Without Consent

by Frances Fyfield

  ‘No,’ she said, scrabbling for her clothes and looking at her watch. ‘It’s your mum and dad.’

  ‘Down the drainpipe at the back?’ he suggested lightly. Rose, dressed on top at least, had stuck the modest portion of herself out of the window and shouted down to the two greying heads below.

  ‘Coming!’ she yelled.

  ‘Oh no,’ he gasped. ‘Oh no, I can’t stand it.’ And Rose had the grace to blush.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘Sexual intercourse is a continuing act, which ends upon withdrawal. If, therefore, a man becomes aware that the woman is not consenting after intercourse has commenced and he does not desist, he will be guilty of rape from the moment that he realises that she is not consenting …’

  ‘I did not consent to becoming what I am,’ he wrote on his pad. ‘I am tormented and thus entitled to torment…’

  Wait a minute. He did not torment. He redeemed, gave pleasure, liberated; that was what he did. But there was this infection, coming through from the outside world, pushing him into this demeaning state of having to consider and reconsider the consequences all over again, becoming obsessive about the text, then reassuring himself. All he ever had to do, according to these texts, was to avoid penetration with any portion of his own body. (The tongue did not count; it was, in any event, almost entirely immune to infection; nor did a finger or an implement such as a syringe with a purely medical purpose. Such a penetration was not a rape.)

  He sighed with relief. Books seemed so much more reliable than a computer screen in the sunlight of the day. Books were such solid items of furniture, demanding more effort to turn pages heavy with knowledge. Effort always equalled reward.

  Next he read an article on baldness, advocating that the female of the species should note the bald man’s legendary virility and, therefore, pursue him with the same lack of scruple she would use in the hunt after any other male. He shook his head, irritated again to find himself considering consequences. There was not a single hair left to fall from his body for collection by a forensic scientist, and that was not his fault either, nothing he had ever intended, simply another joke.

  He rarely perspired; he was comfortable in clothing which was mostly synthetic, closely woven and highly unlikely to shed fibres fit for microscopic examination. So, as long as he kept his bodily fluids inside his body, he was safely beyond detection, unless, of course, someone not only protested, but complained. But women, in particular, were far too ashamed of pleasure to do that.

  Love me, for what I am. For what I give you.

  Stop that! Turn the pages.

  ‘… Dilation of the cervix at virtually any stage of gestation will generally bring on uterine contractions which in turn, lead to expulsion of the contents of the uterus. In vitro decapitation, or foetal pulverization, were preferable to Caesarean section … Use a syringe with soapy water … Stir up the contents with a long sound … like pudding.’

  They should be grateful for me, for all I know and all I have to give.

  Teaching them about pleasure without pain or consequence.

  Filling them with comfort; filling them with air. Ending it.

  ‘There is many a cleft stick with rape cases,’ Redwood intoned. Someone sniggered and he ignored it. ‘Redwood on Rape’ sounded like a type of vegetarian delicacy. The double entendres would be indigestible and all the worse for being as unintentional as his dreadful puns.

  Standing in a lecture room, he resembled what he might have been in another life, possibly should have been, Helen thought with a rush of sympathy. An absent-minded professor, more at home with the written word and a legal text than he would ever be putting it into practice. Abysmal manager, worse public speaker, and, although he managed to suppress his knowledge of his own shortcomings most of the time, there was the occasional desperate realization of them which made him tearful. On the forum, doing his stint on an obligatory afternoon’s training, Redwood tried to wield an illusory power. He still had some of the excitement of an academic to whom news, which has already travelled a continent, feels as if it has come to him first.

  ‘What the law says,’ he announced busily, brandishing the notes which were already circulated to everyone in the room, including those members of staff who had not been able to formulate an alibi or leave the building beforehand, ‘is that men can be raped.’

  ‘It says “rapped” in my copy,’ someone muttered.

