The Rose Petal Beach (11 page)

There were other people around, of course. None of them seemed to be as unfit as me. I would watch them jog, their heads held high, their bodies at ease, and would wonder how they managed to jump from my stage to their stage, and when that transition would happen for me.

‘Come on, just a bit further,’ she cajoled. Sometimes I wanted to take the batteries out of her, she was so exhausting.

‘Nah,’ I replied, and staggered a bit further to collapse on a wooden bench.

Mirabelle came and stood in front of me, a grin on her face, still bouncing so she wouldn’t cool down. ‘You’re doing so well.’

‘Whatevs, as the young people say,’ I replied. ‘Why so early today?’

‘I wanted to show you something,’ she replied, the gold edging on her clothes and her trainers shining clearly in the gloom of the September morning.

‘What’s that?’ I replied.

She turned towards Brighton, to the place we were heading towards, and smiled again, not speaking for long seconds. ‘That,’ she said quietly and full of pride. I followed the line of her long, lithe arm to where, over the sea, over the Pier, the world started to glow. Peach, pink, amber, were rapidly bleeding onto the horizon, paving the way for the sun to make its entrance.

It felt like the world was beginning from scratch and I was there to bear witness to it. I was watching one of life’s miracles I regularly took for granted: the sun rising.

I gasped.

‘You’ve never seen the sun rise like that, have you?’

I hadn’t. I’d never been outside and watched the sun rise, I’d never sat up all night in the open air and watched the breaking of light in the distance. It was different than watching it rise behind glass, but I hadn’t even done that very many times. How was it possible that I had never watched a new day being born au naturel?

‘This is how I always think the day starts on the Rose Petal Beach,’ Mirabelle whispered.

‘You’ll have to tell me that story one day,’ I said.

‘One day,’ she said. ‘But not today.’ Instead of offering me the story of the picture that hung in her living room, she held out her hand to me. I took it, her hand was smooth and soft, not at all the hands of a woman who spent her days washing up, cleaning up and forgetting to use hand cream, like me. I was envious of her hands, like I was envious of her hair. She had grown her beautiful,
shiny black hair to the middle of her back without chemical straightening because she had time to take care of it properly. I washed and twisted my hair every two weeks and wound it back off my face because that fitted in with my lifestyle. She lavished care and attention on her hair that made it one of her most outstanding features. Mirabelle hauled me to my feet. The strength of the sun seemed to suddenly flow through my bones, tingling my limbs back to life. Upright, I felt strong again, capable of running to Brighton Pier and back. This was what she’d meant, of course. This was the fun part. Not the joking with her, talking with her, the being with her – it was the finding me in all of the daily busy-ness of my life. It was carving out a few precious minutes to be able to be Tamia. I wasn’t mother, wife, self-employed consultant, woman, Hove resident, non-graduate, breaker of my parents’ hearts when I was running. I was Tamia. Unlabelled, unique, complete. Being myself was the most fun I’d had in a long time.

Mirabelle gave my hand a determined squeeze, and I squeezed back.

We ran towards Brighton, away from our homes, chasing the rising sun. Holding hands most of the way.

This is the bench I collapsed on that day. I stop here often if I am walking into Brighton to remember that day and how it marked the turning point in my relationship with myself. That day, I started to believe I was important, I had the right to take care of myself as well as my family.

I’ve been aware of her walking past several times but not stopping until this trip, when she slides onto the edge of the bench furthest away from me.

I do not look at her. I cannot look at her. Instead, I pull my legs in closer, hugging myself tighter. I’m not sure I want to talk to her. I know I don’t want to talk to Scott, but that’s because he’s always there, the whole of my existence is full of him, but not so much
with her. She was so important to me, though. She brought running into my life. And running was something that was purely for me. Mirabelle had started my own little revolution in my mind, my heart, my life. Now she seemed to be instrumental in breaking everything apart.

‘I often come and sit on this bench to think,’ she says. ‘I think of it as our bench.’

My head turns towards her, wondering if she’s really talking to me as if nothing is wrong. As if she hasn’t labelled my husband a rapist.

