Trapped

by Freda Lightfoot

  ‘Crystal.’

  Once I’ve plucked up sufficient courage to start, my parents listen in horror, shocked into silence, in particular my mother who adores Oliver and has refused to hear a word said against him. I reveal only a fraction of what has happened, and there are things I really can’t tell them, not yet, perhaps not ever, but it is enough.

  Dad becomes very angry and Mum starts to quietly weep. I’ve never seen her so upset and vulnerable.

  ‘I never realised . . . I never thought you were suffering like that. . . Oh, God, I know you hinted at it once, love, but I thought you were making it up, because you couldn’t forgive him over that stupid affair. I didn’t believe Oliver could be so cruel. He’s so kind, so gentle and charming.’

  ‘Not all the time,’ I say. And then it all comes rushing out of me, all my pent-up resentment and pain. ‘He uses his charm offensive as a means of control. It’s not genuine, merely a part of his armoury. He likes everyone to think him a great chap because he likes to be liked, to feel good about himself. It’s all me, me, me, with Oliver. He has to be the best, the only one getting attention. The winner. He has to be dominant, always in charge, and nothing brings him greater satisfaction than to have a brow-beaten, intelligent woman at his command. I was supposed to supply his every need, whether emotional or physical, like some sort of slave obeying his orders without question or complaint. And like a fool, because I loved him, I did just that. I denied there was a problem at first, then desperately tried to help him deal with it, thinking there must be a good reason. But there wasn’t, other than his huge ego, and his certainty that he’s entitled to control the universe, or at least his section of it. And an unshakeable belief that men are important and women are rubbish. My efforts to placate him, to endlessly prove that I loved him, were entirely useless. He never loved me, he just loved the idea of my loving him.’

  Mum looks at me askance. ‘Oh, Carly, you’re far too young to sound so bitter, and so cynical.’

  ‘I’m not young at all, Mum. I’m old, certainly in experience. Oliver has made me so. His behaviour is so manipulative. He has a terrible temper but he doesn’t just lose it; he’s perfectly aware of what he’s doing, and could stop any time he chooses. I know that’s hard to understand. I don’t fully understand. He loves to put me down in order to get what he wants. If I don’t do as he asks, or carry out his instructions to the letter, then it’s because I’m stupid, not because he expects the impossible. He’s pathologically fixated on having a perfect life, perfect home, perfect wife. He even writes rude names in the dust on the window. Oh, I could go on and on, but I won’t, I can’t.’ I start to cry again and Mum holds me close at last. The soft warmth of her feels so good.

  ‘I doubt I could ever trust a man again,’ I sob.

  ‘Yes, you will. One day,’ she says, stroking damp strands of hair from my face. ‘Just because one apple is bad doesn’t mean the whole barrel is,’ and she smiles.

  ‘At least I’m no longer in thrall to him,’ I say, trying to sound positive even though I feel anything but. ‘And while I freely admit I’m still very afraid of him, I’ve finally found the courage to break free. Nothing he does to threaten me now - nothing - will persuade me to return to him and try to repair my marriage. I’m done.’

  Dad speaks through gritted teeth. ‘He’ll not touch you again, love. Not without going through me first.’

  Mum is so upset that she bursts into tears again and cries for a long time. I find I’m the one having to comfort her now. I think she’s shocked by her own inadequacies as a mother at failing to recognise the truth. She too is suffering from shame, blaming herself for not protecting me, for being too absorbed in her own problems. Gran quietly comforts us both, wisely reminding us that if we persist in taking the blame, that is exactly what Oliver wants, and the last thing we should be doing.

  She puts on the kettle and we embark on yet more tea and sympathy.

  Jo-Jo comes round the following morning, avid with curiosity and bustling with self importance. She has Molly with her who she puts down on the rug to play with Katie. The little girl at once gets up and starts dashing about, showing off her new walking skills. I concentrate on making coffee while Jo-Jo calms the toddler down but, once she’s happily playing with Katie’s bricks, my sister turns on me, eager to dish the dirt. We’re alone in the house, thank goodness, as Mum and Dad are at the shop and Gran is next door chatting to her friend.

