The Favour

by Rebecca Freeborn

  Ethan gave a rough laugh. ‘God, talk about ungrateful. You’ve done nothing but try to support her. You don’t owe her anything.’

  Hannah bit her lip. Of course she still owed Quinn. How could she not, knowing that her friend had helped her cover up something far worse. She would never stop owing her. It was foolish to believe that Hannah would ever be able to forget about what had really happened that night.

  ‘Yeah, you’re probably right,’ she said. ‘Maybe I should take a break from her for a while.’

  Ethan put his arm around her and kissed her hair. ‘I think that’s a good idea.’

  Hannah turned into him and hugged him around the middle. At least she still had him and the kids. Quinn had nobody without her. But maybe that was the way it had to be. Maybe that was the only way Hannah would ever be able to move on.

  ‘At least now you’ll be able to focus more on the kids again.’ Ethan played with her hair, letting it slip between his fingers like silk. ‘It’s like you haven’t been all there since this happened. She’s better off out of our lives.’

  It sounded so absolute when he said it. ‘I said I wanted to take a break, not get her out of my life.’

  But wasn’t that what Quinn herself had said? Stay out of my life. A piece of Hannah’s heart crumpled.

  Ethan kept stroking her hair. ‘Well, why not? You’re always complaining about her anyway. She’s toxic. I don’t like who you are when you’re with her.’

  Hannah straightened, all the grief inside her channelling into a sharp point. ‘What, you mean having a friend outside this house?’

  ‘No, of course that’s not what I meant,’ Ethan said soothingly.

  ‘Yes, you did,’ she said. ‘You’ve never liked her. Since day one you’ve been trying to stop me being friends with her. You can’t control me, Ethan!’

  He sat back to look at her, shocked. ‘Where’s this coming from?’

  ‘Are you going to start monitoring my spending soon? Checking my phone messages?’ Hannah knew she was out of line, knew she was fabricating reasons to attack him, but it was like a tidal wave had unleashed inside her. ‘She was around before you were, and she’ll be around long after you’re gone.’

  Except that she wouldn’t be, Hannah realised, because Quinn didn’t want to be her friend anymore. Ethan was all she had now, and she no longer knew whether he was enough. Taking in his shattered face, Hannah realised what she’d just told him.

  ‘That’s not fair, Hannah,’ Ethan said. ‘I’ve never tried to stop you being friends with her. I just meant that I want the wife I love back.’

  Compliant, Hannah thought savagely. That’s what he meant. The type of wife who did everything around the house; who cooked and cleaned and cared for the children and made all the appointments and put her career on hold for so long that she might never be able to return to it. Who pretended she didn’t know that her husband spent an extra fifteen minutes sitting in the car in the driveway every night before coming inside to see his family. Who had been steadily pushing him away for years in some bizarre act of self-sabotage. Twenty-one-year-old Hannah would’ve died a little inside to know she would become this woman. And now, she hated herself with a passion that was bitter on her tongue. But if that was the woman Ethan loved, where did that leave them? Where did it leave her? A half-woman for the sake of her husband, or a whole one without him?

  She stood up. ‘Sometimes I think you don’t know me at all.’

  It didn’t take long before the other women Simon had assaulted started contacting Hannah.

  While she was getting the kids ready for their swimming lessons, Lalita messaged her to say her parents had read the article and were beside themselves fielding calls from concerned members of Adelaide’s Indian community, all worried that their daughter had been raped by her boss.

  Freya was next, calling her while the children were in the pool, telling her there was no way she would’ve said anything if she’d known Quinn was going to do this.

  Then it was Andrea, who messaged her while she was watching Jet’s cricket match, telling Hannah that her husband had been asking questions and she’d had no choice but to confess what had happened to her, and now he was barely looking at her, and what kind of lawyer was Hannah, anyway, to be giving out advice like this to her client?

  But it was the call from Samantha, which came while Hannah was preparing lunch for the kids, that she’d been dreading the most.

