by Jane Hill
Maybe he enjoyed delayed gratification. He smiled at me. He didn't get cross. He didn't call me 'Little Miss Fucking Prick-tease', like he did later. He didn't seem in the least bit surprised or annoyed. He smiled at me, as if to say, 'How dare I presume that you'd want to have sex on a blanket on the floor.'
'Sorry,' I said. And again, 'Not here.'
If I'd have said, 'No,' what would have happened? Or, 'Not now, not yet, not until . . .'
Until what? Some kind of declaration of love, or commitment, or intent – or a marriage proposal, I guess. I was an eighteen-year-old vicar's daughter from a small Sussex seaside resort. I wasn't about to lose my virginity without considerable justification.
That pamphlet of poems that I bought – I carried it around with me and tried hard to like the poems. I had, somewhere at home, a slim Faber paperback with poems by Ted Hughes and Thom Gunn. I thought that maybe Rivers's poems would fit somewhere in that book, if only in terms of the terse language and the metaphors. I was good at metaphors. I knew how to explain them and to write about them. I was less good at judging poetic quality. I'm not sure I'd read enough bad poetry to be able to identify it confidently at that stage. Or rather, not bad poetry but mediocre poetry, average poetry. I can't remember even one line of those poems now. I destroyed that pamphlet. A while back I tried to see if any of his poems had survived, had made it to the internet, but they've disappeared as if they never existed in the first place.
I had that pamphlet of poems in my bag on the day that I killed Rivers Carillo. It was with me when I caught the bus home afterwards, from the bus stop at the plaza at the Presidio end of the Golden Gate Bridge. I could feel it burning a hole in my bag. I got off the bus somewhere in the Marina District, an area full of trendy bars and cafes and yuppie shops. I bought a magazine – People or Entertainment Weekly or something equally brash – and I sat in a coffee shop pretending to read. I sat in the window of the shop, facing outwards, watching the fog descend and the evening get darker, and as I pretended to read that magazine my hands were in my lap, under the table, shredding that pamphlet of poems, tearing and ripping as if my future depended on it. I put all the shreds in between the pages of the magazine, rolled it up tightly and threw it into a street-corner trash can. Then I caught the bus back to Joanna's house. I let myself into that big, empty house, climbed the stairs to my bedroom and got on with my life.
Twenty-nine
My second-to-last day in San Francisco, the day before I killed Rivers Carillo, he took me to Sausalito. Sausalito: a jaunty name. I had a picture in my head of brightly coloured sails snapping in the breeze. Rivers had dangled the name in front of me like a sparkling jewel when he'd whispered to me in the hallway of Joanna's house, making our tryst for the following day.
What was I expecting to happen? I was expecting something, certainly. My second-to-last day. Something needed to be said or done between us. It seemed appropriate, touching, that he'd told me to meet him at the ferry terminal, down near the sea lions, where we'd met that first day when we went to Alcatraz together.
This could be my last day with Rivers Carillo, was all I could think on the ferry on the way over to Sausalito. I knew the script. He'd declare his love for me, tell me how he couldn't live without me, beg me to stay, offer to follow me back to London. He'd propose to me out of the blue, as if he were Maxim de Winter and I was the naive young girl he'd befriended on holiday. I got one aspect of the casting right, at least.
Sausalito had a salty tang in the air. A fresh breeze, a bright blue sky, the jangling masts and rigging of sailing boats in the harbour. A picture-postcard park. A street full of cafes and restaurants and shops. People were sitting outside the restaurants eating big plates of food – beautiful, shiny people. I wanted to sit there with Rivers and have lunch, and then go and browse in the shops, which were bound to be full of driftwood sculptures and scented candles and quirky, artistic greetings cards.
Rivers had other plans. He produced a keyring from his pocket and dangled it from his index fingers, so that the two keys on it jangled and glinted in the sunlight. 'I've borrowed a friend's houseboat,' he said, smiling at me.
'What for?' I said in all innocence, but as soon as I finished speaking I realised how stupid I'd sounded.
