After Ever After

by Rowan Coleman

  ‘You want a game?’ Kelly Simms calls out to me.

  ‘Nah, better get back,’ I tell her, but I’m slow up the steps, letting my satchel slip gradually off my shoulder and down my arm until it bumps along after me, smacking against each concrete step. I am hoping the builder will be gone when I get in, because he’s been there both of the previous days and I haven’t liked him and his stupid jokes and impressions. He wanted to make Mum laugh all the time and he teased me about the flowers I brought her. Only me and Dad should be making my mum laugh, and I know that Mum loved the flowers because when she took each bunch from me she smiled and kissed my hair, saying, ‘I’m the luckiest mum in the world to have such a thoughtful girl.’

  When I finally reached our door it was open a little, resting quietly on the latch. I pushed it open and stood in the hallway. The radio was on somewhere, playing Brotherhood of Man, ‘Save All Your Kisses For Me’.

  ‘Mum,’ I shout out much louder than the small flat merits. ‘Mum!’

  I push open the bedroom door and stick my head round. Maybe she’s gone to sleep with the radio on again. Mum can do that. She can sleep through a herd of elephants, Dad says; it drives him mad. But the room is empty; the turquoise bedspread is still rumpled from this morning and the radio sits on it. An older child might have thought to turn it off, but I just turn on my heel and walk back out, still clutching my rapidly wilting spray of blossom. Mum’s not in the kitchen or the living room, the bathroom or my room. She must have gone next door to Mrs Anderton’s and left the door on the latch so I can get in. I have my own keys, but maybe she’s forgotten. I go to the kitchen, set the flowers on the counter and find the biscuit jar, take one biscuit out and replace the lid. Then I stand there for a moment and, shrugging, lift the whole jar down and take it with me into the living room. I switch on the TV; it’s Scooby Doo. I watch it for a while, kicking my feet restlessly against the base of the armchair and eating four biscuits in a continuous, mesmerised row. It turns out it was the caretaker in a mask – again. I sigh and switch the TV off, faintly angry with Mum for not being here to make me a drink and ask me how my day was. I jump out of the chair with the biscuit tin under my arm. If I put it back now she’ll never know and I can go and play hopscotch after all. It’s then that I hear a thud from Mum and Dad’s bedroom, followed by silence. I listen for a moment before I realise: the radio has stopped playing. I pad back to the bedroom door.

  ‘Mum?’ I call out again. ‘Are you back?’

  I push open the door, wondering if I can get the biscuit jar back on to the shelf without her noticing. But the room is empty. I frown and look around, and then I see it: the rumpled bedspread has somehow fallen off the far side of the bed, taking the radio with it. I breathe a sigh of relief. Mum won’t catch me stuffing my face before tea after all. I jump on the bed, diving across its expanse to retrieve the radio, and there she is.

  Her eyes are wide with panic; both her hands are closed over her throat. She’s bleeding through her fingers, her chest is heaving, her mouth is moving, but she can’t seem to speak. I stare at her. It is my mum, lying on the floor between the bed and the window with a hole in her neck, a dense black cloud gathering beneath her. I am frozen to the spot, can’t move. Mum presses her lips together and, maybe with her last ounce of strength, raises herself up a little and smiles. She smiles because she knows that I am afraid.

  ‘Get. Help,’ she whispers, her dry lips still twisted into a smile.

  ‘Mummy?’ I clutch the bedclothes close to my chest. I can see she is afraid too.

  I leap off of the bed and run next door. As soon as I’m outside it’s like I wake up – the noise of reality pollutes my ears. I bang on Mrs Anderton’s door again and again, I slam my body against it screaming, I’m screaming.

  They didn’t let me see her again. I knew she was afraid and that she needed me, but Mrs Anderton made her teenage daughter hold me on her lap until the ambulance had gone. I begged her to let me go, let me go to Mum and put my arms around her and tell her it was going to be all right. She died before she got to hospital. It was probably the builder, but they never caught him.

  It’s always the same. For a few minutes after I’ve said it out loud, I feel numbed, as if each of the few times I’ve recounted that moment has pulverised what remains of my nerve endings until I almost don’t feel it any more. I watch a gust of wind racing up the hillside, knocking the tall grass flat in its wake until finally it steals my breath from out of my mouth. How strange that I should be retelling this again almost on the anniversary of her death, almost twenty-four years exactly since she was killed, almost all her ‘lifetime’, almost all of mine lived again without her.

