Trapped

by Freda Lightfoot

  ‘Don’t tempt me. How about it, Carly? Why don’t we pick up a couple of hunks and make a foursome?’ Turning to her husband with a sly smile, she challenged him, ‘Maybe we have already, for all you know.’

  ‘I thought you’d turned the milkman down until he won the lottery,’ Ed fired right back, his grin wider than ever.

  ‘Ooh, how could you do that?’ Carly giggled. ‘I think your milkman’s gorgeous. I’d have him exactly as he is, stony broke.’

  Jo-Jo’s eyes were gleaming with laughter as the joke went on and on, getting dangerously out of hand. ‘Might be fun to see if we can still pull. What d’you say, girl?’

  ‘Why not?’ Carly giggled. ‘Maybe it’s time we went out and had some adventures of our own.’

  ‘I’m all in favour of that,’ her sister agreed. ‘Just as soon as I can move again.’

  Everyone seemed to find this hugely funny. Carly still sipping her wine, enjoying herself enormously. Ed was happily peppering his wife’s face with kisses, both very aware that neither had the least intention of straying.

  Oliver managed only a ghost of a smile, pretending to be amused like everyone else, but clearly not quite able to see the joke. ‘You mustn’t pay any attention to my wife. She’s in a bad mood because she was planning to come here today in her scruffy jeans, and resents the fact I made her change into something smarter.’

  ‘Scruffy jeans?’ Jo-Jo said, her mouth dropping open as she regarded her sister, whose cheeks were turning pink right before her eyes, surely evidence of her guilt.

  ‘You should have seen her,’ Oliver went on. ‘Claimed it really didn’t matter what she wore since she was only having lunch with you.’

  ‘It wasn’t quite like that,’ Carly protested, but nobody heard her.

  Jo-Jo scowled at her sister. ‘You said we didn’t matter?’

  ‘They weren’t my scruffy jeans, they were my best ones.’

  ‘You said it didn’t matter how you looked because you were only having lunch with me?’

  ‘I didn’t mean it quite how it sounded,’ Carly objected, but Jo-Jo was no longer smiling. The fun and hilarity was suddenly over.

  Having stirred up trouble between the sisters, now Oliver did smile, then he grasped his wife’s elbow and quietly suggested he take her home, on the grounds that she’d had more than enough to drink.

  ‘I’m not drunk, only slightly merry,’ Carly defended herself. ‘I was having a good time. Is that not allowed any more? I thought we both were, weren’t we, Jo-Jo?’

  ‘I’m not sure what to think, Carly. Oliver’s right, you probably have had a glass too many.’

  Oliver fetched her jacket and helped her on with it, and having permitted himself only one glass, as usual, he was perfectly capable of driving them home. Jo-Jo noted with some satisfaction that Carly’s mood had flattened, was far more muted as they said their goodbyes and drove off. Serve her right. Didn’t matter what she wore for lunch with her sister indeed! Who did she think she was?

  I say nothing on the journey home, my fuddled brain clearing sufficiently to know that I’ve overstepped that invisible line good and proper this time. When we get back from Jo-Jo’s and we’re at last alone, Oliver makes it very clear that he isn’t in the least bit amused by my silly jokes.

  He’s furious I’ve had the effrontery to reveal any hint of a problem in front of my sister, taking it as a personal insult. I can sense the familiar tension building inside him like a great head of steam so I totter off to the kitchen to put the kettle on, hoping to deflate it with a nice cup of tea. But Oliver isn’t in the mood for tea and sympathy. He grabs me by the arms and gives me a hefty shove. It sends me flying and I can’t help but cry out as I fall back against the table and slide to the floor. He starts to bludgeon me with verbal abuse about who this alleged lover is and where I met him, shouting and swearing at me, railing and roaring, using foul words and firing questions like bullets from a gun.

  ‘There is no lover!’ I sob. ‘I swear there’s no one, no one at all. It was a joke!’

  But he really isn’t listening. He storms about the kitchen, opening cupboard doors, grabbing a cup or plate and tossing it to the floor, smashing whatever takes his fancy, some of my favourite, most treasured bits of crockery, including some of the tea set Gran and Grandad bought me as a wedding present. I cry out in protest but he ignores me, saying this is nothing to what he’ll do to me. He demands to know why I’m so dissatisfied with our marriage, why I was making all that fuss about equal rights. I huddle in a corner hoping to avoid the worst of his rage as he continues to shout and rail.

