by Alice Keale
‘I’m fine, Sarah,’ I said at last, clearing my throat to mask the sob that escaped as I spoke. ‘Honestly. Don’t worry about me. It was a misunderstanding: I cut my own hair. Of course Joe didn’t do it! I just wanted a change. I’m sorry, but I really am at the hospital. I’ve got an appointment. So I can’t see you now.’
In fact, it ended up being another hour before we were called in to see the consultant, during which time Joe barely paused for breath as he muttered malign accusations about my family and friends, and about how, despite everything I’d done to make him so ill, he was trying to protect me from their abuse.
I had turned my phone to silent after Lucy’s call, but I saw the screen light up every time she called again, or sent me a message that went unanswered. ‘Ignore them,’ Joe said. ‘They’ll give up eventually and go home. We can stay at a hotel tonight if necessary.’ But I couldn’t help wishing he was wrong and that my sister and best friend would somehow find out which hospital I was at and the next time the automatic doors slid open I would look up and see them walking towards me.
Joe insisted on my asking the consultant if the cyst could have been caused by sex and how long he thought I’d had it. ‘We don’t know what causes ovarian cysts,’ the consultant said. ‘They’re very common, and most of them disappear again after a few weeks or months without causing any problems or needing any treatment. But, for reasons that aren’t really understood, some continue to grow and can cause symptoms of pelvic pain, bloating, etc., as in your case, or even block the blood supply to the ovaries, which is why I would recommend having it removed. And in answer to your second question, there is no way of knowing how long it’s been there.’
Joe knew, though, or thought he did, and while the consultant was showing us the ultrasound scan of the cyst that had grown on my ovary there was an expression of revulsion on his face. He didn’t let the consultant see it, of course, and by the time he turned back to look at us Joe was nodding sympathetically again, and said all the right things. Later, as soon as we were alone, he told me that he found my ovarian cyst repulsive and he wanted me to have the operation to remove it as soon as I possibly could.
Of all the countless occasions when I felt miserable and alone, I think it was on that day more than at any other time that I longed for him to say something kind to me. ‘Don’t worry, Alice,’ he might have said. ‘I know you’re dreading having to have surgery, but you’ll feel better after it. And I’ll look after you.’ Instead, he called it ‘biblical retribution’ and berated me for the amoral behaviour that no amount of scientific evidence would have convinced him hadn’t caused it.
We didn’t go home until quite late that evening, when Joe drove slowly past the end of our road, to make sure Lucy and the others had gone, before turning round and parking. I was anxious for the rest of the night, in case they decided to come back, but they didn’t, although they did tell me later that they wished they had.
The few weeks I had to wait before I had the operation were a difficult time for me. I’d been having heavy periods for a while and had become a bit anaemic, which was making me very tired. Also I was dreading the thought of Joe being at the hospital with me when the time came. If only I could have my family there, I thought, or a friend like Sarah who would reassure me by telling me, as often as I needed to hear it, that it was straightforward surgery and everything was going to be okay. I wanted to know that I’d wake up from the anaesthetic to smiling faces and friendly voices, not to see Joe waiting impatiently for me to open my eyes so he could tell me again that my condition was the result of divine intervention or karma or whatever type of cosmic justice he might have decided had caused it while I was on the operating table.
As much as I wanted to do so, however, I knew I couldn’t tell any of the people who would have looked after me, because they would do the one thing I both wanted and dreaded them doing, which was to insist on visiting me in the hospital. And Joe simply wouldn’t have allowed that. I think, in reality, I might have found it difficult too. Because if they did come when I was weak and off my guard, I might have broken down and told them the truth about the life I was living with Joe, and then I wouldn’t have been able to go on pretending to myself that I could fix him, which would mean that the misery I’d endured for the past few months had all been for nothing.
I was due to have a laparoscopy – keyhole surgery, as it’s sometimes called – which involved a relatively mild general anaesthetic and meant I wouldn’t have to stay in hospital overnight. Normally, I hate anything to do with hospitals, and being admitted for an operation would have been high on my list of things I never wanted to experience. But I might have been the only person undergoing surgery that day who desperately wanted to stay in overnight. In fact, though, Joe seemed genuinely concerned as he drove me to the hospital that morning. Then the questioning began again, and by the time I was given the anaesthetic injection I didn’t care what happened to me.
When I woke up in the recovery room, my first thought was that I didn’t want to go back to the day ward, where Joe would be waiting for me. ‘He’s been really worried,’ one of the nurses told me. ‘Just pacing up and down the whole time you were in theatre. Poor man.’ She was trying to be nice, telling me, in effect, that my boyfriend loved me. But he seemed to have got over his anxiety by the time I did go back down to the ward.
It was another four hours before I was allowed to go home, during which time I was tempted to pretend I felt ill, so that I could stay and get a peaceful night’s sleep. In the end, though, Joe was so desperate to take me home that I allowed myself to believe everything would be okay. And in fact he wasn’t violent that evening, although he did keep me awake for most of the night with his questions.
