by Kate Hewitt
‘How about this?’ I pick out a short-sleeved cotton dress in light blue, and Milly eyes it critically.
‘Yes, that might work.’
We continue to work our way through the racks, until Milly’s arms are overladen with outfits to try on.
‘How are things with Jack?’ she asks, her voice deliberately casual, as we head to the fitting room.
We haven’t talked about Jack in weeks, and I know it costs her something to ask about him now. ‘Good,’ I answer, because I don’t know what else to say, how many details to give. Jack and I have seen each other about once a week, either dinner or drinks, and while it’s been fun, it hasn’t progressed quite the way I hoped it would. Something about him seems closed off and elusive, as if he’s happy to keep things where they are, forever, and maybe he is. Maybe I should be.
‘Is it… is it serious?’ She tries to smile, and almost succeeds.
‘No, not really.’ I shrug. ‘I’m not sure Jack is interested in serious.’
‘And are you?’
Another shrug. The truth is, I’m not sure what I want. When I’m with Jack, I feel happy, but I’m also anxious. Relationships are hard work, always wondering what the other person is thinking or feeling, wanting to get it right, afraid I’m being too clingy, quiet, boring, whatever. Perhaps that’s not the way it’s supposed to be, but it’s that way for me, and I’m not sure I can manage anything else.
‘Well, be careful,’ Milly says, laying a hand on my arm. ‘I’m saying that for your sake, Anna. I’d hate for you to get hurt.’
Yes, and you’d also hate for me to end up with Jack. I don’t say it, of course, and I feel guilty even for thinking it. But I know Milly would rather Jack and I weren’t dating, and part of me can understand that. Not just because of the baby, but because she’s always had my undivided attention, my unwavering support. I’ve never needed much of a life because I can always help Milly with hers.
What would happen if I were the one getting married, having a baby? Both feel impossible, like mountains in the distance I am completely unequipped to climb, but longing shivers through me anyway. For the first time, I am daring to think about those things a little, to imagine wanting them.
A few weeks later, when the weather has turned sticky and overcast, Sasha returns to my office to discuss her sexual harassment complaint officially, nearly five months since she first poked her head into my office. It has been so long, I let myself forget about her; guiltily, I realise that it was a relief to do so. I should have tried harder to get her to tell her story. Now I try to welcome her warmly, offer coffee, pull out a chair.
She has brought her friend Leanne for support, and Lara informs me she is going to sit in on the meeting as well. It all has to be done by the book, everything noted down and recorded.
‘So, Sasha,’ I say with an encouraging smile, ‘I want you to take me through the incident you’ve mentioned, as specifically as you can, and I hope you won’t mind me asking you some questions to clarify certain points. And, of course, if you need a moment or a break, we can accommodate that.’
‘Okay.’ Sasha gulps, looking terrified. ‘Like I told you, it started before New Year’s…’ She talks again about the Dobson account, the late nights, and then mentions one night when she and Mike were working alone.
‘When was this, as specifically as you can remember?’
‘Umm… right before Christmas? Before the Christmas party…’
Qi Tech has a company-wide Christmas party that I generally only attend for an hour or so. It tends to get a bit raucous, and it’s really not my scene. ‘Okay.’ I make a note. ‘And what happened on that evening, Sasha?’
‘It seemed innocent enough at first,’ Sasha says, and I hear Lara give a barely audible snort, which makes me grit my teeth. ‘We were both tired, we’d been working a long time. He came up behind me and started to rub my shoulders.’
‘And that made you uncomfortable?’
‘Well, I mean, it felt nice,’ Sasha says uncertainly, ‘but I was a bit creeped out because it seemed, well, inappropriate, you know?’
I make another note. ‘Did you tell him that it made you uncomfortable?’
‘No… I thought it would have been awkward. I just moved away, after a bit.’
‘All right.’ I can picture it all so perfectly – the dim lighting, the discarded containers of takeaway, the clock ticking towards midnight. He comes up behind her, rests his hands on her shoulders. His breath fans her ear.
