After I've Gone

by Linda Green

  I look around. Lee is the only one not smiling. His jaw is set firm. He is hating this, I know.

  ‘Well, having dealt with some of the practicalities of life with a new baby last week, we’re going to deal more with the emotional side this evening, both for you and your partner.’

  I think I hear the groan that Lee lets out, even if no one else does. We are split into two groups, the mums and dads-to-be, and are asked to make a list, in order of priority, of our personal, emotional and physical needs after childbirth. I don’t say much; I don’t need to. There are a couple of women in the group who seem to do most of the talking. It is easiest simply to nod and agree with them when they look at me. I glance over at Lee a couple of times. He doesn’t appear to be joining in much either, apart from once when I hear him do a deep, throaty laugh. I suspect they’ve got on to talking about sex, as we have.

  Once Cath has spoken with both groups, she calls us back together again.

  ‘Right, there’s a lot of common ground,’ she says, ‘and some areas where you’re quite a way apart. We’re going to start by discussing sex after childbirth. Now, before any of you women groan, I understand that it’s probably the last thing you are thinking about right now, but I can assure you from looking at the charts that not everyone in the room feels that way.’

  There are a couple of laughs from the men. Lee is staring straight ahead.

  ‘I’m going to ask you all to go out into the corridor and place a coloured counter somewhere along it to signify when you expect to have sex again after your baby is born. I’ve put markers down along it from one day to one year.’

  There are more sniggers, from both the men and women this time.

  ‘Oh, believe me, I’ve heard of both,’ she says. ‘Now, ladies, off you go first. Here are your red counters. Write your initials on the back and put it down where you think. When you come back in, I’ll send the lads out with their blue ones.’

  I take the counter she hands me and follow the other women out into the corridor. To be honest, I haven’t really thought about this until now. We haven’t had sex for about a month. I’d assumed it’s because I’m not exactly looking hot right now. Although the fact that I am going to bed an hour or two before him every night probably doesn’t help.

  The other women are laughing as they place their counters down, mostly somewhere between three weeks and three months. I head towards the three-month point. I am aware that I can’t go beyond it because I will be dead by then, so I put it down exactly on three months.

  We go back into the room and the men go out to the corridor. There are a lot of laughs and mutterings before they come back in again.

  ‘Right, folks. I’d like you all to go and stand next to your counters,’ says Cath.

  I shut my eyes. Lee is going to hate being put on the spot like this. We troop back into the corridor, there is more laughter and exclamations as we see the blue counters all clustered up at one end. I go and stand next to mine. There are a couple of other women with me, but their partners are standing fairly close. Lee isn’t. He’s right at the other end, on three days, from what I can see.

  The others start laughing when they notice.

  ‘Er, Lee and Jess,’ says Cath, ‘I think there might be a little chat about your differing expectations on the way home tonight.’

  *

  There isn’t a chat, of course. Simply a crushing silence. I’m struggling to know what to say but I desperately want to say something, anything to avert what I suspect is about to happen.

  ‘Look, we don’t have to go next week if you don’t want to. I won’t tell your mum.’

  It was meant to lighten the mood, but his mood doesn’t appear to want to be lightened. Not in the car, or the lift or even outside our front door. He opens it and I step inside, aware that I am already starting to shake. He shuts it behind him quietly. Incredibly quietly. And then turns around and slaps me hard across the face.

  I scream and put my hand up to my cheek, but he grabs my wrist before it gets there.

  ‘Don’t you ever, ever humiliate me like that again, do you understand?’

  I nod, gulping back the tears.

  ‘Good. We are not going back there, and you are going to remove all the numbers of those women from your phone and if they call or text you’re not to reply to them. I will email Cath next week and tell her that you’re not well and we won’t be coming back. Understood?’

  I nod again.

  ‘Good. Now get in the bathroom and clean your fucking face up.’

  PRIVATE MESSAGE

  Sadie Ward

  20/09/2018 6:45pm

  He got off, Jess. I am so sorry, but they found him not guilty. I think the judge did it in his summing up. He told them to remember that Lee Griffiths wasn’t on trial for assaulting Emma McKinley, or for what he may or may not have done to you in the run-up to your death. The only question they had to answer was whether it was beyond reasonable doubt that he struck you while you were in the shower that morning, causing you to fall and hit your head on the basin and the tiled floor. Two blows that were serious enough to knock you unconscious and cause the raised intracranial pressure that led to your death.

  He said that it was only actual evidence they had to concern themselves with, not conjecture. I thought Farah’s evidence may have been enough, especially when the dentist confirmed that he had treated you and put a crown on your front tooth that day. But still the defence said that it could have been an accident, as you’d told the dentist and Lee had maintained was the truth. There was no proof that Lee had knocked your tooth out. And even if he did, it didn’t prove he’d laid a finger on you on the day you died. They tried to discredit Farah too, of course, about the fact that she hadn’t told the full truth when you’d died. That when the police interviewed her after she’d found you lying on the bathroom floor, she hadn’t mentioned anything about the tooth or the blood she’d seen before. She tried to explain about how frightened she had been of being sent back home. About how finding you lying there with blood all over the place had brought back the trauma of what had happened to her family. But in the end, the jury didn’t buy it.

