What You Did

by Claire McGowan

  ‘I know.’

  ‘It’ll clash with your dress.’

  ‘I know. Lend me your shirt?’

  Karen obliged, and I draped the checked shirt round my raw shoulders, smelling my friend’s aroma of rolling tobacco and Charlie Silver. A flicker of excitement licked my skin at the thought of my dress. It was lilac silk, and when I moved round my room it rustled over my bare legs in a way that made me shiver. To pay for it I’d worked all Easter break in the Tesco near Mum and Dad’s house, patiently putting up with the supervisor, who was seventeen and had a chip on his shoulder about anyone going to university, let alone Oxford. The sneers, the fact no one ever invited me to their post-shift drinks in Wetherspoons. The fact Mike had only written to me once all holiday, a postcard from France where he was with his parents who owned a ‘little place’ there. As if this was a perfectly normal thing. I’d written back, pretending I was studying hard for Finals instead of stacking cans of beans and lying awake listening to Dad shout at Mum over Coronation Street. Trying to forget that I’d not even been invited to France, not that I could afford the flight. Wondering if that meant anything. Hating everything about life in my home town, the school friends who already had babies, the boredom of it, the fact there was no bookshop, no theatre. The only thing that made it OK was knowing it was my last holiday there. Because after Finals I’d be living in London surely, with Mike.

  A dart of panic scissored my stomach – I still had no idea what I was doing once university ended. Mike and Callum had law training contracts lined up, a houseshare in Clapham, and I’d been waiting to be asked to move in too, but it hadn’t happened and I was too much of a coward to ask. Why hadn’t he asked? Was he just assuming I’d come with him? I knew what Karen would say – For God’s sake, Ali, ask him. He owes you that much at least. We’d been together, more or less, since the very first night of college, almost three years now. I should have been able to ask. But I was afraid. Something told me things were changing, our cosy college world about to end. This ball might be the last time we were all together.

  I looked up in the haze of heat to see someone come across the lawn, a bottle in each hand and a stack of plastic cups under one arm. Bill, in his usual jeans and ragged shirt, sleeves pushed up, a rollie hanging from his mouth. I realised I’d sucked in my stomach.

  ‘Thought we could get started on the Pimm’s,’ he said, flopping down beside us, and Karen sat up, clapping her hands.

  ‘You’re a genius.’

  Jodi was always saying Bill and Karen should get together – neither of them ever dated anyone – but they didn’t seem keen, and it was me he looked at now, holding out the first cup he’d poured of Pimm’s and diet Tesco lemonade.

  ‘Ali?’

  I reached for it, and he smiled at me, and the night ahead spread out below my ribcage, with all the joy and excitement and longing I held inside me. It was going to be good. All my friends together. Mike. Bill.

  Now I pushed myself to sit up, dizzy with heat and drink, because suddenly Mike was there too. Finally, having been gone all day, supposedly playing cricket, he was there. He and Callum looked drunk, weaving.

  He focused on me. ‘You’re not dressed.’

  ‘Neither are you.’

  ‘But you’ll be . . .’ He twirled a hand at his head. ‘Make-up and that. For hours.’

  ‘Jodi started at dawn,’ said Callum, swigging from the bottle of vodka he carried. It was as if he thought he was starring in a remake of Brideshead Revisited. ‘And it’s not even her final year.’

  ‘You saying I need hours to make myself pretty?’ I saw Bill look at me, caught the turn of his head at my tone, which had aimed for arch and come out shrill.

  ‘Course not,’ said Mike, but there was something uneasy running between the five of us and I didn’t understand what, and for a moment I was angry at him, at the one postcard all Easter, at the distance he’d placed between us this term – sleeping in his own bed most nights, spending hours in the library – so I stood up, wobbling over against Bill. For a second I felt his hand catch me, steady me. The warmth of it, the strength of his wiry arm. I wanted to stay. I didn’t want to go and get ready, leave this sunny lawn. I had the sense that, once I did, I was going to lose my grasp on something intangible. That everything would be over. College. My youth. And Bill. Which was stupid, because I’d always be friends with Bill.

  ‘Well, you’re right, I better get started on the de-trolling process. Kar? You coming?’

