by Winnie M. Li
“And was it just kissing?”
“Well, just like hands groping and all.”
“Whose hands?”
“Both of us.”
He shoots a look at Uncle Rory, who’s maybe just staring at the wall, pretending he ain’t there.
“So where were your hands when you were kissing?”
“At first, we was just kissing. But then when she got more into it, we got a bit closer. So her hands were, like, on me back and pulling me close to her. And I had mine on her back and then on her bum. And then moving up to her… her tits, like.”
“So your hands touched her bum and her breasts while you were kissing?”
“That’s right.”
“And she let you do that?”
“Yeah yeah. She didn’t say nothing that it was a problem. She let me touch her there.”
“And where was she touching you during this time?”
He’s almost getting hard, with this new version of his. It’s as good as true, right? What lad wouldn’t get horned up, shifting a woman like that, right in the middle of the woods, no one else around?
“She was touching me on me back and neck. And then her hands slid lower down me back and grabbed me bum.”
“Okay.”
“And then… and then, she reached for me prick.”
“She touched you in the genital area?”
“Yeah, just on the outside of me jeans. Just for a moment. But that’s when I knew she wanted me like, right there.”
“So then what happened?”
“Well, then she broke off. We stopped kissing.”
“Why was that?”
“’Cause she wanted to lead me on this chase, like. So we’re shifting and all, and then she breaks away and starts sort of running down the path, looking back at me and laughing. Wanting me to chase her down.”
“How do you know she wanted you to chase her down?”
“’Cause of how she was looking at me. Looking back and laughing and all ‘come and get me’.”
“Right, did she ever say this at any point? ‘Come and get me.’”
Yeah, why not? Have her say this.
“Yeah, I think she did. ‘Come and get me.’ That’s what she said.”
*
Sleep becomes untrustworthy. It won’t welcome her back into its warm embrace. It toys with her, pretends to reach out, then flings her away.
When she does dream, it is always in the last five minutes before waking up: manic, vivid dreams that seem more real than her dull, grey life now.
Once, she dreams she is trying to hide inside a bedroom, at some college party, but there is a mob of braying, boastful jocks rattling away at the locked door. Football players and frat boys who will gang rape her, once they get inside the room.
All she can do is hide and pretend she isn’t there, even though they know she’s inside, they’re trying to break down the door. But there’s no escape. No window, no weapon inside the room. It’s only a matter of time before they get through.
When she wakes up, the sunlight is streaming through the curtains by her bed. Her heart is still pounding from the dream, dreading the inevitable. The room is bright, her flatmates are at work, and she is all alone inside the flat.
*
“So what did you take this to mean, when she said: ‘Come and get me’?”
Look at the peeler like he’s an eejit. “Just yeah, she wanted me to come get her and fuck her right then and there.”
“Did she at any point, specifically say she wanted to have sex?”
He snorts. “Naw naw, beours don’t say it like that. They just kinda giggle and smile and that means they want it.”
Morrison looks at McLuhan, but solicitor man don’t give nothing back. Morrison writes something down.
“So, how were you feeling around then?”
“Horned-up, you know what I mean? Like here was this beour, sexy and all forward, and she’d made it clear she wanted to, you know, do the business right then and there.”
“So you wanted to have sex with her?”
“Yeah yeah, of course.”
“And how long did this… this chase go on for?”
“Not very long. I mean, the path goes for a bit, then it gets to the halting site. So it was before then.”
“Before you got to the halting site?”
“Yeah yeah, I wanted to reach her by then so we could you know, do our thing, while we still were in the woods.”
“And why is that?”
“Well, for a bit of privacy. I mean, you don’t want to do it right in the open, where people can see you.”
“And you weren’t worried about it being uncomfortable? To have sex right in the middle of the forest?”
“Listen, she was well up for it. That was the whole point. She wanted it raw and nasty.”
“Did she say this to you?”
“Well, there weren’t no need to say it. When I chased her down, I spun her back, like, and we started kissing again. And then she started ripping me clothes off. So if she’s that keen, I’m not going to be that picky about where, know what I mean?”
“And by this point, you weren’t too far from the halting site. So it didn’t occur to you to invite her back to your caravan to have sex?”
“Oh well, the caravan’s a proper mess anyways. So the forest, you know, the view and the trees, it was more romantic.”
“Romantic?”
“Yeah, romantic.”
Morrison purses his lips funny.
“Besides, us pavees can’t be bringing random girls back to the caravan, not where I live with Michael and Da. I’m still young, like. They wouldn’t be too happy with it.”
“Right, so you wanted the privacy of the… woods. And you said she was ripping your clothes off you. Which articles of clothing?”
Christ, you lot are a bore.
“She went right for me jeans, pulling them off. Putting her hands down the front, clearly wanted to have a go.”
“Right, and how did that make you feel?”
“Well, I was dead keen by that point, too, you know? Had me hard-on and all, so yeah, whatever she wanted, I was up for too.”