You’ve been working so hard…
With a jolt, I realise I am not picturing the IT department with Sasha and Mike, but something else entirely. I’m picturing my own story, the one I have tried to bury, the memories I do my utmost to forget because they fill me with so much corroding shame. For a second I can’t think, can’t breathe; it’s as if my own life has been thrown up on a big screen in front of me, and I am living out its worst moments.
‘Should I go on?’ Sasha asks after a few seconds, and I make myself nod.
‘Yes, please.’ My voice is a bit croaky, and I clear my throat. ‘What happened then?’
‘I started noticing how he’d accidentally touch me. Just brushes, a hand on my shoulder or our hips nudging as we stood next to each other. I felt as if I was making a big deal of it, that I was imagining things.’
That you’d feel ridiculous if you said anything. People would roll their eyes, laugh, sneer: Seriously, Anna?
I swallow hard. ‘Did you say anything to him about how you felt?’
‘No.’ She bites her lip. ‘I didn’t feel I could. He might not have even meant it, you know? And then I would have created this whole awkwardness…’
Yes, exactly. That is exactly why you stay silent, except there is a part of you that is thrilled with the attention, even as it makes you feel sick. There is a part of you that will always feel guilty and ashamed, like there is a stain in your soul that will never go away.
‘Yes, I can understand why you might have felt that way.’ I try to smile encouragingly, but my stomach is churning as the memories come back to me in flashes – the dark room, the grimy bathroom, the car. His breath. I always knew you wanted it.
But I didn’t, I wanted to cry. I didn’t even think it until you touched me.
I clear my throat again, and then run my palms down the sides of my skirt. My breathing sounds uneven. ‘So what happened then?’
‘Nothing, that night. But then a few days later I was in the breakroom and he… he came in and stood behind me. Close.’ She blushes and gulps. ‘And I could feel his, well, you know, his erection.’ She looks away, and I struggle to keep my expression neutral.
‘All right,’ I say after a pause. ‘That must have been very distressing for you.’ Lara makes a tsking noise which I ignore.
‘It was.’
‘Did he say anything to you then?’
‘No. He… he breathed in my ear. A bit heavily, you know? And I just… stood there, really. I didn’t know what to do. He sort of… ground into me, a little.’ She looks down at her clenched hands in her lap, trying to compose herself. ‘And then someone else came in and he moved away.’
‘Okay.’ I make some more notes, my hand trembling a little. ‘Thank you for sharing all this, Sasha. I know it can’t be easy.’ She nods, wiping her eyes. ‘Did anything further happen?’ I ask, when I feel she has composed herself enough. I am holding onto my own composure by a thread; this feels so raw, so real. I am fighting the urge to get up and walk out of the room, to get out of my head, if only I could.
Sasha gulps and shakes her head. ‘No, after that he backed off. But a few weeks later I wasn’t picked for a project, and it made me wonder. And then the same thing happened again… I’ve been given the most basic work since that time in the breakroom.’ Her chin lifts. ‘And that’s discrimination, as well as harassment.’
For a second I struggle to find the right words to say. I am conscious that I have to get the truth of the story from both Sash
a and Mike. I am also painfully aware of my own memories, the way they are crowding in, pushing everything else out. ‘I really appreciate you telling me all this,’ I finally say. ‘I’ll make an official report, and we’ll need to talk to Mike, of course, to hear his…’ I trail off, because for some reason I can’t say version of events. It makes it sound as if I don’t believe her, and I do. I most definitely do. ‘And then we’ll need to have a mediated discussion.’
‘I want a tribunal,’ Sasha says, thrusting her chin out, surprising me with her sudden boldness. ‘I looked it up online and I can take the case to an outside committee if I don’t feel it’s being handled fairly.’
I am startled, and a little hurt, by this. ‘Sasha, I assure you I will do everything in my power to make sure this is handled fairly for both you and Mike.’
