Behind Closed Doors: A Novel

Jack, meticulous as always, comes up to the bedroom at ten-thirty in the morning and tells me we’ll be leaving at eleven o’clock precisely. I’m not worried that I won’t be ready in time. I’ve already showered, so thirty minutes is long enough to dress and put on my make-up. The shower calmed me down a little as, since waking at eight, I’ve been in a continuous state of excitement, hardly daring to believe that I’ll soon be seeing Millie. Ever cautious, I remind myself that anything could happen. Yet the face I present to Jack shows nothing of my inner turmoil. It is calm and composed and, as he stands back to let me pass, I am just an ordinary young woman about to go on a day out.

Jack follows me into the bedroom next door, where my clothes hang. I walk over to the huge wardrobe that runs the length of the wall, slide back the mirrored door, pull out one of the drawers and select the cream-coloured bra and matching knickers which Jack bought me last week. In another drawer I find some flesh-coloured stockings, which I prefer to tights. Jack watches from a chair while I take off my pyjamas and put on my underwear and stockings. Then I slide back the next door and stand for a moment, looking at all the clothes hanging neatly by colour. I haven’t worn my blue dress in a long time and it is one that Millie loves because it is the same colour as my eyes. I take it out of the wardrobe.

‘Wear the cream one,’ Jack says. It’s true that he prefers me in neutral colours so I put the blue dress back and put on the cream one.

My shoes are stored in clear boxes on shelves in another part of the wardrobe. I choose a pair of beige shoes with a heel. As we usually go for a walk after lunch, flat ones would be more practical, but Jack likes me to be elegant at all times, whether we’re walking around a lake or having dinner with friends. I slip them on, take a matching bag from the shelf and hand it to Jack. I walk over to the dressing table and sit down. It doesn’t take me long to do my make-up: a little bit of eye pencil, some blusher and a dash of lipstick. There are still fifteen minutes left so to fill in the time I decide to wear some nail varnish. I choose a pretty pink from the various bottles arrayed on the dresser, wishing I could take it with me and paint Millie’s nails, something I know she would love. When it’s dry, I stand up, take my bag from Jack and go downstairs.

‘Which coat would you like to wear?’ he asks, as we reach the hall.

‘My beige wool, I think.’

He fetches it from the cloakroom and helps me on with it. I button it up and turn out the pockets while Jack looks on. He opens the front door and, once he’s locked it behind us, I follow him out to the car.

Although we are almost at the end of March, the air is cold. My instinct is to draw it in hard through my nose and gulp it down. Instead, I remind myself that I have the whole day in front of me, and rejoice in that thought. This trip out has been hard won and I intend to make the most of it. As we reach the car, Jack activates the remote control and the huge black gates that front our house begin to open. Walking around to the passenger side of the car, he opens my door for me. I get in and a man jogging past the house looks through the gates towards us. I don’t know him but Jack wishes him a good morning and—either because he is too out of breath to speak or because he is saving his energy for the rest of his run—the man acknowledges the greeting with a wave of his hand. Jack closes my door behind me and, less than a minute later, we drive out through the gates. As they swing shut behind us, I turn my head for a glimpse of the beautiful house Jack bought for me, because I like to see it as others see it.

We begin the journey into London and as we drive along, my mind goes back to the dinner party we hosted last night. How I managed to pull it off is still a mystery when there were so many things that could have gone wrong.

‘Your soufflés were perfect,’ Jack says, telling me that I’m not the only one thinking about the previous evening. ‘It was clever of you to predict a delay in getting to the table and allow for it in your calculations, very clever indeed. But Esther doesn’t seem to like you very much. I wonder why that is?’

I know I need to choose my words carefully. ‘She doesn’t appreciate perfection,’ I say.

It’s an answer that pleases him. He begins to hum a little tune and, as I look at the passing landscape, I find myself thinking about Esther. Under other circumstances, I would probably like her. But her undoubted intelligence makes her dangerous to someone like me. It’s not that she doesn’t appreciate perfection, as I first thought, it’s more that she’s suspicious of it.

It takes the best part of an hour to reach Millie’s school. I spend the time thinking about Dena Anderson, Jack’s client. I don’t know much about her apart from the fact that she recently married a wealthy philanthropist, well respected for his work with various charities and therefore an unlikely candidate in the wife-battering stakes. Still, I know only too well how appearances can be deceiving and if Jack has agreed to take her on as a client she must have a very strong case. Losing is not a word in Jack’s vocabulary, as he never ceases to remind me.

