Invisible (31 page)

What I wanted to snap was: ‘Which
came first, Daryl’s problems or your attitude? You thought he was a liar so
maybe that’s why he became one.’ I didn’t though; trembling with the effort of
holding myself back, I instead described the event from his childhood that he’d
revealed to me.

‘He did get bullied by some
girls, but it wasn’t anything much and the school took care of it as soon as I
alerted them,’ Cynthia said, matter-of-fact. ‘He certainly didn’t lock himself
away or anything like that. The fact is that Daryl has always been a strange
boy, and as soon as I heard that he’d been arrested I knew he was guilty. I
don’t want to talk about him
any more
. As far as I am
concerned, I do not have a son. I don’t want to talk to you again, I’m sorry.’

Before I could say another
word I heard the click of the phone being put down. She keeps doing this to
me!! ‘Right…okay…thanks for your time,’ I found myself telling the dialling
tone, stunned.

I’m no closer to finding out
why Daryl did these things. No closer to discovering why, if he’s been born
bad, he decided to set up home with me rather than kill me.

Thursday 16

I just want this to end. I
wish I were dead.

Friday 17

I can’t tell anyone the
stuff going round in my head. I can’t share it. Because as terrible as I feel,
it’s like I’m belittling what those women have been through.

‘Think you’re feeling bad?
Well put
yourself
in their shoes!’ that’s what I feel people
would say to me. Well, friends probably would say…if I had any.

I’m invisible. I’m the
invisible victim, apologetic for my very existence. Everyone looking at me and
wondering: ‘did she know? She must have had a hint at least. She must be so
stupid not to have realised.’

But I didn’t! I didn’t know,
didn’t realise. At least…thinking about it now, I did know something wasn’t
right…but who the hell would leap to that conclusion? ‘Something’s wrong in my
marriage. I know! My hubby must be a rapist!’ It’s just not the thought process
of a normal person.

Even if I had thought it,
for even a second (which I never, ever did, despite priding myself on being a
touch paranoid and having a very over-active imagination) I wouldn’t have
believed myself, would have told myself off, shocked that I could think such a
terrible thing about the person I loved. I’d have felt like I’d betrayed him
somehow, thinking something like that. It’s not what normal people do.

And that’s the thing, that’s
the key phrase – it’s not what normal people do. Because I am normal, and
that’s the frame of reference I use to judge people.
Normal,
everyday life.
I don’t think about rapists, killers, paedophiles…bad
people, bad things, it’s not in my world. Or, I didn’t think it was…

Sunday 19

The bloody cow! The
two-faced, conniving, vindictive, opportunistic, money-grabbing… I’ve run out
of words! I’m too flabbergasted to even swear!!

The first thing I saw this
morning when I went skulking around the supermarket trying to get food without
being recognised? Emblazoned across one of the red tops, was ‘My hell in the
Port Pervert’s lair’ and beneath it a photo of Hannah. Hannah! She’s sold her
bloody story!

Stunned, I picked it up, my
brain refusing to believe what it was seeing. Oh the irony that, even after
everything that’s happened, I can still be surprised by what people are capable
of. I stood there looking at that load of trash, thinking: ‘No, it’s not what
it seems. She’ll be talking about how normal we were, trying to get people to realise
we weren’t some kind of weird monster couple.’

So I actually paid for a
copy of the rag and took it home with me. Shoved it up my jumper before I left
the shop, of course, didn’t want the
paps
to get a
shot of me with a newspaper. The security guard by the doors gave me a really
funny look as I did it, given that it’s more the sort of thing he’d see a
shoplifter do; I expect not many people who’ve paid for something shove it up
their jumper or down their trousers or something afterwards…

The minute I got back to the
house I retrieved the paper, not caring that the black ink had smudged onto my
white bra, and spread the pages out to read. It was about two seconds later
that the truth hit and the swearing started.

‘The way he looked at me was
pure evil,’ I read aloud. What?! ‘I knew then, like some kind of protective
instinct kicking in, that if I didn’t get away there and then, my number was
up.’

She was on about that day
when she and Amy had come round and he’d made them feel uncomfortable. Now, fair
enough, that did happen, and with hindsight, it must have been quite scary for
them, but come on, ultimately all he actually did was give them a funny look.
Why did she have to sell the tale to some tacky tabloid and make loads more of
it than there actually was? Why profit from other people’s misery? She didn’t
even have the decency to warn me beforehand.

Hannah,
a busty brunette, trembles as she remembers that awful night when she came so
very close to
death,
was
another bit that really stuck out for me.
So close to death?
Come off it, you can’t kill someone by giving them a nasty glare. And also,
frankly, she isn’t busty – more flat-chested and athletic.

The worst thing though, the
absolute worst thing, was that she wasn’t just talking about that night. That
wouldn’t have filled more than a quarter of the page, even with a heavy dose of
over-dramatic padding. No, she was talking about our everyday life.
Mine and Daryl’s.
She made us sound like freaks.

We’d held a barbecue the
other year, and she’d been terrified, apparently, as Daryl and I had leered at
her over the sausages (yes, that’s really what the newspaper story said, I’m
not making that up). Now I do remember her being really drunk and making
suggestive comments herself about the various uses of bangers, in a bad Carry
On film kind of way. I don’t remember her looking even remotely ‘terrified’.
Although I was a bit scared when she stood on the table and gave a
rousing rendition of ‘I’m Too Sexy’ by Right Said Fred, while waving a
particularly long sausage about and miming an act that had made Kim cover Henry’s
eyes.
That bit of the evening hadn’t made it into the article.