‘Mike?’ she returns scornfully, and I flush. Did I make it sound as if I were friendly with him? As if I’m biased? Because, if anything, I’m biased in Sasha’s favour. I feel her pain and confusion. And yet there’s Lara.
‘Not a chance,’ she says after Sasha and Leanne have left, and I look at her warily, drained from the conversation, from fighting with myself. All I want is to lie down in a dark room and sleep. Forget about everything this has brought up in me.
‘What does that mean?’
‘Are you honestly taking that seriously?’ Lara demands, now as scornful as Sasha. ‘Look, she’s a young, pretty girl. Did you see what she was wearing?’
‘Lara, that has absolutely nothing to do—’
‘Her skirt barely covered her arse, and that wasn’t even for a night out. Look, Mike might have got carried away, I accept that. But did she ever actually say no? Did she ever tell anyone? Or did she respond and then regret it?’
I taste bile. Lara’s reaction is exactly why I stayed silent so long ago. Still, I try to sound reasonable, even though part of me feels like flying into a rage, like screaming. ‘There’s no reason to think—’
‘Let’s talk to Mike,’ Lara cuts me off flatly. ‘Not that I want it even to go that far, because Mike is a good employee and his wife is pregnant. This is the last thing either of them needs. But we will tick all the boxes. As for a tribunal…’ She shakes her head. ‘That’s never going to happen.’
No, it won’t, I realise with a sickening rush, because more than three months had passed from the incident when Sasha first reported it. With all her hemming and hawing, and my wilful forgetfulness, it’s been over the requisite three months since it happened. She can’t take it to a tribunal, and that is my fault, for not following her up. For not encouraging her to come back after that first meeting in February, because it was easier to let it go.
‘Clearly she didn’t look up that much online,’ Lara says, and for a second I think I might be sick. My stomach churns and my vision blurs as everything presses down on me – Sasha’s story, and my own. It’s too much. ‘Don’t take it so much to heart, Anna,’ Lara scolds. ‘Or you’ll never last in the job.’
‘Clearly I don’t need to give you the same advice,’ I manage before I walk out of the office, to the bathroom, where I rest my forearms on a sink and take several deep breaths, waiting for my mind and vision to both clear.
But it’s no good, because standing there at the sink, staring into the mirror, I see something else entirely. I see myself at seventeen years old, in a darkened room. I hear a low, persistent voice, smell cheap aftershave and stale smoke. You want this, Anna…
But I didn’t, I cry out silently. I only pretended I did, because I was so lonely and so scared.
And sixteen years later, I still feel like that young, frightened girl, the girl I try to hide. The girl who lives alone, who can’t handle relationships, who donates an egg because she’s scared to have a child – a life – of her own.
I push away from the sink, stumbling a bit, before I right myself and walk out of the bathroom. These thoughts are too much to take, to process, so I do my best to blank them out, but for once I can’t. They’re finally screaming to be heard, to be acknowledged, but I know if I let myself do that, I might fall apart and never put myself back together again.
Later that evening, I am sitting in my car, staring straight ahead, feeling too tired even to turn the key in the ignition. I told Milly I’d stop by that evening with a casserole, because I’ve been helping out by making a meal or two a week since her bleeding scare, but even with the shepherd’s pie on the front seat of my car, I don’t want to go. I feel too raw, all my old wounds open and bleeding. Still, I force myself to drive to Redland, because maybe if I act normal, I’ll feel normal, and I’ll be able to forget everything that’s raging in my head.
Milly is anxious herself when I arrive at their house; she’s had some slight contractions so she’s been on bed rest for another week.
‘They say there’s nothing they can do, but I don’t believe that,’ she says as I put the pie in the oven and start loading the dishwasher. She’s sitting on the sofa, her feet up on the coffee table, her arms wrapped around her middle.
‘Surely they would do something if they could.’
‘There are drugs you can take, I’m sure of it. Terb-something.’ She reaches for her phone and starts to scroll. ‘Terbutaline. It stops labour for hours or even days.’
