Moderate Violence

by Veronica Bennett

  Only a 15, though. Only moderate violence. No one had died.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The pattern on the curtains round the bed looked like caterpillars having sex with slugs. Jo screamed in revulsion. A thin nurse in a pink tunic told her to calm down, and she screamed more. Then someone stuck a needle in her hand.

  All around her were the sounds of people who’d had accidents or emergencies in the middle of the night. Jo stared at the tube embedded in the back of her hand, and at her bandaged leg. She was wearing a washed-out blue hospital gown. Was this still a movie? No, it couldn’t be.

  Tess was sitting on a plastic chair beside the bed. She didn’t look much like she was in a movie. Her face was puffy and her eye make-up had made muddy tracks on her cheeks. She was clutching the arm of a man Jo had never seen before. “Oh my God, oh my God,” she kept saying. “Oh my God.”

  The man was about thirty-five, not bad looking in a heavyset sort of way. His shirt, which had started out white, and his trousers, which had started out a sort of tan colour, were stained with a blotchy red and brown substance. He was in need of a shave, too. “I’m Mark,” he said solemnly. His eyes were very pale blue. “You must be Jo.”

  “Hello,” said Jo. She looked at her mother, who had put her head on the bed and was sobbing into the blanket. “Hello, Tess.”

  Tess’s head came up. “Oh darling!” she wailed. “What have you done?”

  The pillow was soft behind Jo’s head. And she didn’t feel like screaming, or asking any more questions. She just felt sleepy.

  Tess blew her nose noisily on a tissue. “Look at Mark, he looks like a butcher. If we hadn’t come home just then…” She stared into nothing, seeing the scene all over again. “Anyway, he was a hero. He put his tie round your leg.”

  Mark looked at Jo, and she looked back. She was too tired to speak.

  “Just sleep now,” said the nurse. She had pointy cheekbones and pale, freckled skin. Jo wondered how old she was.

  There was a silence. Mark blinked a few times. “Your daddy’s coming all the way from Wales,” he told Jo. “He should be here soon.”

  “If he hasn’t been stopped on the motorway, since he’s probably drunk,” added Tess.

  Jo’s eyes filled with tears. “My daddy,” she said. Then the urge to sleep overwhelmed her, and she didn’t say any more.

  * * * * * *

  When she woke up, Trevor was standing beside her bed. “Hello, Jo-girl,” he said.

  Jo didn’t say anything. Her throat hurt. Her bed was one of two in a side ward. The other bed was empty. A nurse was pushing a creaking trolley along the polished floor. The hospital smelled of hospitals.

  “Tess went home to get some sleep,” said Trevor.

  There was a water jug and plastic beaker on the bedside locker. Jo looked at it, and Trevor poured her some water. Then he helped her drink it. She felt a fool.

  “I feel a fool,” she said croakily.

  “Not half the fool I feel.” A spasm of nervousness passed over Trevor’s face. “You’re not going back to that shop, are you?”

  The thought of the shop, and Toby, and Gordon, made Jo’s stomach hurt. “No,” she whispered. Then, louder, “Do you know what happened, Trev?”

  He nodded. “I think I get the general idea. I could wring their necks, the lot of them.”

  “Don’t do that,” said Jo. “I don’t care any more. Is Holly here?”

  “She was,” said Trevor. “And Pascale. I saw them in the café. It’s not visiting hours till two o’clock, but the nurse let me in because I’ve come all the way from Wales.”

  “And because you’re my dad.”

  “And because I’m that.”

  They looked at each other. “Did Pascale say anything?” asked Jo. “About me?”

  Trevor wasn’t sure what she meant. A question came into his eyes. “Well, she was crying a lot,” he said. “She’s very upset.”

  Jo could imagine it. Deep inside her, way further in than her heart, she knew Pascale hadn’t told Trevor or anyone else about the violence Jo had inflicted on her.

  “Holly’s pretty upset too,” said Trevor with a small sigh. “She’s been a pretty silly girl.”

