by H S Chandler
She looked up at James Newell, that part of her tale complete.
‘He never hit me,’ she added, looking at Imogen Pascal. Part of the deal Maria had made with herself was this. She wouldn’t lie about anything Edward had done. No exaggeration, no creativity. She didn’t need to. All she needed to do was omit. ‘He didn’t need to get violent when he could get me to cut myself. Sometimes it felt like a punishment, other times it was more of a reward. Most of the time it was when I’d argued with him and he needed to feel in charge again.’
‘How often did you cut yourself during the marriage?’ her barrister asked.
‘Sometimes once a month. During the worst times it was once a week. They got … deeper.’ Maria ran her hands down over her thighs, feeling the dappled landscape even through the material.
‘How else did Mr Bloxham control you?’
‘It was incremental,’ Maria said pinching the bridge of her nose as a migraine tried to blacken the edges of her vision. ‘The first night I cut myself, he told me in bed that I wasn’t coping properly and he didn’t want me to go back to work. No notice period, no explanation. He phoned my employer the next morning. I didn’t fight him. I was so confused at having self-harmed again that I thought he might be right. I wasn’t sure I could deal with any stress given what he’d told me about Andrea as well.’
‘What about your marital finances? Who handled those?’ Newell asked.
‘He did, of course,’ Maria gave a tiny laugh. ‘I didn’t earn any money after that so he said it was best to close my bank account. Edward did the shopping on the way home, then later in our marriage he had it delivered when he’d be at home.’
‘By the end of your marriage, what contact did you have with the outside world?’
‘None,’ Maria replied smoothly. ‘He made sure I had no one to run to.’
‘And the intimate aspects of your marriage?’ James Newell asked quietly. The courtroom was so silent, Maria decided she could have heard a feather drop, never mind a pin. Was it really so fascinating, hearing the grotesque details of a person’s private life? Bloodshed was captivating, but apparently sex was what really made people sit up and listen.
‘For the first year, like everything else, it seemed relatively normal. Could I get more water please?’ The usher hurried over with a fresh jug and refilled her glass. ‘When things started to change, his requests seemed playful. At first it was just putting a blindfold on me and asking me to stay quiet. I was okay with that. I figured lots of people had those sorts of fantasies. Sometimes he wanted me to act scared.’
‘Could you be more specific?’ Newell prompted.
Maria rubbed her eyes with her good hand. It was draining. The remembering, the retelling, reliving it all. ‘He wanted me to ask him to stop, to be kind, not to hurt me. But he didn’t get … you know … really seem to enjoy that. He never seemed satisfied. That was when he tried something new.’
‘Which was?’ Newell asked.
‘Having me lie with my face into the pillow.’ Maria could feel the blood draining from her face. Her vision was fuzzy and the air felt thin. ‘He had strict rules. No talking. No movement. The first time, he was more excited than I’d ever seen him.’
‘I’m sorry to have to ask for details, but what exactly did he do to you?’
Maria closed her eyes and told it as quickly as she could. There was no point dragging it out.
‘I would be naked, roll onto my stomach. He would take his time opening my legs, taunting me. Sometimes he spoke, sometimes he didn’t. Then he would lie on top of me. He was heavy, only I wasn’t allowed to complain. That was against the rules. He used to get very angry about that. When he was ready, he would have sex with me. It could be hard to breathe so I learned to take long deep breaths whenever I could. If I broke the rules, he wanted to start all over again and it just took longer. Even after he’d finished, I had to lie there completely still and quiet until he said I could move.’ She raised a hand to her throat, parched in spite of the water. There were tears on her face that hadn’t been there a minute ago. Maria didn’t allow herself to look at anyone else in the courtroom. She didn’t want pity.
‘Ms Bloxham,’ Newell was practically whispering. ‘Did you consent to having sex like that?’
‘I objected occasionally, then I learned not to. It wasn’t worth it. His moods were so unpleasant afterwards. Soon I just put up with it, like everything else. I didn’t like it. I didn’t want it – didn’t want him. But I didn’t fight him off. If I was good, he let me cut myself afterwards.’
