Fucking someone from work. Worse, fucking your producer. It was such a cliché. Still, adultery had been fun. More than that, it had been hot. Mick lifting her skirt in a hotel hallway, unable to wait till they got to their room. Mick kissing her in the dark of Langham Place while she hailed a cab home after a show. Mick’s mouth against her inner thigh while beside her, on the bedside table, his phone lit up. His wife, wondering where he’d got to.
They accepted food menus, then Robert removed the napkin from his lap and dropped it on the table. ‘If you’ll excuse me.’ He got to his feet. ‘Won’t be long.’
Jessamine watched as he made his way to the toilets. Once he was out of sight she sank back in her seat and took a slow breath. Alone, her thoughts reverted to this morning’s bombshell.
Her show might be under threat.
The prospect left her worried and angry: she’d won them numerous awards, after all, but then another part of her knew that after eleven years the format was getting stale. Still, if her superiors felt the programme needed shaking up, why not sit down and talk to them about it, like grown-ups? Muttering behind closed doors only created uncertainty and fear.
Her phone beeped. An email. Thinking it might be an update from Mick, she opened her inbox only to see a message from Jackie containing the Christmas helpline rota. She decided to look at it later and started to turn off her phone but something about the pink Refuge logo at the bottom of the email made her pause. She thought of the package she’d received that morning, Cassie Scolari’s diary. She’d remembered what it was about that address – 42 Colombia Street – that bothered her. She’d seen it before, in the course of her volunteer work: 42 Colombia Street was a women’s refuge.
Marnie had said Cassie’s husband was violent. That address suggested things had got bad enough for her to put into play an escape plan. Refuge locations were highly confidential – you’d never find them on the internet or in any directory – and only ever released to the women being directed there on a specific date. The address had appeared in Cassie’s diary at the start of the year. Had she been planning to leave, then decided against it at the last minute?
Jessamine grabbed the menu and was about to read it when she stopped. Someone was looking at her. She could sense it. She searched the room and soon locked eyes with a man sitting on a stool at the bar. Attractive, in a rangy, retired-footballer way, he was wearing a red polo shirt buttoned to the collar and had pale arms covered with thick black hair. He blinked and looked away.
She took an olive from the bowl on the table. The first few minutes with Robert had been underwhelming but she told herself it was always awkward at the beginning. She resolved to make more of an effort and ran through a list of all his plus points: smart, educated, attractive, her age, professional.
Not married to someone else.
Jessamine should have known Mick would never leave his wife. He and Natalie had been together since university and had three children, two dogs, a tortoise and a Victorian semi in Ealing. But every time she’d pressed against him beneath a hotel shower or felt his fingers brush hers as he’d reached for something on the studio control desk, she’d hoped, she’d wondered, and she’d believed him when he told her his marriage was over.
He’d promised it was just a question of time. That once his eldest was settled in secondary school, he’d ask Natalie for a divorce. Then he and Jessamine could be together. That was the worst part, the fact that, despite all evidence to the contrary from any man conducting an affair, she’d believed him when he’d said he’d leave his wife. Then, just after Easter, he’d broken the news over coffee in Caffè Nero next to Broadcasting House. At forty-three, Natalie was pregnant with their fourth child. Cleaning his glasses with the corner of his jumper, he’d told her he was terribly sorry and that she’d been lots of fun but the new baby meant he had to break things off and try to make a go of it at home.
She reached for another olive. Robert seemed to have been gone a long time.
Once more she became aware of the man at the bar. This time when she caught him staring, he waited a beat before looking away, the curl of a smile – or was it a smirk? – on his face.
The waiter appeared to take their order but Robert’s chair was still empty. Jessamine peered toward the Gents. The restaurant had suddenly got very busy. Christmas office parties congregated around long tables, steam rising from their turkey and roast potatoes.
‘My friend went to the toilets a while ago. Can you check he’s okay?’
