by Noir, Stella
The police have done nothing. All I know is that they are carrying on their investigations, while whoever is responsible for raping and murdering my wife and the unborn baby she was carrying are still out there, ready to do the same again. It makes me sick.
Martin doesn’t know this is what I’m planning to do. Nobody knows. As far as anyone else is concerned, I’m concentrating on pulling myself together and getting on with my life. The thing is, I don’t have one left. Nothing has meaning to me anymore.
The plans we had for the future? The family we were going to bring into the world? The romantic dinners, the holidays, the growing old together? I don’t see that anymore. I don’t see anything at all but him, every night before I go to sleep, breaking in, threatening my pregnant wife with a hunting knife, forcing himself into her violently and repeatedly, and then stabbing through her belly and later into her chest, so many times he broke six of her ribs and carved her right lung almost to nothing.
Martin’s waving his arms at me. I have to kill the engine to hear what he’s saying.
“Whoa, whoa, buddy, there won’t be any grass left!”
I wipe sweat off my forehead and just kind of stare at him for a while. I’ve been drifting again. One moment concentrating on the task in hand, the next on something else. The blood stain, the murder, him. Always him.
“You’ve been out here for four hours pushing that thing around. Come on, the game is on, let’s drink a beer and relax.”
Sundays. Sundays in this house used to mean something to me. Alice curled up on the sofa reading a book, a long bath.
“Ok”, I say, smiling, happy to defer. “It’s a good idea.” I turn around to survey what I’ve done. I nod to it. “I reckon I’m kind of done here anyway.”
Martin puts his arm around my shoulder. “You should see our garden man, nothing but weeds up to here.” He marks the height against his chest. “We could use you over there if you’re that keen on mowing.”
“I’ll think about it”, I say.
“Yeah”, Martin says as we walk back to the house. “that’s what Sadie keeps telling me too. We’ll think about it.”
Watching a game and drinking a beer. This is what I used to do, what normal people do, but I don’t feel normal anymore. I don’t feel anything anymore.
Chapter Six
Jo
14 October 2015. Seventeen days after.
“Is everything alright, Jo?”
My manager has called me into his office to have ‘the chat’.
“Sure, of course”, I lie, casually squeezing myself into the chair in front of him. “What’s up?”
“You just, I don’t know”, he smiles. “I just wanted to make sure you were ok. You’ve been a bit distant recently, a bit quiet. Not your usual self. We missed you on Friday.”
“Is it the work?” I ask.
“No, the work is great”, Alex says. “Your work is always great.” He drums his fingers on the table. “It’s-”, he hesitates. “You know, if you ever need to chat. I like to think we have a relaxed attitude here. If there is something bugging you.”
“Seriously, I’m fine”, I lie again.
Alex is a good guy, and he’s right. This is a small design company with thirty odd permanent staff. We’re like a family. People care about each other here. “Maybe I’m a little tired, I don’t know, I hadn’t noticed.”
Alex doesn’t need to know. It would just complicate things if I told him. I’d become that girl.
“Are you coming this Friday? We’ve got a big night planned, drinks, pizza, bowling, you might meet a guy.”
Alex does a kind of weird seat dance while my heart lurches at the suggestion. I almost cry. It’s there inside me ready to come out and I think he sees it. I stumble a response, almost unable to give it. Alex jumps in.
“I thought you liked bowling?”
I compose myself. “Sorry, Alex. I’ve got family commitments that night.”
“Oh”, Alex says, disappointed. Friday nights are big for him. A chance to get everyone from the office together to do something social. I used to go all the time, I haven’t since it happened.
“You sure you haven’t got some secret you want to tell us about, huh?!” Alex says, jiggling his eyebrows up and down. This is Alex all over, brightly colored shirts and bow-ties. Spiky gelled up hair, a couple of earrings. A positive, upbeat attitude. It would destroy him if I told him. His rose-tinted view of the world would be crushed.
“No”, I say evenly. “Mum’s got some thing, you know. I’ve got to-.”
And then it hits me and I know I won’t be able to stop it.
“Alex, do you mind if?-.”
I know he’s stood up, watching me bolt out of his office, shocked I’ve done so seemingly without reason. I know he’s not the only one either.
The tears come before I have a chance to get to the restroom. I barely manage to lock myself in a cubicle before Sasha comes in to see if I’m ok.
“Jo?” she asks cautiously, as though I might bite if approached without care. “Are you alright?”
Fuck. I can’t stop bawling. It’s like the tears don’t want to stop coming. I can barely breathe. This is overwhelming.
“Jo, honey, what’s wrong?” That’s Sylvia now, stood alongside Sasha, just outside the cubicle door. “What happened?”
I hear Mandy’s voice next and then Alex’s briefly, before the girls, in unison, tell him to leave.
“Sweetie?” Sasha says, “open up the door and let me in.”
Chapter Seven
Jo
17 October 2015. Twenty days after.
There is a Russian photographer we studied at art school called Anatoly Borodin, who spent his whole life taking pictures of normal people doing normal things. Families at home, postmen, children playing, women chatting. They are simple images of fragments of people’s lives, and are usually of them doing something boring or mundane, but each image has a story behind it. Each one when studied alone tells the story of a person and everything that has led them to that point. If you glance at them, you miss it, but if you look closely, into the eyes and the soul of the person captured by the lens, you see it. You see their life. This is what Borodin was trying to say with his work.
