What goes around comes around (Lily’s Story) (21 page)

“I have to.”

“You have to be joking, Lil, he’s going to go mental.”

“I have to explain it to him.  I have to let him know I’m
leaving him, but not for another man.  He needs to know; I owe him that much.” 

She doesn’t agree and tells me so.  “I’m scared for you,
Lily.  I don’t think he’s just going to sit there and listen to you tell him
you’re leaving and then watch you walk out the door.  He’s too possessive about
you already; it’s only got worse over the years.  There’s no way he’s going to
hear anything you say except that you’ve been seeing another man behind his
back, and he’s going to be batshit angry.  What does James say about it?”

“What can he say?  It’s my marriage, not his.  He’s worried
about me, of course, but I told him I’d call him when I was settled.”

“And he’s okay with that?  You going off, I mean, to stay
somewhere after walking out on your marriage?  He hasn’t asked you to stay with
him?”

“No,” I say defensively, “that was never the deal. It’s too
soon for us to live together.”

“Okay, I’d get that if you were just leaving Greg in a
controlled way like you planned and had already sorted out the place you were
renting, but this is all so sudden.  Surely he should be supporting you a bit
more?”

“I can’t think about that now,” I say, on the defensive
again, although something about what she’s saying does touch upon some of my
internal anxieties.  I squash the thoughts down.  “I just have to get through
the next few hours with Greg, and then we can all move on.  I know it’s going
to be shit for everyone, and I so wish I could have held off doing it until
after Christmas, but the situation’s the same as it was when I spoke about it
in the pub the other night.  I was already planning to leave Greg because our
relationship died a long time ago.  Hopefully he’ll see the truth in that, and
we can both move forward with our lives.” 

Emma nods, but her face looks doubtful. “Well, don’t worry
about me,” she says, “I won’t take any shit from him, and you just make sure
you look after yourself.  Look, Lil,” she says, thinking out loud, “why don’t
you stay in my spare room tonight?  Until you get yourself sorted with
somewhere, I mean.  I can’t stand to think of you in some dingy B&B
somewhere over Christmas.”

“Are you sure you don’t need to speak to Phil first?  I don’t
want to bring all my shit into your home when you’re so close to having the
baby and all.”

“Phil will be fine, Lil, I want you here so I know you’re
alright.”  I blink and realise I have yet more tears spilling down my face due
to her unexpected kindness.  I hadn’t been looking forward to being on my own
over Christmas.

“I thank God for the day I met
you, Emma.  I don’t know what I did to deserve a friend like you.  I certainly don’t
know what I’d do without you,” I tell her with feeling.  We hug again, and she
wipes my tears away with a tissue before telling me to bring my bag in from the
car and leave it here for later.

About an hour and a half later, after a cup of tea and much
circular conversation which ends with Emma still worrying that I should stay
away for today and see Greg on another day, when she figures he’s likely to be
calmer, I climb into my car, promising I won’t be long and that I’ll text her
to let her know I’m on my way back.  I haven’t heard anything from James since
we left the hotel, but then I didn’t really expect to, despite checking my
phone constantly.  I drive the short distance to the house and am surprised to
see the hire van is already parked on the driveway.  He’s already back.  It
must mean he’s driven like a bat out of hell to get home.  My stomach sinks.  I
leave the car parked on the road, grab my bag and walk to the door, rummaging
for my keys as I go. When I let myself in, the house is completely silent.  At
first I think Greg must be in the shed because the house is so quiet, but when
I walk into the kitchen I am confronted with Greg sitting at the table, slumped
over with his head in his hands.  He looks up as I walk in, and his eyes are
bloodshot.  I can tell he’s been crying.

“You’re back,” he says, looking up at me, his lip curling as
he says it.  “Ethan called,” he says, and then he waits for me to say
something.  I am momentarily at a loss for words.  All the planning I have done
in my head to prepare for this moment flies out the window when I am confronted
with the broken man in front of me.

“Greg, I’m so sorry,” I start to say, moving towards him to touch
him, my way of offering comfort.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” he says with a snarl, jerking
away.  It reminds me so much of Ethan last night.

