Trapped

by Freda Lightfoot

  ‘I’ve no wish for another row, we’ve surely had enough of those, but I’ve come to a decision. I can’t go on like this any longer, Oliver. As soon as I find suitable accommodation, hopefully within the week, two at most, I intend to leave. In the meantime I’ll continue to cook for you, and look after the house, but I will no longer be paying my wages into our joint account. I shall keep it for myself, and for Katie, although I’m obviously prepared to pay my share of housekeeping expenses, food and so on, until I leave.’ I pause, but still he says nothing.

  ‘I’m sorry it’s come to this, but I’ve really tried, Oliver. I’ve done everything I can think of to make our marriage work. Unfortunately, I seem to be the only one who is trying, and this latest scare, this – false alarm – made me realise that there is no hope for us at all. I appreciate that there are occasions when an abortion may well be an appropriate response and the right thing to do, but this isn’t one of them. We’re married. We’re in good health and can easily afford another child. We even once loved each other, or at least I thought we did. Had I been pregnant, I could never have agreed to getting rid of it, as you so callously ordered. Even though I’m not a Roman Catholic or anything, I believe life to be sacred. I believe in responsibility, something you choose to ignore. I just couldn’t bring myself to kill my own child, even if it was little more than a tiny scrap inside me, for no other reason than selfishness. I’m appalled to realise that you could.’

  His face seems to harden, the mouth tightening in that familiar way, yet still he doesn’t answer my charges. He stands immobile, hands in his pockets, glaring at the floor.

  I wait for his response. When it doesn’t come I begin to breathe more easily. Maybe Oliver too can see we’ve finally come to the end of the road. ‘Okay, so that’s all I wanted to say. What about you?’ I mean, does he accept my decision. Does he accept it?

  He glances at his watch, as if I’m keeping him from some pressing engagement, and then asks. ‘I suppose dinner is ready, is it?’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course. And we can discuss the details later - if you wish. Yes, I’m sure it is ready. We’d best eat.’ I take a tentative step towards him and he backs away from the door to let me pass. At the top of the stairs, Katie still in my arms, I turn and see that he still hasn’t moved. He remains standing with his hands in his pockets, his expression impassive. I manage a small smile. ‘You’ll be down in a minute then?’ I turn and walk slowly down the stairs, keenly aware of his eyes following my every step.

  Katie is teething and rather fractious. She’s sitting up in a high chair now and Oliver always insists that she join us at the table where she is expected to behave impeccably. We sit at the table together, to all outward appearances an ordinary happy family, yet the silence is heavy, intense. Oliver has still made no comment on my announcement, and I’m beginning to breathe more easily, thinking it’s a done deal, that even he can see it’s the only course for us now.

  I take the spoon off Katie. Usually she can feed herself, when she’s in the mood, but today I’m having to encourage her. Her cheeks are red and she keeps rubbing her small fist over her sore mouth, grizzling miserably. I’m playing games with her, pretending the spoon is an aeroplane, dive-bombing her mouth. It usually works, but this evening she turns away and cries. I wipe the food off her face and patiently try again.

  Oliver, however, has no such patience. ‘You’re a hopeless mother,’ he snaps. ‘Look at the child, won’t even take the food you offer. What is it you’re trying to make her eat?’

  ‘Stewed apple.’

  ‘Well she obviously doesn’t like stewed apple.’

  ‘She loves it. Her gums are hurting.’

  ‘Then leave her alone.’

  ‘She has to eat something, Oliver.’

  ‘Give the spoon to me.’

  He snatches the spoon out of my hand and attempts to shove it into Katie’s mouth. She stubbornly resists, keeping her mouth shut tight, then pushes the spoon away with her hand. Furious, he wags a finger in the baby’s startled face. ‘You’ll eat your dinner and like it, if you know what’s good for you, child!’

  ‘Oliver . . .’ I’m half way out of my seat in an instant, urging him to be calm. She might only be young but what kind of atmosphere is this in which to bring up a child? Miraculously, Katie opens her mouth and allows him to shovel in the stewed apple.

