by Naomi Joy
Mandy’s awake, and they’re talking. I take another step closer.
‘I’m just not sure how much longer I can do this,’ I hear her say.
‘I’m sorry,’ he replies.
‘I can’t stop replaying the moment.’
My body clenches. Neither can I.
‘And what was it all for?’ he asks, shakily. ‘I don’t understand it. Nothing was taken.’
His comment is met with silence.
‘Has anything come out yet?’ Mandy asks, voice breaking.
‘No,’ he replies.
‘What if they come back?’ she asks. ‘They obviously didn’t get what they wanted first time.’
Rick rubs his forehead.
‘I think you need to start talking,’ Mandy says. ‘Let the world know who Tabitha Rice really was.’
I move closer.
‘If you did… they’d leave us alone. All of this would stop.’
I double-take. What does she mean?
‘Can I help you?’
A loud female voice sounds from behind me and I jump, spotting the twist of Rick’s neck as her question carries into their room.
‘I’m looking for the toilets,’ I respond quickly. ‘Could you point me in the right direction?’
‘Back that way,’ the woman replies, hooded eyes looking me up and down.
I hurry away, quick pace, then send Kay a text, fingers shaking.
I’m coming over.
*
Kay and I have met up many times since our first phone call, but I rarely go to her house. On the way, the streets are littered with crisp packets and debris and I’m guarded as I travel deeper into Camberwell, a gritty part of South London just poking its nose into the possibilities of gentrification. The street where Kay lives is drab and dirty, but Kay’s home is an end-of-terrace with a vibrant mother-and-child mural covering the side that meets the pavement and, though it’s not exactly Banksy, it brings some colour to the place.
Where Kay craves individuality, a home that will make her stand out as different, I crave the opposite. I bet she thinks my new-build in Battersea is mundane and obvious, too clean, too sanitised, too devoid of real life. I could just imagine her saying it and I smile as I thumb the lid of my anti-bacterial gel and slip it into my pocket. We really are chalk and cheese.
Kay’s house, when I am welcomed inside, is unashamedly messy. A kind of home-meets-hostel with trinkets and treasures strewn across the walls and windowsills. In a word it’s… busy. Everything’s covered in fabric, carpet chosen over wooden floors in most of the rooms – even the bathrooms – and my wide eyes flit over the dozen scatter cushions in the lounge, scattered everywhere except the sofa. I can imagine Kay’s teenage daughter rolling her eyes with embarrassment whenever she invites friends over and, just as I’m finding a place to perch, Kay bustles in with a stack of paper.
Her haircut is bobbed to her chin, dark strands that intertwine with grey, a pair of reading glasses pushing it all back from her make-up-free face. She hasn’t had any surgery whatsoever – she’s probably never even had a facial – and I guess she’s in her late forties, but her eyes look younger and dart, puppy-like, as she begs me to sit, patting a beaded cushion into a wooden chair, removing the stack of DVDs previously atop it.
‘Sorry about the time,’ I rush to say. ‘I didn’t mean to intrude on your evening…’
‘Tell me everything,’ she says, falling into a Scottish-flag beanbag opposite me, her crystal necklace clattering against an exposed bit of wooden floor as she shuffles herself forward. She thumps a wedge of papers in front of her, rendering the room floor-less now, completely hidden by cushions, rugs, papers, mugs, books, leads, shoes, clothes… I itch for the anti-bac in my pocket but resist the temptation. I don’t want to be rude. I run my thumb nails under each other, just glad she hasn’t asked me if I want a drink. I bet she’d offer a murky pond-water tea if I did, hand over a mug with a chipped rim, Borneo ’90 wrapped round the outside. I find it remarkable that someone with a home as cluttered as this can have such a sharp and brilliant mind. I’d be admitted after five hours of living here.
‘What did you overhear?’
‘It was odd,’ I begin. ‘Mandy suggested that she and Rick have a treasure trove of dirt on Tabby but have chosen to keep it to themselves.’
