Then she heard a voice, offering words of justification. At least it wasn’t calling her ‘slag’ and ‘bitch’. She had a name again.
‘Angela, please come out. I’ve never done anything like that before. It was completely out of character. Please believe me.’
In spite of the head injury, she had never felt so clear-headed. And oddly enough, she didn’t have a headache, just a distant throbbing that she thought might be her racing heart. Make a plan, she told herself. First priority: get dressed. Then, at least if you collapse, you won’t be found semi-naked in his bathroom. Kneeling on the floor, she rearranged her bra, put on her shirt, buttoning it as best she could, and zipped up the jeans.
‘Angela, please let me in. I won’t hurt you. I promise.’
Reassure him. Gain some time.
She steadied her voice: ‘I’m all right. I just need to clean up my face.’
Don’t let him know you’re afraid.
Up to now, she hadn’t looked in the huge movie-star mirror over the double marble vanity. But when she cautiously stood up, supporting herself on the towel rail, and turned towards the glass, she gasped at what she saw. No wonder her eye was stinging. There was a lurid red circle surrounding it. A trickle of blood was running down her forehead from the head wound. Her arm ached too, but she would deal with that later.
Please, God, help me to remain calm and rational. Help me get out of this place alive. She hadn’t prayed much lately, not since the bargains she’d made with God before Phil’s death. Was He listening? She hoped so. Suddenly she remembered the phone in her jeans pocket. It had been sitting there all along. Thank goodness she’d put it there and not in her handbag. She removed it and snapped a series of pictures of herself reflected in the mirror, clicking as fast as her shaking hands would allow. The background was unmistakably Geoff Goodmann’s bathroom – the travertine tiles and arched niche containing a statue of a naked woman. Then she saw the flaw in her brilliant plan. What if he found the phone? He would simply remove the SIM card and dispose of the evidence. The sound of his voice outside the door made her jump.
‘Angela, I wouldn’t have behaved that way if you hadn’t provoked me by saying you love another man.’
He was blaming her. In her heart, she wondered if he might be right.
‘Come out and we can talk.’
‘I’m just fixing my face, Geoff.’
‘You’re not texting anyone, are you?’
How did he know she had her phone on her? He must have searched her handbag and not found it. Heaven help her if he discovered her Millbrooke business card.
‘It wouldn’t be wise to tell anyone about this, Angela.’
Was he threatening her? That was a bad sign. Answer him calmly. Don’t make him panic. Reassure him you won’t tell.
‘I haven’t contacted anyone. Nor do I intend to. I’m embarrassed enough as it is.’
She opened the drawers of the vanity cabinet as quietly as she could, looking for medicines. Finally she found a packet of cholesterol pills. She recognised the brand – Phil used to take them.
Take one tablet daily after food * Avoid eating grapefruit or drinking grapefruit juice while being treated with this medicine
5 Rpts
GEOFFREY GOODMANN
24/8/2013
Dr Matthew Jarmaine
She snapped one further picture in the mirror, holding the camera so close that both her eye and the label of the pill packet were in the frame. Quickly she checked the image. Damn. It was fuzzy. She tried again, willing her hands not to shake. This time it was clearer, though not perfect. She emailed all the photos to her home email address and deleted them from the phone.
If she went missing, her laptop would be the first place anyone would look for clues. It was easy enough to access. Blake and Tim knew her password.
Tutankhamun.
God had granted her a period of lucidity. But the symptoms of shock would soon descend, causing numbness and confusion. Or worse, she might collapse from the blow to her head. She had to get out of his apartment before either scenario became a reality. Quickly she brushed her hair, using Geoff’s brush and avoiding the painful lump on her scalp and the strands of hair matted with blood. Even though her hair didn’t look too bad, the right side of her face was a mess. The arm at least was concealed under the shirt. She couldn’t bend or raise it. The pain suggested it was fractured. She wiped off the blood on her forehead with some tissues and flushed them down the toilet.
