The Back Road (23 page)

‘When did it start, Penny? Is this a recent thing?’

Letting her arms fall to her sides, Penny looked up to the sky, as if that would stop the tears from falling.

‘We hadn’t been married long. We got married when Gary was at university. He was doing his architect training - you’ve probably heard about that. He says I was the reason he failed his exams, but it’s not true. He was obsessed with me. I hadn’t wanted to get married so young, but he was insistent. He didn’t want anybody else to have me. And then I got pregnant. I didn’t want to tell Gary because I didn’t want to distract him from his finals. I decided to tell him on the night of his results - a double reason to celebrate, I thought.’

Penny gulped back the tears and wiped her eyes. She lowered her head and looked at Leo.

‘But he failed. He was so desperately disappointed, but I couldn’t believe it when he blamed me. He said it was my fault that he’d failed - he was spending too much time looking after me, and not enough time on his studies. He started to hit me. And then he got me on the floor and he kicked me. He didn’t know I was pregnant, though. It wasn’t his fault.’

Leo could feel this poor woman’s pain.

‘Penny,’ Leo said gently, ‘it’s not about whose fault it is. It’s not about blame. It’s about stopping it happening again. One of the first steps is admitting that it
is
happening, and you’ve done that now. Does Ellie know?’

‘No. Nobody knows. As I said, he rarely hits me. He likes to pinch me - not only on my arms. His favourite place is…’ Penny paused and mopped her streaming eyes with the now soggy tissue. Leo fished in her bag for another one and passed it over without a word.

‘He likes to pinch the underside of my breasts. And it hurts, Leo. It really, really hurts. I’d rather he hit me, if I’m honest. But nobody sees, and I have spent the last few years of my life learning not to cry out when he does it. But it only happens when something has upset him. It’s just that in the last few weeks, especially this last week, he seems more upset that usual. That’s why. It’s not always so bad.’

Leo didn’t know how she was going to get Penny to stop excusing Gary’s behaviour, and she knew better than to ask about the child that Penny had been carrying. If this had been when Gary finished his training, both their girls were far too young, so she could only assume that Penny had lost the baby. Leo felt a strong desire to inflict some bodily pain on Gary herself, and she knew exactly where she would like to hit him.

‘Do you have any idea why Gary’s more upset this week? Has he told you?’

Penny’s head dropped to her chest, but there was the slightest nod. Leo waited.

‘It’s another woman.’

Leo felt a heaviness in her chest. Could this get any worse?

‘Has he
told
you that he’s got another woman?’

Penny didn’t react for some time, but she was clearly trying to find the words - words that would somehow make the situation seem better than it was.

‘There have been times over the years that Gary has needed another interest. He gets bored easily, and sometimes that interest has been another woman. I’ve always known, and he hasn’t tried to hide it. I can’t explain, Leo. It’s too difficult.’

Leo stood up and made her way into the kitchen. She was going to fetch Penny a glass of water, and give her a bit of space. If she’d never admitted any of this in the past, the pain must be ripping her in two.

By the time she returned, Penny had wiped her eyes and put her sunglasses back on. Leo placed the glass on the table, and sat down.

‘You don’t have to tell me, Penny. I know this must be almost impossible for you. But I think you have to tell somebody. If you don’t want it to be me, I’ll find you somebody who can help. That’s a promise.’

Penny gave a half laugh and blew her nose.

‘I can’t do this again. Now that I’ve started, it would be easier to tell you, if you don’t mind.’

Resting her hands in her lap and sitting up straighter, as if to give herself strength, Penny unleashed a torrent of words, spoken quickly as if that way she could get it over with as fast as possible.

