by Winnie M. Li
They offer her eight free sessions. She can start as early as this afternoon, if she likes.
She books in a session at 3pm with Ellen. The call finishes.
She looks at her watch. Her sister is arriving in a few hours.
As she sits on the couch, she realizes she can feel anger at least. This must be a good thing. She’s not totally dead to the world.
Her sister, Serena, has made the journey from Heathrow to her flat before, but she emailed the directions again yesterday.
Somewhere at the back of her mind, she’s aware of how big a trip Serena has made. Seven-hour drive from Eastern California to San Francisco International. Eleven-hour flight to London.
And then, immigration, baggage reclaim, one hour on the Tube to Vauxhall. It’s not an insignificant journey.
A little after 12:30, the intercom buzzes.
Three minutes later, she’s opening the door to let Serena in, and there is her older sister, wire-rimmed glasses, hair in a ponytail, backpack and suitcase. Looking student-y and unglamorous at the age of thirty-four.
They hug briefly – they’ve never been much of a hugging family. She leads her down the hallway to the kitchen.
“How are you?” Serena asks. There’s a note of concern that she’s not used to hearing in her sister’s voice.
She shrugs. Flicks on the kettle to make tea.
“As good as you can imagine.”
Serena’s still standing, goes over to her backpack, digs out a plastic sleeve full of papers and hands it over.
“Here, I printed these out for you.”
She leafs through the print-outs. Internet pages of RASASC, Rape Crisis Centre, Samaritans, various helplines for victims of crime.
“I also emailed some of them to you as links.”
She nods. She remembers looking at some of these webpages, but the thought of dialing up a number and having to explain (to a stranger) what happened (once more) is less than appealing. It would take too much energy, and she hardly has enough energy to get off the couch.
“Yeah, I looked at some of those.”
“Have you called them yet?”
“I haven’t gotten around to it, no.”
“Do you want me to call them for you?”
“Maybe.” She leaves it at that. She really just wants to drink Earl Grey tea and crawl back under the duvet.
World, please go away. Let’s just take a break from each other, okay?
Serena’s still standing and seems a little confused.
“So what do you have to do today?”
A plan? A schedule? Ah yes, I once used to schedule my days out.
“I have some counselling appointment at this place called The Haven at 3. Then I have to go into town and do some errands I’ve been putting off. I guess we can walk around Hyde Park a bit, if you want.”
“Is there anything you want me to do for you?”
“You can just… come along with me to these things. I don’t really like being on my own at the moment.”
Serena nods. It’s an odd confession to make.
Yes, I’m a freak. Your younger sister is a freak now.
The kettle flicks off. The water’s boiled.
“Do you want some tea?”
*
Only an hour or so on the bus, and it’s been sliding in and out of towns that all look the same. High street, church, post office, pubs – all empty this early in the morning.
Except some of these towns have Union Jacks all over the place. Literally, every single fucking lamp post and flagpole.
Glad they’re so proud to be British, but honestly what difference does it make? Her Majesty’s done fuck-all for me, so stop flying this shite in our faces.
No, he’s glad to be leaving Belfast, he’ll be better off in Dublin. Disappear into the crowd there. You’re just another pavee boy, not worth nothing.
The bus comes to a stop in a bigger town, right by a shiny new bus station, by the side of a river.
They pull into one of the bays, the engine shuts off.
“Newry,” the driver shouts. “Last stop before the Republic. We’ll be here ten minutes.” Then steps out for a smoke.
He’d fucking kill for a smoke now. Something to calm him down. He looks down and he’s shaking his knee like crazy. No, just stay put. Almost over the border now.
He pulls himself deeper into the seat and closes his eyes.
Musta only fallen asleep for a few minutes, but they’re still parked and people are buying tickets at the front of the bus. Guess everyone wants to get out of this town.
Come on, just sell the last fucking ticket and let’s get going.
He’s fiddling with his iPod, trying to find something he hasn’t heard a hundred times when he clocks a car driving across the bridge, straight towards them.
Driving fast, like someone desperate to make the bus.
The last two people are on the steps now, about to buy their tickets, but he wishes they’d shut the doors already.
That manky blue car looks familiar.
And then he realises. Uncle Rory’s car.
They’ve fucking followed him here. Not just Uncle Rory. Da’s gotta be in there.
His insides turn to water. Get the fuck out of here.
He looks around, frantic, but there’s no other exit, just the front door of the bus. The windows are too small to climb out.
At the front, the driver’s done selling the last tickets.
Shut the fucking door, start the engine!
He’d run right up there now and beg the driver, but no, has to keep his head down, stay in the shadows.
Now the door slides shut and the engine starts up.
He looks out the window again. The blue car’s stopped, the door opens, and yes, there’s Da. Stepping out, breaking into a run at the bus. Uncle Rory’s running, too, a pace behind Da.
He flattens himself onto the seat. Praying that the bus will just take off now, the driver won’t notice, but now he hears voices shouting, the door opening again.
Da’s voice, all apologies, the way he does the holy show for buffers.