  “I’ve been just as silly, Trev.” Jo had to say it, though the confession was painful. “Or stupid, more like. Stupid about Toby. I thought – ”

  Her voice cracked. She was trying so hard not to cry that her throat felt as if someone’s thumbs were pressing on both sides of it. This is what it feels like to be strangled, she thought.

  “It’s Toby that’s been stupid, not you.” Trevor had hold of her hand again. He put his other arm around her shoulders and rested his cheek on her hair. “And a liar. If he was my son…well, I just hope his dad’s got something to say to him, that’s all.” He paused before continuing in a softer tone, “but it’s not just that. I wasn’t here for you when I should have been Jo-girl.”

  Trevor’s words had turned the key that had been stuck in her head for so long, and opened the door to the stuff she kept locked up. Hot, insistent tears flooded her cheeks and dripped off her chin. She wiped them away but they didn’t stop. She held onto the front of his sweatshirt, sniffing frantically, hiccupping and snorting, but unable to stop either the tears or the words.

  “His dad works overseas, and he’s horrible to his mum, and she just cleans the house all the time. And Toby got expelled from school in Year Eleven. And Tess is so hopeless, and she’s made everything so difficult for you, and I know you drink a lot but it’s only because you’re unhappy, and neither of you ever seemed to care what I felt like when you had fights all the time, and now she’s got this boyfriend, and you’ll get a girlfriend, and I’ll just be a sort of…spare part.” She let go of his sweatshirt. The tears were subsiding a little. “When you went off to Wales like that and left me with her, I thought ‘he doesn’t care about me’” – she shook her head as Trevor tried to protest – “of course I know you do. But it was just that I didn’t have any say in anything, and I felt like I meant nothing. Nothing, Trevor! I felt like I needed to hurt myself just to make myself realise I was still here.”

  Jo’s chest was still going up and down fast, but she’d stopped crying. Her voice was a whisper. “There just wasn’t usually so much blood,” she said. “I got good at it. I was really, really good at it. But then I wasn’t.”

  Trevor was swaying a little, breathing unevenly. He took one of Jo’s tissues and blew his nose, trying to compose himself, murmuring in Welsh. He only did this when he didn’t know he was doing it.

  When he started speaking English again it was to say, “Your dad’s a bloody idiot, Jo-girl. But I’ll sort it. I’ve told Mord to stuff his bed and breakfast. I want to be with my girl.”

  The possibility of Trevor changing his mind about Wales had never entered Jo’s head. It had never even hovered near her head. “I’ll move into a flat.” He gave a collapsed sort of smile. “And with any luck we’ll be able to keep the house. You’re going to go on living there, with all your things, just like always.”

  Jo digested this. “So you’re going to get a job here, in London?” Her voice still sounded as if she had tonsillitis, though the water had helped.

  “Yep.”

  Compassion swept over her. “You sad old git,” she said. “You never got it, did you?”

  There was something in Trevor’s face Jo had never seen before. He looked like Bruce Willis in Die Hard. He looked like a man who steps up. “No, but I get it now,” he said seriously. “I don’t think Tess will, though. She…” Trying to be kind to Tess, he failed to find the words.

  “She always thinks everything’s about her?” supplied Jo.

  Trevor nodded ruefully.

  “The more she went on about what would her friends think if I didn’t go to university, the more I told her I wasn’t going back to school.”

  He nodded again.

  “Not productive.” Something occurred to Jo. She didn’t want to live w
ith an unhappy, alcohol-dependent man who pretended he was still twenty-five. She had finished with that. But neither did she want to live with a woman who had no need to pretend she was still twenty-five; she was far younger than that, and always would be. “If we do keep the house,” she said, “do you think she might move out, instead of you?”

  “Maybe, if this bloke she’s got comes up with some dosh.” Trevor rested his elbow on the bed and took Jo’s hand. “It’d be bloody excellent, wouldn’t it? I’ll look after you.” The Bruce Willis look was still in his eyes. “In case you’re wondering, I’m going to get myself in a programme. You know, about the drinking. I don’t need it, so I’m going to crack it.”

  He sounded so earnest, Jo smiled. “That’s why you want me with you,” she told him. “To keep you on the wagon.”

