The Good Kind of Bad (17 page)

‘You’re lucky, you know.’

‘Lucky?’

‘To have me. You’re lucky I took pity on you.’

‘Lucky for being
hit
? For walking on eggshells in case you lose your temper? This isn’t a life. Tell me,
Joe
; why would I slum it with a guy who has to hit me to prove he’s a man? Go on, tell me!’

‘You about done?’

Lifting his leg, he brought down his foot with monumental force, his boot striking me clean in the face like he was kicking a football. I’d never given thought to what it felt like, being kicked in the face; the sole of his biker boot imprinting its mark with an incarnadine laceration, the snap of neck tendons and the plethora of blood and screams to expel. That was, until Joe showed me. Again, and again.

I couldn’t think, I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think about breathing. The pain was a faint-inducing smack to my temples, the throbbing like someone had taken a jackhammer to my head. Clutching my face as if to soothe the wounds, upon drawing my hands away I found them coated in blood.

It took a minute for my caterwauls to turn hoarse, for Joe to draw back the bedroom shutters from where he’d retreated and cancel out my screams with some of his own.

‘Quit it, bitch, you’re giving me a headache.’

My first instinct was to run. My second? That he’d kill me if I didn’t. I stumbled forward, frantic, finding the front door through a mess of light and shadow. Blood and tears masked the stairwell as through the churning deafness, I listened for his footsteps. He’d let me go, watched me meander to the door in resplendent torture, but there were no other feet; at least, not yet.

The blood in my eye painted the street red, the reality of the Chicago night like an express train to the senses; the waves of unconsciousness threatening to snatch me from the present until I succumbed to the dark.

I staggered on, hurting and breathless as, looking down, my dress was wet to the touch. As a truck hurtled straight for me in the middle of South Evergreen Street, the warning tones blasted while it skidded to the kerb, the rush of air like I’d lingered too close to the platform edge. I jumped backwards, my aching eyes startled as my pulse jumped to treble digits.

Across the street, I made out a lone figure darting along the building fronts. I wasn’t quite bleeding to death but I couldn’t tell the difference. It hurt, a lot, and I needed help.

My raspy voice called out, but I was given a mere passing glance, the guy’s step soon quickening. He didn’t see me. I wasn’t there.
Bastardo numero dos
.

Retreating to the pavement, on the side of the street my river of blood still flowed. Placing a hand in my jacket pocket and exhaling relief, I pulled out my phone and dialled Nina’s number, blindly punching at the keys.

It rang and rang. No answer. Crouching on the floor to save my shaking legs, I next tried her apartment, but the line diverted to voicemail.

Although I punched in 9-1-1, I couldn’t press the call button, recalling my desperate self-promise about the clinic. Police meant ambulances and ambulances meant hospitals. I couldn’t do it. My wounds would heal and I’d wake tomorrow with nothing but a sore head.

The unwanted tears were caustic as my legs failed and my consciousness faded with each flicker of the streetlamp. Now my foundation had collapsed like a sinkhole, I was more than ready for the darkness, the sorrow too much to bear of all I’d abandoned for this.

Then came the lights. Bright lights. Startling lights. I heard the screech of a vehicle’s tyres as a car pulled up beside me.

A door opened and then someone was beside me, quite close. Someone was calling my name.

Forcing open my one good eye, I tried to talk, though I spoke only in whispers. I felt myself being shaken and juddered and jerked before what felt like a blanket was placed over me and I was scooped off the street and carried to the back seat of a car.

Then the door shut, my eyes closed and we started off into the night.

I found myself on a sofa, a leather one, spread out like a starfish. There was a folded green blanket and glass of water on the low table beside me and I could hear something crackling, like my father’s old turntable. I realised it was a fire, off to the left, set back within a pure white alcove.

