by Jemma Wayne
Simone’s throat tightens, the panic building into an un-swallowable lump. The look in Terry’s eyes is goading now, triumphant. She has seen that look many times before. Fragments of memories flash across her mind: Terry punching Dominic in the face when he was eight years old and splitting his skin; cuffing him around the ear, behind his head, in his stomach. Why had she done nothing then? Why had she let it happen? How had she made herself believe it was okay, right, the discipline Dominic needed? What is Terry going to do to Dominic now? I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you. I’ll fucking kill Dom too. Without thinking any further, she opens her mouth and starts to scream. As loud as she can. At the top of her register. Help. Help. Help. Everything she has been wanting to yell since she was sixteen. Voiced at last.
If only somebody could hear her. If only somebody could do something.
Veronica. Veronica can hear. Veronica will hear. Veronica has promised.
Terry’s fist hits her hard across the mouth. Then he wraps a scarf tight around it, muffling her desperate shouts, catching the blood.
Simone
At some point, it struck Simone that nobody was coming to rescue her.
Not only from the chair to which she was tied. Not only from Terry. But from her life, from her choices, from herself.
No bell had sounded down below. There was no banging on their door. No benevolent, rescuing neighbour charging up the stairs. No social worker.
Or parents. No parents had marched onto the estate to insist she return to them. No parents had snatched her away from the drink and other substances. Nobody before that had noticed the scars on her wrists, or grabbed hold of them, or kept her above the ground.
Nobody was coming. Then. Now. Ever.
Simone had stopped screaming – a futile effort in any case given the scarf around her mouth. She had stopped trying to tip the chair and drag it to the window. And in the abruptness of the silence that followed, she found herself leaning her head backwards, searching through the ceiling for sky. She could have been in an empty field somewhere. Not a single noise crept under the door from the living room. A while ago she had heard the slamming of the front door, so Terry must have taken Jasmine out, and now it was strangely, piercingly, quiet. Simone absorbed the quiet. She allowed it to flow through her sore limbs, to soothe her bound wrists, to slip itself beneath her skin and take her back to a time before the volume of life blocked out everything.
Maybe this was why her father had hidden behind his own closed door. Maybe his life had grown too loud, too engulfing. Though they should have told her. Whatever was going on, they should have told her instead of shutting her out. Simone’s mind flies to the years in which Dominic was a baby – locking him in his room, quite literally shutting him away. Which was worse? Perhaps her own parents had imagined that what they were doing was some kind of protection too.
It wasn’t so awful really. In the dearth of parental love she hadn’t seen it at the time, but as a child there was so much that she did have: safety, a flat, an education, options. Yet it had been so easy to shed those things, softer than they’d seemed. It had been so swift. So simple.
With a profound aching, she wishes she could go back and shake that naïve, sixteen-year-old girl and tell her that things could be a hell of a lot worse. She wishes she could tell her that okay, her parents weren’t perfect, but hey, they probably had issues of their own, and she was wasting time trying to get them to notice her, or to save her; because nobody is going to save her. Nobody is going to rescue her. Nobody is going to come.
Nobody is going to come.
It seems bizarre that after over a decade, this thought is only just percolating in Simone’s mind, but as soon as she considers it, it hits her like a fist: nobody is coming, nobody is coming. The rhythm of the words beat around her brain, undulating and hypnotic. She repeats it to herself over and over in the unusual quiet of the flat. And the realisation of it is unexpectedly, overwhelmingly empowering. If nobody is coming, then it is up to her to rescue herself. It is up to her to change things. To make decisions. It is all up to her.
She starts to make lists. The first priority is clear: she must get away from Terry. For the first time ever, this simple truth is razor-sharp, slicing effortlessly through reservations; but complications remain. She must get the kids away from Terry too, and they must go somewhere he cannot find them. She’ll need money for that, but he’s never given her access to his, and he commandeers everything of her own – it was years ago that he took charge of her benefits, ‘helping’. Whenever she’s attempted to put some aside, he’s found it and spent it. Perhaps she can open a new bank account and start channelling her wages there. But he’ll notice that. And there might not be time. What has she time for? If he’s going to kill her today, then time has run out anyway, but if he doesn’t, she’ll need to be smart about things, play at compliance, act normal.
