Anger bristled between us. Oddly, right at that moment, I realised we had a lot in common. We’d both been let down by the people who were supposed to love and protect us.
I reached down and picked up the chair. ‘You might as well sit. It’s a long story.’
‘Another one,’ Susan said with heavy sarcasm.
She looked towards the door and for a moment, I thought she was going to leave. It suddenly seemed important that she knew everything. That she believed me. I reached for my phone, turned it on, and opened my photographs. ‘Here,’ I said holding it out to her. ‘I know you’re not sure if I was telling you the truth about what Ivan did to me. I took photos.’ When she didn’t take it, I reached forward, slid a finger across the screen to bring up one after the other of the shots I’d taken that day. ‘What the camera doesn’t show is how painful all this was.’
Finally, she took it from me, her thumb sliding across the screen, eyes narrowing as she peered at each image. It was a good phone; they’d come out well.
‘The last few were taken a couple of days later when the bruises had turned more colourful.’
‘Right,’ she said, handing it back to me. ‘So you told me the truth about what he did.’
I put the phone down and sat. ‘I told you the truth. I told the police, the doctors and nurses in the hospital that I’d fallen down the stairs. I don’t think they believed me but I stuck to my story.’
‘For goodness’ sake, why didn’t you tell them the truth?’
I sighed. ‘For the same reason that many victims of domestic violence don’t tell; I was ashamed, embarrassed. Anyway, I’d already been told he was in a bad state so it seemed a bit pointless to have him prosecuted.’ There was no reason to tell her that I’d been determined to get my revenge but had been beaten to it by fate. ‘Anyway, now that you’ve seen the proof, you believe me. And maybe you’ll believe the rest of my story.’ I swallowed the lump in my throat, the one that appeared automatically whenever I thought about those days. ‘I adored my father. He was a gentle, sweet man.’ I smiled, remembering. ‘He’d lift me up on his shoulders and run up and down our long back garden, jumping over the vegetable beds, ducking under the boughs of the fruit trees.’ Laughter and sunshine. A magical world.
‘He was the one who’d read me a bedtime story. I slept in a single bed and I remember I had to press against the wall to give him space to sit beside me.’ I wasn’t sure why I was telling Susan about him. Maybe I was simply working it out in my head and she was a good listener. ‘Then he was gone.’
‘Gone? He died?’
Everything was so black and white in her world. I thought it had been in mine. ‘Mother broke the news the following morning. Told me he’d gone off with some tart to Thailand. I was ten and didn’t understand how he could simply leave that way. No goodbye, no explanation, no attempt to contact me in all the years that followed. This man who’d said he loved me.’
Maybe the poker-face I’d always prided myself on wearing had slipped, or perhaps Susan was more empathetic than I’d given her credit for, because she suddenly stretched a hand across the table and took hold of mine. Her hand was warm, her grip stronger than I’d expected as if she was trying to share some of her strength, to infuse me with it.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, her voice quiet, calm, motherly. ‘As it happens, my father left too. But I was older and I had my sisters. Being alone, that must have been hard.’
Her kindness brought stupid tears to my eyes. Reluctant to pull my hands away from the comforting warmth of hers, they soon trickled unhindered down my cheeks and plopped to the table.
It was Susan who finally took her hand back. She stood and moved away. I heard cupboard doors opening and shutting before she returned and placed a handful of kitchen roll into my hands. She let me sob for a few minutes, waited while I blew my nose, cleared my throat, then I met her eyes. ‘Thank you. I’m not usually such a wuss.’
‘You were ten and abandoned by a man who was supposed to have loved you. I think the damage he caused left you stuck in a self-destruct cycle.’
‘You mean getting involved with older men who treat me badly, then pay me well.’ I smiled. ‘Psychobabble but possibly true.’
Susan didn’t take offence. ‘I have to admit, all the psychology I know comes from self-help books but I think I’m right. I think you went looking for a father figure, but then wanted to punish them for what your father had done in the only way you knew how. Making them pay.’
‘You make it sound like I’d prostituted myself,’ I said, pulling a few more sheets off the roll to blow my nose. I really hadn’t seen it like that. All the money, all the things… the jewellery, handbags, clothes… I’d taken them as my due. Making them all pay for what my father had done. I was determined no man was going to abandon me again. I was the one going to do the running away. ‘Mark was so crazy about me, kept telling me how much he loved me.’ I looked up and met her eyes with a grimace. ‘Loved me! I’d been there. Men who say they love you, leave. I wasn’t waiting around to be hurt again, so I did what I’d always done. Finished it first.’ I got to my feet and crossed to where my jacket was still hanging on the back of the chair and reached into the pocket. When I sat again, I looked at what I held, then put it on the table and slid it across, keeping my hand flat on top.
‘My darling mother’s god is respectability. She moved us from the house we lived in to the one she lives in now and told the neighbours my father had died. I was slapped if I didn’t remember the lie. Slapped if I cried and said I missed him. Slapped if I forgot.’ I managed a shaky smile. ‘My mother was proud of her slap.’ I lifted a hand and brushed it over my head. ‘She was careful and aimed for my head, not my cheeks. God forbid the neighbours would see a bruise.’
‘How could she be so cruel!’
‘Not all mothers are like you.’ I lifted my hand slowly to expose what I was hiding. ‘See what you make of this.’