Summer by the Lake

by Mandy Baggot

  ‘We thought it was amazing. Daddy’s gonna put flyers up at school and try and get a girls’ team together,’ Sienna interrupted excitedly.

  ‘You are?’ Robyn asked.

  ‘Sure, and if there’s enough interest, I don’t mind taking them for practice sessions,’ Bob said.

  ‘But that could be a long way off, you know, if nobody’s interested. I mean, when I was your age girls, I liked Barbie and dress up and…’

  ‘Jeez woman, they like hockey, get over it. It’s good they have an interest at last,’ Bob butted in.

  ‘We can play Barbies too, Mommy,’ Sierra suggested.

  ‘Yeah, ice hockey Barbie. We can get her an outfit and pads and she can mash up Ken,’ Sienna said with a glint in her eye.

  ‘Ssh, not so loud girls. Robyn’s meant to be resting. So, when can you come home, honey? Bob’s redecorated the guest room; I can look after you, and…’ Pam started.

  ‘I’m waiting for my meds and then Cole’s coming to pick me up. I’m going home, you know, Woodhams Avenue… with Cole,’ Robyn told her.

  ‘But, honey, you need to rest and I can take some time off work,’ Pam said.

  ‘I don’t do resting,’ Robyn said firmly.

  ‘No, but you do have broken ribs and that means you need to slow down,’ Bob joined in.

  ‘But it doesn’t mean I have to stop living with Cole. That’s what this is about, isn’t it? Why don’t you want me living with Cole?’ Robyn asked, narrowing her eyes.

  ‘We like Cole,’ Sienna announced.

  ‘He’s hot,’ Sierra agreed.

  ‘This has nothing to do with me,’ Bob insisted, wanting to avoid confrontation.

  ‘We like Cole, of course we do, but living together? In a relationship? Is it not a bit quick, honey?’ Pam asked her.

  ‘It’s my business,’ Robyn said.

  ‘I know, honey, but we’re your family,’ Pam said.

  ‘I’m twenty-five. Back in England, I’ve been a mistress to a middle-aged car salesman. Do you want to give me your opinion on that too?’

  ‘Cole’s a lot younger and he has really great hair,’ Sienna said.

  ‘And rock-hard abs,’ Sierra added.

  ‘Girls!’ Bob exclaimed.

  ‘I know what I’m doing,’ Robyn insisted.

  ‘We just want to look after you, don’t we, Bob?’ Pam continued.

  ‘This has nothing to do with me,’ Bob said.

  ‘I can look after myself,’ Robyn said with a sigh.

  ‘The jury’s still out on that one,’ Pam said, folding her arms across her chest.

  ‘Well, if you really want to help me, you could stop by the roadhouse and see how Milo’s doing. I was expecting a delivery of the jumping castle and the fake plants. He’s no good at decor. Could you give it the once over? Spruce it up a bit? I’m not gonna be able to get over there until the morning, and Nancy’s tied up with Dad,’ Robyn said.

  ‘Of course! We can do that, can’t we girls? We can get it looking real nice for Robyn,’ Pam agreed.

  ‘Do we get soda?’ Sierra questioned.

  Forty

  ‘Hello Robyn.’

  Trudy Franklin was now well into her forties, but Robyn was almost certain she was wearing the same suit she had worn all those years ago when she had interviewed her the first time. Her brown hair was graying at the temples and she was wearing silver framed glasses. Standing on the doorstep with Trudy was a fresh-faced female police officer dressed in traditional uniform. She smiled at Robyn, but she looked almost uncomfortable.

  ‘Hi, come in. This is Cole, by the way, he’s my… well, we live together,’ Robyn said quickly, grimacing as she led the way into the living room.

  Her ribs were on fire, breathing was difficult—walking and breathing was even worse.

  ‘Pleased to meet you. And Robyn, this is Officer Doyle. She’s here to take your statement and make sure I do everything right,’ Trudy said, sitting down on the sofa.

  ‘It’s Lisa,’ the officer informed her, smiling.

  ‘Shall I make some coffee?’ Cole offered.

  ‘Yeah, and chips and dip,’ Robyn suggested.

  ‘Not for me, thank you, I just had lunch,’ Trudy said.