The waiter gave a nod and did as she asked. A minute later he was back. ‘Sorry, madam, there is no sign of him.’ He paused, not sure how to proceed. ‘Would you like to order? Maybe a drink?’
The waiter had been in a rush, his manner so curt it was verging on rude, but now she noticed a new patience in his tone, a softening around the eyes. Pity.
Jessamine reached into her coat pocket for her phone. Her fingernails brushed against what felt like a collection of small beads. Pumpkin seeds. The packet must have split. She dug down, located it next to the now empty plastic wrapper and pulled it out.
No messages.
Maybe Robert had had to go off on some emergency – to deal with a diabetic poodle or a constipated Siamese. Nothing. His phone went straight to voicemail. She was angry more than sad, at the humiliation, at his cowardice.
That day in Caffè Nero, when Mick had told her about Natalie’s pregnancy, she’d been heartbroken, then furious. First with him, for being so weak and full of shit, then with herself for having been taken in by a line that had fooled all mistresses since time immemorial. She’d thought more of herself than that.
The worst part was that now they had to keep on working together. She had to be civil to him in production meetings, to collaborate with him on air, to pretend not to notice when she came upon him at his desk, filling in his paternity-leave application.
Trying to keep her voice bright, she asked for the bill. She owed them for the water and the olives. Summoning her dignity she got to her feet. She’d delete her online profile.
She made her way along the bar towards the door.
‘Going so soon?’
She stopped. This was too much. Had someone witnessed her being stood up?
‘Buy you a drink?’
It was the man from before, the one she’d caught staring. He had a strange accent, Cockney with a Kentish twang, his vowels like those fairground mirrors that squished and compressed your reflection until you ended up wider than you were tall.
He motioned to the empty bar stool on his left. Up close, the cut and swoop of his jaw was even more pronounced, his skin weathered and coated with stubble that was at least a few days old. Looking at him, she was reminded of the feeling she got whenever she bumped into someone she’d gone to school with, the way that even though their face had changed over the years, she could still see their much younger features beneath the surface.
She began to decline but then she stopped. Robert’s rejection had left her reckless.
‘Why not?’
Slowly his mouth formed into a smile. He held her gaze for a second, as though some understanding had passed between them, and called the barman over.
His name was Dougie. She didn’t ask his age but he looked to be in his late thirties or early forties. He lived in Crystal Palace and ran his own business, a garage that specialised in vintage cars. Today he’d been in town, dropping back a 1953 Porsche to a client in Marylebone, and had wandered into the restaurant for a quick drink before catching the Tube back south.
‘Your name, I’ve not heard it before.’ He moved a little closer, his eyes focused on her mouth.
‘My dad chose it. It’s a variation on Jasmine. A family name.’
‘Lovely.’ He was still looking at her mouth. Without realising, she moved ever so slightly in his direction, her head leaning towards his, as though for a kiss. He mirrored her movement.
She checked herself and pulled back, and as she did, she caught sigh
t of the clock behind the bar. She had to go now or she’d be late back to work.
‘Thank you for the drink.’ She gestured at the table where she’d sat with Robert. ‘And, well, you know.’
She got to her feet.
‘My pleasure.’ He raised his glass in a final toast. ‘See you around.’
There it was again, that lazy smile.
‘Unless,’ he said, as she began to walk away, ‘you’d like to do this again?’
Jessamine considered the question. He was at least a decade younger than her. He spoke like a barrow boy. In the last twenty minutes he had stared again and again, quite unashamedly, at her legs and breasts.
She thought of Mick in his Victorian semi, the pet tortoise hibernating in its cardboard box under the stairs, a new baby in Natalie’s belly, and then she thought of Robert, the way he’d pursed his lips when he’d realised she was his date.
She pushed her hand into her coat pocket, her nails brushing against the spilled pumpkin seeds, pulled out her phone and prepared to exchange numbers.
2002
Rowena
We stop at the traffic lights and Sunny checks his tie in the rear-view mirror.