'What for? Hey, way to make me feel like I'm corrupting the innocent. The other day, in the bookstore, you said, "Not here." So I thought, what could be more romantic than a Sausalito houseboat?'
It's famous for them, apparently. Sausalito. Houseboats. I know that now. I know lots of things now. Then, I didn't. The biggest thing I didn't know was how to get out of this. Somewhere along the line I guess I must have agreed that I'd have sex with him. And this was the time and the place. I felt like a sacrificial lamb.
You need to understand why this was such a big deal for me. I was a vicar's daughter. I'd been a regular churchgoer all my life. And while I didn't have the strong happy-clappy Christian-commitment thing like my parents and my older sister had, you can't escape the principles of your upbringing that easily. Sex was something sacred to marriage. And if not marriage, then at least within a strong, committed, loving relationship. The truth was that I was saving myself – if not for marriage, then at least for 'the one'; for the someone special who loved me as I loved him. As I walked up the street with Rivers Carillo, holding his hand, dragging my feet slightly, I was saying to myself: It's okay. He's the one, the special one. He loves me. He wouldn't have brought me here if he didn't. And also? I was too polite to say no after he'd gone to all this trouble.
My spirits rose slightly when I caught sight of the houseboats. They weren't really boats at all, more like a little community of brightly painted houses, some with several storeys, all higgledy-piggledy, piled up on top of one another. The houseboats faced each other across boardwalks that formed streets. The houses were pink and blue and yellow and white, and there were window boxes full of flowers, and little white picket fences with heart shapes cut into the wood. Cute, pretty little gingerbread houseboats. Except for the one near the end of the row – silvery-grey wood with green mould growing on it; cracked varnish on the window frames and doors; no interesting extra storeys or dormer windows or window boxes and picket fences – just a mouldy old houseboat, smaller than the rest, that looked completely uncared-for. And that was the houseboat that Rivers had borrowed.
That houseboat, and what happened on it, was awful. Awful, in every way possible. I sat on the edge of the unmade bed that appeared to double as a couch. The atmosphere was cold, damp and clammy. The sheets on the bed were greyish and all tangled up. There was an orange blanket and I tried to arrange it so that it covered the sheets, but then I noticed a big brown stain on the blanket that I didn't want to look at, so I kicked it to the end of the bed.
Rivers was in the kitchen – the galley, I guess – getting drinks. 'Whisky or brandy?' he called.
I'd never had either. Brandy sounded nicer, so that was what I chose. Rivers handed me a glass, a chunky tumbler with white smears around the edges that might have been toothpaste or paint or calcified water. He'd chosen an old cracked teacup for himself. 'Cheers!' he said, in a mock- English accent, and then he looked around. I think he was embarrassed by the state of the place. 'Hey, we're here now. Let's make the most of it.'
I tasted my brandy tentatively, grimaced, then swallowed the rest down in one go. I didn't like the taste but I loved the warm glow that lingered in my throat and chest. Rivers put some music on – Bob Dylan, I think – and then gestured for me to join him. I stood up, he took me in his arms and we began to dance. Round and round, clinging on to each other, in that tiny cabin, bashing our shins on the edge of the bed. It felt safe, though, there in his arms. It felt romantic, like a love scene should do. I leaned towards him and kissed him on the mouth. That was safe, too; that was something that felt good.
What happened then? There was more kissing, and then Rivers pushed me onto the bed and undid my blouse and ran his hands over my body. I kept my han
ds around his neck or in his hair, places I was familiar with. He undid my bra and began sucking my breasts, each one in turn. That was okay. That felt okay. It felt quite nice. Then his hands were running around the waistband of my pants. He pushed my skirt up so the fabric covered my face, and then there were those fingers on the gusset of my pants again, rubbing and pushing at the fabric. 'No,' I said, and wriggled away.
He laughed.
'No, really, please, no,' I said. It was all suddenly too much.
