Aftermath (5 page)

The waiter came over and Maggie asked Lucy if she would like a cappuccino. Lucy said she’d never had one before and wasn’t quite sure what it was, but she would give it a try. Maggie asked for two cappuccinos. When Lucy took her first sip, she got froth on her lips, which she dabbed at with a serviette.

‘You can’t take me anywhere,’ she laughed.

‘Don’t be silly,’ said Maggie.

‘No, I mean it. That’s what Terry always says.’ She was very soft-spoken, the way Maggie had been for a while after she had left Bill.

Maggie was just about to say that Terry was a fool, but she held her tongue. Insulting Lucy’s husband on their first meeting wouldn’t be very polite at all. ‘What do you think of the cappuccino?’ she asked.

‘It’s very nice.’ Lucy took another sip. ‘Where are you from?’ she asked. ‘I’m not being too nosy, am I? It’s just that your accent . . .’

‘Not at all, no. I’m from Toronto. Canada.’

‘No wonder you’re so sophisticated. I’ve never been any further than the Lake District.’

Maggie laughed. Toronto,
sophisticated
?

‘See,’ said Lucy, pouting a little. ‘You’re laughing at me already.’

‘No, no, I’m not,’ Maggie said. ‘Honestly, I’m not. It’s just that . . . well, I suppose it’s all a matter of perspective, isn’t it?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘If I were to tell a New Yorker that Toronto is sophisticated, she’d laugh in my face. The best thing they can say about the place is that it’s clean and safe.’

‘Well, that’s something to be proud of, isn’t it? Leeds is neither.’

‘It doesn’t seem so bad to me.’

‘Why did you leave? I mean why did you come here?’

Maggie frowned and fumbled for a cigarette. She still cursed herself for a fool for starting smoking at thirty when she had managed to avoid the evil weed her whole life. Of course, she could blame it on the stress, though in the end it had only contributed more to that stress. She remembered the first time Bill had smelled smoke on her breath, that quick-as-a-flash change from concerned husband to
Monster Face
, as she had called it. But smoking wasn’t that bad. Even her shrink said it wasn’t such a terrible idea to have the occasional cigarette as a crutch for the time being. She could always stop later, when she felt better able to cope again.

‘So why did you come here?’ Lucy persisted. ‘I don’t mean to be nosy, but I’m interested. Was it a new job?’

‘Not exactly. What I do, I can do anywhere.’

‘What is it?’

‘I’m a graphic artist. I illustrate books. Mostly children’s books. At the moment I’m working on a new edition of Grimm’s fairy tales.’

‘Oh, that sounds fascinating,’ said Lucy. ‘I was terrible at art in school. I can’t even draw a matchstick figure.’ She laughed and put her hand over her mouth. ‘So why
are
you here?’

Maggie struggled with herself for a moment, stalling. Then a strange thing happened to her, a sense of inner chains and straps loosening, giving her space and a feeling of floating. Sitting there in the Victoria Quarter smoking and drinking cappuccino with Lucy, she felt an immediate and unheralded surge of affection for this young woman she hardly knew. She wanted the two of them to be friends, could see them talking about their problems just like this, giving each other sympathy and advice, just as she had with Alicia back in Toronto. Lucy, with her gaucheness, her naïve charm, inspired a sort of emotional confidence in Maggie: this was someone, she felt, with whom she would be safe. More than that; though Maggie may have been the more ‘sophisticated’ of the two, she sensed that they shared more than it appeared. The truth was difficult for her to admit to, but she felt the overwhelming need to tell someone other than her psychologist. And why not Lucy?

‘What is it?’ Lucy said. ‘You look so sad.’

‘Do I? Oh . . . Nothing. Look, my husband and I,’ Maggie said, stumbling over the words as if her tongue were the size of a steak. ‘I . . . er . . . we split up.’ She felt her mouth drying up. Despite the loosened bonds, this was still far more difficult than she had thought it would be. She sipped some more coffee.

Lucy frowned. ‘I’m sorry. But why move so far away? Lots of people split up and they don’t move
countries
. Unless he’s . . . oh, my God.’ She gave her cheek a little slap. ‘Lucy, I think you’ve just put your foot in it again.’

Maggie couldn’t help allowing herself a thin smile, even though Lucy had touched upon the painful truth. ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘Yes, he was abusive. Yes, he hit me. You can say I’m running away. It’s true. Certainly for a while I don’t even want to be in the same country as him.’ The vehemence of her words when they came out surprised even Maggie herself.

