She grinned. ‘Nice to meet you too. Now should we get off this poor girl’s desk? She has to work here.’
Laughing, he pulled out and at the same time grabbed a tissue from a box nearby, expertly mopping himself down and removing a condom Annie had no memory of him putting on. We don’t get pregnant in dreams, do we, she thought, but it was nice to know he was a responsible boy.
He screwed it up and put it in his pocket as he adjusted himself and pulled up his trousers. Then he held out his hand and she shuffled off the desk, yanking her top and skirt down, her knickers back up.
A girl opened the door, and stopped in her tracks.
‘Oi, who are you? This is my room,’ she said, her words slurred and broken.
Adam held up his hands. ‘Our mistake, we’re just leaving,’ he replied, and grabbed Annie, pulling her away.
Out in the hallway, he kissed her on the lips. ‘I have to go.’
‘Really?’ Annie said. ‘That’s a pity, no time for one more drink?’
‘Drink?’ he laughed. ‘Is that—’
Wakeupwakeupwakeupwa—
21
I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe. There is something stopping me. I try to open my eyes but there is only dark. I try to reach out but my arms are pinned to my sides. Something heavy is on top of me. I smell laundry detergent and my own sweat, my own fear.
My lungs ache. My body strains to get oxygen. The pressure on the tops of my arms continues, pushing down. I frantically kick my legs, but I can’t gain any purchase on the soft cotton of the bed. I am confused; my brain can’t understand what is going on. I am losing strength; my legs grow heavy.
And then it stops, with a cool breeze on my face and an intake of sweet fresh air. I gasp and take in a few deep breaths, my body straining to inhale as much as possible. Whatever was on top of me has moved, my arms are free, and I push myself up, eyes watering and vision blurry.
A light snaps on and I am blind. I blink repeatedly, but only see flashes of bright light. I am dizzy from the shock of taking in so much air; I gulp and hyperventilate, slumping back on the bed.
Slowly my vision returns to normal and my breathing slows down. I wipe the tears from my eyes and look around.
I am in my bedroom, in my bed. My duvet is thrown around me; my legs are tangled up in it. A pillow lies to my left, discarded. David is standing to my right, his hands at his sides. He is wearing his normal night-time garb of a T-shirt and shorts.
‘David? What … what is going on, what happened?’ I am still confused; my brain can’t seem to make sense of it.
‘What,’ he hisses, ‘is this?’
I look to where he is pointing, and see my case. Packed and ready to go. He has opened it and flung the contents out onto the floor.
Everything thuds into place. The case. The pillow. David.
‘I … I …’ I stutter, still trying to comprehend what he was doing. He was trying to kill me. He was sitting on top of me, suffocating me with a pillow.
‘Why have you been packing, Annie?’ he says, quieter now, his voice serious and full of threat. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Holiday,’ I say weakly. ‘For when we all go away.’
David laughs. ‘All go away? Seriously? We never “all go away”.’ He says it in a high-pitched voice, mocking me. ‘Don’t even fucking think of walking out that door.’ He moves closer to me, and I jump backwards in the bed, still tangled in the discarded duvet. ‘You are mine, and he’ – he jabs a finger in the direction of Johnny’s bedroom – ‘is mine.’
He leans in and grabs my chin, holding it tightly between his thumb and forefinger, pulling me towards him. My eyes are wide, my body frozen.
‘You go and I will track you down. You will never see your darling little boy again.’ He says these last few words staccato, spitting them out as he holds my face in his hand, shaking it back and forth with the force of each syllable.
He pushes me back, then leans forward and slaps me across the face. The force of his hand shoots through my jaw and I feel my teeth rattle. I fall back. My legs scrabble and I propel myself to the far side of the bed, as far away from him as I can get.
He stares at me for a moment, revulsion on his face.
‘You need me. You need someone telling you what to do, running your life. Your mother did it first and now you have me.’ He pauses. ‘Do you understand?’
I am still frozen, paralysed.
‘DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?’ he shouts, his eyes bloodshot and bulging.
I nod. ‘Yes,’ I say.
