Soul Destruction: Unforgivable

by Ruth Jacobs

  She heard a car door open, then slam shut. Another door opened. It sounded very close, perhaps the back door of the car. Was that leather she felt wrapped around her arm?

  “Sorry about that, miss. Are you all right?” The hand that gripped her hoisted her back onto the seat.

  “My head hurts. Is it bleeding?”

  The leather glove stroked Shelley’s hair away from her forehead. “No, miss. But you’ve got a little bump, or did you have that already?”

  “No... No, I didn’t. Does it look bad?”

  Leather-clad fingers ran through Shelley’s hair, brushing it forward to fall over her face. “Cover it with your hair, miss. He won’t notice.”

  With Shelley returned upright on the backseat, the driver drove on. She berated herself for not asking how much longer they’d be. She’d had the opportunity of conversation and she’d squandered it.

  Wearing the blindfold impeded her ability to judge time. In what seemed like half an hour, but may have been much more or far less, the car sharply pulled to the right. It came to a standstill and she heard a door open and bang shut.

  Sometime later, something cold was placed in her hands: a plastic bag with little balls inside, tiny little balls.

  “Put that on the bump, miss. Might stop it bruising.”

  “Thank you. That’s very kind.”

  Once again, the car was moving, and again Shelley didn’t feel like it was purely a forward motion. Swaying from side to side, and forward and back, she struggled to keep what she imagined was a bag of frozen peas pressed to her head.

  The thought of arriving blemished was a worry. She already had plasters adhered to her two existing flaws and stories she’d concocted to explain them. For the lump on the inside of her elbow, a rogue phlebotomist was responsible during her altruistic act of giving blood. The breaking in of new boots had caused the lump on her foot. Uncomfortable shoes had a lot to answer for. Though generally blisters and corns, not lumps – with the exception of bunions – but a man wouldn’t know that, she presumed.

  She repeated the stories in her head over and over as if she was convincing herself. If she could make herself believe it, then it would sound like the truth when she came to say it.

  She heard grinding, as though the tyres were going over gravel. The sound continued. She could tell the car was going slowly. Her body rocked in all directions, but the movements were gentle.

  The car rolled to a halt. She heard a door open, then slam. There was a creaking sound close by – the back door opening perhaps. She was right. The leather hand took Shelley’s and gently pulled her upwards and forwards.

  “Mind the step here, miss.”

  Shelley tripped on something and fell into a pair of arms. Strong arms, she felt, as they elevated her to a standing position.

  “Hold on to me. It’s a bit of a way to the house.” The leather glove took her hand and wrapped it around the firm arm.

  It sounded like stones were crunching and scraping under their feet. And that’s how it felt. To avoid damaging the heels of her expensive stilettos, she tiptoed.

  “There’s steps coming up... Watch it, here’s the first.”

  Shelley counted four steps before her guide stopped. Standing still in the blackness, she heard what sounded like a church bell ring. A door must have opened; it sounded like a door. Her guide told her to mind the step. She lifted one leg, carefully placed her foot on the floor then raised the leg behind her. After a couple of steps on what felt like carpet, there was a thud – most likely the door closing. The blindfold was removed and finally, she could see.

  She was in the middle of a gigantic hall, lavishly decorated, and with a ceiling the height of two floors or more. To her right was a mahogany staircase. She looked up and saw a dark-haired man, in a burgundy smoking jacket, strutting down the stairs towards her.

  “I’m terribly sorry about all that palaver with the blindfold. My lawyer insists on it. We’ve had some dastardly girls recently. Despicable behaviour.” He kissed her on the cheek.

  “That is terrible.” Shelley was blinking, still adjusting to the recent exposure to light. “I’m not like that,” she said, patting her collarbone, checking the diamond in her Tiffany necklace was lying centrally.

  “I know you’re not, sweetie. Marianne assured me.” He stroked her hair. “I have a penchant for blondes, but I think they’re more deadly. It’s always the blondes getting me into trouble. Last time it cost a small fortune, so I have to err on the side of caution. You understand, don’t you?” He tilted her chin upwards, looking into her eyes.

