If You Love Me

by Alice Keale

  ‘Alice? What’s wrong? What time is it?’ It was as if the sound of Lucy’s sleepy voice made something tight and anxious inside me snap, and I started to sob. ‘He’s cut off all my hair,’ I told her. ‘It’s all gone, Lucy.’

  ‘It’s okay, Alice.’ Her voice suddenly sounded clearer and more alert. ‘It’s all right. Just tell me where you are.’

  ‘I’m in a taxi, about an hour away from your house. Can I come and stay with you tonight? Please, Lucy. I know it’s late but he made me get on another train and then I was nearly home and he told me to get a taxi and go back to London and I was going to do that but I can’t do it any more so I told the taxi driver to turn around and go to your house and now …’

  The words tumbled out of me, punctuated only by my sobs, until Lucy cut across them saying, ‘Listen to me, Alice. Just tell me where you are. Of course you can stay. I just need to know exactly where you are.’

  ‘I don’t know exactly,’ I said. ‘And I can’t pay for the taxi. Joe cut up all my cards.’

  ‘It’s okay, Alice. It will be all right. I’m not at the house tonight. I’m in a hotel in Leeds, at a conference. Simon’s there, though. He’ll let you in and he’ll pay for the taxi. Don’t worry about that; we’ll work it out. But you must go straight to my house. Promise me that’s what you’ll do. And Alice, it will be okay.’

  ‘Yes. All right. I’ll go to your house. Thank you, Lucy.’ And suddenly the nightmare was over. At the back of my mind, I’d known since a couple of weeks after the discovery that it wasn’t going to be possible to repair the damage I thought I’d done to Joe. But I’d kept on trying. Now, I didn’t have to try any more. I was going home to the family I hadn’t seen for weeks, to the people who really did love me. This time, when they asked me about my relationship with Joe and if everything was all right, I’d tell them the truth about the living hell I’d been trapped in since they last saw me.

  As the taxi sped along the dark, almost deserted motorway, the driver listened to the music that was playing softly on his radio and I sat in the back, thankful that he didn’t want to chat, and tried to imagine my life without Joe. I hadn’t spoken to him on the phone for more than an hour by that time. He’d rung several times while I was on the train, as he always did, but for once I’d refused to humiliate myself in front of the other passengers, as he always made me do. Although I did get off the train when he told me to, it was when I was sitting in the taxi on the way back to London, with no money, no credit cards, and no hair, that I had finally decided I’d had enough.

  Joe phoned a few minutes after I’d spoken to Lucy, and at first he sounded almost conciliatory. ‘Come back now, Alice,’ he said. ‘I’ll pay for the taxi. We’ll work this out.’ Then the hectoring tone returned as he added, ‘You can’t leave me now, after all you’ve done to me.’

  ‘I’m not coming back,’ I told him. ‘I’ve phoned my sister and I’m going to her house. I told her you’d cut off all my hair. I’ve had enough, Joe. I know I’ve said it before, but this time I mean it. I’m not going to be abused by you any more.’ But despite the resolution in my voice, I was already wondering if I really could survive without him. It was like being in the grip of an addiction, when you know the thing you’re addicted to is harming you but you just keep telling yourself that, eventually, it will make you feel better.

  When I’d rung my sister, I had been less than an hour’s drive from her house. After travelling for two hours in the opposite direction, the taxi passed a sign saying ‘London 25’. I hated myself for not having the strength to say no to Joe. Simon had phoned my sister an hour or so after she’d told him I was coming to their house, to say I hadn’t arrived, and when Lucy phoned me she was crying as she pleaded with me not to go back to Joe. ‘Please, Alice,’ she begged. ‘Can’t you see that he’s abusing you? Surely you realise that. Please come home. I’ll be back tomorrow and then we can work it all out. Please, Alice. I’m really worried about you. If you won’t do it for your own sake, do it for mine.’ I’d felt guilty when she said that, and had really wanted to change my mind and ask the taxi driver to turn around, again. But it was as if I was sleep-walking, following some predetermined path with my eyes open and my conscious mind shut.

