Lost Innocence

by Susan Lewis

  Sabrina’s face was stricken with fear and frustration. Sweat was beading on her forehead, her hands were clenching and shaking. The picture he was painting was all wrong. It didn’t fit together in her head, nor would she let it. She must smash it apart before it became a reality. ‘What she needs is to be at the same school,’ she protested angrily, ‘and living in the same house she’s known since she was five. It would really damage her if you threw her out on the street…’

  ‘I’m doing no such thing,’ he interrupted. ‘I’ll always be here for her, and I’ll make sure she knows that, but nothing matters more than her relationship with you. You have to get some help with it, Sabrina, please, for your own sake, as well as hers.’

  She started to pace back and forth, wringing her hands as a jumble of terrified thoughts charged through her head. She knew she wasn’t handling this properly, was even in danger of losing, so she had to come at it another way. ‘OK,’ she said finally, ‘I’ll do as you say, and take Annabelle to therapy…’

  ‘Not just Annabelle, you too.’

  ‘Yes, me too,’ she agreed, ‘on the condition that we work on trying to repair things between us.’

  He sighed wearily, and for a long time he only looked at her, his expression, behind the sadness, as inscrutable as the projects around him. After a while she actually dared to hope that he was going to give her another chance. But then he said, ‘I’m sorry, Sabrina. I’ve already told you…’

  ‘You don’t have to make a decision now,’ she cut in hastily. ‘Just give us a chance. Please. Annabelle’s… She trusts you, she needs you. You can’t turn your back on her now.’

  ‘I’m not suggesting you move out today,’ he told her, his expression finally showing how torn apart he was inside. ‘We can do it in stages, and hopefully, by the end of the year…’

  ‘Everything will be sorted out by then,’ she promised, assuming a brightness that sparked like a light at the end of the tunnel. ‘We’ll have pulled ourselves together and put this behind us…’

  ‘Sabrina,’ he came in gently, ‘are you giving any thought to whether Annabelle should continue associating with the friends who led her into bad ways, or at least encouraged them? Or whether she should remain around the boys who took advantage of her? Wouldn’t it be better for her, and for you, if you made a fresh start?’

  She looked at him desperately. She couldn’t deny that, but she wasn’t going to admit it either. Then her eyes flickered with hope as she said, ‘I know, why don’t we all make one? We could move away from here…’

  ‘You’re not listening to me,’ he told her. ‘I’ve already said, we can’t go on the way we were.’

  ‘I know, I know, but I’m prepared to change. I’ll do anything…’

  ‘I’m sure you will, but I’m afraid it’s already gone too far. My feelings for you aren’t what they used to be. I still care for you, naturally, but I…’

  ‘No, don’t say it,’ she cried, covering her ears. ‘You don’t mean it. I know you think you do, but you’re angry and upset, and I admit I’ve got things wrong…Terribly wrong. Let me make amends, Robert, please. We can find some help together, someone who specialises in families. We can all go.’

  Sighing heavily, he said, ‘I’m not going to argue with you now. I want you to go away and think about what I’ve said, and try to start coming to terms with the fact that at some point in the not too distant future we will be taking steps to go our separate ways.’

  ‘No! No!’ she cried. ‘I love you, Robert. I swear it.’

  ‘I know,’ he said, ‘that’s what’s making this so hard.’

  Much later in the day Annabelle wandered over to Robert’s office looking pale and shaky, and very much as though she’d been crying.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked, his eyes darkening with concern, as she came in.

  ‘Mum told me that you want us to leave,’ she sniffed, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand. ‘It’s my fault, isn’t it?’

  Wanting to shake Sabrina for such a stupid and selfish attempt to get to him, he said, ‘Absolutely not. It has nothing to do with you, apart from how sorry I am that it has to happen now, when we’re just starting to become close again.’

  ‘I thought we were too,’ she said woefully, ‘so why do you want us to go?’

  ‘It’s not going to happen right away,’ he assured her, ‘and you can come whenever you like. I’ll always be here.’

