by Vivien Brown
‘I thought I saw you outside the school, in the teachers’ car park. Working there now,
are you? I didn’t have you down as a teacher. Always thought you’d end up doing something,
I don’t know, earth-shattering. Write a bestseller or become Poet Laureate or something.
English always was your thing, I remember.’
He was smiling down at me. Arnie O’Connor, wrapped up in a big overcoat and with a
stripy scarf draped around his neck, was smiling down at me, as if we were old friends, as if he knew me well enough to have worked out my whole future.
‘Arnie . . .’
‘That’s me. As I live and breathe. Well, what a surprise, running into you again after
all these years. What must it be? God, we were what? Eighteen, when we last met? Half a
lifetime ago! I can hardly believe it. How time flies.’
‘When you’re having fun?’ I couldn’t help the sarcasm creeping into my voice as I
finished his sentence for him.
‘I suppose so, yes. Well, not all of it, obviously. Life’s had its ups and downs. And you?
What have you been up to? You went off to uni and just disappeared off the face of the earth.
I thought the old Welsh dragons must have gobbled you up.’ He laughed out loud, putting his
hand on my arm again. I promptly shook it off.
‘I’ve wanted to talk to you for a while, actually.’ Was my voice shaking as much as my
hands were?
‘Have you? What about? School stuff? Not my Becky playing up again, I hope? I’ve
already been called up to see the Head once. It’s not always easy, being a single dad. To a
teenaged girl, anyway. My lad’s not so bad. I understand him better, I suppose. Give him a
football and he’s happy. Not the same with girls . . .’
‘Yes, Love?’ I had reached the front of the queue and the man in the white overalls was
waiting, his big red hands splayed out on the counter that separated us. ‘What can I get you?’
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Suddenly I had lost my appetite, but I ordered anyway, watching him select a piece of battered fish with his tongs, scoop up a mountain of chips and wrap it all up tightly in paper.
Arnie was ordering for four. No wife, so Janey must be staying for tea then? I hovered
for a moment after paying, not quite ready to walk away on unfinished business, and soon we
were both back outside on the pavement.
‘I don’t suppose you fancy coming round to mine and eating this lot together, do you?
Sam’ll eat up in his room as always, and my Becky’s got a mate round, hogging the kitchen
table with all their school work. We’d get the dining room to ourselves. It would be good to
catch up, and you did say you wanted to talk to me about something.’
My thoughts were whirring and buzzing around my head like bees. Arnie O’Connor
was the last person on earth I wanted to spend time with, but I had made up my mind to have
it out with him, and an opportunity had presented itself. Having Janey nearby would stop me
from shouting at him or losing my temper, or maybe even hitting him, and somehow her being
there made me feel safer. What was he going to do to me, after all, if Janey and his own kids
were in the house? I bit down on my lip, closed my eyes for a second or two and then nodded.
‘Okay,’ I said and, with the Maltesers forgotten, we walked side by side past the corner shop,
along the darkening street and up to Arnie’s front door.
The house was small and untidy, a pile of discarded trainers in the narrow hallway,
assorted coats hooked over the end of the banisters, a bald patch in the stair carpet that looked like a cat had been clawing at it.
‘Food!’ Arnie called out, apparently to nobody in particular, as I followed him through
into a small beige-coloured kitchen at the front of the house.
‘Auntie Eve!’ Janey leapt up from her place at the table and threw her arms around me.
‘What are you doing here?’ She pulled back and gazed up at me.
‘Just wanted to have a word with Rebecca’s dad, that’s all. And we happened to bump
into each other.’
‘Auntie?’ Arnie looked at us curiously.
‘Janey’s my sister’s girl.’
‘Oh, Dad, you and Janey’s auntie aren’t . . . you know?’ Rebecca’s face crumpled in
disgust. ‘Oh, you’re not, are you? Please tell me you’re not. That would be gross!’
Arnie leant into a cupboard for plates and grabbed a giant ketchup bottle from the
fridge. ‘Not what, exactly?’
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‘I think the girls are worried that we might be an item. You know, together, as in a couple.’ I looked at Janey. ‘Which, I hasten to add, Sweetheart, we most definitely are not!’
‘Almost were once though, eh, Eve?’ He gave a little laugh and nudged me on the arm,
as if we were old friends, as if I would agree and laugh too. ‘We certainly had our moment,
back in the day.’
I felt my insides churn as the memories flooded in. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Really? How about that party we went to? Whose was it? Not sure I remember now,
but we did have a bit of fun there, I do remember that. And on the way home too!’ He winked
at Janey and carried on unwrapping the food.
I heard Janey giggle, before her friend grabbed at the plates. ‘Dad! Stop being so
embarrassing. It’s not funny, and I don’t think Miss Peters thinks so either.’
