Runaway Wife (26 page)

“The first time he tried to rape you?” Shona asked her, appalled.

“No, the first time I fought back.”

•  •  •

By the time Maddie returned with Shona’s shoes, Rose was in the shower, the hot water riveting into her, scalding her white skin and imprinting it with red welts. Shona was standing by the bed, her mouth set in a thin grim line, her fists still clenched. As Maddie approached, she literally forced herself to unclasp her fingers, prising a smile onto her face as she took the shoes and slipped them on.

“Jenny doesn’t like you wearing shoes inside,” Maddie reminded her. “Where’s Mummy gone?”

“Mum’s just jumped in the shower,” Shona said. “So I said I’d tuck you in and put the telly on for you for a bit.”

“Can I do drawing?” Maddie said, wielding the outsize sketchbook that John had given her that afternoon. As soon as she had caught on to the idea of drawing what she saw around her, she had become obsessed with it, and the book was already filling rapidly with really quite accurately executed sketches of the countryside, sheep, trees, rocks, teapots, shoes, books, and even John. It was the first time in her life Maddie had discovered something she was naturally good at, and she was loath to give it up for something as mundane as sleep or even the treat of television in bed.

“Go on, then,” Shona said with a shrug.

“Can I draw you?” Maddie persisted.

Shona sighed, glancing anxiously at the closed bathroom door and sitting down heavily on the bed. “OK.”

Just then Rose’s mobile phone sounded from underneath the dressing table. Maddie and Shona both stared at where the noise was coming from, neither making a move to retrieve it.

“Should we . . . ?”

“Just leave it,” Shona said. “If it’s important they’ll leave a message.”

•  •  •

Rose had no idea why she couldn’t cry. She wanted to, she could feel it there like a heavy stone embedded in her chest, the grief over what she had endured for so many of her married years, but it would not be dissolved by tears. Richard’s abuse of her had not been constant, nor daily, nothing like the grueling regime of violence some women lived under for so long.

There had been rare, sporadic attacks, if that was what they could be called, that came months apart, a year apart once. For the most part, after Maddie was born Richard showed no sexual interest in her at all, as if once she had borne him a child Rose had become less than the perfect flawless girl he’d first admired, and she had been secretly relieved. Their adult married life had been less than passionate, to say the least, first making love a week or so before the wedding. Inexperienced and clumsy, Rose had been tense and uncertain, and Richard had done his best to be kind. Although he was so much older than her, he didn’t seem to know enough to put her at her ease, or ignite any more emotion in her than sheer nerves and uncertainty. And yet it had been a sweet union, the first time, and one that Rose remembered feeling was full of love. Richard so wanted her to be his alone, his wife, his lover, and she had felt cherished and safe for the first time in a very long while. How ready she had been to marry him, how gladly she went down the aisle, alone, without anyone to give her away and not a single relative on her side of the church. And that was how those first almost featureless years of their marriage had passed, Rose unaware of how Richard gradually controlled more and more of what she did, whom she knew, where she went, or even how she thought or felt, so willing was she to trust in him. And their sex life wasn’t ever earth-shattering, but neither was it unkind or cruel. After years of marriage, it petered away to once or
twice a month, and Rose, who never felt any kind of desire other than to please her husband, was content with that, letting him always take the lead. And then she became pregnant.

Richard was furious with her, more angry than Rose could have imagined, even if she had suspected that this was how he would react, which she hadn’t. Happily, she went to him one evening with her news, sitting at his feet as he watched the ten o’clock news in his favorite armchair, and told him, with a small quiet smile, that they were to become parents.

His anger was shocking and disorienting. How had it happened? he demanded. Why wasn’t she taking her pills? Did she think she could trick him into something she knew he never wanted? Bewildered, Rose said she wasn’t sure how it happened, there had been that time she’d had food poisoning a month or so ago, perhaps then, but anyway, did it really matter?

Pushing her away from him, Richard got up and paced the floor furiously, telling her that now nothing would be the same. It wouldn’t be just the two of them anymore; she would not be his perfect unspoilt girl anymore. There would be a mewling brat constantly demanding attention from her. A child would change everything and force them apart. He did not want to be a father; he’d made it clear from the start that he never wanted children.

