Girl A

by Girl A

  * * *

  For all that it was weird and chaotic, I was becoming attached to Harry’s place – relishing the freedom it gave me. I’d started to go home every few days, partly to say hello, partly to get bits of washing done or else collect fresh clothes. Even though Mum accepted that I’d effectively left home, she was still happy enough to do my laundry.

  I’d been at Harry’s a couple of weeks when Emma asked me to go out with her one night. Well, not so much asked: more like told. But I still felt proud: made up, in fact. We had a ball, swaggering around town, chatting about nothing and everything, and drinking cider, as usual, from Lucozade bottles.

  We ended up sitting on a wall outside Dunne’s store, swinging our legs, drinking, laughing whenever a taxi driver went by and tooted his horn. One driver actually stopped and then wound down his window to speak.

  ‘Hi, Emma,’ he said, and then, glancing at me: ‘A new friend? Want a lift anywhere?’

  ‘No, thanks,’ she replied with a wink. ‘We’re walking tonight.’

  It seemed an odd exchange, but I thought no more about it. I felt good being with Emma, despite her bossing me about. It was like she understood. We’d both somehow ended up living at the same place, after all. Maybe we had more in common than I thought? Kindred spirits, trying to find a little bit of happiness in an otherwise dreary world. At Harry’s place and with each other, we had the freedom we craved. Freedom like I’d never known before.

  Chapter Six

  Tick, Tick, Tick

  It was the start of the school summer holidays, and I’d woken late at Harry’s place, hung over, with a vague plan to spend the day watching TV and not much else.

  Courtney had been staying there for a while, but she’d recently left soon after the night she and Emma had staggered in at around 5 a.m., Courtney stinking from the cider someone had poured over her. ‘Someone’ being Emma, I’d guessed, although Ricky had said, all mysterious, that it had something to do with some Asian men. That maybe Courtney had slept with some. ‘Don’t be stupid,’ I’d told him. ‘Courtney wouldn’t do that.’ The way he had said ‘some’ made it sound dangerous, and I knew Courtney would have walked away from a set-up like that.

  Courtney had seemed upset, but wouldn’t talk about it. I thought it strange because she was usually so up for everything. Not that day, obviously.

  Anyway, this particular morning Emma came into my room, or rather the room I was dossing down in at the time, and said, ‘Hey, let’s go into town. We can go somewhere they’ll give us free food and stuff, probably beer. You’ll love it.’

  It sounded vaguely familiar, so I asked her the name of the place she was thinking of.

  ‘The Balti House,’ she said.

  I knew by then that Daddy had switched to the Balti House from Tasty Bites, and that he seemed to have a better job there; a more important one. I thought back to all the chicken tikkas and doners, the vodka, the dancing on the mattress at Tasty Bites, and decided it could be really cool. But then … ‘It’ll be closed,’ I said. ‘It’s only ever open in the evenings.’

  Emma looked pleased at that. ‘Maybe to the rest of Heywood, but not to me,’ she said, smiling. ‘We’ll get in.’

  I was impressed. ‘Sounds good,’ I said. ‘OK if I ring Courtney?’

  ‘Whatever,’ she replied.

  I didn’t mention Emma when I rang. I just asked Courtney if she fancied going somewhere for some free beer and food. She didn’t have to be asked twice.

  I was hungry, and increasingly looking for some excitement. I got dressed as quickly as I could, Emma got ready too, and we headed towards town to pick Courtney up at her house.

  Oddly, Courtney blushed when she opened the door and saw Emma, and looked really uncomfortable. I gave her a look, as if to say, ‘What’s up? What’s all this about?’ but she looked away.

  The three of us walked into town, Emma and I laughing and joking, me saying how funny Daddy was, how he’d given us loads of food and things in the old days at Tasty Bites. I was wearing pretty much what I always wore back then: jeans, a little vest top and my favourite black jacket I’d bought on Bury Market. Velour, I think it was. God, how I loved it!

  The steel shutters were down at the front of the Balti House, but Emma shouted up to one of the windows above. This, it seemed, was how she knew it wouldn’t be a problem to get into the Balti while it was closed: ‘Chef’ who, unsurprisingly, was the chef at the restaurant, lived at the place. He leaned out, a big, bearded bloke, and told us to go round the back so he could let us in. It sounded like something he and Emma had done before.

