Don’t Stand So Close

by Luana Lewis

  She had not resisted, she did not have a bruise on her. Lawrence Simpson could say whatever he liked. He could say, truthfully, that she had invited him over to the clinic in the evening, on a weekend. He could say she had wanted to be alone with him, he could point out he was unarmed. He was not an unattractive man and she was young.

  She wondered how Max was going to view the situation. One way or another, she had broken boundaries and paid the price.

  She shouldn’t blame herself. She had voiced her concerns about Simpson to Max. She hoped he would have faith in her, would be loyal to her, would believe her story.

  Peter sat close by, but a space had opened up between them. She could feel that he wanted to talk to her again, about reporting the crime, and she knew he wanted to rush her off to a police station, but he held back.

  Once again she heard the rush of tyres against gravel as Max arrived in his Mercedes. Stella sat on the chesterfield and listened to his key in the lock and the sound of the door opening. She had interrupted his precious weekend, and this would not be a welcome intrusion. She hoped he wasn’t angry. She might have single-handedly brought his practice to its knees.

  Max looked confused at the sight of the two of them sitting on the sofa in his reception area in the middle of the night.

  ‘Peter’s a friend,’ Stella said. ‘And a police officer. That’s why I called him.’

  ‘What’s happened?’ Max asked. Not angry, but concerned.

  Stella was grateful he had come, and relieved. She needed his advice – she needed him to tell her exactly what she should do. If she was lucky, he might be able to help her through this with both her sanity and her career intact.

  She looked down at her scrubbed-clean fingernails as she talked. She was careful to speak slowly, she didn’t want to vomit all over the cream medical-centre carpet. She didn’t want to go through the ordeal again, she wanted to retreat down a long dark tunnel, to somewhere distant and peaceful, but she forced herself back.

  ‘I gave Lawrence Simpson an after-hours appointment. We were alone in the building. He raped me and he also took some photographs of me naked which he has threatened to put up on the internet. Photographs that look as though I was enjoying myself. He has said that if I report what happened, he would deny it was rape, he would say it was consensual. He knows he’s going to lose his custody battle. I was his parting shot.’

  ‘Are you injured?’ Max asked.

  She nodded. She didn’t want to cry.

  ‘We need to get you to a doctor,’ Max said.

  ‘I can’t face hours in A and E.’

  ‘I know a private GP. I can call her to come over.’

  ‘Yes, please.’ She was so thankful to have him taking care of her.

  Peter’s lips were moving as he spoke to Max, but there was only the sound of waves in her ears, drowning out his words. She was frightened they might leave her alone in the room. She could not bear to be on her own. Max left, but Peter stayed. He sat on the opposite end of the sofa, watching Stella stiff and upright and closed off from him. Max returned with a white medical sheet, the kind they used in the consulting rooms. He tucked it round her and then he held out two pills: ‘One’s for the pain, the other is a tranquillizer,’ he said.

  She reached out for them. She didn’t care what they were, she would swallow anything to escape. Max handed her a glass of water and watched as she forced the pills down her throat. She rested her head on the arm of the sofa and stayed still, to keep the drugs down. Maybe the hospital would give her a bed for a few days. She couldn’t imagine ever going to sleep alone in her bed, in her empty flat.

  With the two men in the room, she felt safe again. But she also understood that this false sense of security would soon come to an end. How could she go back to work, while Simpson, or others like him, lay in wait? Paranoia was setting in already. Was it paranoia? Was it illogical to draw the conclusion that nowhere was safe? Bile pushed upwards; she focused all her attention on her breathing, trying her hardest to keep the pills down.

  Max said she was in shock, she shouldn’t be pressured. Peter said the rape must be reported, a brief statement, it was important. She could give a full statement later. Peter said the clinic was a crime scene, nothing must be touched until the forensics unit arrived. Max looked angry. The two of them weren’t getting along.