  ‘Typing error,’ he snapped. ‘Use your common sense.’ He cleared his throat. ‘There was never, of course, a time when men could not be raped. I mean they could be buggered, but it wasn’t called rape, it was called buggery, for those under a certain age, whether consenting or not; once sixteen, now eighteen, but not with someone over twenty-one if they didn’t mind, and anyway, you could sometimes charge gross indecency as well, but only in a public place. And now it comes under the rape umbrella. Very important to phrase the charge right.’ He beamed; they all sat, bemused. Old news did not improve with his retelling.

  ‘It’s all rape, you see. So if a woman’s been buggered, she’s been raped; likewise a man. Vaginal or anal, it’s all rape, is that clear? One section of one Act only. But you can always have indecent assault and buggery, if you like. In some circumstances. All depends what you can prove.’

  This time the muttering was definitely Rose, but by the time Redwood swivelled his head and stared at her, the crown of her spiky dark hair was all he could see, her face bent in assiduous concentration on the notes in front of her; the model pupil, with nothing to give her away, apart from one long and slender leg extended over the other with a shoeless foot twitching madly, even whilst everything else about her remained completely still. Out of the corner of his eye, Redwood saw the door of the room open to let inside a palpably reluctant latecomer, giving Helen West the opportunity to slip out in his wake.

  ‘A man can be raped,’ Redwood continued less certainly. ‘In fact, he has to be raped for it all to come under the same blanket of the same charge … What’s the matter with everyone?’

  By now, Rose was the only one in the front row who was completely immobile. She looked the very soul of concentration, the foot still, with a shoe on it.

  ‘The same rules apply about consent, too. Oh yes. And evidence, of course.’

  At the end of the lecture half of them were grey with sleep. Someone thanked Redwood for so enhancing their knowledge of the law, adding, beneath his breath, that it had done very little for the communal libido. They trooped out, smirking.

  Once he was back in his room, Redwood wiped his brow and set about preparing tea. He had a secretary fit for this purpose, but he considered it bad for morale to have her make him hot drinks when she should be using her skills to type up memos and translate all those bureaucratic orders from above. Anyway, he positively enjoyed making tea to his own specification, drinking it out of the china cup he had brought from home. The interlude brought an illusion of civilization, all the better if he was not interrupted, so that when Helen entered after the briefest of knocks, she found him frowning. It crossed his mind to mention the fact that he had seen her leaving the lecture.

  ‘Can I discuss something?’

  It was a suspiciously humble request. He looked immediately for something with which to attack her in pre-emptive defence.

  ‘In a minute, Helen. Look, is there anything you can do about the acquittal rate in your sexual assault cases? I’ve been looking at the figures; not good, not good at all…’

  ‘You mean that losing every other one is hardly a fine track record? Well, I know what we could do about it. Send potential defendants on training courses, and tell them that what they have to do first is acquire a few previous convictions so that their fingerprints and DNA are on record. Then make sure that when they go in for an attack, full moon or whatever, they leave copious traces of bodily fluids and fibres from brand-new flannel shirts made of pure cotton. And then we could train the victims never to associate with men under forty they haven�
�t known since birth, and should they be so foolish as to suffer attack, at least ensure they acquire enough bruises to make it clear they didn’t enjoy it. Would that do?’

  ‘Be serious.’

  ‘I am being serious. There’s a high acquittal rate because any case which isn’t entirely clear-cut – the woman raped at knife-point situation in a public carpark – is always a risk, even if there’s some corroboration for what she says. Look, I want to talk to you about one in particular. Just to clear my mind, OK?’

  ‘Rather than discuss it with Mr Bailey?’ Redwood said cunningly. Helen’s relationship with Bailey had always been a matter for speculation; Redwood did not approve.

  ‘I don’t discuss every case with Bailey, and oh, by the way, we’re getting married, sometime, soon.’ This was said in a rush. ‘So I may need a day off, but if you could listen a minute …’ She may as well let that news slip, she supposed, although it wasn’t the purpose of the interview. For all his failings, Redwood could be a good sounding-board and that was all she needed. She was meeting Anna Stirland that evening and Helen wanted to be sure of her ground, although she was really sure already. Showing her insecurity, by asking about what she knew. Redwood nodded, stunned as usual by any tidings he had insufficient time to absorb.