‘I see. And did you—’
‘There was one other thing,’ Maria interrupted him.
‘Go on,’ Newell encouraged her.
‘Afterwards, when he got off me, he liked to lie by my side and stare at my face. He gave me one extra instruction then. He liked me to have my eyes open, not to blink, no facial expression allowed. Everything had to be slack.’
‘As if you were dead?’ James Newell asked. The air in the courtroom was electric.
‘I object. Mr Newell is leading the witness,’ Imogen Pascal leaped into action.
Maria was in no mood to let the prosecutor take the moment.
‘Just like I was dead,’ Maria confirmed. ‘Almost as if he had killed me.’
Imogen Pascal sat back down. She had intervened too late, and she knew it. It was all Maria could do not to smile.
Newell waited a few seconds then cleared his throat before beginning again. ‘Now, Ms Bloxham, could you explain exactly what happened the day you were arrested?’
There was an audible out-letting of breath from people around the courtroom. They were relieved not to have to hear any more details of her sordid sex life. Maria didn’t blame them. If she could have her own memory wiped, she would. Tipping her head back to stare at the ceiling, she registered the damp hair at the nape of her neck and the tension in her shoulders. The jury shifted in their seats before the next set of revelations began. DI Anton leaned over the desk to whisper in Imogen Pascal’s ear.
‘All right,’ Maria said, happy to be on the home stretch. ‘I’ll tell you about that day.’ It had begun, like all life-defining days, she supposed, exactly the same as any other. ‘Edward went to work in a foul mood. One of my tasks was to respond to what he called his fan mail. He said I hadn’t written long enough letters, and there was a spelling error in one. I had to handwrite them and sometimes I ran out of things to say. Anyway, he wanted them all redone.’
The reality of Edward’s fury was both more chilling and more subtle. The days when he was happy had been few and far between in the past two years. Maria knew why. As much as Edward had been the agent of his own misery, she still got the blame for it. There were no more tenterhooks. She had submitted to him completely. The sense that her life couldn’t get any more meaningless had liberated her from the nervous wreck she was through her mid-thirties. She had no further to fall, and that knowledge was like valium. Maria spoke only when spoken to. She never fought, never argued. Every rule was complied with. Sometimes in the evening she would find that she’d sat and stared at a blank wall for an hour or two without any sense that time had passed.
‘Before he left,’ she told the jury, ‘he told me I needed to recognise how lucky I was. He said he’d be generous if I got all his letters perfect, and let me have access to the blades that night, as he was sick of me moping around. For the last five years of our marriage he’d hidden them. He said he was concerned that I’d attempt suicide if I wasn’t supervised. Two cuts, he said that morning. For some reason he’d decided I was allowed a double treat. Only he knew my legs weren’t up to that. By telling me before he left, he was ensuring I’d spend all day thinking about it. I did, too.
‘I spent the morning cleaning, doing washing, the usual chores. I spent a bit of time in the garden but not much as I knew the letters would take me two or three hours. As I sat down at the kitchen table to start writing, I felt blood trickling down the outside of my thigh. A r
ecent cut had pulled apart. The scar tissue was too damaged to knit together any more. That was when it dawned on me. I wasn’t going to heal. I went to the bathroom and poured surgical spirit on the open wound. I barely even felt it sting. I remember wanting to just rip the skin off my legs and let it bleed.’
Maria looked at James Newell who met her eyes calmly. She was doing all right. Imogen Pascal had her head buried in a file. DI Anton was sitting chest puffed and arms folded. It didn’t matter what she said, he would never believe her.
‘Did you dress the wound?’ Newell asked.
‘Three times,’ Maria confirmed. ‘Each time it just bled through the dressings. By the time I finally got it to stop, I knew I couldn’t risk cutting myself any more and even if I did, it was pointless. It had stopped making me feel better months earlier. It was just a spectator sport for Edward. I’d only carried on cutting because it was easier than explaining to him that I no longer wanted to. I’d finally hit rock bottom.’