  “Rub – bish!” His accent had intensified. Jo saw his face flood with emotion. She watched him struggle for control. It was a few moments before he spoke. “I can do it on my own, but I don’t want to,” he said quietly. “I miss you, that’s the truth. I want you to come home and live in our house, and go to school and me go to work, just like it was. Only this time, I won’t act like such a tosser.”

  Something began to nag at the edges of Jo’s mind. A memory, a note struck by Trevor’s words. What was she thinking of? Older boys…Ed can be such a tosser sometimes…so can older boys…who are you cheating on Ed with?

  Pascale had never told her about the nameless dark-haired boy who let Poins do card tricks with him. Had she told Ed? By now, Ed would surely know about what had happened at Holly’s house, too. She thought about Ed for a moment. Then she raised herself off the pillows, leaning on her elbows, and looked at her father. “Look, I’ll think about going back to school, OK?”

  He tried not to look triumphant. Jo was touched. “Though of course, it depends on my results,” she added.

  “When are they out?”

  Jo considered. Time had gone bonkers lately. Her fight with Toby and Holly had taken place on Monday, the day Pascale had got home from Spain. The attack on Pascale and the unedifying scene in Toby’s kitchen had both happened on the same evening, which must have been Tuesday. But was that last night, or longer ago?

  “Is today Wednesday?” she asked.

  Trevor nodded.

  “Not tomorrow, but the Thursday after, then,” she said. “The twenty-third. And I’m supposed to go and see Mr Treasure on the twenty-eighth.”

  She lay down again, watching Trevor, who rubbed his forehead, embarrassed at the memory. “I never did make that appointment with him, did I?”

  “Nope.” Jo had forgiven him long ago. “But it doesn’t matter now.”

  Trevor looked at his watch. “Talking of appointments, the doc said she’s coming to see you before visiting time. I’ll make myself scarce, shall I?” He kissed her on both cheeks. “I’ll just be downstairs.”

  “Thanks, Trev,” said Jo, meaning it. “For…you know, coming back.”

  He nodded, and kissed her again. As he left the ward, he almost collided with the doctor, a young Asian woman. Under her harassed expression Jo could see the beauty she always envied, the gold-dark beauty of Asian women. They had brown hair like her own, but theirs always stayed up, and was thick enough to decorate gorgeously with combs and jewels. She wondered what Doctor Mandani would look like with her hair decorated.

  “Blood pressure not great, but not terrible,” said the doctor, looking at Jo’s notes. “You lost quite a lot of blood, so we’ve got to keep an eye on it.”

  “Why did I lose so much?” Jo had been longing to ask this question ever since she’d realized that the substance which had ruined Mark’s shirt and trousers was her own blood.

  The doctor looked at Jo calmly. “You’d done it before, we could tell by the scars. And you’ve been lucky, because the top of your leg’s a dodgy place to choose. Did you know there’s a big artery there?”

  Jo nodded, feeling childish. She did know that.

  “Well, this time you got a bit too near it,” said Doctor Mandani. “Any further and it could have been a lot worse.”

  Jo considered this while the doctor took her pulse. “People have bled to death from that artery, haven’t they?” she asked her.

  “They have. Now shush, I’m counting.”

  Jo thought a bit more while she waited. “When can I go home?” she asked when the doctor released her wrist.

  “Tomorrow, maybe. I’ll come and see you in the morning.” The doctor wrote in Jo’s folder, slotted it into the pocket at the bottom of the bed and put her pen back in her pocket. “It’s visiting time now. But afterwards I want you to go to sleep.” She smiled briefly. Her teeth were small and even. “See you tomorrow.”

  Jo closed her eyes, hoping no one would visit her. She couldn’t stand the thought of Holly and Pascale trooping in with pinched faces, each thinking they were the one Jo had treated worse. The truth was, she’d treated them equally badly, reducing them to labels on the backs of DVDs, in an insane attempt to convince herself she was in control of them.

  “Coo-ee!” It was Tess. She plonked a bouquet of roses on the bed and kissed Jo. “How’s my darling girl?”

  “I’m all right. I’m sorry about your boyfriend’s clothes.”