To be honest, Daryl had
looked a bit scary when Hannah had vomited all over our new rug…but I’d managed
to clear it up quite quickly and smooth things over as I’d bundled her into a
minicab I’d ordered for her (and paid for!) so she could go home and get some
rest. Funnily enough though, none of that was reported in Hannah’s version of
events either.

There was absolutely and
definitely no leering over the sausages on my part though.

I suppose on the plus side,
at least she’s finally made me feel angry. Well done her, because for the first
time since the trial’s revelations, I’m red-rage furious. How much did she get
for her lies and exaggerations? It’s one thing to want nothing more to do with
me - as hurtful as that is, I do understand – but we’ve known each other since
we were kids so I don’t get how she could betray me like this. At least other
friends who have dropped by the wayside haven’t stooped to this level.

Yet.

Finally I understood Mum’s
rage when she’d kicked the bed apart. I wanted to punch someone, tear something
to shreds,
destroy
the way I’d been destroyed. I tore
the newspaper up into tiny pieces in the bin, but was still fuming. I wanted to
rant to someone who’d be as outraged as me. I almost called Kim but remembered
she’d mentioned she was going out; she goes out so rarely that I didn’t want to
disturb her happiness with my crap.

Then I picked up the phone
and dialled Hannah to give her a piece of my mind. It gave a single ring before
I
wimped out and quickly ended the call, remembering
the mess I’d made that time I’d phoned a newspaper to complain about their
coverage after Daryl’s arrest. Knowing Hannah she’d probably sell this Sunday
tabloid a follow up tale of how the Port Pervert’s wife had stalked, threatened
and harassed her.

See? I’m finally learning to
play this game.

Monday 20

How could I have loved a
rapist and not known?

Tuesday 21

I got the truck back today.
The police had held it since they confiscated it after Daryl’s arrest. Now the
trial is over, they’ve released it. It’s stuck outside my house now and every
time I see its massive shadow my heart jumps and I feel sick because I automatically
think it means he’s coming home.

What the fuck am I going to
do with his truck? I could sell it, I need the money, but who is going to want
to buy it?

A
sicko maybe, who wants it for some kind of twisted memorabilia.
Well, I can’t let someone like that have it. So I’ll have to have it crushed or
something. I don’t even know how to organise that. I’ll look into it another
day…

When Kim called for her almost
daily check up on me, I told her about it. ‘I can have a look into that,’ she
offered. ‘I’ll get everything organised for you.’

‘Thanks, that’s really,
really kind of you,’ I sighed with relief. ‘But are you sure you have time?
What with work and Henry and…’

‘It’s okay, I can sort it
tomorrow afternoon; Henry can be picked up from school by P-
’
 
She
stopped short.

‘By
who?’
I asked curious.

‘Oh, nobody, it doesn’t
matter.’

A nasty suspicious formed.
‘You’re not back with Psycho Sam again?’

She gasped in shock at the
idea. ‘No! Oh, look I wasn’t going to say anything because, well, it’s just not
important compared to what’s going on with you, but, well, I’ve started seeing
someone.’

Normally I’d have been
alight with curiosity. I didn’t so much as feel a glimmer though. Well, maybe a
dying ember. Still, I forced myself to sound interested.
‘Oh,
great.
Who?’

‘It’s, well, it’s Peter.
Simpson.
The solicitor.’

Now I did smile. Only the
slightest turning up of my lips, a movement that felt almost alien, but it was
still definitely a smile. I’d honestly started to wonder if I’d ever do that
again.

‘That’s great news. He seems
like a really decent guy,’ I said. And he does. He really, truly does.

But do you ever really know
anyone?

‘I’ve liked him since I
first met him,’ she revealed eagerly. ‘He’s really helped me with Sam too,
getting me a restraining order and making sure it’s being enforced correctly. I
just feel safe with him. I’m not that crazy person Sam turned me into, I’m me
again only…only a hundred times happier and nicer!’

Despite the thick layer of
cynicism and despair that surrounds me, I was happy for her. If anyone deserves
this it’s her. Besides, it’s good to know that there are some decent men out
there.

‘He’s great with Henry too,’
she added. ‘It was ages before I introduced them because I was so wary after Sam,
but Peter totally understood that. And the first time they met, Peter gave him
a Ben 10 toy – I must have mentioned at some point that Henry loved Ben 10 and
Peter had remembered; how lovely is that? They played together with it for
ages, and Henry was totally sold on him after that. I…I honestly couldn’t be
happier.’

‘Hey, you’re not crying are
you?’ I asked.

‘Yep, tears of happiness,’
she sniffed merrily.

‘So how long’s this been
going on?’ I wondered.

‘We got together just before
the trial. We…we’d met up a couple of times for lunch, just as friends, when
Peter suddenly made this little speech about how he really liked me and very
much wanted to be more than friends but knew I was vulnerable and hoped I
didn’t think he was being unprofessional and using his job to take advantage of
me, and that I must say immediately if I felt uncomfortable or never wanted to
see him again…

‘He was so nervous that it
sounded really formal and it just made me laugh. I didn’t even think, just
threw my arms around him and gave him a kiss right there at the table!

‘I wanted to tell you but it
just seemed ridiculous and frivolous when you have so much going on in your
life.’

‘So that was your big
secret? I knew there was something! And honestly, I don’t think it’s frivolous,
I think it’s great. I could do with some good news for once.’

And you know what? It did
make me feel happier.

Wednesday 22

I’m going mad. The same
stupid things keep going round my head. I can’t stop them. I can’t answer the
questions. I don’t know why Daryl did these things. Even replaying the conversation
with his mum doesn’t help, and her assertion that he was ‘born
bad
’. It can’t be that simple. If I’d been a bit more
switched on could I have seen something was wrong with him and helped him?
Could I have stopped this from happening? Could I have saved those women?