  ‘She needs a doctor who can examine her and take forensic evidence,’ Peter said. ‘Once the shock wears off she may well want to report this. The evidence shouldn’t be lost.’

  She didn’t want to make any decisions or take any action.

  ‘I’ll get someone to examine her,’ Max said. ‘But it has to be her decision to report what happened.’

  ‘What have you given her? She’s in no fit state to report anything.’

  ‘She’s in shock. I couldn’t leave her that way. She deserves some relief.’

  ‘You’re concealing a crime.’

  Peter kept saying her name: Stella, Stella, Stella, Stella. He wanted her to wake up. But it was too late. She was drifting, away from herself and away from the room. Her eyelids were so very heavy. She knew she should listen, but she couldn’t hold on. The pills were pulling her down to a place where everything was hushed and muted, and she didn’t have to be terrified or ashamed.

  She woke up alone, in a strange bed.

  She was blunted, empty.

  The doctor Max had called had been an attractive woman in her late forties, very blonde with a short skirt and knee-length boots. She had reassured Stella: the damage was not too great, certainly not permanent. There was bruising and some tearing but not so much that it required stitches. She had prescribed a short course of antibiotics. To Stella’s relief, the examination was over quickly. She had heard the woman talking in low tones to Max in the hallway before she left.

  The large bed had blue-striped sheets and a plain square-edged headboard covered in navy cotton. The room was a good size, with high ceilings and sash-windows. The beige roman blinds were closed, but sunlight filtered through. There were lovely exposed floorboards on the floor. One built-in cupboard, one chest of drawers, no frills.

  Max was at the door. She had never seen him dressed in casual clothes, he was always in his suit and tie. Now he was in front of her in jeans and a black T-shirt.

  ‘I convinced your boyfriend to let me take care of you for a bit, while you’re still in shock,’ he said.

  ‘He’s not my boyfriend.’

  She tried to push herself up to a sitting position, but when she moved, the sharp pain was back. She gave up and lay back down. She looked down and saw she was wearing the same clothes as last night.

  ‘How long was I asleep?’ she asked.

  ‘Some of last night is probably a blank, because of the shock and the tranquillizers. I brought you back to my apartment. I thought it better to let you sleep here. Your friend was very keen to get you to a police station last night but I didn’t think you were up to it.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘Is there anyone you’d like me to call?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t want anyone to know. You can’t tell anyone without my permission.’

  As she lay, half propped up in Max’s bed, careful not to make any sudden movements, she thought that if no one knew, then it could be almost as though it had never happened. Even in her own mind, perhaps. She didn’t want to talk about it, she didn’t want to report it and she didn’t want to see some other doctor who was only interested in taking swabs. Her body would heal. She would work to erase everything from her mind.

  ‘Of course I won’t tell anyone without your permission,’ Max said.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Peter seems to feel very strongly that you should report what happened.’

  ‘What do you think?’ she asked him.

  Max approached the bed. ‘Can I sit down?’

  ‘It’s your bed,’ she said. It was all so ironic. She had wanted this for so long, to be inside Max
’s apartment.

  ‘It’s my guest room, actually.’ Max sat on the edge of the bed, careful not to come too close. He looked ill at ease, as though he had to deliver bad news.

  ‘You know how these rape trials go,’ he said. ‘The reality is that it will be his word against yours. There are no witnesses, no hard evidence. He’ll claim you liked rough sex. I hope you understand I’m not saying this to upset you, but I know that these trials can be more traumatizing than the rape itself. And the sentences – well – it might not be worth it in the end. I think you should know what you’re getting yourself into if you go to the police.’

  ‘I thought the same thing.’

  ‘I’m not discouraging you from reporting what happened. But I think you should take a realistic view.’

  ‘I don’t want to involve the police. I don’t see the point. I screwed up so badly, Max. I was so naive, seeing him after hours without letting anyone know. With him being a GP – I just did not see it coming.’

