I suddenly became very conscious that I was in the basement of a stranger’s house and I had just walked in uninvited. My palms began to sweat and my mouth became dry. The wise decision would be to leave. But the monster wasn’t satisfied. Before I could leave, I had to make it to the top of the basement stairs and open the door. Nothing was going to let me get away with not doing it. I could just turn around and go home; come back and try to knock on the front door another day. But as usual, the fear was building into something impenetrable and unfathomable. Opening the door at the top of the basement stairs was the only way everything was going to be okay.
I took a deep breath and made my way to the bottom step. I looked upwards. Just ten or so steps. I could do this. I would be up and at the door in a matter of seconds.
Despite my thundering heart and legs that shook uncontrollably with adrenaline, I placed my foot on the first step and walked to the top.
I felt the sweat on my palms hit the cold metal of the brass knob. I wiped my hand on my jeans and this time I turned the handle. To my surprise, yet again, this door was unlocked. I pushed it all the way, all the while expecting someone to jump out, to tell me I was trespassing and to call the police. I had done it. I could close the door and leave now. But I had already seen a flash of hallway, and I stood for a second as my brain made the relevant connections and translated what it was I was actually seeing. And once it did, a thousand thoughts and images came racing towards me and my head began to spin so much I stepped backwards. I misjudged where the step was and then I was falling.
35
Then
Ever since Olga had arrived in my life and then left so suddenly, things felt like they were spiralling out of control. I knew most of my life was in D’s hands: finances, where we lived, what we ate, where I shopped. I didn’t like it. D could sense I didn’t like it, but it was never really in my hands. I had begun a life with a man who I thought would change my life for the better, only he was very much going to change it for the worse.
As I lay in bed, I instinctively listened out for Baby Boy. But I couldn’t hear him fussing for me. He was almost a year old now, and in the mornings he was usually chattering away contentedly in his cot. He had never been a whining baby – we had remained too close for that. He received all the nurture when he needed it. He didn’t have to ask for a thing.
I got up and pulled a long sweater over the T-shirt I had worn to bed and padded out into the hallway; from there I began to hear the small sounds of my darling baby. He sounded happy and for a few precious minutes I thought to myself how nice it was that D had got him up before me. It occurred to me that now he was almost one, perhaps D didn’t feel as though his son posed so much of a threat to him; soon Baby Boy would be weaned and wouldn’t rely on me so much. He was also becoming so much more sociable; perhaps now D could relate to him better. Perhaps this was the start of their relationship forming.
D had been hurting me less and less. The beatings had ended; he was still rough and pushy, but nothing near how he used to be with me. Perhaps this was a new start for all of us.
I was sat on the toilet when it hit me, what I had seen in my hazy, just-woken state. It hadn’t really occurred to me that it meant anything. But of course it did, it meant everything.
I hurriedly finished in the bathroom and raced back into the bedroom and saw that the cot had been stripped of the blankets and toys. Perhaps Baby Boy had an accident and D was washing the sheets. Highly implausible. My heart skipped fiercely and I clenched my fists as I looked around for other evidence. I was stalling for what I knew was coming, what I knew deep down had been coming for a long time.
I walked slowly down the stairs, feeling my heart thudding so hard I was sure it could be heard in the lounge. My palms were sweaty on the bannister and my mouth was now so dry I wasn’t sure I could speak if I needed to. I rounded the corner in the hallway and began making my way to the lounge. Nothing was going to prepare me for what was coming. As I entered the room, both Fabrice and D looked up at me at the same time as Baby Boy did. He was chewing a rusk; it was spilling all down his Babygro. Neither man had thought to put a bib on him.
‘Ahh, here she is,’ D said, and I felt a flicker of relief as I strode towards my son.
‘He’s going to ruin his Babygro with all that muck,’ I said with a wobble to my voice that I couldn’t disguise