‘Oh, sorry, Eve. Should have kept my mouth shut, apparently. Honestly, kids act like
they’re the parents these days. Don’t do this, don’t say that. Always embarrassed by what their mums and dads get up to.’ He laid his hand on his daughter’s head and ruffled her hair, grinning at her. ‘I bet nieces are pretty much the same. Anyone would think they were the only ones
allowed to have any fun. Now, who wants vinegar?’
I felt the bile rise up in my throat, and it was all I could do not to be sick. Fun? Is that
what he thought it had been? I already suspected his memories of that party were going to be
nothing like mine. He had whitewashed them over, convinced himself it had all been just a
lark, bigging it up into some kind of two-sided teenage romance.
‘Come on, Eve, we’ll take ours through into the other room. Wouldn’t want to upset the
fun police. Call your brother down and tell him his dinner’s here, will you, Bex? Or run up and get him. It’s not as if he’ll hear you with the volume he has his music.’
I didn’t like it when he closed the door behind us. The dining room was small and square
and soulless, just a dark wooden table and chairs, with worn table mats on three sides, and a
brown glass bowl in the middle with two wrinkled apples in it. He plonked his plate down on
one of the mats and pulled a chair out for me to sit as I did the same.
‘So, what did you want to talk to me about?’ I watched him sprinkle salt from a white
plastic shaker all over his meal and shook my head as he offered it to me. ‘Becky’s been playing up at school again?’
‘Not as far as I’m aware. No, I wanted to talk about us.’
‘Us? I didn’t know there was an us. As you’ve just made one hundred per cent clear to
your niece.’ He pushed a lump of fish into his mouth and waited for me to reply.
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‘You. Me. All those years ago. The party . . .’
‘Ah, so you do remember? I was beginning to think I’d got my girls mixed up and it
must have been someone else.’
‘There were others then? Other girls you grab
bed and mauled and—’ I gathered all my
strength to say the words, pushed back my chair and stood up, my face just inches away from
his as I bent down to look him in the eyes. ‘And tried to rape?’
I don’t know what I expected. Shock, denial, anger . . . What I didn’t expect was Arnie
putting down his fork and spluttering little crumbs of golden batter across the table as he flung his head back and laughed.
‘Raped? What on earth are you talking about? We had a bit of a fumble, that’s all. And
not a particularly enjoyable one as you suddenly ran off in the middle of it, as I recall. Talk about leading a bloke on! A prick tease, that’s what they used to call girls like you.’
‘How dare you? Have you never heard of consent? Of asking before you shove your
tongue down a girl’s throat or your hands down her knickers?’
‘Oh, come on, Eve. We’d both had a few, we were having a bit of fun. A snog, a bit of
a feel, seeing where it might lead. Everyone did it . . .’
‘Not to me, they didn’t!’
‘I’m not surprised, with an attitude like that. Frigid as the bloody North Pole, that’s
what you were. Probably still are, as you’re evidently still a Miss after all these years. Typical spinster school teacher.’ Another blob of food flew out of his mouth as he raised his voice and as good as spat the words at me. ‘No man good enough or brave enough to take you on?’
The teasing, jokey father he had been just moments before disappeared before my eyes,
and the real Arnie was back, taunting me, that same cold hard look in his eyes that I
remembered so well. The two faces of Arnie O’Connor. All charm and bonhomie on the
surface, but if Arnie didn’t get his way, if Arnie was challenged, he didn’t like it one bit. Never had.
I couldn’t stay a moment longer. Lucy had been right. I had needed to confront him, but
staying out of his way from now on was definitely the right policy. The man was an absolute
bastard. No wonder his wife had left. I tugged at the door and, with as much dignity as I could muster, I stepped back into the hall, pleased that I was still wearing my coat and didn’t have to stop to find it on my way out.
Janey and Rebecca looked up as I passed the kitchen door.
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‘You okay, Auntie Eve?’ Janey said, standing up and about to come towards me, an open book still in her hand.
‘Fine, Janey, Love. But I won’t be staying for tea.’ I looked at her worried face and
shivered. I really didn’t like the idea of leaving her here. ‘Don’t be too long now. Your mum
will want you home.’
She looked at me strangely. ‘I’m staying the night. Mum knows.’
‘I see.’
‘She’ll be fine, Eve.’ Arnie had followed me out into the tiny hall and he was so close
I could feel his breath on the back of my neck. ‘Leave her alone. Don’t make her a part of this
. . . this nonsense.’ His voice dropped so only I could hear him. ‘What is it? Time of the month?
Hormones playing up, turning you into some kind of drama queen? Just stop making ridiculous
accusations, okay? I’m no rapist and never have been. Don’t make a scene.’
‘A scene?’ I muttered under my breath, but I managed to open the front door and escape
to the step without saying what I would have liked to. ‘You really are a piece of work, aren’t
you?’
‘And you are quite clearly off your rocker. Now go off back to your sad, lonely, pathetic
little life and take your wild fantasies with you. I have my tea to finish, and if you don’t want yours I’m sure my Sam can polish it off for you. He’s a growing lad. Goodnight, Eve.’