'Oh, so now you're little Miss Fucking Prick-tease all of a sudden.' Rivers was smiling as he said it. He seemed more amused than angry. He played with my nipples a little bit more, and then his insistent fingers were there again, on the gusset of my pants. This time I let him. It seemed the only thing I could do. I lay there, very still, like a doll, waiting to see what he would do next.
The bed was uncomfortable. I could feel all the creases in the sheets under me. It was a single bed with a wooden surround, sort of in a box, and unless I kept my arms pinned to the side my elbows kept knocking against the wood. I didn't know what I was supposed to do – should I be unbuttoning his shirt? Pulling his jeans down? Doing something to his nipples? Instead I just lay there feeling slightly sick.
Now his fingers were inside my knickers, inside me, poking and probing. I guess I must have moved away, because this time my head banged on the wooden headboard. 'Hey, come back,' he said, and pulled me back towards him, my blouse creasing and rucking up under my back. He pulled my knickers down and tossed them onto the floor. He rubbed me some more with his thumb. I felt something, a little bit like needing to have a wee.
Rivers stood up, kicked off his shoes and pulled his jeans down. He didn't have any underpants on, and his penis took me by surprise. My first sight of a man's erect penis: purple and ugly. I hadn't expected it to point so emphatically upwards. It was thick and solid and – I know now, with more experience – quite short. I wondered if I was supposed to reach out and touch it. He had something in his hand – a condom – and he pulled it on, the little teat at the end flopping comically. He climbed back onto the bed, lay on top of me and asked, 'Ready?'
I murmured 'Yes'. I was too polite to say anything else, after all the trouble he'd been to.
It was uncomfortable and it hurt, and I didn't seem to have room for him. Rivers rocked backwards and forwards on top of me, his face screwed up with the intensity of it all. My head kept bashing the headboard and I felt as if I had been split in half. I was cold and hungry and I felt sick, and I closed my eyes, braced my hands on the sides of the bed, arched my back, lifted my pelvis and tried really hard not to cry.
He panted and panted and then I felt a sudden sharp pain inside, worse than the worst period pain, and then he stopped panting and instead lay his head on my stomach and told me I was beautiful. I reached down and fondled his sweaty head. Somehow, I felt both sore and numb. There was a warm liquid sensation between my legs. Rivers pulled his penis out of me and there was a sloshing sound. I managed to prop myself up on my elbows. I looked down. Blood. There was blood between my legs and smeared down my thighs and all over the dirty grey sheets.
'Christ,' said Rivers as he looked at the mess. 'Jesus fucking Christ. Why the fuck didn't you tell me it was your first time?'
I remember the tiny little shower room on that houseboat, its walls lined with pine that had gone grey with damp. I washed myself as well as I could in the tiny hand basin, and I dried myself with the very edge of the dirty towel that was hanging over the shower rail. I bunched up almost a whole roll of toilet paper and stuck it between my legs, and then I pulled on my knickers and my skirt. I left my blouse untucked to try to hide the padding between my legs. I looked at myself in the mirror. Someone had once told me that when you have sex for the first time, a new line forms under your eyes, right below the lower lid, just a tiny line, but nonetheless a sure sign that you're no longer a virgin. I peered at the soft, fragile skin under my eyes. I thought there was a line there but I couldn't be sure.
Rivers was in the galley, about to stuff the sheets in the washing machine. 'You need to rinse them first,' I said. 'In cold water. Otherwise, the hot water will fix the stain.'
Obediently he pulled the sheets out and started running the cold tap. 'How do you know this stuff?'
I nearly said: Girl Guide Laundress badge. But I didn't want to appear any younger or more callow than I already had. Instead I said nothing. I found a dishcloth, rinsed it off and started dabbing at the mattress. Rivers came in. 'Don't do that. We'll just turn it over. He'll never know.'
So we turned over that smelly, lumpy mattress and as we did, Rivers caught my eye and gently said, 'I'm sorry.'