  ‘There you are,’ he says with quiet satisfaction. ‘You just have to be firm.’ At which point, she spits it right out again, all down his clean shirt, squares her mouth wide and starts to scream.

  ‘She has my stubborn streak, I’m afraid.’ I’m trying not to smile, even as I see Oliver’s own face turn red with rage. Katie is rubbing the remains of the stewed apple all over her face with a small tired fist. It’s in her hair, down her clothes, up her nose. ‘She’s far too upset now to eat,’ I tell him, ‘and tired out, I’m afraid. It’s been another exhausting day for her. I’ll put her down.’ I get up to take her but he orders me to sit still.

  ‘Sit down. I’ll decide when this meal is over, not you, and certainly not some dratted infant. I’m not being ruled by a mere child. She can’t be allowed to win!’

  ‘She’s a baby, Oliver. She’s teething. Her gums are sore. She’s not trying to fight you.’

  Oliver spoons up more stewed apple and again attempts to shovel it into the open wailing mouth and once more Katie spits it out, this time right in his face. Quick as a flash, Oliver slaps her, leaving the imprint of his finger-marks on the pale skin of her leg.

  I’m horrified. ‘Please don’t do that,’ I say, trying to still the tremor in my voice, but my words have no effect whatsoever.

  His gaze bores into mine, the fury in them almost palpable. ‘You might think you can just walk out on me, and I might let you, you useless tart. You can have affairs, refuse to be a proper wife to me by showing no interest in sex. You can argue with me and question every decision I make, go back to your bloody job and ignore and reject everything I’ve ever done for you, but this is still my child and she’ll do as I bloody say.’

  Before I realise what he’s about to do, he snatches Katie up out of her high chair and marches upstairs to her bedroom. I race after him, desperately trying to make him give her back to me. He has her under one arm, and, ignoring me completely, suddenly twists her into the crook of his arm, as if she were a ball, and throws her the length of the nursery into her cot. I cry out in protest as I see my child fly through the air, limbs flailing. By a miracle she lands in the cot, flat on her face, shocked into silence. He could so easily have missed, and she would then have smashed against the wall. We could have a dead, battered baby lying in the cot right at this minute. Without pausing to check she isn’t harmed, Oliver turns on his heels and storms out of the house.

  I rush to the cot to comfort my near hysterical child. For me, it’s the final, defining moment. This proves that my decision to leave was absolutely correct. This is the end.

  I cuddle her in my arms, her red face wet with tears as she gasps and screams in terror. I’m kissing and soothing her, checking her arms, her legs, her small hands, her spine; pacing the room, quite unable to keep still. I’m filled with rage. I have never known such anger. Suppressed for so long because Oliver doesn’t believe I should show any emotion, it has festered and bubbled inside me. Now it erupts. Had he still been in the room with us, I think I might very well have tried to kill him.

  I’ve put up with so many beatings, his peevish little tricks and malicious punishments for almost two years. I’m ill as a result of it all. Possibly, I realise, on the verge of a complete breakdown. He has so diminished me as a person that I’ve come to accept the situation as normal and unavoidable, something I must tolerate without complaint, which has to be wrong. No woman should be expected to put up with such treatment. No man, not even a husband or partner, should be allowed to treat his wife or partner as Oliver has treated me.

  If only I hadn’t felt so desperate to make our marriage work,
so ashamed, so vulnerable, so filled with self-doubt and indecisiveness. But he made me that way. He deliberately set out to undermine me, continually insisting that I was the one to blame. It’s a most effective method of control.

  But I am not to blame. I am not the one at fault.

  Where once he saw an attractive, independent woman whom he loved, now he sees only my alleged failings. Early in our marriage I loved him so much I was determined to do everything I possibly could to make it work. By the time I realised this was fruitless, it was too late. He’d destroyed me, robbed me of my self-esteem and turned me into a cowed, miserable creature, terrified of resisting him. I wish now that I’d been brave enough to ignore his threats, to risk any possible reprisals, and left him long since. I should have sought help from someone, made my parents listen, talked to Emma, my nosy neighbour, an internet helpline or the police, anyone. If only I’d had the courage. If only I hadn’t felt so utterly down-trodden and beaten, quite unable to even think straight.

