by Sophie Hayes
Two nurses had come to the ward a little while earlier and taken the other woman away, so Kas no longer had to fake a smile or whisper when he said, ‘You fucking what?’
‘My mum,’ I told him again, swallowing hard and clenching my fists to try to stop my body shaking. ‘I didn’t have any insurance and I couldn’t pay for the hospital, so I thought that if I rang my mum, she could ask my sister to phone an insurance company in England and pretend to be me and then she could get some insurance in my name. Then Mum and Steve were worried about me …’ I was speaking quickly, the words tumbling out of my mouth in an almost incoherent torrent, partly because I was incapable of stopping them and partly because I was trying to buy myself some time. ‘They came because they need to get me home and I can’t fly,’ I continued, not giving Kas a chance to interject. ‘The doctors won’t let me fly because of my stomach and that’s why Mum and my stepdad have come to drive me home.’
To my amazement, Kas seemed to accept what I was telling him – or perhaps he realised that if my mother and Steve were about to arrive at the hospital, he’d have to play a clever game to make sure that they left again without me. And just as he was shrugging and saying ‘Okay’, the door of the ward burst open and my mother almost flew through it, followed by Steve, who was striding more slowly but very purposefully in her wake, his jaw set and his face impassive, except for a frown that gave him an air of absolute determination.
Kas turned towards them as they came through the door and although he smiled his most charming smile and greeted them politely, neither of them spoke to him. In fact, I could tell immediately that my mother couldn’t even bring herself to look at him, and when she almost ran across the room and wrapped her arms around me, I broke down and began to sob.
I was shaking uncontrollably, but suddenly I felt overwhelmed by exhaustion and by an almost palpable sense of relief at the realisation that I was no longer totally alone. Often during the last few months, when I’d listened, my head bowed in dejected acceptance, as Kas shouted at me for one failing or another, or I’d stood, shivering with cold and abject misery at the side of the road, waiting for the next stranger to stop his car beside me, I’d dreamed about looking up and seeing my mum. And now, as the warmth of her body seemed to radiate into mine, I was a little girl again, waking up from a nightmare and knowing that as long as my mother’s arms were around me, nothing could hurt me.
Then I remembered that even though Mum and Steve were there, I was still a long way from being safe. I knew Kas would go to almost any lengths to keep me under his control, and I was frightened at the thought of what he might do if he became suspicious about their real intentions. Although Steve appeared to be calm and unemotional, I knew he would be assessing and processing everything and everyone around him so that he could make an informed decision about what to do. And I could feel the tension in my mother’s body as she fought to control the desire to tear Kas apart with her bare hands, even though she didn’t have any idea of what he’d really done to me. So I was afraid they might say or do something that would make Kas angry – because if that happened, I knew I would never escape.
But, although I wasn’t aware of it at the time, Mum and Steve already understood that Kas was more than just a man who bullied and threatened his girlfriends. After talking to someone at the British Embassy, they’d decided that, whatever happened, they were going to keep their cool and outwit him, because the only thing that mattered to them was getting me away from him.
I was still wrapped in my mother’s arms when the door from the corridor was pushed open again and a nurse came bustling in. Smiling at us briskly, she said, in broken English, ‘We clean this room now. You must be outside.’ Then she pointed towards my mother and me and added, ‘Not you.’ Kas spoke rapidly to her in Italian, but she shrugged and ushered him and Steve out into the corridor just as a small, grey-haired woman in an overall came in and began to mop the floor.
As soon as the door closed behind Kas and Steve, my mother said to me, ‘Just follow my lead and do whatever Steve and I say.’ I could see the shocked distress in her eyes as she looked at me, and for the first time I tried to imagine what my emaciated body, dark-rimmed eyes and gaunt face must look like to someone who hadn’t seen me for six months.
There was little time for her to say much more before the door opened again and the nurse told us, ‘The doctor wants to talk with you.’