  ‘How dare you imply that we’re having problems?’

  Eventually he flings himself into a chair, the ensuing silence overwhelming, marred only by the sound of his rapid breathing. He’s finally run out of steam and I get tentatively to my feet, go to rinse my face in cold water and make an attempt to restore some sort of order by picking up shards of broken crockery, cutting my finger in the process. I suck on the flow of blood, try to gather my wits and bring some common sense into the situation.

  ‘For God’s sake, Oliver, where’s your sense of humour? What I said at Jo-Jo’s was just a bit of fun. We’d all had too much to drink. I’m perfectly happy being married to you, honestly. Although you have to admit we do still have a few problems to iron out.’

  I reach for the towel and as our gaze locks we both know that there was more than a grain of truth in my complaints.

  At that moment we hear a knock on the door, see a flashing light outside. The police! My heart skips a beat as Oliver hisses at me to tidy up, and goes to the door.

  Chapter Nine

  ‘Good evening, officer, is there a problem?’ Oliver sounds so friendly and affable, so very calm and in control. ‘How can I help you?’

  I can’t quite hear all the conversation but they’re apologising for disturbing us at this late hour, claiming to be responding to a complaint from a neighbour. They’d heard noise coming from our house apparently, things being smashed.

  Oliver is all sweetness and light, explaining that it was a silly mistake. They ask to come in, say they’d like to speak to me.

  ‘Of course,’ he says, throwing wide the door.

  ‘Mrs Sheldon. Is everything all right here?’

  I stare at the two officers dumbfounded, unable to think of a thing to say. There’s broken pottery all over the floor but not a mark on me. The wine, the sudden change in his mood, and the image of Oliver knocking me down only moments before is somehow fuddling my brain. He’s standing before me composed and innocent, smiling with love and compassion, so smartly dressed in his dark Sunday suit and immaculate white shirt, his tie a perfect sheath of silk, that it seems almost laughable he could be the one who created this mayhem. I look at them wild-eyed, hair awry, sucking on my cut finger to stop it bleeding everywhere, and wonder desperately what I should say, how I should react.

  ‘I’m afraid my wife has had rather too much to drink,’ Oliver explains in quiet, caring tones. ‘Family row with her sister. They don’t have an easy relationship, I’m afraid. Then she had a bit of a tantrum. I’m sorry if she disturbed the neighbours.’

  There are two officers, both men, and they look at me keenly, perhaps wondering if they should breathalyse me. Can you be charged with being drunk in charge of your own kitchen? I wonder, rather hysterically. Then I remind myself that I’m not drunk, not on three small glasses of wine. A bit merry perhaps, a touch tiddly, but not drunk. And I didn’t smash a thing, Oliver did.

  ‘Is this correct, madam?’ one asks me, and I open and close my mouth in silent anguish. My garrulous chatter and reckless confidence seems to have quite deserted me, leaving me drained and trembling. Dare I tell the truth? Would they believe me if I did? What would they do, arrest Oliver? What then? Even if they did arrest him, wouldn’t they almost immediately bail him and he’d come straight back home and . . . I don’t care to think what he’d do to me then.

  Oliver illustrate
s what this might be by glowering darkly at me as he stands quietly behind the two officers, rests one finger quietly against his lips, then slides it across his throat. I’m filled with a rush of cold fear and manage only a slight shrug, quite unable to find my voice.

  ‘You have no reason to make a complaint yourself, madam?’ the policeman asks, glancing from Oliver to myself and back again. ‘You are all right?’

  I clear my throat and attempt a smile. ‘Yes, yes, I’m fine. I maybe did have one too many. I’m sorry.’

  The other officer smirks. ‘Lost it a bit, did you?’ He turns to Oliver, gives him a sympathetic smile, man to man. ‘My wife is just the same. Real temper on her when faced with her sister. Pity about the crockery though. I’d get that cut finger looked at, love, if I were you. It can make a nasty cut.’ He kicks at it with his foot then starts to move towards the door.