  We walked in, three teenage girls, one big, two of us small to medium, through the back door and into Heywood’s worst takeaway. You can probably imagine the smell that greeted us as we walked in: stale ghee, rendered fat, from the night before, and a sweaty takeaway chef who’d thrown on some clothes and a smile but hadn’t showered.

  Chef seemed like he was on a high. He beckoned us in, arms extended, hands waving, and sat us down at a table. The three of us found ourselves seated on little white, plastic chairs set around the table. That was white, too, round, and there was no cloth on it, just a few smears of grease. It was set against the kitchen wall, looking back onto the cooking rings, the sink and the clay oven. There was a set of stairs off to one side, heading up to where Chef had come from. The floor of the kitchen was tiled, with bits of food scattered about on it: lettuce, more splodges of grease, a bit of chicken. Everywhere was just a bit minging, really.

  Chef was kind of the same. He had put a white apron on over his jeans and T-shirt, but it was stained with food and as greasy as the rest of his kitchen.

  I began to feel a bit nervous, like we shouldn’t be there.

  On the other side of the kitchen wall was the front-of-house. It was the bit I’d known before from coming in to order there. It had a counter where they had the takeaway menus for people to look at to order from, and the glass-fronted display cabinet, where they kept naff cans of drink. There was a portable TV, too, so customers could see what was happening in Coronation Street, EastEnders, or whatever.

  Once Chef had sat us down, he asked whether we’d like something to eat. Emma said yes, and I flashed a smile at her, thinking, Yeah, this is working. It’s just like Tasty Bites.

  Chef, still seeming a bit high – he was singing as he cooked – went over to the fridge, and then to the burners, where he started heating up some chicken tikka. I guessed it had been left over from the night before, but so what, I was starving, and anyway, he went to the fridge and pulled out some garlic mayonnaise to go with it. Happy days. When the food arrived, there was pilau rice, too, and a couple of chapattis.

  We were still eating when he opened a drawer, pulled out a DVD and put it into the TV combo they had back there. When the TV in the kitchen came to life, it wasn’t showing Coronation Street, nothing like it. Instead, the screen filled with the writhing bodies of a porn DVD. It was hardcore, too, with white men having sex with Asian girls.

  It made me squirm because I’d never seen anything like it before. I tried to ignore what was on the screen, and I could sense Courtney doing the same. But Emma seemed to love it.

  I was feeling more nervous by the second. Worse, Chef, who must have been in his forties, started trying to touch us up, all three of us, laughing as he did so. He was half watching the porn and either half talking to us or trying to touch us – our boobs, our legs, anywhere his oily hands could reach. At one point he said I was pretty, and then, horribly: ‘Today is pay day. I’m going to have sex with you all!’

  He made it sound like a joke, but I still thought it was horrid. So did Courtney. Emma just burst out laughing and, for all my nerves and shock, I found myself giggling along with her. Part of me thought it was OK because he’d said I was pretty. I knew it was wrong, but I was full of the sense of excitement, too. It felt like living on the edge.

  But enough was enough. Courtney and I asked Emma to tell him to stop touching us,
but she just replied, ‘It’s all right, he won’t hurt you.’ So we sat there, fending him off whenever he approached. We’d had enough practise in school at fending off boys; this didn’t feel any different.

  After a while, Emma walked over to him and they had a quiet conversation next to the fridge. When she came back, she said they were going to call Daddy and ask him to bring some drinks.

  I actually relaxed a bit when I heard that. I know Daddy, I thought. Maybe he’ll stop Chef messing around.

  Weirdly, when Emma made the call, she sounded really excited. ‘I’ve got Hannah here,’ she breathed into the phone. ‘I’ve got Hannah here! Now!’

  It seemed strange. Why should she be so excited to tell him I was there when I’d not seen him for six months? Looking back, it was the excitement in her voice that should have warned me.

  I’m guessing now, but I can’t help thinking that she’d told him I was staying at her house and that he’d asked for me. They must have come up with the plan together, but I was the last one to know. God, how naïve.

