Rebound

by Aga Lesiewicz

  I’m grateful for the way in.

  ‘There is, actually. I’ve had unprotected sex with a stranger.’

  ‘And when was that, my child?’

  She doesn’t make a judgement, she’s not shocked, she just asks a question. I don’t mind her calling me ‘my child’, it actually makes me feel a little tearful. She listens patiently and then suggests I go to the Sexual Health Centre at St Bart’s. I can book an appointment online or just drop in. And they can do all the tests straight away.

  The Centre is bright, efficient and full of women like me. I’m surprised and I don’t quite know why. Surely I haven’t been expecting a bunch of seedy-looking slappers with matted hair and no teeth? I’m seen quite quickly by a young female doctor. I have a feeling I may have seen her somewhere before, but I can’t place her. She’s friendly and professional and she doesn’t beat around the bush.

  ‘Any chance of unwanted pregnancy?’

  ‘No, I’m on the Pill.’

  She nods and marks something on the form.

  ‘We’ll need to test you for STIs, primarily chlamydia, gonorrhoea, trichomoniasis, herpes . . .’

  ‘HIV?’

  ‘Well, it’s a bit early for a test. But if you’re really concerned you could take PEPSE, that’s post-exposure prophylaxis, a four-week course of HIV medication you can take after unprotected sex to reduce the chance of becoming HIV positive.’ She looks at her notes. ‘You’re just within the seventy-two hours’ time limit. Otherwise you should come back for a test. It can show positive as early as two weeks after infection, but HIV infection cannot be excluded until twelve weeks after exposure.’

  I feel very hot and a bit faint. I decide to opt out of PEPSE, but make a note in my iPhone to come back for a blood test in twelve weeks. She asks if I’ve been vaccinated against Hep A and B, then takes a blood sample and sends me off to the toilet to do a swab. Quick, efficient, matter-of-fact. When I return, she smiles at the top of my head. I wonder if she does it to avoid the sight of the scab on my cheek.

  ‘I’d like you to wait in the waiting area for the results of the immediate tests. If we think you need treatment for anything, we will give it to you before you go. The other results will be texted to you as soon as we have them.’

  She closes her file and shows me to the door. I go back to the waiting room and sit down among other patients, avoiding eye contact with everybody.

  If I survive this, I think, I’m going to be a nun for the rest of my life.

  By the time I get to work it’s far too late to drive out to Pinewood. Too bad, especially as, Claire tells me, a legendary producer from the US is there, overseeing the shoot. No brownie points and no autograph for me this time. But there is plenty of chaos produced by Cadenca Global to keep me busy for the rest of the day.

  I get home late, totally exhausted. I normally enjoy work, the corporate hustle and bustle, enriched with human emotions, ambitions and jealousies. But the last two weeks have been unbearable, the heavy weight of the looming restructure taking all life and colour out of daily routines. Throw in a crazy Hampstead Heath encounter and my whole world seems out of kilter, an unsafe and unpleasant place. Would having James around help? I pick up the phone, then put it down. No, I decide, I have no space for teddy bears, however sweet, in my life.

  I don’t feel like going for the evening walk with Wispa. She’s disappointed when I let her out to the back garden, but she’ll have to live with it for tonight. I only hope she had a good walk with Nicole earlier in the day. I take a long bath, then dig an old tub of ice cream out of the freezer. It’s going to be one of those nights. I’m just settling on the sofa when my phone rings. A number I don’t recognize. Probably someone offering me a free upgrade or a new mobile. I ignore it, but a few minutes later it rings again. The upgrade people normally wait at least a day before they call back. I answer it.

  ‘Oh, hi.’ A male voice, hesitant, polite. ‘Are you the owner of a chocolate Labrador named Wispa?’

  Oh shit, Wispa. I rush to the back door and open it. She’s not in the garden.

  ‘Yes,’ I say breathlessly to the phone. ‘Did something happen to her?’

  ‘No, she’s fine.’ The voice sounds reassuring now. ‘She’s here with me, I found her wandering Highgate Hill, looking a bit distressed. Found your phone number on her name tag.’

