Page 41 of Behind Closed Doors
‘You know, I have never questioned who I am,’ he says thoughtfully as he helps me off with my coat. ‘But tonight, for a split second, when I was holding you in my arms, when everybody was commiserating with us about your miscarriage, I had a taste of what it was like to be normal.’
‘You could be!’ I tell him. ‘You could be, if you really wanted to be! You could get help, Jack, I know you could!’
He grins at my outburst. ‘The trouble is, I don’t want help. I like who I am, I like it very much indeed. And I’ll like it even better in seventy-five days’ time, when Millie comes to live with us. It’s a shame we won’t be going to see her tomorrow—I’m almost beginning to miss her.’
‘Please, Jack,’ I beg.
‘Well, I certainly can’t let you off for your appalling lack of restraint tonight so if you want to see Millie tomorrow, you know what you have to do.’
‘You couldn’t stand that I didn’t fall into your pathetic trap, could you?’ I say, realising that he had set out to upset me during the dinner by mentioning Millie coming to live with us.
‘Pathetic trap?’
‘Yes, that’s right, pathetic. Couldn’t you come up with anything better than shading words in a book?’
‘You really are becoming too clever for your own good,’ he snaps. ‘Whichever way I look at it, you need to be punished.’
I shake my head pitifully. ‘No, I can’t. I’ve had enough. I mean it, Jack, I’ve had enough.’
‘But I haven’t,’ he says. ‘I haven’t had nearly enough. In fact, it hasn’t even begun for me. That’s the trouble, you see. The nearer I get to having what I’ve been waiting for for so long, the more I crave it. It’s got to the point where I’m tired of waiting. I’m tired of waiting for Millie to move in with us.’
‘Why don’t we go back to Thailand?’ I say desperately, terrified he’ll suggest Millie moves in with us sooner than planned. ‘It will do you good—we haven’t been since January.’
‘I can’t—I have the Tomasin case coming up.’
‘But you won’t be able to go once Millie comes to live with us,’ I point out, eager to consolidate my position, needing to keep Millie safely at school for as long as possible.
He gives me an amused glance. ‘Trust me, once Millie comes to live with us, I won’t want to. Now, get moving.’
I start shaking so much that I have difficulty walking. I make my way to the stairs and put my foot on the bottom step.
‘You’re going the wrong way,’ he says. ‘Unless you don’t want to see Millie tomorrow, of course.’ He pauses a moment to make it sound as if he’s giving me a choice. ‘So what’s it to be, Grace?’ His voice is high with excitement. ‘A disappointed Millie—or the basement?’
PAST
After what Millie had told me about Jack pushing her down the stairs, the pressure to get away from him intensified. Even though I’d made her promise not to tell anyone, I couldn’t be sure that she wouldn’t suddenly blurt it out to Janice, or even accuse Jack to his face. I don’t think it had occurred to him that she might have realised her fall was more than an accident. It was easy to underestimate Millie, and presume that the way she spoke was a reflection of the way her mind worked, but she was a lot cleverer than people gave her credit for. I had no idea what Jack would do if he discovered that she knew very well what had happened that day. I supposed he would dismiss her accusations as quickly as he had dismissed mine and suggest that she was jealous because he and I were now together, and was trying to break us up by making false accusations against him.
The only thing that kept me going through that bleak time was Millie. She seemed so at ease with Jack that I thought she’d forgotten he had pushed her down the stairs, or at least had come to terms with it. But whenever I told myself it was for the best, she would trot out what was fast becoming her mantra, ‘I like you Jack, but don’t like Jorj Koony,’ as if she knew what I was thinking and wanted to let me know that she was keeping her side of the bargain. As such, the pressure to keep my side of it grew and I began to plan my next move.
After what had happened when I’d tried to get the doctor to help me, I decided that next time, the more people who were around, the better it would be. So when I felt ready to try again, I pleaded with Jack to take me shopping with him, hoping that during the course of the trip I’d be able to get help from a shop assistant or member of the public. As I got out of the car, I thought my prayers had been answered when I saw a policeman standing only yards away from me. Even the way Jack held on to me tightly when I tried to break free lent weight to the fact that I was being kept prisoner and, when the policeman came hurrying over in response to my cries for help, I honestly thought my ordeal was over, until his concerned words—‘Is everything all right, Mr Angel?’—told me otherwise.
My behaviour from that point on confirmed what Jack had thought to tell the local constabulary some time before, namely that his wife had a history of mental problems and was prone to causing disturbances in public places, often by accusing him of keeping her prisoner. As Jack held my flailing limbs in a vice-like grip, he suggested to the policeman, in full hearing of the large crowd that had gathered, that he come and see the house that I called a prison. As the crowd looked on, whispering about mental illness and throwing Jack looks of solidarity, a police car arrived and, while I sat in the back with a policewoman who tried to still my tears of despair with soothing words, the policeman asked Jack about the work he did on behalf of battered women.
Afterwards, once it was all over and I was back in the room I had thought never to see again, the fact that he had so readily agreed for me to accompany him on the shopping trip confirmed what I had already worked out in Thailand, which was that he derived enormous pleasure from allowing me to think I had won, then snatching my victory away from me. He enjoyed preparing the ground for my downfall, rejoiced in his role as my loving but harassed husband, delighted in my crushing disappointment and, when it was all over, took pleasure in punishing me. Not only that, his ability to predict what I was going to do meant that I was doomed to failure from the start.
It was another three weeks before I saw Millie again and Jack’s explanation—that I had been too busy with friends to visit—hurt and confused her, especially as I couldn’t tell her otherwise with Jack constantly at our sides. Determined not to let her down again, I began to toe the line so that I could see her regularly. But, rather than please Jack, my subservience seemed to annoy him. I thought I had got him wrong, however, when he told me that because of my good behaviour he was going to allow me to paint again. Suspicious of his intentions, I hid my delight from him and gave him a list of what I needed half-heartedly, not daring to believe he would actually bring me what I was asking for. The next day, however, he duly arrived with pastels and oils in a variety of colours, as well as my easel and a new canvas.
‘There’s only one stipulation,’ he said, as I rejoiced over them like old friends. ‘I get to choose the subject matter.’
‘What do you mean?’ I frowned.
‘You paint what I want you to paint, nothing more, nothing less.’
I looked at him warily, trying to weigh him up, wondering if it was another of his games. ‘It depends what you want me to paint,’ I said.
‘A portrait.’
‘A portrait?’
