How to Play Dead

by Jacqueline Ward

  This is a new turn. They don’t usually go to any expense. Except time, but they tend to have plenty of that, having followed their desperate partner halfway around the country. But they usually like to save their money for elaborate deliveries of bouquets and chocolates. As if that will put it right with these women who have been beaten so badly they have left everything. I watch the clip again then I throw the phone into my bag.

  I get home to an empty flat minutes before Donelle drops off the kids. I watch the footage of me again, trying to glean any clues as to who could have sent it. There are so many to choose from, so many men who have sworn to take revenge on me for giving their wives and children a better life away from them.

  It doesn’t scare me. Janice and I have each other’s backs, logging anything of concern and high-fiving the rest away. I know it is well within the range of many of these men to harm me; I also know that they prefer to harm someone much more defenceless, isolated, vulnerable. I have people. I feel safe.

  Even so, I try to listen to the breathing, to discern if it’s a man or a woman. I’m fuming, but competing worries pile on top and I stow it away in the mental box marked ‘Disturbing Things’, that fuzzy place that stops me losing the plot. I check my own mobile, the familiarity comforting. Danny has not replied to my last text despite my checking every thirty seconds. A new worry has piled on the usual ones because I knocked on Sheila’s door earlier and she didn’t answer. Her nearest neighbour, Stella, leaned out of her window.

  ‘Went out early, she did. All dolled up.’

  I ring Sheila’s mobile but she doesn’t answer. I text the warden of the individual living complex she lives in – it’s part of SafeMe but just around the corner – and ask her to let me know when Sheila gets back, and I ring the hospital just in case. She isn’t there. A million Sheila-related scenarios cancel out everything else as I pop some fish fingers under the grill and saw at the fresh bread I brought home.

  Donelle arrives with the kids and the panic shuffles to the back as love hurries to the front.

  ‘Fish finger butties!’ I proclaim this loudly and Donelle laughs.

  ‘No wonder they call you Superwoman. Is there enough for me?’

  I smile at her. I love Donelle. She is a wonderful person, full of vitality and the definition of sass.

  ‘Of course, Sis. Help yourself.’

  The kids are ravenous but I just pick at my crusty bread and dip my finger in the tomato sauce. Donelle pauses mid munch.

  ‘You OK? You don’t seem yourself.’

  I smile. I am OK. Some fuckwit with a camera phone isn’t going to faze me.

  ‘I’m good. Just tired.’

  She finishes chewing then nods.

  ‘Danny? Look, I know it’s hard without him but it kind of gives me a chance to see the kids more. If that’s OK?’

  She stares in anticipation. Her job doesn’t let her be here as much as she would like, and Danny’s recent unemployment meant he was picking the kids up most days. I put my hand over hers.

  ‘Course. It will be great to have you here more.’

  Jennifer is sitting on Donelle’s knee and Simon is beside her as she reads Roald Dahl’s BFG for the thousandth time. The cheap phone pings and, despite wanting to ignore it, I simply can’t.

  I get up and go into the back garden we share with the other flats. It’s a cool evening and I look up at the stars. I instinctively try to predict what this message will say, veering to the positive as ever – the eternal optimist.

  I press the ‘open’ button, read the words.

  I’M WATCHING YOU

  I chill but then remember that this is a stupid game being played by someone on the losing end of a long battle. I smile to myself. I know I shouldn’t answer. But that small ‘fuck you’ part of me, the part that doesn’t give a shit about debt or threats and what got me into trouble in the first place, can’t help itself.

  I press ‘reply’ and touch the phone keys quickly, laughing as I press ‘send’.

  NO SHIT SHERLOCK

  Chapter Four

  Day 26

  It’s Friday. I wake up after a deep sleep and it takes a moment to register why Danny isn’t there.

  I check my phone straight away and there’s a text from Sheila’s warden. I ignore the cheap phone. I push the video and message to the bottom of my consciousness to sit with all other things I don’t want to think about. I’m good at that.

  Sheila’s back. Seems OK.