  A wave of relief washes over me. The guy offers to drop her off and I give him my address. He rings my doorbell five minutes later, Wispa happily wagging her tail by his side. I hesitate, not knowing whether I should invite him in, but he makes it easy for me, saying he is on his way to pick up his daughter from a piano lesson and he’s already running late.

  ‘I’m so grateful. I have no idea how she managed to escape from the garden. It’s never happened before.’

  ‘Dogs and children,’ he says with a smile and I notice he’s quite handsome. He has dark, curly hair, pale skin and strikingly green eyes with long, dark lashes. ‘We could spend hours swapping tales of joy and woe. Actually,’ he hesitates for a second, ‘why don’t you pop round for a drink sometime? You and your partner, I mean,’ he adds awkwardly. ‘My wife and I would be delighted. We live just round the corner.’

  I say yes, it would be a pleasure, and we agree to arrange a date by phone as we already have each other’s phone numbers, thanks to Wispa’s tag. His name is Tom, by the way, Tom Collins, like the cocktail. His dad loved gin and his mum lemonade, he tells me with a grin. I close the door and have a serious chat with Wispa. Of course it’s far too late to tell her off for running away, she wouldn’t be able to connect the events and draw a conclusion; she’s a dog, after all, not a child. And it’s my fault for leaving her out in the garden for too long. But how did she manage to escape? I find a torch in the cupboard under the stairs and venture out into the dark garden. In the shaky beam of the torch the walls and the fence look fine. I’ll have another look in the morning. I decide to give Wispa a rawhide bone as a peace offering and settle with her in front of the TV. I don’t know what I would do if she got lost.

  Seventeen Days Earlier

  The results are back and I don’t have chlamydia, gonorrhoea, herpes or any of the other STDs with long and scary names. The only test I’ll still have to do in three months is the HIV, but I suddenly feel purged and elated. I want to celebrate, to tell the world, but ‘I’m STD-free’ doesn’t really have the right celebratory ring to it. I call Michael instead and invite him to dinner ‘somewhere really nice’. My treat. He’s free and delighted to accept. By fluke I get a table at Ottolenghi in Islington because someone has just cancelled tonight’s reservation. It’s an 8.30 slot, so I’ll have time to give Wispa a proper walk before I go out tonight. I feel lucky, not only because I’ve managed to get in on a whim to Ottolenghi.

  Over a growing number of beautiful small dishes on our table I tell Michael about the stress at work. He listens sympathetically, nibbling on roasted aubergine with feta yoghurt and seared yellow fin tuna with soy and ginger sauce. I never have an opportunity to reciprocate his good listening, as he never complains about his job. He runs his own web design company, and I’m sure he’d have plenty to moan about if he chose to, but he never does. Our grilled quail with smoked chilli chocolate sauce arrives and I have to stop my saga of corporate woe. The food is simply too good to taint with everyday misery.

  ‘Sometimes I think I should just quit and start my own business, I don’t know, garden landscaping or selling hand-knitted teddy bears on the Internet, anything but TV and media.’

  ‘No, hon, you should sit tight and wait until they make you redundant. And then hire a good redundancy lawyer and make them double their offer.’

  ‘Sounds like a good plan.’ I scoop a bite of black-peppered tofu with saffron dashi onto my fork.

  ‘I’m serious, darling. Nobody just quits in television. You always manoeuvre yourself into the most lucrative position to be pushed from.’

  ‘Did you get pushed?’ I have never asked him why
he left his full-time job and started his own business.

  ‘Of course I did, although it may have looked quite innocent to the naked eye.’

  ‘Did you make some money out of it?’

  ‘Not enough, darling, not enough.’ Michael takes a sip of his wine. ‘But there are other compensations, you know. Like being able to take a stroll in the park in the middle of the day, when everyone else is at work, for instance. Well, not everyone.’ He has a mischievous grin on his face now.

  ‘You didn’t!’ I exclaim a bit too loud for the intimate space of the restaurant and get some curious glances.

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘You met someone,’ I whisper, the leftover bits of our delicious dinner suddenly forgotten.

  ‘He met me, to be precise.’

  ‘Enough riddles, hon, I want the whole story.’

  ‘Well . . . I was sitting in a beautiful spot, reading the new Ian McEwan book—’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Richmond, darling.’

