Dark Mirrors (10 page)

She must have fallen back to sleep because when she next opened her eyes Penny was sitting on the side of the bed, stroking her hand.

“Hi ya!” Her vocation was obvious as she adopted her genuinely concerned bedside manner.

“Hi,” came Esmée’s hoarse reply, her mouth dry and gritty.

“Here, drink this,” Penny persuaded soothingly, taking the glass of ice-cold water from the bedside locker and handing it to her, making sure there was grip in her hands before letting go of it.

“What time is it?” Esmée whispered.

“Ten after two.”

“Shit!” She tried to hoist herself up without spilling the water. “It hurts like hell . . .” Instinctively she raised her free hand to her forehead. “Who’s got the kids?”

“Don’t worry. Fin’s got them.”

“Oh God, I forgot to ring Fin!”

“No offence, sis, but that’s the least of your worries! Right now you need to relax. Anyway, we called her for you – once we got you sorted I gave her a shout.” She was smoothing out the duvet as she spoke. “Lizzie took the kids to school this morning and Fin’s taking them to hers this afternoon. She’ll drop them off later on.”

With no energy left with which to object, Esmée could do nothing but obediently finish her water under the watchful supervision of Nurse Penny. Her eyelids felt like they had weights attached and she had no strength in her neck.

“Conor gave you a sedative last night,” Penny explained, busying herself about the room, unable to look Esmée directly in the eye. “So you’ll need to take things gently for today anyway. You’re going to feel a bit groggy for a while.”

“Conor?”

So! She hadn’t imagined him. She lay back on the bed, holding her hands over her face in utter mortification.

“So Conor saw me last night,” she whimpered, embarrassed and ashamed.

“Esmée, I didn’t know who else to call,” Penny said, raising her shoulders and pleading forgiveness with her hands. “You wouldn’t go to the hospital and that cut on you head is quite deep. You needed him. To be honest, I needed him.”

She paused before tentatively pointing out the obvious. “You’ve taken a bit of a battering. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Is it bad?” Esmée asked, spreading her fingers so as to peer through them, then tentatively feeling around the edge of the bandage that covered one of her cheeks and half of her eyebrow.

“Rough enough, but you look worse than it actually is, I suppose.”

“Show me.”

Taking the small make-up mirror from the wall Penny carried it timidly over to her elder sister.

Esmée looked at the offending item for a moment as if deciding whether or not she really wanted to see. Sitting up, she took it in her hand and, bracing herself, held it up to her face. To a background of Penny’s objections, Esmée slowly peeled back the bandage.

“I need to see it,” Esmée challenged firmly. The pain as the plaster pulled at her already sensitive skin made her wince. “Ooooh, shit!” While not as bad as she had imagined, it was bad enough. A forlorn sigh said it all as she examined the damage to her face. Her left eye was a complex collection of blues, purples and crimsons. Above her eyebrow, beneath the tidy clinical dressing, a raw gash about an inch long stood out, swollen and raw, against her pale complexion. Broken veins seeped blood under the puffed skin of
her left cheek, which had been scratched and grazed by the gravel as she fell. And around her neck a thick red welt formed a perfect choker. And together they looked as sore as they felt.

“Well, that’s just great. What am I supposed to do?” Feeling each injury one by one, she looked up at Penny and desperately declared, “I can’t let the kids see me like this.”

Panic rose in her voice along with the realisation that any attempt at a superficial cover-up was pointless. She felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck and the cold spill of trepidation chase its way down her spine all the way to the extremities of her fingers and toes. Unable to stop herself, she began to shiver, casting the mirror on to the bed.

“What the hell have I done?” she asked herself aloud. “And what am I supposed to do now?”

Bringing her legs up towards her under the duvet and clasping her hands about her knees, she sank her head onto them.

“You haven’t done anything wrong,” Penny insisted, moving forward to console her, knowing that the words sounded flat and clichéd but she didn’t know what else to say right then. There was plenty she wanted to say, but wisely accepted that this was not the right moment.

Esmée felt utterly sorry for herself as well as foolish, not to mention ridiculous, but there were no tears. Just shame and a deep foreboding that whatever change she had instigated last night had reached a level far beyond her original expectations.

“I need a shower,” she said finally into the duvet.

She was determined not to be the little bird with the broken wing and, ignoring the discomfort of her movements, unrolled and extracted herself from the tempting refuge beneath the covers. When she stood, her head felt like it might float off without the rest of her body, which weighed an approximate ton. Penny steadied her, holding on until the head-rush passed.

“Do you need some help in there?” Penny asked.

“No, I’ll be fine, I think.”

“Sure?”

“Yeah, I’ll yell if I need you.”

“Okay . . . ehhh . . .”

Esmée faltered at the door, casting an uncertain bruised eye back at her sister, who seemed very uneasy, without apparent reason, and extremely reluctant to leave.

“What is it?”

“Nothing.”

“No, seriously, what?”

“Okay. Look, the Guards are downstairs – they want to try and talk to you again.”

“You’re kidding me! Right?” Esmée cried out painfully, throwing an incredulous accusing stare at her sister.

“I didn’t call them!” Penny defended herself, holding her hands up and shaking her head. “Lizzie did it last night but you weren’t in a fit state to talk, so they’ve come back today to speak to you, that’s all.” The words rushed forth, a weak attempt to exonerate herself and allocate the blame elsewhere.

“Are you crazy? Why on earth would I speak to them?”

“Esmée!” Penny implored, a little bit shocked by her sister’s attitude.

“No way, Penny, I’m sorry. I know you all mean really well, but no way!”

Using the wall as support before her trembling knees yielded to the pressure of her body, she steadied herself and felt her way into the bathroom.