  The first policeman is still walking about the room, eyeing everything up. He comes right over to me and I wonder if he’s going to hand me a card, as they do in The Bill on TV, maybe suggest I can ring him if I need help any time. ‘Kiss and make up, love, that’s always best. She’s family after all. And maybe try some counselling for that drink problem of yours.’ Then he quietly turns and follows his colleague out the door, which my charming husband holds open, wishing them both a polite good night.

  After they’ve gone, we sit at the kitchen table saying nothing for some time. The visit from the police has sobered us both. I’m thinking that at least Oliver won’t dare touch me again, not tonight anyway. But I’m wrong. He indulges in yet more verbal abuse, spitting venom at me across the table, but then when I make a move to go to bed, he punches me in the stomach, hard.

  ‘You ever get me in this mess again, you’ll live to regret it, if you live at all.’

  By the time we finally get to bed I’m wishing the glass or two of wine I’d drunk, at what should have been a jolly Sunday lunch, hadn’t loosened my brain as well as my tongue.

  ‘So, no lover then?’ he says, as he slips between the sheets.

  ‘No, no lover,’ I whisper, sliding to the edge of the bed as far from my husband as I can get.

  ‘No one would have you, anyway,’ he snarls, as he snaps off the light, his tone cruelly mocking.

  ‘You wanted me,’ I gently remind him.

  ‘Ah, but catching a man is one thing, Carly. Keeping him is quite another.‘

  ‘So what did you think of that?’ Jo-Jo asked her husband. ‘Isn’t she sooo full of herself? Thinks I’m so unimportant she can’t even be bothered dress properly when she’s only having lunch with us.’

  ‘But she did dress properly,’ Ed pointed out as he started to stack the dishes in the dishwasher. ‘I thought she looked very smart, almost too smart.’

  ‘That’s because Oliver insisted she change, otherwise she’d have given me her usual level of consideration. Nil!’ Jo-Jo collapsed onto the sofa to ease her aching back. Even though Ed had done most of the cooking she felt drained, ready to crawl into bed and sleep the clock round. Oh, if only she could. It had been a long, tiring day but there were still the kids to get ready for bed, still the horrors of bath time to face. She’d make the most of five minutes peace while they were still outside in the garden, playing house under a sheet pinned over the line.

  ‘I only invited her because Mum asked me to, out of a duty to restore family unity. Huh, and you saw how successful that was. Nearly scratching each other’s eyes out by the end of the afternoon. I’ll hang for that girl, I swear I will. What is her problem?’

  Ed frowned, pausing in scraping a plate to consider. ‘Maybe there is a problem. What was all that stuff about wishing she hadn’t married in quite such a rush?’

  ‘Absolute tosh! Spoken for effect, no doubt in an effort to win yet more attention from her adoring husband. Carly thinks the world should be made of rose petals and sunshine. She has a lot to learn.’ Jo-Jo eased off her too-tight shoes and lifted her feet up on the sofa with a sigh. ‘Ooh, when you’ve done that, love, will you come and rub my back? I feel like a beached whale having a bad hair day.’

  Ed chuckled but the subject of Carly and Oliver was still playing on his mind. ‘You said you saw him in town the other night, but Carly wasn’t with him?’

  ‘Hm, that’s right.’ Jo-Jo had her eyes closed, was drifting nicely to sleep. ‘Seeing a client apparently. Never stops working that man. No wonder he’s rich.’

  ‘Can’t be much fun for Carly if he works so hard and goes out most evenings.’

  ‘I didn’t say that he does.’

  ‘Has she? Does she ever complain of being lonely?’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, why would she confide in me? I’m only her sister for God’s sake! Anyway, who gives a toss what happens at Perfect Villa? She doesn’t know she’s born, that girl. Gorgeous, adoring, rich husband. Nice house, nice car, no kids. Lucky Carly.’

  Ed was beside her now on the sofa, smiling softly as he kissed her neck. ‘Not lucky at all. She’s missing out on all the fun. And how is my new son behaving?’

  ‘He’s going to play for Manchester United. I can tell that because he’s already practising his goal kicks.’

  ‘That’s good. He’ll be able to keep his old mum and dad in the manner to which we’d like to become accustomed. Turn over and I’ll rub that back of yours.’