  ‘What were you doing in Richmond? It’s miles away from your house.’

  Michael looks at me with mock reproach. ‘Do you want to hear what happened or not?’

  ‘I do, sorry.’

  ‘So I’m sitting there under a tree with Ian McEwan, when suddenly this rather gorgeous man appears out of nowhere and asks me if he can sit next to me, as apparently I hog the best spot in the whole park. Considering that the park is nearly four square miles, it’s quite an achievement to stumble upon the best spot without even trying, so I let him know I’m happy to share my precious spot with him. He unfolds his blanket, chatting rather pleasantly all the time, drawing me away from Ian and into a conversation with him.’

  A waitress clears our table and offers some dessert. I quickly choose a coffee pecan financier with maple cream for us to share, keen to hear the rest of Michael’s story.

  ‘He offers to share his blanket with me as the ground is getting a bit chilly. I move to his blanket and . . . we cuddle a bit.’

  ‘Cuddle?!’ I’m too loud again.

  ‘Yes, darling, cuddle. Light petting, really, nothing more.’

  Our dessert arrives and it silences us. We savour the nutty texture, slightly crisp on the top and edges, soft and moist inside, luxuriating in the maple cream. When it’s all gone, I nudge Michael to continue his story.

  ‘So you “cuddled” . . .’ I make inverted commas in the air.

  ‘Believe it or not, we did.’ He’s slightly annoyed by me teasing him. ‘Not all gay men have the urge to jump into the bushes with the first stranger that comes along. And to be honest, once I start talking to someone and he turns out nice, interesting, engaging, once I get to know him a bit, I don’t really feel like a quick handjob. I actually prefer warmth and intimacy to the thrill of the unknown.’ Michael pauses. ‘Perhaps I’m getting old . . .’

  He looks sad and I feel a bit guilty about teasing him earlier.

  ‘I do miss what I had with Phil. The companionship, camaraderie, love. I miss having a partner, Anna.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ I reach out and touch his hand. I see his eyes glaze with tears, then he straightens up, waves at the waitress and orders two espressos. He knows we both like to finish our dinners with a small injection of caffeine.

  ‘So, at the end we exchange business cards – imagine doing that in the dark in the middle of Richmond Park – and go our separate ways.’

  ‘Will you see him again?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I do know I’m ready for another relationship.’

  As I drive back home along Holloway Road I think about Michael and what he said. About the threshold of familiarity which, once crossed, makes it impossible to engage in anonymous, impulsive sex. Michael is looking for a relationship, someone he can trust, be with on a daily basis. What am I looking for? I have pushed away a man who wanted to start a family with me, and I don’t mean just teddy bears. James did talk about having kids occasionally and perhaps that was the trigger that made me want to distance myself from him, to run away. Do I want a family? Do I want kids? As hard as I search for an answer within myself, I can’t find it. I simply don’t know.

  When I get home Wispa greets me with a pure joy that compensates for the lack of any real human emotion in my life. Although it’s late, she wangles another walk out of me. I need to walk off the espresso anyway.

  We bounce down Swain’s Lane, our energy disturbing the stillness of the cemetery statues. Wispa leads happily, her tail wagging. The silence is suddenly interrupted by the buzzing of my phone. I forgot I left it on silent. I look at the screen. It’s Bell. There are a number of unanswered calls from her, which I didn’t hear. It’s late for her, so it must be something important.

  ‘What’s up, babe?’

  ‘Why aren’t you at home? I’ve been ringing your landline for hours. Where are you?’ She’s really wound up.

  ‘I had dinner with Michael. And now I’m walking Wispa.’

  ‘Now? It’s midnight!’

  ‘What’s wrong, Bell?’

  ‘I’ve been worried about you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I couldn’t get hold of you.’ She sounds almost hysterical.

  ‘I’m fine. What’s going on, Bell? Do you want me to come over?’

  ‘No, no, no.’ I can hear her take a couple of deep breaths. ‘It’s fine. It’s just . . . this woman has been attacked on the Heath, and I got so worried, because of you and your jogs with Wispa at all sorts of hours, and then I couldn’t get hold of you . . .’

  ‘Slow down. What happened?’

