32
In the end, Scott’s revenge arrived quietly – it slunk in like a robber gripping a knife inside their coat, or the way that in a horror film, the tiny, menacing drip-drip-drip of an unseen liquid turns out to be blood coming through a floorboard.
Ten days after the flowers, on an otherwise quiet Thursday, Harriet got an unusual number of notifications on her phone. She had finished a bagel in the sitting room, musing that ‘the flow of the rooms’ was an invention of the property market and posh people, but something about the environment of Cal’s house was so spirit-lifting.
She’d finally seen a few rooms at the start of the week, and none of them were a patch on it. They likely didn’t contain men who gave her stomach fireworks when sighted briefly on the first-floor landing without his shirt, though, so swings and roundabouts.
PING. Someone has commented on Harriet Hatley Photography
PING and again.
PING and again.
And again.
This was irregular. Harriet didn’t use social media much, but Facebook was a necessary evil in her line of work. In addition to her profile for her friends and family, she had a basic business one which pointed visitors to her website. She kept an eye on it, although it was more of a landing page that directed the traffic. She only ever got a blizzard of notifications when she shared a couple’s album highlights, with their permission. Harriet never got much activity, unprompted by her. Even if customers uploaded their pictures and tagged her, not very many guests were moved to then shuffle across to thank the photographer. It made her think she was being spammed, except names now listed on her handset looked like real people.
You shouldn’t be spreading your dark skank energy round other peoples big days imo, give this up
Harriet read this several times, in bewilderment. She had no idea what ‘Christian’ would know about her energy, dark skank or otherwise. He was a personal trainer from Shadwell who liked ‘good vibes only’. Could’ve fooled her. She deleted it and blocked him.
Seen your true colours!!
Had she now, and how would Bernadette, ‘I love my Boxer dogs, roast potatoes and three grandkids’ know what they were?
Delete, block. Had she got mixed up with a notorious drink-driving case featuring someone of the same appellation in Birmingham, or been twin-named in a petition in an acrimonious custody battle in Liverpool?
Good luck with getting work now your known for what you really are lmao
Harriet could comment ‘you’re known’ under Niall’s post but she had more pressing issues with it than his grammar. What were they talking about? Was she being targeted in some sort of wind-up? She felt a queasiness, a certainty that something dreadful had happened somewhere, and that the solution to this mystery would not be as trivial or painless as a case of mistaken identity.
Bitch
This was accompanied by the litterbin drop emoji. She deleted and blocked Damon, a ‘proud dad’ and ‘father of three perfect girls’, with sweating hands. She moved to the search term space on the site and typed in: ‘Harriet Hatley’.
It returned her personal profile, her business page, someone at King’s College and a Harriet Hately. It did not contain anything that pointed to the source of the Harriet hate. It was so unsettling that her antagonists were flying in from outer space; these weren’t people who’d Liked her page or had any obvious connection to her whatsoever. It was like being shouted at from the window of a speeding car, except it was every other passing car.
As she was frowning in confusion, someone posted to Harriet’s business page again. This time with screenshots, captioned: THIS YOU?
Even in tiny-size lettering, Harriet could make out Scott’s name at the top of the thumbnail and her stomach lurched. She had known, in some part of her brain, he must be behind this. She hadn’t wanted to outright think it until she absolutely had to.
She saved the picture to her photos, deleted the comment and disabled commenting on her page. She opened the screenshot in full on her phone screen.
It was from Scott’s personal Facebook, set public. There was a photograph of him in a polo shirt under a tree in a park, hugging his knees and smiling winningly, like he was the former lead singer on the cover of his much-anticipated first solo album.
Underneath, lots of text.
My name is Scott Dyer and I’m a victim of an emotional abuser.
Even now as I type those words, I want to run the cursor back and delete them, make them untrue. I thought I had the power to make it untrue by denying it. I thought it made me weak to admit I was scared of a woman, let alone one who I’d wanted to share my life and my bed with. Someone who I’d been in love with. How pathetic is that, to think her behaviour attacked my masculinity? Fear is fear.
The truth is, if I deny my experiences, I can never heal, and I can never help anybody else. We don’t talk about this enough, because society tells men to be strong. We shouldn’t show vulnerability and we shouldn’t complain if we’re going through hell at the hands of our wife or girlfriend. We can all joke among the lads in the pub about ‘bunny boilers’, but we don’t know how to talk about it seriously. How to reach out and admit when we’re being terrorised by someone who is meant to be our lover, not our enemy.
I will call my ex H, because her identity isn’t the point. She knows what she did, even if she can’t accept its impact.
What I suffered was a form of domestic violence, but it was emotional, psychological warfare – apart from the objects hurled at me when she was drunk, there was no physical threat.
