Rowan’s eyes are black in the dim hall light. I step back, to get to the kitchen. I don’t want this conversation in our narrow hallway. Rowan follows, matching me step for step. For a second it feels as if we’re performing some ridiculous kind of foxtrot. I wish Pete were here.
‘The police have been grilling me down at the station as if I’m the guilty party, as if it’s me who’s to blame for what your son did to my beautiful child.’
‘He didn’t do it,’ I say. ‘Not the way she says he did, anyway.’
I fold my arms, jut out my chin, determined to stand up for Saul, no matter what.
‘You refuse to admit your son raped her,’ he says. ‘You do him a disservice – he’s become a sociopath.’
‘You do your daughter a disservice by refusing to find out what’s really going on with her.’ Infuriatingly my voice shakes. ‘Why she’s so scared of telling you the truth.’
He backs me up against the cooker. I will not be intimidated by him. I’ve let him intimidate me once, into questioning Saul against my instincts, and the consequences were catastrophic. But my words seem only to have incensed him more. He comes up close to me, so close I can see the pores around his nose, the thread veins in his cheeks. His breath smells of beer and stale onion. There are deep creases along his brow where little pinheads of sweat are breaking out. I wonder how Jules bears him, with his foul temper and his aggressive bearing. Rowan’s a big bloke. There is probably about fifteen stone of male flesh looming over me.
‘Look, Rowan,’ I try. ‘We’re both upset. But we can talk this through.’
‘I want you to understand what you and your son have put my family through.’ He’s almost weeping, his eyes screwed up, his mouth in a grimace. I look about for something with which to defend myself in case he comes any closer, but the only thing within arm’s reach is a wooden spoon.
Then he shoves me and I slip against the cooker. I wonder, as I try to sidestep him, if he meant to push me so forcefully, whether he knows his own strength, but before I can speak again, I lose my balance. My arms flail as I try to break my fall, and then I find myself on my back, my head banging against the quarry tiles.
‘I’ve a good mind to hurt you,’ he pants, staring down at me. ‘The way Saul hurt Saffie. I’d do to you what your boy did to my girl, but you know what? You just don’t do it for me.’
With a final swipe at the wall, he walks out of the kitchen. The whole house reverberates as the front door slams.
I stare up at my kitchen, viewing things I’ve never seen before. Cobwebs veil the underside of the table. A small spider is working its way across the top of a table leg. There are crumbs in the cracks in the tiles, and dust bunnies have collected under the cupboard doors. The quarry tiles beneath my back – a detail that attracted me to the house in the first place – make the floor an ice block. One of the windows is ajar. The wind is catching a pan on the rack. It’s knocking against another, a regular tinny beat.
I move an arm and a leg. Only the back of my head hurts, so I push myself up and try a sitting position. Blinking, trying to get things into focus, I shift onto my knees and use the table leg to pull myself to standing. Water’s all I can think of. And it’s a relief, splashing into my face as I put my mouth under the tap to drink.
I pull the window shut and move toward the stairs. Then on second thoughts I turn round. I get the key we’re supposed to use as extra security for the house insurance but never do, and lock the window. I’m about to bolt and Chubb-lock the front door when I pause. Does Saul have a bunch of keys? Or just the Yale? In the end, I leave it on the Yale. Better that Saul can get in than that I keep Rowan out.
I drag myself up the stairs, holding on to the banister, and fall into bed. I burrow down under the duvet, curl into a foetal position. My whole body’s shuddering. I don’t sleep for ages. I lie and stare at the ceiling. I wait for morning, twitching at every sound. The creak of the roof tiles, the wind in the trees outside, the intermittent rumble of trains passing on their way from King’s Lynn to King’s Cross. Or the other way. The urgent, almost frantic wail of the level-crossing siren every time a train approaches.