  She was shaking her head. ‘I understand why you want her to go,’ she wept. ‘I would too, if I were you, after what she’s put you through, but can’t I stay with you? I don’t want to live with her. She hates me and we’ll just be rowing all the time.’

  ‘Believe me, if I thought it was for the best, and I was able to make it happen, I’d let you stay, but a girl your age can’t live in a house with a single man who isn’t her real father. And besides, you don’t really want to be parted from your mother…’

  ‘Yes I do.’

  Smiling sadly, he said, ‘This is a chance for the two of you to start making things right between you, and given the proper help there’s no reason why you can’t become as close as you ever were.’

  ‘I don’t want to.’

  ‘Yes you do. And any time you feel the need to talk, or to get away for a while, you only have to pick up the phone. I’ll be here.’

  ‘It won’t be the same as being able to walk across the garden though, or finding you in the kitchen.’

  ‘No, it won’t,’ he admitted, starting to feel the dreadful void of her no longer being here, even though it was probably still months away.

  Her head went down as more tears welled in her eyes. ‘No one ever cares about me,’ she said brokenly.

  ‘That isn’t true,’ he said, coming to wrap her in his arms, ‘and in your heart you know it. You just have to do your best to be patient with Mum as she tries to work things out between the two of you.’ Tilting her chin up, he smiled into her eyes. ‘It could be quite an adventure, finding a new home and setting it up together,’ he said, hating the words as much as the false cheerfulness he was putting behind them.

  ‘It might if you were there,’ she replied, and as her head went down again he wrapped her tightly back in his arms. This was proving far, far more difficult than he’d expected, and he still wasn’t entirely sure he could go through with it, but for the moment at least, he was determined to hold firm.

  ‘Where’s Mum?’ he asked.

  ‘She’s gone to see June. I expect they’ll be discussing tactics on how to get you to change your mind.’

  Not having much doubt of it, he pulled a face that brought the hint of a smile to her lips.

  ‘You’ll never guess what June said to her on the phone,’ she confided, a mischievous little glimmer showing behind her distress. ‘She told Mum we should buy somewhere in Holly Wood, and when Mum said there was nothing for sale, June said there was a really nice detached place on the new estate. Bet you can imagine how Mum reacted to that?’

  ‘Indeed I can,’ he said with a laugh.

  She laughed too, then the moment of humour faded and she said, ‘I don’t want to leave here, but actually, I wouldn’t mind going to a different school. I don’t really have any friends where I am now.’

  ‘I’m sure that’s not true,’ he responded, ‘but after everything you’ve been through, it probably would be for the best if you made a fresh start.’

  She didn’t argue, nor did she look up, and he could only imagine the pain and confusion in her young heart. She’d been through too much already, and here he was putting her through even more.

  In the end she said, ‘So did you ask Nat if he’d see me?’

  ‘Yes, I did. He’s thinking about it, but he says if he does, he wants someone else to be there.’

  At last she brought her head up, and his heart ached with guilt to see the anguish in her eyes. ‘That’s OK,’ she said. ‘I don’t mind that, as long as it’s you.’

  Two days later Nat wal
ked along The Close towards the high street, knowing his mother’s and Darcie’s eyes were following him. His anxiety about this meeting with Annabelle, together with his suspicions of her motives, were increasing with each step he took.

  ‘Just make sure you’re not left alone with her,’ Darcie had cautioned darkly before he’d left. ‘We know what she’s capable of now, and we don’t want the police coming down on us again.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he’d replied, ruffling her hair, ‘Uncle Robert’s promised to be there the whole time, so I shall be as safely chaperoned as one of your Jane Austen heroines.’

  He was wondering now if he really wanted his uncle to hear everything Annabelle might have to say, but then reminding himself that he had nothing to hide, or to fear – apart from her lies, of course – he pushed himself on.

  There was no sign of anyone as he approached the house at the end of Holly Way, but the gates were open and to his relief there was no sign of Sabrina’s car. She was someone he really didn’t want to see, ever again if he could help it.