He was so nice about it. That's what did for him, really. If he hadn't been so nice then I never would have wanted to see him again, and none of the really awful stuff would ever have happened. But Rivers was nice. He held my hand as we walked back to the place where we had to wait for the ferry. He bought me a hot dog from a stand and made me eat it. He brushed my hair off my face. He told me I was a beautiful woman. He tried to make me laugh. From where we sat I could see San Francisco, all its hills and dips intersected by the grid-straight lines of its streets. Above the city sat a thick toupee of fog. It obscured the top of the Transamerica Pyramid. It looked like a dark thundercloud hovering over someone's head in a comic strip. All of a sudden I didn't want this to be how it ended, with Rivers and me.
I took hold of his hand. I started playing with his fingers. I put one of them in my mouth, like I'd seen people do in films, and I sucked it. I smiled at him, the flirtiest smile I could manage. 'So anyway, tomorrow's my last day in San Francisco. Do you want to get together?'
Rivers laughed. Chuckled. Then a huge laugh. He hugged me to him. 'Babe, you're a piece of work,' he said, and I think he meant it in an admiring way.
Thirty
There I was, running away again. I had hardly any luggage. I had crammed a few pairs of knickers and some T-shirts into the courier-style bag I used for school, and I added my toothbrush, my make-up bag and some anti-perspirant. That way, he wouldn't know what I had planned. He – whoever he was – wouldn't realise that I was going away. I slung the bag across my chest and took one last long look around my empty white flat. Then I walked out, locking the door behind me, trying to hide the trembling in my hands.
I had spent the night wondering what to do. I had closed all the windows and made sure the door was locked and bolted, and I had curled up in a little ball under my duvet and I had nearly gone out of my mind. Stay or go? Stay in the flat where he knew I lived, waiting for him to do whatever he was planning? Or run away, and always wonder? Even by the morning I hadn't made up my mind. I checked the doormat as soon as I woke up. I was expecting to see another white envelope but there wasn't one. I made coffee and toast and turned the T V on. The first thing I saw was a news report on the Edinburgh Festival. It seemed as if fate was telling me what to do.
I didn't know if I was coming back home. I didn't know if I would dare to come back. My home had been invaded.
It was no longer safe. I thought that maybe, then and there, I was walking out for ever. Walking away. Leaving it all behind me. Again.
But there was no need to think about that right now. I had to concentrate on looking natural. I took the stairs down from my flat because that way it was easier to tell if I was being followed, from the sound of the footsteps. I didn't think that there was anyone behind me. All I could hear was the sound of my sandals flip-flopping down the stairs. I was escaping in broad daylight, hoping to disappear into the crowd.
All I had to do was walk across the road to King's Cross, carrying my bag, like I did almost every day of my life. I didn't need to think about the future yet. I had a plan for that day, for the next couple of days. I was going to catch a train to Edinburgh and lose myself in the festival, and I was going to try to get my head straight. Zoey had invited me. She had flown up there early that morning. She was probably there already.
There was a bed waiting for me in the flat that she was renting. I hadn't told her I was coming; I hadn't officially accepted her invitation yet. No one knew where I was going. I hadn't told Danny, Jem, Sarah, my parents. This was an escape. My task was to get on the train without him – the stalker, the letter writer, Rivers Carillo back from the dead – noticing what I'd done.
It was still hot. The air felt stagnant. The dust from the building work they were doing to make King's Cross a desirable location hung in the air and stuck to my sweaty skin. I entered the station concourse. As usual at that time of day – coming up to eleven in the morning – King's Cross was heaving with people: plump Yorkshire businessmen arriving for meetings in the city; gaggles of slightly too showily dressed women down from Leeds or Doncaster or York for a day of shopping and a show. I wormed my way through the crowds, feeling as though I had eyes or sensors all over my body – in the back of my head and down my bare arms. I didn't know exactly who I was looking out for – Rivers Carillo, or someone who looked like him, or someone who looked like they might have known him back in the day – but that day I felt hyper-alert, super-sensitive to everything around me.