  I’m damned if I’ll let him destroy my child in the same way.

  Over these last few weeks while I’ve been privately congratulating myself at winning back some control over my life, rejoicing at my small faltering steps, of the slow but steady progress I’m making towards independence, Oliver has obviously been simmering with silent resentment. The erroneous pregnancy finally brought everything to a head, forced me to think clearly at last, and allowed me to summon up the courage to face him with my decision.

  Tonight, I believed he had accepted that our marriage was finally over. I should have known better. He never had any intention of letting me go, took his revenge for my rebellion not on me, but by turning on my child.

  Cold fear washes over me. How can I possibly protect her through the years ahead? She’s now an abused child, a victim, as I am. But we don’t have to remain so. Whatever the cost, I must put a stop to this once and for all. I cannot allow this terrible thing that has happened to me, to ruin her life too.

  I waste not a moment. I snatch up a few essentials for Katie, collect the packed bag I’ve hidden in the linen cupboard, get in my car and drive away. I’m not sure where I’m going, no idea how I’ll survive, or if this small burst of courage will last but I know this is the right thing to do. Whatever risk I take by leaving him, there are greater ones if I stay.

  ######

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Seeing me appear once more on her doorstep with bags and baggage, my mother instantly embarks on the usual lecture. It’s a chilly night just starting to rain, and I might well have been forced to spend it in the garden shed had not Dad gently moved her away and ushered me inside.

  I tell my parents bluntly that my marriage is over, for good this time, and could Dad please help me find a flat to rent somewhere. I’m traumatised by what has happened. Despite all my best efforts, my love was not enough for Oliver.

  I offer them no explanation, feel too numbed by recent events to talk. I’m frozen, paralysed, perhaps by the shock of what I’ve just witnessed him do to my child. I can feel myself start to shake but it’s Gran, not my own mother, who gathers me into her arms and takes me over to the sofa. Mum is too busy trying to press me into explaining what exactly has brought me running home this time.

  Dad shushes her and finally succeeds in holding her in check, but I can tell them nothing, am quite incapable of speech. I sit huddled in a corner of the sofa with Katie in my arms, refusing to allow anyone to take her from me and put her to bed. In the end, seeing how distressed I am, Mum makes me some hot chocolate, Gran brings blankets and a pillow and they all creep away and leave me to grieve alone for the death of my dreams and hopes.

  I spend a sleepless night on the sofa, even worse than before, and, finding me still awake when he comes downstairs at six, my father makes me a morning cup of tea. He doesn’t ask any questions or issue any lectures, simply promises he’ll start looking into the question of a flat to rent that very day.

  I hug and thank him, desperately struggling to swallow my tears.

  He does gently point out that the task of finding accommodation in the Lake District at a price I can afford will not be an easy one. ‘You might have to consider bunking down with Emma, or Jo-Jo, for a while,’ he warns.

  My heart sinks. I was aware of this fact and yet to have him say this in so many words is not what I want to hear right now. As he’s about to go out the door I call after him, panic in my voice. ‘If Oliver comes into the shop, don’t tell him where I am.’

  ‘I wouldn’t do that, pet, although he’s sure to guess.’

  ‘Then please tell him to stay away and leave me alone. It’s very important that you make him understand I won’t allow him to bully me into returning this time.’

  There’s a long pause while Dad absorbs this remark, and then he quietly nods. ‘I’ll make sure he understands. You stay here with your Gran today. I’ll call Emma and tell her you’re ill. And don’t answer the door to anyone.’

  I take his advice, but realise that I can’t stay hidden forever. Nor can I keep my dark secrets quiet for much longer. Eventually, it’s going to all have to come out. When Mum comes down later, she doesn’t probe, clearly schooled by Dad to say nothing. She behaves as if it’s perfectly normal to find her daughter and granddaughter camping out in her lounge, and, to be honest, that helps enormously.

  I give her a hug as she prepares to leave for the shop. ‘We’ll talk later, right?’

  ‘Whenever you’re ready,’ she agrees.

  Emma rings me on my mobile later in the morning and I take her call, realising she’s probably seen through Dad’s excuse: that the sickness was more diplomatic than real.

