Page 11 of The Day Shelley Woodhouse Woke Up
‘I don’t know anything about that, I’m afraid,’ he says. ‘But I can talk to someone about it for you.’
‘Yes. Thanks. Sorry. So there was this muscle twitching in his jaw, and I knew it meant trouble. He was furious about something and all I could do was wait to find out what, and how bad, it was.’
‘Shelley,’ Hamza says, ‘is your marriage physically abusive?’
You tell yourself stories. Lies, I suppose. You tell yourself it’s just this one time, and it was an accident, and he was under a lot of pressure, and he didn’t mean it. He was sorry. This wasn’t the real him. All of those things. But sometimes you wake up in hospital and you have to face up to the truth, no matter how ugly it is.
‘Yes, it is.’
He nods, and I wonder how you learn to be neutral in the face of that kind of admission. He doesn’t look like he’s judging me, but he doesn’t look like he’s pitying me, either. He’s just gathering facts so that he can help me.
‘Thank you. Go on, about that night.’
‘Well, it turned out he’d been down to the bar for a quick drink. It was so busy I hadn’t even noticed him, but he’d seen me, and he’d got it into his head that I was flirting with this guy who comes in once or twice a week. I’ve known him for years, this guy. Liam, his name is. And even now, thinking back, I can’t imagine what he saw or heard that made him jealous, but anyway. As soon as I got close enough to him, he punched me, broke my nose, I think. And then he was on me, punching and kicking and… It was the worst it’s ever been. It was like he’d completely lost control of himself. I remember thinking that this was it. That I was going to die, at the hands of the person who was supposed to love and support me. Like so many women do. And I was so furious about that. In the past, I’d been angry with myself, I think. That I’d stayed, that I’d let it go this far, that I’d put myself in that position. But that night, I was just furious with him. That he would do that to me. That he would purposely hurt me. I swore to myself that if I survived, that would be it. It would be over.’
Hamza keeps his gaze fixed on me, his eyes giving nothing away.
‘And here you are,’ he says.
‘Yes, and I’m sticking by what I said. My marriage is over. And I’m going to report this to the police, if I can ever get hold of them.’
He shifts, uncrosses and then recrosses his legs the other way. For a moment, he doesn’t make eye contact, but then he does.
‘Tell me, have you ever experienced any problems with your memory?’
I’m not expecting this, and I’m caught off-guard. Is he questioning my recollection of what happened? Because if he is, how dare he? I’ve just told him the hardest story I’ve ever had to tell, and he follows it up by suggesting that it’s not true? If I wasn’t in a hospital bed, I’d be tempted to get up and walk away, to storm out.
‘No,’ I say instead. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Shelley.’ He steeples his fingers. ‘I’m just trying to explore various avenues to assess the level of damage to your brain.’
‘Brain damage?’
It’s a terrifying phrase. So much scarier than hearing you’ve broken bones.
‘You were in a coma, Shelley. You were very badly hurt. And there’s a small bleed on your brain.’
‘I know!’ I don’t mean to raise my voice, but I do. The frustration is bubbling up and it needs to escape somewhere.
‘I think we should leave it there for today.’
I nod, my throat suddenly dry and my eyes full.
‘I’ll come back another day,’ he says. ‘Thanks for talking to me.’
And then he gets up and slips through the curtain and it’s like he was never there. I close my eyes and sink back into the past.
8
THEN
I wince as Annabelle drags a brush through my hair.
‘Shit, am I hurting you? Almost done.’
I keep quiet. I know, by now, that there is no stopping Annabelle when she’s in the middle of something. It’s not worth saying that it hurts, or that you’re not sure, or that you are sure and you don’t want to. I’m starting to understand that our friendship works, at least in part, because of my meekness and willingness to do what she says.
Annabelle dressed this up as a sleepover, but as soon as I arrived, she whisked me upstairs and started preening us both. Now, I’m shivering in a glittery top passed down from Annabelle’s big sister, Tammy, and she’s wearing mascara for the first time.