‘There are going to be some important people here tonight,’ he says proudly. ‘I need you on your best behaviour.’ He’s had a haircut and smells different. Like lemons and mint from the garden. ‘This could help the club. And you want that, don’t you? You want me to be successful so that I have money to buy you nice things?’
The lights change and he pulls away. We leave Oxford’s city centre behind and drive for a while. Soon he is turning left onto a country road. There are hedges to either side, and ahead I can see hills covered with trees, their leaves gold in the early-evening sun.
My mouth is dry. I swallow and clear my throat.
‘I’ve been thinking.’ I had planned on bringing it up as soon as I got into the car but then I saw him sitting there in his suit. I know I’ve left it too late. We’re almost at the party. Still, I decide to try. ‘I want things to go back to how they were. Before.’ I’ve taken extra care with my hair and makeup in the hope that it will put him in a good mood. ‘Just you and me.’
I figured out a long time ago that there was no gang, that the debt I was helping to repay didn’t exist. That he knew the men he shared me with. But by then the reasons for stopping were too big and too many: the gun in his glove box, the fear of being cut from his life again, the worry I was damaged goods.
I put on my most encouraging smile. ‘I wondered if, from now on, whenever there’s a get-together, you could leave me out. Take someone else instead.’ That’s the other thing I’ve learned. Sunny has lots of girls. Girls just like me.
I let out a puff of air, relieved to have gone through with it, and wait for him to react. I know that my asking this will make him angry, that his face will do that horrible thing where it goes completely still, his eyes slightly out of focus, as it prepares to twist and glare, that he might shout, that he might even open the glove box and threaten me with the gun. But then, after what happened last week, I feel I’ve got nothing to lose.
There had been a party. Another. At the last minute a man had arrived I’d never seen before. His name was Imran. When we were downstairs he was nice. He made jokes, offered me drinks. But when we were alone he became a different person.
It’s never pleasant, the things I have to do, the things I have to let them do. But that night was especially bad.
Afterwards, when Sunny came to get me from the bedroom he was shocked. He ran downstairs and I could hear him shouting at Imran. Then he took me home.
Later that night I was limping to my room when Raf appeared on the landing. He took one look at me and made me come to the kitchen to chat.
Maybe it was the shock of what had just happened or maybe it was that I’d finally had enough, but I decided I wasn’t willing to do this any more. Whatever the reason, when Raf had asked what was going on, I’d decided to tell him the truth.
Raf came with me to the police station. We were taken into a room by two officers. I felt ashamed telling them what had been happening but they listened to what I had to say and wrote a few things down. Whenever I got upset, Raf held my hand and waited until I was ready to go on.
Afterwards I was drained but I also felt like a weight had been lifted. It was over. I signed my statement and they told us they’d look into it. As we reached the main exit I remembered my jacket and ran back to the interview room to get it. The officers we’d just been talking to were standing a way down the corridor next to a vending machine, their backs to me.
‘What do you reckon?’ said one. ‘Anything in it?’
The other fed some coins into the machine. ‘You heard her. She goes there of her own free will. So do the others.’ He pressed a button and pulled a bag of crisps from the dispenser. ‘If you ask me, they’re just your regular garden-variety slags.’ He opened the bag of crisps. ‘She’s probably had a fall-out with her boyfriend and wants to get him into trouble.’
The other nodded and they walked off.
After that I knew. The police weren’t going to protect me. My only way out was to persuade Sunny it wasn’t a good idea for me to do it any more.
Sunny leans forward over the steering wheel and studies a signpost. ‘You can’t let me down, Ro, not tonight.’
The signpost is made of wood painted white and has a collection of tiny carved arrows fixed to the top, the various place names printed on them in black.
‘So stop whingeing.’ He hooks a right and soon we’re passing through a small village. It’s pretty, like something from a film, and has a green, edged with white benches, a red post box and a war memorial. ‘And get rid of the makeup.’ He grabs the box of tissues from the dashboard and throws them at me. ‘You’re thirteen. You need to look it.’