The door closed firmly and, as I looked back at the kitchen window hoping to check on
Janey, the blinds came crashing down too. Suddenly all I wanted to do was scream, just as I
should have done the night he attacked me. Things might have worked out very differently if
only I’d had the courage back then. To tell someone, to talk about it, to fight back. But it was too late for any kind of justice now.
The lights were still on in the corner shop, so I went in and bought the Maltesers, and
the biggest bottle of red wine I could find. If I was going back to my sad and lonely existence, as Arnie had called it, I might as well take my pleasures where I could.
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CHAPTER 26
SARAH
I threw him out. Well, what else could I do? I’d let him off the hook the first time. Eve had
assured me it was over, and I had reluctantly decided to believe her, so what good would it
have done to start creating hell over something that was already in the past? Still, I had been tormenting myself for too long with mental images of them together, raging at Eve when she
was just one half of the problem, yet refusing to confront my own husband. I had been weak
and cowardly, and too scared of the unknown divorce-shaped void I could be chucking myself
into to do anything about it. But now he was at it again . . .
I knew he must be. Colin would have had no reason to make it up, to lie to me about
something so important, so damning. And men didn’t disappear into hotel bedrooms with
strange women in the middle of late-night parties just to have a chat or play Scrabble, did they?
This time I had to say something, do something. I didn’t need Colin to tell me what I already
knew.
Janey was staying at her friend Becky’s, so I had the whole evening and the freedom to
tell him that I knew and that I wasn’t going to put up with it anymore, to shout and scream, pull the suitcases down onto the bed, rip his shirts to shreds and scratch his bloody eyes out if I felt like it, without her being there to see it. It was Janey who had held me back before. Her
happiness, her security, her future had been at risk, just as much as my own. But how could
she be truly happy if her parents continued to live this way? I would explain things the best I could, reassure her that we both still loved her but were finding it hard to love each other right now. I’d seen the articles in magazines, the problem page letters. I knew the score. Far better to have two calm and loving homes than live in the battlefield of a fragile, hostile one. And that was what our family life had become lately. Or more like a no-man’s land, where we both knew
we were at war but trod carefully around each other, pretending otherwise.
Would he admit to it? Argue? Shout back? Or leave quietly? Try to turn the tables and
ask me to leave instead of him? I sat and nibbled my nails waiting for his key in the lock, the tread of his feet in the hall.
He was on time, for once, shrugging off his coat and shoes, going straight to the whisky
bottle in the cabinet. There was no hello, no peck on the cheek, no ‘How was your day?’ Even
those niceties had gradually died away.
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‘Josh.’
He turned towards me, took in the look on my face and plonked himself down in the
armchair on the other side of the room.
‘What’s up?’
‘If I said The Georgian Hotel to you, Room 112, what would you say?’
I watched him take a drink from his glass, staring into its amber depths, then gulping
down far more than was necessary, before he looked back up at me.
‘Wasn’t that the place I went to for the staff Christmas party? And 112? That may have
been my room number. I don’t know. How am I supposed to remember something like that?’
He shook his head. ‘What about it anyway?’
‘It wasn’t your room number, actually. I found your receipt. You know, in that file you
keep under the desk. I’ve found quite a lot of things in there lately. But no, you didn’t stay in Room 112 the night of the party. You stayed in Room 245. Officially, anyway, as that’s the
room you booked and paid for. Whether you actually slept in it is another matter.’
He was looking decidedly uneasy. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. In fact,
I’ve had a long day and I’m going for a bath, so can we leave this, whatever it is, for another time?’ He started to stand up. ‘Where’s Janey?’
‘She’s at Becky’s, so she won’t be sleeping here tonight. And neither will you.’
‘Pardon?’
‘I know, Josh. About the other woman. The woman whose room you snuck into that
night and probably didn’t come out of again until morning. I’m not stupid. I know this isn’t the first time, and it probably won’t be the last. And it wouldn’t surprise me at all if it was Eve.
Oh, yes, I know all about Eve . . .’
I saw him visibly flinch at the mention of her name.
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. What about Eve?’
‘Your affair, relationship, fling – whatever you choose to call it. I know. And I’ve
known for a while, so don’t even try to deny it. Eve’s told me everything.’
He gripped the arm of the chair and sat back down. I don’t think I had ever seen him
thrown so quickly off balance, sitting there pale-faced, gazing straight ahead as if he had been robbed of the power of speech.
‘Well, aren’t you going to say something? Deny it, at least, like you usually do when I
accuse you of anything, even if it’s just not putting the sodding bins out? Knock me back with
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some rubbish about me being a nag or paranoid, or just plain wrong? Not that there’d be any point, because you know it’s true this time. And you know that I know . . . everything,’
‘Sarah . . .’
‘Yes? Come on, Josh. Let’s hear your version, shall we? How Eve’s making it all up,
how she’s never forgiven you for leaving her all those years ago, how she’s just being spiteful, out for revenge. Come on, tell me you haven’t been near her, haven’t slept with her, that you