‘He was an abuser,’ Ivy quietly corrects. Paula looks at her searchingly.
‘But there were times when he was lovely!’ she says, suddenly defensive. ‘He would say sorry for being . . . he called itgrumpy, and I would think, “Oh, maybe everything will be good again, like it was in the early days.” And he would be kind and sweet and affectionate. Thereweretimes when we were happy! I wouldn’t have kept going if there hadn’t been some kind of hope to cling on to through the bad times. But as the years went by, those nice moments got fewer and further apart.’ She pauses. ‘You know how films have a soundtrack? I always felt like my life had a soundtrack, but it was this constant low hum of misery, of . . . dread.’
Paula sits down on the bed now, the air thrumming around her. Her friends gather about her. They all sit there, at Paula’s side, silently acknowledging all the sadness, the misery, the denial – the abject horribleness of it all.
Ivy reaches for her hand at last. ‘Paula, just because someone doesn’t hit you, doesn’t mean they’re not an abuser. Coercive control can be just as real and damaging as violence. It’s against the law, the things he did to you. He was a controlling, abusive monster, just like my husband.’ She gestures to Audrey and Teddy. ‘Just like all our husbands. Just because he wasn’t violent, doesn’t make him any better or different.’
‘It’s insidious and nebulous, that kind of torture,’ Teddy says in a low voice like she knows. Like she really knows. ‘It makes you question everything, especially your own sanity. It’s all too easy to blame yourself, but it was him. Not you.’
Paula hesitates, then nods. ‘I think I know that now. I didn’t used to know. I used to think it was normal. A normal relationship! Maybe a bit old-fashioned compared to other, younger couples that I’d see treat each other kindly and equally. But I thought we were mostly normal enough.’ She sighs. ‘I was lying to myself for a long time. Really, I suppose,I was lying to myself until I met all of you.’ She shakes her head. ‘The fact is, I wasn’t just trying to protect the children; I was trying to protect myself from the truth, as well. And he was so good at making me feel like everything was my fault!’ She sighs heavily. ‘The strangest thing is that I missed him so much! For weeks I reached for him every morning when I woke up. I sent emails telling him about my day, telling him I missed him.’
‘I missed my husband, too,’ Ivy admits. ‘I hated him – I still hate him – and I’m glad I did what I did, but I still thought –thinkabout him so much. You don’t always have to miss someone in a nice way.’ Audrey and Teddy are both nodding.
Paula stares down at her feet. She’s wearing new trainers, but she suddenly wishes she had on her comfy old plimsolls. She has to tell them the rest now, too. ‘And he owed money,’ she whispers. ‘A lot of it. Men have been coming to my house since he died, asking for it in cash. Bad men. I don’t know what I’m going to do.’
‘Oh, Paula,’ Ivy says in a low voice. ‘I wish you’d told us.’
Paula regards them solemnly, meeting Teddy’s eyes. ‘Right from the beginning, none of you believed me when I said John and I were happy. You kept saying you would wait for me to tell you the truth. And I thought you meant about killing him, but I realise now that you meant about our relationship . . . You knew I was like you. That I was a . . .’ She can’t finish her sentence.
Audrey does it for her. ‘A domestic abuse victim?’
‘Survivor!’ Teddy corrects defiantly. ‘A domestic abusesurvivor.’
‘I think I prefer the term victim,’ Ivy says quietly. ‘Survivor implies I’ve overcome what I went through. That I’ve won, that I’ve beaten it, that I’ve moved on, somehow.’ She looks down. ‘But I haven’t. It’s a part of who I am. I didn’t survive it; I’m . . . damaged. I can’t call myself a survivor, like it’s some big, triumphant result. I escaped him, but what my husband did is part of who I am. For ever, I think.’ She swallows. ‘I know I didn’t make it out unscathed.’
‘My darling,’ Audrey says, but it is soft, accepting. There is no argument.
‘I am healing though,’ Ivy adds brightly. ‘You’ve all helped me be happier and more open again. I accept this version of me and I’ve even started to like it. One day I might even love me. And maybe one day I might even be ready to meet a new partner. Someone kind instead of cruel. A cheerleader instead of a controller. Someone who will love me properly.’
‘Welove you,’ Teddy says with strength. ‘And you’re free. We all are. We’ve escaped the men who did those things.’
‘I’ll never escape John,’ Paula says fiercely, her voice choked. ‘It doesn’t matter that he’s dead; I’ll never be free of him.’
‘Of course you will!’ Audrey says, and Paula shakes her head. She thinks about the loan sharks – about Craig and his small henchman – turning up on her door step. About the threats he made just before she left to find the group at the airport. She thinks of what he’s going to do to her children, to her friends, to her life. About how John did this.
She’ll never be free of him.
30
‘We should sail to Italy,’ says Audrey from her deckchair. ‘We can go around the Amalfi Coast, head for Lake Como, then just keep going.’
Paula’s not sure how serious Audrey’s being. She’s also not sure of her geography. But then the older woman throws her head back and starts cackling. Teddy and Ivy join in, and so does Paula, though the idea of never going home somehow seems very appealing right now.
It’s the first time she’s laughed in days, she realises. She feels better for it. It is a nice, bubbly feeling in her chest. It pokes a hole in the horrible, oppressive sadness.
It has been a quiet few days since Paula’s confession. Cosseted away in the South of France, her friends have kept her close and kept her peaceful. Instead of the loud, fancy dinners and wild celebrity bars Audrey had promised, the group has mostly spent long, sedate days on Ivy’s boat. They’ve given her a lot of space, a lot of affection, and a lot of support. They’ve let her talk when she wanted to talk and been silent when she needed that instead. They haven’t pushed.
They know her, Paula realises. They understand how this works. They’ve all been there. Paula feels a long way awayfrom the world, away from her children, away from the goons who’ve been keeping her up at night, away from everything. She knows Craig is coming back and everything is going to come crashing down, but right now, she feels only cocooned and protected; she feels loved.
‘We can’t just sail away,’ Ivy smiles over at Audrey. ‘We can’t leave without Paula the Dog and she gets so seasick. We can’t abandon her at the hotel doggy daycare for ever.’
‘That’s true enough.’ Audrey smiles.
All around them is glorious, endless water. Paula shields her eyes, trying to see an edge to the blueness, but it’s too bright. The sun bounces off the waves in all directions. She can still see the sun when she shuts her eyes.
Ivy’s boat is lovely.
Yacht! She has to stop calling it a boat. Teddy has corrected her several times. Yacht, yacht, yacht.