Eventually I must have fallen asleep because I dream of the unborn baby, Saffie and Saul’s child. I dream that Jules and I are holding it between us, and she’s trying to pull it away from me and in a re-enactment of the Solomon story, we’re tugging at it until it is screaming, and another person – Donna Browne I think it is – says she’ll cut it in half if we can’t agree to share it. Jules nods. But I let the baby go to save it. I have a terrible sense of loss as I do so, but at least I know the baby will live now. That I’ve done all I can to keep it alive. ‘There,’ says Donna. ‘We know now who the true grandma is. It’s Holly. But she’s lost her baby.’
And then I wake up.
It’s light outside, though I have no idea of the time. It’s a struggle to climb back up to consciousness. What day is it? Where was I last night? Why am I wearing my best dress in bed? Slowly it comes back to me. Rowan leaning over me as I lay on the floor telling me he’d like to do to me what Saul did to Saffie. Is this sense of disorientation induced by concussion? Should I seek medical help?
When I’ve rolled out of bed, I take off my dress, stagger to the bathroom, wash, pull on some loose clothes, a pair of leggings and knitted jumper over the top, a pair of Pete’s socks. Downstairs, I stare out of the front window. The trees on the green have released the last of their leaves overnight. Perfect pools of bright copper lie beneath bare canopies. It’s as if the trees were inverted. Their crowns at the base, their roots in the air. The world turned upside down.
After a while, I feel dizzy and take myself back to bed. I check my mobile again, pointlessly. I try to work through some essays emailed to me by students on my laptop, screwing up my eyes to make the words on the screen come into focus, but each time I near the end of a sentence, I’ve forgotten the beginning. The meaning of the words is slippery as wet soap. I try to compose an email for Samantha instead, with some information on access courses. It’s hard to focus on this, but I cobble something together, ping it over to her, and at midday, I put on the local news.
My item comes on last. It seems like longer than eighteen hours since I sat in the studio and begged Saul to come home. The bead of sweat I wipe from under my eye makes it look as though I’ve been weeping. I watch myself plead into the camera, telling Saul he’s not in trouble, telling him we all love him. Embarrassed, experiencing again the same sense of shame and exposure I felt while recording it, I switch it off.
I should phone Fatima, the kind liaison officer, tell her what Rowan did to me. Would his attack be classed as attempted rape? Sexual assault? I try to remember from my Rape Crisis days. We urged women to report any kind of attack. It didn’t matter, we told them, if they hadn’t been penetrated. What counted, what had to be reported, was the terror induced, the emotional trauma undergone. Right now, however, in spite of my years of persuading women to bring attacks like Rowan’s to light, I decide it isn’t worth the effort. The collection of forensic evidence required, the questioning I’d have to go through. I make a solemn promise to myself. No one need know what Rowan did to me last night. He has taken his revenge on me for what he believes Saul did to his daughter. And I’ll leave it at that. The irony that Saffie didn’t want her alleged rape reporting to the police either isn’t lost on me.
Pete texts. ‘Deepa says her sister can come tonight to be with the girls for the weekend. If you’ll have me, I’ll come home. I miss you. I want you. I want to support you, Holl.’
From the moment we first slept together, I loved the warmth Pete’s body gave off and his faintly musky smell. I loved the way we had a chemistry between us so that we knew instinctively what each other liked. Sex with Pete was an easy thing and I could do with him now, beside me, the comfort of him. But I’m not sure I’ve forgiven him yet.
And even were I to let him touch me, I don’t want Pete to see the bruise on my thigh.
The cut on my head. I don’t want him to see how every sound makes me jump. I don’t want him to ask questions.
‘Stay with the girls,’ I text back. ‘They need you more than I do.’
Then, on second thoughts, I compose another message.
‘If you want to help, ask Freya who she and Saffie are in love with.’
I consider softening my tone, but in the end, I just press ‘send’. Then I go to the kitchen. I find a bottle of wine. It’s not chilled and tastes a bit rough. But the alcohol hits my empty stomach straight away. I put on Leonard Cohen and wait for Pete’s reply. After my second glass, the kitchen begins to look soft around the edges, the world a more approachable place. I’m on my way for a third refill when someone knocks loudly on the door.