  ‘I’m so sorry about the article, Samantha,’ Hannah said straight away. ‘I want to assure you I had no idea it was coming, and if I had, I would’ve tried to stop it.’

  ‘Nah, it’s all good,’ Samantha said cheerfully. ‘It was a cracker of a story. Didn’t think she had the guts for something like this, to be honest.’

  ‘You mean you’re not angry? She went against your express wishes. After what you said the other day … it must have been difficult for you to read.’

  ‘It was,’ Samantha admitted. ‘But it was also kind of liberating. I mean, I’ve got nothing to lose, have I? And seeing that bastard’s name out there in the open like that … it was fucking amazing. I feel like I’ve got something back. Anyway, I won’t keep you. I just rang to thank you.’

  ‘Oh, it wasn’t me,’ Hannah said. ‘This was all Quinn’s idea. And like I said, I would’ve advised against it if she’d told me.’

  ‘But you were the one who brought us together,’ Samantha said. ‘If it wasn’t for that, I might never have spoken about it. It actually felt good to talk to the other girls about what happened to us. Made me feel less alone, you know? We’re going to meet up again soon, too, so that’s something.’

  A tiny flicker of optimism stirred inside Hannah when she hung up. Maybe the article had been worth it if it had helped even one of them. But then she thought of the complications it had added to the other women’s lives, and the spark extinguished. Quinn had done the wrong thing, no matter how she looked at it. The fact that Samantha felt better was a consolation prize in a game that could have no winners.

  Hannah woke early on Sunday morning. Every Sunday, Ethan would get up with the kids so she could have a sleep-in, and every Sunday, Hannah would wake up at dawn, before anyone else stirred. No matter how hard she tried, she could never get back to sleep, not even to snooze. Every shout and scream from the kids that filtered in from the lounge room made her whole body tense, and the familiar mother’s guilt would leach through her for taking this scant time to do something so selfish as lying in bed trying to sleep.

  Ethan lay spread-eagled beside her, his mouth open, the occasional snore erupting from him. She looked at him, hating him for his ability to sleep anywhere at any time, hating him for the solicitous way he’d say, ‘Did you have a good sleep-in?’ when she got up later.

  Her mind felt as heavy and deadened as the dull ache between her legs.

  They’d had sex last night, after Hannah had apologised for the things she’d said to him. It had been good, in its own way, in the way that the sex was always better after they’d argued. But it had still left Hannah unsatisfied. In the early days of their relationship, she’d given Ethan plenty of direction on the things she liked, and he’d been only too willing to oblige. But now, after twelve years of marriage, it was almost as if it was too much trouble for him to go to. So, instead she’d just become proficient at getting herself off in private.

  He’d be tender with her today; he always was after they’d had sex. It was like a reset button for him, erasing every ill feeling between them. Hannah would go along with it. She’d pretend everything was fine, pretend that their problems just might be surmountable.

  She rolled over to face away from him, reached for her phone and opened Facebook. She almost scrolled right past the video until she noticed the headline beneath it: Quinn Stafford a ‘wild party girl’. Horror shivered through her blood. The video was grainy, but there was no mistaking Quinn, leaning drunkenly on a young guy next to a bar and brandishing something large and pink and o
blong, which Hannah realised after a moment was a dildo. She wanted to close the video, wanted to pretend she’d never seen it, but she couldn’t look away as this past version of her friend – the pre-raped version – began kissing the guy. And just when Hannah thought it couldn’t get any worse, the person recording the video zoomed in as Quinn groped the man’s balls, her head tipping back, her teeth flashing as she laughed. Then the two of them walked away, Quinn tottering a little, before she looked back and stared right into the camera, squinting a little, waggled the dildo at it and left the bar, flipping the bird over her shoulder as she went.

  Hannah’s heart ached. She’d tried to convince herself that she was better off without Quinn in her life, but watching her friend in the video, how unapologetic and full of life she was, she realised that she still loved her as much as ever.