  She looked at me over her sunglasses, inscrutable. Callum was already passing her a cigarette. For some reason, he never minded funding her habit.

  ‘You go on,’ she said after a moment.

  I couldn’t very well stay now, after I’d said I was going, but all the same I didn’t want to, didn’t want to leave Karen there in the sun with all three boys. For just a moment I lingered, unsure.

  And that was when Jodi came trotting towards us, self-important, her hair twisted up in rollers under a ridiculous net cap.

  ‘Ali,’ she said, slightly out of breath, rushing to bring bad news, her favourite thing. ‘I thought you should know. Your dad is here.’

  Chapter Eight

  Our house was full of photos. It was something I’d pushed for. Paid for developing, cut snapshots to size, picked up shabby frames in charity shops. Nagged Mike to put up nails. I didn’t think a house was a home without pictures. And I realised, as I stood in my hallway, just back from the police station to a silent house – everyone in bed, probably – that Karen was in every one of them. At our wedding, standing behind me in a blue bridesmaid’s dress. At graduation, in the tight group of the six of us, hugging, throwing mortar boards. At Cassie’s christening, proud godmother. She’d turned up in jeans and stilettos to the church, which had scandalised Mike’s mother. Karen was there every step of the way, standing over my shoulder. The worst thing was I wasn’t even surprised by what Mike had told me. Shocked, shaking, sick to my core, but not surprised, not really. Maybe, on some level, I had always expected this.

  ‘Mum?’ Cassie stood on the staircase, in her winter pyjamas. Thicker and warmer than the ones she’d been wearing last night. It was so early. I hoped Benji was asleep. I hoped he knew nothing about this, but I would have to tell them both soon, try to explain what had happened. But not yet. I needed more time, just another hour even, before I had to shatter my children’s worlds. ‘What are you doing?’

  I looked down and saw at my feet a pile of framed photos, the glass already cracked, Karen’s smiling face in every one.

  I must have slept. I lay on the bed, face down in Mike’s pillow, smelling his aftershave, and when I opened my eyes again the light was different. The clock – his clock – told me it was almost midday. I had two children and a houseful of guests and I’d been passed out on my bed for hours.

  ‘Any better?’ Jodi was standing in the doorway. She was dressed in a Breton top and jeans, her feet in Ugg boots, which were stained around the edges with grass. The hot weather had broken, and outside the air was uneasy and chill.

  I struggled up. ‘God, I’m sorry. You won’t have had any breakfast.’

  ‘We found some. Please, Ali, don’t worry about us. We’re going to take off in a minute, get out of your hair. Cal’s just in the shower – he’s got a wicked head on him.’

  ‘But . . .’ Would they be allowed to just leave? Suddenly I felt that if anyone left, if the weekend ended, we’d be stuck in this nightmare for ever.

  ‘The police have taken our statements. Not that we could help very much, sadly.’ She paused. ‘I’m so sorry. I can’t believe this is happening.’

  My mouth felt parched and sour. ‘Me neither. It can’t be true. It must have been . . . Well, someone must have come into the garden. It was dark, she couldn’t have seen.’

  Jodi said nothing. She came and sat on the edge of the bed, her face set in sympathetic lines. We’d never been that close really, me and her. I knew so little about her, despite years of
friendship – what her parents were like, if she had siblings. We wouldn’t have taken a city break together or gone to see a show, just the two of us. Since university it had always been me and Karen, rolling our eyes sometimes behind Jodi’s back, as she tagged along with Callum everywhere. I wondered how Karen was, if she was crouched in some sterile room somewhere while they poked and prodded her. If her eyes were like those of the women in the shelter – hunted. Haunted. I should be with her. But how could I, after what Mike had just told me?

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ I said. The air in the room felt heavy. I wanted to open a window. It felt too small with me and Jodi in there, and the absence of Mike, and Jodi’s heavy belly pressing down.

  ‘Just keep going. For Benji and Cassie. They have school tomorrow?’

  ‘How could they go to school? People will know, won’t they?’

  ‘Maybe not. Has he actually been charged yet?’

  ‘I think so, yes.’ I looked at her. ‘Jodi, what do I do?’

