The Safest Place (31 page)

‘But what were they of?’

‘That party,’ I said.

He stared at me, face like stone. Then he started scrabbling around in his overnight bag, and dug out his Blackberry.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I want to see these pictures,’ he said.

‘You can’t.’

‘What’s Sam’s password?’

‘I don’t know.’

He tried to log in anyway, swearing angrily when he failed. ‘I’ll ask Sam in the morning,’ he said.

‘No. You can’t. Please.’ I threw down that duvet and tried to snatch his Blackberry away from him. ‘I don’t want you to see them. I don’t want anyone to see
them.’

‘Then tell me what the hell is going on,’ he said, too loudly now, and automatically we both flinched, listening for sounds from upstairs. But the house was silent apart from us,
trapped together in our private midnight hell. David closed the door, and sat down on the desk chair, facing me.

I felt like I was on trial.

‘Sam and Max had a fight at that party,’ I said.

‘You told me that.’

I swallowed hard but my throat was raw. ‘I think Max might have . . . forced himself on this girl Lydia.’

David’s eyes narrowed. ‘Is that what Sam said?’

‘He said she was drunk. He said she went up to the bathroom and Max went up after her, and when she came down she was crying.’

‘That doesn’t necessarily mean anything,’ David said. ‘Perhaps Max just wanted to go to the bathroom, perhaps she was crying about something else.’

Oh that I could leave it there. That I could agree, say, ‘Yes, I’m sure you’re right.’ But I knew he’d find out the rest eventually, and how sordid would it seem
then, second-hand? Besides, I had no reason to be ashamed.

‘Yes, but . . . Sam seemed to think something had happened. I think Max was . . . boasting.’

‘Jesus,’ David said now. Then, ‘Weren’t there any parents at this party?’

I hugged my arms across my chest and said nothing. The truth is I didn’t know. ‘I got rid of the last of them in the early hours,’ that man had said to me, but it didn’t
mean he’d been there all night.

‘What was Sam even doing at a party like that?’ David said and I stared at him, taken aback.

‘What do you mean “at a party like that”? Do you expect him not to go out?’

‘Not to parties where kids are drunk and having sex, no, I don’t. Not when there are no parents there keeping an eye on things.’

‘Look, I don’t know if there were any parents there or not,’ I said. ‘But that’s not the point.’

‘Well it is the point,’ he said. ‘You let him go to this party and all this happens.’ He spread his hands expansively. ‘They shouldn’t be out drinking at all
at that age. He’s fifteen, he’s too young. I don’t want him—’

Anger, white and sudden, flashed behind my eyes. ‘You’re not listening to me!’ I jumped to my feet, my heart racing so fast I was shaking. ‘The point is I think Max raped
Lydia. I think he raped Lydia because he did the same to me.’

David recoiled as if I’d spat at him. Bizarrely, I was reminded of that long ago day when he came home from work to find me sitting at the table with my newly chopped-off hair. Then, too,
he had recoiled, the shock stripping his handsome face bare.

‘Max raped you?’ he said, slowly, as if he could not process the words.

I wished I had not told him. I wished I had not told him because creeping into the shock on his face I could see the shadow of disgust now, though whether for me or what had been done to me I
did not know. But I saw, and I felt it like a fist in my heart.

‘He
raped
you?’ he said again.

‘Yes,’ I said, through teeth clamped tight together.

He put his hand through his hair, a distancing, guarded move. ‘When?’ he said. ‘How?’

‘What do you mean, how?’

‘I mean – ’ still that hand was in his hair, his arm raised, a barrier between us ‘– where?’

He did not believe me. I do not know what he thought, but I saw his disbelief. I could see it in his eyes and I could hear it in his voice. Why else would he say when, how, where? What did he
think; that I would make something like this up? I sat back down on that sofa bed, my whole body cold. ‘Does it matter?’ I said.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes it does. My God, Jane.’ He sat down beside me, as if to do so was to offer me empathy. As if he didn’t know what else to do. His closeness both
drew and repelled me. I’d wanted him to take me in his arms; I had. I’d wanted him to hold me tight and comfort me, but the only person to do that was Max.

And Max had violated me. ‘He was staying here,’ I said. ‘He came up to my room.’