  ‘So what’s all this I hear about you and Oliver splitting up? He called to tell us that you’ve left him because you’re having an affair. I must say I was shocked. Aren’t you the sly one?’

  ‘Oh, for goodness sake Jo-Jo, he’s lying. I am not having an affair.’

  She raises her brows in mocking disbelief. ‘And who is it you’re not having this affair with?’

  Through gritted teeth I tell her there’s no one, no one at all.

  My sister adopts an air of casual surprise. ‘Oh, I thought his name was Tim something, a client, I believe. So that’s how you met him, is it, through the agency?’ Her face suddenly clears. ‘He’s the one who gave you a lift home, isn’t he? My, my, you are a dark horse.’

  I give an exasperated sigh as I hand her a coffee. ‘Tim Hathaway is indeed a client. He’s a geography teacher who likes to come to the Lakes to walk, but – watch my lips - listen carefully. I am not having an affair.’

  ‘Then why would Oliver say that you were?’

  ‘Because he’s a slime-ball who loves to pass the blame for his own bad behaviour on to me. He’s the one who’s had the affair, and much more besides.’

  ‘So what has Mr Perfect done this time? Screwed some other little chick in his office?’

  If she weren’t my sister who, despite everything, I love dearly, and if I weren’t so anti-violence, I’d thump her one, I would really. I sink on to the sofa and put my head in my hands, then I tell her in a dull monotone why I left my husband. She doesn’t interrupt, despite having to intervene in a squabble over bricks between the babies, but listens in complete silence. I don’t look at her, aware that she’s feeling obliged to unscramble all the clichéd assumptions and petty resentments she’s nursed in her head about me, and view the reality with a clearer vision. It won’t be a comfortable image for her. She puts the squirming Molly back down on the rug, and sits on the sofa beside me. After a long silence she finally speaks.

  ‘He beat you?’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Would you have believed me?’

  Another long silence, and then, ‘I might have, eventually, if you’d tried hard enough. Why did you stay with him? If Ed ever laid a finger on me I’d walk out the door and never look back.’

  ‘No, you wouldn’t.’

  ‘I would.’

  ‘No, you’d want to know why he hit you. You’d fight for your marriage, as I did, because you love him. Then you’d get in so deep you wouldn’t be able to get out. If Ed were anything like Oliver, which thank God he isn’t, he wouldn’t let you leave. It’s far more complicated than you might imagine, far too difficult to explain, Jo-Jo. You’ll just have to take my word for it.’

  She opens her mouth to protest further but, seeing my expression, closes it again, her protest unspoken. Jo-Jo has always been jealous of me, the baby sister, the one with the good job, with a comfortable life-style she envies, never quite able to recognise her own good fortune. I’ve always considered jealousy a completely pointless emotion, but now I envy her. I wish I’d married a lovely caring guy like Ed. I long for my life to be normal, for me to have a happy marriage like everyone else, yet my marriage is over and I must face reality and start to rebuild my life. There is no going back.

  Then she says a surprising thing. She tells me that she never did like Oliver. ‘In fact, I was the one who sent you that anonymous letter. I saw him kissing Sandra Fuller just weeks before your wedding.‘

  I stare at her in shock. ‘So if you’d spoken to me ou
tright, as a loving sister should, instead of sending that stupid letter to Mum and Dad, you might have spared me all of this?’

  There are tears in her eyes now, and she has the grace to look embarrassed. ‘I thought Mum and Dad would tell you, but they threw the damn letter straight in the fire. I didn’t think you’d ever believe me. Oliver was very much Mr Wonderful in your eyes.’

  Even as I gaze in fury at my sister I know what she says is true. We would have quarrelled bitterly, I expect, but would I have believed her? I very much doubt it. I suspect my stubbornness would have kicked in, and, recalling how very much in love I was at that time, I would have clung to the belief that he was innocent. I hug Jo-Jo and tell her it’s not her fault. ‘You’re right. Even if I’d believed you he would have soothed my fears with his charm, as he has done countless times since. Well, I’ve done the right thing now.’