I can feel tears running down my cheeks. He nods at me, bends down and takes the two passports and my engagement ring from the front pocket of the case. He waves them at me, then snaps off the light, plunging the room into darkness.
I fall back onto the bed, my head bouncing on the mattress where my pillow should be. I can feel my lungs contracting, my heart pounding in my chest. I feel alone, and scared. Everything I thought I knew is collapsing around me. For a moment I want Jack there to soothe and protect me, and then I realise I need someone real, someone flesh and blood and solid.
My hand reaches to my phone, and without thinking, I dial the last number to have been inputted into the memory. I hear the phone ring, and then a male voice answers – sleepy and disorientated. Blood rushes in my ears. I am still hyperventilating, trying to talk but only managing to exhale deep racking sobs down the phone.
The voice is awake now and I can hear him shouting my name. I choke out another sob and the line goes dead.
I hold the phone in my hand, staring at the glowing screen. What the hell have I just done? I press the call button again, but this time nobody answers, the call goes to voicemail. I redial, willing him to pick up.
Panic takes over as I jump out of bed, pulling the curtains aside to look out into the blackened street. For a while, nothing, then through the darkness I see a figure coming up the path and into our driveway. I rush out of my room and down the stairs, as quietly as my thumping feet will allow.
I open the front door, edging the bolt as gently as I can, and see Adam’s face come into view. He’s out of breath from his sprint, wearing no more than a T-shirt, a pair of jeans and trainers.
‘Annie! Are you okay?’
I put one finger to my lips to shush him and he lays a hand gently on my arm. ‘What’s going on? I was worried, you sounded so upset. I came as soon as I could.’
‘You have to go,’ I whisper, my voice panicked. ‘You have to go now. David—’
‘David what?’ A hand pulls me back into the hallway. David opens the door wide and stands in front of me, a human shield. Adam takes an automatic step back, then, sensing the source of my fear, squares up to David, his shoulders back, legs apart.
David does the same, taking up the entire space of the doorway. Two stags, gearing up for a fight. Both men standing at six foot, broad shoulders, hands balling into fists.
‘I suggest you leave now,’ David growls.
‘I just want to know that Annie’s okay.’
‘I’m fine, Adam, please go,’ I plead, as David pushes me further back into the house.
‘I’ll call the police,’ Adam says.
‘Go ahead. This is my fucking house and you are trespassing. I could beat you into a pulp right here, and the police wouldn’t bat an eyelid.’ David sounds eerily calm, his voice measured and low. He takes a step forward out of the front door, and Adam backs off, holding his hands up, palms out.
‘Okay, okay.’ He tries to look past David, but I shrink back into the darkness of the hallway, mute and ashamed.
I hear the rustle of feet on gravel as Adam retreats, and David closes the front door slowly, the lock clicking back into place. My feet are frozen to the spot as he turns to face me. I start to gabble, words falling out of my mouth in a waterfall of apologies.
He is shaking, his face red and his eyes bulging. The veins pop out of his forehead as he puts his face close to mine. His hands find my neck and cl
ose, pushing me up against the wall.
‘You ever pull a fucking stunt like that again, you whore,’ he is talking very slowly and deliberately, his hand pushing against my throat, ‘and I will kill your little boyfriend, and then I will kill you.’
I am starting to get dizzy; I can’t breathe, yet my hands stay motionless by my sides. I’m resigned to my fate; I know this is it. My whole life of crappy choices, reduced to this final moment, dead in my own hallway. My mind plays out a silent apology to Johnny: I’m sorry for leaving you here, little man, I’m sorry for leaving you alone.
But then I’m breathing again, coughing and choking, discarded in a heap at the bottom of the stairs. David stands over me, then rotates his shoulders and his neck, clicking joints back into place. He bends down and pushes against my forehead so my bloodshot eyes are looking up at him.
‘You’re mine,’ he says, and I nod.
I drag myself up the stairs on all fours, and crawl into bed. Every part of me is shaking as I pull the duvet over me and roll into a ball, my knees up to my chest, crying silently.
The clock blinks: 4:02.
