I sought for the reason, then I lowered my eyes. “Because I’m trying to protect all your minds from getting sullied as well. And because I just know that if I tell you, then next time Sahmir or Taib look at me, even though they know perfectly well why I’m doing this, that image of what was done to me will pop into their minds, even though they won’t want it to, and I’ll be permanently branded in their minds with that act.”
Chetsi let out a breath. “And that’s what those girls are feeling. Firstly, that they need to protect others from the filth, and secondly, that if they tell anyone this, they’ll be dismissed as a slag. You know one young girl in the Rotherham case was beaten up by her own brothers when they found out she’d been abused by the gang?”
I stared wordlessly at her. She opened and closed her fist a couple of times, then said abruptly, “Ok, we need to admit to something. Me and Taib have been recording these sessions, first off with you, and now with you and Sahmir. To protect ourselves because we weren’t sure if you were telling the truth about not recording us, and so we could keep control of the material. I’m sorry. It was deceitful. But we have no idea do we, what that TV team are going to do with it? And now I’m thinking, Eve, that everything you’re saying about your reactions to this is so interesting. We could use it as training material for professionals about how grooming works. To try to get them to understand that this really is abuse and how it messes with the girls’ minds. You are twenty years old and-” she hesitated, clearly not sure whether she should make a thing of my less than virginal status, “are no longer sexually naïve,” she finally decided to phrase it. “And even you are already confused and trying to rationalise that nothing bad has happened to you! Imagine what it would be like if you were only fourteen with no experience of the world to measure it all by…” She looked intensely across the table at me. “Would you feel able to give me permission to use this material? You’re managing to be so lucid and clear about your reactions and what your reasoning processes are…”
She guessed what I would be thinking. “We’ll anonymise it,” she promised. “No-one will know who you are. And from now on, we all need to refer to each other only by our pseudonyms.” She looked around our faces, “Ishaq and Ellie. So Taib and I need one too. Ok I’ll be Sue,” she decided. That made sense as her full name was Sucheta and within her family she tended to be called ‘Suki’. “And he,” she glanced at Taib, “will be..?”
“Tom,” he supplied apparently at random.
“Boring!” I chimed in.
He glanced at me. “Exactly, so ordinary, no-one could ever associate it with me…”
Ok, fair dos.
“And we’re going to act like your professional supervisors, and examine everything you say and do to make sure you’re still rational, and making right judgements. And one of the clues for you to watch out in yourself is whenever you decide to keep something secret from us, that’s probably the thing you most need to tell us, because your motives for hiding it will be because you know perfectly well it’s something wrong.”
“But if you need the opposite gender to leave the room while you say it,” Taib said quietly, “then just say. Because we don’t want anyone unnecessarily traumatised or humiliated by this, do we Sue?”
She shook her head.
I put my forehead down on the table and groaned. I was exhausted already, and we hadn’t even got on to what Sahmir had to tell us. Chetsi reached out a hand and stroked the back of my hand in comforting gesture. I tensed and pulled my hand away.
“What?” She said.
I closed my eyes. “I can’t tell you.”
“What did we just say?” She reminded me.
I opened my eyes and looked round the table at them. “Sorry. I’m sorry. But I can’t help it. I’ve never even thought about it before. But now when I see groups of Asian men I tense and then I think ‘no, they could just be Indian’ and then I think oh God, that shouldn’t matter. I shouldn’t even be thinking that it’s ok as long as they’re not Pakistani. And I get stressed if a car load of Asian men slows down as it passes me. And I can’t stand being touched, and even though you’re female, your dark skin reminded me of his hands on me, admiring aloud to Saddiq about how white my skin was and how blonde my hair was and examining every bit of me, even my feet, seeming completely fascinated. Like I was a china doll that he couldn’t wait to undress and play with.” I grimaced.
They all averted their eyes.
“You’ve all lowered your eyes guys,” I told them despairingly.