A strange look came into Lucy’s eyes, then she glanced around again, as if looking for someone. Only anonymous shoppers drifted up and down the arcade under the stained-glass roof, packages in hands. Lucy touched Maggie’s arm with her fingertips and Maggie felt a little shiver run through her, almost like a reflex action to pull away. A moment ago, she had thought it would do her good to admit to someone, to share what happened with another woman, but now she wasn’t so sure. She felt too naked, too raw.

‘I’m sorry if it embarrasses you,’ Maggie said, with a hard edge to her voice. ‘But you
did
ask.’

‘Oh, no,’ said Lucy, grasping Maggie’s wrist. Her grip was surprisingly strong, her hands cool. ‘Please don’t think that. I asked for it. I always do. It’s my fault. But it doesn’t embarrass me. It’s just . . . I don’t know what to say. I mean . . .
you
? You seem so bright, so in control.’

‘Yes, that’s exactly what I thought:
How could something like that happen to someone like me
? Doesn’t it only happen to other women: poor, less fortunate, uneducated, stupid women?’

‘How long?’ Lucy asked. ‘I mean . . .?’

‘How long did I let it go on before I left?’

‘Yes.’

‘Two years. And don’t ask me how I could let it go on for so long, either. I don’t know. I’m still working on that one with the shrink.’

‘I see.’ Lucy paused, taking it all in. ‘What made you leave him in the end?’

Maggie paused a moment, then went on. ‘One day he just went too far,’ she said. ‘He broke my jaw and two ribs, did some damage to my insides. It put me in hospital. While I was there I filed assault charges. And do you know what, as soon as I’d done it I wanted to drop them, but the police wouldn’t let me.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t know what it’s like over here, but in Canada it’s out of your hands if you bring assault charges. You can’t just change your mind and drop them. Anyway, there was a restraining order against him. Nothing happened for a couple of weeks, then he came round to the house with flowers, wanting to talk.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I kept the chain on. I wouldn’t let him in. He was in one of his contrite moods, pleading and wheedling, promising on his mother’s grave. He’d done it before.’

‘And broken his promise?’

‘Every time. Anyway, then he became threatening and abusive. He started hammering at the door and calling me names. I called the police. They arrested him. He came back again, stalking me. Then a friend suggested I move away for a while, the further the better. I knew about the house on The Hill. Ruth and Charles Everett own the place. Do you know them?’

Lucy shook her head. ‘I’ve seen them around. Not for a while, though.’

‘No, you wouldn’t have. Charles was offered a year’s appointment at Columbia University in New York, starting in January. Ruth went with him.’

‘How did you know them?’

‘Ruth and I are in the same line of work. It’s a fairly small world.’

‘But why Leeds?’

Maggie smiled. ‘Why not? First there was the house, just waiting for me, and my parents came from Yorkshire. I was born here. Rawdon. But we left when I was a little girl. Anyway, it seemed the ideal solution.’

‘So you’re living across the road in that big house all alone?’

‘All alone.’

‘I thought I hadn’t seen anyone else coming and going.’

‘To be honest, Lucy, you’re pretty much the first person I’ve spoken to since I got here – apart from my shrink and my agent, that is. It’s not that people aren’t friendly. I’ve just been . . . well . . . stand-offish, I suppose. A bit distant.’ Lucy’s hand still rested on Maggie’s forearm, though she wasn’t gripping at all now.

‘That makes sense. After what you’ve been through. Did he follow you over here?’

‘I don’t think so. I don’t think he knows where I am. I’ve had a few late-night hang-up calls, but I honestly don’t know if they’re from him. I don’t think they are. All my friends back there swore they wouldn’t tell him where I was, and he doesn’t know Ruth and Charles. He had little interest in my career. I doubt that he knows I’m in England, though I wouldn’t put it past him to find out.’ Maggie needed to change the subject. She could hear the ringing in her ears, feel the arcade spinning and her jaw aching, the coloured-glass roof above her shifting like a kaleidoscope, her neck muscles stiffening, the way they always did when she thought about Bill for too long.
Psychosomatic
, the shrink said. As if that did her any good. She asked Lucy about herself.

