The Banishing Page 8

  “Okay, I don’t mind.”

  “I just wanted to know if perhaps you were…free to meet today? For coffee and a chat.”

  Melissa hesitated, not knowing what to say. Josh seemed like a nice guy, easy to talk to, but why did he want to see her? More than that, what would Mark do if he found out she was meeting a good-looking young man for coffee? It could be more trouble than it was worth. “I’m not sure,” she answered honestly.

  “I’m sorry. Let me be honest. I couldn’t stop thinking of you the other day when you left. I was worried.”

  “Well, I’m okay,” she lied.

  “Really?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Josh broke through the awkward atmosphere. “One coffee. At my office. I’ll bring pastries over from the canteen.”

  “Oh, you’re working today?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid I am. I’ll be at my office all day. I assume you’re not?”

  Melissa laughed. “No way. It’s my day off. I suppose a coffee would be nice.”

  “You’d be brightening up my lunch break,” he said, his warmth reaching her over the phone.

  Melissa smiled to herself. He was a good guy. One of the good ones.

  “I’ll come over at noon,” she said finally.

  “You don’t mind coming over to the hospital? Only by the time I’d drive over to meet you somewhere else...It’d just be easier.”

  “That’s fine, don’t worry.” Melissa hung up after saying goodbye and went upstairs to wash and dress. Before she left at midday, she didn’t see or think of ghosts.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Outside, it was cold and wet. Melissa chose to wear a pair of black trousers and a tight, red top—one of her favorites. All through the week, she forced herself into ill-fitting white, crisp, clerical shirts and ugly, black trousers. It was the uniform all of the nursing staff had to wear, and she hated it.

  During the weekend, at least she could make an effort; although, she hadn’t felt like making an effort for Mark in a long time. He had put an end to that.

  Melissa wanted to walk down to the hospital, hoping to get some much needed fresh air, but it was far too cold. Rain fell in sleek, thin patters against the pavement and dampened her hair as she jumped into the car. She wouldn’t walk in this weather.

  She was surprised the roads were busy, considering it was the weekend. Despite the traffic, she thought about Josh Howell. He had sounded genuinely concerned for her over the phone, and it was good of him to take the time to call her, to see if she was all right. Melissa liked how that felt, knowing that somebody cared, that somebody was worried. Sharon was a good friend, but her insistence that Melissa should simply pack up and leave Mark was not what she wanted to hear, or do. Not yet, anyway. Maybe in time, but not yet, she thought to herself.

  She parked the car as close to the main entrance of the hospital as she could get without having to pay. People milled around the entrance, some with their heads down and their faces taut, full of worry—probably relatives of patients who were desperately ill. Others stood, huddled in corners, smoking. Smoking was not allowed on the property, but people still insisted on using the main entrance as a smoking corner.

  Melissa walked past, quickly sprinting through the small clusters of people and trying to get in from the rain.

  She headed through the reception area. The smell of coffee and baked cakes wafted through the air around her from the small café. It made her hungry. She hoped Josh had picked something up. She took the flight of steps to the second floor and followed the signs that pointed to the Psychology and Psychiatric Unit.

  When she reached Josh’s office, she knocked once, and immediately she heard him from inside telling her to come in.

  She opened the door. For some reason, she felt a little nervous. She didn’t know why, just that the feeling was there, setting her slightly on edge.

  “Hello! Thanks for coming over,” Josh said. He stood from behind his desk, walked over to her, and kissed her on the cheek. It was unexpected. The greeting felt too familiar, too intimate. After all, she had only met him once. It made her flush, and she smiled sheepishly, dropping her handbag and her damp coat onto the back of the chair.

  His eyes narrowed on her, and he smiled, motioning for her to sit down on the sofa that lined the back wall of his office.

  Melissa went over and sat down, suddenly unsure of what to say. Suddenly unsure of why she had come. Josh was being his warm, charming self, and within moments she relaxed.