  ‘Supposing we have a woman, good character, sound of mind and limb, who invites a man she fancies round to her own house for a drink and a chat. He’s perfectly well aware that she’s very attracted to him, although in a shy kind of way. It’s romance she wants, sex as well, but not yet. He pounces on her, causing her to injure herself, inserts an ice stick up her vagina and leaves. A joker, you see. She’s so completely humiliated, she makes no immediate complaint to anyone until the nightmare of it makes her crack up, by which time she’s comprehensively destroyed all physical evidence, such as stains, and her injuries can’t be dated. If she named him, currently she won’t, would we look at it?’

  Redwood was unfazed, shaking his head before her recital ended, only amazed by the speed of her delivery.

  ‘Look at it? Yes, provided it came through the police in the usual way. Then we’d turn it down. Even if we had a name. He’d walk out of a charge of indecent assault before the judge heard the end of the opening speech, you know he would. Defence? He wasn’t ever there and she’s a fantasist, or, he was there but nothing of the kind happened. The delay in reporting it makes it a complete non-starter. Why on earth are you asking?’

  She hesitated.

  ‘Confirmation, I suppose. Don’t you ever do that? Seek a second opinion when you already know what it is? Call it frustration. What can the law offer a woman like that? Decent, responsible, maybe a touch obsessive. Oh, I don’t know, I just hate the fact she hasn’t got any form of legal redress …’

  He lowered his face towards the fragrance of his tea.

  ‘She doesn’t deserve it if she won’t ask for it. And I suppose what her recovering spirit needs is a spot of revenge? The best therapy? We all know about victims recovering far faster if their assailant’s found guilty.’ Redwood liked to see himself as a closet psychiatrist. ‘Supposed to limit the extent of the damage. Well, if counselling won’t do for her, there’s only one way I can think of for her to get her man. How can she expect redress if she won’t even accuse? One way. A frivolous thought, of course.’

  The tea interrupted, a sip of it restoring his good humour.

  ‘Tell me your frivolous thought. You don’t have many.’

  He sat forward over his desk, the china teacup nursed in his hands, his face lit with a grim smile.

  ‘She’d have to lure him back. Make him do it again. Only this time, collect.’

  ‘Collect what?’

  ‘Evidence. Injury, fluids, blood.’

  Silence fell in the room, apart from the sound of a man sipping his tea, enjoying his little joke.

  ‘Well, I can hardly tell her that,’ Helen said flatly.

  The noisy sipping of liquid was her signal to leave.

  ‘Helen, if you’re being asked for unofficial advice, rely on silence. The law’s changed on the right of silence too. But not that much.’

  Anna Stirland chose to walk to Helen’s house that evening. It settled her mind – even a long walk, full of carbon monoxide fumes for the first half. She lived on the fringe of two districts, adjacent to where the summer dust lay in a ground-level cloud, disturbed by traffic, the identity of the place fractured by the massive dissections of road and rail. Even with the high proportion of inebriates and the rough trade in drugs and flesh prevalent in the environs of the stations, the area held her affection. It was a mixture of styles; a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces; a dumping ground which solidly defied rejuvenation. There were terraces and squares, apartments carved from old institutional buildings, 1960’s breeze-block monsters, flanked by traffic, opposite what she thought of as the church park, a green awning with a challenging if dirty statue near the gate. Anna walked down a fume-filled gulley, gazing with interest at the fly-by-night business enterprises which flourished in the brick-built caves of what had once been the arches of a railway viaduct. The furtive inhabitants suited caves; they dealt in cash and basic commodities. From here, a person could get a car rebuilt, a lorry disguised, a bathroom or new shop refitted overnight, a bus stolen to order; buy candles, bulk deliveries of halal meat, mirrors, take-away food, but never pay with credit card. Outside the station, there was a rank of panting taxis, eating up the travellers who emerged in clumps, anxious for the next destination. Avoiding the crowds, of whom the travellers were the minority and the drunks a sizeable proportion, Anna cheated and took the bus for the next mile uphill to the Angel.