  When my phone rang again, a man’s voice I didn’t recognise said, ‘Is that Alice Keale?’

  ‘Yes,’ I answered hesitantly. ‘Who is this?’

  ‘I’m Detective Inspector Roberts, from the Metropolitan Police.’

  For a moment I thought I was going to be sick. In the life I’d been brought up to, a phone call from the police in the middle of the night could mean only one thing – that there had been a tragedy of some sort. And the first possibility that came to my mind that night was that Joe had done what he so often threatened he would do and killed himself.

  It was a dread that was quickly dispelled, however, when the police officer continued, ‘We’ve just had phone calls from your sister and your parents. They’re all extremely worried about you. They say your boyfriend has been abusing you but that you’re in a taxi on your way back to him in London.’

  It wasn’t Joe’s life I was concerned about now, but my own, because I knew he would kill me if the police became involved.

  ‘I am on the way back to London,’ I said, choking back the tears. ‘My boyfriend isn’t abusing me, though.’ I was ashamed by how easily the lie rolled off my tongue. Lying was what had got me into the situation I was in with Joe, and I hated myself for my dishonesty and stupidity. So it was ironic that it was, in effect, Joe who was making me lie again now, so that no one discovered the truth about the life I was really leading with him.

  ‘That’s not what your family say.’ The police officer sounded stern. ‘They say he cut off all your hair and destroyed your bank card, and that the reason you’re in a taxi now, in the middle of the night, is because he sent you home on the train, then changed his mind and insisted on you coming back to London.’

  ‘No, they’ve got that wrong,’ I said, as glibly as any Judas might have done. ‘I cut my hair off. I just wanted a change. And I lost my bank card. Neither of those things has anything to do with my boyfriend. We had an argument, that’s all, because I was unfaithful. But we’re working it out. I’m sorry I worried my family. I was just a bit upset. And I’m really sorry they called the police and that I’ve wasted your time.’

  ‘We’re going to need to see you in person.’ The police officer’s tone was even sterner. ‘We’ll come to your boyfriend’s house now.’

  ‘No!’ Even to my ears, the vehemence with which I said it made the word sound overly defensive. ‘I mean … why would you need to see me? I’m fine, honestly.’

  ‘When there’s been a report of domestic abuse, we have to see the individual in person. It’s standard procedure.’ It was clear that he wasn’t going to back down.

  ‘Well … actually … I’m not going to my boyfriend’s house now. I’m going to a hotel for the night, or for what’s left of it. To give us both some space. Can I see you in the morning instead? I’m really tired.’ Even as I was speaking, I was wondering why I didn’t just tell him the truth. I was being offered the chance to be rescued from the miserable trap I’d fallen into in the name of love. So why did I persist in lying to try to protect Joe?

  One way or another, he had taken everything from me, including my money, my job and my self-respect. Now all I had to do was tell the policeman that I did need help and then he – and my family – would make sure I was safe. What was wrong with me? Not telling Joe the truth about Anthony had ruined what might otherwise have been a perfect relationship – or so I believed at the time. What terrible mental affliction was I suffering from that prevented me from being honest this time, when the impact on my life might be even greater?

  ‘Okay, we can see you in the morning, if that’s what you really want. But you must go to your local police station by 11 a.m. so that one of the officers there can confirm you’re all right.’

  ‘Of co
urse,’ I said. ‘Thank you. I’m sorry I’ve caused all this trouble and wasted your time.’

  I had actually been intending to go to Joe’s house that night, despite what I’d told the police officer. But when Joe phoned just a few minutes later and I told him what had happened – as I thought I had to do – he said I was making him ill and I should go to the hotel, but be back at his place by 7 a.m.

  It wasn’t until we were sitting in his car outside the police station at 10.30 the next morning that he finally calmed down enough to stop shouting at me.

  ‘Let’s go over it one more time,’ he said, his voice quiet now, although still tight and strained. ‘What are you going to say to the police officer?’

  ‘I know what to say,’ I replied. ‘We’ve been over it a hundred times. I just want to go in now, Joe, and get it over with.’

