Behind the Lie

by Amanda James

  ‘That’s where we keep the wine now?’

  A sigh escapes me and I turn round. He’s leaning against the bathroom door, naked, arms folded, grim-faced. ‘It’s Iona – thought I heard her whimper.’

  ‘You were mistaken. Get the wine.’

  ‘Let me just check…’

  ‘I’ll check. Get the wine.’

  His eyes never leave mine; his jaw is set, his chest rising and falling, his penis semi-erect. This is a side to Simon I’ve not seen and it scares me. He moves towards me and I sidestep, go to the kitchen and grab the wine and glasses. When I return, he’s walking back to the bathroom. ‘She’s sound asleep, though we knew she would be, didn’t we?’

  In the bathroom he takes the wine and glasses, puts them on the side. Candlelight flickers, though can’t soften his determined glare. He’s pours the wine and then unzips my top. No. God, no. I move away from him. ‘Look, I’m not sure if I’m ready yet. You know I haven’t felt like sex and…’

  ‘Oh, how could I not?’ His eyes flash and then he smiles, makes his voice soft. ‘This evening is where it stops. You’re clearly having problems getting your mind around having a baby, becoming a mother, and then returning to a sexual being afterwards. It isn’t unusual and I promise I will be very gentle…

  ‘Having a baby? I had two babies, Simon. Two.’ This isn’t the best response given I want to keep him on side, but it’s the only one I have.

  The wine disappears down his throat in a few gulps and he slams the glass down on the side of the bath so hard I think it will break. ‘I haven’t forgotten; I suffered too! But, for God’s sake, it’s about time you tried to move on a little, Holly.’ His tone is calm, yet all the more chilling for it.

  A rage flares in my gut but I daren’t give vent to it. Walk away. Just walk away. As I turn to leave, I feel his fingers encircle my wrist and yank me round so hard that I cry out.

  ‘Shh, you’ll wake the baby,’ he says with a humourless chuckle. ‘I had hoped to have you bathed, get the baby stink off you, but never mind.’

  Then I’m against his chest, his arms pinning me to him, his mouth on my neck, my breasts spilling over my bra, exposed as they are now he’s unzipped my top.

  ‘Get off me!’ I scream in his ear but he takes no notice. Shoves me against the bathroom wall so hard my teeth snap together, lifts my skirt, fumbles with my knickers as he presses his erection into my thigh.

  ‘You’re going to do your bloody duty and enjoy it,’ he pants in my face.

  Instinct takes over. I stop struggling. He gives me a lascivious grin, and then I bring my knee up into his balls so fast I lose my balance, and as he doubles up in pain, I fall to the floor. On my hands and knees I crawl past him, but almost immediately feel a sharp pain on the back of my leg. Twisting round I see a length of leather in his hand; he’s still bent over a little and his face is contorted with a mixture of pain and fury. He roars and I see the belt buckle coming down for a second time. I’m too quick and scoot out into the corridor and into Iona’s room, wedging a chair under the handle, just in time. Thank God.

  He’s hammering on the door and rattling the handle. ‘Let me in, damn you! How DARE you knee me in the bollocks? HOW DARE YOU!’

  ‘It’s a wonder I didn’t put a knife in you after what you’ve done! You are EVIL!’ Iona starts to scream the place down so I scoop her up. My heart is racing and sinking all at the same time. Damn my runaway tongue. He’s gone quiet. Please don’t let him realise what I meant. He can’t know I know he’s having an affair… or he’ll insist I stay here, talk it through, or God knows what else. I shush my daughter and pace up and down, then he thumps on the door just once.

  ‘What do you mean by that? After what I’ve done?’ His voice is calm yet menacing.

  ‘You tried to rape me, for God’s sake!’

  ‘I was being forceful, not trying to rape you. And that’s not what you meant anyway, is it? You said what I have done, not what I tried to do.’

  Shit! Now what? I shush Iona some more and say, ‘I mean, what you were doing in the bloody bathroom. Why are you playing semantics?’ A pause. ‘Unless you have done something else?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid.’ Those words sound cagey, unsure.