  They preferred to believe Angela. Angela, who reckoned butter wouldn’t melt in her precious son’s mouth. Who claimed she knew nothing about what had happened to Emma. And who crucially claimed that she’d arrived at the apartment after Lee had gone to work and that you’d been fine but tired because you’d been up a lot in the night. And that was why she’d taken H home with her and told you to go back to bed. Only you’d said you didn’t think you’d be able to sleep and you might just take a shower instead to try to wake yourself up. She even said she’d told Lee to get a bathmat for the shower, but that he hadn’t wanted one because he said they were naff and only went mouldy.

  I know Angela was lying, Jess. I watched her as she was giving evidence. I didn’t take my eyes off her for one second. All that stuff about how she was worried for your mental health and thought you had postnatal depression. She said she had started to come round every morning because she was worried that you weren’t fit to look after H, that you might crack up at any moment. She even had the gall to claim you hadn’t bonded with your baby, that she didn’t feel comfortable leaving you alone with him for long periods. It was bollocks, all of it. I nearly shouted that from the public gallery at one point. I wish they could have called me again because if they had done I would have told them the truth: how I had never seen anyone so besotted with their baby in my life. And that was from the moment you told me you were pregnant, let alone the moment he was born. But instead, I had to listen to her lying through her teeth. Of course she was lying, I could see it in her eyes, though she tried to hide under her stupid fringe. Well, she would do, wouldn’t she? Lee’s her own flesh and blood. I bet she collected Harrison before Lee left for work and they concocted that story together afterwards. Because if s
he hadn’t have covered up for him, not only would Lee have gone down but she’d have lost H too. But now Lee has got off, she has her son back and she can keep her grandson. And she’ll be the one looking after him when Lee goes back to work.

  They showed him on the news, walking out of court a free man. Making some pathetic statement about how it had been such a nightmare for him to be accused of killing you, that the case should never have been brought to court and that all he wanted to do now was go home to his son.

  And that’s the thing that really gets me, Jess. The fact that he’s going to bring H up now and he’ll tell him his version of the story and he’ll never know the truth. And your precious little boy will grow up believing that his mummy died in a tragic accident.

  Lee knows the truth, though. And Angela does. And they will have to live with it for the rest of their lives X

  Jess

  Tuesday, 21 March 2017

  That’s it then. That is how I go. Killed in my own bathroom by my own husband. A husband who gets off because there is not a shred of actual evidence against him. The only witness to the crime is me, and I am dead. Lee will get on with his life and will probably do the same thing to his next girlfriend. And H will grow up being looked after by his mum’s murderer and a grandma who lied to save him.

  What kind of life is that? What kind of death? Not one I want for either of us, I know that much. I put my phone down and try to stretch, aware of a dull ache in my lower back, worse than the usual pregnancy ache. My whole body is cramped and stiff. I have spent the night on the sofa. I couldn’t bear to get into the same bed as Lee last night, so I lay down here with my dressing gown over me. I think I managed a little sleep at some point, but mostly I stared at the ceiling, my hands gripping my dressing gown, waiting for morning to come.

  And now what? I lie back and wait for it to happen? I don’t think so. Not anymore. I know now that he does hit me. I can’t pretend it is a figment of my imagination any longer. All the times I told myself it might not be true, he might not ever lay a finger on me, well, I know now that it isn’t the case. I am reminded of something Farah said to me. That it is not brave to leave when the only other option is death. She is right, I see that now. I know that if I stay I will become a statistic and I don’t want to do that. It is not about being brave. I simply need to do the sensible thing. For me and, more importantly, for H.

  I turn on my side and manage to ease my legs down onto the floor and sit myself up, my back propped up against the cushions. That is when the door opens. I am half-expecting to see a tea tray full of coffee and croissants. I don’t though. I see a man whose face is contrite, who looks as if he has had as little sleep as I have. He walks over to me, still unable to look me in the eye. When he reaches me, he kneels down on the floor, head bowed, and starts to cry.

  I am not prepared for this. I do not know what to say or do. He reaches out a hand towards me and sobs. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’

  I take his hand, I don’t know what else to do. He looks up at me with those bloody huge eyes of his.

  ‘I never meant to hurt you,’ he says.

  ‘But you did.’

  ‘I know. That’s why I’ve come to say sorry.’

  ‘And is that supposed to make it all OK?’

  He shakes his head. ‘Sometimes,’ he says falteringly, ‘I scare myself. I really scare the shit out of myself. Last night was one of those times.’

  ‘You scared me too.’

  He nods, and his gaze falls to my bump. ‘And to think that I did it when you . . .’ His voice trails off. He holds his head in his hands again.