  Gareth says nothing and I’m glad of it. Instead, as if from a distance, I feel his arm circle around my shoulder and pull my stiff body forcibly into his embrace. His cold lips brush my temple.

  ‘I knew you were like me,’ he says eventually. ‘We are the same kind of people. I knew it from the first moment I saw you. I thought, what’s a girl like that doing with a life like this?’

  I listen mutely, watching the clouds chase over our heads as we fall back on to the prickly grass with a thud. For one terrifying moment I can feel the earth turning.

  ‘Some people,’ Gareth says into my ear, his fingers still gripping my shoulder, ‘are survivors, and others are victims – they can’t help it, it’s just the way they are born.’ He rolls on to his side, closing any of the remaining distance between us, watching me closely. ‘Take Clare, for instance. Victim. It wouldn’t matter if she won the lottery tomorrow – she’d still let anyone do anything to her. Not like you and me, though. I know what it’s like to be fucked up, and now I don’t let anyone treat me like that twice.’

  His words catch my attention on their returning ebb after the first flow has washed over my head. I turn my neck stiffly to face him.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I say, forcing myself to focus on him. This is not the reaction I had expected. I’d expected a sweet gesture of empathy from him, the kind of care he shows to his plants or his watercolours. Not a declaration of war.

  ‘I mean you and me like this. In each other’s arms. This is what you need.’

  It occurs to me at exactly the same moment that his mouth closes over mine, and his tongue forces my lips apart, that nothing he’s said so far makes any sense, but still I can’t seem to move in response. His kiss fills my mouth, his fingers pull at my hair, and his pelvis grinds against my hips, and I let it happen, my eyes wide open, letting the summer speed by. Here on the highest point of this hilltop I feel a thousand feet under water, drowning, painless and numb.

  Then he breaks his embrace and I feel my damp lips chapping in the hot breeze as he leans back, his eyes hot gold.

  ‘I’ve wanted to do this to you since day one,’ he says, his cold dry fingers finding their way under my T-shirt and pushing the material into a bunch under my neck. I shake my head as if I’m trying to lose an angry wasp, but still I’m only rising towards reality.

  It’s when I see his fingers squeezing and pinching my skin that I truly realise what I’m allowing to happen, and I gasp for air, jerking in shock and anger. Prising my arms from between our bodies I close my fingers over his wrist and stop his hand, digging my nails in hard.

  ‘Just wait,’ I say, pulling his fingers away from me with a small smile, forming an escape strategy even as I disengage him. ‘I don’t think this is the right thing to do right now. I’m not ready for this, I’m sorry.’

  From the moment he turned up in the van to the moment he asked me to talk about my mum, he was playing me, still doggedly going after his prey, refusing to admit defeat. I’ve pushed this whole charade as far as it can go only to find I don’t want this feeling any more. I don’t want to be cut loose and floating with the tide. I smile and hope he won’t take it as an out-and-out rejection. I hope he’ll just let it go.

  Gareth half laughs, shaking his head as if puzzled or embarrassed maybe, and sits up
, still astride me. I breathe out gratefully as he lifts his weight off me and begins to pull my T-shirt back down.

  ‘Thanks. I know you must think I’ve been sending mixed messages, but …’

  Still laughing, he catches both my wrists in one hand and presses them into the ground above my head. He’s not exactly rough, and his smile is fixed in an expression of tenderness, but somehow it’s almost like autopilot. His mind seems switched off behind those eyes, as if he’s seeing only my body and not me at all.

  ‘Great tits,’ he says bluntly, and with his free hand he pushes my bra up painfully over my breasts until they are bare, the too-tight wire cutting and pinching. I pull my hands free, but then he uses both hands to stop me and lowers his head. I squeal as I feel his teeth grate on my skin.

  ‘Gareth!’ I say over his head. ‘Please just wait a minute, please. I don’t like this. You’re hurting me!’

  He moans softly in reply but he doesn’t stop, he doesn’t ease the pressure on my arms, and when I try to move he presses his weight ever more firmly against me.

  ‘Gareth!’