As she thinks about this, a nervous energy builds inside her, a fear-laced, hope-tipped momentum, growing exponentially with each passing second, a call to action almost bursting through her skin. It is powerful, that feeling. Unfamiliar. Dynamic. Nothing is going to stop her. Nothing will stand in her way.
Except that she is tied to a chair.
Simone laughs.
As though catching sight of her reflection in a mirror, she sees the futility, and for a moment there is a danger of everything unravelling, there is a risk of submission – habitual, easy. But no. She is laughing, not crying, and the juxtaposition of her mindset with the physical reality she finds herself in, only reaffirms the need for action. This is not a way to exist. This is not normal. This is not something that Terry can convince her was justified, or her fault, or the unintended upshot of love.
Simone does not know how many hours pass before Terry returns to the flat with Jasmine. She suspects he’s been drinking because his voice is even louder than usual and for the first twenty minutes or so he is raucous and enlivened, chasing Jasmine around the living room with noisy delight, and then quite abruptly growing bored of this and turning on the television. For the next hour or two Jasmine is either inaudible, or crying, and he is either silent or shouting at her to shut up. Simone can hear hunger in her daughter’s cry. She can hear fear in her silence. Until eventually Dominic arrives home and sees to her.
There is nothing she can do to explain things to her son. She can hear him asking Terry where she is, but even if he knew, he is too young and too slight to help her. Terry tells him she is out. ‘Frolicking’, he says. She used to go frolicking, leaving Dominic alone. Dominic will remember this. She wants to let him know that she hasn’t abandoned him again, that she’s there, here, right here. But if she has any hope of surviving this, if there is any hope of Dominic escaping unscathed, she knows she must stay silent, appear to submit. Soundlessly, she prays for Dominic to stop asking, to yield too, to not choose today, this moment, to take a reckless stand. It has, with preteen hormones, been building in him, and she can hear Terry goading – ordering him around, clipping his ear, calling him a runt, and stupid like his mother. Say nothing, she prays. Bide time. I’m coming. She hears Jasmine banging on the bedroom door behind which she is sitting. She hears Dominic asking her what’s got into her, what she wants, soothing her, pushing down the handle of the door; and then a sharp thud, and Terry grabbing her, shouting at her, marshalling her away. A few minutes later there is the sound of Jasmine’s bedroom door closing. She hears Dominic singing to her – a gospel-turned lullaby she is stunned to discover he remembers from Lewa. But this time Dominic is unable to soothe Jasmine, or unable to persist with it, or riled somehow by it, and suddenly she hears the slamming of the front door, and Dominic’s feet fast on the stairs. Then, for hours, there are the rising and cresting waves of Jasmine’s increasingly breathless sobs. When finally they cease, there is only the television. On, and on, and on.
Until suddenly, Terry opens the door to the room, walks straight over to Simone, lifts the scarf from her face, and unties the cords.
It is morning. Somehow she has slept.
“I’m sorry,” he cries into her lap. “I had to do it. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Simone places her stiff hands onto his head and strokes his hair.
“It’s okay,” she hushes, soothing, reassuring. “It’s okay.”
It could have gone either way. But it is okay. She is alive.
Her children are alive too. Having slept, thus missing hours of potential doom, the confirmation of this hits Simone with a relief that rushes so fast out of her body she has to hold onto the doorframe to steady herself. When she peered first into Dominic’s room, his vacant bed had sent her spiralling into thoughts of disaster – accident, injury, death. But a moment later she found him – only his knuckles stained red, as though he had punched a wall, or a window, or, she prayed not, a person. Still sleeping, he is curled now into Jasmine’s cot, his head in her neck, holding the girl close. Holding her as Simone rarely held him. She will make it up to her son. Silently, she promises him this.