  ‘But you must get it right, Alice. You’ve made one mistake that has caused a great deal of trouble. You wouldn’t want to make another and cause more, would you? So … let’s go over it one more time.’

  As I glanced across the road at the police station, the automatic doors slid open and a young couple came out. They were holding hands, and when the girl turned to say something to the boy he smiled and kissed her.

  ‘All right,’ I said, sighing as I turned to speak to Joe. ‘Let’s go over it again.’

  After I’d reported to the police station, I phoned my sister and told her what I had told the police officer, that Joe and I had had a silly squabble and that I was fine. I know she didn’t believe me, and that my mum didn’t either when I spoke to her later. But what could they do? As the police must have explained to them, I was an adult and they couldn’t force me to accept their help.

  Chapter 12

  In the spring, Joe and I went on another holiday. To Peru this time, to trek part of the Inca trail. It was a holiday Joe could easily have afforded, but I paid for it all, out of what remained of my savings. And, in any other circumstances, it would have been worth paying almost any amount of money to be able to trek through that amazing landscape of lush valleys and high plateaux, surrounded by spectacular mountain scenery.

  Our guide usually walked some distance ahead of us, mostly out of earshot of the endless questions and recriminations that, for me, made walking far more tiring than it would otherwise have been. ‘Many people would give anything to do what we’re doing,’ I thought, as I trudged along the trail beside Joe on what was probably the fourth day, barely noticing the breathtaking beauty of the mountains whose peaks seemed to touch the brilliant blue sky. Then, suddenly, Joe stopped, looked up at the birds that were swooping and calling to each other above our heads and said, ‘I think those are condors.’

  It was a simple statement, the sort of thing anyone might have said at the time. But the fact that it was said by Joe was extraordinary. I looked at him as closely as I dared, trying to read the expression on his face, and could feel my chest tighten as I realised that the man I was looking at was the Joe I had fallen in love with, what seemed like a whole lifetime ago. He must have sensed that I was watching him, and when he turned to look at me he smiled and his face relaxed and was handsome again, the way it was in the photographs I’d taken of him on our first holiday together in Barcelona.

  For a few minutes I was almost afraid to breathe, in case I broke the spell of the moment and sent us plummeting back into the misery in which we’d spent almost every waking minute of every hour since the discovery. But Joe continued to smile, and while Joe was smiling, the cross-examination stopped and the world around me came back into focus. Having walked for the last few days with my shoulders hunched and my head bowed under the weight of his aggressive questioning, I suddenly noticed the flowers that littered the path at our feet, the sunlight that was reflected off the mirror-like surfaces of distant rivers and lakes, and the sharp, clear outlines of the soaring mountain peaks.

  Having wanted to trek the Inca trail for as long as I could remember, all I’d thought about since the day we’d arrived was catching the flight home, where I could at least feel safe knowing that I was in the same country as my family and friends, rather than alone with Joe 6,000 miles away. Now, though, as Joe talked about the things we used to talk about when we first met – what we were going to do with our lives, where we were going to live, how many children we were going to have – I thought that trekking in Peru had done what I’d been unable to do and had brought the real Joe back.

  Although it was Joe who wanted to go to Peru when we did, he’d actually trekked the Inca trail before, twice: once with his wife and once with a girlfriend with whom he’d had a relationship that lasted for more than a year. ‘There’s this special spot,’ he’d told me, ‘where the view is magnificent. When we’re standing there, I think I’ll know if I can forgive you and if we can move on.’

  I don’t think I really understood what he meant about it being a special spot, but it turned out that there was a particular place on the trail where he’d had some kind of epiphany moment with each of them. He didn’t have one with me, however. I knew it was the ‘special spot’ as soon as I saw it, and it really was beautiful. But although I tried to get him to tell me what he was thinking, he refused to say anything, either way. Then the questioning started again, and I knew it hadn’t worked. An hour later he was bent double at the side of the trail, dry retching and trying to catch his breath.