  ‘How could you, Simon?’ My voice cracks. ‘I can’t believe you… would be so… horrible.’ There are tears rolling down my face. Not because I’m surprised at anything he could ever do any more, but because I’m terrified of being alone with him for the rest of the night. Iona is already falling back to sleep on my shoulder.

  ‘Oh, Holly, I’m sorry, I really am. But I wanted you so much… it’s been months now, four if you count the pregnancy.’

  Four for me. A matter of hours, I’d warrant, for him. ‘But that’s not the way to make me feel ready is it? I was terrified of you.’ I wait a full ten seconds. ‘In fact I’m staying in here until the morning.’ Pressing my ear to the door I hear him curse softly and sigh.

  ‘I’ll save you the bother.’ He sounds resigned. ‘I’ll go to a hotel and we’ll start afresh when you come back from Cornwall. How long will you be gone?’

  Relief runs through my tense muscles and I lean my forehead against the wood. ‘A week, ten days?’ I have no clue how long it will take to get my boy back.

  ‘Okay. Take as long as you need. I just want us back to normal, Holly. Please believe me, I am so, so sorry for what I did – tried to do.’

  His voice sounds genuine, but I can tell it isn’t. I know he’s furious and I won’t have heard the last of it. Simon doesn’t do losing. But for now it doesn’t matter. For now he’s leaving me alone and I can bolt the door once he’s gone. The door to this apartment that was never my home. I won’t be back here again, apart from to collect my belongings. This thought gives me some comfort as I lay my daughter back to sleep. Ten minutes later he says goodbye and I hear the front door close.

  It’s a full twenty minutes before I remove the chair from the handle and check he’s really gone. He has. I bolt and chain the door and then head for the wine bottle. I down one glass in a few minutes but then take my time with the second. I need a clear head tomorrow when I see Demi again. Jowan spoke to her on the phone and gave her a very brief outline of what had happened. She begged to speak to me, to tell me she was sorry, but I couldn’t do that on the phone. Besides, do I really blame her for doubting my story? This whole nightmare seems too terrible to be the truth. I doubted her too. So we’re even. Perhaps I will wake up in the morning and find it has all been a dream. If only…

  Chapter Eighteen

  A recent summer shower has awakened the verdant green of the landscape – a patchwork of hills and valleys dotted with brown farms and white sheep. Crystal-blue skies growing in confidence soon banish the remnants of rainclouds and, once again, beyond the car windscreen, the world looks idyllic. Inside my head things are very different. Inside my head are a tangle of thoughts and feelings, clashing, writhing and tying themselves in knots.

  It started this morning when I met up with Jowan. I was so relieved Simon hadn’t returned at the last minute to block our escape, and so happy to see Jowan’s beautiful smiling face pop round the corner of the underground car park, that I almost wept. With a huge effort I’d managed to be upbeat, excited about heading to Cornwall and then to Devon, and told him a whopper of a lie that Simon had been fine last night. I said that he’d come home a bit late and was so tired from the flight and the conference that he’d gone to bed within the hour. What else could I do? If he knew the truth he would have tracked Simon down and torn him limb from limb. The vengeful part of me would pay good money to see that. The sensible part painted a smile on my face and made me act ‘normal’. I sometimes wonder if I will be normal ever again.

  For the past four hours, Jowan has interspersed our conversation with things like, ‘This is the last leg now. We’ll soon be home with your boy.’ And, ‘Just think, this time next week, you might have Ruan in your arms.’ This
is to make me feel better, I know, but it’s beginning to get on my nerves. It might take far longer than a week. In fact, this time next week I might be under arrest for trying to steal the Jensons’ baby. My face might be plastered all over the tabloids with headlines such as ‘Grieving Mother of Dead Twin Steals Baby Boy from Cradle’. Or, less charitably, ‘Ex-Model and Junky Commits Evil Act’.

  The idyllic world whizzes past the window at seventy miles per hour and in the distance I can see the Broadwoodwidger trees, a circle of mighty oaks crowning the hill that slopes down to the A30. When Cornwall dwellers see those, they know they’re only eight miles or so from the Cornish border and so nearly home. I call them the ‘nearly home trees’. But what does that mean now? If we do get Ruan back, where do we live? It certainly can’t be Cornwall as that’s the first place Mark would look. No question.