  ‘You aren’t responsible,’ he said. ‘I was your supervisor on the case. I should have taken your concerns more seriously. Don’t start questioning yourself – that’s playing right into his hands. That’s just what he wants.’

  ‘Tell me the truth – are you angry?’

  He came a little closer and leaned back against the headboard. He held out his arm: it was an invitation. Stella let herself go, let herself snuggle in against him. He rested his arm across her shoulders.

  ‘I had a client once,’ he said, ‘it was while I was still a registrar, and I treated her as part of my psychotherapy module, at a residential unit. I saw her in my office, twice a week for a month. This patient lay on the sofa bed, looking at the ceiling, terrified and not saying a word, week after week. Eventually I couldn’t take it any more, the rigidity and the coldness of it all. I felt angry that we’d somehow taken the heart and soul out of our treatment. Maybe because of our own fears about getting close to people, to protect ourselves. So one session I suggested we go for a walk. There was a park, with a small lake. Being outside was healing.’

  His voice soothed her.

  ‘And?’

  ‘She started talking. And when she cried, I put my arm around her. None of what I did was in a textbook. But she responded. And if you read Freud or Jung, you’ll find they broke quite a few boundaries between doctor and patient that today we would find shocking. The point of this rambling story is that I was lucky – my treatment worked. The patient got better. You did something outside of the textbook and it went badly wrong. It doesn’t make you a bad psychologist, or a bad human being.’

  She wondered if he meant any of what he said, or if he was just trying to appease her guilt.

  ‘I’ve been working with these people for years,’ she said, ‘assessing risk. And I know it sounds stupid, but it never occurred to me that something like this could ever happen to me. It was as though I deluded myself into thinking I lived in some sort of separate universe from my clients. But now I know I don’t. And I can’t go home on my own.’

  ‘You don’t have to go home,’ he said. ‘You’ll stay here. As long as you like.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that. I wouldn’t do that to you. I just need to find somewhere that’s safe. A roommate, maybe. One that never goes out. A Rottweiler, preferably. What I mean is, I wonder if I could have an advance on my salary to check into a good hotel for a while? Where there’s someone on reception twenty-four hours. Unless you can think of a better option?’

  ‘Listen to me,’ he said. ‘You told me you were worried about Lawrence Simpson and I didn’t take it seriously enough. So please let me help you, let me make it up to you. You’re not in any fit state to make decisions. Let me take care of the practicalities for a while.’

  She nodded, grateful. Max genuinely did not seem to blame her for being unprofessional, or for inviting potential disaster into his clinic.

  She looked around, at the striped sheets, the linen headboard, the strip-wood flooring and the high ceilings. She would take up the offer to stay. She was overwhelmed, with relief and with longing, that he would stay next to her, stay holding her.

  ‘I’m going to get another pill for you,’ he said. He moved away. ‘You don’t need to be brave about it – you don’t need to suffer any more than you have already.’

  She wished, instead, that he would ask her more about her suffering. But she nodded, she would take what he offered. The pill would dampen her pain, would hold her in its arms and she could bury her thoughts and her aching spirit.

  When she woke up, it was dark and she was alone and she began to shiver. All of her joints ached and her head pounded with pain. For days, she heaved and heaved into the toilet bowl, her stomach contorting and lurching. She was running a fever, but at the same time she was freezing cold. She was in so much pain, inside and out, that she imagined death to be a relief.

  Max would appear in the doorway at the times she thought she couldn’t bear it any longer. In one hand, he held a glass of water, in the other, her pills.

  Stella and Max

  Stella knelt in front of Max as he sat on one of the kitchen chairs. She reached up and loosened his tie, she undid the top buttons of his shirt and then she dabbed at the scratches on his throat with an antiseptic wipe. The wounds were only superficial.

  He was looking up at the ceiling.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Stella said. ‘I underestimated how disturbed she is. She could have killed you. I feel—’

  He pushed her hand away, as though swatting at a fly. ‘What were you thinking, when you let her in?’