  He knocked twice and turned in the porch to stare back towards the street. He guessed the Holly Wood grapevine would be buzzing by now, because someone was sure to have seen him coming here. How were those who’d taken sides feeling now? Did it matter? Not really, but he knew it would be a while before he could forgive those who’d cold-shouldered his mother over the past seven weeks.

  Hearing footsteps in the hall, he turned around and gave a small smile as his uncle opened the door.

  ‘Nat,’ Robert said warmly, standing aside. ‘Come in. Sorry if I smell a bit smoky, Annabelle’s been helping me with a fire in the garden. She’s still out there, actually.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Nat said, as he stepped into the marble-tiled hall. The smell of the place immediately wrapped itself around him, bringing images from the past that filled him with a sense of nostalgia, and a much more uneasy mix of emotions as the stolen times with Annabelle seemed to waft down from her room. ‘Where’s Sabrina?’ he asked, as Robert directed him through to the kitchen.

  ‘She’s shopping in Bath. Would you like a drink of something?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so, thanks. Do you know what Annabelle wants to talk about?’

  Robert shook his head. ‘I’m guessing it’ll be about what happened,’ he said, ‘but she hasn’t specifically told me that, so I’m as much in the dark as you are.’

  ‘You’re going to be there though, aren’t you?’ Nat said, needing confirmation.

  ‘I am, but she says she’d like to talk with you privately at first. Don’t worry, she’s suggested you go and join her in the garden, and I’ll be right here in the kitchen where I can see everything that’s going on.’

  Nat glanced outside to where Annabelle was hunched inside a black anorak, throwing hedge clippings and dry leaves on to a smouldering pile. ‘You understand, don’t you?’ he said. ‘I just don’t want her pulling any more stunts.’

  ‘I don’t think you need to worry about that,’ Robert assured him.

  Nat cast him an anxious look. ‘I’ll go out there then, shall I?’ he said.

  Robert nodded. ‘I’ll make some hot chocolate in case you feel like some when you come in. There’s a bit of a nip in the air today, don’t you think?’

  As Nat wandered across the lawn to the edge of the vegetable garden where Annabelle had started to poke the fire with a stick, he picked up a stray stump of wood and threw it into the struggling flames as he joined her.

  ‘Hi,’ she said, colouring slightly as she glanced at him. Her hair was pulled back from her face by a curly black scrunchy, and her eyes seemed different, he thought, kind of lighter and less full on. Then he realised she wasn’t wearing any make-up. It made her look younger, more like the Annabelle he used to know.

  ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘So what do you want to see me about?’

  She shrugged. ‘I just thought, you know, that you might want to apologise for what you did.’

  He stood very still. ‘What are you on?’ he asked her angrily. ‘I’ve got nothing to apologise for…’

  ‘Yes you have, you raped me…’

  ‘The hell I did. You were begging for it…’

  ‘Yeah, until you started trying to kill me.’

  ‘No way was I trying to kill you. You’d just really wound me up and then you were laughing and telling me to come on…You got what you wanted, Annabelle.’

  ‘I told you to stop and when a girl says stop that’s what you have to do.’

  ‘It’s what I did.’

  ‘Not straight away, and you were really hurting me and scaring me. I really thought you wanted to kill me.’

  ‘And as soon as I realised it I stopped. Jesus Christ, you go around with no underwear on, you follow me into the woods, you even offer to teach me how to do it…’

  ‘You didn’t need teaching though, did you?’ she broke in cheekily. ‘Except on how not to be violent.’

  ‘OK, I admit I was a bit rough…’

  ‘A bit! I was covered in bruises.’

  ‘But I didn’t rape you.’

  ‘Yes you did, and then you had to go and say all those horrible things to me, calling me a slut and saying you hoped you hadn’t caught anything after going with the biggest whore in Holly Wood.’ Her eyes were suddenly shining with tears. ‘If you hadn’t been so mean to me I might have been able to forgive you, but you just kept on saying I was a slag and I should keep away from decent people because all I was good for was spreading disease around.’