22
The next morning, David comes downstairs with coffee in one hand, BlackBerry in the other. He puts his empty cup on the sideboard, picks up his jacket and walks out. He ignores his breakfast, waiting for him on the table: two fried eggs, two slices of bacon, two slices of brown buttered toast. One glass of orange juice, ice cold. He doesn’t say a word to Johnny or me; he doesn’t even glance in our direction.
We don’t talk about it, we never talk about it. What is there to say? The gradual creep, the changing tide. I should never have called Adam, that mistake was on me, and my insides screw up just thinking about it. David has never tolerated competition, even when it is against his own son.
My mind goes back two years, to when Johnny was a tiny baby, barely out of hospital. He’d had a bad night, squalling and screaming, unable to sleep, refusing to feed, and I’d sat in the bedroom, tears rolling down my cheeks, impotent and useless as he’d thrashed with his furious baby fists. Hour after hour had rolled by, and at last, at seven a.m., he’d collapsed out of exhaustion. Now he was sleeping in his Moses basket in the living room as I made breakfast for David.
I put two plates on the table – the same for both of us, eggs, bacon, toast – then gently lowered myself into a chair, the incision from my healing C-section causing me to wince. David glanced at both plates, then across at me. I must have looked a sight – face puffy from lack of sleep, scraped-back hair, oversized T-shirt and old maternity trousers – and he frowned.
‘This is late,’ he said. ‘How am I going to get to work on time if my breakfast is late?’
‘Perhaps you could make it yourself next time, if it’s so bloody important to you,’ I snapped back.
He paused, put his cutlery down and stared at me. From the silence of our kitchen I heard a car drive past outside, its radio blaring. David looked down at my breakfast, then placed two fingers on the edge of the plate and slowly pushed it across the table. He left it teetering on the edge for a moment, and then, with one final push, it fell, spinning, crashing in a pile of crockery splinters, orange yolk and bright red ketchup.
The noise woke Johnny up again, and he started to cry.
‘You shouldn’t be eating this stuff now,’ David said, calmly. ‘It’s time you lost some weight.’ He took a mouthful of egg, the yolk dripping down his chin. ‘And I can’t sleep with all the screaming. I think you should move into the spare room; you can do all your baby stuff in there.’ He pointed back towards the living room, where Johnny still lay bawling. ‘Sort the baby out; what sort of mother are you?’
I stood up to go to Johnny, but David put his arm out in front of me. ‘Clear that mess up first,’ he said.
I stopped, my mouth hanging open. David’s gaze didn’t waver, and I saw something in him I hadn’t noticed before: a lack of hesitation, a certainty in his manner that made me uneasy. I picked up a cloth and knelt down slowly, my C-section wound screaming. David looked down at me, on my hands and knees, while Johnny howled in the next room, and pointed with his fork towards the newspaper on the counter top.
‘Pass me the FT, won’t you?’ he said.
The front door slams, dragging me back to the moment, and I hear the BMW start up and drive away into the distance. I release my trembling hands from their grip on the kitchen table and breathe out, all in a rush.
At the time, I didn’t like sleeping in separate rooms; it felt like a divorce of sorts, a failure in our marriage. But it was easier with Johnny and it meant David could have a good night’s sleep. And then it simply stayed that way – even after Johnny slept through the night. David didn’t mention it, and then, one day, I realised I didn’t want him to. Something had changed.
I look up and see Johnny staring at me from his chair. Breakfast finished, he is waiting quietly, taking in the expression on his mummy’s face, reflecting it on his own. His bottom lip quivers, and he reaches for Rabbit, left to the side of his high chair.
I force a smile onto my face and pick him up, pulling him towards me. For a moment I get a waft of his smell, and hold him close, taking in his warmth. His pudgy little arms go round my neck, and he rests his head on my shoulder.
‘Hugs, Mummy,’ I hear him say from my neck. He is warm and sticky, and beautiful and reassuring.