When we went out into the corridor, Kas and Steve were standing silently a few feet apart from each other, both with similarly stern, uncompromising expressions on their faces. But as soon as he saw us, Kas became instantly charming and full of concern. ‘I will come with you to see the doctor,’ he told my mother. ‘I speak Italian – I can translate for you.’ He moved towards her, but instantly Steve stepped between them and, speaking slowly in an impassive monotone, said, ‘Now listen, lad. This is a family matter and you are not a member of this family, so I will ask you kindly, if you don’t mind, to wait over there.’ He pointed towards a row of chairs that were neatly aligned along one wall of the corridor. ‘Please allow us to sort this out. She’s our daughter and we don’t need anyone to translate for us, thank you very much.’
I saw the flash of anger in Kas’s eyes and I was suddenly very afraid for all of us. Steve had no idea who he was dealing with, but I’d forgotten that his own quiet stoicism hid a determination every bit as steely as Kas’s own. And as Kas stepped aside to let us pass, Steve turned his back on him and walked between my mother and me down the corridor and into the office where the doctor was waiting for us.
‘We need copies of your drivers’ licences,’ the doctor told my parents. ‘Then just take her home. When you’ve got her there safely, send us a copy of her passport, but don’t worry about that now.’
My mother had no idea what had happened to me during the last six months, but she said later that when she shook the doctor’s hand and looked into his eyes, she realised that, whatever it was, he knew.
‘But Kas has got my passport,’ I said. ‘I can’t …’
‘Yes you can, love.’ Steve put his hand on my shoulder. ‘You’ve come this far. You can do this one last thing. And this time, we’ll be there right beside you.’
Other than my passport, I had very few possessions at the hotel, and even fewer that I wanted to take home with me, and I dreaded the thought of having to go back there. I still didn’t really believe I was going to escape from Kas, and I was afraid that the longer we were with him, the more time he’d have to think of some plan to snatch me away from Mum and Steve again, and then any chance I might have had of escaping would be lost.
‘You come with me,’ Kas told me, putting his hand on my arm and smiling a charming smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
‘No!’ My mother almost shouted the word at him. Then she paused, took a deep breath and said, in a more even tone, ‘She should come with us. It’s been such a long time since we last saw her.’
‘Ah, but if you’re going to take her away from me for a while, it would be nice for me if she could come in my car, so that I can be with her one last time before she goes,’ Kas said.
Again my mother said ‘No’. But, looking directly into her eyes, I told her, ‘It’s okay, I’ll go with Kas.’
Mum had told Kas that the doctor recommended taking me back to England to give me a chance to recover fully from my illness, but I couldn’t understand why he seemed to be accepting what was happening. Perhaps it was simply because he knew he could get me back whenever he wanted to. Although what I wanted more than anything in the world was to escape from him, I was fixated on the idea that we mustn’t give him any reason to suspect I wasn’t planning on coming back. I was terrified, too, that the longer we were there, the more chance there was of one of us saying or doing something to arouse his suspicions and make him change his mind. So it just seemed best to do what he wanted and not waste precious time arguing with him, particularly as I knew that once he’d decided on something, his
determination was unshakeable.
In the car, Kas told me that he would book a flight for my return to Italy. ‘Four weeks should be plenty of time for you to get better,’ he said. ‘And if you give me your credit card and PIN number, I’ll have a little deposit in case you get any ideas about not coming back.’ Then his voice became cold and threatening as he added, ‘And don’t even think about giving me the wrong PIN number. Just wait and see what I’ll do to you if you try to trick me. Don’t ever think that I’m not with you or that I won’t be able to find you, wherever you go.’ And I had no doubt that what he said was true.
Steve and Mum followed us to the hotel and as Kas turned into the driveway, Steve quickly reversed his car in too, directly behind Kas’s so that he was blocking the exit. Then, almost before he’d turned off the engine, he jumped out and opened the boot, standing slightly to one side so that Kas couldn’t avoid seeing what he was doing as he moved the heavy metal snow chains to one side. He looked at Kas steadily for a moment before turning to me and saying cheerfully, ‘Right, love. You’ve got 10 minutes and then we’re leaving. Your mum and I will wait here.’