  He came in through the back door, all smiles, all happy. Emma seemed equally pleased to see him, smirking like the cat she was. He asked Courtney and me if he could have a hug. When it came to my turn he held me that little bit longer, saying he remembered me and had missed me. I just muttered ‘Hi’, a little embarrassed.

  He’d brought vodka with him and we had a glass each, just the three of us girls and those two men, one in his forties, the other, Daddy, in his fifties, all sitting together at the table.

  They weren’t drinking because they’re Muslims and they don’t. Most Muslim people I have met are very strict like that. Emma poured the drinks and went to the fridge for some cola. The vodka, like before, was Glen’s: a litre bottle.

  ‘How have you been?’ Daddy asked. ‘How’s your mum? Are you still living at home? How are your holidays? Will you be back to school in September?’

  I felt a sense of relief that the conversation was back on track as something a bit more normal; something I could deal with. Plus, Chef had started to behave himself once Daddy arrived. The TV was turned off and he seemed to calm down.

  ‘The holidays are great,’ I told him. ‘I’m living at Emma’s now. It’s cool.’

  ‘And which year are you in next term?’ he asked.

  ‘Eleven,’ I replied. ‘With GCSEs in all the things I hate!’

  Emma poured me another vodka, then another. I noticed that Courtney wasn’t drinking like she’d normally do; in fact, she looked a bit down. I gave her a friendly dig in the ribs, to try to cheer her up. She didn’t seem to notice. Daddy was as chatty and jolly as I remembered him from Tasty Bites. I started to relax, then to get tipsy. Emma lifted the bottle and poured again.

  The room was beginning to spin when Emma suddenly said she was going upstairs with Chef and, a moment later, they were gone. Then Daddy looked over at me and said he wanted me to go upstairs, too – for a chat, he said. He was laughing as he said it, and still sounding dead happy.

  Even through my vodka haze, I wasn’t sure. I asked Courtney if she’d come with me, but she didn’t seem bothered and, anyway, Daddy didn’t want her to. ‘No,’ he smiled, ‘she’ll have to stay here because I want to speak to you in private.’

  I still thought it was odd, but curiosity and politeness got the better of me – I didn’t want him to think I was being funny with him by not going. Plus, I’d spent so much time with Daddy before I didn’t think there was anything to worry about. At the back of my mind, too, I was thinking, Emma’s up there and Courtney’s here, so I’ll be fine. I had a momentary flashback to the time at Tasty Bites with Elouise, but pushed it to the back of my mind.

  And so I climbed the staircase. I just went upstairs with him.

  There was an empty, disused freezer on the landing, and some Asian-style pictures on the wall. Emma had gone into the room on the left; Daddy put a hand on my hip and guided me to the one on the right.

  Daddy, this family man in his fifties, the one I’d always felt I could trust, opened the door for me and told me to go in. Then he walked in behind me and closed the door.

  There was nothing in the room apart from a mattress on the floor with blue, crumpled sheets, and a pink clock, high up on the wall to one side.

  Daddy told me to sit down on the mattress. As I did so, he stayed on his feet. I tried to feel reassured by that, but as soon as I sank into it and smelt the stale air wafting up from the sheet, I felt suddenly dwarfed by him; felt, too, the stirrings of a fear that will haunt me for ever.

  Dimly, I noticed that the next-door room was silent. No conversation. Just silence. Almost like somebody was listening.

  Even now Daddy was still looking happy. ‘When are you going to let me have sex with you?’ he asked merrily, a big cheeky smile on his face. I tried to answer in the same way, laughing. I thought he was joking, that I could handle it. ‘I’m not, Daddy,’ I giggled.

  And that’s when he started to talk about all the things he’d given me for free at Tasty Bites: the vodka, the cigarettes, the chicken tikkas, the kebabs … and how I should repay him.

  ‘It’s part of the deal, Hannah,’ he said, as he smiled at me. I suddenly realised that he sounded sinister, like someone I didn’t know: had never known. And he went on. ‘I buy you things, you give me things,’ he said. ‘I’ve bought you vodka. Now it’s your turn to give something to me.’

  My heart froze as I realised what he meant. I knew then, knew without a shred of doubt, that he was more dangerous than anyone I had ever met; I knew that he meant to hurt me.

