Apple Tree Yard

by Louise Doughty

  My question has been so daft that you don’t even answer – that’s an irritating trait of yours, ignoring what you consider to be insignificant or foolish in my curiosity about you.

  The cogs are still turning. ‘We need to have an agreement,’ you say, and you reach out and take my hand in yours, holding it between both of yours in your lap. You squeeze, lightly, the slightest of pressure from your fingers as we both stare straight ahead. On the bank opposite, there is a gleaming office building. A collection of white plastic bags drifts by on the surface of the canal, blown by the wind. ‘I need to know that if you are ever asked about me, you will say this. We met in the House of Commons. We’ve talked a few times. We’ve become friends. I’ve been asking your advice because my nephew is doing his A-levels and is interested in a career in science. We’re acquaintances, friends if you like, but nothing more. If you are ever questioned in detail, then stick to the truth of the meetings, precisely, time, place, what sort of coffee etc., but leave out the sex. We’ve met infrequently enough for it to be innocuous, without the sex, I mean. Can you do that?’

  ‘Of course,’ I say, but my voice is small and sad. I want your focus to remain on me, on what has happened to me, but you are, naturally enough I suppose, thinking ahead to what might happen if I change my mind and report the assault to the police, to how you might be exposed in court if anyone looks into my life. You are thinking about your marriage, your career. I don’t blame you for this – it is one of the things I have loved about you, that you are discreet and want to protect your family life, for I want to do the same and would be horrified if you felt otherwise, but the weak part of me feels disillusioned. That part of me wants you to put me first, right here, right now, wants you to tell me that you are going to track George Craddock down and beat him to a pulp, regardless of the consequences.

  His face is in my face. I see it all the time. I see the students glimpsed at the far end of the corridor as we left the building, moving around the Events Hall with their black plastic dustbin liners. Why should that picture come into my head, time and time again? I don’t understand why that image is stuck in my head. It comes to me how much I want George Craddock to be on the receiving end of physical harm. This is a new thought. I have never wanted that for anyone. But what I want is for him to feel hurt and afraid. I want someone to do to him what he did to me – befriend him, in a pub maybe, spend the evening drinking and chatting, then, in car park, in the dark, beat him and bugger him – and afterwards pretend that nothing was wrong and that he liked it. I am not fantasising about Craddock being arrested or humiliated in court or slopping out in prison – I am not (and as it turns out, never will be) fantasising about the due process of law taking its course. I am fantasising about him on his hands and knees in a car park with his trousers round his ankles, sobbing with fear and pain, scrabbling for his broken glasses on the rough tarmac.

  *

  Be careful what you wish for, my aunt used to say, darkly. Aunt Gerry had a pessimistic view of life but then she had ended up raising me and my brother when she hadn’t expected to, so maybe she felt entitled. Be careful. You were thinking ahead, but much further than I could have imagined. I should have given you more credit.

  You leave first, of course, striding from the bench to your meeting, or whatever it is, and I sit there for a while, pointless pride ensuring that I don’t watch you mount the steps to the road – but then I crack and look up, just in time to see you striding down York Way, on the pavement above me, already on your phone. I check my watch and tell myself that I will sit for another fifteen minutes, no more. After that, I don’t know what I will do. Throw myself into the black water of the canal, perhaps, along with the solitary duck and the floating green algae and the puffing plastic bags.

  I never did tell Susannah about you, you know. Guy and I met Susannah when we were students. She was his friend first, then mine, then best woman at our wedding – I refused point-blank to call her a bridesmaid. She wore a satin trouser suit with flared trousers and a fitted jacket: it accentuated her height, her slenderness – everything about her I have ever envied was apparent that day: the cheekbones, the short dark hair, the light-brown skin. She used to laugh at me when I told her I wanted to be elegant like her. ‘When you’re as tall as me, it’s really easy to get an undeserved reputation for elegance, all you have to do is stand still.’ Once, when we were both drunk together, she confessed she had always wanted to be ‘short and cute’ like me. Cute…?

