The Banishing (11 page)

She walked over to the large, office window and pressed her face against the cool glass. The rain had eased, but the sky didn’t look healthy. It looked like it was promising more bad weather. “I shouldn’t have come to you. It wasn’t fair to Mark. Or you. You don’t know Mark, so you could never have helped. I was just…I suppose, the day I came to you, I was desperate. Desperate enough to cling to the idea that someone could give me an explanation…that somebody could tell me why things like this happen. Why good people turn bad.”

Josh didn’t move. He remained on the sofa, but she could feel his eyes on her. She felt like she was on show, under a microscope. She hated that feeling.

“Good people don’t normally turn bad without a reason, Melissa. Your husband needs help. I made a promise to you that day we met that I would keep everything confidential, but I need to know you’re going to do something. I can’t stand the thought that you’re going to go home to that man day after day, and that he’s doing God-knows-what to you.” His voice was firm, tainted with anger, and Melissa instinctively knew his anger was directed at Mark. For what he had done.

She turned to him, folding her arms across her chest. She forced a smile. “It’s sweet that you care.”

Josh held her gaze for a moment, but then looked away. “You’d have to be cold-hearted not to. Nobody deserves to be hit. Can I ask you, has he done more? Was that just one of many?”

Melissa paused, not knowing how to answer. She barely knew this man, and he wanted to know it all, to know everything. It felt both reassuring and frightening all at once. If Mark knew she was there—with another man, talking about him—he would blow up. “He has a temper problem, like I said,” she reiterated.

“That means it’s not the first. I presume it won’t be the last. You need to get help.” The sudden conviction in Josh’s voice startled her.

“Help how?” Melissa rasped. Josh made it sound so logical, sensible, easy. He was forgetting about the fact that it was her
life
. Her husband. Her happy marriage. Her security.

Josh lifted himself from the sofa and went over to her. He stood in front of her, reached out, and tilted her head up so that she was looking into his eyes. “What about the police? They would organize a mental health assessment, see if he is ill, and see what sort of help he needs. Melissa, he can’t carry on like this.”

She felt tears form in her tired eyes but forced them away. “I’m scared,” she said finally, shaking her head.

“I know.”

“I need more time. If it carries on, I will get help. I promise, but just not yet.”

“Are you going to wait for him to hurt you, again?”

Melissa said nothing.

Josh took a step closer to her, reached out, and pulled her toward him. It was only a hug, a simple cuddle, but it was the safest Melissa felt in a long, long time.

Chapter Fourteen

She promised to stay in touch with Josh. She couldn’t understand why he cared so much, why he seemed so worried, but she trusted that it was genuine, and she couldn’t help but respond to that. There weren’t too many people in the world who would care in that way. It impressed her, in a sense. She had left with the agreement that if things got much worse, she would call him. He had given her his work and mobile numbers. Josh also made her promise that if she felt she was in serious danger, she would call the police. Immediately.

If it came to it.

What Mark subjected her to over the last few months was more than enough already, but Melissa felt on some deep, instinctual level that there was more to the change she was seeing in him.

What it was, she didn’t know. Not yet. She knew she was not going to give up on getting some answers, because Mark meant too much to her to just let things go.

Melissa was on her way home, weaving her way on the roads. Her hands were clutching the wheel so tightly, her knuckles were pure white. She felt angry. The feeling was almost new to her, alien. Melissa had always been somebody who people thought of as calm, collected, somebody had even once called her shy. Although, she wasn’t shy. She just wasn’t interested or good at making menial, small talk with people she barely knew or cared about. She didn’t feel comfortable with the feelings she was experiencing, now.

She was pissed off. More than she ever felt before. It felt like she was pissed off at everyone.

Josh was trying to be kind and helpful, but all he did was insist she call the police. Sharon was much the same: scrape Mark off, get out.

Didn’t they understand that her marriage meant something to her?

Then, there was Mark. The one who caused all of this shit to begin with. Her thoughts churned inside her mind, and she felt her body tense. She took a deep breath and tried to quell the frustrations within herself.

The truth was, Melissa knew, the sensible thing would be to get out. To just walk away. Plenty of women did that. Plenty of women walked out on their men for a lot less than what she was going through—men who turned into uncaring slobs. Men who didn’t make the effort, anymore. Men who had affairs. This was heavier, scarier than any of those things, yet she still felt something urging her to stay with Mark, to try and sort it out. To help him.

Was it denial, or was there a real reason to stay?

The thought occurred to her that she was becoming one of those women—the kind you saw on talk shows. Battered women who looked like victims. They wore scars across their skin and sold their excuses of why they couldn’t walk away from their marriage.

Is this what I’ve become?
Melissa thought.

Is Mark any different from any other man who hit their partner? Or was she just hoping Mark has a good reason, a good excuse. Melissa didn’t want to have to face the realization that she had fallen in love with a monster.

Her Mum had said something once, and it was coming to the surface of her mind as she drove. Something she said just before Melissa’s wedding day. “Be as sure as you can be, because the man you marry today won’t be the man you’re married to in ten years.” It sounded like an ominous warning, and Melissa had brushed it off at the time, dismissing it as one of her Mum’s subtle digs. She had never liked Mark much. From the day they met, which was about five weeks after they started dating, her Mum had taken an instant dislike to Mark.

Melissa never understood it. Mark was the perfect gentleman. He brought wine with him to dinner at her parents’ home, charmed her mother with compliments about how he now understood where Melissa had gotten her good looks. Compliments. Safe, witty jokes. Things that Melissa thought any parent would be impressed with, but not her Mum. After meeting Mark a few times—she had reserved saying anything at all about Mark until Melissa pushed her into it—she had finally given Melissa her honest appraisal.