The courtroom was too hot. The air conditioning was whining with effort and Maria couldn’t find any fresh air to breathe. She allowed her eyes to close for a few seconds. DI Anton tutted. Even with her eyes shut, Maria knew from the direction of the sound and by the tone that it was him.
‘I didn’t want to die,’ she said. ‘In spite of how unhappy I was and how hopeless I felt, I wasn’t ready to let go of life right then. But I knew, not just imagined or suspected, I knew he wouldn’t stop until I was dead. There was nothing left of me to break or control. I did everything I was told …’ as far as Edward knew, Maria added in her head. ‘All that remained was for him to watch me die, a blade in my hand, on the bathroom floor. I wasn’t sure how much longer he was prepared to wait, but he was encouraging me to cut myself more and more often. That morning, when he told me I could cut myself twice, I knew he was hoping for something extraordinary. He was driving me towards death. Edward knew I couldn’t cut myself safely any more. The truth is, I was scared that I might just give him what he wanted. It would have been declared a suicide, but that was never how it felt to me. My choices were to run away from him knowing he’d have me committed, or to stay and have him drive me to self-harm until I finally bled out.’
Maria forced herself to look towards the jurors to finish her story. This was their moment, what they’d turned up for day after day in the stifling heat. James Newell had told her to address them in the most personal way as she could.
‘I tried to do a good job answering his letters but I was jittery. I drank endless cups of tea trying to calm myself down, telling myself I’d imagined the edge in his voice, checking every now and again to see if the wound on my leg was scabbing over, but it just got more painful as the afternoon went on. I was thinking up ways to placate him. The house was immaculate. I was even wearing clothes I knew he liked, and I’d made sure my hair was neat and tidy. There was steak in the fridge and I’d peeled the vegetables. I know it sounds as if I was carrying on as normal, but I didn’t know what else to do. I was trying to persuade myself that everything was fine, but it wasn’t. There was a clock counting down inside my head. I could already feel the blade in my hands. Edward would be sitting on the bed, giving instructions and offering advice. As he got more excited, he would stand in the bathroom doorway for a better view.’
Maria looked at the judge who was leaning forward, her chin in her two hands, elbows on the desk.
‘He hated me,’ Maria said. ‘That’s what it took me years to figure out. I don’t know why. I never got to the bottom of it, and I would never have dared ask what made him the way he was. But he had nothing but contempt for me. Perhaps that was my fault. Maybe what he really needed was a woman who would stand up to him. If that’s right, then he picked the wrong partner. That day, though, I could feel his hatred like a cold wind through the house.
‘Edward came home early. He did that once every few months but usually when he had particularly good news and wanted to tell me all about it, a television appearance or a mention in a national newspaper, something like that. Those days he was chatty when he came through the door. He liked me to sit in the lounge and hear the details, blow by blow. That day he must have sat in his car a while before coming in. I heard the gates open and the tyres on the gravel, but the front door didn’t open for a good few minutes.’
Lie.
‘When he did finally come in, there was an edge to him. He was tightly wound and gleeful, but not in a positive way. I was hoping I’d misread it, waiting for the announcement that he’d got a new book deal or stopped a greenfield building project from happening. I remember standing in the hallway, wishing he’d say something. When he smiled it was as if there was nothing left alive inside him.’
Truth.
‘He didn’t explain why he was early so I covered his silence with what I had planned for dinner. I was in the middle of washing up the tea cups in the sink, so I went back into the kitchen to stop him staring at me. When he took his jacket off, I could see sweat rings on his shirt at his armpits. That was unusual for Edward. He was obsessive about hygiene, so whatever he’d been doing that day must either have been either very strenuous or he was more excited than I’d ever seen him. I think that was the final straw. I knew I wasn’t imagining why he was home so early. If I had to describe it, I’d say it felt like a grand finale. I know that sounds dramatic …’ Maria gave the judge a look, ‘but it was as if he was waiting for something big to happen.’ Her Honour Judge Downey gave her an encouraging nod.