Chetsi looked at the other two. “Yes, we did. And what Ellie is actually asking us, is – are you condemning me by looking away, or are you just ashamed of your own kind?”
“Ashamed,” Sahmir said.
“Ashamed,” Taib confirmed.
Chetsi looked back at me. “So they weren’t condemning you, Ellie. We get what you’re saying and we’re sorry.”
I stood up sharply, the chair scraping back. “I can’t take any more of this. You talk to Sah-Ishaq,” I corrected myself mid-name. “I’m going to lie down on the settee for a bit.”
I lay down curled up with my back to them, and they started to talk to Sahmir. And he brought up a whole new can of worms. I wanted to put my fingers in my ears, but I knew I mustn’t.
The Skeggie UK Championship Speed Week. We’d arrived in time for the Thursday evening slot, but nothing ever happened on the Friday. That day off served as our yearly family beach holiday. We were all lounging around in the hot sand feeling sleepy when I saw a recognisable figure heading across the beach towards us. I waved at him as he approached.
“Hi Rob!” I called.
“I had a feeling I might find you lot here again,” he greeted us. He and Paul nodded coolly at each other. Sue politely proffered him a bottle of lemonade. He shook his head, then looked ironically down at the meticulously built sand cars in front of us. “So who won this year?” He inquired dryly.
“Pete and Cody,” I informed him.
Cody looked up. She was looking ridiculously young with her wild copper curls tied up in bunches and dressed in an lurid orange swimsuit with bright pink strawberries all over it. “Who won last year?” She asked curiously.
“There wasn’t a last year,” Jo explained. “The weather was foul. But the year before, Eve and Tyler won.”
“Tyler..?” Cody echoed vaguely with a frown.
“Tyler and Eve,” Rob mused with a smile. “Now that was always going to be a winning combination…” He sat down beside me and leant back against the rock we were all using as a backrest.
Cody looked round at him. “Who are you?” She asked with childlike directness.
“He’s Rob Rudd,” Jo said coolly.
Cody stared at him. “The Rob Rudd?”
Rob’s lips twitched. “I guess that depends how many Rob Rudds there are, and which one you’re thinking of.”
“There’ll only be one Rob Rudd that she knows about,” I said repressively. “Yes, Cody, the Rob Rudd.”
She stood up, walked round, and stood in front of him completely unselfconsciously, looking intently at him. He looked back up at her, eyes squinting against the sun, then after a moment or two his lips started twitching again. “Well?” He challenged. “Do I pass muster?”
“I’m going for a swim,” she said suddenly, turning away, “Anyone coming?”
“No, I’m never ever setting foot in water again,” I declared militantly. “Never!” That windsurfing business had put me off for life.
Cody galloped off by herself towards the water.
Rob glanced at me. “What happened there?”
I started laughing. “ADHD Rob, she probably forgot she was even thinking about you half way through the sentence!”
Pete grinned. “That’s why she never wins anything. She starts off ok and then half way round she stops to pick daisies…”
I groaned. “Tell me about it!”
“You still waggling your tail in front of her every lap?�
�� Rob teased.
“No, I’ve recruited Wentworth’s backside to the job.” I told him.
“Please rephrase that,” Jo said in pained tones.
“Wentworth’s stuck on her, so I asked him to do a bit of bumper flirting to make her chase him,” I explained.
“Wentworth’s not stuck on her,” Pete said with a laugh. “He’s got a crush on you, you idiot!”
“Don’t be silly,” I protested, frowning at him.
“So why does he blush whenever he talks to you then?” Pete challenged with a grin.
“All the eighteen year olds hide behind their cars and blush when you talk to them,” I said. “They’re at that awkward age.”
“None of the young drivers blush when I talk to them,” Pete pointed out.
“Nor when I talk to them,” Jo agreed. “Wentworth’s always hanging around us because he wants you to drop him a crumb, any crumb will do.”
I stared at her.
