Anatomy of a Scandal

by Sarah Vaughan

  She fumbles her way from the room, legs wobbly, eyes blurring; her one thought that she must get away before she breaks down completely. The downstairs cloakroom is small and dark but it has a lock that rams shut; will keep her enclosed and contained. She sinks onto the closed loo seat and lets her horror engulf her; feels a wail rise up that she silences with a fist. Her hand grows wet, her cheeks slippery as she regresses and feels her adult self disintegrate. Her husband is a stranger. Not only a narcissist, who dismisses the truth if it suits him; who thinks it is flexible, but – and the horror comes crushing down on her – someone who is guilty of rape.

  Hunched in the dark, she forces herself to analyse if he ever did this to her. No, he hasn’t. The relief is enormous: a wave that sweeps her up and allows a chink of hope that he isn’t entirely amoral; that this ugliness hasn’t spread to their relationship and contaminated it.

  But if he hasn’t forced himself sexually, he has imposed his needs over the years; so subtly she has barely registered it. Because it has always been James who decides things.

  As the tears run down her face, she counts the ways: he was the one who finished the relationship at Oxford and determined its pace when they met in their later twenties, so that she feared initiating anything in case she drove him away. He was the one who suggested she give up her job after Emily was born, and put the arguments so forcefully it seemed easier not to resist. He was the one who made her an MP’s wife by making it clear from the start that he would be going into politics; who applied for that constituency; who even decided the area of London – as close to Tom as possible – where they should live.

  Their friends have been largely his friends, she sees now: Alex and Cat quickly abandoned for Tom and his political allies. The holidays they take are those he prefers – with Tom in Tuscany, before they had children; once he became an MP, in Cornwall for fear an expensive foreign holiday would seem anti-austerity. She would be a vegetarian but she eats red meat with him and even the way she dresses is subtly influenced by his preference that she always makes an effort; that she is understatedly sexy, not frumpy. In Devon, she wears old jeans and sweatshirts, doesn’t blow-dry her hair, consciously chooses not to wear make-up. She relaxes in a way she just wouldn’t for him.

  The compromises have largely been on her part, not his, she sees that now. None of these suggestions have been dictated; none coerced. He just stipulates what he likes and it has been easier to bend to his will and go along with it. No wonder she didn’t challenge him properly before the trial. She has sleep-walked through their relationship and only been forced to confront the worst when it was revealed in court, incontrovertibly there.

  She wipes her face; feels its heat; wonders when she became so malleable, so weak in their relationship. A memory strikes her of being a second-year student, sculling alone on the Thames. A late spring afternoon: the sun low, the water quiet except for the soft plop of an otter; the cut of the blades puddling on the water and leaving a trail triangling back to where the boat had been. She had just mastered this skill and she felt poised: hands lightly on the oars as she pushed the blades firmly through the water to propel the boat forwards, then let them glide, before dropping them square and anchoring the boat again. Power surged through her feet, legs, glutes, back and arms but she felt no pain. She was invincible. Happiness flared in a way it hadn’t since the previous summer, before the tragedy; before she was dumped by James.

  That girl has long gone. And the woman who replaced her can’t conceive of such uncomplicated happiness. Her heart throbs with a sense of loss; and acute, inconsolable pain.

  And deep down inside her a question nudges. What is she going to do now, knowing what he has told her: that he lied about raping Olivia – and that he has got away with it?

  SOPHIE

  2 May 2017

  Twenty-nine

  The next day, they decamp to his parents’ home, in deepest Surrey. A few days away is what is needed, for Sophie feels besieged. Unable to walk to the local shop where the front pages of the papers trumpet the news of his acquittal; ill-prepared for the smiles of congratulation from their neighbours and the texts from fellow mothers who profess to be ‘so relieved’ when the week before they had kept their distance, averting their gaze when she had marched into the playground to grab her children and whisk them away.