I recognize Fatima’s comforting figure silhouetted in the glass. She’s come with news. I barely let myself think. They must have found Saul! She’s going to say that he’s OK and is on his way home. He’s seen my appeal on TV. He realizes how much I love him and how I never believed the things that were said about him. He’ll forgive us all. And I can show Fatima the diary entry. Prove Saffie and he were in love. And Fatima can go to Jules and Rowan and tell them Saffie is forgiven for panicking and telling such a disastrous lie because she’s only thirteen. Everything’s going to be all right.
I open the door glad to see Fatima, to have another woman for company.
‘I was about to ring you,’ I say. ‘I’ve got new evidence as to what happened between Saul and Saffie.’
She doesn’t answer, the expression on her face sombre.
‘Can I come in?’ she asks.
When she next speaks, the colour literally drains from my world. No one says these words unless they are going to tell you something truly horrible. I want to rewind the scene, go back and replay it differently so I don’t have to experience what I know Fatima’s going to say next. Everything goes kind of non-colour, like dead flesh, as she begins to speak.
‘I think you need to sit down, Holly.’
14
JULES
Jules felt exhausted. Saffie had been silent and sullen on the way home from the auction event. Jules assumed it was because they were to see Donna about the termination the next day, but Saffie refused to speak to her about it. When they got in, she made sure Saffie got straight to bed. Then she’d gone up to bed herself. Sleep was elusive, however, and her mind began to whir. The auction had taken a lot of organization in the end. Why was it that constructing quiches and delegating ticket sales took up so much more energy than it had once done? It had proved tiring on top of work, which had been quite frantic lately, with orders not arriving on time, profits suffering as a result. Then, of course, there was the mental and emotional strain of worrying about Saffie, whose mood swings had become even more extreme of late. Jules put this down to a combination of pregnancy hormones, the after-effects of her trauma, worry about the termination and possibly anxiety over the fact no one knew what had happened to Saul – but door-slamming and shouting matches were not the half of it. Saffie was refusing food, and snapping each time Jules asked if she was OK. And although she was determined to go to school as normal, and even to attend the revision classes Rowan nagged her about, she came in looking drawn, haunted even, with a look on her face that suggested she might snarl if Jules asked her how she was. And the sleeve-plucking had become more frantic.
Then, of course, there was Rowan. Jules had tried to quash the nagging fear that he might be to blame for whatever had caused Saul’s disappearance, but at times like these – he still wasn’t back, two hours after she had left the auction – she found it hard. She fretted about what the police had wanted with him earlier, and suddenly remembered the ripped receipt, the Peacocks bag. She wondered about going downstairs to check them, but her body – and mind – felt bone-tired and she couldn’t face it. They’d still be there in the morning.
It was almost midnight when Jules finally heard the door slam. She wanted to talk to Rowan, and she sat up, waiting for him to come into the room. It was clear, however, when he did, that he was drunk. He didn’t speak as he slid off his trousers, then collapsed on the bed. She could smell the beer on him. It was best not to broach any kind of sensitive subject when he was in this state. Years of dealing with his temper when drunk had taught her to steer clear.
And anyway, a few minutes later he was snoring.
She was alone.
Funny how you could feel more alone with your husband in the bed next to you than when you were on your own. Alone with the image of that fabric in the bag. And the petrol receipt. Alone with the doubt about where Rowan had been on Monday morning. And just now.
Meeting Holly at the auction had tainted the evening. Jules couldn’t help wondering what had made Holly come in when she must have known – known – the hostility she would arouse. Jules had tried to give Holly a look to indicate that she should leave, but Holly had refused to pick up on it.
The tide of sympathy for Holly had turned now the rape had been made public. Most of the villagers – those who had helped in the search for Saul – now felt they’d been cheated. If they had known Saul was a rapist, they would not have been so keen to help search for him. They had been duped into helping a boy who had assaulted a young girl, a child, in her own home in their village. It had been the main point of conversation in the Baptist Chapel as they prepared the food and drink for the auction. While some people admitted they felt sorry for what Holly was going through – Samantha, in particular, sympathized with her – the general feeling was that she had dealt badly with the allegation and had brought Saul’s disappearance on herself.