Rose sat on the floor watching him, baffled and upset, her idea of what this moment would be like utterly shattered. Unable to recall the moment Richard had told her his opinions on parenthood, she asked him to remind her.

“If I’d wanted you to become pregnant,” he told her, “I would have told you. That should be enough.”

And then he picked up a bottle of port from the drinks cabinet and took it upstairs to the bedroom. Rose curled up on the sofa for a long time after that, uncertain what to do
next, shocked by his last words. Gradually it dawned on her that the man she married was more than merely protective, adoring, concerned. Until that moment she’d always rather enjoyed knowing that she belonged to him, like some precious possession, that was until she realized that was exactly how he saw her: his possession, his to direct in all things—what she should wear, do, eat, cook, think, and now whether or not she should get pregnant—and she had been complicit in allowing him to treat her this way. She’d willingly let him take complete control of her without even realizing it.

Shuddering with icy cold as the truth of her life dawned on her in one moment of awful clarity, Rose realized she felt like an interloper in her own home, her house of which she had happily signed half over to her husband on their wedding day. At least he hadn’t mentioned abortion, not yet, and Rose didn’t think that he would. The local medical network was too small and too insular for him to want to force her to a clinic locally. It came as something of a shock to Rose to realize that the idea of Richard forcing her to abort their baby was horrifying, frightening, but not altogether surprising. He was utterly capable of doing just that. The question was, would he?

The very last scales dropping from her eyes, Rose sat upright on the sofa, wrapping her thin arms around herself and wondered how to adjust to living in this new world, this birdcage, that Richard had created for her, now that she was aware of the bars. At least now she had a focus, a purpose that was her own. She must think of what she could do to protect the baby, protect herself, to keep Richard happy and at arm’s length. She had to find ways to placate him, please him, make him see that a baby would be an asset, not a disadvantage. She stared up at the ceiling, where she could hear Richard shifting in bed. Should she go to bed now, be meek and apologetic, deferential and willing? Would he even want
her there? Perhaps it would be better to stay out of his way until he called down for her? Rose sat on the edge of the sofa, watching the ceiling and listening for sounds of movement until eventually the house fell quiet and she was almost certain that Richard was asleep. Her heart in her mouth, she tiptoed into the bedroom and undressed in the dark, slipping into bed beside him with the minimum of disturbance. Only the sheer exhaustion of early pregnancy dragged her off to sleep, and even then she dreamt all night of what terrors the morning might bring.

What she had not expected was Richard’s silence, his complete refusal to acknowledge her with a look, a touch, or a word, which was somehow worse than if he’d screamed and shouted at her.

Richard didn’t speak to her for weeks after that night, unable to look at her changing body or forgive her for what she had done. And it was at the height of her isolation, her punishment for unwittingly disobeying him, that one morning a kind, softly spoken young man came to the door and asked her about her father. That hour with Frasier became her one bright spot, her beacon shining in impenetrable darkness, the memory that, whenever she recalled it, which was often, gave her another layer of resolve. Resolve that one day, life for Rose and her baby would not be like this.

For a while Rose wondered if Richard might leave her after all, leave her free to get on with life alone with her child, and the prospect didn’t frighten her as much as she might have expected. Except that the moment Maddie was born, he fell in love with his new image of being a proud father, drunk on his own godlike powers of creation to bring this tiny, screaming, mostly angry little being into the world. Perhaps it would be a new beginning, Rose hoped, as Richard fussed over her and their baby. Perhaps it would be a clean slate and life could
go on as it had before—better, perhaps, because Richard would pour all his love and attention onto their child and leave Rose herself alone. But that hope ended a few months after Maddie was born and Richard noticed his wife again.

Exhausted, Rose had just got Maddie off to sleep one evening. She was a difficult baby who seemed rarely to sleep, and when she did it was never deeply. She never fed for long, or seemed very satisfied, and she cried persistently, as if even at that age she was aware of the injustice of her situation. Resting her in the bassinet beside the bed, Rose breathed a quiet sigh of relief, looking forward to a much-needed half hour or so of rest. And then Richard came into the room and looked down at the sleeping baby.