  For some years after our wedding, despite or perhaps because of her beauty, Susannah remained single, often coming over to our place on a Friday night. I would get Guy to put the kids to bed so she and I could sit and eat pretzels with our wine while dinner cooked and often she would sigh and talk about some man. Guy and I loved these stories but felt guilty about loving them, living vicariously through her romances, as if she was our own personal soap opera. We met a procession of them, over the years. Each relationship would last a year or two. There was the tall one who called her ‘wifey’ and pinched her cheek and, to my horror, made her simper in return. There was the older Jewish one who played the piano and was crazy about her. She dumped him – inexplicably in my view – just as I was wondering where I would buy the hat. Then there was the sullen Dutch one who scarcely spoke a word – she assured me he was the best lover ever, really athletic she said. Then, when we were all twenty-eight, she met a fellow doctor at a conference, Nicholas Colman he was called, two years younger than her but charming and mature, good with our kids when he came round.

  It all seemed so obvious. I started thinking how, if they got a move on and had their children quickly, we would all be able to go on holidays together. And Susannah and Nicholas Colman did marry, had a son immediately: Freddie, my godson, as close as a cousin to my two. Then, when Freddie was three, just after Susannah had been made a consultant, Nicholas Colman fractured her left cheekbone. Even now, when she turns her head in a certain light, you can see, if you look closely, a small asymmetry in her features. When she smiles, a barely detectable shadow crosses her face. You have to know her face really well to see it.

  It took her another three years to leave Nicholas Colman after the cheekbone incident. We are taught we can redeem them, she said to me once. We are taught it as soon as we can read. We can turn the beast into a prince, if only we love him enough. And, she said, you know instinctively, how bad it’s going to get when you leave, so you keep putting it off. You think that while you are with them you might be able to control it a bit, but you know that once you leave, you will be in real danger.

  In the end, it was Guy and I who called in the police, after an incident where Nicholas Colman turned up at our house and banged on the door for an hour and a half while the three children were upstairs. Guy was out when it started. Susannah and I sat cowering in the kitchen saying things like, ‘He’ll stop soon.’ But he only stopped when Guy came home. Guy told us later that as he walked up our short drive, Nicholas Colman turned and smiled and held out his hand and said, ‘All right, mate?’

  For a couple of years after that, Susannah and her son Freddie holidayed with the four of us. Nicholas Colman dropped out of the picture after the court case and the injunction, thank God. Freddie has turned out handsomely. He studied law at Bristol and is now doing some sort of accountancy training on top of it, something to do with corporate finance, and although he will finish the process of his extended education with massive debts it is already clear that within a few years he will be able to buy us all out three times over. Sometimes, I have to try hard not to wish my own son was more like Freddie. I have never admitted this to anyone.

  Susannah has always been soft on Guy. They flirt with each other outrageously. It’s a standing joke between us. She thinks I am lucky to have him. I do too, of course, but it annoys me how easy it is for a man to look good to those who observe him from outside a relationship. He doesn’t hit you, he’s not an alcoholic, he’s good with the kids – all these things
are told to women, even by other women, by way of emphasising just how lucky they are. Guy scores points just for not beating me up. I wonder if anyone has ever said to Guy, ‘Let’s face it, she doesn’t hit you, she’s not an alcoholic and she is really good with those kids. You should be grateful.’

  So no, I haven’t confided in Susannah, but that’s not to protect you or me or even Guy. It’s to protect her.

  I rise from the bench and walk slowly back to King’s Cross station. I have to walk slowly as it still hurts – that’s because it’s healing, which is drawing the skin tight. I go into the main station because I know somewhere in there will be a branch of Boots and I think it might be a good idea if I buy a bottle of water and something to eat, and some Vaseline.