  My angry shout echoes in the empty air loud enough to shock him and at last I buck free of him, breaking his attention, and roll away from him. I sit up and pull my T-shirt over my sore and saliva-damp torso. I want to cry for a moment, but I hold my breath until it passes. It’s just Gareth, it’s just us.

  ‘Christ, didn’t you even hear me then?’ I slide back away from him across the grass, desperate to put a physical space between us. ‘I don’t want this, all right? Just friends, we said.’

  I’ve been in situations like this before in the past, when a man really doesn’t understand you’re not interested, and sometimes I wonder why should they? I’ve climbed half naked into bed with some men I’ve no intention of sleeping with, winding them up and up, certain of my right to say no when I want to, and sometimes when I haven’t felt so strong-minded I’ve had sex with them just so I could go home without a fuss. But all of that was before Fergus. I’m not that person any more. I don’t use my body in that way any longer. I shouldn’t even be here, I should never have put either Gareth or me into this situation, just using him to test how I felt about Fergus and my fantasies and dreams.

  And now I know one thing for sure: maybe Fergus and I were fools to rush into our life together so quickly, but even if we can’t make it work I don’t want this. I don’t want to betray Fergus this way with a man I don’t love or care about.

  ‘Why don’t we just forget about it and go back?’ I say with bravado. ‘I’ll be late otherwise.’ I hope he won’t ask what exactly it is I’m going to be late for. I have no excuse ready.

  Gareth sits back on his heels and watches me for a moment, takes a deep breath, and then smiles, the same sweet smile he had the day he showed me his painting of the garden plan.

  ‘Of course, but look, I know what you’re going through. You’re not sure if this is what you want, you feel responsible and guilty. That’s okay, I understand.’

  I try to keep the edge of gratitude out of my returning voice and allow myself a small sigh of relief, hoping the wind will sweep away any sign that he has frightened me. Seemingly oblivious he sits with his back to me, his head bent as if he’s intently studying the grass between his legs. ‘Look, you’ve been through a lot of stuff, I understand all of that and you don’t have to worry. Sometimes we make the wrong choices, say the wrong things, but it doesn’t matter.’

  I hear a sudden snap like the dull twang of an elastic band. ‘All you have to do is relax. I’ll do all the hard stuff.’

  Gareth turns back to me still smiling, his flies open, his penis full and hard and sheathed with a condom. The fear, anger and anxiety dissolve in seconds; I have never seen a more ridiculous sight in my whole life.

  ‘Gareth!’ I squeal, clapping my hands over my mouth, unable to suppress a giggle that spurts between my closed fingers. ‘What the … what the hell do you think you’re doing?’

  Tears prick at the corners of my eyes. I’ve seen some pretty appalling attempts at seduction in my time, but this has to be the worst. If it wasn’t for the total impropriety of the situation in the first place, I just know that it would make Dora and Camille scream with laughter if only I could tell them.

  Gareth’s smile freezes on his face.

  ‘What? I’m being safe, aren’t I? You don’t know what’s about these days.’ He waddles on his knees towards me, his dick bobbing gently as he approaches, and I laugh all the harder, hysterical now with disbelief.

  ‘Come on, Kitty, I’ll lose it if you keep this up,’ Gareth says impatiently, grabbing hold of my ankle.

  I bite my lip and smile at him. ‘Listen, this isn’t going to happen, all right? Just …’ I try not to look at his crotch, fearful that I won’t be able to control myself. ‘Just take it off and let’s go home and forget all about it, okay?’

  I can’t help but sound patronising, and in that instant I know I’ve made a terrible mistake. Even the fake smile has fallen from his face like a shadow evaporating in the sun. I’ve made him angry. He pulls on my leg hard, tipping me on to my back, and my head bounces off the hard turf. I laugh again and try to wriggle free, but his fingers dig sharply into my calf as he drags me across the grass towards him, lunging forward and throwing his body hard on to mine. He knocks the breath out of me and I can hardly speak.