“I’m sorry,” I say again.  I seem to have forgotten the
speech I had prepared.

“So you keep saying,” he says in the cruel tone he sometimes
uses that I hate.  “Ethan tells me you were fucking that bloke from the gallery,
James.  How long’s it been going on?” he demands.

“Not long,” I mumble, unwilling to let the discussion focus
on my relationship with James.  “We’ve been broken for a long time you and I,”
I try to tell him.

“So that means it’s okay for you to go off and fuck someone
else, does it?”

“Our marriage is over, Greg.”

“You’re leaving me for him?” He sounds genuinely shocked,
like he hadn’t considered I might actually leave him.

“I’m not leaving you for him, I’m just leaving you, leaving this
marriage.  I can’t do this anymore.  I think it’ll be better for both of us to
part and lead our own lives.”

“Is it because he’s rich?” he says derisively.

“I am not leaving you to set up with James.” I say, getting
angry at the repetitious nature of his questions.  “I’m sorry I was unfaithful
to you, and I’m even sorrier Ethan got caught up in this, but the truth is that,
with or without James, this marriage was still over.  I’m going to find a place
to rent for a bit while we get things sorted,” I say moving to walk out of the
kitchen.

“Don’t you fucking walk out on me,” he bellows, and I freeze
in the doorway, unsure what to do next.  I start to move again, I want to go
upstairs and pack a bag to take with me to Emma’s, but he’s up and grabbing my
arm, pulling me back into the room.  “I said don’t fucking walk away from me.” His
voice is low and sinister now.

“Greg, don’t do this,” I plead.

“Don’t do what, Lily?  Don’t let you walk out of our
marriage after eighteen years, don’t let you fuck up our family, don’t let you
fuck another man?  What is it you don’t want me to do?” he yells in my face.  “Did
you really expect me to sit here like some pussy while you told me you were
leaving to go and fuck some rich prick who’ll no doubt cast you out once his
dick’s had its fill of you?  Did you think I’d just wish you well?  You’ve
treated me like a complete fool.  Tell me how long it’s been going on!”  His skin
is bright red now, and he’s shouting in my face; little specks of his spittle
keep landing on me.  I can feel yet more tears falling down my face now.

“We met in the Peaks,” I tell him finally.

“The fucking Peaks, I might have known,” he says, rolling
his eyes.  “And how many others have there been?  How many other men have you
fucked while we’ve been together?”  That shocks an angry response from me.

“None, there’s been no one else, only you.  I’ve looked
after the kids, and the house, and you, and nothing else for the last eighteen
years.  There has never been anyone else, only you – until James.  Now the
kids are older, you’ve got your art, and I want my life back.”

“I don’t believe you,” he says, and I realise he’s losing
it.  There is no reasoning with him now.  He’s demented, convinced I’ve been
sleeping around with numerous men behind his back.  I need to get out; we both
need space to cool down.  I pull my arm free and move to leave the room.

“I said don’t fucking walk away from me,” he bellows,
grabbing me with one hand, while his other arm swings and gives me a backhander
across the side of my face. 

I am stunned for a second as pain explodes in my head.  He’s
still shouting at me, “I think you’re a fucking slag who has been fucking
anything and everything she can.  Ethan’s girlfriend told him how you were
putting it out with all the men on the trip.  You don’t give a fuck who you’re
with, do you?” he says. “You’re just a cheap tart.” 

I’m still holding my face and trying to pull away from him
when I feel him push me hard so that I careen into the doorframe.  I feel
something crack in my chest, and more pain hits me like a wave.

“Please, Greg,” I plead, the pain in my chest making my
voice come out as a whisper.

“Oh you want it from me now, do you?”

“No,” I say, horrified.  But he’s not listening to me, not
hearing what I say as I plead with him to stop.  He pushes me to the ground
onto my back, making me bang my head again, but somehow I have enough awareness
to try and move away from him, my feet kicking out at his body, trying to drag
my body away from him with the backs of my elbows.  But he’s stronger than me. 
He lashes out again to stop me kicking him and catches my eye with his fist
this time.  I think I lose consciousness for a few moments.  When I regain my
awareness he has my jeans and panties off, and his body is over mine.  His arm is
pressed over my throat, making it hard to breathe.

