by Alice Keale
There’s no disputing the fact that I played a role in my own misery. I should have refused from the outset to do any of the things Joe demanded of me. I should have realised that his behaviour wasn’t normal. But he seemed to have an uncanny ability to identify my weaknesses and vulnerabilities and then to use them, ruthlessly, to control me. There’s no doubt about the fact that he was very clever, and that he manipulated me, deliberately and systematically, into giving up everything I had, so that I ended up with nothing but him. And once I’d invested everything in him, it became even more difficult for me to leave. Or, at least, that was how it seemed to me at the time.
Joe’s question about what the first rule should be had been purely rhetorical, and without waiting for me to answer he suggested, ‘How about that you don’t go out with any males by yourself?’
‘But I don’t go out with anyone,’ I said.
‘So what are you saying?’ His expression was quizzical but his voice was cold. ‘Do you want to go out without me?’
‘No, of course not. You know I don’t,’ I said hastily, never for a moment even considering giving in to the temptation to scream at him, ‘What I want is to get away from all the madness and have a normal relationship, like other couples have who phone their families and friends and arrange to meet up – together or on their own – whenever they want to.’
Two hours later, the list was written. It was entitled ‘Our Rules’, although, in reality, almost every one of them referred to me.
Our Rules
We will have no secrets.
We will spend as much time together as possible.
I will drive you to and pick you up from work every day.
Every evening, when we haven’t been together during the day, we will tell each other everything that has happened.
I will tell you when I want to go out for coffee or lunch with anyone, and I won’t go if you don’t agree.
We will not go out for coffee or lunch with anyone of the opposite sex.
I will either phone you or send you emails at regular intervals throughout the day.
You will have access to all my emails, both work and private.
If you have a question about anything that’s written in any of my emails, you will phone me or text me and I will meet you somewhere immediately to explain it to you.
I will only use my phone to send texts and make phone calls.
I will not use an iPhone or any other kind of phone that has a camera or Internet access.
I will only access the Internet and send and receive emails on the laptop at home.
We will never delete any texts or emails, however insignificant we think they are.
I will not have a Facebook account, or access any other social media sites.
Our phone bills will always be itemised.
We will share our passwords.
We will share diaries and contacts.
We will tell each other in advance about any work dos that we have been asked to go to.
I will have no contact with any male friends.
I will only contact female friends that you approve of.
We will tell each other – truthfully – every day how we feel, good or bad.
If we have to travel alone by public transport at any time, we will tell each other in advance where we are going and how we are going to get there. While we are travelling, we will keep in regular touch by text or phone call.
If anyone asks us out, we will say, ‘No, thank you. I already have a boyfriend/girlfriend.’
Wherever we have been and whatever we have been doing during the day, we will not spend the night apart.
If I ever bump into Anthony, I will ignore him and walk – or run – away. If he insists on trying to speak to me, I will phone you immediately.
I will write to Anthony’s daughter to tell her the truth about my relationship with her father.
I will cook for you every evening.
I will not wear padded bras.
We will never lie to each other for any reason and in any situation, even if telling the truth will hurt the other person’s feelings.
I will try very hard to be the best girlfriend possible.
I will do something romantic for you every day.
I will tell you several times every day how much I love you.
I will curb my own desires to make sex better for you.
I will have counselling every day for the next two months, then at least three times a week for six months after that.
In the counselling sessions, I will address issues related to my depression, self-esteem, relationships and lying.
By a date to be decided, I will have sorted out a new career for myself.
I will do whatever is necessary to help us find and buy a new house and will be responsible for organising our move.
I will do everything I can to try to make you happy again.
When I’d written the list of rules, Joe read through them, and as he handed them back to me he said, ‘I think this is a good idea, don’t you, Alice? It’s a positive step forward. But remember, if you ever lie to me again, just one single lie, I will leave you. I will leave you if you break any of these rules. I will have dark moods sometimes, which you will have to help me to get through with patience and zeal. And think about the romance too. That’s going to be the bigger task, other than loyalty and not lying. Because unless you’re able to make me feel very, very special every day, this isn’t going to work. But if you do fulfil these requirements, Alice, I swear that, in return, I will do my best to love you.’
Calling his violent, abusive rages ‘dark moods’ was like calling a devastating hurricane a ‘gentle breeze’. But I was so desperate to believe it was possible for me to do something that would fix the mess I thought I’d single-handedly created that I promised to stick to the rules and do everything I could think of to try to make him happy again.
It was just a few weeks after the discovery when Joe told me one day that he thought it would be a good idea if I checked myself in to a private rehab facility where they also treat a variety of clinical disorders. It was very expensive – about £700 a night – and because of my pre-existing depression my private health insurance wouldn’t cover it. ‘You can use your savings,’ Joe said, referring to the money I’d saved up as a deposit for a flat. ‘It will only be for a month or so and you did say you’d do anything to put things right.’
