The Accusation

by Zosia Wand

  But we are here now, sitting in Naz’s messy kitchen with an empty bottle of wine and Mum’s grenade on the table between us. Neil has a child. He is a father. He raped Tina Lord? Neil. My Neil. It’s unimaginable. My Neil is kind. He is patient. He would never, never…

  It isn’t real. It can’t be real. As long as I don’t pull the pin, the grenade can stay where it is.

  Neil is picking us up tomorrow night. We will spend the weekend with his parents. I told him we’re having a sleepover at Naz’s for a bit of fun, but he could tell. I could barely speak. His voice. ‘What is it Eve? What has she said?’ Too much. The concern. The fear.

  ‘I know about you.’ This is what she knew. ‘What are you afraid of?’

  ‘You.’

  I made the excuse that Milly was too tired to chat. If he finds out about the smack, all hell will be let loose.

  All hell has let loose.

  ‘What has she said?’ not what has she done? ‘What are you afraid of?’

  What do I do now?

  Naz fed us curry from the freezer. ‘Mum makes me two a week and we can never get through them.’ This is what normal mothers do for their adult daughters. They cook meals to store in the freezer, they embrace their grandchildren. But these mothers have sons-in-law they can trust. Milly hesitated and procrastinated, stirring the curry around her plate while watching Max gulp spoonful after spoonful, but not actually eating any herself. I said nothing. There were naan breads she could eat, if all else failed, or plain rice, but there was no need to worry. It was Max who shoved the bowl of yoghurt towards her, saying, ‘If you stir that in, it’s not so spicy.’ She gave him a shy smile and then, wanting to impress, did exactly as he suggested. I watched this, aware that I should be delighted, but more relieved that Milly seemed largely untouched by the upheaval. I watched as she took the first mouthful and gave a little grimace as she swallowed. I listened to Naz laugh and encourage her. I saw Max give her the thumbs up, but I was not there with them. While Milly’s life continued, while she polished off her first curry, my life hung, suspended. Now Max is reading her a bedtime story on her insistence.

  Neil. My Neil.

  ‘What are you afraid of?’

  Naz is sitting across the table from me, waiting. I have to say the words, but if I say them out loud I give them substance.

  Naz, incisive as ever, asks, ‘What has she said?’

  What has she said. Not, what is the truth, but, what has she said. It may not be true. Cling to that. ‘She said Tina Lord had a child, a son. Neil’s son.’ I can’t tell her the rest.

  Naz frowns. She takes her time, digesting the information. She doesn’t reject it. She doesn’t snort and dismiss it, she takes it in. Eventually, she says, ‘Does Neil know?’

  Does he? Maybe he doesn’t. Maybe it isn’t true. Maybe it’s someone else’s child. Gossip. Something twisted out of shape?

  ‘He can’t. How could he?’ All those tests? Waiting to find out if… he would have said. He would have told me.

  ‘Where did your mum get this information?’

  I don’t know. I stare at Naz dumbly. Why didn’t I ask? Did I ask? I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything except grabbing Milly, packing our bag and running away. I ran away.

  ‘You met Ann Lord in the café? Did she say anything about Tina?’

  I shake my head. I can’t speak. There are no words. I struggle to remember. She said Tina was fine. She didn’t mention a child. She didn’t mention rape. She wouldn’t sit in a café with me if my husband had raped her daughter.

  But she didn’t sit in the café. She left. Tugging at her cuff. Glancing to the window, looking for the car. She couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

  ‘We need to talk to Tina.’ Naz is matter-of-fact. The journalist she was meant to be is kicking in. She isn’t afraid of the truth. But I haven’t told her everything. I have to tell her.

  ‘There’s more.’

  Naz frowns. She waits. I can hear the dishwasher whirring, the hum of the fridge. Stu is in the living room, giving us a bit of space. I stare at my hands. The wedding ring Neil slid onto my finger. Neil. My Neil. Vomit it up. ‘Rape.’ The word is out. That ugly word. ‘She said he raped her.’ I stay focused on my hands, afraid to see Naz’s horror.

  A moment. Then, ‘Who said? Tina?’

  No. I shake my head. Not Tina. A glimmer of light. I look up. ‘Mum.’