‘The trouble with Gary is that he likes the chase. He loves to woo women, and he loves them to be bowled over by him. He’d got me, and not only was I his, but he was able to treat me any way he wanted, and I never complained. How sad does that make me? But in the early days, each time he was horrible, I withdrew a bit from him, and he had to woo me back to being in love with him. And then it would all start again; I would withdraw some more, and he would court me. It was a cycle, but when he was trying to coax me back to loving him, he was amazing. In the early days, each time he turned nasty I would start to think of leaving, and then he would lay on the charm. He brought me flowers, jewellery, took me out, cooked for me - you name it, he did it. He became a gentle and considerate lover, instead of demanding what
he
wanted all the time. And then when I was his again, he would gradually start to have the odd mean moment. It was as if he wanted to see how far he could push me.’

Penny stopped and took a sip of water. Leo didn’t move. She wanted nothing to distract Penny. It was almost as if by telling this tale, she was seeing Gary for the first time. She put the glass down.

‘Eventually, it stopped working. I neither withdrew, nor could I be wooed. It was always just more of the same, and I was no fun anymore. But by then, we had children. I’ve never worked. Not really. If I left Gary, I have no idea what I would do. I’m not a strong person who’s organised enough to find somewhere to live, pack up everything for the girls and move out. And he doesn’t do it all the time - usually he stops when he has a distraction. That’s where the other women come in. He woos them until he wins them. He chooses the most difficult people because then it will take time for him to succeed. You know how good looking he is. And he can be so charming. Those flowers that we brought to Ellie’s on Saturday night - you should have seen the care he took in selecting them from the garden. They were all our flowers, not bought ones. He said he wanted every bloom in the bouquet to be absolutely flawless - we had to impress our rich friends. So he spent ages selecting each one. That’s how he used to be with me - always making sure that everything he did for me was perfect.’

‘What makes you think he’s got a new woman now, if he’s still being aggressive with you?’ Leo asked.

‘Because I don’t think this relationship is going to plan. I don’t think she’s falling under his spell. She’s resisting, and he’s taking it out on me.’

‘But how do you know this if he hasn’t told you?’ Leo asked, with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

‘I told you the other night that I don’t take a sleeping pill if Gary’s out. He doesn’t know, though. I always pretend to be fast asleep, and I know he thinks I’m dead to the world. On Friday, he was out until very late. It was after one o’clock when he got in, and he was in a foul mood. I pretended to be asleep, but he stomped around the bedroom and banged the bathroom door with such force that I thought it was going to come off its hinges. I knew he’d been with a woman. Nothing else would make him so mad.’

31

The hospital canteen was busy, but fortunately there was nobody there that Ellie knew well, so she was able to grab a corner table and sit by herself to have her break. The progress that day with Abbie had pushed all other thoughts to the back of her mind until now. She was so pleased that the girl was showing signs of recovery and the doctor was talking about taking her off the ventilator the next day, if all went well.

The story of how Abbie had been abducted was infinitely more disturbing, though. The village had always seemed such a safe place to live. Apart from what had happened to Fiona, of course - but that was different. Ellie had lived in Little Melham all her life, and knew practically everybody. Suspicion would be rife everywhere, and she could only imagine the havoc it was wreaking in some households as doubt was cast on the integrity of friends and neighbours.

So had this person abducted Abbie and then knocked her over? Perhaps they thought that an accident might hide the abduction. She had no idea, but she hoped and prayed that this wasn’t anybody she knew.

She wanted, more than anything, to be able to talk to Max about it. He knew kids of that age so much better than she did, and he might understand how it could all have happened. But she wasn’t sure she wanted to talk to Max at all. The thick, heavy sensation of sorrow settled at the back of her throat again.

Max. She had never wanted anybody else. Even when he was away at university, she had waited patiently until he was ready to make a commitment. Max had thought that it would be better if they were free to see other people, but even though she’d tried, nobody had lived up to him. As a student nurse she’d had a great social life, but it was common knowledge that she was only interested in Max Saunders. And he had been worth the wait. At least, until now.

Ellie couldn’t help feeling that she had already been abandoned by one man she’d loved and she couldn’t bear to be abandoned by a second. Much as she held out hope that her father’s disappearance was a foolish mistake that he’d regretted ever since, or that her mother had driven him away, the pain of realising all those years ago that he wasn’t coming back had been so acute, she was certain she couldn’t cope with that again. And this would be so much worse.