‘Angela, you won’t tell anyone, will you?’
The voice outside the door was becoming panicky. She would need to reassure him. If he panicked, he could do something much worse.
‘Geoff, I’m coming out now. I’m feeling better.’
She almost choked on the last word. All the same, she was prepared to say anything in order to escape. She released the lock and opened the door. He was standing a couple of metres away from her, his tanned face glistening. Had he been crying? No, it was sweat. As he stepped forward, she tried not to flinch. Show no fear. Act as if everything’s normal.
‘Your eye looks awful,’ were his first words.
It wasn’t an apology, just a statement of fact.
‘Nothing a pair of sunglasses and a bit of make-up won’t cover,’ she replied, trying to sound jaunty. ‘It’ll be fine in a few days.’
‘If this becomes public, it could ruin my career.’
‘I’m certainly not going to tell anyone. I’m as embarrassed about this as you are.’
‘I’ve never hit a woman before, Angela.’
‘I know, Geoff. I know you didn’t mean it.’
Agree with him. Say anything to get yourself out of here.
‘You’re not going to call the police, are you?’
‘I’d look like a fool. I just want to go home and forget this incident ever happened.’
‘But what are you going to tell your friends?’
‘I’ll say I hit my face on the car door. That it fell back on me. It’s a two-door car – those doors are heavy and the edge is sharp.’
He was frowning, as if he was debating whether the excuse would hold water if she used it.
‘Do your friends know you’re here?’
‘Of course they do. I told them about your beautiful apartment.’
The lie was her insurance policy.
‘Well, I’d better drive you there. How would it look if I let you drive yourself with your eye in that condition?’
You did it to me in the first place, you bastard, and now you’re worried what my friends will think?
‘I can drive myself. It’s only five minutes.’
He considered the words for a moment and ushered her into the living room. The front door – her escape route – was in sight.
‘Are we going to see each other again?’ he asked. ‘Or are you going to run off with this other man?’
Did he really think she would ever want to see him again after what he’d done to her?
‘Let’s talk in a few days, Geoff.’ She forced herself to use his name. ‘Once my eye is better.’ Casually she picked up her handbag with her right arm. Would he stop her? Bar her way? Then she heard:
‘I’ll get your overnight bag.’
In her rush to escape his apartment she’d forgotten all about it. But at least he was going to let her go. While he was in the spare room, she hitched the straps of her handbag over her shoulder in readiness to pick up the overnight bag with her right hand. As she moved her left arm to push up the strap, she winced in pain.
Suddenly he was back. ‘I’ve always been able to satisfy a woman before, you know.’ He was standing between her and the exit with her overnight bag in his hand. ‘It must have been those games you played with me.’
She could hardly believe what she was hearing. He was more concerned
about the timing of his ejaculation than anything else. Don’t argue with him. Don’t even comment. Just focus on looking composed enough for him to allow you to leave.
‘May I kiss you goodbye?’ he asked, as if this had been a lovers’ tiff and now it was over.
Was he serious? The thought of his lips touching her skin filled her with revulsion. Still, there was a charade of normality to be maintained if she were to leave. So she inclined the undamaged side of her face towards him, steeling herself against the kiss. But it was so gentle she could hardly feel it. He was a different man, back in his Doctor Jekyll mode, after the interlude in the bedroom as Mister Hyde. Nevertheless, she’d seen how quickly his mood could change from charmer to monster.
‘I’ll walk you down to your car,’ he said, still gripping the bag.
‘No thanks. I’ll be fine.’
She reached across to take the overnight bag from him, grateful that for once in her life she’d packed light. He hesitated for a moment before handing it over. Maybe he realised he would have some explaining to do if the two of them ran into a neighbour in the lift. How would he explain the obviously recent damage to his companion’s face? She began to move towards the door. Please, God, don’t let the blood be seeping down my forehead.
‘I’ll call you later to see how you are,’ he said, as if she had a cold or some other minor ailment unrelated to him.