  ‘Yeah, me too, but you know, dessert can be savory, right?’ Robyn responded.

  She was trying to keep things light-hearted. The last time she had to recount the night of the rape, she’d been in the police station, dressed in clothes that weren’t hers while what she had been wearing was forensically examined.

  Trudy smiled at her and then reached forward and took hold of Robyn’s hands.

  ‘It’s okay to cry, you know. You don’t have to be brave with us. I know how hard this all must be,’ Trudy said, looking at Robyn intently.

  ‘I don’t want to cry, thanks, but I might if you keep making me lean forward. I had a disagreement with a mountain of an ice hockey player and I’ve got broken ribs,’ Robyn informed her, trying to quell the pain.

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, I had no idea. Are you sure you’re up to this right now?’ Trudy said, dropping Robyn’s hands and quickly putting a cushion behind her back.

  ‘I don’t wanna postpone. I just wanna get it over with and get it all done. I mean, if Jason didn’t do it, then whoever did is still out there, right? And he could do it again. He might have already done it again,’ Robyn said.

  ‘We’re looking into it already. We’re looking into all the unsolved rapes in the state,’ Lisa Doyle informed her, getting out her notepad and setting up the voice recorder.

  ‘Right, so, let’s do it—ask your questions,’ Robyn said, swallowing the knot of anxiety down as best as she could.

  *

  ‘When were you aware that someone was behind you?’ Trudy asked.

  Robyn cradled her cup of coffee and Cole sat next to her. The interviewing had barely started and already she was no longer in the room. She was back on the road, that night, the rain splattering her face, the wind buffeting her along, her stomach full of hot dogs, miserable because the Panthers had lost. She was rushing home because she was already well past her mother’s curfew. Eddie had driven her to the game but he’d stayed behind to give the team the talking to of their lives after the poor performance. She had school the next day and unfinished homework. Nothing about that evening had been good.

  ‘There wasn’t anyone behind me. I mean, I didn’t feel anyone behind me and I looked back whenever I heard a car. The rain was in my eyes and the wind was, well, you know what the wind’s like around here,’ Robyn said, her eyes glazing over.

  ‘So the first moment you were aware that someone was behind you was when…’

  ‘The bag went over my head. The bag went over my head and he was pulling me backwards, holding onto the bag so I couldn’t get it off. His fists were by my jaw, he was pulling me off the road, down the bank, toward the woods,’ Robyn carried on.

  ‘What was the bag made of Robyn?’

  ‘Something like hessian, you know, burlap, I think… it was rough. I had my eyes open, but everything was dark and distorted, I couldn’t see,’ she said, tears welling up in her eyes.

  ‘And what happened next?’ Trudy asked as Officer Doyle continued to jot things down.

  ‘I was trying to fight him off, but he was strong. He was holding the bag over my head and still managing to push me where he wanted me to go.’

  ‘Can you give me a body type? Tall? Slim? Broad? Anything you can remember.’

  ‘I don’t know, tall, I think, but I’m not sure. He was so strong, I mean, I couldn’t get away. I really tried and I tried to scream as loud as I could. I was screaming the whole time, but the bag and the wind were just taking it away.’

  ‘So how far did he pull you?’

  ‘I don’t know, not far, I guess… just into the trees… I think, I don’t know. Everything was just happening and I couldn’t stop it.’

  ‘And what happened then? You said in your previous statement he pushed you down on
the ground.’

  ‘He did. But he didn’t ever let go of the bag. He pushed me and he kind of came down with me,’ Robyn said, staring into the room but only seeing the scene playing in her mind.

  ‘And did he say anything?’

  ‘No. He never spoke. After the initial screaming, I tried to be calm and tried to reason with him. I said if he just let me go, that would be the end of it and I would never tell anyone what he’d tried to do. I wouldn’t go to the police, it would just be forgotten. But he didn’t say anything, and the more I talked, the angrier he seemed to get. Then I was crying and I was screaming again and I was pleading with him to let me go,’ Robyn said as the emotion overwhelmed her and she let out a sob.

  ‘Do you really need to do all this? I mean…’ Cole reached for Robyn’s hand.

  ‘Please, we don’t want to break Robyn’s concentration,’ Trudy told him.

