Page 50 of Behind Closed Doors
‘Then it is the perfect punishment for inviting Janice in the first place.’
‘Please, Jack, no,’ I plead.
‘I do so love it when you beg,’ he sighs, ‘especially as it has the opposite effect that it’s meant to. Now, up to your room—I have a party to prepare for. Maybe it’s not such a bad idea after all—at least once people have actually met Millie, they’ll be even more impressed by my generosity.’
I let my shoulders slump and drag my feet as I walk up the stairs in front of him in what I hope is a perfect picture of dejection. In the dressing room, I take off my clothes slowly while my mind looks for a way to distract him so that I can take the pills from my shoe and hide them somewhere on me.
‘So, have you told the neighbours that as well as having a manic-depressive wife, you have a mentally retarded sister-in-law?’ I ask, slipping off my shoes and beginning to undress.
‘Why would I have? They’re never going to meet Millie.’
I hang my dress back up in the wardrobe and take my pyjamas from the shelf. ‘But they’ll see her in the garden, when she’s having her party,’ I say, putting them on.
‘They can’t see into our garden from their house,’ he points out.
I reach for the shoebox. ‘They can if they’re standing at the window on the first floor.’
‘Which window?’
‘The one that overlooks the garden.’ I nod towards the window. ‘That one over there.’ As he turns his head, I crouch down, place the shoebox on the floor and pick up my shoes.
He cranes his neck. ‘They wouldn’t be able to see from there,’ he says, as I prise the tissue from my shoe. ‘It’s too far away.’
Still crouching, I tuck the tissue into the waistband of my pyjamas, place the shoes in the box and stand up.
‘Then you’ve got nothing to worry about,’ I say, putting the box back in the wardrobe.
I walk towards the door, praying that the tissue won’t slip from its hiding place and spill pills all over the floor. Jack follows me out and I open my bedroom door and go in, half expecting Jack to pull me back and demand to know what I have stuffed into my waistband. As he closes the door behind me, I don’t dare believe that I’ve actually managed to pull it off, but when I hear the key turning in the lock, the relief is so great that my legs give way and I sink to the floor, my whole body trembling. But because there’s always the possibility that Jack is only letting me think I’ve got away with it, I get to my feet and slide the tissue under the mattress. Then I sit down on the bed, and try to take in the fact that I’ve achieved more in the last fifteen minutes than I have in the last fifteen months, acknowledging all the while that, if I have, it’s thanks to Millie. I’m not shocked that she expected me to kill Jack because murder is commonplace in the detective stories she listens to and she has no real idea of what it means to actually kill someone. In her mind, where the line between fact and fiction is often blurred, murder is simply a solution to a problem.
PAST
That first time, I was ashamed of the way I clung to Jack when he finally came to let me out of the room in the basement. It had been a long, terrible night, made worse by the knowledge that I had helped make it the nightmare it was. Until then, I’d had no real idea what he intended for Millie. I knew that fear would be a part of it, but I had been confident that I would be able to protect her from the worst of it, that she would be able to run to me, that I would be with her at all times. Even though Jack had told me he wanted someone he could hide away, it had never occurred to me that he meant to keep Millie locked up in a terrifying room in the basement so that he could feed off her fear whenever he wanted. To know the extent of his depravation was bad enough, but the fear that he would leave me there to die of dehydation, like Molly did, that I might not get out in time to save Millie, broke me—which was why, when he eventually unlocked the door the next morning, I was almost incoherent with gratitude, promising that I would anything, anything, as long as he didn’t take me down there again.
He took me at my word and turned it into a game. He began setting me tasks he knew I would fail so that he would have an excuse to take me down to the basement. Before I hit him with the bottle, Jack would let me choose the menu for the dinner parties we gave and I would choose dishes that I’d cooked many times before. From then on, he imposed the menu on me and made sure the dishes he chose were as complicated as possible. If the meal wasn’t perfect—if the meat was a little too tough, or the fish a little overcooked—he would take me down to the room once our guests had gone and lock me in overnight. I was a fairly confident cook, but under such pressure I made stupid mistakes, so much so that the dinner where Esther and Rufus had been invited was the first time everything had gone smoothly in five months.
Even when we went to friends’ for dinner, if I said or did anything that displeased Jack—once, I couldn’t finish my dessert—I would get taken down to the basement as soon as we got home. Aware that my fear had a potent effect on him, I would try to remain calm, but, if I did, he would stand on the other side of the door and, his voice hoarse with excitement, tell me to imagine Millie in there, until I begged him to stop.
PRESENT
It’s the day of Millie’s party. Just as I’m beginning to think that Jack is never going to come and let me into the bedroom next door so that I can get ready, I hear him coming up the stairs.
‘Party time!’ he says, throwing open the door. He seems so excited that I wonder what he has up his sleeve. But I can’t afford to worry about it. Although I’m happy with the progress I’ve made over the last two weeks, it’s important that today, of all days, I keep calm.
I go into my old bedroom and open the wardrobe, hoping that Jack will choose something pretty for me to wear in honour of Millie’s birthday. The dress Jack picks out for me was already a little big for me, so when I put it on it highlights how thin I am now. I see Jack frowning, but, as he doesn’t tell me to change out of it, I guess it’s my appearance in general that concerns him. My face, when I look in the mirror, looks gaunt, making my eyes seem enormous.
I put on a little make-up and, when I’m ready, I follow Jack downstairs. He has prepared the lunch we are to have with Millie and Janice, and has had caterers prepare the food for the party this afternoon rather than allow me to make it, as I had wanted. It all looks perfect. He checks the time on his watch and we go into the hall. He types a code into the keypad on the wall and the front gates whir open. Minutes later, we hear the sound of a car approaching. Jack walks to the front door and opens it just as Janice brings her car to a stop.
Janice and Millie get out of the car. Millie rushes towards me wearing a pretty pink dress with a matching ribbon in her hair while Janice follows at a more leisurely pace, looking around her, taking everything in.
‘You look lovely, Millie,’ I tell her, giving her a hug.
‘Love house, Grace!’ she cries, her eyes shining. ‘Is beautiful!’
‘It certainly is, ‘Janice says admiringly, coming up behind her. She shakes Jack’s hand, then mine.
Millie turns to Jack. ‘House beautiful.’
He gives a gracious bow. ‘I’m very glad you like it. Why don’t we go in and I’ll show you around. But perhaps you’d like a drink first. I thought we could have it on the terrace, unless you feel it’s too cold.’