  Free of the immediacy of her own environment, she had time to relax and confess to herself that she had looked forward to this unsolicited invitation. Despite the circumstances of the second meeting with Helen, the bullying involved in the introduction at a time in her life when she doubted her judgement about anything and everything, she had already told herself that it was rare to like a person so spontaneously if it was not mutual. Therefore, if she liked Helen, Helen liked her. That kind of conclusion was not sound in a situation where lust was involved, Anna thought ruefully, but otherwise, yes, it was fair enough. She had usually known, although not always immediately, whom to trust. It was important to her to believe that Helen West was extending some form of friendship, as opposed to pity, or unfulfilled duty; even curiosity would have been better than condescension.

  On the high pavement of the Angel, she began to walk again. The traffic was no less frenetic but less commercial, and here, the restaurant smells prevailed. There was one every twenty yards, not always with the same identity as its counterpart of the same time last year, wafting forth scents of spices, hot oil, curried chicken, tortillas, tomato sauce, bread, humanity, full bellies and good times. Anna thought of old friends and evenings out, wondered why it was that old friends could not help in her current condition, not that she had asked. Perhaps she wanted to keep her reputation with her old friends, not let them see her diminished; it was as if she owed the old friends a consistency she did not owe to the new. She paused to look at a menu in a window, cheered by the lights and the thought of food, horrified by the prices and slightly contemptuous of those who only came out because they could not cook.

  It was then that she saw, up ahead among the straggling pedestrians, a shiny bald skull. It made her stop so abruptly that a girl running along behind cannoned into her with cross apologies. It was not him; nothing like him at all. It was simply a man, turning to smile at the girl he was ushering into a car; another younger man, dressed in garish clothes and possessed of a pricey motor, perhaps to compensate for the fact that his handsome head was as bald as an upturned bowl. He looked ten years the junior of her man. The car pulled out from the pavement with an arrogant burst of speed. Anna began to walk again.

  How many lies had she told to Helen West? None of any significance; omissions rather than positive untruths, and she was not
sure she wanted to remedy any of them. An irrelevant omission in failing to admit, out of a kind of shame which she resented herself, that while she had been a midwife for much of her life, and proud of it, she had succumbed to the lure of a better-paid job. It was a downright distracting lie to state that her bald-headed lover no longer worked in the same place, or had any command over her. How strange it was, the virtual impossibility of recounting the truth and nothing but the truth the way she could relive in her mind what that man had done to her, telling herself a slightly different version every time, each remembrance adding or subtracting sufficient details to distort the narrative. That was what trauma did to the mind, she supposed: made her doubt her sanity and threw integrity into turmoil. She doubted she could ever take an oath to tell the truth.

  She passed a wine shop and a cinema queue, dawdling, and backtracked to look at the pictures advertising the film. Scenes of love, tension and violence made her shudder and she hurried on again. I want my old self back, she told herself, that is all I want. I want to walk around again with a perfectly normal set of reactions and a sense of humour. I want to be clean, decent and truthful. And what do I want from an evening with my new friend? I want her, someone, to know what it is like to have one’s footsteps dogged by this all-pervading shame and anger. But I still can’t tell the whole truth, which is that what he did to me might well have been a brutal form of therapy to cure me of my silly passion. Nor can I say that, yes, I have seen him passing many times, even when I least expect it, although not nearly as often as I think I have, and that every time I have that real or imagined fleeting glimpse, like now I feel a panic-stricken sickness. A lump of gristle arrives in my throat and I think I am choking.

  She had reached the crossroads where the restaurants gave way to trees. She stood for a moment, trying to remember the route she had memorized from the map she’d consulted before setting out. That was another symptom: lack of concentration. Dammit, she did not want to be suffering from a syndrome, or to be nothing but a mass of symptoms. She amended any expectation of what she might have wanted this evening to achieve. A shy foray into friendship, and if not that, a few hours’ distraction would do.