  ‘I’m sorry about that,’ he said, dashing a hand through his hair. ‘You’re right, I shouldn’t have said those things, but I was angry and you’d just told me about your mother and the affair she had with my dad. I wasn’t thinking straight, and you got me so riled up… But that still doesn’t mean I raped you.’

  ‘Except you did.’

  ‘Damn it,’ he growled. ‘You’re not…’

  ‘And what’s more,’ she cut in, ‘you shouldn’t only be apologising, you should be thanking me too, for dropping the charge, otherwise you could have ended up in prison.’

  ‘No way. My lawyers got the charge thrown out, because it was never going to stand up in front of a jury.’

  Annabelle looked puzzled. ‘No one told me that,’ she said. ‘You mean it didn’t all stop because I said I wanted it to?’

  Realising this could be a bit of an issue for her, he said, ‘It might have done, if you’d got in first, but by then my dad’s colleagues had drafted a letter to the Director of Public Prosecutions telling him why it shouldn’t even have gone into the system, never mind as far as it had. Once the police saw that, they knew they had to back down.’

  Annabelle’s face seemed pinched and uncertain. ‘So actually, no one was really on my side,’ she said, her eyes starting to fill.

  ‘Yes, they were. There was the police, for a start, and your mum, and Uncle Robert and half the village…’

  ‘Robert tried to stay neutral.’

  ‘Well, that’s just him.’

  ‘I don’t actually know if my mum ever believed me,’ she confided sombrely. ‘She says she did, but you can never tell with her.’

  ‘There was still the police,’ he said awkwardly.

  ‘It’s not like having the whole world weighing in for you though, is it, the way you did?’

  ‘It was just a few lawyers, and anyway, it’s not the point.’

  ‘No, I suppose not,’ she said, and stared down at the fire again. ‘The point is,’ she went on, ‘everyone thinks I’m a liar now, and I haven’t really got any friends any more – I mean Georgie and Catrina say they are, but they don’t invite me to anything now. Not that I care, because I don’t want to go anyway, but you’ve still got everything. All your friends, your mum, Darcie…I expect they hate me now, the same as everyone else. Robert’s the only one who likes me really, but even he doesn’t want me here. He says it’s because a girl my age can’t live in the same house as a single man who isn’t her rea
l dad, but I know that’s just an excuse.’

  ‘Actually, he’s probably right,’ Nat told her seriously. ‘It would seem a bit odd if it happened, but why are you saying that? Your mum’s here…’

  ‘He’s talking about divorcing her.’

  Though surprised, and thrown, he couldn’t bring himself to say he was sorry, so he let the difficult silence run.

  ‘Do you think Robert doesn’t want me here because I’ve got such a bad reputation?’ she asked in the end.

  ‘No, it’ll be because people think the way they do about stepfathers.’

  ‘I do have a bad reputation though, don’t I? It’s why no one wants to have anything to do with me. I mean girls my own age. Some of them haven’t even had a boyfriend yet.’

  Not knowing what to say to that, Nat stared down at the flames, feeling their heat on his face and the smoke stinging his eyes. He thought back to when they were younger, and how close they’d been, not only because of the secret games, but because of how well they’d actually got on. They were different people now, though, their innocence had well and truly gone, and he felt shocked and sorry all over again about the way things had turned out between them.

  ‘It’s weird, isn’t it, that I feel you’re the only one I can talk to,’ she said after a while. ‘Bet you’re not very pleased about that though, because you probably hate me the most of all.’

  ‘I don’t hate you.’

  She gave him a quick look and started to prod the fire again. ‘Are you going to tell your mum what we’ve talked about?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  She shrugged. ‘You’re lucky having a mum like her. I don’t think mine will ever change. Robert says she will if she gets the right therapy.’ She giggled. ‘God does she need therapy! She’s pretty mental, if you ask me.’

  Nat’s smile was weak. ‘I guess what really matters,’ he said, ‘is that you put all this behind you and get some decent friends.’

  She nodded vaguely. ‘Robert’s right, it’s probably the best thing if I move to a different school, somewhere no one knows anything about me.’ She took a breath, then quite suddenly she was sobbing so hard that before he’d even thought about it he’d put an arm around her.