  ‘He’ll need a lawyer. I assume he had the duty one at the station?’

  I didn’t even know – I was so clueless. ‘Will you . . .’

  She twisted up her mouth. ‘I can’t, since I’m a witness. Anyway, I’m the size of a house. I can recommend someone though. In fact, I already made a few calls.’

  I tried to think what I needed to do. Was there food in the house? Had the kitchen been cleared when I passed through? ‘The kids?’

  ‘Cassie’s in bed. I gave Benji some breakfast. He . . . they were asking what happened, him and Cassie. I had to tell them. Some of it, at least.’

  ‘Thank you.’ My voice cracked on it. I had to go to them, talk to them. Be their mother. ‘Did you see anything, Jodi? Anything at all?’

  She reached down to rub a smudge off her boot. ‘I was conked out, I’m afraid. I get so tired these days. Then I woke up and realised Cal wasn’t in bed, found him sparko in the living room.’

  ‘Do you think someone could have come into the garden?’

  ‘Sure. That’s always possible.’

  It was either that or Karen had made it up. She’d done those things to herself, because Mike had rejected her. Suddenly I had to tell someone. And I could hardly talk to Karen, could I? ‘He said . . . Mike says they slept together. Yesterday, while I was out.’

  I waited for the shock. It didn’t come.

  ‘You knew?’

  Jodi made a face. ‘Not for sure. When we arrived they came out of his office together. They were sort of – strange. I thought she was just being flirty maybe. You know how she is.’

  I did.

  ‘Should I have told you, Ali?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s a big thing, if you don’t know for sure.’ Would I have wanted to hear it? Would I have believed it?

  ‘Right. Right. And they’re such good friends, it could have been nothing.’ She shuddered. ‘If it were me, I’d want to move out right away. Doing that here, in your house – urgh.’

  How could I move out? This was my dream house. But already it felt tainted, tape fluttering around the edge of the lawn, dirty footprints tracked through the house, and the office – well. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to go in there again. If it had been Jodi, no doubt she would already have booked a team of contract cleaners.

  Mike. Karen. Mike and Karen. My brain was refusing to accept it. There was one upside though. Why would he have confessed to something so huge, if he wasn’t telling the truth about the attack? ‘Is there a way to prove it?’ I asked pathetically. ‘If people had sex, say, earlier on in the day, and then later she said he raped her?’

  ‘It’s her word against his. That’s why so many rape allegations go nowhere – there’s usually no evidence, if the people know each other, that it wasn’t consensual.’

  ‘So – they might not prosecute?’

  ‘She did report it right away. And you saw what a state she was in. Plus the bruising. All of those things tend to be . . . taken into consideration. Aggravating factors, they call them.’

  ‘She was drunk. Really, really drunk.’ I could hear the words coming out of my mouth, but I didn’t understand that it was me who was saying them. How could it be? I knew the correct way to talk about sexual assault and this wasn’t it, plus it was Karen. But it was also Mike. I felt torn in two, an ache running down the centre of my heart. ‘I just mean . . . maybe she couldn’t be sure.’

  ‘I know. Honestly, Ali, it could go either way.’

  ‘Did Bill see anything? Where was he?’

  ‘Gone to bed, he said.’ In Benji’s room, which was at the back of the house, not overlooking the garden. Had he seen Cassie sneak out to the woods? And what had woken Jodi, why was she downstairs before me?

  ‘Jake?’

  She shook her head. ‘I haven’t seen him. The police took him somewhere – he was so angry.’ She reached over and squeezed my leg and I felt a sob hiccup in my throat. ‘Stay strong, Ali. There’s a good chance this will all go away.’

  But the affair. The knowledge of Mike and Karen together, in our house, with our kids there. How could that go away, even if it turned out he hadn’t hurt her at all?

  I looked up as there were footsteps in the hall and Cassie burst in, still in her heavy pyjamas, printed with little dogs, a total contrast from yesterday. ‘Mum. What the hell is going on?’

  Chapter Nine

  Benji cried. He was still a little boy, after all. ‘But I don’t understand! Where’s Dad?’