  “Yes, of course,” she said sweetly. Before he released her chin, she took a mental photograph of his face. Following him through the hall, she tried to place him. She assumed he must be someone famous: a celebrity, aristocracy or perhaps a politician. She didn’t recognise him. The location of the house must be what gave him away, otherwise what would be the point of the blindfold? Those dastardly hookers must have known who he was in order to blackmail him or sell a story to the papers, or whatever it was they’d done.

  Even if she had recognised him, she would never do that. The Golden Rule – to do unto others as she would have done unto herself – was one she tried to live by, as much as she could in her line of work. She’d had several famous clients, though more often than not, they’d had to inform her who they were – in particular the footballers and the lawmakers. Their names as well as their faces were equally unknown to Shelley.

  The more-handsome-than-usual client led her into a reception room. The gold-framed portraits hanging on the walls gave him away as a descendant of old money.

  “I believe the best place to start is with a drink. So, tell me, Kiki, what’s your tipple?” His voice sounded like it had been in the family for as many generations as their wealth.

  “Can I have a gin and tonic, please?” she replied, taking a seat on one of the two huge sofas.

  He passed her a glass and sat down beside her. From underneath the table in front of them, he pulled out a gilded wall mirror. On the mirror sat a mountain of cocaine, a credit card and a rolled up fifty-pound note.

  He took the card and swept some of the white powder away from the rest of the mountain. He milled it down to a finer consistency. Then he ran the card down the length of the mirror eight times, generating eight lengthy lines.

  The late-thirties, or perhaps early-forties, male passed her the rolled up fifty. She bent over the mirror and, pressing one nostril down, she inhaled half a line up her other nostril. She handed the note back to him.

  “Have some more, sweetie.” He nodded his head in the direction of the mirror.

  She leant over and finished the line she’d started. As she went to hand the note back, he nodded again, indicating she hadn’t finished her turn. Snorting steadily, she succeeded in inhaling a whole line with her one strategically regulated sniff.

  She slipped off her stilettos and lay back on the azure sofa. “That’s enough for now,” she said, passing the fifty to her client.

  8. Surviving Life

  In the car park at Kenwood House, Shelley prayed the sun would be strong enough to break through and soothe her aching bones. But it didn’t look likely. The sky over Hampstead Heath was covered with thick layers of clouds, rolling like hills, like a reflection of the landscape below.

  When Nicole arrived – dressed for tea at the Ritz rather than a walk through the Heath – they set off down a muddy track. They came out into a sprawling field scattered with hawthorn trees. Apart from the birdsong and the sound of the wind striking the long grass, they walked in silence, in the direction of Highgate Ponds.

  Shelley was conscious that she and Nicole were yet to have their chat about what happened at The Lanesborough. Nicole hadn’t brought it up since the conversation last week. Strangely, Tara and Hugo hadn’t spoken about it either. She wondered whether the conversation had taken place at all. Crack psychosis confused what was real and what wasn’t, and she knew that night it had tak
en her. Tara was generally one to tease, as was Hugo. So if they knew about The Lanesborough, it was odd for them not to mention it. “Lanesboroughgate,” Hugo had called it that night. How could he resist taunting her with that again? If that’s what he’d said.

  “Are you all right, love? You look tired.” Nicole looked concerned.

  “I’ve not been sleeping too well.” Shelley couldn’t tell her the truth: that she was trying to quit heroin. And what she’d said wasn’t a lie. She hadn’t slept well in years, not since the nightmares began.

  ***

  She had considered cancelling her walk with Nicole, which had been arranged pre-cold turkey, but she didn’t like to let people down. And now it was too late. However hard, she’d have to walk with withdrawal symptoms. Nicole was managing perfectly well in her court shoes.