  “Now, I don’t know about you, but I think the café downstairs sells the best chocolate brownies. I got two of them a few minutes ago. Still warm from the oven,” he said, carrying a cardboard tray with the two brown cakes nestled on top amidst napkins.

  He leaned forward, and Melissa picked up one of the cakes. He placed his on the floor and went back to the desk to fetch the two large beakers off of his desk. “Two coffees,” he said, handing her one of them. Melissa took one, smiled, and thanked him, placing it carefully on the floor. Hot steam rose from the paper cup, and it smelled delicious to her.

  Josh finally sat down beside her, leaned back into the cushions that were propped behind, and bit into his cake. “Trust me, you can’t beat them.” Chocolate crumbs fell from the cake onto his blue shirt, and he blushed, patting them away with his free hand. “You’ll have to excuse me. There is no elegant way to eat these.”

  Melissa laughed and took a bite of her own. Rain tapped against the glass, and the sky overhead was still a bleak blanket of gray, making the office that had seemed bright and welcoming on her previous visit now appear gloomy, depressing.

  “Can I ask you something?” she said, turning to him.

  Josh nodded, throwing the last piece of cake into his mouth and reaching for his drink. “Go ahead.”

  Melissa set her cake onto the napkin before placing it on the floor. Again, her appetite disappeared; she didn‘t feel like eating. Even if she looked like she needed to eat. “Why did you really call me here? I can’t believe that I made so much of an impression on you that you just had to see me, again.”

  Josh raised his eyebrows. “You underestimate yourself,” he replied. He took a sip of coffee, and for a moment, his features were blurred by the steam rising from the drink.

  “Seriously,” Melissa said, her eyes fixed on Josh.

  He hesitated, seeming to be searching for the right answer. Melissa said nothing, waiting for his response.

  “You seemed on edge,” he said at last. “Like you were carrying the weight of the world. You looked so…” his voice melted away, and he fell into silence.

  “I looked so what?” Melissa pressed.

  Josh ran his hand over his chin, the skin uneven and darkened with stubble. “It might sound bad, but you just looked so vulnerable, so lost. I see a lot of people in all sorts of situations—you do in my line of work—but there was just something about you,” he said. His pale skin seemed to redden, and Melissa wondered if he was embarrassed. It made her feel self-conscious, suddenly.

  “Something about me,” she repeated. Her words fell into the veil of silence that had settled between them.

  Josh nodded, taking another sip of his drink. “I just thought about you after you left and realized I didn’t want to leave it at that. You looked like you needed help.”

  I do. Desperately, she thought. My husband has turned into a monster, and I’m seeing ghosts. What would a qualified psychiatrist make of that?

  “What’re you smiling at?” he asked.

  Melissa realized the thought had turned her expression into a half-smile. She shook it away. “I’m all right. You don’t need to worry.”

  “Have you spoken to your husband yet?”

  “About?”

  “Him needing help. If his change in temperament and his mood
swings are getting worse or out of control, he needs help. You know that.”

  Melissa shrugged. “We’ll work through it. I’m going to help him.”

  “You’re frightened of confronting him, though.” Josh pressed. His youthful, warm features made her feel wary of opening up, made her feel like he was too fresh out of school to understand any of the things she was going through with Mark. She felt herself contract, slink away within herself, suddenly not wanting to take the subject further.

  “Melissa, will you confront him?” Josh repeated. He was leaning forward now, closer to her.

  She shrugged.

  “Or are you frightened to?” Josh asked. “In case he tries anything like that, again.”

  Melissa looked up at Josh, and he pointed to the healing cut on her lips, where Mark had struck her. She had almost forgotten about it. The pain on the side of her head had been the worse injury, making the split lip seem like a walk in the park. She instinctively placed a hand to the cut. “I don’t want to get into this,” she said, turning away from his direct gaze.