In the horrible little hotel room, Kas stood watching me while I put some clothes into a suitcase and tried not to show how frightened I was. I was acutely aware that I was throwing things into the case in the way that had previously made him so angry, and as I quickly folded a jumper, a piece of paper fell out of the pocket. Kas bent down, picked it up, glanced at it and suddenly reached out and hit me, hard, across the head with his open hand.
‘What the fuck is this?’ he shouted, slapping me again and then punching me with his tightly clenched fist.
‘I … I don’t know,’ I stammered, trying to focus on the bit of paper he was holding just a couple of inches in front of my eyes. At first, I couldn’t make any sense of the numbers that were written on it – clearly in my handwriting. And then I remembered the night when freezing cold rain had been falling steadily for hours and I’d tried to figure out whether I’d earned enough money to be able to stop work early and find somewhere dry to hide until it was time to go back to the hotel.
‘Are you trying to get me caught, woman?’ Kas hit me again. ‘You better straighten up before you come back here.’
Just play the game, I thought. Don’t say anything you wouldn’t normally say. You’ve got to make him think you’re coming back. And, as if he’d read my mind, he twisted his fingers in my hair and pulled my head towards his as he said, slowly, ‘Don’t even think about not coming back. I will find you.’ But the next moment, his arms were wrapped tightly around me and he was whispering into my ear, ‘I love you. I don’t want to be without you. Just get better and come back to me.’
A few minutes later, I walked down the stairs behind him feeling light-headed and disorientated. I still couldn’t believe he was really going to let me get into Steve’s car and be driven away. But Steve took my suitcase and dropped it into the boot, my mother almost pushed me on to the back seat, and suddenly we were speeding away from Kas, down the hill and along the road where I’d stood every miserable, lonely, terrifying night for the last six months, and I burst into tears.
Mum reached behind her seat for my hand. ‘It’s all right now, Sophie,’ she said. ‘You’re safe. It’s all over.’ I still couldn’t believe it, though. Kas had told me so many times that he had people everywhere who were watching me and that he would always know where I was and what I was doing, that I simply didn’t believe he’d just let me walk away.
As we drove through northern Italy, I stared blindly through the window of the car, trying to absorb the fact that I was no longer all on my own.
Every few minutes, my phone would ring and Kas would tell me, ‘You’re my little mouse. I miss you already. I just want you back here with me so that I can kiss you and hug you and touch your hair.’ I felt sick, and almost embarrassed for Kas. Did he really think I believed him, after everything he’d done to me? I used to tell myself he loved me, even after he’d forced me to work on the streets and it had become a ridiculous belief. I’d wanted to believe it, because unless I could suspend all logic and common sense and convince myself that he cared about me but had to pay off his debt before we could plan a future together, none of it made any sense at all.
Every time Kas phoned me in the car he asked, ‘Where are you now?’ Each time, I’d tell him that I didn’t know, and I could hear the barely suppressed irritation in his voice as he said, ‘Well, why don’t you ask your mum?’ I’d see Mum glance at Steve, who’d name some road or town we’d just passed through and I’d relay the information to Kas. What I didn’t know until later, however, was that Kas had given Steve very precise directions for the route he should take to get home, and it was those directions that Steve was using each time he told me where we were. In reality, though, he had been suspicious of Kas’s intense interest in our journey and so had taken a different route.
Neither Mum nor Steve asked me anything about what Kas had done to me, and as we drove, Mum held my hand and talked about other things. But I could tell that her cheerfulness was forced and when she looked at me, I could see in her eyes that her heart was breaking.