David stared at me, appalled. ‘And?’

‘He raped me.’

‘But he can’t have just . . . surely?’ He shook his head in stunned disbelief. ‘Didn’t you stop him, didn’t you . . . I mean, what was he doing even going up
to your room?’

I know that he was hoping for me to take it all back; for this to be some low trick, a ploy of some sort. As if I would pull such a stunt. As if.

‘I don’t know, David,’ I said, my heart so suddenly chilled. ‘I think he was trying to cheer me up. I was upset, you see, because of you.’

‘I cannot believe this,’ he said, and there was the truth. He shook his head again as though to clear it. ‘Max is just a kid.’ Did I imagine it, or was there a needle of
accusation in his voice?

‘Max is not just a kid,’ I said.

David rested his elbows on his knees, and cradled his face in his hands, thus removing himself from me. ‘My God,’ he muttered into his fingers. ‘What the hell has been going on
in this house?’

His words hit me like a slap in the face; the sting, so unexpected, the ensuing numbness flooding in. I began to feel strangely, floatingly detached. ‘In this house . . . let me think. Ah
yes, my husband ran off with someone else,’ I said. ‘My children’s father decided he’d rather live elsewhere. As a result we are having to sell our home. My kids are
miserable. I am miserable. It’s been quite a barrel of laughs lately in this house.’

‘For God’s sake, not that again, please.’ He looked up, irritation now added to the many other emotions gathered upon his face. ‘I know things have been tough. They have
been tough for me too. But that is no excuse for . . . ’ He stalled.

The heat burned in my face, electric.

‘For what, David?’

‘I don’t know, Jane. I truly don’t know. But I come here and I don’t recognize this place. I see empty cans and bottles lying around and teenage boys just coming and
going—’

‘I’m sorry? Are you saying this is my fault in some way? Are you saying I actually encouraged him?’

‘No. No I’m not. Of course not.’

‘You think I’d be interested in a 15-year-old boy? You think that?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘But . . . maybe with everything else going on in this house . . . maybe he thought . . . Oh, I don’t know, but where are the boundaries, Jane?’

I stared at him, too stunned to speak.

At some point, we each retired to our separate beds, though I doubt if either of us slept. Certainly I didn’t. I lay on my back, eyes wide open, staring at the dark. My
whole body was rigid, my heart thumping hard and fast.

This was worse than what had actually happened, this . . . aftermath. This questioning, and doubt; here was the true abuse. One quick fuck; that’s all it was for Max. So easily done, with
a little taking off guard.

Did he rape me?

Max didn’t think so. I saw it in his eyes when he removed himself from me. He’d done what he wanted to, that’s all. Whether I wanted it or not wasn’t much of an issue;
after all, what’s a little coyness, a little playing hard to get?

He’d barely had to use any force.

I am not so innocent that I have not encountered sex with a teenage boy before. Of course I have; when I was a teenager. The drunken fumble at a party; the way they get you in a room, the way
it’s done before you know it. So quick, with teenage boys. You can almost forget it ever happened.

But that he could do that to me, a grown woman. I had let him into my home, let him into my family. That is the grossest betrayal of trust. I clawed my fingers, digging them into my stomach. I
squeezed my eyes tightly shut. Inside my chest there was a solid, seething mass.

Max didn’t think he’d raped me. And David wasn’t entirely convinced either. David clearly thought there was room for doubt.

And now I questioned myself. I should have fought him off; I should have screamed. I should have seen it coming; my antennae should have been aware: watch out, there’s a jumped-up kid with
designs on you. I should have sensed the badness in that boy the minute I met him; I should have seen it in his mother even before I met him. I should have steered well clear, and kept myself alone
here, in this new and friendless place. I should have been content on my own in my isolated house, baking cakes, and I should have carried on just baking those cakes after my husband had left me. I
should have been a super-woman, immune to any weakness. Immune to loneliness. My children and I should have lived in splendid, virtuous isolation, never slipping up at all.

Max raped me.

There were no excuses, no other words.

In the morning, David was in the kitchen, waiting for me.

‘Does Sam know?’ he said straight away, in an almost farcical stage-whisper, glancing over his shoulder lest anyone should hear.

‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘I told him Max tried it on, that’s all.’