  It was weeks after we’d returned from Peru when I first began to wonder if he’d done the same thing with his wife and girlfriend as he was doing with me. Perhaps it was a pattern of behaviour for Joe, I thought, believing he’d found the perfect woman and then everything spiralling out of control when he discovered she was only human after all. At the time I just felt disappointed, because being in what must be one of the most beautiful mountain regions in the world had failed to solve the problem – which was beginning to seem insoluble.

  Not long after we came back from Peru, I had to have an operation. I’d been experiencing pain in my pelvis for some time, while my stomach was often tender and swollen, and it had eventually been diagnosed as an ovarian cyst. I was told that they are quite common, and that a lot of women have at least one during their lifetime, although many don’t have any noticeable symptoms.

  Joe insisted that, in some plague-of-locusts sort of way, the cyst on my ovary was the physical manifestation of my amorality and had started to grow as soon as I began my ‘sordid affair with a married man’. It was a belief he attempted to reinforce by citing various philosophers and theologians, and after a while I didn’t bother to argue with him, because I knew there was nothing I could say that would change his mind.

  Joe came with me to the hospital for my appointment with the consultant, and while we were sitting in the waiting room my sister phoned me. I barely spoke to anyone in my family by that time. Joe had severely restricted my contact with my parents and sister, and always supervised and directed any phone conversations I did have. So I was surprised that he told me to answer it on that occasion.

  ‘Hi, Alice. It’s Lucy. I’m outside Joe’s house with Mum. Sarah and her boyfriend are here too. We know you’re in there and we want to see you. We’ve driven all this way because we’re worried about you. Can you open the door and let us in. Please.’

  ‘You’re outside the house?’ It took me a moment to understand what my sister was saying. ‘But I’m not there, Lucy. I’ve got a hospital appointment. I’m at the hospital.’

  ‘We know you’re there,’ Lucy persisted. ‘Your curtains are drawn. Please, Alice, stop lying to us. We just want to help you. Wait a minute … Sarah wants to speak to you.’

  Joe’s face had darkened, the way it always did when he had to contain his anger for some reason, and he was hissing into my ear the lies he wanted me to tell my sister. The irony, which was apparent to me even then, was that all the misery of the last few months stemmed from Joe’s insistence that I must always tell him the truth, while he himself was a master of deceit and false promis
es.

  If only once he had been kind to me or protected me in some way, maybe the impossible task of trying to fix him might not have been so incredibly wearing. But, even at the hospital, when I was facing the prospect of having to have surgery, he didn’t feel one iota of compassion or sympathy for me.

  ‘Tell them you don’t want to see them,’ he said. ‘Tell them that turning up on our doorstep like that, out of the blue, and trying to hijack you is abusive behaviour and that they’re making your depression worse. Tell them you’re fine and they’re just being ridiculous.’

  ‘Alice, it’s Sarah.’ The sound of my best friend’s voice made me want to cry. ‘I’ve been trying to contact you, but Lucy said you were on holiday. She told me what happened before you went away, about the taxi in the middle of the night and how he cut all your hair off. We want to help you. If you’re really not in the house, at least meet us somewhere, just for a few minutes, so that we can see for ourselves you’re okay. Just five minutes, and then we’ll leave you alone. You know you’d do the same for me if our roles were reversed. You know that we all love you, Alice. That’s the only reason we’re here. We don’t have any hidden agenda, I promise. We just want to know that you’re all right. Please.’

  I knew Joe was wrong and that genuine concern rather than any attempt to exert control over me was what had prompted their attempt to see me. And I knew Sarah was telling the truth when she said they only wanted to help me. I hated myself for lying to them and for pushing them away. What was I trying to achieve by denying the fact that Joe was abusing me? Why did I persist in pretending – to my family and friends, and to myself – that I was all right? And why was I cutting off the only people who truly cared about me?

  The answer to all those questions was the same: because I believed that doing so would somehow make amends to the man who I knew in my heart was ill and couldn’t be fixed – certainly not by me. What I didn’t realise at the time, however, was that the balance of my mind must have been disturbed to some extent, too, for me to have refused so persistently to give up on him.