Jody’s haunted, seven-year-old eyes gaze at me from the last page I tuck back inside.
It was harrowing and pitiful reading, but it’s not the proof Tabitha claimed it to be. I can believe Jody experienced all that, and I’m sorry for it. But that doesn’t mean she’s not capable of crying rape. In fact, I’d say the opposite is true. That kind of trauma could fracture a personality completely. She might have believed she was raped, like she believed Abe loved her. I’d been coming round to agree with Derbyshire that Jody wasn’t physically capable of pushing Abe, but now I’m not so sure. Can psychosis give you unnatural strength?
Flashes of the demon child from The Exorcist pass through my mind and another wave of nausea washes over me.
All I want is another drink but instead I put two slices of freezer bread in the toaster and sit down at the table to plough through them, dry. I haven’t bothered to put the light on and I’m glad I didn’t when I see that the gang’s back in the playground, their shadows darkening the bench, the roundabout. One is on a swing, the tip of his cigarette drawing a red line through the darkness. I suppose it would only have been four or five years ago since he was asking his mum for a push. What happened to him? To all of them?
I think of another darkened window. Above the front door of our semi in Scotland. I’m standing in the hall. My brother is close beside me. My mother’s head is silhouetted against the window. I’m looking up at her from a long way down, so I must be very young. I’m wearing my favourite orange coat with the blue stitching and am too hot. I wish my mother would let us go outside but she won’t. We are waiting. Waiting for my father who is sitting in front of the TV in the living room. Cold white TV ghosts loom and shrink across the threshold.
It wasn’t dark when we put our coats on to go for a walk in the park, but me and my brother had been rolling a penny along the floorboards and had taken too long getting our shoes on, so my father decreed that if he had to wait for us, then we would wait for him.
I don’t own a watch or know how to read a clock but it feels as if we have been waiting hours. My brother is crying: silently, because otherwise my father will punish him, but I can hear his thick, wet breathing.
I’m not crying. My five-year-old mind seethes with loathing.
When the theme tune of his programme comes on and he’s finally ready for what must now be a short stroll around the block, I refuse to move, and am carried upstairs, thrashing and scratching, and hurled onto my bed hard enough for the centre slats to splinter. My brother is taken out by my father to collect a fish-and-chip supper for the three of them. I’m given nothing to eat that night, and in an act of defiance I refuse to eat for the whole of the next day. By evening my mother is in tears but my father asserts that I will eat when I’m hungry, and of course he is right. As I tuck gratefully into my mother’s macaroni cheese I despise him more than ever.
This was some years before the Great Conversion, while my father was just your average domestic tyrant, rather than one with God’s stamp of approval. The Conversion (or breakdown as it was referred to in a doctor’s letter I steamed open) happened halfway up a mountain on a volunteer’s training exercise for the mountain rescue.
He came down from that exercise convinced that Jesus had spoken to him from the sky.
It’s not fashionable to be a Christian fundamentalist any more. There’s something a bit twee about arguing over the consistency, fleshly or otherwise, of the communion wafer when compared with the beheadings and immolations indulged in by other brands of religious lunacy. It’s almost comforting. But growing up tiptoeing around the hair trigger of my father’s rage was exhausting and terrifying.
He had always been a bully and now he had God to back him up. Our home was run like a prison camp. If we showed any form of dissent we were locked in our rooms and starved until we begged forgiveness for dishonouring the Lord. Sometimes I think my father got mixed up who was God and who was the self-employed roofer, but, deluded as he was, he was clever enough to understand the concept of divide and conquer when it came to his children. When one of us was in disgrace the other was treated like a prince or princess, so we learned to view one another as the enemy.
Looking back, I was far worse than Abe. In fact, I was a monster. Like my father.
There’s my proof, Tabitha. There’s my excuse.
A scream shatters the silence.
I jump up from the table and run to the door, bursting out onto the landing.
‘Jody!’
But the screaming isn’t coming from Jody’s flat. Mira’s door is open. I run inside. The door at the end of the corridor is open and I see on the floor, lit by that single harsh light bulb, a wide smear of blood, as if a body has been dragged across the room.
Has Loran lost his mind and killed his wife?
A woman sobs.
Mira.
Was it her all along? Were the notes to deflect attention from her own guilt rather than Jody’s? Did she kill Abe because he was having an affair with her husband? And has she just killed her husband?
The sob becomes a moan of pain.
My thoughts fracture. I am losing their thread. Has Loran attacked her and then fled?
I burst through the inner door. Mira is bending over the back of the sofa. For the first time I am seeing her in normal clothes, without the abaya: a pair of cheap supermarket jeans and a flowery shirt I have seen for sale in the market in the high road. At first I think the jeans are black but then I notice that the cuffs are pale blue.
They’re not black – they’re drenched in blood.
She looks up at me, her face the colour of marble.
‘The baby,’ she says. ‘Help me.’
The clubhouse smells of stale beer and the floor is sticky with spillages. It takes a moment for her eyes to adjust to the gloom because the two boys didn’t want to open the curtains and risk being seen. They had left the fire exit open the previous day for the express purpose of coming here to get lashed for free and nobody had noticed.
