SOPHIE
He called me Nancy again, the last time. I didn’t say anything.
It’s almost funny, what I don’t know about him. Who he is. Who he was. He never liked to talk about himself, or his family, or the past. We’d talk about me: school, my friends, my problems. I thought it showed how much he cared. But now we don’t talk about me, and we don’t talk about him. His visits are short, mostly. Oddly formal, in a way.
But I pay attention, squirrelling away the scraps. It’s not that I want to know more about him, not now. But I suppose it’s proof he’s not in control of everything. It’s almost like a game I play, a one-sided game. To get through this. What will he let slip when …
It’s like he goes somewhere else, as he moves over me. ‘Nancy,’ he said. ‘Nancy…’
I turned my face away, as he finished. I don’t know if he remembered what he’d said.
I almost didn’t ask, the first time he did it. I must have only been here a few weeks, maybe a month, and I didn’t want to rock the boat. I’d thought I’d feel closer to him, being in here, but sometimes I didn’t, not really. In fact, quite the opposite. Sometimes he seemed so distant.
We were safe and we were together – all I’d ever hoped for us. And yet I was finding it harder and harder to ignore the feeling in my stomach, that gnawing cold in my guts.
You’re homesick, I told myself. That’s natural. You just need to get used to this.
But he wasn’t helping. He wouldn’t talk about what we’d do next, any more: he kept telling me not to worry about it. All our plans, about where we’d go and what we could do – we’d never nailed them down, not totally. We’d have to react to the situation, he said before I came here, we just needed to make ourselves safe. But now I was in here, all his urgency seemed to have gone …
Still, I made myself do it, afterwards. I knew he’d be more relaxed, as we lay there in the darkness.
‘Who’s Nancy?’ I just came out with it. He said nothing, his head on the pillow behind me. But I could hear the change in his breathing. I’m better at reading him than he thinks.
‘What did you say?’
‘You called me Nancy.’ I tried to make light of it, but I was annoyed, back then. More than annoyed. ‘You know, some girls would get jealous …’
It didn’t work.
‘I think,’ he said slowly, ‘that it’s time to establish some boundaries …’
Then he’d switched on the overhead light, bright in my eyes, and made me sit up, still tangled in the duvet while he lectured me. He needed space, he said. I couldn’t expect to know everything about him. I asked too many questions. Did I know what questions like that showed him? That I still didn’t trust him. It hurt his feelings.
I didn’t know what to say. I almost laughed, but I hid it. He was sitting me down like I was a clingy girlfriend. I might be young, like he always said, but I knew that our situation was so very far from that. He didn’t seem to be able to see it.
But I didn’t laugh. Something in his face told me that would be a mistake.
An old girlfriend, I decided privately. He was so jealous of my boyfriends, he’d once said, he couldn’t bear to hear about them. It was only Danny, anyway.
It showed how much he loved me, I thought.
When he did it a second time, sometime that first winter, it was different. We’d been lying on the mattress, him stroking my hair. I was awake, my eyes fixed on the patch of starry night sky in the ceiling. It was cold – my breath made little puffs in the air, even though we were inside.
I couldn’t sleep. I was feeling so different about everything, keyed up and awake. I was sleeping at odd times by then, we were out of sync. I just wanted him to leave now, so I could switch on the TV again, cuddle up in bed with Teddy, and be cosy.
Maybe he sensed it, me turning away from him – my impatience for him to go. I don’t know why else he’d stayed. He’d already stopped sleeping over the whole night. He said it was best, the safest thing for us.
But maybe it was the idea of my waking up when he was asleep that he didn’t like. I could tell he tried not to let me see where he kept his keys, always putting them away before he turned the handle and came in.
They had to be somewhere in his clothes, surely – he hadn’t brought anything else with him tonight but the food bags. Maybe that little secret pocket that they put in men’s suits, Dad used to keep change in there …
I shifted, quietly, checking the weight behind me. He’d not moved for a few minutes now. He must have fallen asleep, after all. I could hear his breathing, slow and steady. I started to slide out from under the covers, carefully—
‘Nancy,’ he said suddenly, too loud in the quiet room. He wrapped an arm over me. ‘Nancy, stop it.’ I stilled, uncomfortable. He was heavy. I’ve never liked that about him, the reality of him; the heat and sweat. So I’d moved, again, trying to shrug his arm off me.
His hands were round my throat before I knew it. ‘Nancy,’ he said, then mumbled other things, words I couldn’t make out. Then loudly: ‘I said stop it!’ I was pulling at his hands, shocked. I tried to twist away.
Then something changed in him: ‘You whore. You lying whore.’ I scrabbled under him, half off the mattress. But he was too heavy, his breath hot in my face. I was choking now, still trying to get his hands away from me. My bare feet were kicking on the carpet. Both hands pulling his thick forearm. He’s stronger than I thought, much stronger. The blood thundered in my ears. The edges of my vision turned black, my sight shrinking.
I don’t know what stopped him. Maybe he woke up, maybe he came to his senses. But his grip lessened, just for an instant, and with a shove, he was off me. I scrabbled off the mattress, my back against the wall, wheezing for breath. I wrapped my hands around my burning throat, keeping my eyes on him.
For a moment, we both just stayed there, looking at each other.
‘Calm down,’ he said shakily. ‘Calm down. Don’t look at me like that.’
I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t pretend that this was OK.
‘You called me Nancy again,’ I said eventually. My voice sounded strange, hoarse. ‘Who’s Nancy?’ I think a part of me, even then, was jealous. I know, I know. It was so messed up.
He didn’t answer. He just started moving around the place, slowly and methodically, setting right the upturned table by the mattress, getting kitchen towels to mop up the beakerful of water we’d knocked over. I breathed in, and out, slowly, trying not to freak out. I didn’t know what he’d do.
Afterwards, he’d made us both a cup of tea, and had sat me down on the sofa, pale but cold-eyed. He held my hand. I think I thought he might say sorry.
Nope.
This was my fault. I’d panicked, I’d pushed him. He’d needed to shut me up. I was hysterical. It was my fault. I could feel myself teetering, wanting him to convince me: it wasn’t a big deal.
But something steeled in me. I stayed silent, as he got up and left. He told me to get some sleep.
No, I thought. This isn’t fair. You’re wrong. You are really wrong, something is very very wrong with you.
And I’ve put our lives in your hands.