As he opened the door, she wondered if he were playing a sadistic game with her. Taunting her, letting her think she could go. She waited for him to grab her arm and pull her back.
‘Do you forgive me?’ he asked.
If she didn’t know better, she would have thought he was remorseful.
‘I already have.’
‘I forgive you too, Angela,’ he said with a smile.
She wanted to vomit.
The lift doors were only a few metres away, just across the hallway. As he stood in the open doorway of his apartment, she pressed the button, using her left hand and praying the pain didn’t show on her face. Damn. The lift was on the ground floor. He might change his mind before it reached the ninth. One, two, three, four, five . . . Even if she screamed, there didn’t seem to be anybody around to hear her. The apartment building was like a morgue. Six, seven, eight, nine. The doors opened. It was empty.
‘I’ll call you, Angela.’
‘Okay.’
She stepped into the lift and waited for the doors to close. Although she pressed the ‘Close’ button several times, nothing happened. Finally they began to move. All the time, she was expecting an arm to reach in and force the doors apart, as he had done to her thighs only a short time ago. Then he would drag her out and say, ‘I knew you were lying, you filthy bitch.’
As the lift descended to the basement, she took a quick look in the mirror. It was something she always did in a lift, checking her make-up, rearranging a strand of hair. What she saw startled her. The area around her eye had turned magenta. She ran to her car, fearful he had followed her down in the other lift. For a few seconds she fumbled in her bag for the car keys. Then she opened the door, threw her overnight bag in the passenger seat, got inside and pressed the central locking button. Click. She started the car, reversed out of the parking spot and drove up the ramp, putting on her headlights as she reached the street. She must have driven two or three blocks before she had to pull over because her hands were trembling so much she could barely hold the steering wheel. Soon the shaking became more pronounced, spreading through her body in a series of convulsions. Meanwhile, a wave of bile was rising from her stomach. She only just managed to open the door before she vomited lamb curry and lime tart onto the asphalt road.
17 VICTIM
Angie wiped her face with a succession of tissues. Then she started up the car, anxious to get as far away from Geoff Goodmann’s apartment as she could. Her head was beginning to pound. Head injuries were what Phil had feared most, even supposedly minor ones. At first the patient might appear perfectly fine. But it was the blood seeping internally, building up pressure, squeezing the brain stem, which killed you. She would have to go to hospital. But what could she tell them? She’d already decided not to involve the police. Just imagine the potential headlines:
‘Middle-Aged Millbrooke Woman Bashed by Lover’
‘Sexual Assault of Council Candidate’
How could she possibly show her face in Millbrooke after a scandal like that? And what would her boys think? Not to mention Vicky: ‘I warned you not to move to the country.’ And then there was Richard. He could never know about Geoff.
Could emergency doctors spot a case of physical abuse, even when the woman denied it? Phil had told her how frustrating it was. The woman would be pretending she’d fallen down a step or run into a door, while the man stood beside her, monitoring her words, imposing his authority even in a hospital cubicle. Then again, there was nothing the doctors could do if she said she’d had a fall. In recent weeks Angie had become a skilled liar. Surely she could invent something. She was almost at the hospital now. She would have to pass it on her way out of town – a series of grey concrete buildings near the bridge, so brightly lit that nobody could miss them. Her arms were becoming numb. That wasn’t a good sign. At the last moment she put on her indicator and turned into the drive. A sign said: ‘Emergency Department Parking Only’.
It was half an hour before Angie was directed to a curtained cubicle where a resident doctor, who looked younger than Blake, appeared with a clipboard. When she told him she’d fallen off a ladder while painting the bedroom of her house, he didn’t even blink.
‘So you hit the side of your head, Mrs Wallace?’ He pulled her hair apart and examined the lump. ‘That’s a nasty laceration. I’ll clean it up for you.’ He applied an ointment which stung so much Angie let out a little gasp. ‘How long ago did the trauma occur?’
‘About an hour.’
‘That’s quite late to be painting a room.’