  She walked over to the large, office window and pressed her face against the cool glass. The rain had eased, but the sky didn’t look healthy. It looked like it was promising more bad weather. “I shouldn’t have come to you. It wasn’t fair to Mark. Or you. You don’t know Mark, so you could never have helped. I was just…I suppose, the day I came to you, I was desperate. Desperate enough to cling to the idea that someone could give me an explanation…that somebody could tell me why things like this happen. Why good people turn bad.”

  Josh didn’t move. He remained on the sofa, but she could feel his eyes on her. She felt like she was on show, under a microscope. She hated that feeling.

  “Good people don’t normally turn bad without a reason, Melissa. Your husband needs help. I made a promise to you that day we met that I would keep everything confidential, but I need to know you’re going to do something. I can’t stand the thought that you’re going to go home to that man day after day, and that he’s doing God-knows-what to you.” His voice was firm, tainted with anger, and Melissa instinctively knew his anger was directed at Mark. For what he had done.

  She turned to him, folding her arms across her chest. She forced a smile. “It’s sweet that you care.”

  Josh held her gaze for a moment, but then looked away. “You’d have to be cold-hearted not to. Nobody deserves to be hit. Can I ask you, has he done more? Was that just one of many?”

  Melissa paused, not knowing how to answer. She barely knew this man, and he wanted to know it all, to know everything. It felt both reassuring and frightening all at once. If Mark knew she was there—with another man, talking about him—he would blow up. “He has a temper problem, like I said,” she reiterated.

  “That means it’s not the first. I presume it won’t be the last. You need to get help.” The sudden conviction in Josh’s voice startled her.

  “Help how?” Melissa rasped. Josh made it sound so logical, sensible, easy. He was forgetting about the fact that it was her life. Her husband. Her happy marriage. Her security.

  Josh lifted himself from the sofa and went over to her. He stood in front of her, reached out, and tilted her head up so that she was looking into his eyes. “What about the police? They would organize a mental health assessment, see if he is ill, and see what sort of help he needs. Melissa, he can’t carry on like this.”

  She felt tears form in her tired eyes but forced them away. “I’m scared,” she said finally, shaking her head.

  “I know.”

  “I need more time. If it carries on, I will get help. I promise, but just not yet.”

  “Are you going to wait for him to hurt you, again?”

  Melissa said nothing.

  Josh took a step closer to her, reached out, and pulled her toward him. It was only a hug, a simple cuddle, but it was the safest Melissa felt in a long, long time.

  Chapter Fourteen

  She promised to stay in touch with Josh. She couldn’t understand why he cared so much, why he seemed so worried, but she trusted that it was genuine, and she couldn’t help but respond to that. There weren’t too many people in the world who would care in that way. It impressed her, in a sense. She had left with the agreement that if things got much worse, she would call him. He had given her his work and mobile numbers. Josh also made her promise that if she felt she was in serious danger, she would call the police. Immediately.

  If it came to it.

  What Mark subjected her to over the last few months was more than enough already, but Melissa felt on some deep, instinctual level that there was more to the change she was seeing in him.

  What it was, she didn’t know. Not yet. She knew she was not going to give up on getting some answers, because Mark meant too much to her to just let things go.

  Melissa was on her way home, weaving her way on the roads. Her hands were clutching the wheel so tightly, her knuckles were pure white. She felt angry. The feeling was almost new to her, alien. Melissa had always been somebody who people thought of as calm, collected, somebody had even once called her shy. Although, she wasn’t shy. She just wasn’t interested or good at making menial, small talk with people she barely knew or cared about. She didn’t feel comfortable with the feelings she was experiencing, now.

  She was pissed off. More than she ever felt before. It felt like she was pissed off at everyone.

  Josh was trying to be kind and helpful, but all he did was insist she call the police. Sharon was much the same: scrape Mark off, get out.

  Didn’t they understand that her marriage meant something to her?

