If You Love Me: Part 3 of 3: True love. True terror. True story.

If You Love Me: Part 3 of 3: True love. True terror. True story.
Jane Smith

Alice Keale

'You said I was the perfect boyfriend. If you can prove you really love me, perhaps I can be that way again.'This is the chilling true story of a woman trapped in a devastating relationship as she tries to prove her love – over and over again.Within days of spending their first evening together, Alice and Joe were talking about getting married and spending the rest of their lives with each other. Everything about Joe seemed perfect, and Alice was the happiest she’d ever been.Then one day Joe saw a message on her phone from an old love, and that changed everything. He ignored Alice’s explanations and desperate pleas. And soon the violence and abuse began.As she attempted to prove to Joe that he really was her world, Alice gave up everything that mattered to her, including her family, her friends and her job. But still it wasn’t enough.Then the ‘challenges’ started, and finally Alice dared to hope that this time, maybe this time, Joe might just believe she loved him …

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Copyright (#u458bcf7a-cd9a-5ee0-9659-11cd6edaecd2)

Certain details in this story, including names, places and dates, have been changed to protect the family’s privacy.

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First published by HarperElement 2017

FIRST EDITION

© Alice Keale and Jane Smith 2017

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017

Cover photograph © Stephen Carroll/Arcangel Images (posed by model)

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Alice Keale and Jane Smith assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780008205256

Ebook Edition © January 2017 ISBN: 9780008214944

Version: 2016-12-20

Contents

Cover (#u22b28b64-7cf3-5761-b1db-7d9daa346ee0)

Title Page (#u22348cb8-6713-5f11-bd4a-3d4f163c4519)

Copyright (#u35792862-5fee-5fa2-a0f5-99c01a73f94b)

Chapter 12 (#u3f7c8d7b-ca2f-54b4-8690-cd86e2d6995e)

Chapter 13 (#u2b71dc6e-02bb-5f88-83d4-a074bda0ce65)

Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)

Moved by If You Love Me? (#litres_trial_promo)

Moving Memoirs eNewsletter (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 12 (#u458bcf7a-cd9a-5ee0-9659-11cd6edaecd2)

In the spring, Joe and I went on another holiday. To Peru this time, to trek part of the Inca trail. It was a holiday Joe could easily have afforded, but I paid for it all, out of what remained of my savings. And, in any other circumstances, it would have been worth paying almost any amount of money to be able to trek through that amazing landscape of lush valleys and high plateaux, surrounded by spectacular mountain scenery.

Our guide usually walked some distance ahead of us, mostly out of earshot of the endless questions and recriminations that, for me, made walking far more tiring than it would otherwise have been. ‘Many people would give anything to do what we’re doing,’ I thought, as I trudged along the trail beside Joe on what was probably the fourth day, barely noticing the breathtaking beauty of the mountains whose peaks seemed to touch the brilliant blue sky. Then, suddenly, Joe stopped, looked up at the birds that were swooping and calling to each other above our heads and said, ‘I think those are condors.’

It was a simple statement, the sort of thing anyone might have said at the time. But the fact that it was said by Joe was extraordinary. I looked at him as closely as I dared, trying to read the expression on his face, and could feel my chest tighten as I realised that the man I was looking at was the Joe I had fallen in love with, what seemed like a whole lifetime ago. He must have sensed that I was watching him, and when he turned to look at me he smiled and his face relaxed and was handsome again, the way it was in the photographs I’d taken of him on our first holiday together in Barcelona.

For a few minutes I was almost afraid to breathe, in case I broke the spell of the moment and sent us plummeting back into the misery in which we’d spent almost every waking minute of every hour since the discovery. But Joe continued to smile, and while Joe was smiling, the cross-examination stopped and the world around me came back into focus. Having walked for the last few days with my shoulders hunched and my head bowed under the weight of his aggressive questioning, I suddenly noticed the flowers that littered the path at our feet, the sunlight that was reflected off the mirror-like surfaces of distant rivers and lakes, and the sharp, clear outlines of the soaring mountain peaks.

Having wanted to trek the Inca trail for as long as I could remember, all I’d thought about since the day we’d arrived was catching the flight home, where I could at least feel safe knowing that I was in the same country as my family and friends, rather than alone with Joe 6,000 miles away. Now, though, as Joe talked about the things we used to talk about when we first met – what we were going to do with our lives, where we were going to live, how many children we were going to have – I thought that trekking in Peru had done what I’d been unable to do and had brought the real Joe back.

Although it was Joe who wanted to go to Peru when we did, he’d actually trekked the Inca trail before, twice: once with his wife and once with a girlfriend with whom he’d had a relationship that lasted for more than a year. ‘There’s this special spot,’ he’d told me, ‘where the view is magnificent. When we’re standing there, I think I’ll know if I can forgive you and if we can move on.’

I don’t think I really understood what he meant about it being a special spot, but it turned out that there was a particular place on the trail where he’d had some kind of epiphany moment with each of them. He didn’t have one with me, however. I knew it was the ‘special spot’ as soon as I saw it, and it really was beautiful. But although I tried to get him to tell me what he was thinking, he refused to say anything, either way. Then the questioning started again, and I knew it hadn’t worked. An hour later he was bent double at the side of the trail, dry retching and trying to catch his breath.

It was weeks after we’d returned from Peru when I first began to wonder if he’d done the same thing with his wife and girlfriend as he was doing with me. Perhaps it was a pattern of behaviour for Joe, I thought, believing he’d found the perfect woman and then everything spiralling out of control when he discovered she was only human after all. At the time I just felt disappointed, because being in what must be one of the most beautiful mountain regions in the world had failed to solve the problem – which was beginning to seem insoluble.

Not long after we came back from Peru, I had to have an operation. I’d been experiencing pain in my pelvis for some time, while my stomach was often tender and swollen, and it had eventually been diagnosed as an ovarian cyst. I was told that they are quite common, and that a lot of women have at least one during their lifetime, although many don’t have any noticeable symptoms.

Joe insisted that, in some plague-of-locusts sort of way, the cyst on my ovary was the physical manifestation of my amorality and had started to grow as soon as I began my ‘sordid affair with a married man’. It was a belief he attempted to reinforce by citing various philosophers and theologians, and after a while I didn’t bother to argue with him, because I knew there was nothing I could say that would change his mind.

Joe came with me to the hospital for my appointment with the consultant, and while we were sitting in the waiting room my sister phoned me. I barely spoke to anyone in my family by that time. Joe had severely restricted my contact with my parents and sister, and always supervised and directed any phone conversations I did have. So I was surprised that he told me to answer it on that occasion.

‘Hi, Alice. It’s Lucy. I’m outside Joe’s house with Mum. Sarah and her boyfriend are here too. We know you’re in there and we want to see you. We’ve driven all this way because we’re worried about you. Can you open the door and let us in. Please.’