I was brushing my hair when Ivan came into the bedroom. He said nothing, just stood there looking at me. I wasn’t easily intimidated, but he was a big man and he had an air about him that said he could resort to violence if necessary. He operated in the shadier end of the world of finance. Shady but incredibly lucrative. Perhaps there, he needed to intimidate when necessary. I’d seen the way his lackeys bowed and scraped to him, the wary look in their eyes. I’d even heard the words they’d muttered behind his back when they thought nobody was listening.
But, although our relationship was coming apart like the seams on a cheap shirt, I was still his wife. Before we’d married, he’d treated me like a goddess. Afterwards, within a few months, I was relegated to a mere female.
He’d recently begun to cast aspersions, but he’d never been violent. Until now.
I was stunned and cried out when he knocked the brush from my hand, grabbed my hair and dragged me from the stool to the floor.
‘How about telling me exactly what these are for,’ he said, pressing a card of tablets into my face, the foil scratching my skin.
It’s hard to think sensibly when your hair is being pulled from your scalp so I jumped to the first lie I could squeeze out. ‘They’re for headaches. Remember, I get them now and then.’ It might have worked. It was true that I suffered, although it was more frequently a convenient excuse.
He pulled me to my feet, ignoring my squeal of pain. ‘I checked, bitch.’ He crushed the card against my mouth. ‘The contraceptive pill. You’ve been lying to me all these months.’
I might have explained to him then that I wasn’t happy in the marriage, that it had been a mistake, and bringing a child into it wasn’t going to make it any better – I would have if he hadn’t drawn his hand back and walloped me across the face. His other hand was still wrapped in my hair so I wasn’t knocked to the ground, but it felt as if my brain was rattling against the walls of my skull.
‘Lies, every damn day. Milking me for every penny you can get your grubby little hands on. You’d never any intention of giving me a child, did you?’
Pain can make people say anything. It’s why torture is so effective. ‘No, I didn’t.’ It was a stupid time to choose to be honest, a crazy time to tell him, ‘You’re not fit to be a father.’ Nor was I fit to be a mother, but there was no time to explore that as he drew his hand back for a second time. Held as I was, it was impossible to avoid the blow. This time, though, he released my hair as he hit and I was thrown against the wall. It seemed a good idea to slide to the floor, not that I had a choice; the blow had stunned me. Foolishly, I thought that was it, that he’d leave me there and take his anger downstairs to drown it in whisky. It took the toe of his shoes hitting my ribs to alert me to the danger I was in, but by then it was too late.
I don’t know how long the assault lasted; I was out of it by the third or fourth kick. When I came to, I was swaddled in the duvet pulled from our bed. I didn’t know if he’d thrown it around me in a last kindly gesture before leaving me there, or whether I’d pulled it down in an attempt to protect myself from his blows. Whatever the reason, it was a soft surface to lie on until I could bring myself to move. I wasn’t sure when that would be; it seemed that every part of my body hurt. I was still alive so consoled myself with the hope that he’d done no serious damage.
Shock can override pain, knocking you out to allow your body time to recover. I woke a few times, once for long enough to drag myself up onto the bed and rest my throbbing head on a pillow. Part of me expected Ivan to come and check on me, part of me afraid of what he’d do if he did. I looked around for my mobile. Unable to see it, I guessed he’d taken it with him. It didn’t matter. There was nobody to ring. Ringing the police crossed my mind briefly but before I could decide, I fell asleep again, away from the pain.
When I awoke, I knew from the change in the light that it was a long time later. I uncurled and lifted my head a little to listen. If Ivan was around, he was staying remarkably quiet. Maybe he was embarrassed by his loss of temper. Not enough to come and apologise though. I turned, gasping in pain. Whereas earlier, various parts of me hurt individually, now it was a full, all-consuming blanket of pain. To add to my discomfort, I needed to wee.
I shuffled carefully, painfully, to the side of the bed, and attempted to get to my feet. When that appeared to be beyond my abilities, I crawled, slowly, hand, knee, hand, knee, stopping every few inches to catch my breath, gasping when that sent a dagger of pain through my chest. The cold tiles of the en suite bathroom were torture to cross and I peppered the floor with tears. And then there was the struggle to get onto the toilet, grasping the rim, pulling myself up, groaning in pain as I turned to sit, more pain then, even more when I peed, unsurprised when I looked into the toilet bowl to see it streaked with blood.
I used the side of the bath to push to my feet rather than crawling again. It was a bad idea… standing… because now, I could see myself in the bathroom mirror. I gasped in shock and lifted a hand to my face. Nothing seemed broken, but my face was a mess. Red carpet burns across one cheek, purple bruising on both, my top lip bloody and swollen. Multiple marks of his ire dotted both arms and when I pulled up my T-shirt, I gulped to see the mass of bruising on both sides. ‘Bastard,’ I muttered.
I wasn’t planning on ringing the police, but I needed to make him pay for what he’d done to me. For that, I needed my phone. A photo, after all, was worth a thousand words.
It took a long time to negotiate the stairs. I clung onto the banisters with both hands, gasping at each step downward, grunting as pain overwhelmed me, waiting till it eased before moving again. There were plenty of tears and moments when I was certain I couldn’t go on before I made it to the hallway. The door to the kitchen seemed a million miles away. I was desperate enough by then to call out for Ivan, my voice a plaintive squeak that wouldn’t have been heard on the other side of any of the closed doors. Trying again, I didn’t manage much better, the sound fading quickly into a silence that suddenly struck me as unusual.
Normally, if he was home, Ivan would have the TV blasting. The bastard must have gone out.
It seemed I was on my own. I should be used to that.
Reaching the kitchen door, I pushed it open. Pain was slowing everything down, including my reactions, so it took a few seconds to understand what I was seeing. And a few more to realise that the body stretched out on the kitchen floor was my darling husband’s.