  ‘Gareth,’ I gasp. ‘I said stop it.’ My breath is heavy and laboured and I worry he’ll think I’m enjoying it – worrying now when it’s too late. I gasp for air. ‘I’m sorry I laughed, this isn’t funny now so just stop it.’ He does not look at me as one hand goes to my jeans, loosening the button fly in one jerking movement and pulling hard at the material until it’s midway over my thighs, biting into my flesh. I open my mouth again but before I speak he gags me with his tongue. This time it’s nothing like a kiss, and I begin to retch as he forces himself in my mouth. I feel his fingers dig their way between my thighs, prising them apart, and I try to struggle but I can’t move.

  I try to close myself up but it’s impossible, and then he’s there inside me and that’s the only place, he is the only place there is in the world. I stop moving then, I stop struggling, sensing that he wants me to, and I wait, feeling the sharp ends of the rough grass graze my cheek, a small outcrop of rock bite into my back.

  It isn’t long, just a few seconds, less than a minute, and he shudders to a halt, withdrawing from me at almost the same moment and rolling on to his back. I’m afraid to move, to say anything that might provoke him again. I overstepped the mark, I took it too far. I’ve let another man have sex with me. I’ve betrayed Fergus. I’ve betrayed myself. I’ve let this happen.

  ‘I told you if I didn’t get a move on I’d lose it,’ he says mildly after a minute. ‘I’m sorry it was over so quick. It’s your fault. You turned me on too fucking much with all that protesting! I’ll try to hold on to it next time.’

  I carefully pull my jeans up, sitting up and pushing my hair out of my eyes, wiping the back of my hand across my mouth, fighting with whatever is left of my free will the urge to weep. If he wants to be conversational that’s fine, anything’s fine as long as he doesn’t touch me again and I get home. The skin around my mouth and neck tingles; he must have grazed me with his stubble. I’ll need to moisturise.

  ‘Will you take me home now please?’ I say, surprised at how even my voice sounds and appalled at how cowed.

  ‘Don’t you want a cuddle?’ Gareth sits up, pulling off the condom and throwing it into the grass. ‘Most girls want a cuddle after a shag.’ He smiles at me with luminous, delighted eyes, his genuine nonchalance making me doubt everything that has happened in the last few minutes all the more.

  ‘No. I want to go home. Just take me home, okay?’ I manage a weak smile. ‘I’m tired,’ I add, hoping he’ll take that as a compliment.

  Gareth shrugs and climbs to his feet, holding out a hand for me. I force myself to take it and let him pull me up, although I’m
certain my legs will collapse from underneath me the moment I’m vertical.

  I swallow hard and concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other as he leads me down the hill, waiting for the exact moment when I can drop his hand without him taking it the wrong way. My mind races. It’s clear by the way he’s swinging his arms and humming to himself that he wants us both to pretend this was consensual. That I never told him I didn’t want it, or not until it was too late, anyway. I feel my skin still shrinking over my flesh at the thought of his touch, and I swallow hard.

  If that’s what I let him believe, what do I tell myself? Or Fergus? What do I call it? Gravity pulls me faster down the steep incline until I break free from his hold and run the last few steps to the van, slamming against its doors.

  ‘Blimey, someone’s feeling perky,’ Gareth smirks as he unlocks the passenger door. I scramble in and wind down the window, desperate to let some oxygen into the airless vacuum. The plastic seat covering is hot to the touch and sticks against the bare skin of my arms.

  Before he turns on the ignition, Gareth looks at me and leans over to plant a kiss on my cheek.

  ‘Come on,’ I say carefully. ‘Clare’ll be bringing Ella back soon.’

  Gareth shrugs and pulls the van out on to the road.

  ‘I thought you were going to pick her up?’ he says, and I realise that he’s right. This time it’s as if he senses my desperation, and he drives all the more slowly, almost leisurely, with his elbow resting on the open window as he hums along to the radio. The urgency of this morning’s bone-rattling trip is all but gone. Of course, that’s why he asked me about Mum; he couldn’t have known what my story was, but he must have guessed it would be something that would make me vulnerable, emotionally ripe for comforting and eventually more. Except he’d skipped the platitudes and gone straight for the physical. He must have planned his ‘seduction’ before meeting me at the canal. He must have been following me, just waiting for the right moment. I suppress the urge to scream at him to go faster or to jump out of the van door, knowing that I have no idea where I am or how to get home. And gradually, eventually, the empty roads turn into villages and then towns and then the first houses of Berkhamsted open up in cul-de-sacs and avenues until the buildings bristle and thicken into the high street.