Then Penny heard the bang of the door and click of the lock. Running her hands through her hair, she followed in her sister’s tracks in disbelief. Standing at the door, she knocked gently, waiting hands on hips for a reply from the far side. When none was forthcoming she spoke firmly but quietly through its timber, conscious of the two officers sitting only feet from the bottom of the stairs.

“Esmée! You have to talk to them. You can’t let Philip get away with this. It’s not right.”

The door opened with a sharp yank and Esmée motioned frantically for her to enter. Closing it after Penny, she whispered doggedly, “My God, Penny, what do you want me to say to them?” Her finger pointed through the floor to the room below. “Yes, Officer,” she said sarcastically, folding her arms in front of her, wagging her head as she spoke, “I’m the thick housewife with the madcap plan of the century for the great escape – it didn’t go quite as planned and now I’m screwed!”

“How about telling them what happened?” Penny persisted. “Tell them how you got those!” She was getting cross now and speared her index finger towards the cuts on Esmée’s face. Her frequent exposure to women just like this allowed her to see immediately that she was getting nowhere so, shifting approach and keeping her tone sympathetic but firm, she tried to penetrate the classic blank wall of resistance that her sister was fast constructing. “Esmée, for God’s sake, I see this every bloody day in work: women whose husbands go too far but who never do anything about it.” Pausing, she hoped that the weight of her professional knowledge and experience would sink in. “They don’t want to say anything either but most of them end up right back in casualty in a worse state than the last time. This can’t be you, Esmée. You have to tell them. I can’t see you like this again.”

“Penny. Let’s be clear about this.” Esmée was doing all she could to keep her cool. “There is a huge difference, because I’m not going back. Am I?”

But Penny stood firm, unconvinced, eyeballing her sister and shaking her head in incredulity.

“Look,” Esmée pleaded, exasperated by her persistence, “this is between Philip and me.” Sitting down on the edge of the bath, hoping not to faint, she tried to explain her point of view. “What he did was wrong. It was scary and, yes, it was vicious. Yes, I feel like shit and I have no intention of letting him get away with it.” Gripping the white sides of the bath to steady herself, she wished Penny would understand and just back off. “But I’ll deal with this in my own time and in my own way.” She held on and focused into a stubborn stare. “I told him I was leaving him, taking his kids away for heaven’s sake. Is it any wonder he went berserk?”

Casting professionalism aside, Penny snapped back. “That’s no bloody excuse, Esmée Myers, and you know it! But if that’s what you really think, well, you tell that to them because I don’t buy it.” And, throwing one last stinging glare, she swung the door open and slammed it after her.

Esmée understood that Penny was upset, almost on the verge of tears. She’d be the same, worse even, if she were in Penny’s shoes – but she didn’t think she could face the humiliation of talking about what had happened. In a mere few hours she had been robbed of her dignity, her pride had been crushed and she felt disgraced and mortified. And now, dealing with all that, she was expected to stand in front of strangers and expose herself? And for what? What was the goal? More humiliation? Public acknowledgement that she had failed her husband, herself, her marriage, her family, her children? Penny must be delusional.

Throwing off her pyjamas she stepped into the shower and turned the dial to maximum. Facing the hot spray she let the hard drops rain down on her. It really did sting like hell but she didn’t care. She stood there for an age, not caring about her two unwanted visitors waiting below, and let the water spill over her, breathing in the steam, feeling it tighten in her chest. Despite her long sedated sleep
she was emotionally weary and physically drained. She tried to halt the relentless whys that continued to rush through her head.

Why did it spin out of control like that? Why didn’t she listen to her mother?

Why did she have to challenge him like that? Maybe if she’d approached it differently it wouldn’t have ended the way it did. Why did he have to hit her? She knew he’d be pissed off, but why this?

Why? Was it love that drove him to it? Or was it that he cared nothing for her at all, that he wasn’t remotely concerned about the certain repercussions. Turning, she let the spray pelt her tense shoulders, dropping her head till her chin touched her chest.

He had never been aggressive to either her or the children before, so why now?

What had changed?

Was it always there? Hidden deep beneath the charming façade in some veiled abyss of his soul?

Was she responsible for unleashing it?

Or perhaps it was something else?

If so – what?

And what of her two visitors downstairs, no doubt waiting impatiently, Penny probably reluctant to let them leave despite any protestations? Maybe they were occupying themselves by deviously probing her over-eager little sister, their casual questions cloaked in innocence in an attempt to get as much out of her as possible.

What the hell was she supposed to do next? There was too much noise in her head and she just couldn’t think, couldn’t hear for all the static. It had to stop. She could feel her pulse increase and temperature rise. Immediately the lightness of her head intensified. With no way out of this ridiculous situation she was trapped, lost in a vast bleak corridor of locked doors with a useless fist of keys and a choice: one chance – pick the right one, or else. Confused, angry and caged in this beautiful waterproof cell, the once therapeutic vapours now suffocating her, she needed to get out. Fumbling, she felt for the shower controls and flung open the doors to gasp violently at the cold air outside. Dropping to the wet floor, she breathed deep and allowed her beating heart to settle back to an even pace. She had no idea how long she lay there. She was sure her delay would be seen as avoidance by her visitors. But she didn’t care. Picking herself up and wrapping the towel around her, she knew she was cornered. Armed with nothing more than a rolling mental sequence of questions she had no option but to get dressed, go downstairs and face the music.

Chapter 8

Composed and dressed simply in dark-blue fitted jeans, loose white shirt and mixed blue scarf tied protectively around her neck Esmée descended the stairs quietly. She paused for a minute on the last step to see if she could decipher the whispers coming from Penny and the two plainclothes police officers, a man and a woman, who sat waiting for her to appear.

As she rounded the newel post of the stairs all three stood to immediate attention, like schoolchildren greeting the headmistress, mugs in hand, feet firmly together.