*
Sunny marches up to the front door of the cottage, rings the bell and stands back to adjust his tie. I look at the iron knocker shaped like a lion’s face and resist the urge to run my palm across the creature’s mane.
‘Remember what I said?’ he says, fiddling with his silver bracelet. I notice that the nail on his index finger is bruised, purply black.
‘Don’t talk to anyone unless you say so,’ I repeat. He worries at the nail with his thumb.
‘And?’
‘Stay by your side.’
He nods and, ignoring the lion knocker, presses again on the bell.
When he’d first pulled into the driveway that led down to this house I’d thought he must have made a mistake. With a thatched roof, nubbly white-washed walls and small square windows, it couldn’t have been more different from the dumps we usually end up in
I lean back and look up to where the thatch overhangs the walls. In places, it has been cut back to show the windows beneath. It makes the cottage look like a person trying to peep out from a really long fringe.
Laughter, the chink of glasses and what sounds like a violin being tuned rise from the back of the cottage. Sunny is getting annoyed and is about to ring the bell again when the door opens a crack. An old man peers out. ‘Yes?’ he says, looking Sunny up and down. He is wearing a cream hat with a black stripe around the middle and has a shiny pink face.
‘Leo said to come,’ says Sunny, and puffs out his chest. ‘Sunny – Sunny Ahmed.’
The man gives Sunny another once-over and then he looks at me. I think he’s going to turn us away but then he opens the door wide. ‘Come in.’
Inside we pass coats on hooks and mud-spattered wellington boots stored upside down, as we follow the cream hat down a low-ceilinged corridor. The walls are covered with paintings of people dressed in tweed sitting on horses or holding guns, a bunch of pheasants at their sides. The cream hat turns left into a living room and, after motioning to the open doors, disappears through them onto a terrace. Sunny follows in his wake but I’ve got a horrible feeling about where we’re going and what might be about to happen, so, despite my pro
mises, I dawdle behind.
I look around the living room. Beamed with black wood, the space is dominated by a brick fireplace and two sofas positioned opposite each other. The sofas are sandwiched inbetween small tables, their surfaces covered with photo frames. I move in close to the nearest. The pictures are all of the same family: a man with curly blond hair, combed back from his forehead, a ruddy-faced woman, presumably his wife, and a girl of around my age who looks to be their daughter. The largest picture on the table is of the daughter, contained in a silver frame. Here she is much younger than in the other snaps, maybe seven or eight, and she wears a green body-warmer, a yellow rosette pinned to her chest. In one hand she is resting a shotgun against her shoulder, in the other she holds a dead rabbit in the air, its white stomach fur damp with blood.
Sunny reappears and blinks, searching for me in the gloom.‘I told you not to leave my side.’
He grabs my arm and drags me over the threshold, down some steps and onto a lawn full of men and women, chatting and drinking. On the right edge of the lawn there’s a group of people playing instruments – violins and cellos - and a long table covered with white cloths. Lines of glasses stand against silver buckets packed with green bottles on ice, and pinky-coloured jugs of liquid filled with orange segments and mint sweat in the setting sun. The bottom of the garden is bordered by tall privet hedges, and beyond there are trees, their upper branches swaying in the breeze.
It seems like a normal party. For the first time tonight I relax. Maybe Sunny wants me here for no other reason than to keep him company while he does business. Like a real girlfriend.
A man comes striding over, wearing a blue polo shirt and chinos. I recognise him from the photo in the living room.
‘Leo!’ says Sunny, and puts out his hand, but Leo does not take it. He grabs Sunny by the elbow. After guiding him away from the other guests, he directs us both to the bottom of the garden, pushes us through a gap in the privet and over to a bench under the trees.
‘What in God’s name are you playing at?’ he says, checking to make sure he hasn’t been followed. In all the fuss a ringlet has fallen onto his forehead. He pushes it back and there is a flash of gold. A ring on his little finger.
The Dangerous Kind Page 5