‘I don’t really have any friends, either,’ Lucy said. She stirred her spoon around the dregs of her cappuccino froth. ‘I suppose I was always rather shy, even at school. I never know what to say to people.’ Then she laughed. ‘I don’t have much of a life, either. Just work at the bank. Home. Taking care of Terry. We haven’t been married a year yet. He doesn’t like me to go out by myself. Even today, my day off. If he knew . . . That reminds me.’ She looked at her watch and seemed to become agitated. ‘Thank you very much for the coffee, Maggie. I really have to go. I have to get the bus back before school comes out. Terry’s a teacher, you see.’

Now it was Maggie’s turn to grasp Lucy’s arm and stop her from leaving so abruptly. ‘What is it, Lucy?’ she asked.

Lucy just looked away.

‘Lucy?’

‘It’s nothing. It’s just what you were saying earlier.’ She lowered her voice and looked around the arcade before going on. ‘I know what you mean, but I can’t talk about it now.’

‘Terry hits you?’

‘No. Not like . . . I mean . . . he’s very strict. It’s for my own good.’ She looked Maggie in the eye. ‘You don’t know me. I’m a wayward child. Terry has to discipline me.’

Wayward
, Maggie thought.
Discipline
. What strange and alarming words to use. ‘He has to keep you in check? Control you?’

‘Yes.’ She stood up again. ‘Look, I
must
go. It’s been wonderful talking to you. I hope we can be friends.’

‘I do, too,’ said Maggie. ‘We really
have
to talk again. There’s help, you know.’

Lucy flashed her a wan smile and hurried off towards Vicar Lane.

After Lucy had gone, Maggie sat stunned, her hand shaking as she drained her cup. The milky foam was dry and cold against her lips.

Lucy a fellow victim? Maggie couldn’t believe it. This strong, healthy, beautiful woman a victim, just like slight, weak, elfin Maggie? Surely it couldn’t be possible? But hadn’t she sensed something about Lucy? Some kinship, something they had in common. That must be it. That was what she hadn’t wanted to talk to the police about that morning. She knew that she might have to, depending on how serious things were, but she wanted to put off the moment for as long as she could.

Thinking of Lucy, Maggie remembered the one thing she had learned about domestic abuse so far: it doesn’t matter
who
you are. It can still happen to you. Alicia and all her other close friends back home had expressed their wonder at how such a bright, intelligent, successful, caring,
educated
woman like Maggie could fall victim to a wife-beater like Bill. She had seen the expressions on their faces, noticed their conversations hush and shift when she walked in the room. There must be something wrong with her, they were all saying. And that was what she had thought, too, still thought, to some extent. Because to all intents and purposes Bill, too, was bright, intelligent, caring, educated and successful. Until he got his Monster Face on, that is, but only Maggie saw him like that. And it was odd, she thought, that nobody had thought to ask why an intelligent, wealthy, successful lawyer like Bill should feel the need to hit a woman almost a foot shorter and at least eighty pounds lighter than he was.

Even when the police came that time he was hammering at her door, she could tell they were making excuses for him – he was driven out of his mind by his wife’s unreasonable action in taking out a restraining order against him; he was just upset because his marriage had broken up and his wife wouldn’t give him a chance to make it up. Excuses, excuses. Maggie was the
only one
who knew what he could be like. Every day she thanked God they had no kids.

Which was what she was thinking about as she drifted back to the present, to feeding the ducks on the pond. Lucy was a fellow sufferer, and now Terry had put her in hospital. Maggie felt responsible, as if she should have done something. Lord knows, she had tried. After Lucy’s subsequent tale of physical and psychological abuse at the hands of her husband had unfolded during their many furtive meetings over coffee and biscuits, with Maggie sworn to absolute secrecy, she
should have done something
. But unlike most people, Maggie knew exactly what it was like. She knew Lucy’s position, knew that the best she could do was try to persuade her to seek professional help, to leave Terry. Which she did try to do.

But Lucy wouldn’t leave him. She said she had nowhere to go and no one to go to. A common enough excuse. And it made perfect sense. Where
do
you go when you walk out on your life?

Maggie had been lucky she had the friends to rally around her and come up with at least a temporary solution. Most women in her position were not so fortunate. Lucy also said that her marriage was so new that she felt she had to give it a chance, give it some time; she couldn’t just walk out on it; she wanted to work harder at it. Another common response from women in her position, Maggie knew, but all she could do was point out that it wasn’t going to get any better, no matter what she did, that Terry wasn’t going to change, and that it would come to her leaving sooner or later, so why not leave sooner and spare herself the beatings?