“No!” I say weakly, “stop, please stop,” but he doesn’t.  He
forces himself inside me, his body thrusting into me hard, and he’s grunting with
his eyes shut tight.  My body is screaming with the pain of his relentless
assault, but my mind has switched off now.  I’ve stopped fighting him, knowing
I can’t win this fight.  I have to just wait until it’s over now.  And
eventually it is.  Eventually he comes, and then pulls out of me, standing there
looking at me sobbing in a heap on the floor, in front of him, while he covers
himself up again, before stepping over me and walking down the hall and out the
front door.  I try to move myself now he’s gone, but the pain is just too much,
and I lay my head down again and allow myself to fall into blissful
unconsciousness.

When I wake up I have no idea where I am.  The room is white
and bright, and it hurts my eyes. I try to move, but my body hurts too much,
and I just groan with the effort.

“Lily, you’re awake,” I hear Emma cry beside me.  She leans
over me, her face looking so worried. I want to reassure her I’m fine, tell her
not to worry, that it’s not good for the baby, but I can’t seem to speak and my
throat hurts.  “Don’t speak, baby, you’re fine,” she croons, “it’s all fine now,”
and I close my eyes and allow myself to drift back to blissful oblivion.

The second time I wake I am alone.  I feel more with it this
time, but that means memories of Greg and the fight come flooding back, and I
start to cry.  A nurse comes into the room and sees I’m awake, rushing over to
check if I’m in pain.  She gives me some pain relief and tells me she’ll fetch
the doctor, but all the while she’s there and after she leaves I can’t stop the
tears that are flowing down my face.  I wonder absently if I will ever stop
crying. 

Eventually an older female doctor with blonde hair streaked
with silver enters the room and moves to the chair beside the bed.

“Welcome back to us, Mrs Lambert.  I’m Dr Brown, and I’ve
been taking care of you since you came in yesterday.  We’re very happy to see
you awake again.  Did the nurse give you some pain relief?”

“Yes,” I whisper, unable to get more from my throat.  “Where
am I?”

“You’re at the hospital,” she informs me. “You’ve been hurt
quite badly, I’m afraid.”  I nod to show I understand while she continues.  “You
have two cracked ribs, a fractured cheekbone and a serious concussion, along
with a fair bit of other bruising, including some crushing to your windpipe. That’s
why you’ll find it difficult to speak for a while.  Fortunately we don’t think
there is any other internal damage.  You’ve been unconscious for nearly a day;
your friends have been quite worried about you.” 
Emma
, I think. 

“Mrs Lambert,” she continues, looking serious, “I’m sorry to
say that, as part of the examination when you were brought in, we also found
significant evidence of a serious sexual assault.  We have had to inform the
police, and they will want to speak to you when you are feeling a bit better. 
Do you have any idea who did this to you?”  I just blink at her for a moment. 
I wish my head were clearer so I could think what to say.  Greg is the father
of my boys.  Whatever he has done to me, however wrong it is, I cannot put them
through the horror of watching their father defend himself against criminal
proceedings.  Not when it’s my fault we’re in this position in the first
place.  If I hadn’t slept with James, made him so angry when I told him I was
leaving, then none of this would have happened.

“I fell,” I whisper, and I move my head to look away from
her and at the window instead, unwilling to look her in the face and see the
disappointment I know will be clear in her expression.

“Very well, Mrs Lambert,” she says eventually, “we can talk
about this again later when you’re feeling a bit better.” I can tell she
disapproves of my decision to protect him. 
She doesn’t understand – no
one can who hasn’t walked in my shoes for the last few days
.  

I hear her pause when she reaches the door, her hand on the
handle.  “I’ll tell your friends they can come in and see you now,” and she
smiles gently at me, more forgiving of me than I feel I deserve, to be honest,
before she closes the door quietly behind her with a soft click.