Her expression pulls in tight, her distress apparent when she sees my face, presumably noticing the remnants of the tears I’ve been crying while I have been sitting here. Ashamed at being seen by her of all people, I use the heel of my hand to roughly wipe my face dry, while turning back to the sea.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she says. ‘I thought about it for so long before I reported it. I almost didn’t because of what it would do to you. I’m so sorry you had to find out that he’s done this.’

‘Has he though?’ I ask without looking at her.

A moment of agony passes between us, her hurt exploding outwards and stabbing me in the very centre of my heart. ‘You don’t believe me,’ she replies. Her words are followed by a short, dry laugh. ‘I really hoped you’d be different.’

‘Different? Different to who? Have you done this before?’

‘No, I haven’t “done this before”. But I have been sexually harassed before. And it’s amazing how many women who were your friends will develop “belief issues” when you stop accepting the harassment.’

I look away.

‘That’s why I didn’t report Scott for sexual harassment. I thought if I kept my head down, got on with my work, avoided him as much as possible, it would all go away. Except it didn’t, it got worse until—’

‘Why didn’t you ever say anything to me? This is what I don’t understand. If it’s true—’

‘It is,’ she cuts in.

‘Then why be my friend all this time and not say a word?’

‘Would you have believed me?’

‘
Yes, of course
,’ I’m meant to say, and the words are teetering on the edge of my tongue, but they don’t fall. Not when the man she is talking about is a man I have known for half my life.

‘No, didn’t think so,’ she says.

Silence comes to us again, weaves its tendrils between us, binding us together tighter and tighter with every passing second. The sound of the waves takes up the space where the words should be.

I ask again the question I asked the other night: ‘Why did you even answer the phone to me, knowing what you’d done?’

For a moment I think she’s going to give me that answer she did the other night in my hallway. Then her black eyes – for she is no longer wearing her contacts – close wearily. ‘Because for a brief moment I thought – hoped – you were calling to tell me that you believed me. It was a stupid thing to think, to hope for, but there you go. I almost didn’t answer but the part of me that was hoping, would always have wondered if you did believe me.’

It doesn’t make sense, though, how could she agree to look after the children of the man she claims tried to … ‘You could have said no,’ I tell her.

‘Think back to that conversation, Tami, at what point could I have said no so you would have listened? You were on the verge of hysteria and I did keep saying no and you kept on at me until I gave in.’

I do not like what she is saying. In another context, it sounds like … Is it really that easy to force your will upon someone else without even realising what you are doing? I needed her help so I kept on at her until I got it. It never occurred to me there might have been a reason for her reticence. I simply carried on until I got what I wanted.

I have to speak to Scott. I jump to my feet. I have to speak to
him, and he has to tell me everything. Something is not right about this. I trust Scott, I trust Mirabelle, but there is something not right here and I need to find out what it is.

My house is alive when I insert the key into the lock.

The sleek stereo, which lives in the kitchen, is filling the house with Luther Vandross. The Hoover is droning on as it is being pushed around upstairs, above the sound of it is Scott’s singing voice, accompanying Luther.

Would a guilty man be so blasé that he does housework and sings along to love songs? Would he not be formulating a plan to get off with his crime? Would an innocent man be doing these things? Would he not be worrying that he was going to get sent away? Wouldn’t he have got himself a solicitor and be going over everything to sort out his defence?

Not bothering to take off my shoes, I head to flick off the music, to bring silence so I can tell him I’m here without having to call him. My hand hovers over the stop button of the iPod sitting in the dock of the stereo as I cast my gaze around the kitchen. He has cleaned. Scott has cleaned the kitchen. Every surface has been cleared, tidied and wiped. There are no dishes in the sink or on the side. He’s vacuumed and mopped the floor. The back doors even look like they’ve been given a wipe. I can’t remember the last time he did any of those things, let alone
all
of those things.

Is this Scott’s equivalent of a man bringing home flowers for his wife because he’s done something wrong? Luther is crowding me, he is filling my brain with the words he’s singing, his voice vibrating my body, when what I want – what I
need
– is clarity. I need to think. To listen. To understand. Because nothing is making sense.