  ‘He’s at the police station, love. They’re just asking him some questions, trying to find out what happened.’

  ‘But why would Auntie Karen say he hurt her?’

  ‘I . . . I don’t know. Maybe she made a mistake.’

  Cassie had her arms folded, staring at me across the kitchen. Callum and Jodi had packed up and gone, with murmured apologies and hands pressed to shoulders; his hair was still wet from the shower and his face ashen. We should all have been nursing nothing worse than skull-cracking hangovers, but look, Mike was under arrest, Karen was . . . I didn’t know where, and Bill with her. The reunion had been intended to bring us together, and now we were broken, smashed like the pictures I’d thrown down in the hallway. Someone, probably Jodi, had cleared them up so well there wasn’t a trace of glass, and I thought of my mother, how good she’d been at hiding evidence of thrown dishes, pictures, furniture.

  ‘How could she make a mistake?’ Cassie said, and I heard how cold her voice was.

  ‘I don’t know. But . . . she must have. When he’s cleared, we’ll sort this all out, I promise.’

  ‘When he’s cleared?’ was all she said.

  ‘Darling, you know Dad would never . . . this is all a big misunderstanding is all. He would never.’

  Cassie’s face was unreadable. I had no idea what she thought, whether she believed her father was a good man who’d never hurt anyone, or whether, as I’d always taught her, she believed that women rarely made false allegations. I didn’t push it further. I was afraid to have that discussion.

  ‘Did the police speak to you, darling?’

  ‘They spoke to everyone.’ Cassie had her phone clutched in her hand again, as if it was some vital piece of equipment keeping her alive. She was more careful of it than someone having an affair. Affair. It knifed me in the bottom of my lungs. I was dimly aware I still had not taken it in, either what had happened to Karen or what Mike had told me. I was just functioning and breathing and doing the necessary to keep myself going. Part of me was still positive it wasn’t true, that he’d just said it in a moment of madness. That both of them were mad. The weed perhaps. Hallucinations. Was that possible?

  ‘And?’

  ‘They asked if anyone could have, like, got into the garden.’

  I waited to hear her answer to this. She said nothing.

  ‘Cass, I know you don’t . . . I know you need your privacy. But you were out there. In the garden. Why were you?’

  Nothing. Then she said, ‘Mum, I don’t
think I’m supposed to tell you. Isn’t it like, conferring about evidence or something?’

  ‘Cassie, for God’s sake . . .’ I made myself stop, soften my tone. She was just upset, acting up. Benji’s hot little hand was crushed in mine. ‘If you know anything that could help your father, you need to tell me now. Could someone have come in? From the lane or . . . the woods?’

  ‘I didn’t see anyone.’ Later, when Benji wasn’t here, when I had sorted my thoughts into some kind of order, I would have to ask her what she was doing out there for long enough to know no one had come in.

  ‘What about the front gate? If everyone was drunk, maybe nobody saw anything.’

  ‘Jake was in the garage. He’d have heard someone coming in.’ She touched her phone when she said his name, and I wondered had they been texting, if that was even allowed. How Jake was feeling, where he was. I should try to find out, see if he needed clothes or food. He was almost an adult, but that didn’t mean he could look after himself. Cassie went on, ‘Also, next door have that stupid camera.’

  She was right. Our neighbours, a seventyish couple living in a six-bedroom house, were so paranoid about security they’d installed a camera that was trained on their front gate. If anyone came past down the lane, it would have shown up. The police would get the tape, surely.

  Cassie had been scathing when we talked about getting a similar one. It seemed wise, living so close to the woods, and there’d been burglaries in town. For God’s sake, Mum. Why don’t you put up a steel fence too, keep the poor people out? Now I realised with a leaden weight in my stomach that the camera might be our downfall. Because if it showed no one else had come into the garden that night, where did that leave us? Either my husband was a rapist – but no, I couldn’t even countenance it, of course he wasn’t! – or my best friend was a liar. Both of them had already betrayed me. As I sat there, watching my son cry and my daughter turn away her cold, set face, I just didn’t know what I believed. I was caught in the middle, unable to help anyone. I just had to hope a miracle would occur, some way to explain all this without losing either of them.