He didn’t want me to go to the nearest place, which was where the psychiatrist I saw privately every few months was based, because he said it had links to the married man. So I went to one more than 100 miles away from London, not all that far from where my parents live.
Mum didn’t know anything about the physical violence, which had only recently started, and when Joe phoned her and explained what he was suggesting and the reasons behind it – while I listened to their conversation on speaker phone – she agreed that it was a good idea. Even by that time, I thought he needed professional help more than I did. But I was desperate to get some respite from the torture of his constant questioning and abuse, and if the only way I was going to be able to escape was by paying nearly £5,000 a week, then I was willing to give it a try.
Joe stood on the platform at the station in London until my train began to move. Then Mum met me at the other end and, during the miserable drive to the clinic, told me again how upset she was by what I’d done and by the fact that my life was in such a shambles. I couldn’t argue with her appraisal of my situation, which seemed to be pretty much that I’d got myself involved in a sordid affair, had potentially ruined a family, and had then lied to a lovely man. Or with her apparent view that this might be my last chance to sort my life out. But by the time we arrived at the clinic I felt as though I was the worst person in the world.
Although it was true that I had underlying depression and that I was feeling more miserable than usual, both things seemed understandable in the circumstances, and I’d been certain that the whole ide
a of going to the clinic – not to mention spending all that money – was crazy. But that brief car journey with my mother did make me start to doubt my own sanity.
When we arrived at the clinic, I was checked in and then had a brief meeting with a doctor. ‘She’s had an affair with a married man,’ Mum told him, almost as soon as we’d sat down. And although his expression remained neutral, he turned slightly away from her when he asked me, ‘Why do you think you need to be here, Alice?’
‘I don’t know that I do need to be here,’ I answered. ‘Although I do have depression.’
‘Well, let’s see, shall we?’ the doctor said. ‘We’ll do an assessment tomorrow and then take things from there.’
Mum said some other things I can’t remember now. But I know she was anxious, not least because I don’t think she’d even considered the possibility that they might decide I didn’t need to be there, which to her meant I might not get the help she was so certain I needed. And the doctor’s tone was cool when he suggested that it might be time for her to go, so that I could settle in.
A very nice nurse took me up to my room, which was small, clean and comfortable, with an en-suite bathroom, deliberately bland artwork on the walls, a flat-screen TV, a private phone and a vase of fresh flowers on the bedside table. Everything about it was pleasant but characterless – like most hotel rooms – and in stark contrast to the spectacular view from its window of the fields and woodland surrounding immaculately manicured lawns.
What the room didn’t have, however, was a mobile phone signal. So by the time Joe had called reception and been put through on the landline, he was in a foul temper. Having a phone in my room meant I could make calls that Joe would have no way of tracing. So after he’d vented his frustration for a while and then rung off, I phoned my friend Sarah and told her where I was. ‘You don’t need to be there, Alice,’ she said emphatically. ‘You had an affair. That’s all. Although it wasn’t a great idea, you aren’t the first person to have done it, and you certainly won’t be the last. But maybe staying there for a couple of days will enable you to get some rest and give you the chance to talk to some people who’ll be able to convince you that, whatever Joe might say or think, you are completely sane.’
I had to cut the call to Sarah short, because I was afraid Joe might be trying to get through on the landline again – which, having realised that he could dial my room direct, he did constantly for the next three or four hours. Apparently, it’s standard practice to check on new patients at regular intervals during the first 24 hours after admission. And when one of the night-shift nurses came in and found me weeping and on the phone yet again, she took the handset from me and told Joe, ‘Alice is exhausted and you’re making her really upset. You need to stop calling now so that she can get some sleep.’ She didn’t know what was going on and I don’t know what Joe said to her, but I was so grateful to have someone to speak up for me that I hugged her when he hung up – although he phoned again very shortly afterwards.
When I woke up the next morning, I had a shower and then went to the dining room and tried to eat some breakfast. I’d only just returned to my room when there was a knock on the door and a man who introduced himself as Dr Clifford asked if he and his colleague could come in and do their initial assessment.
I motioned them towards the two chairs, then sat on the bed with my legs crossed under me, feeling like a small, disorientated child. I couldn’t believe I was in a hospital – or a clinic, as the staff preferred to call it. What had happened to my life? Just a few weeks ago, I’d been happy. I’d had a great job, a good social life, and had been on the verge of buying my own flat. It was true that my ‘love life’ hadn’t been going so well and that I didn’t have a boyfriend, despite telling myself that Anthony and I were … ‘something’. Other than that, though, I’d had pretty much everything else I could have wanted. Then I’d found Joe and suddenly everything had been perfect. Could I really have lost it all by doing something so stupid as lying about my affair with a married man to the only man who had ever really mattered to me?