  Instinctively, I just kept saying, ‘What do you mean? What do you mean?’ I tried to say it with a giggle, trying to fend him off in a jokey way. But the drink had made me slur my words. He could tell I was panicking, but he didn’t seem to care. He just kept telling me I had to pay him back, and all the time he was coming closer.

  ‘We’re friends,’ he was saying, ‘and friends do things for each other.’

  By now there was an aggression in his voice that I’d never heard before, a nastiness – as if he’d decided there was no further point in playing at being jolly. There were no smiles either. Instead, I could feel an anger building up in him as I carried on saying no.

  I didn’t know what to do. I knew he wanted to have sex with me, but I didn’t want to with him because he was old. Much, much older than me. But nor did I want to say no, because I’d look soft to Emma.

  I just kept trying to laugh it off so he’d leave me alone. I didn’t think to try to beat him off because he was so big compared to me, and I had no idea what he would do. Would he beat me up? Kill me? And I didn’t want to scream as I knew Emma would hear, and might get angry with me. And then, in the midst of the surge of my rising panic and the fear freezing my veins, I suddenly realised what had happened: that Emma had deliberately led me into a trap and I knew, without doubt, that if I resisted the monster looming over me, Emma would batter me, or maybe worse, much worse.

  I just had no idea just how sickening a trap it would prove to be.

  Daddy was still talking, saying, ‘Go on, go on, you’ve got to pay me back.’ I was still sitting up, rigid, but then he reached over and started to push me down.

  ‘Come on, it’s not fair,’ he was saying. ‘I’ve got you all this stuff, you’ve got to.’ Then he was pulling on my jeans, unbuttoning them, pulling them down, and putting them and my knickers on the floor.

  ‘No, no, no,’ I started to repeat, over and over. I started crying, but he just kept pushing my legs open. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t breathe. All I could do was keep saying ‘no’.

  And then he forced himself onto me, his beaded, pungent brow close to mine, saying, ‘Shh, shh!’ I told him it was hurting, and I was sobbing, but it didn’t stop him. I remember the tears pouring down my face, but I couldn’t scream because my throat had closed up so tight with fear. Instead, I screamed the sort of scream that could find no release but reverberated around my brain. On and
on it went, silently, propelling the tears that were running into my mouth and down my neck.

  All the time he was saying, ‘Don’t cry,’ and ‘You’re beautiful,’ and ‘I love you.’ And because I couldn’t look at him, wouldn’t look at this old man attacking a girl in a sordid box room in Heywood, I stared desperately instead at the clock and the serene, beautiful angel who couldn’t protect me, as the second hand carried on ticking around and around.

  Chapter Seven

  New Girl

  Once Daddy had raped me, he sat up on his knees, wiped away a smear of blood – my blood – then buttoned up his trousers and left the room.

  I felt a desperate feeling I’d never known before, my body torn and aching from what he’d done to me. Being with Elliot earlier in the summer had felt clumsy and bewildering, but this? This felt totally alien, like someone had reached inside me and torn out my soul. I couldn’t move; I just stared at the sheet below me, the tacky, dirty one, now stained with tiny droplets of red. My mind was numb, frozen, unable to comprehend the enormity of having been raped.

  I hadn’t moved by the time Daddy returned, bringing with him some tissue for me. I stretched out a hand, eyes averted, mascara running down my face, and a moment later was reclaiming my knickers and pulling my jeans up as quickly as I could.

  He just said, ‘Don’t cry,’ and then, again, that he loved me. Then he gave me either a £10 or a £20 note. I think it was £10. As he handed it to me he said, ‘This is for you because I love you. You’re my special girl now.’

  I still didn’t understand what had just happened. I knew that I’d been raped but I was confused. From the things he was saying, it seemed as though nothing had happened and it was just normal. To this day I don’t know why, but I stuffed the note into my pocket.

  I felt sick and dirty, loathing him for what he’d done to me, and loathing myself for not fighting him off, for not dying in the attempt. How could he have said all those things to me – ‘Don’t cry’ and ‘You’re beautiful’ – when it was obvious I hated what he was doing the entire time he was raping me?