  ‘I can’t talk right now, Emma,’ I say, ‘but I may be needing to crash on your floor for a while, or maybe I could bunk down at the office for a bit.’

  ‘No problem,’ she agrees. ‘Whichever you prefer. If there’s a crisis, take all the time off you need.’ She doesn’t ask why I might need time, or why I’m pretending to be ill.

  ‘I shall want to be busy actually, after today,’ I tell her. ‘Very busy.’

  ‘That’s good, because we are. Very busy.’

  ‘Good. I’ll see you tomorrow . . . or the day after . . . as soon as I feel up to it.’

  ‘I’ll be here.’

  When Dad gets home that night he informs me Oliver did indeed come into the shop, no doubt anxious to put his own spin on the events which led up to my leaving. I don’t ask what those are. I don’t want to know. Whatever Dad said to him must have had an effect because in the days following, my husband makes no attempt to contact me, not even to phone. He seems to be staying well clear, which is good, but that doesn’t mean that when I eventually do emerge and try to pick up the threads of my life again, I won’t be constantly looking over my shoulder.

  I don’t in fact go in to work the next day, or the day after that. I seem to be quite incapable of doing anything. Free at last from Oliver’s domination and control, I expect to feel relief. I had imagined that all the pent-up emotions would spill out of me and I’d feel released and renewed. It isn’t like that at all. Maybe I’m in denial again, or suffering from some sort of post-traumatic stress but talking about my marriage seems quite beyond me. Instead I experience only a sad disillusionment and a deep sense of failure. It all seems so unreal, as if this were happening to someone else.

  Nor can I talk to my parents. I sit chewing my nails, fussing over Katie, worrying and weeping. I can’t bear the thought of revealing to the world how he has treated me, how much abuse I’ve been forced to endure in the forlorn hope he’d eventually see the light and change.

  I realise it is essential that I do start to talk before I go entirely mad and this whole thing destroys me. But my feelings of depression show no signs of abating, and I’m still struggling to eat. I need to get up off the sofa and get back to work. I need to do something positive. Why am I the one hiding away suffering shame? I ask myself. Why is all this tearing me apart when I
am the victim, not the perpetrator? Yet somehow that’s how it feels, as if I’m the one responsible for Oliver’s despicable behaviour.

  But then, hasn’t he told me so a thousand times?

  Mum marches me to the bathroom scales where we discover that I’ve lost over two stone in weight. I’m barely six and a half stone. My system seems to be shutting down altogether, and she insists I see a doctor, at once.

  I dread going to see him but in fact Doctor Mac as we call him, proves to be surprisingly supportive and sympathetic. He instantly recognises the problem and asks me straight out if Oliver has been violent towards me. I nod, carefully avoiding his eyes.

  ‘Then you’ve done the right thing by leaving him, both for your own sake, and for Katie’s. Many women don’t manage to do that either for financial or emotional reasons, out of fear, or a false hope that things will improve. In my experience, men who abuse women in this way don’t ever change. If anything, they go worse.’

  I recall my nosy neighbour saying very much the same thing. Why didn’t I listen to her?

  Nice as he is, I’m too afraid to tell him about the incident in the nursery, of how Oliver threw Katie, like a ball, across the room. That only good luck, or Oliver’s bowling skills, saved her. The last thing I want is a social worker poking her nose in, maybe blaming me for not protecting my child sufficiently. It’s one thing to tell me I’m not responsible, quite another for me to absorb that fact. All I can be sure of right now is that I’m working hard to rid myself of this deep sense of guilt and shame, but it’s going to take time for me to fully recover. I do ask Doctor Mac to check her over, which he does, very thoroughly, assuring me she is very healthy and making good progress.

  He prescribes anti-depressants for me, encourages me to eat little and often, not to over-face myself with too much food at first, and to start making plans. ‘Have you told your parents?’

  I shake my head and he urges me to do just that. ‘Don’t bottle it up, Carly. Tell them. They can help. And if he comes looking for you, don’t let him talk you into trying again or you’ll be right back where you started. Don’t look back, Carly, look ahead. You need to put this child, and yourself, first in future. Is that clear?’