“And now you’ve completely terrified the poor thing…”
“How’d she do that?” Rob asked seemingly highly entertained.
“She grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and warned him not to ever lay a finger on Cody because Cody’s father and two brothers were Banger men, you know, she added sinisterly, the sort of men who take sledge hammers to their own cars…”
Rob was pissing himself.
“He turned white and now he stutters as well as blushes when she speaks to him…” Jo added.
“I’m in loco parentis,” I said with dignity. “And Cody is only sixteen…”
“Hypocrite,” murmured Pete, sotto voice from the other side of Jo.
“Well maybe your Dad should have grabbed you by the scruff of the neck and told you to keep your wandering hands off me,” I said sharply.
Rob looked at Paul. Paul looked a bit guilty. “Oh God, come to think of it, I probably should have…”
Rob grinned. Then he looked sideways at myself. “Ok Eve, entertaining though all this jolly blather is, let’s cut to the chase.” He raised his eyebrows at me. “What the hell are you doing to Quinn?”
I stared at him. “I’m not doing anything to Quinn!” I defended. “I barely see the guy these days except when that ridiculous programme throws us together.”
“Well you’re up to something,” Rob said darkly, his blue eyes raking my face. “Because he keeps pulling a phone out of his pocket and looking worriedly at it and exclaiming Bloody Ginty this is just typical!”
“Oh,” I said. “That.”
“And what is ‘That’?” Rob challenged.
“Yes Rob, you get it out of her, because she won’t tell us anything,” Jo complained. “And she’s been behaving really feral for ages now!”
Rob laughed. “Well, Ginty?”
“I’m sorry it’s making him so stressed,” I told Rob. “But when it comes to something like this, Quinn really is the only one I can completely trust…”
“And what is ‘this’?” Jo nearly yelled it at me in her frustration.
I shook my head. “Sorry. Can’t say.”
Pete threw something at me and Jo groaned.
“But Rob,” I said. “Seriously. You know that the amount that Quinn complains is inversely proportional to the actual annoyance he feels. The more minor the thing, the more fuss he makes. When something is really upsetting him, he never says a word.”
Rob stared at me then his dark blue eyes narrowed. “I shouldn’t have needed you to tell me that, should I? I know that. You’re right. He’s just doing it to get my attention isn’t he?”
“Yup, that sounds like Quinn,” I agreed.
He got up. “Sorry I spoke, Ginty. See you around.” And he walked off.
Pete, Paul and Jo all looked really hard at me after he’d gone. I shrugged. Cody came running back from her dip. I took in her delicate creamy freckled skin all covered in sun and water and salt crystals and I shuddered. “Go immediately to Sue and get her to rub factor fifty all over you,” I ordered. Sue glanced up from the book that she’d been studiously reading throughout this whole interlude.
“Hypocrite,” Pete murmured again, smiling across at me.
None of us got the UK Championship.
“Is this the first time we’ve all ended up ignominiously on the infield in the same race?” I asked, pulling my helmet off once we’d got back to the pits.
“Yeah, and with the new rules we aren’t even allowed to get out and commiserate with each other,” Pete complained.
Jo had her hands on her hips. “Come on then, out with it! What excuses have you all got?”
Between us we had a misfire, a clutch fluid failure, and a completely shredded tyre.
Then we all laughed, packed up and went home.
“When are you going to get your own flat?” I asked Pete when he was alone in the barn. I came up behind him and ran my hands through his hair as he bent his head over his car.
He straightened up. “Going to look at a couple this week actually, want to come?”
I put my arms round his neck. “And test out the beds you mean?” I smiled invitingly up at him.
“Now that would be inappropriate,” he said repressively removing my hands.
We hadn’t managed any liaisons since the night his parents went out. There just hadn’t seemed to be any opportunities. Or at least, I suspected that Pete hadn’t tried very hard to orchestrate any.
“No, you’re right,” I said, and walked back to my own car. I saw out of the corner of my eye that he was watching me with a conflicted expression.