  *

  It takes about ten days for the initial period of shock and denial to wear off – ten days to a fortnight. During that period I don’t eat, I don’t sleep. I shower often. The two pictures remain in my head; his face in mine, the students drifting about the hall like ghosts, far off in the distance, not seeing me as I pass. Guy is busy at work, and that’s good. Susannah sends me a couple of emails asking when we are going to meet and I put her off. At work, I am on automatic pilot. Luckily for me, I have enough seniority to appear busy and not have to explain to anyone why. All I have to do is be a little brusque with the people around me and they leave me alone. On the two days I go into the Beaufort, I ask my personal assistant – the one I share with two other Associates, that is – to hold my calls while I’m working. She doesn’t query this. She becomes protective of me. I hear her saying to someone on the phone, ‘Dr Carmichael has to prioritise, you know…’ She’s the kind of PA who enjoys fielding calls. If she were a different gender and three stone heavier, she would have made a terrific nightclub doorman.

  I am at my desk at the Beaufort when I get the email. It is ten days after the assault. Later, I think it was lucky I was at work. Although I have my own office at the Institute, the walls are made of glass from waist-height upwards and I am visible to anyone in the open-plan office outside, so I am forced to pretend.

  My inbox is already open and I am going through it, when it pings up, there at the top, with a tiny yellow envelope next to the name: George Craddock. In the subject line it says: Lecture next month.

  I am frozen in my chair, motionless but for the breath quickening harshly in my throat.

  Yvonne – just to confirm our lecture date in Swansea next month. It’s on Thursday 28th. I suggest we meet at Paddington and travel down together. If we meet at 14.00 hrs that should give us plenty of time. I’ll confirm train times soon. The fee is £300 plus expenses. Possible to get there and back in a day but maybe we should book a hotel.

  The Swansea lecture, him introducing me then chairing a discussion on examining processes, was a possibility we had discussed last time I did the external examining for him and Sandra but we hadn’t agreed a date or confirmed it; it was just something he had asked me if I was interested in. My heart is thumping, my hand shaking. My scalps feels as if it has tightened on my skull.

  If I had been at home I would have stood up and run away from the computer, run downstairs to my kitchen, or left the house altogether, or locked myself in the bathroom perhaps and sat on the toilet with the lid down, as I used to do at school during playtimes rather than face the rough and tumble of the playground. But I am at work, at an Institute where I am an Associate, well-regarded, competent. I know I must act swiftly but unequivocally. I have to let him know that although I did not send police officers with handcuffs to his door, I am not going to pretend it didn’t happen. I will never be rid of him otherwise. I hit reply. I type very quickly.

  I won’t be coming to Swansea. Please don’t contact me again.

  Before I hit send, I look at those two sentences for a long time. I shouldn’t be saying ‘please’. I should be telling him, not pleading with him. ‘Please’ was what I said, repeatedly, during the attack, and much good it did me. But if I leave it out, it’s an imperative, a command, and that might anger him. It comes to me with great force, and it is a sober and simple thought, that I am very afraid of him, viscerally afraid – afraid in the way I was afraid of dogs as a little girl, when I would take a mile-long detour home from school rather than go past a neighbour’s house that I knew contained one.

  He knows about you. He has something on me. We are not safe.

  Fear fought with my education, my achievements, my politics: fear won. Please stayed in.

  I hit send, then block his email address.

  I call you straight away. You pick up the phone and I say quickly, in a low voice, ‘It’s me, I’ve had an email.’ There is a pause on the line, then you say, ‘I’m going to have to call you back. Where are you?’

  ‘In the office.’

  ‘OK, I’ll call you right back.’

  *

  Right back turns out to mean two hours. I have already deleted the email but I relate its wording to you, and my reply. You say, ‘Good.’

  ‘Where are you?’ I ask. A drink after work would be good, really good; an alcoholic drink, a very large, very cold, very dry glass of wine. I haven’t drunk a thing since that party, the thought has made me feel nauseous, but suddenly I want one, with you. Maybe I could even flirt with you. I am beginning to feel it is important I do that soon. I need to try and get back to how I was before.

