by Winnie M. Li
He’s out there somewhere, in a rainy, gritty part of the world. So far away, it shouldn’t affect her. And yet, it has.
He’s on the run. Just like her.
She picks up her phone, wondering whom she can call out of the blue like this. Her parents still don’t know. Nor do her friends in Dubai. Her friends in London are probably too busy with their own lives, the last thing they need is her telling them this latest bit of strange news about a person no one wants to think about.
Don’t keep it to yourself, she had said on the radio. And yet, here she is, ignoring her own advice.
What lives we lead, everyone rushing around, striving to appear successful, trying to hide the dark chapters from our past. But all those chapters gathered together could form a book, an entire library. All those other people with stories, hoping to forget the landscapes which still haunt them.
Turning her back to the Singapore skyline, she thinks of a place very different from the one outside the window. A city where you step off the plane, smell the cow shit in the air, find yourself walking past the giant behemoth of City Hall, the grid of streets that brings her to Laganside Courts, with the hills and the harbor in the distance.
There’s a small park in the west of Belfast, a strip of green on either side of the narrow river, trees that overhang the stream as it winds further and further into the hills. A water bottle is lodged in the undergrowth there.
This is a place she once knew, back in another lifetime. Back when she was a different Vivian, unchanged, and then, within the course of an afternoon, irrevocably changed… and now, maybe, changed back a little bit. She thinks of two Vivians, dividing and splitting like chromosomes in a biology lesson, and then merging back into one person.
The person she is now. The person she still can be. The person she always was.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The idea for this novel occurred to me a few weeks after my own assault, but it took more than nine years of recovery and hard work for it to become a reality. This would not have been possible without the tireless support and drive of The Pontas Agency team, especially Maria Cardona and Anna Soler-Pont. Many thanks to Jessica Craig for believing in my talent.
I must thank my editors Lauren Parsons at Legend Press and Jason Pinter at Polis Books for investing their efforts and faith in Dark Chapter, as well as Gunilla Sondell at Norstedts and Lisanne Mathijssen at Harper Collins Holland.
I began work on Dark Chapter while at Goldsmiths, where Ros Barber, Rachel Seiffert, Maura Dooley, and Blake Morrison provided invaluable insight. Much gratitude to my fellow Goldsmiths students for their friendship and feedback – and to Bernardine Evaristo for encouraging me throughout the years to pursue writing seriously.
Thanks to The Literary Consultancy’s Free Read Scheme, Crime Writers’ Association, and SI Leeds Literary Prize for championing this novel. The Economic and Social Research Council and the Department of Media and Communications at The London School of Economics must also be thanked for enabling the final stages of my work.
Trina Vargo and Mary Lou Hartman of The US-Ireland Alliance are my real-life ‘Barbara,’ whose support – moral, logistical, and otherwise – has been immeasurable in the immediate and longer-term aftermath of my rape.
In Belfast, I have been blessed with many friends and advocates gained through my experience and the writing of this novel – first and foremost, Geraldine McAteer and Monica McWilliams. Stuart Griffin and the Police Service of Northern Ireland have been instrumental since Day One of my assault. For their kindness and support, I must also thank Karen Smith (née Eagleson), Dr. Patricia Beirne, Fionnuala O Connor, Victim Support Northern Ireland, Jennifer McCann, Eileen Chan-Hu, and Máiría Cahill. For helping my research, many thanks to Professor Jackie Bates-Gaston, Mairead Lavery and Simon Jenkins of the Public Prosecution Service of Northern Ireland, the Probation Board for Northern Ireland, Carol Carson, Paul Dougan, Claire Campbell, Nick Robinson, Danny and Liam Morrison, and Karen Douglas at The Rowan. Outside Belfast, my research was greatly aided by Dianne Chan, Lynne Townley, the staff at Blackfriars Crown Court, Niamh Redmond, Catherine Ghent, Tom Tuite, John McKale, Sarah Leipciger, and Dr. Nina Burrowes.
Resources and staff at An Munia Tober, Pavee Point, and The Traveller Movement helped illuminate the challenges and uniqueness of Irish Traveller culture. To this day, Traveller society remains misunderstood and misrepresented, and I do not intend for my novel (inspired as it is by my own lived experience) to portray an entire community nor to malign it.
I would not have been able to rebuild my life after my rape without the support of so many wonderful friends, for whom I unfortunately only have space to name a few: Anne Bowers, Lene Bausager, Annie Gowanloch, Catherine Hogel, Elizabeth Frascoia, Saukok Chu Tiampo, Jessica Montalvo, Arlene Dijamco Botelho, Margalit Edelman, Wiebke Pekrull, Tamara Torres McGovern, Deborah Foster. Thanks also to Dr. Jennifer Wild, the Riverside Medical Centre, and Judy Faulkner.
There are many others who contributed in small and large ways to my healing, and who continue to sustain and believe in me.
I am grateful to those who read drafts of my novel, including Jessica Gregson, Marti Leimbach, Sharon Jackson, Siún Kearney, Kelda Crawford-McCann, Pam Drynan.
Thanks to my current flatmates Anna Kovacs, John DeWald, John Curtis, and my previous ones for being my family wherever I’ve lived.
But there is a larger family out there, and that includes my companions at the Clear Lines Festival, On Road Media, and the wider community of survivors and their supporters. I would not have written this novel, if not for you.
And finally, I would not be the person I am without my sister Emmeline, my Dad, and my Mom – who has always encouraged me to read, to write, and to move through this world with curiosity and compassion. Thank you for everything.
If you have been affected by this book, there are many
resources out there, including:
UK: rapecrisis.org.uk or rapecrisisscotland.org.uk
or 0808 802 9999
Ireland: rapecrisishelp.ie or 1 800 778888
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