Who Are You? (21 page)

‘Good health, as they say,’ she says, smiling.

Geraldine smiles back, hesitantly, and takes a large sip from her glass. Juliet notices her hands are shaking. ‘You’ve been busy, Geraldine. Curry. Alex loves your turkey curry, don’t you, Alex?’ There is nothing that Alex hates more than turkey curry. He says it reminds him of the filthy, reconstituted ration packs they lived on in Afghan for weeks on end.

‘Eat your soup, Juliet. It’ll soothe your sore throat,’ he says.

‘These Christmas bugs. Always something going round,’ Geraldine says awkwardly. ‘Have some chilli sherry, dear, that’ll help.’ Juliet notices that she’s already halfway through the glass of wine. Poor Geraldine. Juliet can’t help but feel sorry for her. She doesn’t know how to handle this.

‘I hope you don’t mind, dear, but I did the ironing. I thought it might help.’

‘That’s really sweet of you, Geraldine. But you shouldn’t have. You are on holiday, after all. You’re supposed to be having a break, not doing my housework.’

‘I don’t mind …’ There she goes again, Juliet thinks. Of course she doesn’t bloody mind. She’s had every shred of minding knocked out of her. That’s what happens. You stop fucking minding any more. One step away from I don’t care any more. Juliet takes a couple of slow, deep breaths as she feels her anger rising. She looks at the table, at the Christmas candle and the holly woven around it, and the coloured baubles that she attached so carefully with flower wire. She looks at the special Christmas napkins and the nativity scene in the window. She wants to smash it all. She wants to sweep every little bit of festive shit onto the floor and stamp all over it. She wants to screw the candle into Alex’s mouth and shove it down his throat so he can know … just a little … what it feels like to be so powerless and helpless. To understand that from now on all she can do is hate and plot. The plate of soup sits untouched in front of her. She gets hold of the bottle of chilli sherry – made by Geraldine, naturally – and splashes it onto the soup. Then she picks up her spoon and stirs it, roughly, into the beige-coloured slop. She takes a spoonful and feels a weirdly appropriate satisfaction as it burns her mouth, and then her throat. She coughs as it hits her gullet and her eyes fill with tears. She looks at Alex through her tears, and then at Geraldine, then she picks up her wine glass and downs the whole thing before setting it back on the table so hard that the glass snaps off from its stem. Then she shoves her chair back from the table, letting the legs scrape over the floorboards, and walks out of the room.

*    *    *    *    *

Ben has been sick on Juliet’s pillow, and it’s got into his hair. She takes a tissue and gently wipes his curls. His eyes remain closed.

‘Ben,’ she murmurs. ‘Ben, are you OK, darling? How are you feeling?’ His eyelashes flutter like moth’s wings and then open. He doesn’t seem to be focussing on her.

‘How’s your tummy, darling?’

Ben groans, and then whines, ‘Ooooouuw, Mummy.’

She doesn’t hear Alex come in, but suddenly she is aware of him standing there, at the foot of the bed looking at them both. He moves to the side of the bed so that he can get closer to Ben. He grabs hold of Ben’s hand and feels for his pulse. Juliet watches, wondering what the hell
he
knows. Then Alex lifts up Ben’s eyelids. He feels his forehead.

‘Juliet, he’s burning up.’

‘I know. I told you he had a temperature.’

‘Start sponging him off. We need to get his temperature down. Where’s it hurt, Ben?’ Ben points to his lower abdomen, and to his right hip. ‘It might be his appendix.’ Alex punches numbers into his phone. ‘Ambulance,’ he snaps into the receiver, and then gives out their address, Ben’s age, symptoms, Alex’s relationship to patient. Oh, good for bloody Alex, Juliet thinks, like suddenly he’s the perfect fucking father.

‘Can you get him some clean pyjamas? A couple of teddies and books that he likes in case he’s got to stay in hospital? And write down what medicine you’ve given him. Oh, and don’t forget his toothbrush, toothpaste, hairbrush. Slippers, dressing gown. In a bag. Quick as you can.’

‘Always so good at giving orders, aren’t you?’

‘Yes. Now hurry up.’

Juliet puts everything together in a holdall, and then goes back upstairs to the bedroom where Alex is still watching Ben. She starts throwing things into her handbag. Hairbrush, lipstick, iPad. Scent. Then she opens up the wardrobe and takes out a jacket.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Getting my stuff together, why?’

‘You aren’t coming with us.’

‘Of course I am. He’s
my
son. Alex, please … be reasonable.’

