Where’s the brown one?’
I wince under the pressure of his fingers. ‘In the bedroom, in the chest of drawers.’
‘Go and get it,’ he snarls. ‘Put it back on your head and remember that while we’re together, you’re Inez, and you have fucking brown hair, do you understand?’
He stands there while I remove my wig, then he rubs it through the shepherds pie, picking both up and throwing the lot on the floor. ‘I’m going out,’ he tells me. ‘When I get back, this lot better not be here anymore. Make sure everything, including you’— he stabs his finger into my chest –‘is back to normal.’
Then he grabs his car keys from the side and with a bang of the door is gone.
I slump onto a dining chair, clutching my head. Who the hell am I living with? There is none of the kind, loving husband I’ve lived with for all these years. The man who supported me through my change. Whatever Mel did to him, she’s changed him. Are they really siblings or did she break his mind like she broke mine?
I need to see her. To ask her the truth. If she’s back with Dave, then she’s only around the corner. Tonight, I will tidy up, put my brown wig back on and play the game. Tomorrow I’ll see Mel and seek the answers that will either mend my relationship with Ed or finish it forever.
Once I’ve tidied up I go into my bag and take out my phone. I study a couple of selfies of us and some other photos of Ed. I’m grateful Mel didn’t delete the ones of me and my husband. After the fire, I have no other pictures of us. I stare at the man in the photos. The man I love. Or, the man I loved? Who is the stranger I’ve come to live with and is my husband ever coming back?
CHAPTER THIRTY
Ed
Locks are so easy to break. If someone doesn't come to the door, well then, I’ll just let myself in. I take note of the storage boxes and the suitcase.
‘Going somewhere, stepmummy?’ I ask her.
She sits back against the headboard, rubbing her eyes. Her skin as white as a sheet of plain paper. Ready to be doodled on. I laugh.
‘It’s been years, Edward,’ she says. ‘Why now? Why are you here now? Are you not back with your wife?’
How the fuck does she know about my wife? God, that bitch. Mel must have been here too. Interfering fucking cunt.
‘That’s the thing,’ I say, withdrawing my belt from my trousers, ‘I’ve lost my Inez. But then again, she never was you.’
She reaches over and switches on the light. It brings her lined face into focus. Her grey hair.
‘Where’s Inez?’ I demand. ‘You look like her. Are you her mother?’ I begin to pace the room.
She gets out of bed and comes towards me.
‘Edward. Look at me. You’re ill again. It’s me. I am your stepmother. I’m old now, Edward.’
‘You lie,’ I spit. What the hell is going on here? This is the address I’ve had in my mind for ages, recorded there. The address of Inez Bonham. ‘Where’s my stepmother?’ I grab her throat.
‘I am your stepmother,’ she croaks out.
I drop my hold and look around. ‘Inez has long dark hair, she’s slim. We’re lovers. She likes me to hurt her with this belt.’
‘Edward,’ the woman shouts. ‘That never happened. How many more times do we have to go through this?’
I open wardrobe doors, searching for a clue as to the whereabouts of my stepmother. When I turn around, I see the phone in the old woman’s hand.
‘Oh no. I can’t have you ringing anyone. Who are you phoning? Mel? Has she put you up to this? Are you her puppet?’
‘No.’ The old woman is crying now. ‘I’m phoning my niece. I’m going to stay with her. That’s why I’m packed. I’m letting her know she can fetch me now.’
I hold the belt up, wrapped around both of my fists.
‘Oh no, sorry, you’re going nowhere. Not until I find Inez,’ I tell her. Then I take the phone from her hand.
Inez
Ed doesn’t speak to me when he gets home from work. In fact, he won’t even look me in the eyes. He goes in the shower, changes into pyjamas, and then gets into bed. All night he mumbles my name, ‘Inez’. I’m causing him pain, but I have to create more of a life for myself. I no longer want to be Inez Bonham. I know I’m changing. I’m so scared of the future. But I want to decide on my own appearance, not be told how to look. It’s happened all my life. No more. Tomorrow morning, I will shop and replace the wig he destroyed. Lack of money or not. I will not lose this fight.
Ed is sombre at the breakfast table and unusually for him is not getting ready to go to the gym. I don’t think he’s entirely himself since his captivity. When he’s a little calmer, I wonder if I might bring up the subject of counselling. He could have some psychological problems from being kidnapped.
‘Could you pass me the milk please, Lynne?’ he asks.
My eyes shoot up to meet his, but he’s still not looking at me. Has he really come around to me choosing my name? That would be tremendous.
‘You called me Lynne? Not Inez,’ I say quietly.
‘There’s no more Inez,’ he states, and picks up the newspaper from the table and opens it, separating our faces.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
/> Melissa
It makes the local news the next day. I’m on the internet when the post is shared on my feed.
Witnesses sought in suspicious death of widow.
It goes on to say how Inez Bonham had been found strangled at her house. I run to the bathroom where I lose all my breakfast. Dave is at work. It’s got to have been Ed. Got to have been. I pace the bathroom trying to calm myself down. It will be a botched robbery. Nothing to do with Ed at all. I think of Jarrod. My God. Is he safe? I wanted revenge. I don’t want him dead.
I reach for my phone.
‘That’s so strange, I was going to call around to see you today. Only Ed is saying the strangest things. He’s saying he’s your brother.’
There’s no way I’m admitting to being the sister of a potential murderer unless I’m forced to.
‘Inez.’
‘I go by Lynne now.’
I pause. ‘Good for you. Listen, Lynne. I don’t know how else to say this, and with everything that’s happened I don’t expect you to trust me, but I have to try.’
I take a deep breath.
‘Go on.’
‘I don’t think you’re safe with Ed. They’ve just found his stepmother dead in her apartment, strangled.’
There’s a loud laugh. ‘I know he’s controlling, but that hardly makes him a murderer.’
‘His stepmother’s name is, was, Inez Bonham. In her youth, she was slim and tall with long dark hair.’
‘You’re lying.’
‘I don’t expect you to believe me, but I met her. Edward was convinced they’d had a love affair. He was obsessed with her.’
‘He loves me.’
‘I agree, and I think he does, in his own strange way. I think you were a surprise he didn’t expect in his life. But he’s sick in the head. He’s been in hospitals, and now his stepmother is dead. It’s too much of a coincidence. How has he seemed to you?’
MInE: A Hate Story Page 15