  ‘What I told you about my mum and dad,’ he says, ‘it was only part of the story. It was much worse than rows. I’ve never told anyone this, but my dad . . .’ He breaks off again, shuts his eyes and takes a moment to compose himself. ‘My dad beat my mum,’ he says. ‘I can only remember bits – I was little and I think she tried to keep it from me – but I saw him hit her once, smash her in the face with his fist in the bedroom. He hit her so hard that she rocked back on her feet and fell against the wall. Her nose was bleeding. There was blood splattered all over the wallpaper. They hadn’t realised I was watching. I’d come out of my room to see what all the shouting was about. He didn’t even help her to her feet afterwards. He walked over and spat on her. What I said to you last night, “Go and get your fucking face cleaned up”, that’s what he said to her.’

  He starts crying again. I don’t know what to say or do. I am still trying to reconcile the Angela I know with the woman he has just described, lying battered and bloody on the floor. I had no idea. No idea at all of what she has been through.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, my hand on his shoulder. ‘I’m sorry that you had to see that, but it doesn’t mean that it’s OK to do it to me.’ My voice is not even cracking. I have found a strength from somewhere. A strength I didn’t even know I had.

  ‘I know,’ says Lee. ‘That’s why I feel so bad. I’m scared that I’m turning into my dad.’

  I get that. I get what it’s like to be losing control. I decide to give him a chance. One chance to be honest with me.

  ‘Have you done it before?’ I ask. ‘To other girlfriends?’

  He hesitates, then looks up at me. ‘No. Never. This was the first time.’

  I swallow hard, knowing that he is lying. Picturing Emma’s face after he broke her jaw. There were probably others, too. Others who were too scared to come forward.

  ‘You need to get help, Lee.’

  ‘Then I’ll get it. I’ll do anything to make it right. I don’t want our son to grow up seeing the things I did.’

  ‘He won’t,’ I reply calmly.

  Lee looks up, his face a little less crumpled than it was. ‘We’ll talk later, when I get home from work. And I’ll take you out for a meal, or get a takeaway if you’re too tired, whatever you’d prefer.’

  I nod without saying anything. He stands up and kisses me on the top of my head.

  ‘It will never happen again,’ he says. ‘You have my word.’

  *

  I wait until I hear the front door shut behind him to move. I can’t do anything quickly anymore, but I do at least move with more speed than usual. I go into our bedroom and take my case out of the wardrobe. I gave him a chance and he blew it. He lied to me that it had never happened before and then he promised me it would never happen again. I bet he said that to Emma too. And to the girls he went out with before. For the first time, I am glad about the Facebook posts. They have shown me a future that I do not want to stay for. They have shown me that his word counts for nothing.

  I don’t pack any of the clothes he bought for me. It is the comfortable things I pack – the leggings and sweatshirts, the things that Jess Mount used to wear. Because it is Jess Griffiths I am leaving behind. I zip up the case and roll it out into the hallway. I take one last look in the nursery. It is calm and peaceful, waiting patiently to welcome its new arrival. Its beauty is a pretence, though. What lies beneath the surface, that is what matters.

  I go through to the bathroom. I will grab a quick shower and go. I need to scrub away the hurt in order to start afresh. I take off my dressing gown. My bump is so huge now that it is difficult to get in and out of the bath. I wish for the hundredth time that we had a walk-in shower. I guess the extra bedroom meant they had to skimp on space in the bathroom. I hold on to the corner of the sink to steady myself. All I can think is that this is where it happens. I am in the murder scene, effectively re-enacting the murder, except that it doesn’t happen for another four months. And H is still inside me, where he is safe. Where no one can take him away from me.

  He kicks, as if to remind me of that fact. I put my face up to meet the warm jet of water. I wonder what I would have done if I didn’t know how the story ends. It is pretty clear, though. I would have stayed. I would have believed him when he said it had ne
ver happened before and would never happen again. I have the benefit of foresight, which is why I need to act on it. I do not want to become the woman in the story. As much as I do still love Lee – well, part of me does, at least – I know that if I stay I will lose my life. That I will lie in a pool of blood down there and be found by the cleaner, a poor girl who has already seen enough death in her young life. And that Lee will get away with it and get to bring up H.

  And that is why I am able to ignore the voices inside my head, the ones telling me to believe him, to understand that he is a victim too. That maybe, just maybe, I have made this whole thing up in my head because I am intent on destroying any shred of happiness that comes my way.

  I hear a noise from outside the bathroom. The front door banging shut. I turn off the shower, grab the towel from the rail and wrap it around me. What if Lee has come back? What if he has realised I’m going to leave and is going to stop me? I hear footsteps on the laminated floor in the hallway. But they are not Lee’s footsteps. They belong to a woman. The footsteps stop. I remember that my case is out there. All packed and ready to go.

  Silence for a moment. And then a voice. A woman’s voice, calling out my name with a sense of urgency.

  I stand frozen in the bath, clinging on to the towel. I watch the door handle turn down and see Angela step into the bathroom. Her face is hard and bitter.

  ‘Get out,’ I shout.

  She shakes her head. ‘I won’t get out until you tell me what your case is doing in the hall.’ Her voice is low and urgent. I have never heard her speak like that before. I am about to lie to her, tell her it’s my overnight bag for hospital, but I realise it is not a time for lies. It is a time for the truth.

  ‘I’m leaving,’ I say.

  ‘What do you mean? You’re eight months pregnant.’

  ‘I know. That’s why I’m leaving. To protect my son.’