“…Looking for me boy,” he hears Da say. “…He’s run off again. He can’t take care of himself…”
Aw, fuck off now, Da.
From where he is, he scans the floor of the bus. Get down, hide yourself under the seat, maybe they won’t find you.
Da’s still mumbling. “It’ll just be a minute…”
He hears slow footsteps coming down the aisle, pausing at each seat. “So sorry, just looking for me boy.”
The floor of the bus is cold and smells like puke, the bottom of the seats torn open.
“Are youse almost finished?” the driver calls out. “I’ve got a schedule I gotta keep to here.”
Turn around, Da, and head out. You don’t see me here.
But he sees Da’s boots coming closer, coming closer, just one row of seats away.
I’m not here. I’m invisible.
A sudden swish and he’s grabbed by the collar, jerked back hard. Slammed up against a seat and Da’s eyes boring into his, furious and silent.
“Nice try, Johnny.”
*
At The Haven near King’s College Hospital in Camberwell, she sits with her sister in a small waiting room. It’s in one of those row cottages that cluster up and down English streets, with crooked doors that don’t quite open or close properly.
The walls are painted a pale pink, the furniture nondescript. She’s staring at six-month-old women’s magazines, thumbed through repeatedly by strangers. All rape victims or their companions who waited here nervously before her.
“Vivian Tan?”
She looks up and sees a short, middle-aged woman, with curly grey hair and a tired demeanor.
“I’m Ellen.”
Ellen is uninspiring. If your counsellor seems tired before you even begin the session, what hope do you have? Still, she follows her down a short-ceilinged corridor to a small, bare room.
The door closes and she’s aware of a clock ticking very loudly in the room. Tick tick tick. That’ll get old fast. On the walls, there’s nothing but a framed image of a vase of flowers. At the window, vertical blinds dissect a view of the adjoining, sunny garden into stripes.
“Please, be seated.”
A box of tissues sits on the table between them.
Ellen has a notebook out and a pen in her hand. She’s still not smiling.
She wonders how many notes Ellen will write in the next hour.
“So, Vivian. Tell me what happened.”
She knits her brow, reluctant to start the whole story again.
But the clock ticks, and she knows she somehow has to get through the next sixty minutes in this tiny room. No point in putting the thing off.
She begins: “So, I was in Belfast last week.”
*
The whole drive back to Belfast, Da is in a black mood. Uncle Rory drives, his thick head nodding, pretending he don’t hear nothing, but he knows he’s listening in. Thinking how much better his own sons are than Mick Sweeney’s no-good boys.
Fuck you, Uncle Rory.
Da’s hand is on the back of his neck the entire fucking time, like a vise.
“Budge off, Da.” He squirms. “I won’t try to bolt.”
“Ain’t trusting you no more, Johnny.” Da won’t even look at him, keeps his eyes out the window. “Throw a party for you last night and this is what you do.”
Outside, the same old towns and hills roll past in reverse. Eventually, Da’s hand relaxes on his neck, but it’s still there. It still won’t move.
“They’re gonna put you in handcuffs, they’re gonna read some things to you.” Da is saying this to him now as they sit parked on the street outside Willowfield Police Station. The car door’s locked.
He wonders what the handcuffs will feel like round his wrists. Wishes he could ask Michael.
“You don’t say nothing, just nod and say you understand. I’ll be there, but they ask you anything, don’t say nothing. And don’t fight.”
Outside the window, police are going back and forth between the station and their cars. One or two look over at them.
“Then they’ll have us call a solicitor. He’ll be there to help us. So don’t say nothing about what happened with the woman in the park, till that solicitor shows. You got that?”
He looks back at Da. Nods.
“I’m warning you, Johnny. This is important. All this affects what’ll happen to you.”
Like you fucking care what happens to me, Da.
“Sure, Da. Got it. Happy now?”
“Right, let’s go on then.”
Uncle Rory reaches out an awkward arm. “You take care of yourself, Johnny. When you get out, I’ll take you over to England, have you meet some of your cousins there.”
He don’t give a fuck about his ten thousand cousins who are in England, rattling around in caravans over there. There’s only one person he gives a fuck about right now.
“Before we go in, can we call Michael?”
Da looks at him strange.
But there’s Mick Sweeney, taking his phone out, pressing a button, handing it over.
It rings.
Come on, pick up, pick up, Michael.
What’ll he say? Yeah, Da nabbed me in the end, but tell me what do I do when I’m inside…
Da looks away, a vein in his temple pulsing.
But there’s nothing.
Michael probably saw a call from Da, didn’t want to answer.
Something crumples inside him. He hands the phone back, not a word.
“Let’s go then,” Da says. And opens his car door.
He gets out, and him and Da stand there on the street, looking at the police station. A great fucking barricade all round the building, with barbed wire curling round the top.
The sky is darker now, and he feels the first drops of rain coming on. Thick, fat drops on the back of his neck. The concrete steps lead up to the police station entrance. Nowhere else to go but inside.
*
“She said, ‘We’re here to provide a space for you to talk about your feelings.’”
Serena smirks. “What does that even mean?”
