The Little Prisoner_ A Memoir - Jane Elliott [56]
From that day onwards I spent my whole time hiding in my bedroom or in the neighbour’s flat, or sitting in Steve’s car. I kept all the curtains shut and the doors locked, with knives nearby in case Richard battered his way in and I had to protect Emma. I started sleeping with a carving knife under the bed, just like Mum. Even though Steve had changed all the locks on the doors, I still didn’t feel safe. I had seen how Richard would just smash his way into people’s houses and I couldn’t see how a few flimsy locks were going to be able to keep him out if he was determined to come for us.
After a few days the neighbours started complaining about all my furniture sitting outside and I realized I couldn’t just leave it there. It was when three blokes tried to get it back in that we realized just how powerful my anger must have been! Now that anger had subsided I could hardly lift the stuff. I still didn’t want anything of Richard’s in the flat and started asking around to see if anyone else wanted any of it. Whatever offers people made I accepted, just to get rid of it all.
Sometimes Richard would park outside the flat in his car, beeping the horn for hours on end just to let me know he was still out there and would never go away. The noise must have driven the neighbours mad, but they all knew better than to try to stop him.
Every sound was threatening and it was hard to sleep. When I did drop off I was attacked by dreams of stabbing and shooting Richard and him getting back up and coming for me over and over again, like some invincible zombie in a horror film.
I was so on edge my relationship with Steve was almost impossible. I couldn’t bring myself to respond to his advances in bed, even though I loved him, and he was becoming increasingly frustrated by my inability to give any rational explanation for my behaviour. He was trying to understand what was going on in my head, but he lacked the information that would have made the picture clear. He knew that Richard was a nasty, bullying piece of work, but he couldn’t understand why I allowed him to terrorize me in the way that he did. Nor could he understand why it had to affect our relationship so badly
Three weeks after the confrontation with my stepdad I realized that I was going to lose Steve, exactly as I’d lost Paul, if I didn’t do something positive about it. I had discovered I was pregnant again and I couldn’t face the idea of Richard defiling another of my pregnancies with his sordid demands. I just wanted us to be a normal family with Emma and the new baby, and I knew that if Steve went I would have no protection against Richard when he eventually decided to come back for me. As my pregnancy progressed I would become more vulnerable and once I was looking after two small children I would stand almost no chance of keeping him at bay. I had to do something now.
Chapter Níne
It was two o’clock in the morning and Steve had finally reached the end of his tether. I was about to lose everything I loved again. If I didn’t do something to save the situation now I would spend the rest of my life alone and enslaved. I would never be able to break the cycle.
All I had to do was tell Steve the truth, but I just couldn’t bring myself to speak the words. It should have been so easy to do, but it was as if a part of my brain was paralysed, refusing to say the words that needed saying, to tell the story that would explain everything to the one person who could help me to escape. There had been so many secrets locked up inside my head for so many years that I’d lost the ability to say what I wanted, even when my happiness and the happiness of the two people I loved most in the world depended on it.
I felt frightened, guilty and embarrassed, all at the same time. I wanted to tell Steve everything, but I was afraid of the possible consequences. It seemed to me that he would be unable to understand why