I feel like someone from a Borodin photo. A quick glance and you’d think I’m fine, stand and stare a while and you see cracks as big as the grand canyon.
Dad is staring at me open mouthed. Mom has started to cry. I knew it would be like this. It’s why I didn’t tell them before.
“What the hell were you doing alone at two o’clock in the morning?”
He’s angry, I get that. I’m his only girl. His princess. Now I’m spoiled goods. Nobody wants to think of their daughter in that way. This happens to drug addicts, prostitutes, the working class, not me, not a bright graduate with a good job, a middle class family and an education.
“I thought you should know”, I say, ignoring dad’s question.
I have a good relationship with my parents, but we are not the kind of family that discusses its problems. My father likes to solve them, which is part of the reason we don’t.
“Tell me, please, you’ve been to the police.”
“I’ve done everything I can”, I say. “I went to the police shortly after it happened. They said they’d call me as soon as they knew anything. It’s over, Dad, you don’t need to worry.”
Dad shakes his head, mystified that the situation is out of his control. Horrified he couldn’t do anything in the first place to stop it.
“When they catch this-.” Dad can’t find the words. “I’m going to rip his fucking head off.”
I sigh. “Yeah, Dad, that’s not going to help all that much.”
“You should have said something, darling.” Mom says. “All this time, dealing with it by yourself.” She seems almost as shocked by this as I was. “We could have helped.”
“What did they say at work?” Dad butts in. “I hope they’re paying you for this t
ime off. It’s the least they can do.”
“Dad, this has nothing to do with work.”
“You were on a work function, out with work colleagues. They should have been there for you. Jesus christ, Joanne. Raped. This isn’t someone taking your purse while you’re not looking.”
“I know, Dad. Please. Nobody is at fault apart from the man that did this to me. Please stop pacing the room and sit down.”
“I’m angry, Jo. I’m ready to go out and find him.”
“Dad, that’s what the police are doing. What we need to do-”, I stop to correct myself. “What I need to do is try and move on.”
“You’ll wear the carpet out Mike, sit down.” Mom says.
“Move on”, Dad shakes his head. He’s still pacing up and down, grinding his teeth, snarling like an animal. I haven’t seen him like this since he lost his job. “Is that what the police told you, huh? Move on, like you’ve got to the park to find someone sitting on your favorite bench.”
“Mike!” Mom calls again.
“It’s not that trivial! Raped”, I hear him mutter. “My girl.”
My parents don’t take the news well so I decide not to tell them about the group therapy sessions I’ve decided to join, nor the fact that work still don’t know about the rape and the reason they’ve given me time off, unpaid, is because of ‘family problems’. If he knew any of that, Dad would go mad. He’d try and negotiate paid leave for me from work and organize a therapist, which I definitely don’t want at the moment.
I’m going to go to the group sessions because I can hide much more easily in a crowd. I know I need to talk to someone, which is part of the reason I decided to tell my parents, I’m just not ready to do that one on one. It’s taken me a while to come to terms with what happened, to even call it rape or assault or anything technical or clinical or specific.
I know what happened to me, and I know there are no excuses for what did, and I hold no responsibility whatsoever for it happening, I just struggle to speak about it without feeling massive amounts of stress, or pain or despair. I feel almost worse now than I did during the days after. I’m still not sleeping well, and even though I’ve made an effort to present a Borodin image to my parents so they won’t worry, the real truth lies deep inside me. I’m broken.
I haven’t been able to look at myself or touch myself in that area since it happened, and I’m still struggling with contact from other people, including my parents. My friends have been in touch, but I’ve pushed them away. I know I can’t deal with this on my own, which is why I’ve decided to go to the group sessions, I just don’t want people fussing over me, and I don’t want people to know more about me than they need to. As soon as anyone who knows me knows I’ve been raped, their opinion of me is going to change. I’m not ready for that to happen. I’m not ready for the conversations about what happened, nor what I expect will be a lack of understanding from a number of people. Dad’s first response was “What were you doing alone at that time?” As though I somehow had some responsibility for what happened.
“Just tell us what you want us to do”, Dad says. Without a problem to solve I know he feels useless.
“Nothing”, I say, unable to help him. “I just felt like you should know why I’m not going to work. Why I’ve been distant recently. Forget about it now, there’s nothing more to do.”
“Which police station did you go to? Did you get an incident number?”
“Dad, please. Let me handle this.”
“I just want to make sure they are doing all they can to find him. You know what the police are like. He could be half way across America by now.”
Mom nods. “Your father is right, honey. It might be worth a call, just to check.”
I relent and give Dad the details, which he seems satisfied with. I don’t give him the statement, nor the results of the medical tests. I haven’t got enough energy left to convince them that it’s not important to me whether he gets caught or not, because I can’t take back what he’s already taken from me. That will never change.