  She opened the link to the article. The story was short and didn’t name any names, but Hannah knew the person behind the video must have been Simon.

  She closed the article and swung out of bed. She had to warn Quinn about this before she found out from someone else. Locked in the ensuite, she sent Quinn a message:

  Can you call me? It’s important.

  She opened the article again. A minor consolation was that it had been written by a different journalist to the one Quinn had gone to. It would’ve killed Quinn if she’d been betrayed like that. Hannah could smell the underlying glee in the piece, as if the journo had taken pleasure in tearing down Quinn for having the temerity to speak out.

  Leave me alone, Hannah, Quinn’s reply came back. I told you I don’t want to speak to you.

  Hannah bit her lip. She understood that Quinn needed space from her right now, but she also felt she owed her this.

  Simon sent a video of you to the media. I thought you should know. I’m so sorry, Quinn.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  QUINN

  Quinn didn’t believe Hannah at first. She thought she was still angry with her after the last time they’d spoken. How could Simon have got his hands on a video of her, anyway? For a worrying moment, she wondered whether one of her past conquests might have made a sex tape of her and put it online. But no, that was ridiculous. She would’ve known. Wouldn’t she? It also wasn’t like Hannah to be vindictive. She wasn’t a liar, and she wouldn’t have made up something like this. The more Quinn thought about it, the more the anxiety started building inside her. She sat up in bed, and was about to run a search for her name when a new message came through from Lara Haines:

  I’m so sorry, Quinn. I tried to stop the story, but I’m in enough trouble as it is and the editor felt Simon had a right of reply.

  Dread spread through her. She went straight to the news site, skin prickling with terrible anticipation. And there it was. At first she could only stare at the video, stupefied and confused, but then she recognised the hot-pink dildo. But how had Simon—

  Then, in the final few seconds of the video, when she was squinting straight into the camera lens, she remembered … Simon staring at her from across the room; the pinpoint of light that had blinded her. He hadn’t been jealous about her hooking up with another guy: he’d been videoing her.

  White-hot fury flashed through her veins. Had Simon set her up right from the start? Recorded this so he could do what he wanted to her, knowing he had this video as a security measure so no one would believe her? He told her he’d seen her going home with several different people. Had he been following her for months, gathering evidence?

  Shame began to creep through her, hardening her, like she was freezing from the inside out. If she hadn’t been such a fucking horny bitch in the first place, she wouldn’t be in this mess. She deserved the humiliation. Every bit of it. She pulled her pillow over her head, muffling the outside world, but she couldn’t silence the accusing voice inside her own head that chanted and chanted and chanted about how worthless she was.

  The video went viral that day.

  Quinn couldn’t keep pretending it wasn’t happening. Her phone buzzed over and over again with messages and then calls from her parents, her sisters, from Hannah, from Patrick. She couldn’t bear to speak to any of them.

  Finally, she got out of bed and dragged herself into the shower. She dressed, twisted her out-of-control hair into a bun on the top of her head, made herself a coffee, then sat down at the table with her laptop and steeled herself. The video had spread across three different news sources and on two different social media platforms. Quinn had long had a philosophy not to read the comments on controversial stories – she knew they would only fire her up, and she was angry about enough things already without the pig-headed opinions of a bunch of keyboard warriors. But now, at a time when she should be doing anything possible to avoid the comments, she opened the first one she came to and plunged headfirst into the quagmire.

  Makes it hard to believe her with behaviour like that.

  What a disgrace. They should fire the lying slut.

  It’s women like her who ruin everything for the real victims.

  God, who would want to rape that? What a dog.

  I’d like to shove that dildo where the sun don’t shine ha ha.

  They went on, and on, and on. Quinn couldn’t stop reading them, each comment numbing her more and more until she was tempted to ignite her gas stove and hold her hand over the blue flame just to feel something. Her phone kept ringing, and she kept ignoring it, until she saw Alistair’s name come up on the screen. For the first time that day, she considered speaking to him. He was probably going to fire her. No point delaying the inevitable. She answered the call.