  She turned away, tossed the wipe into the dustbin. She’d had a long and eventful night, maybe she was imagining his derisive tone. He must have thought he was about to have his throat slashed. He was entitled to be angry at someone and he could hardly be angry with a mentally unstable, vulnerable teenager.

  Or perhaps he had been angry at her for a long time, angry at the burden she had become. Perhaps he hadn’t been aware of it himself, until now.

  Stella could feel the cracks in her carefully constructed version of reality beginning to rupture.

  ‘I could hardly let her freeze to death on the doorstep, could I?’

  ‘I’m not blaming you – I’m just surprised that you would let a stranger into the house while you’re here alone.’ He peered at her over his glasses. ‘After everything.’

  He looked at her, with the affectionate, protective expression she adored. Or else, she was imagining the expression she wanted to see.

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘But on the other hand – I didn’t know she was Simpson’s daughter. I don’t understand, Max. How could you have anything to do with any member of the Simpson family? Why didn’t you talk to me about this first?’

  He ran his hand over his head, in the gesture she so loved. His eyes shifted to the kitchen doorway and beyond, where Peter stood over a sleeping Blue.

  ‘Can you look at me when I’m talking to you,’ she said. ‘Please.’

  ‘It’s been difficult, Stella, to discuss anything with you in a rational way.’ His eyes kept flickering down and away. ‘I consulted with her a couple of times as a favour to her mother. Things have been extremely difficult for them since the court case. I didn’t think it was a good idea to tell you. I didn’t think you could deal with it.’

  ‘But you did think it was a good idea to treat both mother and daughter in a case already fraught with complications?’ She stood up, so that she was looking down on him. He was determined to look at the floor, rather than at his wife.

  ‘Let me rephrase that,’ she said. ‘In a case that was already thoroughly fucked up and where crucial information was withheld in the court report provided by your clinic.’

  He didn’t answer her.

  ‘What the hell were you thinking when you took them on as clients?’ She deserved an answer. She deserved his attention. She had to fight the urge to collapse, to give up. ‘How could you get involved with this girl
and her mother without telling me? What if she had told her father our home address? What if he had followed her out here?’

  ‘What have you taken tonight?’ Max asked.

  ‘Answer me. What the hell were you thinking?’

  ‘I asked you how many pills you’d taken.’

  His cool, controlled voice incensed her. He was so detached, so indifferent. She wanted to scream at him, to shake him, until he responded to her, but she knew she had to stay rational if she was to have any chance at all of connecting with him. She didn’t want him to dismiss her as panic-stricken or out of control or irrational.

  She took a deep breath and sat down on the chair next to his. ‘I took diazepam – a couple of extra tablets. And I drank some of your leftover wine. I took my antidepressant.’

  It wasn’t easy to contain her agitation, but she managed. ‘I still want to know why you treated Lawrence Simpson’s wife and daughter without telling me.’

  ‘You’ve behaved like an invalid for eighteen months and all of a sudden you expect me to treat you like a responsible adult?’ This time there was no doubt about the contempt in his tone, and it stung.

  ‘Sometimes I wonder, Stella – if you stay locked in this house because you’re afraid of Lawrence Simpson, or if you stay locked in here because it’s the best way you have of controlling me? Do you have any idea what it’s like for me, living this way? I don’t know how much longer I can do this.’

  She had seen in her marriage only what she could bear.

  She wasn’t going to break down. She wasn’t going to cry or beg or plead. She held herself rigid.

  Perhaps he was being unfair – perhaps he wasn’t. She had at some point taken a decision to remain helpless and to be dependent on him.

  ‘I’m glad I know what you’re really thinking.’

  ‘No,’ Max said. ‘I’m sorry. That was totally out of line.’

  He reached for her hand and gave her a light squeeze and a conciliatory smile. ‘Stella, come on.’ His expression was softer, and he was the old Max: gentle and charming.