Aftermath

for a couple of weeks; then he came around 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 colored-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 toward 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?

But no. Lucy wanted to stick it out awhile longer. At least a little while. Terry was so nice afterward, so good to her; he bought her presents, flowers, swore he would never do it again, that he would change. It made Maggie sick to hear all this – literally, as she once vomited the minute Lucy left the house – the same damn reasons and excuses she had given herself and those few close friends who knew about her situation all along.

But she listened. What else could she do? Lucy needed a friend, and for better or for worse, Maggie was it.

Now this.

Maggie tossed the last crumbs of bread into the pond. She aimed for the scruffiest, littlest, ugliest duckling of