“And what did she want?”
“That beour wanted everything. Every position she could imagine, and some I don’t even know about, ’cause I’m still young, like. But we did it all.”
“And how did you know she wanted this?”
“’Cause she asked for this position and then that one and all these other ones. Couldn’t get enough.”
“And what else did she say?”
What else… what else. She said something, that woman. In the middle of everything, in the middle of the trees and the dirt and all that thrusting. He remembers now.
“She said, ‘I bet you can go all night.’ That’s what she said.”
Morrison perks up, like he’s heard it before. Something different in his eyes, then he hides it away.
“Did she say that?”
“Yeah, I’m sure of that. ‘I bet you can go all night.’”
Grin a little grin to yourself. Dead on, with that one.
*
In June, she is called into the Southwark Police Station to identify her attacker. He’s not there in person, of course. But there’s something called a video ID parade, which Detective Morrison explained. There had been a partial DNA match between the genetic evidence they’d found on her in the forensic exam, and an individual in the police records. Perhaps a relative, they’d said, his older brother. If she can identify her perpetrator in the ID parade, that’ll help to tick all the boxes. It’s not crucial, of course. But it would strengthen their case a lot.
Her friend Monica accompanies her to the police station; their interaction is strained. Monica doesn’t know what to say, and they sit wordlessly in the waiting room while the anxiety builds up inside her. The tears have returned and they slide silently from her eyes. She wipes them away, trying to pretend they’re not there.
Morrison had said the boy was part of a certain community in Ireland. An Irish Traveller. They don’t look any different from the rest of the Irish, but they live differently and they’re treated differently. Sometimes they stand out, he’d said. She wonders what this means, wonders if he’ll stand out to her on the screen today. But your rapist is your rapist. Doesn’t matter where he’s from, he’s unmistakable.
Eventually, she’s asked to step inside a room on her own.
A kindly spoken policeman with a hook nose, reads from a script.
“You’re going to see on screen a series of faces, one of which is the individual who is alleged to have assaulted you…”
She will be shown each face twice, in sequence. At the end, she is to identify which one she believes is her assailant. Is everything clear?
She nods. Faces the small TV screen, as the policeman cues up the DVD.
Nausea rises inside her gut. Surely, she will vomit if she sees him. She can already feel the muscles of her throat ready to rebel.
It’s just video footage of his face. They filmed it weeks ago. He’s not physically here.
“Are you ready?” the policeman asks, and she nods.
The footage is amateur; it would almost be comical in another context. One face appears, a boy around the age of fourteen, staring straight into the camera. It’s clearly not him, but the boy keeps staring, as if looking right at her. Freckled face, but his hair is too light.
Five seconds, and then a ‘2’ appears on screen. And then another face. This one is all wrong. Both the hair and the eyes are too dark.
A flash of fear runs through her: what if I can’t recognize him?
This newfound doubt, compounded with the original nausea, doubles the surging in her stomach. Sweat starts to collect on her palms, and she presses them against the cool of the Coke can for relief. She nervously dents and un-dents the metal. Pop in pop out, pop in pop out.
Number Three appears, then Number Four.
But when Number Five shows up there’s an indisputable flash of recognition. Those ice-blue eyes, more fierce than the others. The other boys are just play-acting, teenagers the police hired to sit in for the ID parade. But this kid… he’s the real thing.
She instinctively looks away. Despite her relief at identifying him so easily, she doesn’t want to see him anymore. But the parade runs through ten more faces, then repeats them. On the second showing, she forces herself to stare at his face the entire time it’s on screen. Something hardens inside her. That implacable fury, compacted into a cold, hard stone.
This is him. This is the kid who raped you. Now send him to jail.
The policeman switches the TV off and turns to her. “Now, would you be able to identify which of these individuals was the one you alleged to have assaulted you on the 12th of April this year?”
She clears her throat, and says in a hoarse, low voice, with no hesitation: “It’s Number Five.”
She squeezes the Coke can a little harder, and feels the metal crumple slightly under her fingers.
Later, she sits in the Starbucks next door with Monica, and sips on a soy cappuccino. “How was it?” Monica had asked. And she just said it was fine. Weird and awful, but in the end, fine.
During the awkward silence, she scrolls mindlessly through her new phone for messages. Her good friend Jen has emailed from Malawi, where she’s on a mission with her boyfriend, having taken a six-month sabbatical.
We’re engaged! Jen writes. Daniel proposed the night we visited Victoria Falls. Earlier that day we’d flown on a microlight and it was amazing to be so high above the jungle…
As she types back her congratulations, she knows she is meant to be happy for them, and she is, on a rational, surface level. But below that surface, a part of her sinks deeper with this news. A sense of separation from her closest friends. That their existence continues moving forward on a blessed plane, while hers is stalled in muck and hopelessness far below.
“Do you want another coffee?” Monica asks.