  And what would we do for money? I did quite a bit of waitressing before the modelling, but the babies would have to go to nursery while I was at work. How would I afford that on a waitress’s wage and somewhere to rent too? Fuck! It all seems so hopeless. I pretend to look at my phone while I try and compose myself and curse under my breath for getting so emotional. Then I think that it isn’t surprising, given the fact that I narrowly escaped being raped last night, plus the whole nightmare I’m living through.

  I look up just in time to see the nearly home trees flashing past, and my heart sets itself on a path for the beach house. Closing my eyes I can almost feel the wind in my hair and the pull of the ocean. In the interests of survival, I need to block any thought of the immediate future from my mind, apart from Ruan of course. One step at a time. Slowly my thoughts stop their writhing and a peace of sorts settles across my mind. If I could sleep I’d feel better; there was precious little of it for me last night.

  ‘Holly. Holly, we’re here, love.’

  Jowan’s voice startles me out of sleep. I’d been dangerously close to a cliff edge, looking down at the ocean smashing over rocks below. My heart is thumping and I grab his hand – a lifeline. ‘Oh… thank goodness you’re here. I nearly fell.’

  ‘Eh?’ Jowan says, a half-smile on his lips.

  ‘Don’t mind me.’ I fake a yawn, stretch, so I can release his hand. ‘Just dreaming.’

  Iona has slept for most of the journey, thank goodness, and is just stirring as Jowan lifts the bags out of the boot and takes them up the path. ‘You taking the tiny one in, or am I?’ he asks as he jogs back down from the door of the beach house.

  ‘You can if you like. I’m still half asleep.’ I’m not really. I just like to see her in his arms. He is so good with her and, tiny as she is, it’s as if she knows he’s a good person. She relaxes so much more with him than with her father. That’s partly because he rarely picks her up, and partly because he’s an arsehole. Babies know these things.

  An hour later I realise I haven’t thought about reality since we walked back into the house. Jowan had the grand tour and I could see he adored the place almost as much as I do. Then we sat on the balcony and watched the wind play with the ocean, beers in our hands and a bottle of milk for Iona. Against my wishes, my imagination pretended we were a little family. Here we were, just relaxing in the late-afternoon sun. Our son was visiting his gran and she’d be back soon with him. Then we’d all have a walk on the beach before popping into Newquay for a fish supper.

  Though all these imaginings are silly, naive and possibly destructive in the end, I can’t help it. Jowan’s leaning on the balcony looking along the beach at the surfers. He looks so gorgeous with the sunlight turning his hair into a tumble of golden curls, his eyes reflecting the blue of the ocean, a ready smile for me each time our eyes meet. Of course I’m not going to get totally carried away with it. It’s never going to happen… once bitten and all. But it’s nice to have these little fantasies, because unless we are very lucky, the next few days aren’t going to be very much fun at all.

  I’m in the kitchen cooking spag bol when Demi and Alex arrive. Jowan answers the door and I can hear them all chattering in the hallway, and then there’s an awkward silence as they troop into the kitchen. Demi gives me a tentative smile and I send a welcome one back. Jowan introduces Alex. Instantly I like him. He’s a mountain of a man: dark curly hair, a smiley face, bearded, kind hazel eyes. Alex is what I call a twinkly person and he greets me with a deep Scottish brogue and a hug that could crush your spine.

  Still with one arm round my shoulder he turns to Jowan and Demi. ‘You weren’t joking when you said your best friend was a stunner, Dem,’ he says, giving his girlfriend a wink.

  Demi fakes a grumpy face. ‘Okay, put her down now. That’s quite enough.’ Then she takes a step towards me, her head on one side, her arms open. ‘I don’t know what to say, love.’

  I pull her to me and we don’t speak for a few moments. The boys shuffle about a bit and then go in search of wine and beer, talking too loudly about the journey down here. I hold her at arm’s length and say, ‘There’s nothing to be sorry for.’ And even though she hurt me last time I was down here, I realise I mean it. ‘I’d probably have reacted in exactly the same way if you’d come to me with such an unbelievable tale.’

  Demi’s green eyes grow wide, serious. ‘Please believe I thought I was acting in your best interests.’