He’s not sure if he wants to do it again, I thought. He was giving me mixed messages. Smiling and joking with me when he’s safely chaperoned by the family, and in public at the racetrack, then getting uneasy if we were ever on our own. Well ok. Maybe that was for the best. He needed to get over me. Only a couple of months ago he’d been crying and saying he wanted us to get back together. Maybe he was beginning to find out that the person he had been imagining he was in love with was a mirage. I wasn’t going to push it. It was probably better if I didn’t have sex while all this icky abuse stuff was going on. So if he made the first move, then ok, I’d go with it. But if he never did again then rationally, I had to admit, it was probably the right thing for both of us.
I knew Ellie should have another outing, but next weekend was the European and I wanted to keep my head straight for it. Sahmir was out there doing his stuff, so it wasn’t like between us we were slacking. God, Sahmir was brave, I thought. This was his own community. It took real guts.
I rang him up and we met down in the Edwardian Gardens again. It seemed a neutral and soothing place to talk about difficult issues.
“Should we be doing this?” Sahmir queried uneasily.
“Do you mean we might be seen?” I established.
“No I mean - should we be forming a sub-group? Shouldn’t we only speak in front of Suki and Taib?”
I frowned. “We decided to do this first. They’ve just made up this supervision stuff and slapped it on us.”
“That’s cos they’re doctors,” Sahmir defended. “They know how to do things professionally. Maybe we should always record our private meetings so we don’t start anything subversive.”
“Ok, fine, have it your way!” I said a bit snappishly. “But I wanted to ask you something a bit personal and I really think you won’t want it recorded…”
He looked a bit nervous and ostentatiously drew his pen out. So I drew mine out. We stared confrontationally at each other then laid them down on the bench between us.
“On or off?” I challenged.
He bit his lip and then sighed. “Off till you’ve asked me that question.”
“Have you ever had sex?” I asked bluntly.
He stared at me. Then he blinked a couple of times. Then he lowered his eyes.
“That’s a no then?” I guessed.
“That’s a no,” he agreed, keeping his eyes averted.
“You are trying to be
a good religious boy,” I surmised.
He nodded.
“Oh fuck it!” I exclaimed. “I really, really, shouldn’t have asked you to do this!” I sat back on the bench and folded my arms. “I feel terrible now. I’ve asked you to expose yourself to all this filthy shit. And now I’m going to worry that it’s going to really affect you…”
“It can’t be any worse than some of the pornography out there can it?” Sahmir ventured in a tone of bravado.
“Not the acts themselves maybe,” I said. “But the fact that it’s real, that it’s real girls getting hurt and that you know the blokes that are doing it, that’s going to feel very different.”
“Ok, switch that thing on!” Sahmir said suddenly, pointing at the pens.
I switched them both on, so he’d have access to his own material to do with it what he wanted.
“Have you had to see anything yet?” I asked.
He shook his head. Then already having got the hang of what he ought to do as best practice, added a verbal, “no,” for the tape.
“What are you most worried about?”
“That my brother will turn out to be involved somehow…” He said with a grimace.
No wonder, I thought. Sahmir had put out feelers to Tariq’s best friend and ex-Golden Disc Nightclub bouncer, Hussein Malik, and had been instantly welcomed with open arms. From some of the remarks Hussein had already made, Sahmir suspected that Tariq might have been running that cannabis farm on behalf of Hussein. And Hussein so trusted Tariq that he’d immediately let Sahmir right in to some inner circles without question.
“So, drugs, crime, slum landlordism, but no girls mentioned so far?” I established.
“Not so far…” Sahmir agreed.
“Any mention of the leader of the Council?” I asked.
He looked sideways at me. “Zahoor Umrani?”
“You know him then?”
“We all know him!”
“Who’s ‘we’?” I frowned.
He stumbled a bit. “Well, the community, you know, the Pakistani community.”
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