‘You will stay here with my mother. And
that
is an order.’ He lowers his voice to a warning growl: ‘And if you want me to force you, then I will. Understand?’ For a moment she stands her ground, raising her chin defiantly, but the feral look on Alex’s face reminds her too much of yesterday, of what he did to her, of what he is capable of. She drops her handbag.

‘Fine. Have it your way.’

He nods. ‘I’ll call you and let you know what happens.’ He bundles Ben up in a blanket and carries him gently downstairs. Juliet follows with the bag of Ben’s things. By the time they get to the bottom of the stairs, Geraldine – unable to hide her confusion – is opening the door to a pair of men in high-vis jackets. She stands aside as Alex pushes past her.

‘Oh my goodness, what’s going on. Alex? Juliet?’ Juliet watches as the rear doors of the ambulance are opened up, and Ben is handed in. She expects Alex to climb in after him, but he doesn’t. Then the doors are closed and the ambulance speeds off with its lights flashing. ‘Why aren’t you going with him?’ she calls out to Alex. ‘He’s going to be petrified in there. What the hell are you doing?’

‘I’m taking my car, and he’s in good hands. Now go back inside before you make a spectacle of yourself!’

‘Christ almighty,’ Juliet swears aloud. ‘Alex Miller. The perfect fucking father.’ She watches his car drive away, following the screech of the ambulance’s siren, and her fear for her son makes her feel sick.

Feeling defeated and both physically and mentally broken, Juliet closes the front door. She answers Geraldine’s questions woodenly, shrugging her shoulders and spreading her hands out in a gesture of helplessness. ‘Alex thinks it could be his appendix, though what the hell he knows about it...’

‘He had to do a lot of medical training, didn’t he? Poor, darling Ben. I thought it was food poisoning, or a bug. But appendicitis? Oh dear me. Poor lamb. Shouldn’t you have gone too?’ Juliet sits down at the kitchen table. She feels like bursting into tears and so she swallows hard. The fact that she hasn’t gone with Ben cuts through her like a knife.

‘Yes, I should. But Alex wouldn’t let me.’

‘Oh. A cup of tea?’ Funny how people think a bloody cup of tea will put things right, Juliet thinks. She just shakes her head, ringing her hands together, taking deep breaths and trying to stop herself from crying.

‘Look Juliet, I know it’s none of my business. Actually it is my business. You are my family – you, Ben and Alex. It’s obvious that something serious is going on – I mean apart from Ben. Otherwise you’d be with him. And those bruises, for heaven’s sake tell me what’s happened.’

Juliet’s eyes well up. ‘Honestly, Geraldine, right now the only think I can think about is Ben. I should be with him. He’ll be so afraid if I’m not there. How could Alex be so cruel? Christ, he didn’t even go with Ben in the ambulance.’

‘I’m sure he only thinks he’s doing what’s best.’ Geraldine says weakly.

‘What’s best? That’s almost funny, Alex doing what’s best. He beat me up, Geraldine. First he tried to strangle me, and then he beat me up, if you really want to know.’ Juliet isn’t ready to tell her mother-in-law about the other stuff. A sob escapes. ‘I guess he’s just like his father, isn’t he?’ she chokes on the words.

‘But Alex … I can’t believe it … he’s not violent … he can’t be … please don’t tell me he is … I have to ask this. Did you … in any way … provoke him?’

‘You mean did I ask for it? For Christ’s sake, Geraldine.’ The shock on Geraldine’s face serves only to encourage Juliet to continue. It’s like she can lash out at her instead of Alex. ‘You told me that Alex’s father was violent towards you. Did
you
ask for it? You told me that Alex even tried to intervene.’

Geraldine is crying now. She tears off a piece of kitchen roll and blows her nose. ‘It must be the Army. I can’t believe … I mean the fact that he was away at school, I believed he was safe there.’

‘Geraldine, you know what happened to Alex at school,
don’t you
?’ Juliet asks gently.

Geraldine is shaking her head, turning away from Juliet to concentrate on the kettle and tea bags and two china mugs.

‘He got buggered senseless by the headmaster.’

‘NO!’ Geraldine chokes on the word. ‘That’s not true, Juliet!’

