Behind Closed Doors

“He made me feel special, cherished and, best of all, he adored Millie.”

When Grace is first going out with Jack, he puts on a good show. He is very courteous and accommodating. He also doesn’t mind spending time with Millie, who was too much baggage for Grace’s previous boyfriends. This is how he wins Grace over.

“‘What did you think of my parents?’ I asked when we had been walking a while. ‘They were perfect,’ he smiled. I found myself frowning over his choice of words. ‘What do you mean?’

“‘Just that they were everything I hoped they would be.’” 

After meeting Grace’s parents, Jack seems to be strangely approving of them. Grace is surprised because her parents are not the most doting or loving people. She attributes his reaction to the fact that he had once said that his parents were very distant, assuming her parents seemed fantastic by comparison. This is another piece of foreshadowing.

“As [the gates] 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.” 

Grace, who has gone through such strife, wants to take herself out of her predicament for a few moments and see their gorgeous house through the eyes of somebody who doesn’t know anything about them. Indeed, with its perfect construction and “rounded windows,” it is a sight to behold (135). From the outside, it looks perfect, just like their perfectly choreographed life.

“The feeling that I was betraying her made fresh tears well in my eyes and I blinked them away quickly so that Jack wouldn’t see, hoping I’d never have to choose between him and Millie again.” 

When Millie falls down the stairs before their wedding, Grace has to decide whether to go on with the wedding. Though Jack says that she should feel free to go to the hospital with her sister, Grace knows that she will be letting him down, along with all of the guests, if they don’t get married that day. She also knows that Millie won’t understand why Grace has gone ahead without her. Since the decision is so painful, Grace hopes she will never have to pick between her new husband and Millie again.

“‘Bring it on Grace—I’m waiting for you.’”

After they have lunch with Diane and Esther, Grace makes a retaliatory statement in the car. Jack misses the times when Grace used to constantly attempt to escape. Seeing the fear that courses through her after he catches her in an escape attempt gives him pleasure, so he wants her to challenge him again.

“As we went through passport control, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was making the biggest mistake of my life.”

Grace has just decided to go to the airport with Jack instead of visiting Millie in the hospital. As she takes one further step toward their honeymoon and her life with Jack, Grace begins to regret her decision.

“‘The dream is over, I’m afraid.’”

When Grace and Jack arrive at the hotel in Thailand, their room is very small. Grace has convinced herself that the reason Jack is acting so strangely is because he has lost his job. When she asks him what’s wrong, he reveals that whatever life she thought they were going to live will never be. 

“‘And afterwards, as he drank in the sound of her fear and breathed in the smell of it, he wished he could keep her there for eternity.’”

In Thailand, Jack tells Grace about when he began to copy his father and lock his mother in the basement. The terror Jack’s mother exhibited exhilarated him so much that he has spent the ensuing years looking to replicate it.

“‘The irony of it never ceases to amaze me—Jack Angel, defender of battered women. But I also needed a perfect life—when a man gets to forty with no sign of a wife in sight people begin to ask questions—so you can imagine how I felt when I saw you and Millie together in the park, my perfect wife and my…’” 

Though Jack doesn’t get to finish his thought because Grace cuts him off, he is explaining how he came to attach himself to Grace and Millie, who were the perfect solution to quelling any possible suspicion about him—a good looking man who had never married and didn’t seem to ever have any relationships or even brief encounters. Though defending vulnerable women was an excellent cover, Grace and Millie complete the picture.

“‘Look, Grace.’ This time Jack sounded exasperated. ‘If you really want to call the police, go ahead. But do you remember what happened last time? We couldn’t leave the country until they had investigated your claims and, when they realized they were on a wild goose chase, they threatened to sue you for wasting police time. And that was in America. I don’t think the police here will be quite so understanding.’” 

When Grace tries to get help from the concierge at the hotel desk, Jack makes her seem crazy. He insinuates that she tells people he is holding her prisoner often, and that her delusions have resulted in trouble for them. He acts as if she has gone off of her medication. In fact, he has planted a pill bottle in her purse. The hotel employees believe Jack and things seem hopeless.

“I’m beginning to despair of anyone ever questioning the absolute perfectness of our lives, and, whenever we are with friends, I marvel at their stupidity in believing that Jack and I never argue, that we agree about absolutely everything, that I, an intelligent thirty-two-year-old woman with no children, could be content to sit at home all day and play house.” 

Everyone—strangers and friends alike—view Jack and Grace as a perfect couple. No one has ever deeply questioned why Grace, who is no idiot, would want to stay at home all day or be so subservient to Jack. It is one of the frustrating reasons why she is unable to get help.

“‘No, not Jack. You like Jack, Millie, you like Jack very much.’ I gave her a little shake. ‘It’s very important that you like Jack. He didn’t push you down the stairs, George Clooney did. Do you understand? You have to like Jack, Millie, for me.’” 

When Grace and Millie finally get time alone in a restaurant bathroom, Millie tells her that Jack pushed her down the stairs. However, they cannot accuse Jack of doing such a thing, so Grace invents another persona for Millie to blame it on. Whenever she has to say a bad thing about Jack, she is to call him George Clooney. This will help keep both of them safe, because if Jack finds out that Millie knows what he did, it’s not clear what kind of terrible punishment he will devise.