I watch as Kay’s face pales and she jots a few frantic notes across the back of a bank statement.
‘I don’t know what exactly,’ I continue. ‘But we need to find out in case they decide to take it public.’
Kay pulls her computer to her lap to search for something. It’s almost as though she knows what I’m going to say.
‘We need to get out ahead of whatever bile he’s been saving up for the right—’
Kay’s eyes narrow as she hits upon something and spins her laptop round so I can see what’s on the screen.
‘I found this a while ago,’ she explains. ‘While I was researching – I didn’t know if you knew. I think this might be what they were talking about…’
Student cleared of rape after underage-accuser says she ‘made a mistake’.
First-year Oxford university student Rick Priestley was cleared today after all charges against him were dropped by his accuser. The woman branded him a ‘rapist’ who ‘sexually assaulted’ her after a drunken night in college, but now admits to lying about the non-consensual nature of their relations. Due to legal reasons, she cannot be named.
I stare at the picture of Rick on campus at university, his fresh-faced youth haunted by the obvious stress of his situation. The face of his accuser, the one that he should be pictured alongside, is missing, though I’m pretty sure I can fill in the gap.
I look up at Kay, baffled, then flick down to one of the comments.
There’s a special place in hell reserved for women who lie about being raped. Not only did this woman ruin this man’s reputation, but she casts doubt on every woman who has actually gone through it. Shame on her.
‘I’ve been wondering why he hasn’t used this to his advantage, yet,’ Kay cuts in as I skim the lines. ‘It would have been enough to stop the public sympathy for Tabby in its tracks.’
I push my fingernails through my hair, grasping for a reason. ‘He won’t have said anything because there must be something in the lost details that make him look bad.’
‘Stop being biased. If you want to find out what happened to Tabby you have to consider everything.’
A stone bobs in my throat.
‘How did they seem when they were talking about it?’ Kay asks.
‘Cold,’ I reply. I read the article again then turn the laptop back towards Kay. ‘How do you know if this girl was Tabby? She’s not named, she’s not pictured. What if he forced her to drop the accusation?’
‘That doesn’t bother me,’ Kay replies. ‘Because if Rick comes out with it, she’s not here to tell her side.’
She stops writing and leans back in the bean bag, eyes to the ceiling.
‘So we have to tell it for her,’ I insist.
‘How?’ Kay asks.
As we’re sitting in thought, a heavy-set man appears, a friendly smile on his face.
‘All right?’ he says, his voice worn but warm and I assume he’s Kay’s husband.
‘Can I get either of you anything?’
‘No, Tom, thank you,’ Kay says hurriedly, shooing him away. I sit back, enjoying the role reversal of a husband tending to his working wife, but Kay doesn’t bat an eyelid, her mind full of thought and theory.
‘I’m starting to have my doubts about Tabby.’
I tilt my head. Part of me knew this was coming.
‘You need to meet him, AB.’ I half-smile at Kay’s new nickname for me. ‘That’s the next step. You need to find out what Rick has to say about this rape allegation. You need to find out what he wants to get off his chest. If he speaks before we can get in front of the story the podcast will suffer.’ She fiddles with the frayed edge of the beanbag as
she convinces me to get closer to a murderer.
‘But… but…’ I stammer. ‘He knows who I am. He knows what I think about him.’
‘So?’ Kay replies. ‘Convince him otherwise.’ And, with that, her mind is made up.
Tabby
Five Years Ago
It’s stuffy in the surgery today, which isn’t helping, but the way Bella laughs at my suggestion of moving to Turkey, tearing it down before I’ve even finished my sentence, has fired me up.
‘What about Rick?’ she’d asked patronisingly.
Well, guess what, Bella: I don’t need you anymore. I’ve learned so much here already, all I’ll need when I get to Turkey is some money for a couple of pieces of paper to say I’m qualified and then I’ll be able to go it alone. Not completely alone, of course. With Alex.