He closed his eyes in relief. ‘Thank God for that,’ he said. Then, as if that really was all that mattered, ‘Poor Sam.’

Oh yes. Poor Sam.

Me, I was just flotsam and jetsam in all this, a little castaway rubbish, tangling underneath. It was I who had muddied the waters around here.

David made a little thing about putting the kettle on, and hunting to see if there was any bread going spare for toast. He adopted an air of not exactly ease – that would be going too far
– but of camaraderie in this time of crisis.

‘I did not encourage Max,’ I said. ‘I do not know how you could even think such a thing.’

David stopped what he was doing. Carefully he placed the knife he was holding down on top of his half-buttered toast, and turned to face me.

‘I’m sorry if I seemed . . . unsympathetic last night,’ he said. ‘I do not blame you. What happened . . . it must have been awful.’

‘Yes,’ I thought, ‘it was,’ though I said nothing.

‘Look, I know you didn’t want it to happen,’ he said, his eyebrows peaking so that they met in the middle, a triangle of concern. He was a teenage boy once, my handsome,
upright, estranged and unfaithful husband. ‘I know that. Things haven’t been easy lately, for you especially. I do know that, believe me.’ He paused. ‘But to use the term
rape, Jane. Are you sure?’

Did he think I would take it back? Did he really think I would say ‘Oh well actually, now you come to mention it . . .’

‘Of course I’m sure,’ I snapped.

David blinked a couple of times, shuttering the solidness of me from his vision. He folded his arms across his chest; I could see that he was trembling, just slightly, inside his shirt.
‘Jane, he’s fifteen,’ he said. ‘He’s a minor.’

‘I know.’

‘He was here in your house, in your care.’

‘Yes, he was here in my house,’ I said, spitting the words back at him.

I stared at him and our eyes locked. I knew exactly what he was thinking. It was written all over his face.

‘It would be your word against his,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ I said, the tears burning in my eyes now. ‘And who’s going to believe me when you so clearly don’t?’

Sam’s bag stayed packed beside the front door. He’d put it there as soon as he got up, making it clear he still intended to leave. He was in his room now, arguing
with David. I could hear them, from my room; David’s voice so appeasing, calling for calm, Sam’s just so utterly wretched, veering from rage to tearful despair.

‘You have to go to school,’ David was saying. ‘It’s the law. You know that.’

‘I’ll go to school in London,’ Sam pleaded. ‘I’ll go to a school near you.’

‘I don’t have any room,’ David said. ‘It’s not my flat.’

‘That’s just excuses. You don’t want me. You don’t care.’

‘I do care.’

‘No you don’t. You just care about yourself. You don’t care what happens to me.’

And on, and on.

I stood in front of the mirror above my dressing table, and listened to them. And I stared at my reflection. I looked every one of my 44 years right then. My hair was a neglected, badly bleached
mess; I was too thin. Stress and lack of sleep had taken all the colour from my face except for around my eyes; there it was painted purple. You could never say I dressed to please; you could never
say I courted attention. I didn’t primp and groom and flirt; by nature, I am the opposite of that. But so what if I wasn’t. So what if I wore a faceful of make-up and the shortest
skirts ever; had we not moved beyond that?

It was her fault m’lud, she was asking for it.

It was her fault m’lud, she gave me a beer; she made me feel too at home.

She was a lonely old woman; I was doing her a favour.

I’m just a kid, m’lud. I’m not yet sixteen.

I closed my eyes. I saw myself at that campsite in Dorset, so desperate to be free. I saw myself drunk, and stoned, and laughing; the shame of throwing up. And here in this house, again and
again; come on in boys, let me bring you a beer. What did I do but try too hard?

David made Sam show him those pictures on Facebook. I heard him go downstairs, to fetch his Blackberry, then come back. I knew what he was doing, and I came out of my room, and
followed him back in to Sam’s. I did not want David looking at those pictures; more than that, I did not want to be hidden away in my room when he did look at them, as though in shame.

Could Sam be any more cornered? He was sitting on his bed, shaking, his eyes swollen from crying. He looked up at me when I walked in, his face raw with pain.

Yet miraculously the pictures had gone. All of them: removed.

Those boys were not stupid. They knew not to leave them there for long. Besides there was no need; the damage had already been done.