Simone closes the door to Jasmine’s room softly. The morning is already bright, but it is early, not even the city workers have departed with Monday zeal from the street. Terry has gone for a shower and Simone picks around the living room, throwing rubbish into the bin, loading the dishwasher, sorting through laundry. Her body is stiff and she moves slowly. Wincing as she does. Her wallet and phone fall out of Terry’s shorts pocket. There is no money left, but on her phone there is a missed call from an unknown number. Simone has an urge to call it back, but Terry may hear. She must act normal, she reminds herself, be careful, smart.
Simone opens the window. Below on the street, a taxi is pulling up. The door opens, and out of it steps Veronica and her husband. They are sunkissed and smiling. Each carries a small suitcase and their eyes dance as though filled with the sparkling stories of adventure shared. They do not even look up. They link arms as they weave their way from the pavement to their front door, then they tumble into their house, mere feet away from her own. They are happy, quiet, oblivious.
Sarah
Sarah was early for Monday pick-up. With Harry at home, unencumbered, she planned this time to pin Veronica down. Stuff niceties, stuff tiptoeing, she would make Veronica tell her exactly what her report had said. Through the glass window of the classroom door, Sarah watched Veronica sail between the desks handing out some art creation that the children proudly accepted, excited to bring home. At Amelia’s desk, Veronica bent down and said something quietly to her, to which Amelia nodded her head slowly, before Veronica moved on to bestow joy to the next child. Sarah gritted her teeth.
Not this time. Not this time.
When Sarah had walked into Amelia’s classroom the previous week to find Harry not there, the helplessness that had already been building inside her, expanded into untameable horror. It had stuck in her throat, paralysing and oppressive. And all week since then, it had sweated out of her, forcing her to avoid colleagues and cancel meetings, and sit at her desk as though wrapped tight in sticky web. It was the same way she’d felt when Eliza had died, and there had been no recourse, nothing she could do to turn back time. It was the same way she’d felt years and years earlier too, locked in a small wooden room, smelling chlorine, eyes blinking manically in the dark.
Helplessness: the inability to defend or to act effectively.
How quickly it had struck. How easily Veronica had unravelled her. Again.
Yet surely this was the opposite of what she was now. Her whole career was built on her ability to defend, to enact effect.
So not this time. This time would end differently.
Veronica was tanned, refreshed, glowing. Sarah waited until all the other children had departed, she waited until she’d enveloped Amelia in a hug and heard her explain that her lost piece of art had turned up, but too late to be featured in the school magazine, and asked her to go ahead to the playground. She waited until Veronica thought she had the room to herself. And then she flung the door open.
“What happened to Amelia’s art?” she asked abruptly into the silence.
Veronica spun around. “Oh I know, I’m so sorry, I must have misplaced it somewhere.” She smiled. “It was very good too so such a shame not to be featured in the magazine. But luckily it’s turned up now. These things usually do.”
“When are you going to tell me what you’ve put in your report?” said Sarah.
“Oh Sarah,” Veronica sang. (It was almost Sawah, almost.) “I told you, it’s not urgent anymore. All the parents will be receiving an email this week about next year’s arrangements, so everything you need to know will be in there. We can chat after that if you like?”
“So it’s written? The report. You’ve done it?”
“Yes,” smiled Veronica. “And I’m so sorry, but I have to rush now, I have an appointment.”
And she hurried away. Just like that. Without consequence. Without care. Without any idea what she had caused or what might be coming.
Simone
The social worker at the door is a mistake. Something must have got mixed up in the paperwork. It isn’t Polly. This woman doesn’t have a clue. Maybe there’s been another complaint, something separate. But the woman sees the panicked urgency in Simone’s eyes; she understands.