*
When I think about my husband, about the lengths we went to in order to make it down the aisle, I often conclude we’d have been better off meeting each other later in life. The problem is, if you meet someone when you’re young, you have to experience your growing pains together, break into taller bodies side-by-side, bodies neither of you are quite ready to inhabit yet.
At university, Rick was deeply insecure, caught up pretending to be someone he wasn’t, convinced he needed to impress a bunch of people he thought he wanted to be like. There was a night I don’t like to revisit in which his deep-seated anger got the better of him and we slept together even though I hadn’t said yes.
We’d called things off a few months prior, after I found out he’d been seeing a girl named Saskia but, rather than tell me the truth – that he’d met someone better and didn’t want anything to do with me anymore – he batted me away with a text.
Sorry Tabby, I don’t want to be writing this. We had a great time together, but can we cool things for a while?
I’d been in McDonald’s the day he texted me, waiting for him, reminiscing about the last time we’d been there, eating fries like Lady and the Tramp spaghetti.
The night in question was about two months later and I knew for a fact that Saskia and Rick had called things quits. I’d plucked up the courage to go to his room to make amends, taking my chance because I wanted to get back together. I’d knocked on his dorm room door a little tipsy, gone eleven, in pink jeans and a band T-shirt. When we talk about it, he remembers it differently. He told the police I’d been dressed in lingerie and a short skirt – I guess he wanted them to think I was asking for it – and, maybe if he’d been the right kind of person, that would have worked.
I’m not sure exactly what I’d hoped for, I’d just felt our business was unfinished and eighteen-year-old me couldn’t let that go. It had all happened so fast, that sudden rush of desire, the link of our bodies and the rhythm of his breath, but when I’d told him I didn’t want to take things any further, that I wasn’t sure, he hadn’t listened. It was as though he’d been in his own world, his eyes staring right through me, shark-like.
‘Sorry,’ he said when it was over, lying in bed side-by-side.
‘Me too,’ I agreed. ‘So, what’s next for us?’ I asked hopefully.
He coughed awkwardly. Retrieved his arm from behind my neck.
‘Are we back together?’ I mused, misreading him.
His jaw set into a locked position and the reality of what had just happened clicked into place.
‘Do you want me to go?’ I asked instead, my heart breaking.
‘It’s just…’ he said. ‘Yeah. If you could leave before the boys wake up that would be great.’
‘I thought you were sure?’ I whispered, but he didn’t hear.
‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ I told him, gathering my clothes from the floor, pink cheeked and embarrassed. Used.
I ground my heels into the floor as I walked the quick way home, furious. My breath was high in my lungs, shaky as I tried to keep myself together, my heart leaping from my chest then thudding back into position, rattling my rib cage with its ferocity. How dare he use me like that? After everything I still wasn’t good enough for him.
My foster mum opened the door when I got home and, for the first time, I let her in, desperate for comfort. I pushed my wet face into the hair that puddled at her shoulders and told her about it – that we’d slept together even though I wasn’t sure I wanted to. Even though I hadn’t said yes. Before I knew it, she was marching me to the police station to report him and, like any good mother, wouldn’t take no for an answer. Over the course of the next few hours I did a number of interviews, a rape kit, and had filed charges against the love of my young life, convinced by the adults around me that I was doing the right thing. I am doing the right thing, aren’t I?
‘Don’t be scared, sweetie, he won’t be able to touch you again once we’re finished with him.’
Have you ever set something in motion on a hot-head and come to regret it? This was one of those times and, looking back, I wish I’d done things differently. I wish I hadn’t told anyone until I was ready to explain it rationally. It was a complicated situation and I was so angry at Rick, the entire episode clouded by what had happened afterwards. It wasn’t as black and white as the people on the news, or the people around me that day at the police station, made it all sound. Of course, I understand there are black and white situations, but mine was lost in the grey and, as the anger dissipated, I didn’t quite know how to tell them that.