  Woodlands, Charles and Tuppence’s substantial home, near Haslemere, provides the privacy they so desperately need: down a private road, with a lengthy drive; sitting squat in its own two acres of perfectly manicured grounds; fringed with pines and conifers which keep the world at bay. Sophie had always thought these evergreen sentries parochial and forbidding – trees that signal her father-in-law’s ‘not on my front lawn’ mentality – but now she sees the point. An Englishman’s home is his castle: drawbridge up; ramparts manned; arrows poised so that its inhabitants may be protected from barely whispered innuendos and prying eyes. The world has not just pressed its nose to the window of their marriage but shouldered the door – and now it is time for some back-up in the formidable form of Charles and Tuppence Whitehouse, the sort of law-abiding individuals on whose property one does not trespass; and down whose drive one would not venture unless one had been invited or had a very good reason indeed.

  James visibly relaxes here: shows boundless patience as he takes the children out onto the tennis court, testing Em’s backhand while simultaneously teaching Finn forehand; managing the children’s varying abilities with tact and ease.

  It helps that his mother adores him. Tuppence, a handsome woman with a tight grey perm, and a string of pearls at her throat that she pats when anxious, is not the sort to give in to emotion, or not according to her two daughters. And yet when their younger brother, her only son, comes home she softens: her sunken cheeks dimpling; her grey eyes lightening; her shoulders relaxing so that you can see beyond the somewhat haughty sexagenarian and glimpse the full-lipped beauty she must once have been. She basks in his presence, becoming girlish, almost skittish; and when she clutches him as they arrive, the emeralds in their Art Deco setting standing proud on her fists as she grips his shoulders, Sophie sees the depth of the fear that has consumed her – and that has kept her far from court, sequestered away. Her darling boy, a rapist? The possibility has shimmered, mocking Charles’s innate self-belief – in the Right Way of Doing Things, which includes stocks and shares and church on a Sunday and putting money in a trust for the grandchildren and golf three times a week and winter sun and a quick snifter before dinner – and ushering in a whole new world, of court cases and press conferences and concepts like consent and blame, that she would really rather not have to think about; but which, being more imaginative than her husband, creep up on her in the still, small hours of the night.

  Now, though, Tuppence can relax. Her boy is safe. She stands watching him chase the children over the immaculately striped lawns of her garden, while Sophie – desperate to be busy; to preoccupy herself in this substantial 1920s house that she can never feel quite at home in – prepares a pot of tea. She acts on autopilot: speaking monosyllabically when required but feeling entirely detached as she runs through her argument with James until she can no longer think. Her limbs are heavy and it is an effort just to place one foot in front of the other; and to keep her sorrow in check.

  It takes a while, then, to notice that her mother-in-law is nervous. She keeps patting those pearls in a staccato rhythm and a nerve twitches beneath her left eye.

  ‘Will you leave him?’ The question takes Sophie by surprise.

  ‘Because we wouldn’t blame you if you did.’ Her mother-in-law gives a pinched, tight smile as if it pains her to say this. ‘Of course we’d far rather you didn’t. Much better for the children.’ She nods as James tips Emily upside down so that her long hair swings free and her mouth opens in a squeal of delight. Sophie can imagine the peals of laughter; that gurgle particular to pre-teen children that she hears less and less these days, for she has not been able to prot
ect Emily from every whisper in the playground, and she fears she has understood far more of what has happened than she has admitted. That, just as she knows the tooth fairy doesn’t really exist, so she senses James isn’t entirely innocent. Still, her adoration for her daddy seems undimmed.

  They are playing tag now, James giving both children a head start before he charges after them; Finn aping a footballer as he whoops round the garden, arms stretching out like an aeroplane. Em darts into a copse beyond the herbaceous borders. Spring is here, spied in the ceanothus and tulips, in the vibrant carpet of bluebells, but the sun is watery and glows opaque through a flannel-grey sky.

  She warms the pot, while she considers what to say to her mother-in-law, whose words jar like an outburst from a drunk. But Tuppence continues, regardless.