Sometimes, on the days when Joe went into work, I would drop him off in the morning and then pick up a latte and an almond croissant from the bakery on my way home. I lived for those moments when I was sitting alone in the living room of Joe’s empty, silent house, drinking my coffee and eating my croissant. They only ever lasted for a few minutes – certainly never more than half an hour – before Joe phoned or texted me and I’d start doing the cleaning and whatever other chores had to be completed before he came home.
Every day that Joe went to work I had the same routine. I’d get up when he did, wash with him, make coffee for us both, get dressed when he did, drive him to work, and collect him at the end of the day, or at whatever time he decided he wanted to come home. Sometimes he only went into the office for an hour, and I would have just got back to the house when he’d phone and I’d have to go out again to pick him up. And sometimes he’d make me wait for him, sitting in the car outside his office, listening to the radio and trying not to resent the fact that I had been robbed of a few precious hours of relative peace and quiet, that would only have been interrupted by his regular texts and phone calls.
When Joe wasn’t with me I could look at whatever I wanted to look at without being afraid that he’d accuse me of staring at someone in some unacceptable way. I could listen to whatever I wanted to listen to on the radio and not have to worry in case someone said something that, in Joe’s mind, had some ridiculously tenuous link to ‘the married man’. Essentially, I could pretend that I was living a normal life, in which everything was the way it used to be and nobody asked me to do things that couldn’t be done. It was that pretence and those brief periods of time I spent on my own that kept me sane – or, at least, as sane as I was.
It turned out that, by the time my family became aware that something more serious was going on between me and Joe than simply him trying to come to terms with my affair with a married man, he had changed his landline number. So they had no way of contacting me except via my mobile phone, which he monitored very closely. Occasionally, he dictated a text message that was supposed to be from me to my mother or sister, but was usually phrased in a way that didn’t sound like me at all. Sometimes the messages would include some critical comment about my mother: that I thoug
ht her attitude to my relationship with Anthony was ridiculous, for example, and that this was why I wasn’t going home. As outgoing calls on Joe’s landline were itemised, and I didn’t dare make any phone calls or send any texts on my mobile that he hadn’t approved, I couldn’t do anything to counteract the impression he was giving to my family. I did sometimes call my sister on a payphone while he was at work, but even then I was cautious about what I told her.
Then one day, when I was so worn down by Joe’s abuse that I just wanted someone to know what was going on, I phoned Lucy and told her I was going to leave my phone on in my handbag when he got home from work, because I knew it wouldn’t be long before he kicked off about something. ‘Whatever you hear,’ I told her, ‘don’t call me back. And try not to worry.’ It was an awful position to put my sister in, but I was close to being at the end of my tether and I didn’t know what else to do.
On that particular occasion Joe started yelling almost as soon as he walked into the house, as he often did. Lucy told me later that she could barely believe what she was hearing and was really frightened for me. She tried to record it, and was furious with herself afterwards because she didn’t manage to do so. But she did tell my mother what she’d heard and then phoned my psychiatrist, who advised her to contact the police. And that’s why, a couple of days later, after I’d dropped Joe at work and was sitting in the living room, sipping my cup of coffee and listening to the quietness of the house, the doorbell rang.
No one ever called at the house. In fact, the only contact we had with any of the neighbours by that time was when they told us that if they heard me screaming again they were going to phone the police. It was a threat that had been made on two or three occasions, by different neighbours, and it sent Joe into a rage. He was always very polite and charming to the neighbours themselves, of course, apologising for having disturbed them and explaining that I wasn’t very well, mentally, and that it was sometimes difficult to contain my ‘episodes’. Then, as soon as they’d gone, he would put his hand over my mouth and push me up against the wall, pressing his arm across my throat so that I couldn’t breathe as he hissed in my face, ‘Are you trying to get me into trouble, Alice? Is that why you make all that noise? So that the neighbours will hear you and phone the police?’ And I would apologise and deny that it had been my intention, not that it would have mattered anyway, as none of the neighbours had ever knocked on the door when Joe was at work and asked if I was all right.
So my immediate thought that morning was that Joe must have waited for me to drive away from the office and then got a taxi back to the house, in the hope of catching me out doing something I shouldn’t be doing – which, in his eyes, would include what I was doing, which was basically nothing.
From where I was sitting I could see the front door through the living-room window, and the man and woman who were standing there could see me. So there was no point pretending not to be in, as I would normally have done.
‘Are you Alice Keale?’ the woman asked as soon as I opened the door.
‘Yes.’ I raised my eyebrows quizzically.
‘We’re from the Metropolitan Police,’ the woman said. ‘The Domestic Abuse Unit. Your family and a friend of yours contacted us. They’re all extremely concerned about you and we’d like to have a word. Can we come in?’
Someone once told me that if you ask a question that could equally well have the answer yes or no, you have to be prepared for either response. It was good advice, but I got the impression on this occasion that ‘Can we come in?’ wasn’t really a question at all and that I didn’t have much choice. It wasn’t police officers themselves I was afraid of, however, but what Joe would say when he found out that they’d been to the house. I’d have to tell him, and when I did he’d go crazy. I could feel my heart racing at the very thought of it.