‘I wanted to get it finished tonight.’
‘Did you lose consciousness?’
‘For a few seconds.’
‘How did you feel afterwards? Woozy, dizzy, confused?’
‘No, I felt clear-headed.’
‘Would you use the word “lucid”?’
‘Actually I was amazed at how lucid I was. More lucid than I’ve been in weeks.’
‘Any headache?’
‘Just a dull ache at first, but it’s getting worse.’
‘Let’s have a look at your pupils,’ he said, shining a little light in each of her eyes and causing her sore eye to sting more than ever. ‘Any vomiting or nausea?’
‘Both.’
‘Numbness or weakness in your limbs?’
‘Yes, a little.’
‘What about your vision? Has it been affected?’
‘My right eye is blurred. But the left is okay.’
‘Mrs Wallace, I want to admit you so we can do a CT scan and monitor your symptoms.’
‘What do you think it is?’
‘Too early to say.’
‘Is there bleeding on my brain?’
‘You have symptoms that might suggest an epidural haematoma. But they could equally be related to the shock of the fall.’
‘When can I have the CT scan?’
‘Not until the morning. We’ve had some problems with the machine. The technicians are fixing it overnight. In the meantime, we’ll keep an eye on you and if your symptoms worsen, we’ll airlift you to Sydney.’
‘Sydney?’
‘We’re only a district hospital, Mrs Wallace. We don’t have a neurosurgeon here, only a neurologist on call. If the pressure becomes critical, you’ll need surgery. But, as I said, that’s the worst-case scenario. Best to be cautious.’
‘If there’s bleeding in my skull and it goes unchecked, how long do I have before it becomes life-th
reatening?’
‘Sometimes it’s only a short time after the injury.’
‘So I’ve passed the critical period?’
‘No, it can vary. It could be much later – days, weeks, months. And the presence of an epidural haematoma doesn’t preclude the possibility of a subdural haematoma as well.’
‘What do you mean by worsening symptoms?’
‘Confusion, seizures, loss of consciousness, numbness, aphasia. That’s loss of speech.’
‘I know what it means. If you were a betting man, Doctor . . .’ She looked at his ID. ‘Doctor Lee, what are the odds of me having this epidural haematoma?’
‘I’m not a betting man, Mrs Wallace. I don’t take chances.’
After Angie nagged the nurse, she was allowed to have a shower. She needed to remove every trace of him from her body. Then they put her in a ward with five other women. During the night the staff wouldn’t let her sleep. Every few minutes they were shining lights in her eyes and debating whether her condition was deteriorating or not. At one stage she dozed for a few minutes, before waking with a start, thinking Geoff Goodmann was in the room. By morning, none of the dreaded symptoms had appeared. But although a CT scan proved clear, Doctor Lee warned it didn’t mean a haematoma couldn’t still be lurking, undetected. He wanted her to stay for another twenty-four hours, but she told him she was discharging herself regardless. If it crossed Geoff Goodmann’s mind that her injuries were worse than she’d let on, this was the first place he’d look for her.
‘Is someone coming to pick you up?’ Doctor Lee asked.
‘Of course,’ she lied.
‘You know what to look for, Mrs Wallace,’ he said, giving her a sheet of information with the title, ‘Head Trauma’. ‘Get straight to hospital if you develop severe or recurring headaches or any of the other symptoms. And see your GP first thing Monday morning.’
A nurse showed her how to use a brace for her left arm, which was fractured in the middle of the humeral shaft. As for the eye, she was given a referral to an ophthalmologist in Granthurst. But what the hospital couldn’t deal with were the feelings of horror and fear. She could still feel his hand trying to force her open. She could smell his breath as he leant over her. Her body could remember everything he’d done to her. And each time she recalled those sensations she felt helpless, overwhelmed by a surge of emotions so powerful she would stumble to the toilet to vomit. Would those physical memories ever go away? Would she ever be free of Geoff Goodmann?
A Place of Her Own Page 19