  Then, there was Mark. The one who caused all of this shit to begin with. Her thoughts churned inside her mind, and she felt her body tense. She took a deep breath and tried to quell the frustrations within herself.

  The truth was, Melissa knew, the sensible thing would be to get out. To just walk away. Plenty of women did that. Plenty of women walked out on their men for a lot less than what she was going through—men who turned into uncaring slobs. Men who didn’t make the effort, anymore. Men who had affairs. This was heavier, scarier than any of those things, yet she still felt something urging her to stay with Mark, to try and sort it out. To help him.

  Was it denial, or was there a real reason to stay?

  The thought occurred to her that she was becoming one of those women—the kind you saw on talk shows. Battered women who looked like victims. They wore scars across their skin and sold their excuses of why they couldn’t walk away from their marriage.

  Is this what I’ve become? Melissa thought.

  Is Mark any different from any other man who hit their partner? Or was she just hoping Mark has a good reason, a good excuse. Melissa didn’t want to have to face the realization that she had fallen in love with a monster.

  Her Mum had said something once, and it was coming to the surface of her mind as she drove. Something she said just before Melissa’s wedding day. “Be as sure as you can be, because the man you marry today won’t be the man you’re married to in ten years.” It sounded like an ominous warning, and Melissa had brushed it off at the time, dismissing it as one of her Mum’s subtle digs. She had never liked Mark much. From the day they met, which was about five weeks after they started dating, her Mum had taken an instant dislike to Mark.

  Melissa never understood it. Mark was the perfect gentleman. He brought wine with him to dinner at her parents’ home, charmed her mother with compliments about how he now understood where Melissa had gotten her good looks. Compliments. Safe, witty jokes. Things that Melissa thought any parent would be impressed with, but not her Mum. After meeting Mark a few times—she had reserved saying anything at all about Mark until Melissa pushed her into it—she had finally given Melissa her honest appraisal.

  “He is too nice.” Melissa remembered falling into
fits of laughter, saying that her Mum was the only woman in the world who would dismiss a man her daughter was in love with on the grounds that he was “too nice”.

  Her Mum’s face had grown serious, despite the hilarity Melissa had fallen into, and said, “So, you love him, then?”

  Melissa told her she did. Mark was a good man—good to be around—and they loved each other.

  Her Mum had simply nodded, told her she hoped that Melissa was making the right choice, and returned to washing the dishes.

  That had been that. Her mother hadn’t said a bad word about Mark, but the truth had passed between them that day. Her Mum wanted more for Melissa. The man you marry today won’t be the man you’re married to in ten years. The words now burned themselves into her mind and stubbornly remained there. The words were probably nothing more than a parent who was always dissatisfied with who their daughter brought home. Weren’t parents supposed to be like that?

  It had come true, though, Melissa thought.

  She pulled the car into the driveway and switched off the engine. It scared her to realize she had been completely lost in thought during the entire drive home. She had been locked in her head, imprisoned.

  She sat there, her eyes staring at the house, as the car settled into silence.

  Not even ten years, Melissa thought with a pang of sadness. Five years of marriage, and I don’t recognize him, already.

  The phone in her jacket pocket beeped and vibrated against her thigh. She reached in and pulled it out. It blinked at her, the small screen a bright, luminous yellow.

  ONE MESSAGE RECEIVED

  Melissa flicked through to the phone inbox. It was Sharon.

  “Hi, it’s me. How are things? That guy from the psych department asked for your number. Hope you don’t mind, but I gave it to him. Isn‘t bad on the eye, is he? Call me today. X”

  Melissa threw the phone back into her bag, grabbed her keys, and went inside the house. It was just after one, so Mark wouldn’t be home for at least two or three hours. She would at least try to enjoy what time she had on her own before he returned. Some cold pizza from the take away, maybe a glass of wine. Give Sharon a call. For a while, she would try and suspend the shadow that was darkening her life, and act as if everything was normal.