Jennie Ensor - The Girl in His Eyes

His eyes opened wide, as if she’d slapped his face. Then he laughed.

‘You’d like me to end it all, wouldn’t you?’ His mouth twisted, distorting his face. ‘Then you wouldn’t have your old man around to bother you anymore.’

Something jolted inside her like an electric shock. She stared at him, open-mouthed. Her father leaned towards her. A flicker of metal in his eyes. His voice low, accusing.

‘You’re going to the police, aren’t you? I know that’s where you’re off to. Why else would you be out on a night like this?’

She shuddered, had a desperate urge to pee. She had to get away from him. Now.

Slowly, carefully, she moved her hand towards the passenger door and felt for the latch.

‘Yes, I am. I’m going to the police and you can’t stop me.’

It was instinct talking, nothing more. She pulled the handle and pushed open the door, planted one foot on the pavement and prepared to launch herself from the car. But he was ready. He pulled on her free arm, twisting as he did so. Pain stabbed her shoulder. She gasped, a rush of nausea in her gut. Next thing she knew he was out of the car and on the pavement beside her, shoving her back into the seat. His hands, big and strong, pinned her in place. Panic flashed through her. Before she could think of a response, her hand was already hurtling towards his face, fingers outstretched.

In the semi-darkness, she could not see the strike but she felt it. The contact with something gelatinous, like the over-firm jelly that her mother sometimes made in the trifle for Sunday lunch. At that moment her father screeched, a shrill, girlish sound that she remembered from distant playgrounds, as piercing as a teacher’s whistle. He stumbled back, slamming a hand over his eye.

‘Fuck, fuck! What have you fucking done? You’ve fucking blinded me!’

Then she was running, faster than she’d ever run in her life. Towards the distant strip of lights on the main road, where there would be other people, where she could find help; rain piercing her clothes, her mouth filling with spittle, a hoarse warmth in her windpipe, the ache of her calf muscles. Only one thought. Get away.

No following footsteps, no shouts. Laura ran on. Suddenly, the road ahead lit up, the colours of parked cars leaping out of the monochrome. Behind her, the deep-throated roar of a powerful engine. She glanced behind. Her father’s form was just visible behind the wheel. He would reach her in no time.

Ahead, a turning to the left. A side street. She darted into the secluded darkness. She had not been down it before. Where it went – if anywhere – she had no idea. The lamp posts were further apart here, gathering shadowy islands between them. The pavement was empty but the road was crammed with cars in shades of grey. Tall brick houses loomed on either side of the road, three storeys high, guarded by rows of black dustbins. Bedsit land. Rented-out flats. Homes where you have to buzz to get in. Most people wouldn’t answer, probably.

The possibilities zipped through her head. Run up to one and press all the buzzers in turn until someone let her in? If they didn’t, start to scream? There wouldn’t be enough time. She ran on, scanning each side of the road in turn. Gasping for breath, a jag of pain in her side. Not daring to slow even a fraction. Hunting for some dark recess where she could hide.

Nothing. Only a sprinkling of shrubs and low walls.

Then she heard them. Footsteps, slapping the pavement in a rapid, even rhythm; their echo cut off abruptly by the landscape of the street. He was coming for her.

Her heart beat with renewed force. She veered and ran towards a three-storey house. Up some steps. She hesitated. She could ring the doorbell and hope for the best. But what if no one answered?

She looked around. Clumps of shrubs in a flowerbed, not quite high enough – there was only one place to hide: a small, covered area set against the dividing wall between two properties, a holding place for dustbins. She crouched among a clutter of plastic bins, between a low wall in front of her and the high wall behind. They were child height, and just wide enough to conceal her.

She waited, straining for the sound of him. But there was nothing except the splash-patter of rain on roofs and the gurgling suck of water into a drain. Laura pressed on her jeans pocket for her phone. A wave of relief at the answering bulge. She pulled out the device. It was still working but the battery indicator showed a long strip of red. It was almost dead.

She pressed 9 three times. A man’s voice, infused with a calm firmness.

‘Police.’ She heard her voice waver. ‘There’s a man coming after me. I think he might hurt me…’

Footsteps again, from the street. Slower now. Close, getting closer.

The phone went black. With shaking hands she stuffed it back in her pocket. Her body was cold, as cold as the inside of a freezer. Her breath came in hoarse rasps, too loud. She clamped a hand over her mouth and waited for her father to find her.

Suzanne lay in bed listening to the wind. The breeze had become a restless, shifting, snarling creature. A branch creaked loudly as if in pain. Her back twinged in sympathy. She would have turned over only the mattress in Debbie’s room had moulded itself to her body, making movement difficult.

It must be gone midnight; she couldn’t see the clock but its unrelenting tick bore into her. Though bone tired, dozing off on the train back to London, and going straight to bed at 10pm on arriving at Katherine’s, she’d been unable to get to sleep for thinking about Laura. Since Daniel’s frantic phone call, just as she’d stepped out of the solicitor’s office, a thought had gnawed at her. How would Paul survive if Laura went to the police? He’d be questioned, arrested perhaps, and put in a cell. He would never cope with the suspicion, the humiliation.

A ripple of fear began, as it did when she let herself think about it. What if Laura was right?

Suddenly she was uncertain. What if Paul did look for another girl to groom, who would eventually succumb to his base urges? Could they let that happen? And didn’t he deserve to be punished?

Her thoughts turned to the solicitor’s assessment. The divorce could become a real thing now, not just a threat or a distant possibility. The process would be painful and difficult; there’d be financial matters to sort out, property and investment splits, and pension arrangements. But the children weren’t children anymore, which would make everything much easier.

She sipped from the glass of water by her bed, trying to forget an urge to use the loo. It was at the far end of the landing and had a noisy flush that could wake up Katherine and Jeremy. But, if she didn’t flush it, it might get blocked with toilet paper. She berated herself for having such trivial thoughts when her life was crashing down around her. What did it matter if she woke them?

Yawning and groggy, she sat up and switched on the light. 12.13am. Katherine’s hairdryer lay on the dressing table with all the other things she’d had to ask for or borrow. She felt like one of those seashore creatures on nature programmes – a particularly inept one, waking up to find she’d made a home under the wrong shell.

Although she’d been there for a week now, every time she woke during the night she wondered what she was doing in this room, in this narrow bed, all alone. And every time, despite knowing what her husband did, a grief came over her for the loss of him, and all the intimate things she had got used to over the years: his warm body beside her as they lay down for the night, his jaw-clenching in his sleep, the tigerish yawns in the mornings that never failed to startle her. Even those things that had become rare over the years: his jokes and anecdotes, the pats and squeezes…