“I already spoke to Polly last week,” Simone rebuffs, angrily for Terry’s benefit. He is hovering behind her with his hand on her waist. “Who’s called you this time? Was it the neighbours again? You know they’re just wasting your time, just trying to cause us trouble.” Only with her eyes can she communicate truthfully with the woman: say nothing, say nothing, talk to Polly.
Polly has arranged it all. She came to the gym the same afternoon that Simone called her, and she took her to the police station where photos were taken of her wrists and her face and the other places where bruises remained. It had taken three days for Simone to summon the courage to make that call, and because of the delay her injuries weren’t as evident as they could have been, but she’d needed time. Even reclaiming Polly’s card from the bottom of her drawer had felt like a dangerous act of espionage. Her heart had been racing as she’d stuffed it into her bra, listening for the sounds of Terry’s footsteps, but somehow she’d managed it. At the police station, Polly had told her that there was a women’s shelter in Camden that would take them, and she urged Simone to go at once, that day; but Terry had Jasmine. Since the incident over the weekend he had been making amends again – another turn of the never-ending wheel of promises that Simone finally saw in full colour – and it would have been impossible to reject that without raising his suspicion. He had made a whole show of facilitating her work. She could put in for a longer shift, he’d told her, he’d stay off the booze, and he would have Jasmine, properly this time. She had to seem pleased about that. She had to be grateful. She couldn’t suddenly return from work early or take Jasmine out without him. Besides, by that time in the afternoon, she wouldn’t have been able to intercept Dominic before he got home from school. And they had things to collect from the flat. Nothing irreplaceable, but enough to furnish what she imagined was going to be a stark if not run-down room at the refuge. She remembered how important those homely items had felt when she first moved onto the estate with Noah.
The problem was, now that Polly knew there was an imminent risk of violence, she couldn’t leave the children unprotected. She told Simone this sensitively but firmly. She could send in a police officer to get them, she said, in fact, that is what she would have to do. But Simone begged her. She didn’t want the police involved. Terry was wily, conniving, clever, he’d find a way to wriggle out of things, he’d get somebody to give him an alibi, or to somehow point the finger at her, he wouldn’t go down. And then he’d come after her. He’d find Dominic. He’d kill them both.
If she was to do this, she didn’t want the police involved. Give her a day, she’d begged Polly. She’d arrange things with Dominic. She’d pack a bag. She’d find a way to take Jasmine. Give her a
day.
The woman should not be here. It has only been hours since Simone agreed things with Polly. The bag at least is ready, hastily stuffed while Terry was watching TV, squashed carefully underneath their bed. But the kids are unprepared, and Terry is here. Tomorrow, Thursday, is one of their friend’s birthdays. She has told Terry that the gym has rearranged the rosters so that she has the day off, and he’s thrilled that this means they can go to the pub together. She plans for Jasmine to have a last-minute onset of sickness, for the two of them to need to stay home. Dominic will be at school then, so while Terry’s at the pub, she can pick him up and get him away. She still needs to prepare Dominic for this, but he hasn’t come home yet, and when she tried to talk to him earlier in the week he would barely speak to her. He is angry. With her. He thinks she was out that night, that she abandoned him, again, even after he did his part pretending to Polly, even after they’d seemed to reconnect. He doesn’t know she was there all the time, metres away, strapped to a chair.
Feeling Terry’s hand growing heavier on her waist, Simone grits her teeth. The social worker holds her gaze probingly.
“Bloody bother the neighbours this time, not us,” Simone says boldly, willing the woman to understand the warning look in her eyes. “Tell her, Tel.”
Simone looks behind her to Terry who stares back at her with admiration. “Goodbye,” he says to the social worker, and slams the door in her face. “You fucking stupid goddess,” he whispers in Simone’s ear, lifting her off the floor.
Simone steadies her breath. Eyes she used to think she loved are staring at her with desire. Hands she used to kiss, and cower beneath, are already working their way under her shirt. Every inch of her body tightens, repulsed and nauseated, but she forces another breath, one more breath. One more time. Terry shuts the bedroom door and climbs on top of her.
