by Jo Jakeman
“No, nothing’s happened. Not really,” I said.
“What’s he done?” she asked with a sigh, like she was talking about an errant child rather than an irate adult.
I wanted to tell her everything. I wanted to tell her about the threats to take my son away, the assaults, the cancer, the cellar, but I didn’t know where to start. Ruby and I didn’t have the sort of relationship where we would wait to hear the full story without passing judgment on each other, and if I knew anything about Ruby, she would side with Phillip before a word left my mouth.
“It’s nothing,” I said. “Things are a bit strained while Phillip and I sort the divorce out. You know how difficult these things can be.”
“Not really,” she said. “Our divorce was perfectly amicable because we both still cared about each other.”
It took all my restraint to point out that Phillip wasn’t so amicable toward her when he was declaring his love for me before he’d even asked her for a divorce. She seemed to view me as a phase that Phillip was going through, and he would return to her eventually. In her eyes, Alistair was an unwelcome anchor that tied Phillip to me. She was undoubtedly thrilled when he left me, but she hadn’t counted on there being a Naomi.
I saw an opportunity to deflect attention from the secret in my cellar and said in a rush, “Naomi’s been a great help. Haven’t you, Naomi?”
Naomi raised an eyebrow in response and I continued. “Yes, she’s helping me move the divorce along so that she and Phillip can get married. Isn’t that great news?”
Ruby’s eyes lost some of their shine, but the smile was fixed.
“Congratulations, darling,” Ruby said to Naomi. “I had no idea.”
“Hasn’t Phillip told you?” I asked with wide-eyed surprise. “I bet he was waiting to tell you in person this weekend. Funny how he forgot you were coming, though—he must have so much on his mind with the wedding.”
“And when will the happy day be?” Ruby squeezed out her words through a clenched jaw.
“Never,” said Naomi.
I laughed again.
“What Naomi means is—”
“He’ll be dead soon anyway,” Naomi said. “Cancer.”
I watched Ruby’s expression change from false smile to confusion to horror.
“Naomi!” I snapped. I put my head in my hands and rested my elbows on my knees.
“Why are we covering for him anyway?” she said.
“We’re not. We’re covering for us.”
“She knows summat’s up. Look at her! She’s not an idiot.”
I looked up and saw Naomi pointing at Ruby, who was watching first one, then the other of us with her mouth slightly open.
Naomi and I glared at each other. She wasn’t backing down and neither was I. I felt panic rising and blood pulse in my ears. Ruby’s voice broke the silence.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“You and me both, duck,” said Naomi.
Ruby tilted her head in confusion.
I was on my feet, pacing, unsure how to explain it. It was important that I found the right words, but before I could open my mouth, Naomi spoke again.
“Jeez,” said Naomi. “Thing is, Ruby, Phil’s got lung cancer. He says he’s got weeks to live.”
Ruby gasped as her hand flew to her mouth, but Naomi batted away her concern. “Yeah, yeah, bloody shame and all that. But that’s no excuse for him attacking the pair of us in the space of a week.” She pointed at the butterfly stitches on her forehead and then at the side of my face.
I tucked my hair behind my ear so that Ruby could see the red scabs where he’d ripped my earring out.
“Imogen knows what happened to me because she saw me at the ER. I reckon Phil only told me about the cancer so I wouldn’t report him. He told Imogen that she had to be out of the house by the end of the month or he’d go after custody of Alistair.”
Naomi barely took a breath. She delivered this news like she was reeling off items on a shopping list.
“He said we should get married before the end and that we’d have to be quick about it. He didn’t want Imogen to know, in case she slowed down the house sale or whatever, and he didn’t want any delays in sorting out the money side of things. He weren’t serious about the custody—I mean, how could he? He’ll be dead by Christmas. But Imogen didn’t know that, obviously. And she didn’t know about the cancer neither. She thought he were for real, so she flipped out and shut him down in the cellar. Put him in handcuffs and everything.”
Ruby’s hands were clamped over her mouth. A sound somewhere between a wail and a scream slipped between her fingertips. The dirty white dog yapped.
“I . . . I don’t quite . . . He’s got cancer?”
Naomi nodded.
“And he did that to your face?” Ruby pointed at Naomi’s head.
Ruby stared at the carpet, her eyes darting about, as if she were working out a difficult puzzle. It was a lot for her to take in, and if I hadn’t been so annoyed with Naomi, I might have felt sorry for her.
“I think that’s everything?” Naomi looked at me for confirmation. I closed my eyes, feeling the blood drain from my face.
“That’s the simplified version but . . .” I said.
Ruby cleared her throat. “He’s in the cellar?”
“Well, it’s the cinema room really,” I said. “There’s a bed and a—”
“In handcuffs?” she asked. Her words were clipped. Sharp.
“I know it doesn’t sound good, but if you could have heard how he was threatening me . . . I was going to let him go, but when I opened the door he attacked me and I reacted just as any sane person would. I pushed back and he fell down the steps. I’ve cuffed him for my own safety.”
Ruby got to her feet and the older dog barked.