  As they wandered through a third field and climbed up another slope of a hill, Shelley felt a thin layer of sweat forming under her clothes. The wind whispered down the low neckline of her sweater and the coolness of the air against her wet skin caused her to shiver. She hoped Nicole didn’t notice.

  They left the openness of a meadow and followed a path into a section dense with white-barked, silver birches. Shelley’s nose itched and she started to sneeze.

  “Bless you, most precious. Maybe you’re coming down with something,” Nicole said.

  “Maybe,” Shelley replied, scratching her arm. Although heroin-free, she was itching all over as if she’d had a fix.

  ***

  On reaching Highgate Ponds, Shelley saw the regular ice cream van parked up. She took the opportunity to rest her tired bones by buying an ice cream for herself and Nicole.

  Sitting on a mound of unruly grass, they ate their 99s. A loud cry disturbed Shelley and she turned her eyes away from the bare trees surrounding her and toward the source of the noise. On the footpath by the pond, a glaring swan was parading with a biscuit in its mouth. Nearby, in a red pushchair, a crying toddler was being consoled by his mother.

  Shelley watched the child. Her baby would have been about that age by now. Purposefully, she turned away, and as she did, the white swan flew past her and returned to the murky water.

  “Do you think that swan might eat the chicks?” Shelley asked worriedly, as the swan made a beeline for a brown mallard and its ducklings at the other side of the pond.

  “A Resident Killer Swan? I wouldn’t think so, love. They all live here together.”

  Shelley didn’t think Nicole sounded too certain and as the swan was now chasing the mallard out of the water, separating it from its ducklings, she dropped the remainder of her ice cream cone and ran over to help.

  By the time she reached the other side of the pond, the ducklings were teetering in a line along the footpath, following a large duck waddling up front. She noticed a stranded duckling stuck in the pond, trying to jump out. Instinctively, she grabbed it by the neck and pulled it from the water. She released it onto the footpath and her rescued duckling doddered along and joined the others at the end of the line.

  Nicole was on the grass verge on the other side of the footpath. She was stamping her feet near the swan that was still harassing the mallard it had forcibly removed from the water. Shelley went over and together they shooed it away. She watched the freed mallard rejoin its ducklings in the pond before she and Nicole walked on towards Parliament Hill.

  ***

  Shelley tried to concentrate on breathing in the air, which was the purest she was exposed to in London. She thought about the goodness it would be doing for her nicotine-lined lungs.

  By the time she’d made it halfway up the steep – and what felt like never-ending – incline to the top of Parliament Hill, she was gasping for breath and lagging behind Nicole. Nicole encouraged her to keep going, but it didn’t help. Shelley’s legs felt as weak as a pair of twigs. Weakening her further was the wind, so powerful that it was driving the clouds at speed in an anti-clockwise circle in the sky. Whenever she looked up, it felt as though the world was spinning as fast as a waltzer.

  On reaching the top of the hill, she joined Nicole on a weather-beaten bench that must have been there for time immemorial. From where they sat, she could usually see right across London, from the tall buildings in the City and beyond to the South. Today, however, the view – from what she called the top of the world – was restricted.

  “How’s your mum?” Nicole asked. She always asked after Shelley’s mother, even though by now she was surely aware there were only ever two answers: she was ill at home or ill in hospital.

  Shelley waited for her panting to subside before replying, “She’s at home, still the same.” She took the box of Benson and Hedges from her handbag. “Has anything happened with the trial? Do you know when you’ll be called?”

  “Anytime in the next few weeks.” Nicole turned her head away, in the direction of the kite-flyers who had congregated at the bench next to them.

  “What if they bring up working? Do you know what you’re gonna say?”

  “I don’t think it’s gonna make any difference.” She turned back to face Shelley. “There’s so many others giving evidence as well. And my lawyer says it’s really common – most working girls were abused as kids. Not exactly a surprise, I mean, look at everyone we know.”

  “You’re handling it so well, much better than I did.” Shelley blinked in an effort to dispel the tears that had surfaced in her eyes. Fuck off, she told the stream of intrusive images running in her head.