‘I did what I could to calm the atmosphere. I began showing him the letters I’d rewritten. I asked if he’d like me to read them out to him after dinner for his approval, but he wasn’t interested. After that I offered him coffee, or an early glass of wine. I’d had his favourite red breathing since lunch time so he wouldn’t have anything to complain about. He declined that too. I remember him going to the kitchen sink and scrubbing his hands with hot water as if he was preparing for something. I kept the conversation going but it was one way. He was practically ignoring me.’
Another lie. Perhaps the biggest so far.
‘I said I might do another hour’s gardening to get out from under his feet. It occurred to me that I might be safe if I could just get outside. He stared as if he hadn’t heard me. His face was flushed and he was breathing fast. Not like he was ill, more like an athlete firing up the adrenalin before a high jump, if that makes sense. Eventually he said, “No gardening this afternoon.” That was it. His decision. I wasn’t to go through the back door. So I asked if he’d like his dinner early, said I could start cooking immediately.
‘He told me to stop fussing and that I needed calming down. That was when I looked at the kitchen clock, and I wondered what time my death would be recorded. I wasn’t sure how long Edward would leave it before calling an ambulance.’
Not a lie, only borrowing from a different timeline. Maria had looked at the kitchen clock so many times wondering what the circumstances of her death would be. Every time she cast the net of her imagination, it ended in blood. That time, for the first time, the blood she was imagining wasn’t hers.
‘It was no surprise when Edward told me he would see me up in the bedroom. In fact, it was almost a relief, you know, that I hadn’t been going crazy and imagining it all day? If he hadn’t told me to go upstairs, I’d have been waiting all night to see what he had planned. It was the confirmation I needed of his intent and I felt those blades calling. Edward knew it, too. He must have seen the look on my face, because he smiled genuinely for the first time since coming through the front door. I was close enough to him to see his pupils dilate.’
True. Absolutely true.
DI Anton, arms folded behind his head, let out a huff of laughter. The judge glared at him. The jury, as one, didn’t move an inch. Every eye was fixed on her. Imogen Pascal turned her head just enough give the police officer the evil eye. Not out of courtesy to me, Maria thought. Just to avoid the disapproval of the judge, and perhaps the press. Miss Pascal was
all about the image. It didn’t matter any more. Maria was nearly through her part in the charade, for better or worse, and if she screwed up now, DI Anton’s attitude would be the least of her troubles.
‘I knew I couldn’t do it again. I couldn’t sit on that bathroom floor and let Edward feed off my pain and misery. If I didn’t cut in the wrong place, I would end up cutting too deeply or just …’ she took a deep breath, her eyelids fluttering as the memory of what might have been tried to swallow her, ‘… just slice the blade across my neck and be done with it.’
‘Are you suggesting you were at the point of committing suicide, or that you knew continuing to cut yourself at that point was putting your life at risk?’ Newell asked.
‘Either. Both.’ Maria shook her head. ‘Edward believed I’d lost the will to live. I had no self-worth left, no joy, no purpose. He’d achieved his goal. I think he expected me to kill myself. He certainly knew that the damage to my legs was bad enough that continuing to cut was a real danger.
‘I was conflicted at that point. There was this voice inside me saying Edward deserved to be left explaining to the police how his wife had bled to death on the bathroom floor. Only he was too clever for that and he knew it. He’d have said he was on the phone, or on his computer, or in the garden. There would be a reason why I was dead before the paramedics could get there. And it dawned on me then how well it would feed into his love of publicity. Poor Dr Edward Bloxham, whose mentally ill wife committed suicide, leaving him to find her body on the floor of their bathroom. Poor Dr Bloxham who had been so stoic for so many years, coping with his deranged wife. Poor Dr Bloxham who would need consoling. He would also need another wife. There was no way he was going to cook and clean for himself. That was the thing. If I killed myself he’d simply have filled my shoes and while that wasn’t my problem, the thought of me escaping only to leave another woman walking straight into his trap, to endure what I had … I couldn’t do that. He wanted me dead.’ She paused. ‘Actually that’s not entirely accurate …’ She had practiced this line in her head a thousand times waiting for the trial. She knew exactly how it needed to be delivered.