“Beats me. If I want to talk about my feelings, I’ll do it with my friends. Not to some random awkward woman I don’t even know.”
“Hm, well, maybe it’ll get better.”
“Maybe.” But she’s not hopeful.
They’re sitting that afternoon in Hyde Park, in a soft hollow below a slope. There’s still a crispness in the air, but clumps of wilting daffodils dot the grass. She’s spread out her jacket on the ground, past where the shadows of the trees end. They seem strangely protected in the cup of the earth, green grass around them, sun on their faces.
She closes her eyes, soaks in the sunlight, hears the bark of dogs and the chatter of passersby she can’t see.
“Are you okay?” Serena asks after a few minutes.
“Not really.” She skims the palm of her hand over the top of the grass. “So, what’d you tell Mom and Dad when you said you were coming over here?”
“I didn’t. I said I had a business trip to somewhere else. New York, I think.”
“Oh, that’s smart.”
She realizes she hasn’t spoken to their mom in over a week. Can’t even begin to fathom how she’ll handle that conversation without mentioning the attack.
“Did Mom ask about me?” she asks Serena.
“Yeah, she did, I told her you were really busy after your trip, but would get in touch when you were free.”
That’s all true enough, in its own weird way.
“When you do eventually talk to her, just keep it brief, try to sound normal,” Serena says. “But I think it’s really important that Mom and Dad don’t find out.”
She doesn’t need to ask why. She agrees. She starts to pluck off the tips of the grass blades and curls them up into balls.
“Just… I think they’ll freak out. I know they’ll freak out. They’ll come running to me because I’m a lawyer, but I don’t even know how to handle this.”
“They’ll want me to move back to New Jersey.”
“Would you want that?”
“Are you frickin’ kidding me?”
She imagines, for a moment, moving into that old bedroom in the suburbs, the one she worked so hard to escape. What would she do with her time? No friends in Edgewood anymore, no job, not even a car. Stuck with her bickering parents, working in their shop again, pretending to be friendly to the same old customers. Neighbors who have never traveled, never left their dead-end street in suburbia.
No, anything but moving back in with her parents. She’d rather handle everything on her own here in London. Single, with not much money, living with two flatmates, sleeping on that blow-up mattress overlooking the Thames. This is the closest thing to home for her.
What they don’t bother to discuss is how their parents would actually react. Mom would burst into tears in an instant, her voice growing shrill and strained. I told you to always be careful! I told you not to go hiking on your own! And Dad. Dad would just clam up, grow silent and angry, and later blame Mom for encouraging her daughters to be so reckless and independent.
“Yeah, don’t worry,” she tells Serena. “I’ll keep it from them.”
Not that it was ever in question.
The sun has clouded over, and it’s become chilly. She shivers and puts on her jacket.
She feels guilty, somehow, keeping a secret this big and momentous. This deliberate act of deception, children concealing the truth from their parents. But there is so much they already don’t know about her adult life. This is just one more thing.
*
There’s a drawing of him on the wall behind the peelers’ counter. Don’t quite look like him. They got his hair right and his freckles, but the eyes are like some mental version of him, like he’s been locked up in a crazy house his whole life.
YOUTH, 14–18 YEARS OF AGE
WANTED FOR ALLEGED RAPE
He wants to point to it and say: “Your artist is shite.”
But Da’s doing all the talking, the peelers nodding all-important. Like when he went with Mam to the station in Kilkenny, Michael’s first arrest. The peelers looked at them like they were scum. They’re looking the same way at him now.
“Johnny, is that your name?” the fat one says to him.
He nods.
“Right, it’s good that you’ve come here of your own accord. Let me just show you into a room now, while I make a few phone calls.”
Da looks at him.
“Come on, over this way,” the peeler says. His two chins wobble. Opens up a door and waits for him to go on over like a dog.
One look back at Da.
“I’ll be right here. Go on now, Johnny.”
He steps into a small, bare room. Behind him, a click as the door is locked.
“On the afternoon of Saturday, April 12th, were you in the area of Glen Forest Park in West Belfast?”
It’s the man in charge asking him this, some man named Morrison. Wearing a suit, youngish, don’t even look like a peeler.
He don’t answer right away, but Da is back, sitting next to him, and glares at him fierce.
“Yeah.”
“And did you meet a woman named Vivian Tan, who was on her own in the park?”
Was that her name? First time he’s heard it. Bitch even lied about her name.
“I met a woman. She didn’t say what was her name.”
“But you interacted with a woman, an American woman, who was in the park on her own. Is that correct?”
“Yeah.”
“And you understand why you are wanted for questioning in relation to an incident that took place involving this woman, correct?”
What the fuck does that mean? Too many words coming out of this peeler’s mouth all at once.
“I know that you’re looking for me.”
The peeler nods. “Okay then, Johnny.”
*
That evening, she’s at a dinner party. Stefan’s invited her and Serena over to his flat in Covent Garden, and Magda, another friend of his, is there.
She’s met Magda before, a thin, nervous Czech woman, who seems perpetually worried about any number of things. Tonight, Magda is rambling on about her latest disappointments in dating.