We stopped that night at a hotel on the Swiss border, which turned out to be a Swiss version of Fawlty Towers. It was run by a couple Steve instantly christened Fraud and Maud, who were barely civil and who served some of the worst food we’d ever tasted. When Steve asked for salad and fries to accompany his steak, Fraud looked at him as though he’d requested caviar and Cristal champagne in a McDonald’s, and we only just managed to stop ourselves laughing out loud.
Mum and I did laugh later, though, when we went to the bar and Steve – who’s very particular about hygiene – nearly passed out as we watched Fraud cut a slice of lime for his drink, drop it on the floor, pick it up, swill it briefly in some water and slip it into the glass. In fact, that night we laughed until the tears were streaming down our faces and, grumpy and humourless as they were, we were grateful to Fraud and Maud for acting like a safety valve on a pressure cooker and giving us the opportunity to release some of the emotions that had been building up inside us.
As we sat in the bar, talking and laughing, I looked at Mum and then at Steve and felt my heart swell with the love I felt for them. It had been so long since I’d had anyone to talk to that I’d almost forgotten what normality was like and I’d accepted the fact that I would never have anything to laugh about again. I hadn’t thought I’d ever feel safe again either, but I came very close to it that evening.
The next morning, we’d been driving for a couple of hours when Mum suddenly said, ‘Let’s have a singsong!’
‘No, Mum. I can’t,’ I told her. But she insisted.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘It’ll make us feel better. Don’t you remember how we always used to sing in the car when you were little?’ She turned and took hold of my hand and her voice became quiet as she added, ‘Come on, darling. It’ll be okay, I promise.’
She started to sing and first Steve joined in and then I did, and she was right: it did make us feel better, and the memory of driving through the mountains between Switzerland and France, singing at the tops of our voices, is one that will always stay with me.
Later that morning, we stopped for coffee at a ski resort, where we sat outside a café in the brilliant sunshine and Mum wondered aloud if one of the people sitting at the table next to ours might be prevailed upon to take our photograph. I was instantly engulfed by panic and I felt my eyes filling with tears as I told her, ‘No, Mum. I don’t want to have my photo taken. I don’t want a picture of me now. Please. Look at the state of me. I look disgusting.’
But Mum just reached across the table, took hold of my hands and said, ‘We will take a picture, Sophie, and one day we’ll look at it and remember this time and we’ll be able to talk about it without crying.’
‘We won’t. That time won’t ever come,’ I sobbed.
And Mum was crying too as she told me, ‘It
will, darling. I promise you it will.’
Chapter 13
I don’t know how I’d expected to feel when I was at home again, but everything seemed to have changed. In fact, it wasn’t so much that things were different; it was more that I’d become someone else and so I had a different perception of everything. I’d left home as one person, with particular experiences and views on life, and I’d returned as someone I didn’t recognise when I looked in the mirror – someone I felt ashamed to be.
It’s hard to explain, but it was as though I didn’t know how to act normally anymore, and I didn’t seem to fit in anywhere. Although I wanted to, I didn’t know how to; I became obsessed with the idea that people might be able to read the thoughts in my head, and then they’d know I was someone who’d done things so disgusting that no decent person would want to be associated with me. I know that if someone told me that what happened to me had happened to them, I’d feel sorry for them and wouldn’t blame them for one moment. Even so, I still felt as though it was all somehow my fault.
Perhaps lots of people who’ve had bad experiences feel like that, and perhaps they feel, as I did, the need to ‘get over it’ as quickly as possible so that they can pick up the pieces of their old lives and carry on. And perhaps they, too, find that their old lives have been shattered into so many pieces that that’s impossible to do. For six months, I’d had to pretend to be Jenna, but now it felt as though I was pretending to be Sophie.
However hard I tried to be ‘normal’, I remained miserable and kept thinking, I don’t want to be here, but I don’t want to be anywhere else. I don’t want to be anywhere. I don’t fit anywhere. What the hell am I going to do?
I didn’t tell anyone about what had happened in Italy. I knew Mum had decided to give me time and space before asking me about it, and although she was sometimes on the verge of saying something, she always drew back at the last moment.