  ‘I sometimes wonder if we spoiled him. Let him believe that his opinion was always right? I suppose school inculcated that feeling – and Charles, of course, never brooking an argument. Perhaps it’s a male thing? That complete self-belief: the conviction that you never need doubt your opinion. The girls don’t have it and neither do I. He was like it as a little boy: always lying at Cluedo; always cheating at Monopoly, insisting he could change the rules. He was so sweet, so persuasive, he got away with it. I wonder if that’s why he thinks he still can?’

  Sophie is silent. Their conversations are usually about books, tennis or the garden and she has never known her mother-in-law to open up like this. Nor would she have anticipated this soul-searching. It makes her uncomfortable and resentful: she has enough to contend with without accommodating Tuppence’s need for reassurance; and, in truth, she has questioned whether there was a flaw in her mother-in-law’s parenting.

  She throws tea bags into the pot; pours on boiling water; while she works at remaining dispassionate. What does she want? To be told that she is not at fault? For Sophie to lay the blame firmly with Charles and his choice of expensive schooling? Much as she likes the woman – for she is fond of her; she can’t not be, though she is hardly effusive with the children – she is unable to absolve her in that way.

  But her mother-in-law evidently requires some response.

  ‘I’m not intending to leave him, no.’ The words leave Sophie’s mouth without her having had time to come to a proper conclusion and, somehow, force the decision. She clears her throat, swallowing her doubt down and quashing the possibility. ‘It’s best for the children and they’re the main consideration, as you say.’

  ‘You are good for him, you know.’ Tuppence looks at her with what must be admiration. ‘I hate to think of what he might be like if he didn’t have a wife like you: someone so bright and attractive.’ She pauses, perhaps imagining a clutch of brief, unsatisfactory affairs.

  The onus on Sophie to keep her husband in check weighs hard, and she feels a sudden surge of fury.

  Tuppence, oblivious, continues: ‘He does know he’s lucky to have you, you know. His father and I have made that clear.’

  ‘I’m not sure that he does.’ She will not swallow this portrayal of a contrite son and counts to ten to banish the expletives that would shock her husband’s mother. When she speaks, her voice is quieter but with an unmistakably bitter trace.

  ‘As you say, it’s what’s best for the children. It’s not about me.’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’ Tuppence is perturbed.

  ‘You effectively did.’

  The air quivers with more emotion than their exchanges have ever held before, Sophie’s anger straining their civility to breaking point.

  She checks the table, laid for afternoon tea – the fat teapot and jug of milk, bone china cups; a lemon drizzle cake made with Emily this morning – and forces herself to sound contrite.

  ‘I’m sorry to snap. We’d better get them in. Tea’s ready.’

  And she goes to the back door to call her family.

  KATE

  26 May 2017

  Thirty

  It is over three weeks since the trial and I am standing on Waterloo Bridge: the place that usually lifts me. The end of the week and the pavements are emptying as my fellow workers race to make the most of a balmy weekend.

  I’m watching a stunner of a sunset: mango sorbet, shot through with raspberry ripple and laced with streaks of caramel. The sort of sky that makes people whip out their smartphones to capture its glory; or just stop, as I am, and stare.

  Beside me, a young Spanish couple is kissing. This is a sky to make you want to do that: to grasp the person you love and be spontaneous: show the intensity of your feelings, your giddiness and excitement at the inexplicable beauty of life.

  No one’s wrapping me in a passionate clinch. Earth has not anything to show more fair than this, and yet the sunset and the view leaves me numb. St Paul’s, Canary Wharf and the concrete sprawl of the National Theatre to the east; the giddy Ferris wheel of The Eye to the west, all pass me by. I can’t help but home in on a golden Gothic building, perhaps the most iconic part of the river: Big Ben and the House of Commons. The mother of parliaments.

  Even without this visual reminder, James Whitehouse is always at the back of my mind and, as I lie in bed at night, right at the forefront. My debilitating grief has diminished, but it still consumes me: a dull ache that becomes pin-sharp to ambush me at the very worst of times.