We haven’t seen Millie for a month so, impatient to see me, she’s waiting on the bench outside the front door wrapped up in a yellow hat and scarf—yellow is her favourite colour—with Janice, her carer. When I get out of the car, she rushes over, her eyes bright with tears of relief and, as I hug her tightly, I’m aware of Jack watching us. Janice joins us and I hear Jack telling her that although we knew Millie would be disappointed, we hadn’t dared to come and see her until I had completely recovered from the bout of flu that had laid me so low. Janice reassures him that we did the right thing, adding that she had explained to Millie why we couldn’t come.

‘But it was very hard for her,’ she admits. ‘She adores you both so much.’

‘And we adore her,’ Jack says, smiling fondly at Millie.

‘Say hello to Jack, Millie,’ I remind her quietly and, disentangling herself, she turns to Jack.

‘Hello, Jack,’ she says, giving him a big smile. ‘I happy to see you.’

‘And I’m very happy to see you too,’ he says, kissing her cheek. ‘You do understand why we couldn’t come before, don’t you?’

Millie nods. ‘Yes, poor Grace ill. But better now.’

‘Much better,’ Jack agrees. ‘I have something for you, Millie, for being so patient.’ He puts his hand into his coat pocket. ‘Can you guess what it is?’

‘Agatha Christie?’ Her brown eyes light up with pleasure, as there’s nothing she loves more than listening to murder mysteries.

‘Clever girl.’ He takes an audio book from his pocket. ‘I don’t think you’ve got And Then There Were None, have you?’

She shakes her head.

‘It’s one of my favourites,’ Janice says, smiling. ‘Shall we start it tonight, Millie?’

‘Yes,’ Millie nods. ‘Thank you, Jack.’

‘It’s my pleasure,’ Jack tells her. ‘And now I’m going to take my two favourite ladies out to lunch. Where would you like to go?’

‘Hotel,’ says Millie immediately. I know why she has chosen the hotel, just as I know why Jack is going to refuse.

‘Why don’t we go to the restaurant by the lake?’ he says, as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘Or the one that serves those delicious pancakes for dessert?’ Millie’s face falls. ‘Which would you prefer?’

‘The lake,’ she mutters, her dark hair swinging in front of her face.

Millie doesn’t talk much on the way. She had wanted me to sit in the back of the car with her but Jack told her he would feel as if he was a taxi driver.

When we arrive at the restaurant, Jack finds a parking space and, as we walk up the path he takes our hands, so that we’re on either side of him. The staff greets us like old friends because we often bring Millie here. They show us to the round table in the corner, the one that Jack likes, by the window. We sit as we always do, Jack facing the window and Millie and I sitting on either side of him. As we study our menus, I stretch my leg out under the table and find hers, my secret sign to her.

Jack chats away to Millie during the meal, encouraging her to talk, asking her what she did during the weekends when we didn’t come to see her. She tells us that once Janice took her back to hers for lunch, once they went out for afternoon tea, and once they were both invited to her friend Paige’s house, and not for the first time I thank God that Millie has someone like Janice to step in whenever I can’t be with her.

‘Grace come walk?’ Millie asks once lunch is over. ‘Round lake.’

‘Yes, of course.’ I fold my napkin neatly and place it on the table, my movements deliberately unhurried. ‘Shall we go now?’

Jack pushes back his chair. ‘I’ll come too.’

Even though I didn’t expect anything less, there is still a feeling of crushing disappointment.

‘We go all way round,’ Millie warns.

‘Not all the way around,’ protests Jack. ‘It’s too cold to be outside for long.’

‘Then Jack stay here,’ Millie tells him. ‘I go with Grace.’

‘No,’ says Jack. ‘We’ll all go.’

Millie looks solemnly at Jack from across the table. ‘I like you, Jack,’ she says. ‘But I don’t like Jorj Koony.’

‘I know.’ Jack nods. ‘I don’t like him either.’

‘He ugly,’ says Millie.

‘Yes, he’s very ugly,’ agrees Jack.

And Millie bursts into fits of laughter.

We walk a little way around the lake, Jack walking between me and Millie. Jack tells Millie that he’s busy getting her room ready for when she comes to live with us and when she asks if it’s going to be yellow, he says that of course it is.

He was right; it is too cold to be outside for very long and after about twenty minutes we head back to the car. Millie is even quieter on the way back to her school and I know she feels the same frustration that I feel. When we say goodbye, she asks if we’ll be back to see her the following weekend and when Jack says he’s sure we will be, I’m glad that Janice is within earshot.