  ‘I know, but…’

  ‘You don’t have to stay, Cole. I’ll be okay,’ Robyn assured him, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

  ‘I’m not sure I wanna hear what he did to you. I don’t want to even think about what he did to you,’ Cole whispered to her.

  ‘I know,’ Robyn replied, squeezing his hand.

  ‘Shall we take a break?’ Trudy offered.

  ‘No, I’m fine. You don’t have to listen, Cole, honest,’ Robyn insisted, looking up at him.

  ‘I don’t want to let you down.’

  ‘You’re not letting me down.’

  ‘When I think about what he did to you, it makes me feel sick,’ Cole told her.

  ‘It makes us all feel sick, Cole. In fact, I was sick, all those years ago, right after I interviewed Robyn for the first time. And I thought we had our man… to find out that we haven’t is hard for me, too,’ Trudy assured him.

  ‘Go make some more coffee,’ Robyn suggested to him.

  ‘No, I want to support you.’

  ‘Then if you want to support me, you’re gonna have to hear what he did. Because like it or not, what he did to me is part of me and my history… an unsavory part, but a part all the same.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘But we’re black-bagging the old parts as of today because I’m ready to make new parts now and I want to make them with you,’ Robyn said, holding his hand.

  ‘Then I’m staying and we’re gonna finish this together,’ Cole said, squeezing her hand reassuringly.

  *

  ‘Take your time, Robyn,’ Trudy said when Robyn’s breathing quickened.

  It hurt her to remember. Her heartrate sped up, her mind ached with the weight of the memory, and the pain she had felt on that night she could still feel now. It was like she was being raped all over again.

  ‘I could barely breathe, the sack was getting tighter and tighter, and my throat was hurting. I tried kicking, but nothing worked and the pain just got worse. So I stopped lashing out and I thought if I just let him do whatever he wants to do, he might not kill me,’ Robyn tried to explain.

  ‘I’m sorry, Robyn; we need to know exactly what he did,’ Trudy reminded her.

  Robyn took a deep breath and squeezed Cole’s hand.

  ‘He pulled down my jeans and my underwear and he started touching me,’ Robyn said robotically.

  She had bitten the inside of the bag as hard as she could while he touched her, wishing for it to be over. The wind had howled and she had tried to focus on the storm rather than what was happening to her. Despite the ugliness of the event, his touch hadn’t been brutal.

  ‘He wasn’t trying to hurt me,’ Robyn said suddenly, as if waking up.

  ‘What?’ Cole asked.

  ‘He touched me, it was disgusting, because I didn’t want it… but it wasn’t rough. Not physically rough. He didn’t want to hurt me,’ Robyn repeated.

  ‘You didn’t say this before,’ Trudy said, making sure Officer Doyle was noting it down.

  ‘Because I didn’t realize it before. He touched me, then he raped me, and then he left me, but don’t you see? In his mind he wasn’t raping me. He didn’t want it to be violent; he wanted to think it was real,’ Robyn said.

  ‘Putting a bag over someone’s head and forcing them to have sex with you isn’t my idea of real,’ Cole replied.

  ‘No, but maybe that was the only way I would have sex with him. It has to be Jason. He knew me, he had a crush on me, he liked me, but he knew I would never date him. This is the only way he would ever get to sleep with me and he didn’t want to hurt me. Don’t you see?’ Robyn asked them.

  ‘Robyn, not all rapes are savage in the sense of physically maiming someone, even when the attacker doesn’t know his victim. A lot of rapes are committed because the attacker can’t forge a relationship and can’t have sexual contact in the usual way,’ Trudy reminded her.

  ‘I never thought of it before, I was just too caught up in the fact that it had happened rather than exactly what happened and how it happened,’ Robyn continued.

  ‘I have to tell you that Jason’s witness has provided a full statement and it can be corroborated. The witness was on the phone to his girlfriend at the time, we’ve checked telephone records,’ Trudy said.

  ‘Why didn’t he come forward at the time?’ Cole asked.

  ‘He’s spent the last nine years in South America. He only returned home three months ago and Jason’s lawyer did another sweep of the neighborhood.’

  ‘It has to be him,’ Robyn said, shaking her head.