  No one would know this, of course. I am as coolly competent as ever, though in the immediate aftermath my anger was palpable. ‘It was always going to be a long shot, convicting the PM’s best mate, and at least you kept them thinking,’ my junior, Tim Sharples, tried to reassure me, straight after the verdict. I remember trying to ram my wig and documents into my case, and atypically swearing as the zip jammed. The effort of not crying, as Angela swanned out, and Tim watched, unable to think of a quick line, felt immense. ‘It’s just one case,’ he said, though we all knew it wasn’t just one case: it was supposed to be the case that would confirm the wisdom of me making QC so early; that meant no one would raise an eyebrow at the speed of my appointment. ‘There’ll be plenty more.’

  There are, and I have done what I do: dust myself down, and carry on working, prosecuting those accused of the foulest of sexual crimes. I am hungry for work because if I fill every crevice of my brain I can try to stop obsessing about the quality of my cross-examination and the parallels between Olivia’s and my experience. That’s the theory. In practice, it rarely works.

  I look up: check that the kissing couple hasn’t noticed my bright eyes, which sting with self-pity. Of course not: faces pressed against one another, they are wrapped up entirely in themselves. Besides, I am unremarkable, even in court. ‘Polly? Molly?’ A wave of hate swells and I wonder if that journalist, Jim Stephens, is delving into James’s Oxford past. Were there other girls like me? There were rumours of parties where drinks were spiked. Omerta of the Libertines? But someone, somewhere, must have an incriminating photo? I offer a prayer, eyes squeezed tight, that James will get his come-uppance; will experience the most intense humiliation. That he won’t get away with doing this, to me and Olivia and whoever else it may have happened to, in the long term.

  The sun has disappeared, now: a hot ball of fire that has slipped from sight leaving the sky bereft and no longer dazzled, the raspberry pink fading to a pinky-grey. Life moves on, or so I keep telling myself, though it’s something that, with my obsessive mindset, I’m struggling to believe.

  And yet, rationally, I know it’s true. There’s a fresh bout of news and even a new political scandal: Malcolm Thwaites, Tory chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee, has been caught paying young male prostitutes for sex. The details – threesomes, poppers, explicit texts – make James Whitehouse’s sex in a lift, for that, the jury ruled, is all that occurred, look positively tame. And the timing is fortunate. What a coincidence that another political sex scandal should be exposed the weekend after the prime minister’s best friend was cleared? Politics is a dirty business and I could almost feel sorry for Mr Thwaites. I give it less than a year before
James Whitehouse is given a junior ministerial role and welcomed back to the lowly ranks of government again.

  I must not let myself get bitter. I can feel the sour taste of it in my mouth; sense it seeping through me. Somehow, it seems preferable to despair. I know my anger needs to be boxed up: hard; finite; precious, like an indulgent cocktail ring buried deep in a drawer and rarely worn. I can’t manage that yet. In the meantime, I run. Six a.m. sees me streaking down to the Chelsea Embankment, over the river and through Battersea Park. The day is brim-filled with possibility, then, and seven kilometres in, I feel a brief, sweet shot of serotonin. In the evening, I do less well: tend my pain with baths and gin.

  I walk slowly back towards the Strand. Gin and a bath tonight, a run early tomorrow morning. The Bank Holiday weekend stretches, a desert of loneliness except for the oasis that is Ali. Thank God I’ve been invited to Sunday lunch at hers, again.

  I long for the fierceness of her hug as she greets me in her narrow hall; crave her warmth; her quiet sympathy; the knowledge that she is angry, too: her fury erupting in the swear words she used prolifically as a student but, since becoming a teacher and mother, she has largely put away. The night of the verdict she came round and stayed; held me as I shook with grief; listened as I raged against him; stopped me from obliterating myself with drink. We talked as we should have twenty-four years before; and when I finished – my throat hoarse; my body aching with exhaustion – she lay down next to me and curled behind me as I tried to sleep.

  I have seen her every week since then and her family must be sick of me, must wonder why the previously elusive Kate now sits red-eyed in their kitchen; why their mum seems to have someone else to worry about these days.

  But I need her. It is only with Ali that I can be myself completely. It is only she who remembers Holly.