  ‘Quinn, Quinn, I’ve just seen that horrible story,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Cut the crap, Alistair,’ Quinn said. ‘As if you didn’t know the story was going up. Just get it over with already.’

  ‘Get what over with?’ His voice was smooth and unruffled. ‘I’m not going to fire you if that’s what you think. In fact, I’m quite annoyed with Simon.’

  A pinprick of hope glowed deep inside Quinn. ‘Are you saying you believe me?’

  Alistair gave a long, drawn-out sigh. ‘I’m not saying I approve of what you were doing in that video. It shows a lack of professionalism that I wouldn’t have thought possible from one of our highest performing members of staff. But it had been a big day, and we’d all had more to drink than we probably should have. And Simon crossed a line, recording that video.’

  Quinn didn’t normally feel humbled, but after hours of reading and absorbing the bitter and incomprehensible hatred aimed at her from complete strangers, she could’ve kissed him. ‘Thank you.’

  He cleared his throat. ‘Anyway, I wanted you to know that I’ve had a talk to Simon about this, and I’ve told him how I feel. You’ve had a terrible shock, and I would encourage you to take a few days off. When you return, I’ll get the three of us together in a room and we’ll talk everything through and come up with a plan to move past all this unpleasantness.’

  Quinn sat very still. ‘Unpleasantness?’

  ‘Well, yes. I won’t deny Simon was in the wrong here, but I want my two best staff back to peak performance as soon as possible.’

  No, Quinn thought. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

  ‘Simon raped me, Alistair.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said quietly. ‘So you’re still on that.’

  Quinn only just managed to bite down on the moan of dismay that was trying to burst out of her. ‘So you don’t believe me, then.’

  ‘You dropped the charges, Quinn. Why would you do that if it really happened?’

  She was silent, because how could she tell him the truth of what she’d done, how she’d sabotaged herself by showing Simon those photos she took, how she’d had to lie and pretend the assault hadn’t happened in order to cover up her own foolish actions? How could she find the words to explain that even if she hadn’t made that stupid mistake that there’d been next to no chance of Simon being charged with an offence in the first place? When
the system already seemed so skewed against normal women, how had she ever thought it would work in the favour of someone like her?

  ‘I will admit that Simon has, on occasion, crossed the line,’ Alistair said when she didn’t speak. ‘This nasty business with the video being one such example. But I’m afraid I just don’t believe that he’s capable of what you’ve accused him of. I really think the best thing here would be to talk it out and move on.’

  ‘I can’t do that,’ Quinn said shakily. ‘I can’t just go back to the way things were.’

  ‘What do you want me to do here, Quinn?’ Alistair asked reasonably.

  ‘I want you to fire him.’

  Alistair gave an uncomfortable chuckle. ‘You know I can’t do that. I’ve already strongly reprimanded him. He hasn’t been charged with any offence. He understands his mistake and he’s willing to apologise for it.’

  ‘Have you seen what they’re calling me?’ Quinn snapped. ‘His apology doesn’t mean shit.’

  ‘Now, now,’ Alistair said. ‘All this will blow over in a few days and we can get on with things.’

  Quinn held the phone away from her ear, unable to listen to another word. Alistair’s amicable voice droned on, no doubt assuring her that he was on her side, that she was a valuable member of his team, that she had his full support … She felt like she was going to be sick. When he didn’t stop talking, she quietly ended the call and placed the phone down on the table beside the laptop.

  Patrick showed up on Quinn’s doorstep in the late afternoon. Before she had the chance to ask him what he was doing there, he’d stepped forward and taken her into his arms. She wanted to push him away, reject his stupid gallantry, but as soon as his arms encircled her, a rush of warmth flooded her body and she fell against him.

  ‘You OK?’ he said when his grip on her finally loosened.

  ‘What do you reckon?’