  I want to see relief on Naz’s face. I want her shoulders to lower, her frown to slide, but she stays as she is, thinking. She believes it’s possible.

  She reaches across the table to take my hand but I snatch it away. I don’t want her pity. I don’t want this to be true!

  The still of the kitchen. The whir. The hum. This moment stretching out. This can’t be happening. I need to take control. I’m up on my feet. ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’ I run for the stairs, up to the bathroom, sliding the bolt across. I take a deep breath. I lean over the sink. I retch and my body convulses. I taste bile in my throat, but this is not enough. I slide my fingers along my tongue, further, further, until I gag, once, twice, and then it comes. Yellow, curry goo, filling the sink. Grains of rice. Saliva and slippery digestive juices. Up it comes.

  When I’m done, I splash my face with cold water, tilt my head and hold my mouth under the running tap, rinsing away the sour taste. Rinsing it all away. Then I sit down on the toilet seat, spent, trembling.

  Naz is waiting for me when I return to the kitchen. ‘You OK?’ I nod and sit back down at the table facing her. My hands are trembling. The world, my world, is trembling. She says, ‘I’ve been thinking. What proof does your mum have? I mean, was there an accusation made at the time? If there was, then there’d be a record, wouldn’t there? This isn’t something you can hide. He’s a teacher. They’ll have done a full DBS check on him. They’ll have done the checks for the adoption. I mean, they found out about the bloody weed when they checked me out, and I was just a referee, surely they’d have found a rape charge?’

  She’s right. We were both checked. Any criminal history would have come up. How does Mum know Neil raped Tina? Did Ann tell her? Why wasn’t it reported? ‘I should have asked. Why didn’t I ask?’

  ‘Because you couldn’t think straight! Because it’s the most hideous, spiteful accusation anyone could make? Because this is your husband, the man you’ve loved for over twenty years and you’re in shock?’

  I start to cry. Big, fat, childish tears. I sniff and wipe my nose with the back of my hand. ‘Why did I listen to her? I should have defended him!’

  ‘You need to find out the truth.’ I don’t. I need to hide. I need to pretend this never happened, I never heard, I don’t know anything about this, but Naz is determined. ‘Tina was probably at school with Neil, so she must have been from Stevenage.’ She’s thinking, taking control. ‘Did Ann mention where she lived?’ I shake my head. ‘Come on, Eve. You need to help me here.’

  ‘I’m scared.’

  She nods. ‘I get that. But you can’t stop being scared by pretending you don’t know.’

  ‘Do you think…?’ I can’t bring myself to say it.

  She does it for me. ‘Do I think he did it? Do I think Neil raped a girl?’ She shakes her head. ‘Of course not.’ Her eyes nail me. ‘I’d never have let you marry him if I thought he was capable of that. But I don’t know.’ It could be true. She believes it could be true. ‘You need to know, Eve. You can’t run away from this. Now think. The only person who will know the truth is Tina. We need to talk to Tina. What did Ann say? Anything that might help us find her.’

  ‘She said she met Mum in the charity shop. She works in a charity shop.’

  ‘And she met you in Hitchin?’ I nod. ‘It will be a charity shop in Hitchin; I can’t see your mum going to a charity shop in Stevenage. Did she say which charity?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So we’ll start with a bit of bargain shopping tomorrow morning.’ She tops up my wine. ‘Now drink. This could all be
a pile of crap. You know what your mum’s like. Anything to bad-mouth Neil.’

  She’s right. There’s no reason to suspect that this child is anything to do with Neil. He would have told me. If he knew he already had a child he would have said. All those tests. All that anxiety and doubt on his part. He thought he might be infertile. He couldn’t fake that. All those months, struggling to conceive. Sitting with the GP. Racing to Furness General, the plastic container of sperm wedged between his legs, to keep it at the right temperature for as long as possible, hooting at the tractor to pull over and let us pass. Did he know then?

  Does he know?

  Is he the man I thought he was?

  *

  The next morning, Naz drops both boys at their respective schools and comes back to have a late breakfast with me and Milly. There’s no point in heading into town until ten o’clock, as most of the charity shops won’t open until then.

  Mum has been digging for dirt on Neil for years, but if this were true, someone would have said something before now. Why wasn’t it reported? Why has Tina never said anything? It can’t be true.