She shakes her head. “No, I should get home. I have Julia’s hen party tonight.”
“Viv, will you be okay?”
She shrugs. “Yeah, I guess so.”
But on the bus ride home, she’s shaking. She can’t get her hands to stop trembling and she tries sitting on them, to hide them from the other passengers. What is wrong with her? The ID parade is over. She identified him. She saw his face and she survived. Is it the hen party? The knowledge that she has to gear up again, face the world, pretend to be cheerful and happy for her friends, while her own life is falling apart?
She tells herself that she can do this. It’s just a few hours of socializing.
No, a voice says back. I can’t do this.
Back in the flat, she crumples over the Ikea table in the lounge and starts sobbing.
There’s a black dress she needs to get into. Heels to wear. Make-up to put on, to somehow salvage her face after this latest breakdown.
But not yet. She’s not ready. Right now, all she seems able to do is cry.
*
“Did you ejaculate Mr Sweeney?”
Shite. Here’s a tough one. Wanna say you did, but they’d have checked, wouldn’t they? Have tests for that kinda shit.
“Uh, naw naw, I didn’t.”
“You didn’t ejaculate?”
Yes, officer, just rub it in.
“Yeah, for some reason, I didn’t. I dunno. Think I was freaked by doing it right there in the middle of the woods and all. Like I say, I’m still young at all this.”
“But just a few minutes earlier, you were fine with having sex in the woods.”
“Well, that was ’cause she was so keen. But as we got on, all these different positions, I got a little worried, like. In case someone would come by and see us. So I didn’t enjoy it so much then.”
“And the woman? How was she during all of this?”
“She seemed to enjoy it. Y’know, kept asking for more.” He flashes a grin at Morrison. Morrison just looks at him.
“So when you got worried, what did you do?”
“I suggested we stop, maybe go home or go somewhere else.”
“And what did she say?”
“She didn’t say nothing. So’s I guess she was okay stopping.”
“And then what happened?”
“Uh, we talked for a bit after.”
“Did you stay right there? Or did you then accompany the woman on the walk, like she’d asked?”
“Oh well, she didn’t really want me to walk all that way with her. That was just her way of, y’know… asking for a fuck.”
“Right. And, how do you know this?”
“Well, after we had the sex, she said she wanted to keep on walking on her own.”
“And how did you feel about this?”
“Well, it was fine by me. I mean, I got to have sex with her.”
“And you weren’t interested in anything more with her?”
He looks at the peeler. What’s he mean by that? “No, I mean, the sex was grand. And then I was on me way.”
“So did you make plans to meet up again or exchange phone numbers or anything like that?”
“No.”
“So what did you talk about then, after you’d had intercourse with Ms Tan?”
“Just this and that. Me going over to Armagh and to Dublin.”
“Did she say anything about herself?”
“No. Don’t think so. Can’t remember much. See, I’m not very good with words and conversations and all that.”
Morrison’s looking at him like he don’t believe him.
“Wait, I do remember one thing she said.”
“Oh yeah, and what’s that?”
“She said, ‘Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone about this.’ It was funny, like, but yeah, th
at’s what she said.” There, that ought to shut them up.
Morrison pauses, writes something down. Fixes an eyeful straight at him.
“And what do you think she meant by that?”
“Just what she said. She weren’t going to tell no one.”
“But what would prompt her to say that?”
“Well, I guess maybe posh American woman like that don’t want it getting out that this is what she does for kicks. Shagging young boys in parks, you know.”
“What was your reaction when she told you that?”
“Hey, even better. I didn’t want me da or the others finding out about me and this woman.” He glances at Uncle Rory next to him. Hasn’t said a word. Just staring at the table.
“But they have found out.”
He nods. “Guess so. They know now.”
“So how do you feel now about what she said back then?”
“Well, just…” He trails off, he’s been over this again and again. This sore point against the woman. Why did she say that? And then it rips through, all that clawing. Straight into the open.
She was always going to tell someone about it.
That bitch had it planned all along. Lie right through her teeth to him and then run off and call the peelers first thing. She had it in for me from the start.
Morrison is still looking at him, like he’s trying to read his face. So fucking calm down, act natural.
He clears his throat.
“Johnny? What were you going to say?”
“Oh nothing, just that… sorry, what’d you ask?”
“How do you feel about what she said, about not telling anyone what you two did?”
“Just kinda disappointed. I thought we had a thing, you know. Now she’s gone and told everyone.”
“You thought it was going to be something secret, between you and her?”
“Yeah, but guess she changed her mind.”
“Why do you think she did?”
“Maybe she was embarrassed after, about what she done with me. Maybe one of her friends found out?”
Morrison nods, frowns as usual, and says nothing.
“’Cause really, she was just after the sex.”
*
“What’s going to happen to him?” Jen asks her one day, when she’s back from her sabbatical in Africa, the engagement ring glinting on her finger.