When they are gone - and it takes a long time to convince them to leave me alone, a period of which is spent checking and rechecking windows and locks-, I go up to my bedroom, curl up on the bed and begin to cry. A problem shared is a problem halved, they say. It doesn’t feel like it at all.
Chapter Eight
Ethan
21 October 2015. Forty days after.
Today is my twenty eighth birthday. Martin has convinced me to go out with him and my friends to celebrate, but I have a bad feeling about it. This is my first birthday for six years I’ve spent without Alice, and something about celebrating just doesn’t feel right.
The last time I dressed up was for her funeral. When I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror I can’t stop the memory coming back to me.
“I can’t do this”, I tell Martin, but it’s already too late. We are in the car on the way to the bar.
“Sure you can buddy. People want to see you. You can’t push them away forever, you know. People care about you, they want to make sure you are alright. You let me in.”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
I haven’t seen my friends for a month because I didn’t want to be reminded of the absence of my wife, and it was just easier pushing them away rather than bringing them closer. At the group sessions I can talk about how I feel and what’s happened to me because the other members of the group are strangers. They don’t know me. They can’t judge me beyond what I tell them. The people inside that bar do know me and they did know Alice.
“Come on”, Martin says. “It’s your birthday. Let’s get you drunk.”
I want to show people I’m ok. I want them to realize that, despite everything, I’m getting on with my life. Martin believes he’s helped me enormously already. In the short time that he’s been living with me, I’ve kicked the drink almost completely, I’ve got myself back into shape, and I’ve not tried to kill myself again. The red marks on my neck have almost gone, but I’m wearing a scarf to cover the lacerations just in case people see them and I have to defend themselves. It’s cold anyway so it doesn’t look out of place. I still zone out though. I can tell that about myself. My speech patterns are slower, much more deliberate, much more languid. Outwardly, I look calm and composed. It’s a trick of medication and mind focus. It’s smoke and mirrors, but no one can see that.
Peter is the first to approach us. “Wow”, he says, squeezing my bicep. “Been working out?”
The girls line up for hugs, kisses, words of good will, before the guys come in and shake my hand or hug me or squeeze my arm like Peter did before them, just to touch me and make sure I’m real. They have got me a birthday present. I feel embarrassed when they pass it over and stand there, staring at me, waiting for me to open it.
I play the game, shake it and try to guess what it is. “Guys, you know, you didn’t have to do this.”
“Come on man, it’s your birthday”, Kevin says.
It’s a photo book of photos of all of us, Alice included, from the last ten years of our friendship. I don’t know what to say. What I end up saying is not what I feel.
“We weren’t sure, you know”, Erin tells me, “whether you’d like it or not, but we figured-.”
“Erin, it’s lovely”, I lie, offering a smile to back it up. “It’s very thoughtful of you all. I’ll take a proper look at this later.”
“Right”, Peter calls. “Who’s hungry?”
I try. I try as hard as I can to fit back in, but the truth is, my mind is elsewhere. The photobook sits forlornly back it it’s bag and hung over the back of my chair, a reminder of the person that should be here and isn’t. A thousand reminders actually, all in one convenient place, ready to torment me. It was a fucking stupid idea and they should have known it. Martin should have warned them. It’s him not Alice who occupies the chair to the right, as though she never existed at all. Every single one of them paired up, happy, normal, going about their lives as th
ough nothing has happened at all. Alice was their friend too. She was special to us all, yet I’m the one that can’t cope with her being ripped away from us. I’m the one that knew her like nobody else did.
“Ethan?”, Brendan says for what could be the fourth time. He’s waving slowly at me like he might do to one of his patients, recently woken from a long operation. “What is that like triple strength beer you’re drinking?”
Everyone else is staring at me. It’s funny how when a tragic accident happens, or someone suffers a trauma, men pretend nothing has happened at all and try to carry on with their lives by blocking it out. Women react in a completely different way entirely, and I can see it now. Erin, Rachel, Jacklyn, and Claudia stare at me with barely concealed concern.
“Oh man, sorry, Brendan”, I say, trying to goof my way out of it. “They’ve got me on some pretty strong meds just to help me sleep. It could be that.”
“What did they give you? You know if you need anything else, you know where to come?”
“Brendan the fucking drug merchant, look at you.” Charlie says.
“Dude, I’m a doctor, it’s what I do, it’s part of the job.”
I let them take the conversation and the focus away from me and watch them go at it like they always have, smiling and happy to lose myself in it for a moment.
“Seriously, dude”, Brendan says again, “I can get you basically pure morphine if you need it.”
“Brendan”, Erin chastises him. “Morphine is a fucking pain killer.”
“Just saying. You know.”
Everyone else is shaking their heads.
“Oh come on, there isn’t anybody on this table I haven’t helped out in the past at least once. Don’t look at me like that, Eric, I know you’ve benefitted from the medicine cabinet before.”
“I’m alright, but thanks though, Brendan”, I say. “I’ll come to you if I find myself running low.”
We eat but I’m not hungry, so I end up leaving most of it on the plate. Eric sees it and finishes it off for me, even though Jacklyn gives him shit for it. A couple of months ago, that would have been Alice and me.