Felix’s friend is already behind the bar.
‘What’s your poison, Jody?’
‘Coke, please.’
He gives a bark of laughter. ‘Vodka and Coke it is.’
The boys play pool and drink steadily, pints of lager with Jack Daniel chasers. Every time the big one knocks one of these back he gives a violent shudder accompanied by a loud grunt. He’s like an animal, she thinks, and as the afternoon wears away he starts to smell.
Felix does too. Sweat beads his forehead and upper lip despite the fact that the clubhouse is getting cooler as the sun goes down.
The next round of drinks takes two of them to prepare, and for a moment they stand with their backs to her, whispering.
Felix brings hers over, another vodka and Coke, and something makes her glance into the glass. There’s just the slightly flat brown liquid and a slice of lemon from a glass jar behind the bar. She does what she did to the previous four drinks and pours sips of it into the pot of the ailing yucca plant when their attention has turned back to the pool table.
‘Let’s have a look at those scars, then,’ the friend says when they’ve finished their game.
She stares at him. ‘I …’
‘Come on, I’ll show you mine.’
His hands go to his belt and before she can say anything he has dropped his trousers. He’s wearing tight white underpants that cling to the outline of his large penis, flopped over to one side. He hesitates a moment, his eyes on her face, then the corner of his mouth twists into a smile.
‘Nah, not there, darling,’ he says. ‘My knee. Tore my cruciate ligament.’
There’s a long scar running down from his lower left thigh, across the kneecap and down to his shin.
‘Oh,’ she says vaguely. ‘That looks painful.’
‘Felix has got one too.’
‘I know.’
‘Oooooooooooooh!’ he jeers, falsetto, and Felix pretends to smile.
As the next game progresses she
catches them glancing up at her frequently, then the friend says, ‘How are you feeling?’ His voice is thick with drink.
‘Fine, thanks.’
‘Fuck’s sake,’ he slurs. ‘You some kind of bionic girl or what?’
She doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Felix puts the cue down and straightens up. ‘It’s getting late. We should go back.’
The big one rounds on him. ‘Don’t bail on me now, you pussy.’
‘I’m ready to go too, Felix,’ she says.
‘I’m ready to go too, Fewix,’ the other one mimics.
She goes to the door and stands there.
The big one bangs the cue down on the table, making both her and Felix start. Then he grins. ‘You love him, don’t you, eh?’
She hesitates. ‘He’s my brother.’
‘It’s more than that, though, isn’t it?’
She stares at him. She doesn’t understand what he wants her to say. What can she say that will make him let her go?
‘We know what happened to you, and that’s really shit. Seriously.’
She blinks at Felix. He has told?
‘But it’s not like that normally. You should try it again. You’ll like it. And I bet you’ve learnt stuff, haven’t you? I bet guys would pay you for the shit you know now.’
He’s coming towards her.
‘Felix.’
Felix moves closer to her.
‘Go on, mate. Show her. Show her how nice it can be. For both people. For all of us.’
Felix’s Adam’s apple bobs, then he turns to face her. His skin is waxy. ‘It’s all right,’ he says. ‘You love me, don’t you?’
She blinks and nods. She does love him. And he loves her. He would never hurt her.
‘Go on, mate,’ the big one murmurs. ‘My cock hurts.’
Felix pulls off his T-shirt and stands bare-chested in front of her, like one of the men from the magazines. Then he raises her hand and lays it against his chest. His skin is clammy with sweat and she can feel his heart throbbing beneath her palm.
‘See, Felix here has never done it before. Not properly. He needs a girl with a bit of experience to show him how.’
Felix’s eyes are closed. She wills him to open them and look at her. They can both leave. Go home. Eat bacon sandwiches in front of the TV.
‘Jesus Christ, mate, just get out of the way!’ Felix stumbles aside and it’s the other one looming over her, his alcohol breath hot on her face.
She doesn’t say anything when he squeezes her breast, sniggering like there’s something comical about it, rubber fruit from a comedy sketch. She doesn’t ask him to stop. She knows there isn’t any point. He won’t stop, whatever she says. She has seen that look in men’s eyes before. The cold, glazed stare of a shark. He is drunk and aroused and Felix has told him everything about her. He knows a hundred men have fucked her. He probably thinks: what’s one more?
‘Come on, Jode,’ says Felix. ‘Don’t cry.’
‘Shut up and have another drink, you queer. It might give you some balls.’
Felix watches from the pool table, slugging from a bottle of Jack Daniels, as his friend pushes his slimy tongue into her mouth, right to the back, as if it wants to slither down her throat. Automatically she makes her throat go flaccid. She learned a long time ago how to deal with the gag reflex.
Her mouth is stretched as wide as it can go without the corners of her mouth cracking. Then she feels a familiar burn in her nipple as he grips it between finger and thumb and twists.
‘Enough,’ says Felix. Tossing the bottle onto the table he staggers over, pushing his friend out of the way.
Her heart lifts. They will go home now. Felix will never see this monster again.
But he doesn’t take her hand. There’s a hard glitter to his eye, and as he leans into her she can feel the lump in his trousers.
‘Way to go, Felix!’ the other one crows.