“She gets in the way a lot, doesn’t she?” he said, not unkindly. “It’s been months since we’ve . . . you know.” He sat next to Rose on the bed, putting his arm around her and kissing her neck.

“Richard . . . no,” Rose said, taken off guard by his sudden interest in her. The months since Maddie had been born could in no way be described as restful, but Rose had grown used to Richard’s lack of interest in her, allowing herself to believe that perhaps she had overreacted before, that perhaps his behavior at the news of her pregnancy was understandable if extreme, and that now life, while it might never be happy—happiness being an elusive dream that Rose had caught the merest glimpse of during her hour with Frasier McCleod—could at least be tolerable. Rose so wanted to believe her own scenario that she shrugged him off with utter disinterest. Later she realized that had been a mistake.

“I’m so tired, I thought I might get a little sleep now while I can,” she told him with a weary smile.

“Come on,” Richard said, pushing her back onto the bed.
“It’s been so long, Rose. You don’t want me to look elsewhere, do you?”

“It’s just she’s only just gone to sleep,” Rose whispered anxiously. “And anyway, don’t you think it might be too soon? The stitches, and . . . I’m just not sure I’m ready yet.”

“It’s been well over six weeks, there’s no excuse,” Richard said, his intention set like stone in his expression as he tugged her top up round her neck. “I want you now.”

Pinning her to the bed, he did not let her move until he was done, not even when the baby started crying. And from that moment on, when he came to her, as rare and unpredictable as it was, it was always that way. It was always by force.

Rose did her best not to show him any sign of resistance because she knew that he preferred it if she did. The trouble was that Richard also knew she couldn’t bear him to be near her, she couldn’t stand him touching her. And knowing that was enough satisfaction for him. It wasn’t about sex, Rose realized quite soon. His desire for her had not increased in the slightest; if anything it was less now than it had ever been. No, it was that he had found another way to control her, a way that she couldn’t predict or escape, plan to avoid or put off. And it was then, with Maddie crying in her Moses basket, as Rose stared up at the ceiling waiting for him to be finished, that she realized somehow, one day, if she were to do the best she could for herself and her daughter, she would have to find the courage to leave him.

“A
ll I’m saying is, I know people,” Shona said as soon as they managed to find a moment together alone to talk the next day, which was just after Jenny had tried her best to stuff them all with an enormous Sunday roast. Rose had come upstairs on the pretense of fetching something, and Shona had followed her, closing the door behind her as she entered the room. Maddie was downstairs, drawing Brian, who was asleep in an armchair, his mouth open, his snores rattling the rafters, which Maddie found highly amusing.

“Hired assassins, you mean?” Rose asked her, casting about for something to fetch and settling on a tube of lip salve, before sitting next to Shona on the bed.

“Faces, sorts,” Shona said, adding to, rather than clearing up, any ambiguity. “Blokes who’ll do what needs doing.”

“So you’re suggesting I get Richard killed?” Rose asked her, raising an eyebrow.

“Ssh.” Shona looked around as if she thought that Rose’s bedroom might be bugged. “I’m just saying, if that was what you wanted I could get it done. Fuck it, I’ll do it myself if I get my hands on him.”

“It’s fine,” Rose said, as if she herself was a little surprised by the news. “I’m OK, Shona.”

“You’re not.” Shona shook her head adamantly. “How can you be after what the brute did to you?”

“Is it worse than what Ryan does to you?” Rose asked her.

“A million times!” Shona said. “Ryan is stupid, thoughtless, self-obsessed, and idiotic. But he’d never force himself on any woman. What Richard did to you . . .”

“At least he never physically hurt me, not really. Not until that last day. And before that, when he . . . he did it because he hates me. I think he’s probably hated me for a long time, and knowing that . . . it doesn’t make it better, but it makes it bearable. Because I’m starting to see that physical . . . you know . . . it’s nothing like what Richard did to me. It’s an entirely separate thing. I might never ever want to do it, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that now I understand why Richard did what he did, I can escape it, be free of his hold on me. He hates me, and knowing that is an incredible relief. It makes everything so much simpler.”