  Tess smiled happily. Her hair was held back by a pink headband that matched her skirt. Her lipstick was an exact match too. “Oh, I shouldn’t worry about that. Mark can afford plenty of new ones.” She widened her eyes at Jo. “Did you like him? He’s sweet, isn’t he?”

  Unexpectedly, Jo felt a rush of affection. “Yes, he’s sweet, Tess.”

  “And he was so competent, when we came home and found you…you know.” Tess’s eyes sparkled with pride. “I was in a state, as you can imagine, but he just took off his tie – a silk one, designer – and made a what’s-it-called out of it – ”

  “A tourniquet,” supplied Jo.

  “That’s right. And he’s paid to have the bedroom carpet cleaned, too. He’s just such a darling. You do like him, don’t you?”

  Trevor was right; Tess would never get it. “I absolutely adore him,” she said.

  “Oh, Jo!” Tess’s eyes filled, but she blinked the tears away. “By the way, Holly and Pascale send their love.”

  “Are they here?” asked Jo. A small wave of panic lapped at her. “Trevor said he saw them downstairs in the café.”

  “I saw them too. I said they could come up to see you after two o’clock, but Holly said they thought it was better if it was just me and your dad, I can’t think why. I mean, they’re your best buds, aren’t they?” She shifted discontentedly in the chair. “I don’t know why they bothered to come to this vile place if they don’t want to see you. Anyway, I’ve given you their love, like they asked.”

  Good old Holly, thought Jo. Always sensible. Always aware of how other people feel. The concern she and Pascale felt for Jo was clear to everyone except Tess. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to see Jo, it was that Jo didn’t want to see them, and Holly knew it.

  “I expect they’ll pop in later,” she said, to placate her mother. But she knew they wouldn’t. The world the three of them had inhabited for so long had fallen over.

  * * * * * *

  The bit of sky Jo could see from the window had turned purply-blue, and she had switched on the light above her bed, when a nurse brought her a pink envelope which had been left for her at the nurses’ station.

  The envelope bore the words ‘Miss Joanna Probert’ in very familiar writing. Jo had witnessed that writing’s creation, over the last 11 years. She had seen it through line-ignoring almost-letters, through a twelve-year-old’s experiments with curls, loops and circles over the i’s, to the teacher-pleasing clarity she now saw so often, and sometimes copied.

  She tore open the envelope. Holly had written three words on the pink paper. One of them was the S-word Jo had never been able to extract from Toby. The others were ‘Call you?’ She must have gone home from the hospital that afternoon, s
at down at her L-shaped desk, agonized over those three words, then come all the way back to deliver the note, and get the bus all the way home again. Alone, without telling anyone. Somehow, the trouble she had gone to was comforting.

  Jo sank back against the pillow, the note in her hand. Poor Holly. Jo had labelled her ‘Fairly adult’, when all the time she was floundering in waters she shouldn’t have stepped into, like a child who couldn’t swim. She knew she would forgive Holly for not telling her about Toby straight away. She almost had already, really.

  Thinking about Holly made Jo think about Toby. Accepting, denying, accepting and denying again, perhaps for years. Universal viewing, suitable for all? Maybe not. His face appeared, his grey eyes dark, the pupils large. They bore into her, full of the desire to be forgiven. But how could she forgive him? He had admitted the truth to Holly, but he hadn’t told her.

  Things might be clear, but they were no less hurtful. Toby had tried to be Jo’s boyfriend, but he hadn’t given up his clubbing friends, or spent time with her friends. He’d stuck up for Jo about the mystery shopper, but now it was obvious why he’d been prepared to take such a risk with his job. He’d known Gordon wouldn’t sack him.

  She’d told him she loved him, but he knew she couldn’t have really. That’s why he’d changed the subject. And deep down she’d known she didn’t. Especially after what he did in the taxi. In hindsight he’d tried to have sex with her in a place he knew she would refuse to do it, so that he didn’t have to do it either. He’d acted aggressive and disappointed, when really he must have been relieved. And he’d told her that ridiculous story about being drugged and getting his phone stolen to cover the night he’d been with Mitch. Maybe she should have worked the whole thing out.