  She can see how distressed I am and puts her arms around me and hugs me back. ‘You have, love. If that’s the game he’s been playing, then you most certainly have done the right thing in leaving him. You’ve obviously seen sense at last. And not before time. I’m surprised you stuck it as long as you did.’

  That little caustic remark at the end of her sentence makes me see that it’s going to be a long hard road ahead; that some people, even friends and family may never fully understand.

  It is two weeks now since I left Oliver and shame still gnaws at me. When I walk down the street I’m so self-conscious that it’s easy to assume everyone is looking at me and gossiping behind their hands. I can see it in the way they glance covertly at me, as if trying to spot the bruises. I can hear them whispering, ‘Did you know that she left her husband? I’ve heard that he used to beat her.’ Followed by the usual, ‘She must have asked for it.’ Or, ‘She obviously enjoyed it or she would have left sooner.’

  I want to scream at them: The only thing that stopped me leaving him was Oliver himself.

  But I say nothing. I’m still badly bruised, both inside and out. Will the taint of shame that I loved such a man ever leave me? I wonder.

  Those who know my husband refuse to believe the story at all, insisting that the very idea of this charming man being violent is all a figment of my vivid imagination. Grace, his mother, is furious with me when she hears. I confess I don’t have the courage to face her with the truth myself, so she learns of it via the gossip grapevine, or maybe Mum rang her, I’m not sure. She comes to the agency in Windermere, marches up the stairs, her husband trundling along behind, and accosts me in my own office.

  ‘I’d like to know exactly what you’ve been saying to everyone? How dare you accuse my son of knocking you about?’ There’s a curl to her lip, a mocking edge to her tone as she trips out this old-fashioned phrase, quite at odds with the sweet-natured lady I’ve come to like and admire.

  ‘I dare because it’s true.’

  ‘So tell me when he hit you, and how! What had you done to provoke him?’ As if we were children scrapping in the school playground.

  Oliver’s father looks deeply uncomfortable, almost hanging his head in shame, but he doesn’t interrupt as his wife rants and rails at me for a full ten minutes or more, vehemently defending her beloved only son. She accuses me of driving him to it by being both frigid and a harlot who has enjoyed affairs with all and sundry. I listen in silence, privately appalled by her reaction, but deeply aware what a shock it must be for her to learn all of this. How does a mother come to terms with the fact her precious son is a wife-beater? Finally, I can take no more and hold up my hands to implore her to stop, apologising for the fact I really can’t talk about it right now, and I walk away.

  Emma briskly shows them both the door.

  Other people’s attitude towards me becomes almost a form of amusement. Some friends cross the street rather than face me, perhaps too embarrassed to know what to say, or as if what has happened to me might be catching and put their own marriages at risk. Others drag their husbands away if they see them speaking to me, as if I might want to steal them. Some are patronising and offer to loan me their cast-off carpets and bits of old furniture since I’m now homeless. One or two tell me that they knew all along about Oliver’s affairs but didn’t like to say. It’s hurtful to see how much people love to gossip, and I have to steel myself to deal with it. It certainly teaches me who my real friends are.

  To my amazement an old friend, whom I haven’t seen in a long time, turns up one day quite out of the blue. Tony arrives at the office asking to speak to me. Emma show him in and leaves us to it. He’s clearly embarrassed and I don’t wonder at it. Yet in a way we’re both in the same boat since Jane, his wife, and also once my best friend, is still heavily involved in an affair with my husband, or so I assume.

  ‘I heard what happened,’ he says, by way of explanation for his sudden appearance. ‘I wondered how you were coping.’

  ‘I’m fine, thanks. And you?’

  He shuffles his feet, not quite looking at me. ‘Jane and I, we . . . we’re still together. She’s not with Oliver any more. I believe he’s moved on and got himself a new woman, so I’m standing by her.’