Every limb ached. Moving to sitting, I felt the panic sweep up from my toes. Glancing around the foreign room for Joe, for any sign of him and his fists, I found myself alone, but it didn’t stop the terror blistering my skin like poison ivy as a glimpse of the floor sent me back, to the apartment, and to Joe’s boot hitting me head on – a phantom trickle of blood trailing down my cheek, a handsome trail of claret, salty and sharp as it met my mouth.

From behind the floor-to-ceiling glass, the muted sound of the city penetrated the room, though this wasn’t South Evergreen Street or a hotel suite; there was too much square footage for either. No. I was in someone’s home.

Fighting the migraine that’d pounded my head since waking, I let my confusion slide. The air was thick in the shadowy room, like I could reach out and grab a handful of it. I was still in the city, the one thing I
did
know; behind the glass Chicago was painted like a life-size canvas, the twinkling lights of downtown and an orange brushstroke of the dawn breaking beyond.

My rescuer hadn’t been Joe, and now I was somewhere else; not a dream or elaborate fabrication, but an apartment straight from the pages of the
Architectural Digest
. Looking up, I saw the expanse continued on to a mezzanine level and through the far door there was possibly a corridor.

The lofty heights comforted me, if only for the absence of Joe. This was not a world of leftover scraps, fire bucket ashtrays and icy showers my stubbornness put up with; of a boy I didn’t love who liked to hurt and hit and pummel and shout. Though wherever I was, the last thing I wanted was to stay.

Everything was fuzzy in my shadowy haven, until I caught sight of the blood. It felt like I was drowning in it. Meandering trails of red and clumps of dried blood clung to my dress and arms. I didn’t want to cry over Joe. My abuser, the source of my terror, would never deserve my tears, but still they came and still I wiped them clean.

I’d married a man I didn’t know. How could I have expected anything less? Because I used to believe in fate? That I was meant to leave Will, board a plane and meet Joe? That’s how it happened in the movies ‒ the true-love couple that took a chance and sixty years later were still insanely in love. But this wasn’t a movie, this was real, and this was the last time. I was done.

I’d been carried to this sofa and laid with white sheets, dressings for the dying, dead and mentally unhinged, but I’d survived the attack. I’d been removed from the danger, though still couldn’t form the thoughts. Trying to recall the day, my choice of breakfast or the morning headlines was a blur, one big red blur.

As it turned out, I was worth more than other people’s approval, was worth more than blood in my eye. My wounds would heal in time but it was something deeper, something indefinable tainting my aura.

‘My god, you’re awake.’

As the whisper cut the silence, my heart leapt. I looked towards a tall figure, silhouetted against the flames in the alcove. He turned and walked across to me, kneeling by my side as I scrabbled up the sofa to nowhere.

‘Don’t touch me!’ I nearly screamed.

‘Wow, calm down. I’m here to help.’

‘I don’t want your help. Leave me alone! I have pepper spray!’ I didn’t, but he didn’t know that ‒ or maybe he did. I wasn’t wearing my jacket. He could’ve taken it and searched the pockets, taken my phone, locked me in. I could be his prisoner, one too weak to fight back.

I didn’t recognise the voice, and as a hand reached out I flinched before I let my head fall away, the intimacy and closeness reserved for those better acquainted, or acquainted at all. Surely sensing my unease, he mumbled something before leaving the room.

As the door closed with a clunk, I used all my strength to rise from the sofa, though my arms were soon defeated. Shutting my weary eyes, I prayed only for my dreams.

It was already sunset when I next awoke. Stealthily checking for my visitor, I found myself alone once more. Sitting too quickly, I felt faint and shot a palm to my brow, but was surprised to find my head had been dressed. The bandages burned like battery acid before I tore them away, allowing my fingertips to trace the new contours of my face. The skin had swollen like a poisoned bubble, while my shirt dress still clung to me, dirty and cheap, infecting me from the inside out.

If only Mother could see me now. Swelling with pride, for sure.