I knew my family and best friend were worried about me. At times when I felt as though I couldn’t take it any more, I’d started to let slip little bits of information to my sister – about Joe cutting my hair, and about him making me take long train rides almost-home, sometimes as often as two or three times a week. My worry now, however, was what they might have told the police.
I led the way into the living room, where the two officers sat on the sofa while I perched on the edge of a chair opposite them.
‘People are very worried about you, Alice.’ It was the woman speaking again. ‘And I have to say, from what your family and friend have told us, I think they have reason to be.’
‘I know they’ve been worried,’ I said, trying to sound like someone who’s already done something stupid, rather than someone who’s about to throw away her one chance of getting the help she needs. ‘The truth is, everything’s been blown out of proportion. You know what mothers are like. I was emotionally unfaithful to my boyfriend during the first five weeks of our relationship, and when he found out he took it very badly. It’s just taking a while for us to work things out. But we’re getting there.’
It sounds ridiculous to me now, but I imagine police officers working in a domestic abuse unit had heard it all before – or, at least, variations on the same theme.
‘But it’s nine months since he found out, isn’t it?’ Again, it wasn’t really a question. ‘Don’t you think your boyfriend might be overreacting by continuing to make it a bone of contention? I’d have thought that nine months would be more than enough time to work things out, if you’re going to be able to do so. Your sister says he cut all your hair off and threw away all your clothes.’
‘Clearing my wardrobe’ was something Joe had started when, in response to one of his early questions, I’d said that I was wearing jeans on the evening that Anthony and I first had sex. Joe had already thrown out all my underwear, and then specified the style and colour of bras and pants I was to wear in the future. So then he ripped up all my jeans, which I wasn’t allowed to replace, or, in fact, wear at all. Next, he made me throw out all the tops I had in certain colours, the dresses I’d worn on particular occasions, and eventually almost every item of clothing I possessed. When everything I’d chosen myself had been got rid of or destroyed, I wore only items of clothing I’d bought under Joe’s supervision and direction, none of which bore any resemblance to anything I might have worn at any time during the eighteen months when I was seeing Anthony.
I didn’t say any of that to the police officers, of course. Instead, I lied to them, the way I seemed to lie about everything to everyone except Joe by that time, and told them, ‘It wasn’t my boyfriend who cut off my hair. I did it. I wanted a change of style, that’s all. He didn’t throw out my clothes, either. I did. And he doesn’t tell me what to wear. I know he overreacted to what happened, but it was understandable because he felt betrayed and was struggling to come to terms with it all.’
‘What do you do during the day?’ It was the first time the male police officer had said anything, and his question took me slightly off guard. ‘Your mum says he hasn’t allowed you to work for several months. That must be very isolating for you. So what do you do every day? How would you say things were between you and your boyfriend? Do the two of you argue a lot? Your sister said she overheard one of your arguments on the phone and that he sounded “dangerous and unhinged”. She was very frightened for you. Is your boyfriend violent with you?’
The only question I answered was the last one. ‘No, he isn’t violent with me,’ I lied. ‘We do argue a bit, because he’s still working it all through. But of course he hasn’t forbidden me to work. I get depression, which has been made worse by what’s happened. That’s why I don’t work at the moment. I just don’t feel up to it right now.’
I had been so programmed by Joe that the explanations and excuses were almost automatic, whereas what I really wanted to say to the police officers was, ‘Help me! Please don’t leave me here. Take me away with you. Yes, he’s dangerous and unhinged; he’s violent and irrational too. We argue all the time. I barely sleep or eat. I’ve lost count of the times he�
��s strangled me and threatened to kill me, and I’m really, really frightened about what he might do to me. Cutting off my hair and throwing out my clothes are only a small part of it. He makes me run naked through the streets at night. He won’t let me have any contact with my family or friends. Can’t you see that I’ve been lying to you and that I need help, but that I can’t admit it because, despite everything, I think I still love Joe. If you won’t take me away with you, at least tell me that he’s right, that everything is the way he says it is, and that I haven’t endured all this suffering for nothing.’
I wondered later whether, if the police officers had persisted in their questioning, I might have told them any part of the truth – had my phone not rung at that moment.
‘I’m sorry,’ I told them. ‘It’s my boyfriend. I’ve got to take this.’ Then, into the phone, ‘Hi, Joe. I can’t talk right now. The police are here. Can we speak later? Yes, of course. Bye.’
Joe answered very calmly when I told him about the police. But I knew him well enough to be able to sense the seething rage that he was only just managing to control, and to know that I would pay for the police officers’ visit when he got home. And still I didn’t tell them the truth and ask them to help me.
When they left, they took with them the statement I had signed confirming that everything in my life with Joe was fine and devoid of domestic abuse. They did tell me they didn’t believe me, but said they couldn’t force me to accept their help if I didn’t want it. So they gave me a number to call if I changed my mind.
As soon as they’d gone, I picked up my phone and rang Joe. Although I had hoped he might be in a meeting, so that I’d have some time to collect my thoughts, he answered immediately and said, in a voice cold with anger and distrust, ‘I need you to meet me for lunch. Right now.’