  There is a microscopic pause then you say, ‘Leytonstone,’ and I don’t believe you. I think you have told me you are on the outskirts of town so that I won’t ask you if we can meet after work.

  ‘You did really well,’ you say. ‘If he contacts you again, let me know.’

  ‘OK,’ I say, deflated.

  ‘I’ll call you later,’ you say, and hang up.

  *

  I don’t hear from you for two days. When you contact me, it is by text. Any more emails? I leave it an hour before I text back. At first I just type, No. Then I look at it for a bit and change it to Nope. You text back immediately. Good x.

  That isn’t enough, I think. That won’t do.

  *

  The next day, I get a missed call from you. I ignore it. I am at a one-day conference called ‘Metabolic Pathways and the Commercial Imperative’. Scientific conferences are not known for their snappy titles, although the Beaufort Institute’s lecture programme achieved a short-lived notoriety thanks to me when, having failed to attract enough takers for a series entitled ‘Women in Science’ it changed the title, at my urging, to ‘Sex in Science’ and found the students turned up in droves. The first thing I do, when I arrive at ‘Metabolic Pathways’, is scan the lecture theatre for George Craddock, even though commercial medicine isn’t his field and the chances of him being there are tiny. I scan the room as thoroughly as someone afraid of bombs or fire might check out the emergency exits. Only when I am sure he is not there do I sit on one of the bench seats and open the cardboard folder they have given me, bowing my head over it.

  There is a buffet lunch in a crowded corridor. There are sandwiches on oval foil platters, small triangles of alternate white and brown bread with a variety of fillings, all of which exude mayonnaise. There are some chicken drumsticks covered in a very sticky, maroon-coloured paste. The man I am talking to, a Principal from Hull, has six of the drumsticks heaped on his paper plate in a pile. He notices me noticing his plate. ‘Off the carbs…’ he says apologetically, nodding at the pile.

  ‘Hey, Yvonne…’

  I turn and see that Frances is at my elbow. She looks at the man with the drumsticks.

  ‘We’re colleagues,’ she says, by way of explanation. ‘We work together at the Beaufort. Frances Reason.’

  ‘Oh,’ he says, mouth full, raising the half-eaten drumstick, signalling as an alternative to conversation, and turns away.

  ‘I’ve been trying to get hold of you. Rupa is in Rottweiler mode.’ She means my PA. ‘How was the rest of the party? Wasn’t it awful? It was just so awful I felt I had no choice but to get compl
etely plastered. I felt terrible the next day. How about you?’

  At that point, someone nudges me from behind in an attempt to get past and I use this opportunity to tip orange juice over myself – easy enough to do – my cup is held awkwardly because I have an empty paper plate in the same hand.

  ‘Shit,’ I say to Frances. ‘Excuse me.’ I turn and dump my plate and cup on the table.

  I get to the stairwell. The Ladies toilet is on a half-landing one flight up but three people are queuing outside it. I keep going up the stairs. I keep going up and up and up, almost running now, out of breath, until I reach the top floor of the building, floor five, which is deserted. I push through a wooden door with a round porthole window and behind it there is a short, wide corridor with a disabled toilet next to a lift. I go into the toilet which is cold and tiled and I flip the handle lock and then I bend double and, holding my sides, say out loud to myself, ‘I can’t do this on my own.’

  *

  By the time I have composed myself, the two o’clock talk is well under way. As I leave the disabled toilet, the door bumps shut behind me. No one is around up here. At the end of the corridor is a floor-to-ceiling window but it is made of frosted glass so I can’t see out. I walk along the moist brown carpet until I reach it and then I lay my forehead against the glass. I need the anaesthetic of its cold, hard surface.

  I lift out my pay-as-you-go phone and call your number. Because I need you, I don’t expect you to answer, but you do.

  ‘Hi,’ I say.

  ‘Hi,’ you reply. ‘You OK?’

  ‘No,’ I say, but without drama. It’s not as if there is anything you can do, and it comes to me like a thick blanket being placed gently over my head, the knowledge that there is nothing you can do.