  I’m surprised by this but try not to show it. ‘I see. Well, I hope it works out for you.’ I tell myself that it makes no difference to me if my husband has yet another new mistress. Maybe it will help me come to terms with just how fickle and unreliable he is. ‘Do you know where Oliver is living, by any chance? He doesn’t seem to be at the house, and there are matters to be settled, decisions to be made.’

  He looks surprised that I don’t know. ‘He’s living with this married woman, in Heversham, I believe. She left her husband the same day Oliver left you.’

  I want to say that Oliver didn’t leave me, that I left him, but it seems trivial so I don’t bother. What does it matter what Tony knows, or thinks?

  ‘I suppose you’ll be getting a divorce?’ he says. ‘I hope you won’t cite Jane as co-respondent, she’s really had a bellyful of him.’

  I don’t answer this comment either, although I understand now why he called. It was to protect his wife, and his own marriage, not out of concern for me. In my heart I know divorce is inevitable. I just haven’t started to think ahead that far yet. I’m still suffering from a lack of confidence, and even censure in some quarters. ‘Tony, why did you and Jane stop speaking to us, long before – before she and Oliver got together?’

  Dark brows lift in surprise. ‘I thought you’d have realised by now. Because I knew he was having it off with Poppy, then I saw him in his car with a girl from the mailing room. I knew he was cheating on you, so how could we carry on being friends, just as if nothing was going on? I couldn’t do it. Oliver hated my self-righteous, pious attitude, as he called it, which is why he took his revenge by screwing my wife.’

  I’m shocked by this, and yet it is so typical of my husband. ‘Oh, Tony. You lost your wife because you were trying to protect me?’

  ‘I haven’t lost my wife. At least I hope I haven’t.’

  ‘I hope so too.’

  He grins at me suddenly, and it warms my heart to see it. I’ve missed Tony and Jane, my dear old school friends. I felt so alone without them for so long.

  Tony seems to be reading my thoughts. ‘Maybe we can all three of us get together again one day,’ he says optimistically. ‘Talk about old times.’

  I take his hands and give them a gentle squeeze. ‘I don’t think so, do you? But thanks for coming. I appreciate it.’

  ‘What are friends for?’ he says, quite unable to see the contradiction in his words.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I’m still at my parents’ house and Oliver has rung many times, wishing to speak to me, but I refuse to take his calls. Finally he sends me a note requesting a desire to see Katie. I’m utterly flabbergasted by this. From the moment of her birth he has shown not the slightest interest in our child. Most evenings he would be off out almost the moment he’d finished eating, and even when he was home he never offered to put her to bed, or
even to hold her. Most of the time he ignored Katie’s very existence.

  Now, because I’ve left him, he claims that he wants to spend more time with her. He’s clearly wanting to put himself in a good light when it comes to the divorce proceedings. The note says he’ll ring to make arrangements for a visit later in the week. I’ve no choice but to agree, but I’m nervous and furious all at the same time. It’s so typically manipulative of him.

  I slip round to see his parents, wanting to soothe relations between us a little and thinking they might like to see their granddaughter. I’m wondering if they would agree for Oliver to take her to their house on the days he has access, so that I would at least know Katie was in good hands.

  They make a great fuss of her, although conversation with me is a trifle stilted. I try to tell them that I did everything I could think of to save our marriage but Grace walks away, head high, ostensibly to put the kettle on, but I know that deep down she blames me. Jeffrey, Oliver’s father, leans over and whispers an explanation.

  ‘Grace and Oliver have always been very close. He is the child she never thought she’d have.’

  ‘I understand, and I’m genuinely sorry things have turned out this way. I just want her to know that I loved him very much, still do in a way, but I simply can’t live with him. He . . .’ I look into his father’s sympathetic gaze and my words falter. Jeffrey finishes them for me.

  ‘He didn’t treat you well.’

  ‘No, I’m afraid he didn’t.’

  ‘Other women?’

  ‘That too, as well as the other stuff.’

  ‘If he was a little rough at times, I’m sure it was unintentional.’