  I know this merely means that she is walking unaided and doesn’t appear to be injured. I get ready for work, drop the kids off and by five past ten I’m sitting on the wall outside Sheila’s building. Danny texts me.

  Day 26 Morning, beautiful. Sorry I didn’t message you yesterday, I’ll call you later. Have a glorious Friday. I love you x always x

  I touch the screen. I bring up his name and run my finger over it. I text him back.

  Miss you. Love you, love you, love you xxx

  Sheila appears in the doorway of her flat.

  ‘Coming in or just thinking about it?’

  I hug her tightly.

  ‘Where were you yesterday? You should have phoned me. I came over and I was worried.’

  She ignores me and plods through to the lounge. I look around at the neat flat. Some ornaments have appeared on the mantelpiece since I was last here last and some small cardboard boxes, sealed with brown tape.

  ‘So you’ve been back to your house, then?’

  She twists the rings that adorn almost every finger, diamonds and emeralds mostly, and touches the gold chains at her throat. I notice that the knuckles on her unplastered hand are freshly scraped.

  ‘I just wanted a few things. Some of my stuff.’

  ‘Was Frank there?’

  She stiffens. Months have passed since she moved into this flat and she has never once admitted that Frank is to blame for her injuries. She hides the plaster cast under her Damart cardigan.

  ‘He lives there, doesn’t he? Yes. We had a chat.’

  ‘Oh. So what did he have to say?’

  She shrugs and makes a face. ‘Misses me. Wants me to come home. The usual.’

  She gets up and fetches one of the boxes. She rips away the tape and puts it in a small tiger-print litter bin. Sheila is a big fan of animal print. I’ve never seen her without at least one item of fake fur on. She reaches inside the box and brings out some framed photographs and then a box of loose ones. I see that the top photograph is a wedding picture: Sheila and Frank, all happy and smiling on their wedding day. She’s wearing a smart suit and a corsage and he has a dark three-piece and a rose buttonhole.

  They look fabulous, but this shatters my hopes that she is finally making the transition away from him. I had expected her visit to the house she shared with Frank would be to fetch clothes and shoes, her bits and pieces. But all she seems to have brought are pictures. Of them both. I watch her as she sorts the photographs. She passes one to me.

  ‘That’s me and ’im at the boxing. When I was eighteen.’

  I smile. She’s opening up to me at last.

  ‘That’s lovely, Sheila. You made a lovely couple back then.’

  She laughs – a deep, throaty laugh that reflects a lifetime of smoky bars and unfiltered cigarettes. Her blonde hair is a testament to this: permanently nicotine-stained at the front, as are the nails on her right hand.

  ‘We weren’t a couple, love. He paid me. Picked me from a line, he did. I was an escort. You know, like that film. Pretty Woman. I’m fucking Julia Roberts.’

  She starts to laugh loudly until tears run down her face. I laugh with her, but I’m looking at the picture, and some more she flings at me. She was very beautiful. When she manages to stop laughing, she gulps down her tea and carries on.

  ‘I went everywhere with him. He was up for election then, local council, and he wanted someone on his arm. Then, after a bit, he proposed. I didn’t really know how that worked, and where I would get my wages from, but it turned ou
t I didn’t get any money. He bought everything. Everything I wanted.’

  I nodded. ‘So were you happy with that? Is that what you wanted?’

  She laughs again. ‘Wanted? Ha! There is no wanted at this end of the world.’ Suddenly she becomes very serious. ‘End of the world. That’s what this is for me, you know. I loved Frank. I still do. I’ve heard you going on about how you can’t love someone who hits you, so praps I’m bloody obsessed. And praps he don’t love me either. But all I know is that this is the end of the word for me.’ She wipes away a tear. ‘In my day you stayed, rain or shine.’

  I look at the photographs in my hands. This is my chance to talk to her.

  ‘So has he always treated you like this, Sheila? Has he always …?’

  ‘Yes. You see, I could do what he said, mainly. I could put up with him not coming home and the other women, but every now and again I’d blow up and then he’d batter me. Never my face, though.’