The trouble is, we have a stereotypical image of an abuser: usually a well-built man, over a certain age, load of tattoos. We don’t think it’ll be a sarcastic girl with strawberry-blonde hair in a plait, and the face of an angel. Because H couldn’t dominate me physically, people don’t understand how she undertook the demolition of my self-worth and my self-belief.
We met at a party and hit it off. H made it clear she liked me from day one, and I dug that. I thought to myself, she didn’t play games, proper salt-of-the-earth Huddersfield lass. Things moved fast – I now see too fast – at her urging. She’d had a very damaging childhood – I won’t be more specific to protect privacy – which she insisted hadn’t affected her. With hindsight, I can see her refusal to discuss it, or consider that it might have harmed her, was a huge warning sign. She could never be in the wrong, from the start. Any problems we had must have come from me, even though I was from a stable, loving background and wasn’t used to drama.
We moved in together and soon, out of nowhere, the attacks on my peace of mind began. If we went out with her friends she would spend the evening finding ways to run me down, mocking me and needling at me in front of them. When I asked why, when we were alone, she’d play dumb.
She would openly come on to other men in front of me, a power play to see if I would step in or sit and take it. Sometimes I’d ask my mates if they’d noticed, and they’d be too embarrassed to admit what they’d seen too. They’d say: ‘I’m sure she loves you.’ This became like a mantra from H: I love you, of course I wasn’t doing what you say I was doing. To be with her, I had to deny the evidence of my own eyes and ears.
She was secretive about what was on her devices, another huge tell that I was being played. One time I found provocative, half-dressed photos, clearly meant for someone else, on her phone. She said she didn’t know what I meant, insisted they were taken only for her.
I had to be very careful about humour, or anything she might find insulting – she was on a hair trigger, and it could provoke days, or even weeks, of sulking if I said the wrong thing. Her insecurity was a deep hole I could never fill, but it was made clear that I had to try anyway. I reassured her that her weight didn’t bother me, but she’d pick at her food to punish me for saying I thought someone who happened to be thinner than her was attractive.
She needed constant reassurance, promises from me. She would demand sex, and if I didn’t have sex with her, then I didn’t love her, she said. If I resisted, she would literally beg me. I knew the unspoken threat was that she’d sleep around if I didn’t comply. Consent when someone’s put you in a dilemma like that – it isn’t really consent.
My friends grew concerned. H was always on her best behaviour and acted sweet as sugar in their company, but they weren’t fooled. When I came out without her, I was tired, jumpy, worn down. They dragged it out of me, but even then I lied, I said I was worried for her safety when she had a drink in her. I was more intimidated and worried about mine.
Eventually, some survival instinct kicked in and after four years, I finally got free. She’d come home late and drunk and thrown things around, and we had an argument about it the next day. She told me she was leaving me, something she did to pull me into line.
For once, I agreed. I don’t think she expected me to call her bluff and go. She stood watching me in shock as I hastily loaded up my things and ran for my life. As I left, I begged her to get professional help before she put anyone else through similar. I already felt for the next guy who fell for her, as innocently and trustingly as I had.
<I> had been the problem, my failure to care for her the way she wanted, while she trampled on every feeling I had.
After we split, she stalked me. I blocked her on every platform because I knew she’d check up on me constantly if I didn’t; my friends mentioned she was always hanging round the places we’d gone together.
But I moved on, and I got happy with a great girl.
The reason I’m writing all this now is because a couple of weeks ago, H and I ran into each other at a wedding. It was a beautiful, emotional day and I avoided her as much as I could, not wanting any hint of our past to intrude on the happy couple’s special celebration. But I knew she’d rage at seeing me settled with someone else. I dreaded what attack she might launch on me in my new life.
As a result of that encounter, she found out who my fiancée is, and where she works, and targeted her.
She wrote a long, poisonous letter, detailing what a horrible boyfriend I’d been to her. It was full of one-sided inventions about how I’d constantly turned on her for no reason, ranting on about how my fiancée should leave me. Naturally, Marianne was badly upset. It’s literally weeks before our wedding, and she’s dealing with this nasty rubbish instead of being excited about the best day of her life.
I had no choice but to put my side, something I’d wanted to spare Marianne. Luckily for me, when I sat down and poured it all out, put everything on the line, my incredible partner believed in me.
I don’t know if H will see this, and if she’ll do more to try to drag me and the people I love down as a response. I don’t care, because I won’t be scared anymore. I want to speak up for all the people who’ve had their heads fucked with, and haven’t known where or who to turn to, or how to talk about it. You’re not weak, you’re strong for surviving.
My name is Scott Dyer, and I am a victim of abuse.
Harriet ran to the toilet and threw the bagel up.