I’d told Rick I wasn’t sure if I’d wanted to sleep with him, I’d never explicitly said yes, and, when he’d rejected me afterwards, that crucial part of our conversation hit me like a sledgehammer. With a few nudges in the right places from the police, it was enough to kickstart an investigation against him. If he’d wrapped me up afterwards and told me he’d loved me and wanted to get back together I would have forgotten all about it, I wouldn’t have minded giving myself to him if it hadn’t been for nothing.
But most people can’t understand that, it’s either ‘she’s guilty’ or ‘he’s guilty’. There’s nothing in between.
People have no time for nuance anymore.
Rick certainly didn’t. His surety that he’d done nothing wrong convinced me further that I was wrong to ruin his life, wrong to have brought it up, wrong to have said anything at all. I told myself that I’d taught Rick a lesson, and that was enough. He wouldn’t do it again, he’d think twice before sleeping with someone without getting clear consent, and maybe that was enough.
I dropped the charges a couple of weeks later, I couldn’t stand the scrutiny, couldn’t deal with the pressure, the doubt. My foster mother was deeply disappointed in me for that. She’d been talking to a reporter, negotiating a fee in exchange for dropping my anonymity – and the university came out swinging. Suddenly I was a liar. I was the enemy. I was the bad guy. Death threats abounded.
Like I said, lucky for those couples who meet once their growing pains have subsided so that when you meet them, they’re the best they’ve ever been. Rick and I never had a chance to turn into better people, our love an immature combination of spontaneity and fire, doused quickly when we argued. Extinguished now. Perhaps for good.
Annabella
Now
I stand in the shed peering across the road, the dark dawn matching the near-black bricks of Rick’s house, staring up at the bright bedroom window that contrasts vividly with the sky. I take a long breath out, waiting patiently for him to pull the curtains open, and glance at my phone – 06:45 – wondering how late he will rise this morning, hoping he won’t change his routine at the last minute because Mandy isn’t here. What if he goes to hospital to see her first thing rather than head to the gym like I expect him to? These would be a waste, for starters. I look down at the tight Lycra stuck to my legs.
In preparation for our first meeting, I’d bought a whole new outfit based on the fact that he usually works out at the Spin studio on Wednesday mornings. I’d gone to an overpriced fitness boutique and chosen cobalt leggings, then black, then settled on navy-blue, p
ulling the tight material over my legs, at first sceptical of the ridiculously high waist, then converted. I’d kind of liked the way I looked in them. At first glance you wouldn’t have guessed my lithe figure had been honed from nervous stress, over-active cleaning, and unavoidable undereating rather than a finely crafted gym routine. I’d chosen a silver racer-back vest and matching jacket, then a padded overcoat from the clearance rail in white. I’d wanted to put him at ease, to make him remember the common ground we shared despite the difference of opinion about how his wife disappeared. I feel like an undercover operative on a honeytrap mission. Today is the beginning of a new me.
Back in the shed, I notice the family at number 33 are already awake, can hear their baby screaming in the distance and watch as their ceiling spotlights turn on, first upstairs, then down, the mother moving like a blur between rooms. Come on, Rick, wakey-wakey. I tie the hood-toggle tight to stop the winter air from getting in, then push my chilly hands deeper inside my new puff jacket. I bounce up and down on the balls of my feet, working my calves. Then – whoosh! – his curtains draw back and he slides into view. Icicle eyes chill me.
Next, he flies downstairs – he’s running late – and into the kitchen. I have a crystal-clear view of him as he makes breakfast, the blinds gloriously wide. Rick has nothing to hide, your honour! Look in, go on, observe his innocent home! I watch him pour cereal into a bowl, shovelling spoonsful into his mouth. He looks up and out of the window as he eats and, just for a moment, I’m convinced he’s looking right into this shed, the sun rising behind me, a dim light just breaking on his face. I catch my breath, reluctant to move and, though I avert my stare, I feel his all over me. I tuck my chin into my chest and, when I finally pluck up the courage to look back, he’s turned away, only the outline of his neck and shoulders visible. How am I going to convince this man I’ve changed my mind about him if I’m jumpy just looking at him?