‘But you’re not in labour, Milly,’ I remind her with a slight edge to my voice. ‘You’re just having mild cramps. If they say there’s nothing they can do, why don’t you believe them?’ Too late, I hear the aggressive note in my voice.
Milly blinks at me. ‘What’s got you in such a huff?’
A huff? ‘Nothing. I’m tired, that’s all.’
‘Tired? You shouldn’t have come, then.’
She means it generously, but it rankles anyway. I have no more patience, no strength, to make it all about Milly today. ‘I probably shouldn’t have,’ I agree, ‘but I did.’
Milly frowns. ‘Anna… what’s going on?’
I stare at her and wonder if I could even begin to tell her. Remember sixteen years ago?
But then I think of how she never asked me anything back then, not about my A levels or what went so badly wrong, nor about what had happened months later, when she found me in some stranger’s grotty flat. My life had derailed and we went months without talking, Milly busy with her new uni life. I always told myself I was grateful that she didn’t ask, but now I wonder why she never even tried.
‘Just some stuff at work,’ I say after a long moment. ‘I’m sorry it’s put me in a bad mood.’
Clearly it’s the right thing to say, because Milly smiles in understanding, already reaching for her phone. ‘It’s okay, Anna. You’ve been so fantastic. You need to think about yourself sometimes.’ She starts to scroll through Facebook, and I almost laugh.
I almost say, Really? You want me to think about myself? Because I think you want me to always think about you.
But that’s not fair, is it? Milly has always been so kind to me. It’s been the narrative of our friendship, and yet right now I am questioning it. For the first time, I am wondering what the truth is, but I still don’t say anything. I finish tidying the kitchen and make a salad to put in the fridge, and promise Milly I’ll see her next week, after she’s had her scan.
If there was a moment for me to tell her the truth, to make it about me, it passed. I think it passed sixteen years ago.
As I leave her house, a wave of sadness crashes over me, because I think something has changed between us, perhaps forever, and Milly doesn’t even realise it.
Thirteen
Milly
When I first met Anna in year seven, she looked like the kind of girl who could be the most popular one in the year – tall, blonde, a little remote – but somehow you just knew she wouldn’t be. In fact, if it hadn’t been for me, I don’t think Anna would have made any friends at all in secondary school. She’s always been a bit of a drifter, isolating herself from other people, cloaking herself in quietness.
I don’t blam
e her for that, not with the way her parents were. Her mother was an emotional drunk, her father a philanderer, and they played out their problems on the neighbourhood stage. In our small town, it was unfortunate, to say the least.
Thankfully, she had my parents to step in and act like a proper mum and dad. For a little while, they even signed her permission slips and came to her parent–teacher conferences, when her dad had moved to London and her mother decided she needed to find herself in Bali for a few months. Anna hardly ever sees either of them now, even though her mother at least still lives less than an hour away.
At the end of school, it seemed like everything was about to fall into place; we both had places at Bristol, and we planned to live together all three years. But towards the end of upper sixth, Anna got very strange and quiet, and then when our results came, and she found out she’d failed everything, she didn’t even seem shocked. She acted as if she didn’t care.
I think back to that time now, wondering if I should have done or said more. Pressed her about what was going on, because something must have been. Looking back, I realise I was a bit impatient with her; why was she stuffing up her future so dramatically and wrecking our plans? And part of me felt aggrieved, as if it was a personal affront. After all I’ve done for you…
As I mentally sift through the years, I realise I might not have been that good a friend then, after all. I think about all that after Anna has left, clearly not having told me whatever was bothering her. But then I think how reluctant Anna has been to ever tell me anything; I stopped pressing her for details years ago, because she so clearly didn’t like giving them, and generally that’s been fine. That’s been how our friendship has always been; I am the one who pushes forward, Anna is the one who hangs back. It’s always worked, and it can work now.
And so I decide to let it go. There are too many other things to worry about – my mother, my baby – and if Anna really wanted to tell me, she would. It’s what I’ve always thought, but for the first time I feel a bit selfish and even mean for thinking it.