I hit the stop button, cutting Luther off mid-word. The word hangs there for a moment but is finished by my husband singing
upstairs. He continues to sing for a few seconds before realising his backing vocal has gone. He switches off the Hoover and then nothing. Probably waiting to hear if there is someone else in the house, if I am home.

His footsteps are on the stairs, almost skipping as he comes down to put his music back on, to fill the house with his happiness. I cannot understand it. He was arrested five days ago and he is acting as if nothing has happened, like all is well in his world.

He enters the kitchen, humming ‘Give Me The Reason’ but stops, saying, ‘Oh,’ when he sees me standing there. ‘I didn’t realise you were back.’

When I say nothing, he waves his hand around the kitchen. ‘Tadah! What do you think? I couldn’t concentrate on work so thought I’d make use of this time and help out a little. I quite enjoyed it actually.’

I continue to stare at him. He isn’t the man I thought he was. Literally. Physically, I haven’t looked at him for a long time. Where did that muscular frame come from? He was always a little on the slender side of normal, all muscles, but lean. Where did that haircut come from? He always used to have it buzzed to a grade two or wavy and wild. At some point my husband has begun gelling his hair back off his face. I have noticed but not really registered. Where did the sheen of a tan and ‘products’ come from? The Scott I know, the Scott I married and have been living with all this time, always had smooth, youthful skin – not this faux healthiness that he seems to exude.

‘We need to talk, don’t we?’ he says to my contemplative silence.

I nod. ‘You need to tell me the whole truth.’

In our living room Scott tells me everything. As he does so, he dismantles every piece of my soul.

Three years ago

‘What are you doing?’ I asked Scott, coming into the office in the loft that we’d just had installed. It’d been a huge job and we’d
been driven to the edge of insanity while the builders were in, but it was complete. The walls were the same butter-yellow as the rest of the house, the carpet the same oatmeal. There was a huge desk under the skylights upon which sat the computer, the printer, the scanner and the fax machine. Along one wall, we’d had floor-to-ceiling bookcases installed, and a comfy chair plus beanbag so it could be a reading area. There was even a padded-topped box seat that doubled as a toy box. Pictures of the girls were leant up against the walls, waiting to be put up to complete the room. It’d been designed so one of us, usually Scott, could work on the main computer while the other would still have oodles of space to work on their laptop. It’d be great, too, for the girls to come up here and play on the computer or in the reading area while one of us worked.

‘Oh, nothing,’ he said and clicked a button on his mouse to change the screen as I stepped into the room.

‘I thought you were coming to bed,’ I said, snaking my hand across his collarbone and around his neck.

‘I am,’ he replied, tensing ever so slightly at my touch.

Ignoring the trickle of hurt that caused, I slung an arm around his neck and tipped myself onto his lap. ‘I thought we were going to celebrate your promotion the old-fashioned way?’ I said. I felt the rigidity of his erection and the raw edge of his open fly beneath me, and turned to look at him quizzically.

‘We are,’ he said, his mouth finding a smile, ‘I just need to finish up here.’

I moved my gaze from him to the computer, then clicked the mouse to bring up the screen he’d hidden as I came in.

My body and mind reared back at the movie, paused and frozen, that filled the screen. I studied the image, a sickness stirring in the space beneath my ribcage. It wasn’t
that
extreme, it wasn’t
that
unusual an act, the woman even had a smile on her face while the two men had lecherous sneers, but it was the look in the woman’s eyes that I was forced towards. The vacant despair she couldn’t
hide behind that smile; the unending torment that lived in her eyes and probably in her soul.

As suddenly as those people, those porn stars, were there, they were gone again, clicked away by my husband. I slid off his lap and stood facing the bookcase while I heard him zip himself up. When I could brave seeing him again, he was a little sheepish, a tad embarrassed, but otherwise normal.

‘We were about to have sex,’ I said to him, confused.

‘I know, but …’ There was no end to that sentence, no reason for being up there doing that when we were ‘on a promise’ as he’d been calling it all day. He’d just been promoted, he was now ‘King of the Universe’ as I labelled him. He was one step away from being CEO of TLITI, two steps away from partner and the Board. All his dreams had come true. We were going to bed with a bottle of expensive champagne to
celebrate.
He’d only nipped up here to check his emails and hadn’t returned.