“He is
too
nice.” Melissa remembered falling into fits of laughter, saying that her Mum was the only woman in the world who would dismiss a man her daughter was in love with on the grounds that he was “too nice”.

Her Mum’s face had grown serious, despite the hilarity Melissa had fallen into, and said, “So, you love him, then?”

Melissa told her she did. Mark was a good man—good to be around—and they loved each other.

Her Mum had simply nodded, told her she hoped that Melissa was making the right choice, and returned to washing the dishes.

That had been that. Her mother hadn’t said a bad word about Mark, but the truth had passed between them that day. Her Mum wanted more for Melissa.
The man you marry today won’t be the man you’re married to in ten years.
The words now burned themselves into her mind and stubbornly remained there. The words were probably nothing more than a parent who was always dissatisfied with who their daughter brought home. Weren’t parents supposed to be like that?

It had come true, though
, Melissa thought.

She pulled the car into the driveway and switched off the engine. It scared her to realize she had been completely lost in thought during the entire drive home. She had been locked in her head, imprisoned.

She sat there, her eyes staring at the house, as the car settled into silence.

Not even ten years
, Melissa thought with a pang of sadness. Five years of marriage, and I don’t recognize him, already.

The phone in her jacket pocket beeped and vibrated against her thigh. She reached in and pulled it out. It blinked at her, the small screen a bright, luminous yellow.

ONE MESSAGE RECEIVED

Melissa flicked through to the phone inbox. It was Sharon.

“Hi, it’s me. How are things? That guy from the psych department asked for your number. Hope you don’t mind, but I gave it to him. Isn‘t bad on the eye, is he? Call me today. X”

Melissa threw the phone back into her bag, grabbed her keys, and went inside the house. It was just after one, so Mark wouldn’t be home for at least two or three hours. She would at least try to enjoy what time she had on her own before he returned. Some cold pizza from the take away, maybe a glass of wine. Give Sharon a call. For a while, she would try and suspend the shadow that was darkening her life, and act as if everything was normal.

Even if it was an act, it was better than falling apart, disintegrating. She had to hold things together.

* * * *

“What the fuck is this about?”

Melissa’s eyes snapped open, and disorientated from being jolted so suddenly awake from the deep sleep she had fallen into, she felt momentarily stunned. Unable to speak.

Mark loomed over her as she lay across the sofa, and she sat up, rubbed her heavy eyes, and pulled hair away that clung to her sweaty face. He was standing over her, his shadow moving across her face, and she knew at once that he was heaving with anger. Mad.

Her mind raced. Her body clenched, frozen, as if bracing for something. “What’s wrong?” she asked. She wondered if he was still pissed off about their phone call. She knew she shouldn’t have pushed it by mentioning what he had done the other night.

He didn’t move, but simply stood there, staring down at her. “I’ve been working since yesterday. I am tired.”

“I know,” Melissa said, looking up at him. “You should get some rest. Maybe I could run you a bath, and—”

“Fuck the bath,” he spat, his face reddening.

“Mark, what’s wrong?” She was suddenly frightened by what she saw in his face. When he was angry like this, she barely recognized him. His eyes darkened, and his skin flushed into an angry red. He was somebody else. Completely.
He looks like somebody else entirely,
Melissa thought, trying to hold back the tidal wave of panic rising fast within her.

“What’s wrong?” he repeated, and then laughed. It was a menacing laugh. Whatever was funny was purely his own joke. “I’ve been working. Working for you. For us. This house.” He motioned with his hand to the room around them. “This fucking house. The house
you
wanted.”

Melissa shook her head. “The house
we
wanted. You wanted it, too.”

Mark carried on, as if her words never reached his ears. “This is what I come home to.” He moved aside, pointed his hand across the room.

The empty pizza box was on the ground, open, tomato ketchup smeared across the inside. A bottle of wine—she wanted to treat herself to a nice afternoon, so she’d had two glasses with her lunch—sat on the table next to her empty glass. The magazine she’d been reading was on the floor, left open at the page she was on. “This fucking mess. And
you
,” he said, turning back to her, his voice rasping with hatred, “are lying down, sleeping in the middle of the day. I married a fucking slob!”

In some weird, almost out-of-body moment, Melissa felt herself snap. Something came loose inside. A voice in her head warned her to stop, but it was too late. She lifted herself from the sofa, stood up—her body stiff—and looked Mark in the eye. “I had lunch over a magazine and a glass of wine, and you call me a slob? You’re out of your fucking mind, Mark! You need help! Seriously, you need help. You can’t keep doing this to me. I won’t let you, not anymore. I want to help you, but I have my limits.”
I will leave. I will go.
Her thoughts, which Melissa didn’t entirely trust, pierced her mind. A voice inside egged her on, imploring her to get away. To just go.

Mark said nothing. He stood there, his eyes fixed on hers. He communicated far more than any words could convey. Melissa almost winced as she saw the look of pure rage stir beneath the surface of the glassy eyes staring at her. She felt terrified then and regretted saying anything. What she had done was nothing more than throw another log into an already burning fire.

“
I
need help?” he said at last, inching closer to her.

Melissa could smell coffee on his breath...and cigarettes.
Since when had he started smoking
, she thought? She said nothing, thinking that saying nothing would be better than digging herself further into his fury.

“I take care of you. I work hard. I bring in money. You bring
shit
to this house. You do
nothing
. You don’t clean. You don’t cook, anymore. You’re useless. When was the last time we had sex? You’re not even good for
that
, anymore.”