‘It
is
true, Geraldine. He used to be called in to see the headmaster. He would ask him to take down his trousers. And then he would ask him to take down his pants. And then do you know what happened next? He would go behind Alex and start stroking his buttocks. And then he would take hold of Alex … he would take hold of Alex and then he would bugger him. And Alex had no one to tell. NO ONE.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘It’s true. And you do believe me. You know it.’ Geraldine is sobbing. Juliet is sorry for her. She goes over to her and stands behind her and places her hands on Geraldine’s shoulders. ‘It’s OK. I understand. It wasn’t your fault. It was the fault of circumstances. I dare say he wasn’t the only boy in the school. Your son is a tortured soul. A dying soul. He has had all the humanity stripped out of him.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. I’m certain that he’s suffering from post- traumatic stress disorder – combat stress. I’ve read that if you’ve had some kind of trauma in your childhood then you’re much more susceptible to it. Something to do with the wiring in your brain going wrong. But he won’t get help because to do so would be to admit that he’s weak, that he needs somebody else’s help. And maybe he’s just too terrified of what might come out if he was made to go to counselling; everything that he’s locked away for all these years. I think that’s a lot of his problem. It was all right while he was so busy fighting other people, and it’s sort of OK while he’s got me to fight, but without that the only one left to fight is himself.

‘The reason he didn’t want me to go to hospital is because people would see my bruises. Honestly, Geraldine, the pain of being separated from Ben like this is worse than being physically beaten. But if I go there, if I defy him, I’m scared of what he’ll do. I am desperate. I just feel so alone and frightened.’ She is crying and barely able to speak any more. ‘I’ve got to go upstairs …’ she says between sobs. ‘Sorry …’ She runs upstairs to the privacy of her bedroom where at last she allows her tears to fall.

CHAPTER

14

Juliet has tried to call Alex’s mobile but it went straight to voicemail. Another way to torture her. Really, there’s nothing to stop her getting into her car and going straight to the hospital. Nothing at all, except being scared of what Alex might do to punish her. In the meantime she must make use of the time that he’s out of the house to try and do something positive, to start making plans. She sends a direct message to the forum moderator, asking her to pass on Juliet’s private email address to Lil’ Miss Happy. She brushes away the thought that she could be a nutter. But what alternative does she have? She could go on to the internet and look for properties to rent but that would mean getting references – bank references and so forth – all of which would be time consuming and could lead Alex to track her down. She needs money. Maybe she could pawn some jewellery – sell it, even. Not that she had much of any value. Alex had some hideously ostentatious diamond cufflinks that had been given to him by some grateful and wealthy Arab, so those could go. He wouldn’t even miss them. And she could flog the car – except it’s registered in Alex’s name, so she probably can’t. Maybe she’s stuck with the car because even if she buys another – some old heap of a thing – she’ll still have to get insurance and that all means that she’s traceable. Basically, if you stay legal, you can’t disappear. And if she goes down the illegal route, she risks being arrested and having Ben taken away from her. So she doesn’t have any choice. If she gets somewhere remote and safe, she needs a car – she needs
the
car. So the main thing, then, is money and transport. Oh, and somewhere she and Ben can live.

Documents, isn’t that what Lil’ Miss Happy said? Make sure you’ve got all your important documents with you. Things like her and Ben’s birth certificates, passports, her national insurance number – NHS numbers – God, what else had certificates and numbers? She has to make sure that whatever she does, there is no trail left for Alex to follow. Maybe that’s why women went to the special refuges, because they were the only places where you could be guaranteed complete safety.

What Juliet must keep reminding herself of is the fact that she hasn’t done anything wrong. She is the innocent party here. She just needs to convince other people that she needs protection from her own husband.

The telephone rings. ‘Alex?’ she says straight away.

‘Yeah. The doctor thinks it could be his appendix. They’re doing blood tests, and it’ll be a while before they get the results. So I’ll just have to wait here.’

‘How’s he feeling?’ Juliet feels that she’s being eaten up inside;

poor little Ben, her baby.

‘He’s very poorly.’

‘Is he asking for me?’ She listens to the moment’s hesitation, the silence on the line between them. ‘He is, isn’t he? I want to come, Alex. I promise I’ll put some make-up on – you know what I mean.’

‘Wait there. I’ll call you when I know more.’

‘But I …’ the line goes dead. Juliet growls into the mouthpiece:

‘Fuck you!’

She Googles appendicitis in childhood and a list of sites appears. Juliet is good at speed-reading through stuff, scrolling down to pull out what’s relevant. She learns that fever, vomiting and stomach ache around the navel and perhaps spreading to the right are common signs of appendicitis. She learns that the appendix is a hollow, finger-shaped appendage in the bowel, and that it can become infected. In severe cases the infection can become so bad that it bursts. She learns that there are ways of removing the appendix which are either keyhole, using two or three holes, or a conventional surgical cut. She learns that a burst appendix is potentially life threatening as it explodes its poison into the abdominal cavity. She also learns that one must not administer medicine for constipation, because it increases the likeliness of the appendix bursting.