  ‘Of course you were. And with my history, it’s no wonder that you…’

  ‘But Jowan had no trouble accepting it all, did he?’ Demi’s bottom lip trembles and her eyes fill. ‘So why did your oldest and closest friend?’ To that there’s no answer, so I just hold her while she cries. Then she says, ‘Perhaps I have more of a protective or motherly instinct? Whereas Jowan just reacts in a knee-jerk way because he’s in love with you?’

  ‘Shh, he’s only in the living room, for goodness’ sake.’ I step away and busy myself with the Bolognese sauce to hide my flushed cheeks.

  ‘He SO is though.’

  ‘I have no idea and I cannot think about that, given my situation…’

  Demi perches on a kitchen stool next to the breakfast bar and says in a low voice, ‘He is, because he told Alex; told me too, actually.’

  My heart leaps and I’m annoyed with it. I point a wooden spoon at her. ‘Please stop. Jowan has been bloody marvellous these last few days and I know without a doubt that I wouldn’t have traced Ruan so quickly without him, if at all. Of that I’m certain. But this is neither the time nor the place for…’ I stop when I see Demi warning me with her eyes.

  From the doorway behind me Jowan says, ‘Shall I open the wine for you two? I’ve just checked on Iona and I think she might possibly have another sleep after she’s been changed. Want me to do it for you?’

  Turning to face him I hope my cheeks have calmed down a bit. ‘That would be perfect thanks, Jo.’ Damn it. Why am I calling him Jo now? It’s all this domesticity and talk of love. He is not Iona’s father, nor my husband, and I need to snap out of it.

  Demi gives me a knowing look that says ‘told you he was in love with you’ and then says, ‘Actually Jowan, can you show me how to change her nappy, seeing as we’ll be looking after her? I haven’t ever done one!’ He laughs and they leave me alone.

  I turn off the sauce and boil the water for spaghetti, but I feel sick. Everything is false, fake. Cooking, being with old friends, having a laugh – none of it is real. I think perhaps we are all acting like this, or I am at least, because my brain needs a safety valve. Pretending things are normal is what’s getting me through the nightmare of the letter, the affair, Neville, Yvonne, Jonathan and, in the last few days, finding out that Mark and his wife definitely have Ruan. Inside a rage is building, has been building since I realised the enormity of the betrayal. If I allow that rage free rein, we’ll be sunk.

  So I ignore the incessant raw pain that claws at my insides day and night, the voice that repeats over and over that my boy has been stolen, and tell myself he’s waiting for me right now, not too far away. Tonight we’ll go through t
he motions, but tomorrow we’ll set out to bring him home. Not much longer now, little one. Mummy will get you, no matter what it takes.

  Chapter Nineteen

  According to the map, we should be in South Milton in just under two hours. Thank God the Jensons’ second home wasn’t abroad. That would have been so much more difficult. I pack the last of my things and once more check the instructions on how to look after Iona for Demi and Alex. It will break my heart to leave her, but taking her along is just too dangerous. God knows what might happen.

  Already I am worried about my mum being suspicious. She asked if she could come over yesterday when I said I was coming down here for a few days, but I said I needed a few days alone – some ‘me time’ walking on the beach. She seemed a bit miffed and not altogether convinced, but said she’d be over to see me and Iona as soon as I gave her the go ahead. I hadn’t wanted to tell her we were coming at all, but had to, just in case she phoned the flat and Simon answered. Mum had phoned Demi to ask if I was all right and check I’d not fallen out with Simon. She said she was getting a bit concerned because I came down here without him so often. Demi assuaged her fears, I hope. I couldn’t possibly tell her what was really happening. The shock of it all might make her do something daft like contact Simon, or call the police – both. A mother’s instinct is to protect, fight for her children, but in this case, fighting for me would make everything irreparably worse.

  Last night went okay. For a while, the four of us talked about everything that had happened, but I put a stop to further discussion when Demi and Alex went down the old road of calling the police. Why is it that everyone thinks they know best? In the end, they said they understood my reasons and promised to just be my support. But Alex inadvertently scraped a raw nerve that’s been giving me a twinge now and then. He asked if Ruan would miss Angela. He has no idea about babies, and what they know or don’t know at just under three months old. Demi pounced on him and said that, know her or not, miss her or not, I was his mother and Ruan would soon adjust.