  Milly is chirpy, a guinea pig nestled in her lap as she eats her cereal. Naz has scored points over me in the mothering stakes because she lets her boys eat sugar-coated cereals whereas I’ve been insisting on cornflakes. ‘Choose your battles.’ The domestic banter and jostling comforts me. Rape does not belong in this world of children and domesticity. Naz will not allow it in. I will not allow it in.

  We start in Scope on the market square. The young girl behind the counter doesn’t know Ann but can’t be sure she doesn’t work on a different day. At Animal Rescue they have no Anns working for them. Age Concern also can’t help, but they do have an abundance of soft toys that delight Milly and I’m unable to leave without purchasing a hideous glittering unicorn. Naz groans as I take it to the counter to pay. ‘Sucker.’

  ‘Choose your battles.’ Keep it light. Keep it safe. Sidestep the drip-drip-drip.

  Outside the Oxfam shop, there’s a familiar black car with the engine running, blocking the entrance. We walk round the back of it and squeeze through a small gap to get through the shop door. Naz, swearing under her breath, strides in while Milly and I follow. As I pass, I glance through the passenger window. A small, balding man in his seventies grips the wheel with stubby hands, refusing to look in my direction.

  Ann is at the back of the shop, dressed in a beige raincoat, talking urgently to another woman who’s kneeling in front of the bookshelves, arranging the paperbacks. They both glance towards us as we enter. At first, Ann doesn’t recognise me. As I step forward, she looks down at Milly, making the connection, and her instinctive smile is abruptly sliced with panic. She stumbles forward, knocking against the precarious stack of books, sending them toppling across the floor around her feet. She tries to step over them but in her haste misjudges and stumbles again, flailing. Hurrying forward, I grab her arm to steady her before she falls.

  ‘No! No!’

  ‘Ann, please.’

  ‘No, he mustn’t see you. I’m sorry.’ She turns her face away from me, cringing into her shoulder.

  ‘I need to talk to you.’

  She’s terrified. And now, close to, I can see beneath the crudely applied make-up the traces of a fresh bruise, flowering purple-red from her cheekbone up to her eye. ‘I can’t.’

  Naz hangs back with Milly, out of earshot. ‘Is it true?’ I can’t say the words, but I don’t need to. I can see from Ann’s face that she knows what I’m talking about. ‘Tina?’ I lower my voice. ‘Was she… pregnant?’ She bites her lip, her eyes darting over my shoulder to the door. The man in the car. I know before she nods that the answer will be yes. Tina was pregnant. This isn’t some fantasy of my mother’s, an idle piece of gossip. I clutch a thin thread of hope, ‘Was it Neil?’

  Her face folds into creases of pity and she nods. I feel sick. She glances back at her colleague, lowers her voice to a whisper, ‘I’m sorry,’ and shrinks past Naz and Milly, out of the shop, straight into the black car. The driver pulls away before she’s had time to close the door.

  The woman sorting the paperbacks gets to her feet, rubbing her knees. ‘Oh dear.’ She looks perplexed. ‘Do you know Ann?’ It takes a moment for me to realise she’s waiting for an answer, but I can’t speak. ‘She hasn’t been with us long, but she was a good sort. Says she can’t work here any more.’

  Naz asks, ‘Why not?’

  ‘Says her husband needs her at home.’

  *

  Outside, Naz hisses into my ear, ‘What the…?’

  ‘It’s true.’

  ‘She was terrified. That was a nasty bruise.’

  We stand staring at one another while the reality settles around us. I can see my own conclusions settling on Naz’s face. Tina had a child. Neil’s child. Neil may not know about his son, but he must know what happened between him and Tina. If he has nothing to hide, why hasn’t he told me about her?

  There are bruises in Neil’s past. Places I avoid. Questions that make him flinch. I thought they were to do with his birth mother. Not Tina. Not rape.

  Neil. My Neil? It’s impossible.

  But if it isn’t true, why hide it from me?

  I stand in the street with the truth reverberating around me, like the pause after the clash of symbols.

  Milly is unwrapping a chocolate mouse from its foil. As she raises it to her mouth, Naz asks, ‘Where did you get that?’

  Milly hesitates. She looks from Naz to me and then to her unicorn. ‘I finded it.’