I am alone for a few moments until the door opens again, and
this time Emma puts her head in.

“Lily, thank God,” she says, moving quickly to my side.  “You
had us so worried,” she says.

“Don’t worry.  It’s not good for the baby,” I say, trying to
sit up, but it hurts to move, so in the end Emma uses the remote to raise the
bed electronically until I am more upright.  I look at her then and ask: “How
did I get here?”  I’ve been wondering what happened after the fight.

“When you didn’t text me I got worried.  I called Annie and
got her to contact James to see if he had heard from you, and no one had.  I
called and called your phone, but there was never a reply, so I came round to
yours.  When I saw the car there I got really worried, so I called the police
and they knocked your front door down.  The neighbours told them they’d heard
some shouting and screaming, so we were terrified what we might find.”  She
pauses for a second, her eyes full of tears.  “I thought you were dead, Lil. 
You were just lying there on the floor, and you looked so small and broken.”
She sobs a little, and I take her hand.

“I’m sorry,” I say, “for worrying you.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for; it’s Greg who should be
sorry.  He should be locked away for this,” she says angrily.  “James wanted to
kill him, and I only just managed to stop him going out to find him when he saw
the state you were in by telling him you needed him here more.  He’s just
popped home for five minutes to shower and get some fresh clothes, but he’s
been here by your side for the last day.” 

James has been here
, and a small part of me, not
devastated by the turn of events, is happy he cared enough to come and see me. 
“No one’s seen Greg,” Emma continues.  “The police have been looking for him,
but he isn’t anywhere he usually hangs out.  Ethan came by, but he didn’t want
to see you.  I think he feels bad about what’s happened, and he wanted to know
you were going to be okay.”

“He has nothing to feel bad for.  Please tell him so from me
if he comes back.”

“I will, Lil.  You just need to get better.  They said you’ll
be in for a couple of days or so, but then you can come home.” 

Home.  I wonder where that is?
  I think. 
I need
to find somewhere.
 

“James seems to think you’ll be going back to his, but I
keep telling him you’re staying with me.” 
James thinks I’m staying with
him?! I can’t believe it
.

“Emma, you’ve got to get ready for the baby.  You don’t need
an invalid to take care of,” I whisper, my throat at the limit of its ability
for now.

“Lily, we’ll talk about this
when you’re a bit better,” she fobs me off.  “You look tired.  Get some sleep
now; we’ll look after you,” she assures me.  I nod and squeeze her hand.  I am
tired again, so I close my eyes and drift off back to sleep.

When I wake the next time, the first thing I see is a pair
of beautiful blue eyes gazing intently at my face.  He looks so worried, and I immediately
want to reassure him I’m okay, so I reach out and squeeze his hand, and he
smiles and raises my hand to his lips.

“Hi,” he says.

“Hi,” I whisper back, my throat still husky.  He frowns when
he hears it.

“I thought I’d lost you, Lil.  When Emma rang to tell me
what he’d done, I thought you were dead.  It was the worst moment of my life. 
I want to kill him,” he says angrily.

“No,” I say, “it’s over now.  He knows it, and so do I.  I
don’t want the boys dragged through anything more.  I won’t press charges,” I
say, knowing he needs to know the truth sooner rather than later. 

“He deserves to be punished, though,” he says, the shock
clear on his face.  “I know what he did to you.  I heard the doctors talking. 
He raped you,” he whispers, and his agony at the knowledge is there for all to
see.  A tear runs down my face, I seem unable to stop crying.  “What if he does
it to someone else?  Could you live with that?”  It’s a horrible thought, but I
don’t think he will.  He was just so angry with me and what I’d done and the
fact I was leaving him.

“I can’t hurt the boys any more than I already have.”  That’s
my only concern now, I decide.  I’m not important in the scheme of things. 
Greg knows what he did, and he will have to live with that every day from now
on for the rest of his life, and in a fucked up way he’s done me a favour.  I
can leave him now and feel no remorse whatsoever.  He has finally given me my
freedom.