‘I mean, if your son raped someone, you’d want to know, wouldn’t you?’ Tess had said, standing in a tight little circle by the buffet table, taking cling film off trays of quiche. ‘You’d force the truth out of him immediately.’
‘It’s really hard to imagine, if you haven’t got boys,’ Samantha argued. ‘I mean, if Freddie is ever accused of rape when he’s older, I will never, ever believe it.’
‘Freddie’s only six,’ Tess insisted. ‘When he’s a great big hulking teenager, it will seem more plausible. And you’d have a duty to believe it. To protect other girls.’
‘I mean, it clearly indicates Saul’s got major problems, as Jules tried to point out to Holly,’ Fiona said.
‘Exactly,’ Jenny agreed. ‘If Holly had sought advice immediately, they could have dealt with it and moved on.’
‘I told Holly as soon as I knew,’ Jules said. ‘I thought she and Pete would talk to Saul. Then . . . I don’t know, we could have got him to confront what he’d done and, if necessary, take him to see someone professional.’ She picked up a foil tray of smoked salmon sandwiches and arranged some wedges of lemon between them. ‘What’s made it so hard for me, and Saff, of course, is Holly’s point-blank refusal to admit Saul did it.’
‘I think that’s awful of her,’ Jenny said. ‘Holly’s son is as likely to be a rapist as any other man. For a mother to be in so much denial says something about the mother, in my opinion.’
‘Absolutely. It makes you wonder what kind of mother she is, to have brought up a rapist for a son to start with. Let’s not forget that Saff’s only thirteen,’ Tess said. ‘It wasn’t just rape; it was sexual assault on a minor.’
‘Is that actually classed as paedophilia?’ Jenny asked. ‘That makes it so much worse somehow.’
‘Whether it is or it isn’t, that boy’s on the loose. It puts other young girls at risk.’
‘Isn’t Holly also some kind of a women’s rights activist?’ someone else piped up. ‘Hasn’t she written about men getting away with rape, even in this day and age?’
‘She’s got a point there,’ Fiona said. ‘It incenses me. The way the courts look for any way to blame a woman when she reports a sexual assault . . .’
‘But therefore you would have thought Holly would sort out her son. Not only for Saffie’s sake but for the sake of womankind.’
Even though her friends were saying nothing Jules hadn’t thought, she felt sick rather than vindicated, and every time she closed her eyes, she saw Saffie’s pinched face begging her not to tell anyone. In fact, the whole evening had been marred for Jules by this emerging sense that her story, her daughter’s suffering, had become the stuff of gossip and conjecture and judgement. And to top it all, there was that awful conversation with Holly, just as Jules was trying to serve the tea. Holly begging Jules to believe that Saffie loved Saul. Of course it was a wonderful fantasy, but it was absurd. Saffie was so obviously repelled by Saul, and had said as much that fateful evening, before he’d even come round. It had made Jules feel sicker still to see Holly’s desperation, and had left her upset and in conflict. As a result, she’d gone home early, unable to stand being in such close proximity to Holly as she grasped at straws in order to save Saul’s reputation.
Now Jules was able to give it more thought, she could see why Holly believed it was a plausible theory. In Holly’s eyes, it was perfectly understandable that a young girl might fall for Saul. And, Jules supposed, Saffie’s protestations that she didn’t like him could, feasibly, be a cover. Saul was considered odd by the local kids and Saffie wouldn’t want them to know if she had feelings for him. But just as Holly was adamant Saul was innocent because she knew her son, Jules knew her daughter – Saffie hadn’t been lying about her feelings for Saul. Or what he’d done to her.
Jules couldn’t bear to think about what else lay beneath her rejection of Holly’s new theory that their children were in love. She knew if she gave it a second’s credence, she would uncover something so dark, so awful and haunting it didn’t bear thinking about. Not yet anyway. Not unless she had to.
I Thought I Knew You Page 25