“I need to see him. I can’t believe Pip would attack you like you say he did. And I need to hear about the cancer from his own lips.” She folded her hands in front of her and pulled herself up straight. “I can’t believe you’d do something like this, Imogen.”
Her voice was shrill with disapproval.
“Exactly,” I said, my voice rising. “That about sums you up, Ruby. You can’t believe what I’ve done, but you’re not angry with Phillip for what he’s done. Stop being so bloody blinkered, Ruby. Why can’t you understand that I had no choice?”
She had the decency to look away. When she spoke again, her voice was so quiet and calm, for a moment I thought I’d managed to get through to her.
“If you don’t let him go this minute,” she said, “I will call the police.”
“I can’t,” I said.
I sank to the sofa with my head in my hands. I was more frustrated than upset, but still the tears came.
God knows what I was crying for, but once I started, I couldn’t stop. Neither Naomi nor Ruby moved to comfort me. Ruby was still smarting from my outburst and Naomi didn’t look like she knew where to start. I was grateful. It would be better for us all if we didn’t acknowledge my unraveling.
Least said, soonest mended.
I tried to hold it in, to make it go away, but the tears coursed down my face. My breaths juddered inward, and squeezed out again through clenched teeth with a whine. The tears were bitter and stung the back of my throat. My stomach muscles ached from gripping on to the vestigial flicker of my self-esteem. I looked up and saw that Naomi was studying her hands with the concentration of a palm reader, and Ruby was patting the rounded belly of the larger of the dogs.
Least said.
I pulled my sleeve over my hand, past the bruises that had almost disappeared, and wiped my nose on it. Still without looking up, Naomi passed me a box of tissues. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Pulled myself upright and swallowed hard.
Mended.
“Sorry,” I said. “I’ve
not been sleeping. This has been hard for me.”
I pressed the tissue into the corners of my eyes.
“I understand why you feel I should let him go, Ruby. But Naomi and I have discussed this at length. I did try to let him go and he attacked me. If we do it again, he’ll hurt us. I know it. And if he goes to the police, I’ll be arrested, and then when Phillip dies—well, my mother’s getting on a bit and there’s no one else to look after Alistair. I can’t lose him, Ruby.”
Ruby came over and sat next to me, taking my hand in hers.
“You’re scared,” she said. “And that’s okay. But it won’t be as bad as you think it’ll be. I’ll talk to Pip. I’ll make him see that he was partly responsible for what has happened to him and tell him—”
“You can’t reason with him,” I interrupted.
“I’ll tell him that if he doesn’t go to the police, neither will you. Pip’ll listen to me,” she said with absolute confidence. “I know him better than anyone. He’s done stupid and rash things in the past, but only ever because he’s been hurting. It’s a defense mechanism, that’s all.”
Out of all of us, she was the only person he came close to respecting. She’d been a constant support in Phillip’s life. There was something about Ruby, when she spoke with such authority, that made you believe every word she said, and, for a moment, I thought she might be right.
It was so simple. If he didn’t go to the police, we wouldn’t.
It wouldn’t solve the problem of keeping the house or arranging the will, but my biggest fear—that he would get custody of Alistair—was irrelevant if he was terminally ill.
“You might be right,” I said. “But, while it was fear that had me lock him up in the first place, it’s practicalities that make me want to keep him there. This is an . . . opportunity, if you like, to make sure he does right by us. We’re not ill-treating him, Ruby. I wonder . . . I wonder if you’d let us get him to sign a few things before we let him go.”
“You can’t take someone’s freedom away,” Ruby said. “People fight and die for liberty. It’s no coincidence that the biggest punishment that we have in our society is the removal of freedom. Imogen, I’m sure your heart is in the right place—”
“Yes, and you’ve convinced me to let him go. I agree. All I’m asking is that we get his signature first.”
She took her hand off mine and leaned away from me slightly.
“We’ll talk to him,” she said. “But I won’t let him sign anything under duress.”
I sighed and went to get the keys from the kitchen.
* * *
• • •
Ruby wanted to see Phillip on her own. She said she’d get him to agree that he wouldn’t go to the police. I asked her to get assurances that he wouldn’t hurt us either, but she shook her head gently as if I were deluded. She only believed what she wanted to believe and, at that moment, she wanted to believe the best of Phillip, not me.
“Oh, Pip! You poor, poor thing. Look at you, my darling!”
Her voice rang up the stairs from the cellar.
Phillip coughed.
I’d barely noticed his cough before, but now I couldn’t ignore it. The signs of his deteriorating health were there if I cared to look. I didn’t.
Perhaps I should have been more sympathetic. Surely someone other than me—dare I say better than me—would have spoken of him in gentler words? Most people revered the dead and the dying. No one was better than Death at propaganda. It made saints out of sinners and those who had been so easily overlooked in life into people we couldn’t live without.
Ruby spent thirty minutes with Phillip, and when she came out she went straight into the kitchen. Naomi and I waited. Lunch had passed us by without being marked with food. It had left us lethargic. Empty in stomach, head, and heart.
There were noises from the kitchen. A cupboard opening and closing. Drawers doing the same. I went to see what Ruby was looking for.
