“I pulled it out to get a better look,” Emma was saying. “She looked so strange. It was her, but not her, if you know what I mean.” Kate nodded.
“Her eyes were half-closed and I suddenly realized she didn’t have anything on her top. I could see one of her nipples and I dropped the picture as if it had scalded me. I felt sick and frightened. I knew I shouldn’t have seen it, but I couldn’t unsee it. I picked up the photo and went to put it back so no one would know. But I knew.”
“What happened when Will came back? Did you confront him?” Kate asked.
“I was fourteen, Kate. And he was my mum’s boyfriend. I didn’t know what to say. I was embarrassed and frightened about what Jude would say if she found out.”
“Did she? Did you tell her?” Kate said. And Emma shook her head.
“Will told me not to. We were sitting outside later. Will and I with ice-cream cones, sitting in the garden in Howard Street. His arm was flung behind his head, and he was gazing at the sky, and I asked him if he was in love with Barbara. He laughed and said it was a funny question. But he went a bit quiet. So I told him I’d seen the photo. I said I’d spilled the water by accident and seen it. And he said Barbara had sent it to him. She’d been a bit of a nuisance, throwing herself at him behind Jude’s back. And since she’d left she had started trying to get him to leave Jude.
“And he told me not to say anything because Jude didn’t know and it would upset her.”
“And you never did?” Kate asked.
Emma shook her head again. “I couldn’t. Will made sure I would keep quiet.”
“How, Emma?” Kate said. “What did he do to you?”
The only sound was Emma’s breathing.
“Was it Will who raped you?” Kate said.
“Yes,” Emma said and pulled the scarf up over her mouth.
“But you could have told someone,” Kate said. “Why didn’t you tell anyone what he’d done?”
“Because I didn’t know he’d raped me. I know it sounds crazy now, but he told me he’d had sex with me because I’d made him want me. It was my fault. It was me who had done a terrible thing, not him.”
“The bastard,” Kate blurted.
“A very clever bastard,” Emma replied. “He made me believe I’d been the instigator. I was fourteen. I’d only kissed one bloke before. I didn’t know anything. So when he told me I’d thrown myself at him, he must have known I would believe him. I wrote in my diary that I was ‘dirty’ and I told myself that the baby had been my punishment.”
Kate started the engine. “Where are we going, Emma?” she said. “Where is he?”
SIXTY-NINE
Emma
SUNDAY, APRIL 29, 2012
I thought I’d feel better when I told Jude. I thought she would acknowledge her guilt. But of course she didn’t. She denied it. I’d expected her to argue at first, but I thought, in her heart of hearts, she would know. She’d see the truth when I laid it out in front of her. But no. Will still has that hold over her.
But I’ve started now so I must go on. And Kate is going to help me.
As we drive out of the car park, she says it could get ugly if we confront Will, but I say it couldn’t get any uglier than it is.
“I deserve this moment,” I say. “And so does he.” Deep breath. “I don’t want to go to the police yet. I don’t think they’ll believe me—and if they don’t act, it’ll be over, won’t it? I won’t get a second chance.”
Kate nods. I think she’s on my side.
“We need a confession,” I say. “Fronting him up” is what Kate calls it.
Kate gets an address for Will from a colleague and we drive out of London. I’ve already decided what I’ll say and I’m practicing it in my head.
I need to eat something or I might faint, I think. I can’t remember when I last ate. I feel dizzy at the thought of seeing him, but I know this is the right thing to do.
I wonder what he’ll do when he sees me. The specter at the feast. I wonder if the shock will kill him. For a second, I fantasize that he’ll have a heart attack, right there in front of me. But I want my moment with him.
I’ve waited twenty-eight years for this. My mouth waters and I feel dizzy again. There is this image of an avenging angel in my head. The beating of strong wings, the rush of heavenly winds. Stop it. I need to get a grip.
? ? ?
His cottage is like a picture on a biscuit tin. Roses round the door. The whole thing. How inappropriate, I think as Kate knocks.
And there he is, Professor Will. Smiling a welcome to her, a stranger, and then spotting me.
He masks his shock well, turning on the urbane charm and saying: “Well, this is a surprise. How are you, Emma? What are you doing here?”
“I want to talk to you, Will,” I say.
“What about?” he says. “I’m not sure we have anything to talk about.”
He is nervous now. A neighbor passes his gate and calls “Hello, Professor Burnside” to him and he quickly ushers us out of public view. Doesn’t want a scene, I think.
He leads us into his chintzy sitting room. There’s a cup and saucer on the coffee table, brown toast and honey, and the Sunday supplements spread out on the sofa.
He sits down, crossing his legs to reveal yellow socks and tanned calves.
“So, Emma, who is this with you?” he says, as we perch on the armchairs.
“A friend, Kate,” I say—I don’t want him to know she’s a reporter, and Kate has agreed not to say anything. “She drove me down here,” I add, in explanation.
“Hello, Kate,” he says and waits for one of us to speak. Smiling all the time.
The tension is making me feel ill and I force myself to speak.
“I came to talk to you about what happened when I was fourteen.”
“Goodness. This isn’t going to be a short visit, then,” Will says. “Do you want to talk about your vicious lies or your screaming fits? They are all still quite vivid in my memory.”
“No, about how you raped me,” I hear myself say.
It is as if the world stops. None of us move or even breathe. The word “raped” seems to echo round the room, bouncing off the sprigged wallpaper and china shepherdess ornaments.
The color has drained from Will’s face, then floods back as he half-rises from his seat to protest.
“Rape?” he says as if he’s just heard the word for the first time. “What are you talking about? This is preposterous.”
He realizes he is shouting and sits back down again.
“Dear me, Emma. You really are not well, are you?” he says, back in control.
I look at him and he looks back. Challenging me to repeat the allegation.
“You raped me, Will,” I say. “You picked me up in your car when I was walking home. You had sex with me and said I made you do it. That I led you on. But I was a child, Will.”
“Hardly, Emma,” he sneers. It was a mistake, and I see Kate rock forwards, outraged.
“A child, Will,” I repeat loudly. “I was fourteen.”
“Emma,” he says. “Please calm down. You and I both know that you were a very troubled girl. And it appears you still are. I want to feel sorry for you, but if you are going to make up this sort of slanderous nonsense, I may have to act.”
“I am going to act,” I say, because I am. It is part of my plan now that I’ve seen him. “I’m going to the police.”
“Well, it will be your word—the word of a deranged woman with a history of mental problems—against mine,” Will says, his tone a shade harder. “You may want to reconsider.”
“No,” I say. “It is time.”
He turns to Kate and does this two-adults-with-a-difficult-child look, radiating weary empathy. “I don’t know what she’s told you, Kate,” he says, “but it is all lies. She has mental health issues—did you know that? Had to be sent to live with her grandparents. She’s making the mistake of her life.”
“It sounds like you were the mistake of her life, Will,” Kate says. “She was the daughter of your girlfriend. She trusted you like a father.”
And I want to hug her.