“When I see him standing there, I feel as dismayed as I always do at how normal he looks, because surely there should be something—pointed ears or a pair of horns—to warn people of his evilness.”

Grace is exasperated that Jack’s looks make him blend in to the normal population. His body and face are his disguises. Underneath, he is as terrible as a devil, not afraid to commit murder or arouse pure terror.

“I knew that if I was to keep hold of my sanity I had to find a way of dealing with the trauma of painting something so grotesque, and I found that by giving the women in subsequent paintings names, and looking beyond the damage that had been done to them, imagining them as they were before, I was able to cope better.”

As a punishment, Jack makes Grace paint portraits of the battered women he has represented. Though at first she is horrified, Grace is able to imagine how they once were and will be again. This gives her motivation for getting out of her own predicament. 

“‘But I not live with bad man, I scared. So we kill bad man, we kill Jorj Koony.’” 

Millie and Grace have made it to that same restaurant bathroom and Millie has presented Grace with sleeping pills to use on Jack. She got the idea from an Agatha Christie story. Grace is scared that Jack will hear them plotting and tells Millie she is flushing them down the toilet, but she actually keeps them. Millie’s idea has sparked a tentative plan and a glimmer of hope that she really might be able to get rid of Jack.

“I know that I have to keep focused, that the chances of Millie being a flesh-and-blood person to our friends rather than someone they only know about second hand are slipping away fast. I also know that if Jack suspects I want the party to go ahead, he’ll phone Esther back and tell her that we prefer it to be a private gathering.”

Grace wants their friends to meet Millie so that they will wonder where she went when she disappears from their lives. She knows that Jack doesn’t want to have such a large celebration for Millie. Grace also knows that his main pleasure is denying Grace the things she wants. She uses a bit of reverse psychology to make sure the party happens. Her situation has forced her to become savvier and savvier.

“Even though Jack had told me he wanted someone he could hide away, it had never occurred to me that he meant to keep Millie locked up in a terrifying room in the basement so that he could feed off her fear whenever he wanted.” 

Nearly every day, Grace learns about a new layer of Jack’s depravity. When she finds out that Jack intends to keep Millie in the red basement room decorated with Grace’s portraits of battered women, she realizes she has to act soon. Though Grace knows he feeds off of her fear, she can’t help being terrified when she is locked in there for punishment. Knowing Millie will live in that room gives Grace extra motivation to get away from Jack.

“Esther turns to Jack. ‘Didn’t you say that you were decorating Millie’s bedroom red because it was her favorite color.’” 

When Esther gives Millie a red box for her birthday so that it will match her bedroom, Millie says that her favorite color is yellow and her room is also yellow. Esther is confused because Jack previously told her that Millie’s favorite color was red. Diane confirms. This begins to arouse Esther’s suspicion about Jack’s intentions and the nature of his relationship with Grace. 

“‘You can’t force me to eat, you know.’ I paused. ‘But, as it isn’t in Millie’s interest that I die, or in yours, why don’t you do us both a favor and pour me a whiskey in the evening when you pour your own and my appetite might come back a little.’”

As part of her escape plan, Grace stops eating so that Jack will come upstairs with a whiskey. She hopes that he will eventually start drinking with her and she will be able to put the sleeping pills in his drink. Grace uses logic, telling Jack that she is no good to him if she’s dead. She can’t be afraid of him or help him take care of Millie. He relents and agrees to bring her a whiskey.

“I reminded God of all the evil Jack had already done and all the evil he was going to do. I thought about Molly, about how he had locked her up and left her to die of dehydration. I thought about Millie and the fate he planned for her. I thought about the room in the basement. And, suddenly, I had the answer to my problem. I knew exactly how I could make sure that he died. It was perfect, so perfect that if it worked, I would literally get away with murder.” 

Grace’s scheme for getting Jack the sleeping pills is going smoothly until he tells her they are leaving for Thailand the next day. Grace is sent into a tailspin. However, in her depression and anger over all of the things that Jack has done, she gets an idea that would give him his just desserts and leave her blameless. However, pulling it off will involve the precision of a career criminal. 

“Going through passport control in Bangkok is a nightmare, the fear of Jack’s hand on my shoulder never greater, although it would have been impossible for him to have got here before me.”

After Grace’s escape, she goes to Thailand on her own, saying that Jack is coming later. As she gets far enough away from him to exhale, having just been imprisoned for over a year, she is still anxious that he might appear. However, she still needs to execute the rest of her plan and try to remain calm. 

“I shake my head vigorously. ‘No, he can’t be, he’s coming here to join me, he said he would. Where is he?’ My voice trembles with emotion. ‘I want to know where he is. Why isn’t he here.’”

When the embassy officials come to tell her that Jack is dead, Grace must act confused and then devastated. She is convincing enough for the officials and Margaret, her new friend from her vacation, to not suspect a thing. Though it is hard to pretend to have any affection for Jack, she is now one step closer to being totally rid of him.

“Stunned by the fall, his body heavy from the pills, he lay without moving for a few precious seconds and before he could recover, I fled the room, slamming the door behind me.” 

Grace executes her plan by drugging Jack’s whiskey and running out of the room. When he finds her, he takes her to the basement. Then they struggle as he tries to lock her in, and as she is sharper, he is the one who ends up imprisoned. Grace’s ingenuity and bravery have finally paid off.