  Naz crouches down and takes the chocolate from Milly’s hand. ‘Found it?’

  Milly looks at me.

  Neil is already a father.

  Did he rape Tina Lord?

  However it happened, he has a son. Tina was pregnant. I’m the one who is the problem. I am infertile.

  Naz continues to probe, ‘Did you take that chocolate, Milly?’

  Neil was eighteen. I was seventeen. I do the maths. Twenty-six years.

  Milly is holding up her unicorn. ‘He tooked it.’

  This son will be a grown man. Not a child any more, but a man.

  ‘You know that taking something from a shop without paying for it is stealing, don’t you, Milly?’

  ‘Naughty unicorn!’

  I stare at Naz. She grabs my hand. ‘Eve, listen to me. What you need to focus on now is Milly. You and Milly. You are so close. Just a few more weeks. That’s all you need to do, get through those weeks, get that final review out of the way, the adoption approved, the court hearing, and Milly is yours. What happens after that is your business. Do you hear me? You can’t rock the boat now.’

  She’s right. If I want to keep Milly, I have to hold onto Neil, at least until the adoption is approved. As a single parent, I’d have to be reassessed and I’m unlikely to be able to adopt Milly on my own. There are so many couples who could offer more. And they’ll make me wait, while I get over this. They insist on grieving time if you’ve miscarried; how much grieving time will they insist on for a rape accusation? Milly can’t wait. She needs a family now. I’d lose Milly.

  Naz is waiting for me to catch up. ‘Do you see? You have to present a united front. You have to do this, Eve. Focus on Milly, on getting Milly. All this with Neil, you can deal with that later, once Milly’s yours.’

  Naz takes Milly’s hand. ‘Shall we go back inside and pay the lady for the chocolate? We can tell her we made a mistake.’

  But Milly doesn’t want to go in and face the music. Instead, she lifts the unicorn in the air and gives it an almighty smack.

  19

  ‘Mike! Get the bread out!’ The timer on the oven is beeping, but Betty’s busy ladling soup into the children’s bowls as they push and shove one another around the table, their parents milling behind them, drinks in hand, filling the kitchen with their chatter. It’s the usual broth made from tomatoes and stock and whatever else she’s got to hand. I can see some sort of beans, peppers, green beans
. It smells delicious. I glance nervously at Milly, but she’s sitting up straight, taking her lead from the other children, spoon ready in her hand.

  This house is a world away from my mother’s. There’s food encrusted on the hob and splattered over the surfaces. The patio doors are open and dogs, four of them, run in and out. The floor is covered in mud and clumps of dog hair but no one cares. Two of the dogs, what looks like a hairy greyhound and something similar but smaller, belong to Mike and Betty. The chocolate Labrador hoovering up the bits of vegetable that have fallen from the kitchen counter belongs to Neil’s eldest sister, Julie. The yappy little cockapoo pup is a new addition to the extended family, arriving a few moments ago with Neil’s youngest sister Laura and proving a huge hit with all the children, Milly particularly. I watch Neil stoop to stroke its head as it rubs up against Milly’s legs. He and Milly exchange a look, no doubt preparing for a charm offensive on the way home.

  Neil could not have raped Tina Lord. This man, this easy, loving father, my friend, my attentive, gentle lover, could not, would not, rape a girl. I will not believe it.

  But he has a child. Ann confirmed it. There is no escaping that fact. I reject the rape, but I have to deal with the facts.

  How did my mother manage to get this information?

  Neil picked us up from Naz’s late last night. I told him about the smack. I had to say something to explain the state I was in. Betty’s spoken to him, calmed him down. She agrees with Naz that it was unfortunate, but not the end of the world. ‘There was a time when a smack was a perfectly acceptable way to reprimand a child,’ though I doubt she ever resorted to this herself. Neil was not placated by this. He said he’d never let Mum anywhere near Milly again, but that’s the least of my problems right now.

  If I tell him what I know, Mum has got what she wanted. Our family, our little unit, is threatened. If I tell Neil about his son, we’ll have to tell social services, we’ll need to be reassessed. Certainly, it will need to be documented. This is a sibling for Milly; there could be implications. We know nothing about Tina’s son. He could be a criminal, an unstable influence. He could be more of a threat to Milly’s well-being than her birth mother.