  I glance at the pictures. They cover a long period and there is no sign of the deep scar she has on her cheekbone. She previously told me this had come from a car crash in Spain.

  ‘So when did it get worse?’

  She lights up a cigarette and takes a long drag. She offers me one and even though I don’t smoke now I’m tempted, until she starts to cough deeply.

  ‘When he stood down. He never really worked, not a nine-to-five. All above board, Frankie, local councillor, lots of connections, most of them dodgy. Bribes and that. But plenty of money. Then other, younger blokes came on his patch and paid him to take a back seat. He was at home more, so I was more annoying to him. All charity this and benefit concert that, he is, but underneath it all he’s bent as anything.’

  I shake my head. ‘It was never your fault, Sheila. You know that, don’t you?’

  She snorts, blowing smoke from her nostrils. ‘I was all right until I opened me mouth. That’s what he used to say. “You’re all right till you open yer mouth.” I did everything for him. Bloody everything.’ I think about my mother, pushing my father’s suit jacket on to his arms as he stood motionless in front of her. ‘I used to get these little flashes of what it could be like if I, say, went out with me mates. Or got a job. I’d mention it and then he’d start. And then there was the jealousy.’

  She turns her huge diamond engagement ring another circuit.

  ‘So you see, he kept me in that house, unless he was going out and then I had to go with him.’ She passes me a more recent picture of them in a night club with several generations of Manchester businessmen and their dead-eyed wives. ‘See. Two weeks after I’d had a hysterectomy. Going out in that state was easier than the bleeding consequences. Frankie was my world. Still is. Happen not by choice, but he still is. Fish out of water, I am.’

  She lights another cigarette and gulps her tea. My face is wet with tears. I had wondered if Sheila had known what had happened to her or if ignorance was bliss. But she’s smart. She knew all along and every time she tried to break free Frankie boy held her down. Yet here she is now.

  ‘You’re safe here, Sheila. He can’t get you here.’

  She nods. ‘I know, lovey. And you’re doing a wonderful job.’

  She leans forwards and pats my knee and the cable cardigan rides up and exposes fresh bruising on her arm. She sees me see it.

  ‘Take someone with you next time. The police—’

  She roars with laughter. ‘Bloody hell. That’s a good un. The police. Oh yes. That’ll scare the shit out of Frankie.’ Then she’s serious again. ‘Don’t you think I went down that route, lovey? Dialling 999 till the 9s on the house phone were worn out. Then broken fingers so I couldn’t. They just told me to leave, but every time I tried he just made it so I couldn’t.’ She lights yet another ciggie. ‘Anyway, half of ’em were in his pocket. And to them I was just another prozzie who got lucky.’

  She’s done with that and she changes the subject to her Asda online shop until she tells me she is tired and she’ll see me on Monday.

  ‘Don’t forget. If you’re going round there, take someone with you. One of us.’

  She repeats it. Rolls it round in her mouth like it’s delicious. ‘One of us. Yeah. Happen I will.’

  I leave and walk slowly down the road. Sheila’s flat is in central Manchester, just around the corner from SafeMe. My phone rings and it’s Janice.

  ‘Funding bid forms are in. We’ve got a week to complete and evidence them. This is it, Ria.’

  Between the end of Sheila’s world and Danny being away I’m already frazzled. My mind and body tell me they need a long soak in a bubble bath. But deep down in my soul I know that if I shirk this admin or trust someone else, someone less experienced or less qualified, we’re fucked. They weren’t going to fund us at all. Even sending us the forms to fill in depended on the impression we made at the awards night.

  ‘I’ll be right there. Just on my way back from Sheila’s. She’s OK.’

  Janice is silent for a long second. She knows everything about SafeMe and what goes on here. She has insight. She also has a Ph.D. in Sociological Methodology and could earn a zillion times what we do here. But she does it for the same reason I do. Moments like this.