  ‘There’s been a rape on the Heath.’ I feel a cold chill run through my body. ‘I heard it on the news.’

  ‘That’s awful, Bell. When did it happen?’

  ‘Sometime today, I think, I’m not sure. I was so worried when you didn’t answer your phone.’

  ‘Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry. I didn’t hear it ring. I’m fine. I’m walking home now. And I’ll text you when I get there.’

  ‘OK.’ She sounds calmer now. ‘Go straight home and lock the door.’

  ‘I will, I promise.’

  I call Wispa and walk back, suddenly aware of the impenetrable darkness on both sides of the road. When I get home and lock the door, I realize how tense I’ve been. I text Bell and open my laptop. I find the news almost straight away.

  Camden police are appealing for witnesses and information following a sexual assault on Hampstead Heath this morning. The victim, a thirty-two-year-old woman, was attacked while she was jogging in the area of Parliament Hill sometime between 06.45 a.m. and 07.30 a.m. The suspect is believed to have followed the woman from Holly Lodge Estate, before pushing her to the ground and assaulting her. He then fled in the direction of Gospel Oak.

  The suspect is described as being a male of Mediterranean appearance, 5ft 8–5ft 10, wearing a dark T-shirt and light-grey tracksuit bottoms. Anyone with information is requested to contact DI Brown of Camden CID on . . .

  I close my laptop and sit motionlessly in the darkness of my sitting room. Poor woman. I’m paralysed with fear just imagining what she must’ve gone through. A frightening thought occurs to me. Bell is right. It could’ve been me. Suddenly I’m covered in cold sweat. What if it was me? My weekend doubt hits me again and it’s even more alarming than the first time. What if what I considered a consensual encounter was some kind of a testing ground for a rapist? Is it possible at all that the Dior Man is the rapist? Have I, with my reckless behaviour, created a monster? He liked the taste of it with me and now he can’t stop and attacks other women? I open the laptop again and frantically look for more information about the attack. The victim, although they don’t reveal her identity, could’ve been me. Young, probably professional, jogging in the park before her commute to work. But the attacker . . . It definitely wasn’t the Dior Man, unless he’d completely changed his appearance. And his dress sense . . . light-grey tracksuit bottoms, yuk, I bet he wouldn’t be seen dead in a pair of thos
e. My own flippancy shocks me. But somehow it helps me to shake off the awful feeling of suspicion and guilt. It’s not him.

  Fifteen Days Earlier

  It’s been nearly a week since I last jogged on the Heath. I have a legitimate excuse – it’s been a hellish week at work. I get to the office early and work late every day, barely staying on top of the massive tsunami of change that is slowly gathering momentum under the watchful eye of Cadenca Global. The Friday Bake-Off, cheerfully orchestrated by HR and Happy Workplace, is a distraction no one wants and no one needs. The few cakes, baked by some mad souls who still have spare time and energy to be wasted in the kitchen, sit on the table in the main conference room, barely nibbled on. There will be no Bake-Off winners this Friday, because everyone is a loser right now. A new structure is being put in place, new job descriptions drawn up and approved, and the painstaking process of elimination is just about to begin. For some reason I’m reminded of a Borg cube from Star Trek, with all the superfluous drones being ejected into space, their place immediately filled by the newly assimilated useful entities. Resistance is futile, that’s for sure. I have to do my job, while trying to prepare the most advantageous exit strategy for myself. Bell, a devoted Trekkie who infected me with a passion for the indestructible TV series, would be proud of me.

  Bell – I need to see her, to apologize once again for giving her such a fright when I didn’t answer my phone on the day of the Hampstead rape. I’ve been scouring the Internet for any more news of the assault, but there is none. I wonder if the woman is OK, whether there is an investigation into the incident and who is running it. I also think that I can’t stay away from the Heath forever. I miss it.

  I arrange to meet Bell in YumYum in Stoke Newington, the best Thai restaurant outside South-East Asia, some Stokie locals say. True, the food is rather good and the atmosphere appropriately exotic. When I arrive, Bell is already there, sitting barefoot Asian style on the floor by a low table. I plonk myself down opposite her, grateful she’s already ordered passion fruit mojitos for both of us.