She loves him, so she kisses him back, even as tears trickle down her cheeks. The sweetness of the Coke has turned bitter on his furred tongue. She wraps her arms around him, her palms on his warm back, pressing him into her as if to protect him from what is going to happen.
Then his body moves away from hers and she thinks he is going to stop. She will run out of the clubhouse, then, and along the residential streets until she finds a bus stop.
But he’s only giving himself room to allow his fingers to slide inside the cups of her bra. They’re cold and wet from holding glasses with ice.
She tries to push him away then, but he holds her tight, his fingers digging into her clavicles. There is a grim look on his face now. His friend watches hungrily.
She closes her eyes. The hands squirm inside her bra, and now she feels others at her back, slipping the hooks of her bra in one deft move.
The bra loosens and these hands, bigger and rougher than Felix’s, move to the button of her jeans. One boy is behind her and one is in front.
Fingers worm into her knickers then push their way inside her.
‘Shit, man, she’s loose as an old granny!’
Felix stops then. The hands cupping her breasts go still, his tongue freezes in her mouth.
Then the other one is pushing him aside. ‘My turn!’
Felix staggers away, dazed, his mouth glistening with spit. He stares, stupefied, as his friend propels her forward until she comes up against the pool table. The impact makes her fold at the waist, and with the hand at her back, she is forced face-down onto the table.
Her jeans are yanked down.
‘No!’ she shouts, but it becomes a grunt as air is forced from her lungs when he slams inside her.
He is big. It hurts. That dull ache in the cervix, the tearing caused by the friction of dry skin against dry skin. He should have used lubrication. If she had known this was going to happen she would have got some liquid soap from the toilet.
The rough baize scrapes up and down her cheek.
Let it be over, just let it be over.
But he is drunk. It will take ages.
She raises her eyes up above the ledge of the table, to the soft gold light filtering through the thin curtains. Through a gap she sees an expanse of grass and she thinks of horses running, the wind in their manes, their tails flipping.
Then, to her surprise, he grunts and withdraws. The hand is lifted from her back and she tries to straighten but it comes down again with a slap. And then he is back inside her again, but now he’s only semi hard. This is even worse. He’ll never come like this. He will blame her.
It flops out. He has lost his erection.
‘Out of the way, you gay. Let the real man finish off.’
Felix?
She stares, green suffusing her vision.
It was Felix?
The thrust is so hard her hips slam into the wooden table edge and she cries out with pain.
‘That’s it, bitch,’ the friend pants, through gritted teeth. ‘That’s what you want, isn’t it?’
The big hands slide underneath her chest and start twisting her nipples. Is he one of those who gets off on inflicting pain? Will he twist until he draws blood? He’s growling like a dog.
Hurry up and come.
Hurry up and come.
Hurry up and come.
Someone is being sick. The warm splatter hits her foot. She manages to raise her head enough to turn it, her chin scraping the baize. Felix squats beside the pool table, his face ghost-grey, his eyes hollow as they stare back at her, unseeing.
A thrust so hard she screams: from the pain in her hips, and a deeper pain inside. The sensation of something breaking open.
They said she might be able to have children.
Felix is sick again.
And then the heavy body slumps over her, squeezing the air from her lungs. She can’t breathe. She will suffocate. She struggles and he moves away, his still-hard cock twanging out of her with a wet sucking sound.
As soon as she is able she straightens u
p and stumbles around the table, making it a barrier between them as she pulls her jeans up, refastens her bra and yanks her T-shirt down. She’s panting like a dog. She must control her breathing or she will start hyperventilating. She needs to stay in control. She needs to get out of here in case they decide to do it again, or something worse.
Felix’s friend is at the bar drinking his JD and Coke.
Felix is still crouched on the floor, like a trapped animal. His eyes are wide with pure, cold terror.
She runs to the fire door and they don’t try to stop her.
Monday 14 November
35. Mags
By some miracle they save the baby.
A little girl. With no name because Mira was so sure she would be a boy.
Mira has lost several pints of blood, and for a while it looked liked she might not pull through, but she has. I sit quietly by the bed as she slumbers in the peaceful depths of the anaesthetic. Somewhere in the hospital my brother slumbers too. I will go and see him when I have the strength to get up. At the moment all I can do is drink my warm sweet tea and stare at the light from the traffic outside strobing across the bed sheet.
At first I thought it was Loran – that he had kicked her or pushed her across the room, thought her insistence that he had done nothing was just to protect him. Again. But the nurses said that the bleeding was caused by something called placental abruption, and was due to Mira’s high blood pressure.
The door opens quietly and a nurse comes in carrying the baby swaddled in a white waffle blanket.
‘Would you like to hold her?’ the nurse whispers. ‘I’m sure she’d like some human contact until Mummy’s feeling better.’
And then, without warning, this tiny scrap of flesh and bone is placed into my arms.
She is as light as a paper kite.
‘Are you sure?’ I stammer. ‘What if …?’
‘What if you break her?’ The nurse chuckles. ‘You won’t. She’s a fighter, this one. You can lay her in the cot afterwards.’ She gestures to the Perspex box by Mira’s bed.
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