  She also knows me inside out. From the moment I met her I knew Janice and I would be close. We had shared experiences and we both knew how dangerous this job could be. On our first day working together we were leaning against a door trying to keep out the pissed-up ex-partner of one of the women while she hid under a table. We had stared each other out for strength and no words were needed – we just knew. We knew each other, and we knew the situation. We didn’t know what had made us like that, given us that amount of strength. We didn’t know what had driven us to have a higher threshold for danger, and stress, but we silently acknowledged it.

  When I arrive at work, there is a huge bouquet waiting for me – ten beautiful red roses with clouds of fluffy gypsophila between. They are hand-tied with a pink ribbon. The smell is fresh and I quickly pull away the cellophane wrapped around them and put them in small vases all around the largest conference room where I am working today.

  I text Danny:

  Thank you – they’re lovely xxxx

  All feels well with the world again. Janice appears and stares at the flowers.

  ‘Bloody hell. Danny’s pushing the boat out.’

  I flick my hair. ‘It’s because I’m worth it.’

  She laughs loudly. ‘You are, Ri. You are.’ But there’s something else. I can tell. She continues. ‘Look. It’s about Sheila. Is she definitely OK?’

  ‘Yeah. Fine. I just saw her. She’s been home but …’

  Janice nods. ‘I thought so. Something’s going on here.’

  I try to reassure her. ‘She was fine. A bit shaken, but she’s bound to be. She readjusting, isn’t she?’

  Janice blinks at me. ‘Right. That’s good to hear. Because Frank James has booked himself into the perpetrator counselling sessions on Monday.’

  We both know what this means. It’s just another step in the pursuit of power. Half the perpetrators are at the sessions because they know it’s a step closer to access to their prey. That there is a chance they will see them, be able to affect them. Frank is no different. Except he already has power. Frank James expects to get exactly what he wants.

  Friday afternoons are a chance for me and Janice to look back over the week and plan the week to come. We usually sit with our feet up on the chesterfields, talking to our guests and finding out what we can do better. We phone around supermarkets to get them to donate sanitary towels and deodorant, we check that our donation tins are still in place.

  Today is no different. It’s usually a chance to wind down, and what seems like a distant memory of pre-debt relaxation washes over me. Janice is telling me about some shoes she bought and had to take back and Sally Lewis, recently arrived mum of four, is listening intently, as if she has been starved of conversation. I sink back into the patina of the sofa and laugh with them. The after
noon washes over me and I’ve almost forgotten about the messages, the video, and the constant and ever-increasing list of stalker candidates who could have sent them.

  I glance at my phone and there’s a text from Danny. I open it quickly and it’s a question mark followed by three ‘laugh till I cry’ emojis and ‘what for’. I look around the room at the vibrant flowers, all in separate vases, then I run through to Reception. Amy, our temp receptionist, is filing her nails.

  ‘Amy, was there a card with those flowers? Who brought them?’

  She shrugs. ‘They were outside when I opened up. Must’ve been a courier.’

  They’re not from Danny. I hurry round the back of the building and ransack the bin to find the wrapping paper that the flowers arrived in. It’s under a layer of teabags and milk containers, but I manage to tug out the soggy cellophane. It’s a standard florist’s wrapping. I search and search but there is nothing to say who sent them.

  It doesn’t make sense. My mind tags the flowers on to the phone footage and the message. I text Danny back and tell him it was just a joke, I meant the texts he had been sending but didn’t explain properly. But somewhere inside me something shifts. The smell of roses sickens me and, deep down, I know that this is not right.

  Chapter Five

  Day 25

  Saturday morning dawns as I sit in the kitchen alone. I’m making coffee and I feel my hips begin to sway involuntarily to a samba-based tune on Radio 6. It reminds me of Danny, and I feel his arms around me, his body moving with mine. I career back to reality when Jennifer rolls into my ankles, buckling me. I look down at her and she’s giggling and I feel my mouth curve into a smile.

  ‘What on earth are you doing?’

  She laughs, still leaning against me on the kitchen floor.

  ‘I’m rolling.’

  She collapses into hysterical giggles and I can’t help but laugh too. Somewhere inside I wonder where I lost that, the ability to laugh until I cried.