Page 85 of The Day Shelley Woodhouse Woke Up
‘Hospital,’ she says. ‘Shelley, I’ve been calling and calling.’
At first, I can’t compute it. I imagine her lying in that same building I was in, the same one where Mick is, and feel a jolt of panic. But then I realise that she won’t be there; she’ll be in the closest hospital to her new home.
‘Oh, Mum. I went to the house. I knew he’d been there.’
‘I thought he was going to kill me, Shelley. He had me tied to a chair. Gagged.’ Her voice is full of tears, and I think about seeing Mick, about him saying he hadn’t seen her for more than two years, and I want him to be dead.
‘How did you get away?’ I ask.
‘I managed to get some of the knots untied, but it took days. One morning he came in and I was behind the door, and I just ran. Knocked on someone’s door, and they called me an ambulance.’
‘Jesus. Are you all right?’
‘I don’t know. They’re saying I can go home but I’m so frightened.’ Her voice breaks.
‘I’m coming,’ I say. I look at Matt for the first time and he nods, and I know he’s saying he’ll take me back there.
‘Please.’ She tells me which hospital. Which ward, which bed.
It’s only after I’ve ended the call that I realise she doesn’t know I’ve been in hospital too. It doesn’t matter. Not now. Matt holds up the car keys and, when I nod, he turns back towards the door and reaches for his shoes. He looks weary, I think.
‘Are you sure you’re okay to do the drive again?’ I ask.
‘Absolutely. I wish we’d thought to check the hospital when we were there, though. How did she sound?’
I fill him in while we drive. There isn’t much to say, since I don’t know the details of her injuries, but when I talk about Mick keeping her prisoner there, in her own home, he tightens his grip on the wheel until his knuckles are white. When we arrive and are walking through those squeaky hospital corridors, I try to prepare myself for what she might look like. But when we find the ward and step inside, she waves from her bed and she doesn’t look too bad.
‘I’ll get some drinks,’ Matt says, and I appreciate him letting me see her alone.
She’s propped up with pillows and has lipstick on. There’s no visible damage to her face, but her left arm is in plaster.
‘Mum,’ I say, reaching for her hands. ‘How are you?’
‘Much better than I was. They say I can go home later.’
‘Is your arm…?’
‘Broken,’ she says. ‘Other than that it’s just a few bruises.’
I look at her other wrist, which is the yellow of mustard. ‘Have the police been involved?’
She looks a bit uncomfortable.
‘Mum, we have to report this. You need to be safe.’
She gives a tentative nod but doesn’t say anything.
‘What is it? What’s making you hold back?’
She looks me dead in the eye. ‘I’m not strong like you, Shelley. I can’t stand in a courtroom and go over the things he’s done to me.’
Strong. It isn’t a word I associate with myself, but I try it on for size. ‘Do you know what made me strong?’
She doesn’t look away from me, and she nods to encourage me to go on.
‘Thinking about the cyclical nature of it. I saw it happening to you and it ended up happening to me. I don’t know whether I’ll have a child, but I wanted to put an end to it. A full stop. And now David is in prison. And we could get Mick sent there too, between us.’
Her eyes flash with something I can’t quite name. ‘Why did it take you so long to come?’