If she confronted Max, what would that gain? If he denied it, would she believe him? If it really
wasn’t
true, it would expose a weakness – a lack of trust – that might forever drive a wedge between them. And if it
was
true, she would give him the very opening he needed to say he was leaving.

No. She was going to fight, and her best weapon was silence.

The problem with Max was that subterfuge was never his thing. She always knew exactly what he was going to buy her for every birthday and Christmas. He seemed to think that if people couldn’t see him, they couldn’t hear him either, and he always overlooked the fact that they both used the same computer, so browser history was often an unintentional giveaway. She couldn’t help a small smile when she thought of some of the ‘secrets’ that he had failed to keep. The smile faded though, as the thought occurred to her that perhaps she would have preferred it if he
had
been able to keep a secret this time.

If it hadn’t been for that bloody Mimi, she would never have suspected anything. She’d even had a go on Saturday night, for God’s sake. It was as if she hated to see them happy, and wanted to disturb the balance of their lives.

She couldn’t ignore the fact that Max had been withdrawn lately. Not all the time; he could still clown around and be his usual silly self, but she sometimes glanced at his face and saw him gazing into the distance, as if he were present in body but not in mind.

Her thoughts drifted to the last few weeks, and the distance between them in bed. He often pretended to be asleep when she got into bed now, and that was so unlike him. And one night, after she had persisted, they had made love - but Max had eventually stopped.

‘It’s not working, Ellie. I’m sorry,’ he’d said. ‘I guess I must have drunk too much wine with dinner.’

She’d cuddled him, and told him it didn’t matter. But they both knew that he hadn’t drunk very much, and they both knew it was nothing to do with alcohol. He hadn’t wanted to talk about it, so she had tried to be extra affectionate. But it had been like cuddling a plank of wood. Perhaps the problem
was
her. Maybe he didn’t find her attractive anymore.

Ultimately though, it was when Mimi told her about the conversation she’d overheard in the pub between Max and Alannah that the damage was really done. It was exactly as she had told Leo that morning.

‘You’d be surprised what barmaids hear, you know. People treat us as if we’re invisible most of the time, until they want a bloody drink, that is. But you’d better be careful,’ Mimi had said. ‘I don’t know what Max and that PE teacher were whispering about, but I did hear Max say, “I can’t tell Ellie. We need to wait until everything is in place - when it’s too late for her to stop it”. I didn’t know what to make of it, but I thought I should tell you.’

Ellie had tried to make a joke of it, saying Max was probably getting Alannah to help him with a housewarming present or something. And she might have believed it herself, if it hadn’t been for the following day.

It was the day before they were due to move in, just a few short weeks ago. Max had promised to meet her at the house at lunchtime, but he had cried off at the last minute with an excuse. An excuse that wasn’t true. He’d lied to her, and she’d found him out. All of which meant that maybe Mimi was right. There
was
something going on.

The agony of realising that Max had found somebody else had been so acute, she would have done anything to dull the pain. She had lain down on the floor in the empty sitting room and curled into the tightest ball she could manage in a vain attempt to ease the aching inside.

And then… Ellie didn’t want to think about what had happened next. Her distress was so profound that she had made a terrible mistake; one that she regretted more than she could say. But she wasn’t being allowed to forget it.

The vibration of her phone in her handbag brought her back to the present. The ring of the phone or a buzz of a text had always been a good moment; maybe it would be Max or Leo phoning for a chat, or a friend with an invitation to dinner. But now, every time her phone made a sound she was filled with dread. Each time she walked to her car she was scared of who she might find there, and even opening the front door was torture.

She’d not had time to think of the awful text she had received yesterday and what it could mean. But she was fairly certain it was
him
. Nobody else knew what had happened between them, or that they had met on Friday night. So it was just a trick to make everything seem even more unstable than it already did - if that were possible.

Ellie ignored her phone and put her head down on folded arms. She wanted to cry, but no tears would come. All she could do was think of the utter hopelessness of it all.