  “Shell, you were much younger than me and I’ve got Doctor Fielding. I don’t think I’d be able to do it if it wasn’t for her.”

  Shelley was pleased therapy was working for Nicole, but it hadn’t worked for her. Dr Anne Fielding, the clinical psychologist Nicole had recently started seeing, was the same lady Shelley had seen at the Praed Street Project up until the end of last year. She’d decided therapy wasn’t helping her. Although she admitted to herself the fact she’d never been totally honest was most likely a contributing factor.

  “She’s made me see things differently. It’s like I’ve been wearing the wrong glasses all my life and now I’ve taken them off.”

  Shelley nodded as if she understood, but she didn’t have a clue what Nicole was talking about.

  “I’ve gotta deal with what happened, go back there again, talk through it, work through it. Somehow I’m gonna move on. I have to.”

  Shelley took Nicole’s hand. She’d never got that far in therapy herself. She’d found out that she suppressed her memories and her feelings with heroin. It didn’t stop her. Heroin’s what helped her, what made life bearable. This cold turkey business was pointless. She couldn’t do life without a buffer. “You’re amazingly brave,” she told Nicole.

  “I’m not, I don’t have a choice. I have to do something. The memories are coming up ’cos they weren’t buried properly.” Nicole flicked open her silver Zippo and lit her cigarette. “Dr Fielding says you can’t bury something ’til it’s been dealt with. The coke and the drinking, that just pushes everything down – and the working, God it’s more fucked up than I ever thought.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The trial’s made it all come back, but it’s even worse ’cos I never dealt with it before. I just tried to bury it.” Nicole exhaled and sent a puff of smoke into the air. “It’s like someone being buried in a shallow grave; it’ll only take a dog or something small sniffing around to dig up a bone and then the whole body could be out in the open.”

  “How’s working more fucked up?” Shelley asked her unanswered question a second time while the image of a decomposed corpse occupied her mind.

  “I can see why I do it, what’s led me into this life. But now that I know, working’s so hard I don’t shut down like I used to, not unless I’m out of it. And I don’t wanna be out of it all the damn time.”

  Shelley remembered what she’d been told by one of her ex-therapists. That she was a plaster collector, collecting plasters to cover over her pain.
The plasters weren’t large enough or strong enough to cover the deep wounds she had, which kept her on a journey collecting more. Apparently, she couldn’t be helped – or perhaps it was said that she couldn’t help herself – until she stopped collecting plasters and removed the ones she’d already accrued.

  A hole opened up in the grey and white sky and from a gap of clear blue, a pillar of light beamed down in front of Shelley. The brightly coloured kites that were being expertly flown seemed more alive with the light streaming through them as they bobbed and weaved in the air.

  ***

  Late afternoon, Shelley was still sitting with Nicole on the old bench, watching the kites. The rolling-hill clouds that earlier had dominated the entire sky had transformed into thin ribbons encircling only the perimeter. Though the sun could now warm her, the pain in her bones wasn’t touched. The rays weren’t strong enough to reach that deep.

  Shelley asked Nicole if she wanted to go to a pub. Although her intention for using the lavatory was of far more importance than what she intended to drink. They set off walking down the other side of Parliament Hill in the direction of The Magdala, which was a short walk through the Heath.

  With their cars at Kenwood House, Shelley suggested they share a taxi back later. She was too tired to hike back. Frustratingly for her, they were now far nearer her flat than her car.

  Parliament Hill was a favourite place. Somewhere she went frequently, but always from her flat. Because Nicole had wanted to see inside Kenwood House, they’d arranged to meet there – only to find it closed, due to a private function.

  Shelley felt strange having been on the top of the world and not been on gear. She either went there after a fix or brought one with her to shoot up discreetly in the nearby bushes. She’d sit on an aeons-old bench and switch between looking over London, watching the kites, staring at the sky, and talking to her brother in her head.