‘So tell me, Alice …’ I could feel my face flush with embarrassment when I realised Dr Clifford was speaking to me – being lost in a world of my own wasn’t the best way to convince him that I was sane. ‘Why are you here? What brought you to our clinic? It says on your notes that you’ve suffered from depression for the last fifteen years.’ He tapped his pen on the pad of paper that was resting on his knees and smiled at me. It was a friendly smile, and his colleague seemed nice too. So why did I feel so nervous now?
I stretched out my arm to pick up the glass from the table beside the bed and took a gulp of water. What should I tell them? The truth about Joe? About the abuse and violence that never stopped except when he was asleep? Or should I lie to protect him? They were clearly sensible, intelligent people. So the obvious answer was to tell them the truth. But what if Joe was right and I was the one who was to blame for everything? What if I had made him ill and all the things I was doing for him now did eventually make him better? If that happened, I’d get the old Joe back and everything would be all right again. More than all right, in fact: perfect.
‘I don’t need to be here.’ The words burst out of me in short, staccato bursts. ‘I don’t want to be here. Yes, I do have depression, but …’ The two doctors nodded their heads in unison and suddenly I decided there would be no more lies; no more believing I was crazy and Joe wasn’t; and no more spending all the money I’d worked so hard to save on help I didn’t need.
Taking a deep breath, I told them, ‘It’s my boyfriend, Joe. Well, Joe and my mother. They’re the ones who think I need to be here.’ Then I explained the whole story, about how I met Joe, how he’d found out about Anthony, how he’d reacted when he discovered I’d had an affair with a married man, and how his reaction, coupled with my mother’s disgust and condemnation, had made me feel that what I’d done was so unforgivable I had to find some way to make amends.
It was as if, once I started talking, I couldn’t stop. The one thing I couldn’t bring myself to tell the two doctors, however, was about the physical abuse. Everything else was explicable – extreme maybe, but understandable on some level; whereas telling them about Joe’s violence would have felt like the ultimate betrayal.
‘I know what I did was wrong,’ I said. ‘And I understand that Joe has been very badly hurt by it. But I think that the deep unhappiness I feel now is a natural reaction to everything that’s happened, and not – as Joe and my mother believe – a sign that I’m clinically depressed.’
‘You’re not a terrible person, Alice,’ Dr Clifford said when I eventually paused to draw breath. ‘These things happen – for all sorts of reasons. So don’t keep punishing yourself for it. You know it was a mistake. And I think you also know that Joe and your mother are overreacting to quite a considerable degree. I don’t think you need to be here, and I’m more than happy for you to leave. But you do need to sort out your relationship with Joe. It isn’t healthy. In fact, it’s abusive and wrong. You must be able to work and see your friends.’
The relief I felt as I listened to what the doctor was saying was like a physical sensation – coming up for air, for example, after you’ve been swimming underwater for almost too long. As I leaned back against the headboard of the bed, I felt calm for the first time in weeks: if two qualified, experienced doctors thought I was sane and not one of the most horrible, amoral people who had ever walked the earth, maybe Joe and my mother were wrong.
I turned my head and looked out of the window at the fields beyond the lawns and flowerbeds. ‘That’s where I want to be,’ I thought. ‘Walking in the countryside with the sun on my back. Not shut up inside a clinic. And certainly not in Joe’s house, cataloguing the details of all my past crimes and constantly on edge, waiting for the moment when something would trigger a thought or a memory and he would lash out at me, banging my head against the wall or the floor until I thought I was going to die. I was tired of blaming mysel
f for whatever was wrong with Joe, and for being blamed by him. I had tried my best to fix what I thought I’d broken, and now I wanted to live a normal life. I shouldn’t ever have listened to Joe or my mother. I should have followed my own instincts, which told me that I didn’t need to be in a clinic and which had now been confirmed by two very expensive medical opinions!
What happened to my thought processes in the relatively brief period between having that conversation with Dr Clifford and his colleague and signing out of the clinic, I don’t know. I didn’t feel I could go home to my parents, not least because I knew my mother wouldn’t agree with the doctors’ assessment and I didn’t want to see her look at me as though I was an impostor who’d been pretending to be someone she knew and loved. But I could have phoned my friend Sarah and gone to her flat, where I’d have been safe.
I didn’t do that, though. In fact, I didn’t do any of the things you’d expect a sane, rational person to do. Instead, I got a taxi to the local railway station and then phoned Joe to tell him I was on my way home. He wasn’t angry with me, as I thought he would be, and he didn’t say, ‘Don’t come back.’ Perhaps he’d realised that while I was at the clinic he wouldn’t have total control over me, the way he had at home, and that other people would be influencing my thoughts and decisions, so it was better to have me back.
He didn’t say he was pleased to see me, either, when the taxi I took from the station in London dropped me off outside his house. I think the only reference he made to my having been away at all was to say, ‘You’re going to have to work really hard at being back,’ which made me feel as though I ought to be grateful to him for the huge sacrifice he was making by letting me return. But it was okay, because having proved – to myself, at least – that I wasn’t crazy, I was quite prepared to do whatever it took to help Joe to become sane again too.