I couldn’t stay in my mystery man’s house, languishing in my private dystopia. Feeling stronger and a little hungry, I began staggering and teetering around the rooms, soon finding the sizeable apartment devoid of life, and, like the fish fountain house from
Mon Oncle
, unbearably clinical. It didn’t look like anyone was home ‒ make that ever ‒ anyone with any personality. It was like a television set or a show home at Summer Pier, as if I was wandering through some opulent IKEA dressed with all the finest fittings.

Stepping back into the lounge, I pulled a book from the white colonial-style bookshelf, a well-thumbed copy of
Rear Window,
just to check it was real. Scanning the shelves, he appeared well-read. The bookcase overflowed, in an extremely ordered way:
Atonement
,
Shutter Island
,
Fight Club
and
Cliff’s Police Sergeant Examination Guide
.

In bare feet I stumbled on until I found the bathroom, on my journey passing several closed doors and the entrance to a terrace. I’d already tried the front door but it was locked, and from god knows how many storeys up I wouldn’t survive the jump from the window. Checking for a house phone, I couldn’t find one, and my jacket was nowhere to be seen.

I was all out of options. I needed an escape plan. I had to clean myself up, and devise a plan.

Back in the marble bathroom I squinted at my face, my right eye barely opening around the swelling. I was tinged with the deep red of burst blood vessels, the stench of violence.

I looked out of a face I didn’t recognise. Long would I wear the scars of the attack, and the worst of it? Knowing it was for nothing. I hadn’t fended off a rapist who’d stalked me in the dark. I hadn’t fought away a mugger. I couldn’t tell people why I had a face full of bruises, though ironically I knew my silence would hold the answer.

Turning away, I felt only shame for Joe, only disgust and unease as I padded back to the lounge.

Stumbling in the hallway, I froze. A key turned in the front door, the crunch of the lock like thunder. As the heavy door creaked open, I wasn’t sure of the more terrifying option: Joe on the other side with his boot coated in a fine spray of my blood, or my kidnapper returning.

He’d probably left to fetch his serial killer butchering kit, and now he was back to slice and dice me up. There was no time to hide.

Just before I again threatened him with non-existent pepper spray, a startled and suited Evan stood in the doorway, clutching a Fox & Oban grocery bag under each arm. It was Evan . . . Detective Evan Thomasz of the Chicago Metropolitan Police.

‘What are you doing up?’ Throwing the paper grocery bags on the floor, he rushed over.

Though I backed away, my arms outstretched. ‘Evan? Why are you . . . what’s going on?’

He pointed back to the bags, where several oranges had spilled out over the floorboards. ‘I went to get supplies.’

‘
You
found me? I mean, this is your . . .’ This was
Evan’s
apartment. At least he wasn’t a total stranger, and at least I hadn’t been kidnapped . . . I didn’t think.

‘Hey, come on. Let me sit you back down.’ He guided me down the hall to the lounge, careful to keep his distance. ‘I tried to bandage your head. Last time I did that was on a Rescue Randy doll at work, so I apologise. You stopped bleeding or I would’ve driven you to the ER. You feel any better?’ he asked as I shuffled into the lounge.

‘I think so.’

‘You look it. Not so deathly white.’

‘Apart from the blood,’ I reminded him.

‘Jesus, why are you still wearing that? Didn’t you see the clothes I left out for you?’

‘Clothes?’

‘On the dresser.’

Back in the lounge, he headed towards the alcove and collected the small pile of garments on the oak dresser beside the fireplace. ‘I don’t know if they’ll fit but I pulled these out for you. They were my wife’s; I mean, my
ex
-wife’s. Why don’t you try a couple of things on? There’s a shower room down the hall.’ He pointed behind me, now brimming with smiles.

I paused, a little overwhelmed. ‘I . . . thank you, Evan, for all of this, but I don’t understand what happened. How I got here.’

‘Don’t you remember?’

I wasn’t sure if I’d told him or if he was simply probing for info. He was a cop, after all.