  ‘How long do you think you were in the woods before you made it back to the side of the road and Brad Willis found you?’ Trudy inquired, looking at her file.

  ‘I don’t know… twenty minutes? Maybe longer? I couldn’t move for a while, because I was shaking and I was wet and I didn’t know what to do. And then I realized that if I didn’t move I would probably die from the cold, so I got dressed and I went back to the road,’ Robyn explained.

  ‘Are we done now?’ Cole asked, wiping at his eyes.

  ‘Just one more thing,’ Trudy began. ‘We would really like to look over your medical records from the UK so we’re fully prepared for questions on the lasting effect this event has had on you… whether you’re still experiencing PTSD or having counselling, that kind of thing. But court orders take time so…’

  ‘So?’ Robyn asked with a swallow.

  ‘Robyn, is there anything else we should know about how things were for you after the rape? Anything else you can share with us while we wait to cut through this red tape?’

  Robyn felt the color drain out of her face. She should have known this was going to come up. She had kept it entirely from everyone, but nothing stayed buried forever.

  ‘Would you like Cole to wait outside?’ Trudy suggested kindly.

  ‘Sure, I can go,’ Cole said, standing up.

  ‘No. I don’t want you to go,’ Robyn said, taking hold of his hand. ‘I really don’t want you to go.’

  ‘OK,’ he whispered. ‘I’m here.’

  Robyn took a deep breath, tears spilling from her eyes. ‘I guess,’ she began. ‘You’ll need me to tell you about the baby.’

  Forty-One

  Cole felt emotionally wrung out and now he was listening to Lonestar. He wanted to kill Jason. He wanted to get hold of his scrawny neck and squeeze the life right out of him. He wanted to make him suffer the same way Robyn had suffered. The red mist had descended when he’d found out about Bryn and Veronica, but this feeling was on a completely different level than that. That bastard hadn’t just violated her, he’d left her with his baby. How did you ever get over that?

  He looked at the beer bottle in his hand, gripping it tightly until his knuckles turned white. Then he threw it, as hard as he could, and watched it smash on the floor.

  *

  Robyn sat in the bath surrounded by bubbles and almost scalding hot water, but she still felt cold. She always felt cold whenever she had to speak or think about the rape. She didn’t kno
w whether it was a reflection of the time of year it happened or a reflection of how she felt inside, probably a bit of both. She had spent a lot of time feeling lukewarm inside and now, just when she had started to think a thaw was really beginning, the past wouldn’t let her truly unfreeze.

  Cole knocked on the door.

  ‘Can I come in? I’ve got beer and pickles.’

  She didn’t answer.

  Cole opened the door and stepped in, holding the drinks and a plate of gherkins.

  ‘Hey,’ he greeted.

  Robyn’s head was just poking out from underneath the foam.

  ‘You put pickles on a plate? Don’t you take in anything I tell you? They should only be eaten from the jar with a fork,’ Robyn snapped, looking at the food as if it were contaminated.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’ll go right back down and get the jar and a fork,’ Cole said, about to leave the bathroom.

  ‘And you’ve been listening to Lonestar. Listening to Lonestar will make you lose it emotionally,’ she continued.

  ‘Yeah, and I smashed a beer bottle too. I’ve cleaned up, but no going barefoot in the kitchen for a while,’ Cole replied with a sigh.

  Robyn took a pickle from the plate and put it all in her mouth in one go.

  ‘D’you wanna talk about it?’ he asked.

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Not if it’s gonna upset you.’

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I should have told you when I told you about Jason in the first place,’ Robyn began, picking another pickle off the plate.

  ‘I had trouble imagining how you must have felt after the attack; I can’t begin to think how you must have felt to be pregnant.’

  ‘Terrified, angry, stupid. I didn’t tell anyone. I started putting on weight and feeling sick, and I thought it was maybe the change of food or climate or me eating for comfort because I missed home. But no, the doctor does a test and I’m three months gone,’ Robyn said, swigging from the beer bottle.

  ‘What did your mom say?’

  ‘I didn’t tell anyone, Cole. I told the doctor there and then that I wanted an abortion and if he didn’t get me one I would find someone who would,’ Robyn explained.