“Can I help?”
“There’s something a bit off about him. He’s slow,” Ruby said. “I’m worried about concussion, but I’m going to start with getting him a nice cup of sweet tea. He’s refusing to drink the water. Says he thinks you’re drugging him. I told him that—”
“I am.”
Ruby froze with a teaspoon in her hand. Forgetting, for a moment, what she was doing.
“Run that one by me again?” Her smile almost slipped, but she grabbed it at the last moment and pulled it back into line.
Her eyes, I noticed, were red rimmed and puffy. Pained, no doubt, by the thought of Phillip dying. She was still in love with him. I failed to see how anyone who had spent years as his wife could still love a man like that, but Ruby was baffling in so many ways.
“I put sleeping tablets in the water to slow him down,” I said. “Not today, though. We need him to be lucid while he hears what we want from him. I’ve made a list of things to discuss.”
“You mean demands?” she said haughtily. Smile still in place.
“Yes, if it’s not too demanding to ask him to ensure the safety of me and my son and not kick us out of our home. What did he say when you told him?”
“He said he’d been nothing but fair and that you got completely the wrong end of the stick.”
“He would say that, wouldn’t he?”
Ruby made him tea with two sugars, poured a glass of water straight from the tap.
“Yes,” she agreed. “Just as you would say that he was treating you badly and deserved to be locked up. I’m not taking sides but—”
“Yes, you are.”
“But there’s always two sides to a story. If I was a suspicious person, I might say that you and Naomi have ganged up on a sick man in order to strip him of his assets. If I were unkind, I might say that you planned all of this together, and you’re planning to kill him.”
I almost laughed out loud at the absurdity of her statement, but if Phillip could convince her, then he might be able to convince the police too.
“So, you suggest we let him go and then what? He’ll stick to his word and not take his anger out on me and Naomi? Can you put your hand on your heart and guarantee that he will walk away from this quietly?”
“What exactly do you expect him to do?” Ruby asked, her voice rising with uncharacteristic anger. “He’s got cancer, bruised ribs, and is suffering from concussion.”
“Something that living with Phillip taught me, Ruby, is to never underestimate your enemy.”
I couldn’t pretend that I wasn’t angry. Phillip was manipulating people again, though I didn’t think that Ruby needed much persuasion, and he was about to get away without facing the consequences again. This was the first, last, and only time in my life that I would have some control over Phillip, and it was an advantage I was reluctant to give up.
The three of us filed down the stairs, I at the back carrying the small silver keys that would release him from any chance of doing what I asked.
“Here, have some water, darling.” Ruby sat by Phillip’s side while Naomi and I hung back and watched.
With one hand, Ruby held a glass to Phillip’s lips. The other rubbed his back in small circular motions. She was reveling in her Florence Nightingale role. Naomi stood over them with arms folded and head shaking. She wasn’t buying the poor, helpless invalid act any more than I was. There was no compassion in her eyes, but there was no hatred either. She caught my eye and both of us raised our eyebrows in a can-you-believe-it? arch.
We all wanted different things for and from Phillip. Ruby loved him regardless of any actions he took. She was blind to his faults and, in that way, was more mother than wife to him. She looked at him with such tenderness that it was painful to watch. As far as I knew, she hadn’t had another relationship since Phillip had left her. He kept throwing her just enough crumbs to keep her at his feet. Naomi wanted Phi
llip out of her life. It was written all over her face. The impatience, the feigned boredom, the pursed lips holding back the many things she wanted to say. More than anything, though, she wanted this to be over. She wanted to put the pain and the fear behind her. In some ways, he’d been a father figure to her. He’d rescued her from a life of foster families and care homes and promised a brighter future. But he’d disappointed her in that crushing way that only someone you love could do.
Phillip had always been better than me, cleverer than me. Always holding love at arm’s length, there for the taking if I could jump a little bit higher. He was nothing to me now, other than the father of my child, and it did me no credit to admit I couldn’t wait for him to die.
He would not be at Alistair’s graduation or wedding. We would never again pose for photographs as a family or argue about how best to raise our son. A part of my life, a part that had held such promise once upon a time, was about to end. I was sad for the past, but glad of a future without him.
But still, I felt guilty. For my part in it, for thinking I could change the future, for doing to him what he had done to me for years. For thinking that I knew better than he did. For believing that I could be the one to save us all.
“I gather Ruby’s spoken to you about what we want to do?” I said.
He coughed and nodded. “I was only trying to get things sorted financially so that I would know what the house was worth and make sure that Naomi was well looked after too when I . . . when I go.” He looked at Naomi and smiled. She looked away.
“You threatened us,” I said. “You hurt us.”
“I’ve done some things I’ve regretted. Can we put it behind us now and move on? Ruby’s going to help me draw up the will, aren’t you, Ruby?”
“Yes, Pip.”
“I don’t want us to fight . . . in the little time I’ve got left.”
Ruby pulled him closer and kissed the top of his head.
My hands were shaking, though it was hard to tell whether it was because of anger or fear. Phillip was being reasonable, there were two witnesses, so why was I still scared?