I stand in that kitchen – the glorious, perfect kitchen, with the American fridge freezer, the blender, coffee machine and six-slice toaster – and watch my son toddle out into the lounge, clutching Rabbit. He pauses for a moment, looking at the floor, then crouches down, his hand outstretched to something small in front of him. He touches it, and I see a spider scuttling off, darting this way and that, then stopping, trying to be invisible. Johnny laughs, his gurgling belly laugh, and stands to go after it, stopping slowly where the spider has stopped and reaching out a small finger. The spider, sensing the danger of a large toddler, legs it under the sofa and Johnny laughs again, standing up and turning back to me in the kitchen.
‘Gone now,’ he smiles. ‘Spider.’
Johnny doesn’t care about eight-piece dining sets or special bowls for chips and dips. He doesn’t care about what James at the office thinks or how much Daddy’s car cost. He finds a spider hilarious and a piece of paper and a biro entertainment.
A tear rolls down my cheek and I brush it away. He needs his mummy; he needs to be safe. He is so innocent. How can I let him grow up in this house? How can we stay?
I pick up Johnny’s bowl and spoon. I put them in the sink, using the cloth to wash them up. I place them on the draining board. I dry them up, then put them away, wiping my hands afterwards and folding the tea towel carefully.
I pick up my bag, full of the usual essentials – nappies, wet wipes, wallet, spare muslin, two plastic cars – and I put Johnny’s shoes and coat on him. I sit on the stairs and put on my own trainers and coat, then pick up Rabbit and coax Johnny to leave the house.
I start the car and point it towards the motorway. I don’t think. I drive away from the house, north. North up the M3, the A34, the M40, the A43. Anything that says north, I take. We eventually stop on the M1, three hours from home. There’s only so much sitting in a car a small boy can take. We climb out and make our way towards the grubby lights of the Welcome Break service station.
For a moment I stop and look around the room. A tired-looking mum nurses her tiny baby, her overexcited toddler bashing the floor with a small plastic Minion. On the other side of me, a scary-looking man with a skinhead and tattoos sits in sombre silence with his overweight girlfriend, the two of them concentrating on eating the burgers in front of them.
‘More?’ Johnny asks, and I break off another piece of my cake, nut-free, placing it on his plate. I pick up my cup of tea and take a tentative sip.
The chair is green plastic and worn. A line of dead black flies lie upside down on the windowsill to my left. The table was sticky when we arrived and I carefu
lly wiped it down with a wet wipe. The PVC windows are covered in condensation, their double-glazing blown. Disenchanted employees patrol the tables, wiping grumpily and ineffectively, moving trays slowly back to the kitchen, covered in paper and cold chips.
I lean back in my chair and it moves too much, in a way that makes me think it’s going to fall apart. Johnny has finished his cake and has transferred his affections back to his box of raisins, digging into it with his tiny fingers. Triumphantly he picks out the last one and shows it to me, discarding the box on the floor in front of one of the employees, who scowls.
‘Thank you,’ I say sweetly, and the man moves away without a word, mop in hand.
Service stations are, by nature, transitional. You don’t stay long. You’re in, then out, and back to where you’re trying to go. Which is where? I pick up my phone and google women’s refuge centres Birmingham, clicking on a website full of smiling women and their kids.
I look over at Johnny, happily playing with his water cup, turning it over and letting it drip on to his high chair. He looks happy, bashing his hand in and out of the water. He is my boy, and nothing else matters.
I think of the beaming smile that transforms his face when he sees me come into his room in the morning. Nobody else gets a smile like that. The soft warmth of his little hand when he reaches up to put it in mine. The sudden realisation that only I know what he likes to eat for breakfast. I know which specific one he means when he says ‘dinosaur book’, and only I can translate his strange jumbled jargon into what he’s trying to tell me. How unhappy would Johnny be if I wasn’t around? Who would kiss his knee better when he fell over?
David has money, he has contacts, but more importantly, he’s determined and doesn’t like to lose. I walk out today and that would be it. His smug face would be on the news, talking about kidnapped children and dangerous wives. He would find us, and he would take Johnny. Best case, social services wouldn’t know who to believe and Johnny would end up in care with strangers.
The Dream Wife Page 15