“You’re tired,” James tells me.  “You
just need to rest and focus on getting better.  We can discuss all this when
you’re feeling more yourself.”  I decide to nod, as I don’t have the strength to
argue any more.  “The doctor said you’d probably be in for another couple of
days, but then you can go home.  Lily, I want to look after you, will you let
me do that?” he asks intently.  I nod again, not trusting myself to speak, a
warm feeling building around my heart at his words.  He smiles at me then and
strokes my hair until I fall asleep again.

The next couple of days I am put under relentless pressure
to press charges against Greg.  The police make it clear they believe they have
enough evidence to press charges against him with or without my support, but I
can tell they would prefer not to have to do it without.  Greg has no previous
record, and the chances are he would be given the benefit of the doubt without
my testimony.  For a while I’m concerned when Emma and James gang up and
threaten to give evidence against him; they certainly know enough about us to
make more of a case, but in the end I plead to them not to hurt my boys and me any
more, and they relent.

The first time I am allowed to see myself in the mirror, I am
appalled.  Greg has destroyed my face – these bruises will take quite some
time to heal.  The emotional damage is harder to understand – I find
myself crying continually.  On one level I can rationalise what happened as a
purely physical act, one I had performed with him countless times over the
years, often when I wasn’t particularly into the idea, just letting him get on
with it.  On another level I feel I have been invaded.  I had always consoled
myself that if I had said no it would have been enough for him; I trusted he
would stop.  I feel vulnerable in a way I have not felt since I was a child. 
It’s hard to explain; I feel alone and afraid.

The boys have still not visited
me, although I did get a ‘get well soon’ card that gave me hope we could
rebuild bridges eventually.  I have to believe it’s going to be possible, as I can’t
imagine not having them in my life.  Finally, I haven’t heard anything from
Greg, and for that I am grateful.  I am terrified of being alone with him
again.  James has become my own personal guard dog, taking my safety as his
cause and rarely leaving my side.  He insists on working in my hospital room
beside me, much to the nurses’ annoyance.  I have finally agreed with him and
Emma I would stay with James during my recuperation before looking for a bedsit
to move to.  He grumbles when I say it, but I’m determined not to force myself
into his house permanently under these circumstances.  If we were ever going to
live together it would be because he wanted me to and had invited me and I had
accepted, not because I was an invalid and he felt guilty. 

When the day finally comes for me to be discharged, James
arrives bright and early. Emma had taken it upon herself to borrow my keys, go
to my house and collect some clothes for me. Fortunately Greg was not there
when she did, or if he was he was sensible enough to stay in the shed and did
not come out to see her. He must have known he would be skating on thin ice if
he made any more trouble.  My clothes, apart from one set she brought in for me
to wear home today, are already at James’ house waiting for me in my case where
Emma had dropped them off.  She was beside herself after she saw James’ house.   

“Bloody hell, Lil,” she had said, “I want to play at your
house, please.”  I had smiled and reminded her it wasn’t my house, and I was
only staying there until I was well enough to live on my own again.  “Whatever,”
she’d replied.

Christmas is now just over a week away, and as I’m wheeled
out the hospital to the waiting Range Rover, there is a real nip in the air. 
It’s nice to be out in the seasonal cold.  James is treating me like I’m wrapped
in cotton wool, as he insists on lifting me from the wheelchair into the car. 
I still hurt a lot, especially my ribs, but I’ve had enough injuries over the
years to know all I need is time to heal the injuries on the outside.  I think
it might take longer to heal the ones inside.  When we get to the house James
insists on carrying me in and up to the bedroom where he settles me into the
bed and then proceeds to offer me every type of food he can think of.  It’s
sweet, and I enjoy being looked after for once.

“Thank you,” I say when he brings me yet another cup of tea
in bed.  “I’ll be able to be up and about a bit more soon, and I can start
helping a little around the house,” I reassure him.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he says, “you are not to lift a
finger.  I have a housekeeper, Mrs Reynolds, who sees to all that.  I’ll
introduce you to her tomorrow.”  And with that he kisses me sweetly on the lips
and curls up beside me.  I feel safe for the first time in days, and it feels
like heaven.