  ‘Ooh, that’s lovely. A bit lower. . . yes, there. I wonder if Oliver has your healing hands? Naw! Too stiff necked and proper to be touchy feely.’ She turned her head to present her mouth for a kiss. ‘Perhaps my sister isn’t quite so lucky after all.’

  Oliver is still sleeping when I creep out of bed. My heart is beating so loudly in my ears I’m sure he must be able to hear it. I quietly gather up the clothes I’ve just taken off and sneak out of the bedroom. In the kitchen I pull them hastily on, hopping on one leg as I search for my shoe and fasten zips and buttons at the same time. It would have been much more appropriate to grab a pair of jeans, but I couldn’t risk disturbing him by opening a wardrobe or a drawer. I hold my breath as I let myself out of the house, the door closing behind me with a surprisingly loud click. My heart jumps and I waste several precious seconds frozen in fear before scurrying to my car and fumbling for my keys.

  I take care to close the car door more carefully, and, heart in mouth, insert the key into the ignition. I glance up at our bedroom window, but it’s still in darkness. Then I look across at the front door, terrified that Oliver might burst through it at any moment and come roaring towards me. But I drive away without any problems, without even a neighbour’s curtain twitching. Nevertheless, I’m half way to Windermere before I begin to breathe more easily.

  In my bag is another key, the one Emma loaned me, and when I reach her flat, I use it as quietly as I can, not wishing to disturb her at two in the morning.

  Even so, my head has barely touched the sofa cushions when a light comes on in the hall and the next instant she’s standing beside me in her night shirt, blinking and rubbing her eyes.

  She looks at me, her best friend and business partner lying on her sofa in the middle of the night, sobbing quietly into her silk cushions, and says, ‘I think you need a shot of whisky.’

  I never touch the stuff and quickly protest, so she offers to open a bottle of wine instead. ‘No, really, I’ve had enough wine for one evening. I shouldn’t even have driven here tonight, I must be way over the limit.’ I insist she makes hot chocolate instead, and she does so, giving me a ginger biscuit to dunk. Then she sits beside me, her feet curled under her, saying nothing while I sip it quietly, allowing the hot sweetness of the drink to soothe me.

  Her kindness, her blithe acceptance of my presence in her tiny bedsit, her lack of curiosity, all touch me deeply. Then suddenly I’m sobbing and crying, choking over the delicious biscuit and telling her how awful the Sunday lunch was, how Jo-Jo took offence over the blasted jeans Oliver wouldn’t allow me to wear, and how he was furious with me for imbibing too much.

  She still
doesn’t speak for several more minutes, and then quietly asks, ‘And what happened afterwards, when you got home? What did Oliver do to make you run off like this, even though you’re not fit to drive?’

  I suddenly realise that I am, in fact, stone cold sober, that I’m hovering on the brink of telling Emma far more than I should. Do I really want her to know that my husband battered me all over the kitchen, smashed half our crockery and made such a row that the police were called; and that they did nothing, believed every lie he told them and left me to an even worse fate? There’s a pain in my abdomen where he punched me in the stomach, and my back is aching. I can feel it getting worse as my muscles stiffen up.

  I know Em and Oliver don’t get on, for whatever reason, but what will she think of him if I tell her all of this? And what will she think of me for putting up with it? But I haven’t put up with it, have I? I’ve been doing my damnedest to help cure him, to survive, and now I’ve left him. I look at my friend, feeling very close to panic, quite unable to think clearly or make any sensible decision.

  ‘Why are you here Carly? This can’t all be about a pair of jeans or a squabble with your sister. Or even a glass of wine too many. Tell me the whole story.’

  I give a little sob. If only I could. How I need a friend right now. Yet the image of Oliver’s anger is still painfully fresh in my mind. What if I did tell Emma everything, and he found out? ‘We had a row, that’s all. He gets so angry, so furious with me.’

  ‘I guessed as much, so what, exactly, does he do to you when he gets angry?’ Her tone is gentle, coaxing.

  ‘It was all my fault, I got a bit tiddly. Oliver has a lot of problems, which I’m trying to help him deal with, but oh, I don’t know how. . .’ At that moment my mobile phone rings, and I almost jump out of my skin.

  ‘It’s Oliver,’ I say to her, reading the number on the small screen. ‘What should I do?’ My heart is scudding and I can hardly breathe.