‘I don’t want this ever to happen again. We need rules,’ he was saying, hissing. ‘Rules that you do not break. So, in future, you do not spend money in the company without my say so. In fact, I need to be at all the meetings in future.’
‘Of course,’ said Savannah.
‘Nothing happens that doesn’t go through me. Have you any idea how I felt when that little moron Anthony was telling me about how the packaging was your little secret, do you know what that was like?’
‘No,’ said Savannah.
Eden really wanted to kill him. She could hear the abject fear in her sister’s voice. She understood everything now. She understood that Calum was a bully and was emotionally abusing her sister, coercively controlling her. Imagining that he was in charge of her business, a business that she’d set up. And he was putting boundaries around that. What had happened with Clary earlier in the week, why hadn’t Savannah said anything to her? But then Eden knew. Women who were abused didn’t talk about it. They thought it was all their own fault, they kept the silence, because the abuser had convinced them that they were useless.
It was a clever, complex piece of manipulation: another type of domestic abuse where the abused thought they were in the wrong.
‘I’ll tell you something, you stupid little bitch,’ Calum was saying, ‘it’s going to be all changed now.’
‘Of course, of course,’ said Savannah.
‘I’m in charge. If you so much as make a decision to order printer ink without my say so, I’ll rip your fucking head off.’
‘Will you?’ said Eden, standing at the door jamb, ice in her voice. ‘That’s a very interesting statement, Calum. Very threatening, actually, I have to say. I’m really astonished you speak this way, because I’ve never heard you talk like this before. But I get a feeling—’ she looked at his blazingly angry face and then at Savannah’s terrified one – ‘I’ve a feeling that this isn’t the first time you’ve spoken like this to my sister.’
‘It’s none of your business,’ he said.
‘Oh, I see the mask takes a minute to go back on,’ said Eden, cheerfully. ‘That’s interesting to know. Because clearly this sort of thing happens all the time and you’re all sweetness and light afterwards to the rest of us and poor Savannah is in bits.’
Savannah was shaking, Eden could see it. She reached over and held her sister’s arm.
‘It’s OK, Savannah,’ she said, ‘this won’t happen again.’
‘No, it’s fine, she doesn’t mean it,’ said Savannah in desperation to her husband. ‘Everything’s OK, really, everything’s OK.’
‘Oh, everythingisOK,’ said Eden, and she held up her phone. ‘Everything is OK because I’ve been taping you, Calum, and it’s a very interesting tape. Before you try and grab my phone, I’ve already emailed the tape to a friend of mine in the police. So, it’s sorted. Do you want to go now? Or will you wait until the police get here?’
‘What do you mean, the police?’ he said arrogantly. He didn’t look in the slightest bit upset.
‘There’s legislation,’ said Eden softly. ‘Legislation against coercive control. It’s a criminal offence now and you are clearly inflicting abuse upon my sister. Abuse does not have to mean physical attack. It can mean an emotional attack, controlling, abusing, screaming at, that’s all abuse. And you’re doing it to Clary, too. People are going to be really interested to read about the court case about how you abuse your wife and ten-year-old daughter too. Locking up isn’t good enough for people like you—’
He was backing away now.
‘You’re a fake, Calum: a big fake. Full of pretentions, delusions of grandeur and entitlement. You want to be someone and if you can’t, you want to destroy the woman who loves you.
‘You hate anyone knowing the truth. That’s the thing, Savannah,’ she said, looking at her sister, who was now struck dumb with fear. ‘He’s a bully, at its most simple. I can guarantee that Calum will go now and he won’t be back, because,’ Eden waggled her phone towards him, ‘he’s on tape threatening you. He’s on tape threatening you in a coercively controlling manner and it’s obvious he’s doing the same to your daughter. They are criminal acts,’ she repeated, ‘criminal. Do you understand that, dickhead? So why don’t you leave, go home, get your things, and don’t think about wrecking the house or destroying everything that belongs to Savannah,’ Eden said. ‘Because I’m going to ring my friend in the police now and get them over to the house. You should go quickly in case they’re there to arrest you. Diarmuid will phone them too. Get your stuff, just your stuff, and leave. Leave your keys too, because you won’t be going back. I’ll throw everything else out on the road later when the bin truck’s due so they can drive over it, OK?’
‘You can’t.’
‘Oh, I can,’ hissed Eden. She looked at Calum and her eyes were full of rage and hate. She saw that he was afraid. ‘Look at him,’ she said, ‘look at him, Savannah, he’s scared.’
‘I’m not fucking scar—’
‘Shut up, you dickhead. You’ve only got one more thing to say,’ said Eden, ‘and that is that you’re sorry.’
‘I won’t say it.’
Eden stepped forward. She was taller than Calum because she was wearing high heels. She stared down at him. ‘Say you’re sorry to my sister,’ she hissed. Without him knowing, she clicked the button on her phone again, the button to record; it was handy being so adept.
‘You’re a coward,’ said Rory unable to stop herself.
‘Oh yeah? In your dreams,’ he said.
‘I will put my boot through your balls and we’ll see who’s dreaming then,’ said Rory.
