The scales fell. I have been blind and blinkered. You didn’t know.
I pulled the car over to the side of the road and started to sob, my whole body racked with the awful, horrible knowledge: you didn’t know. All these years, Nel. All these years, I attributed to you the most vicious cruelty, and what had you done to deserve it? What did you do to deserve it? All those years, and I didn’t listen, I never listened to you. And now it seemed impossible that I could not have seen, could not have understood that when you asked me, Wasn’t there some part of you that liked it? you were talking about the river, about that night at the river. You wanted to know what it felt like to abandon yourself to the water.
I stopped crying. In my head, you muttered: You don’t have time for this, Julia, and I smiled. ‘I know,’ I said out loud. ‘I know.’ I didn’t care any longer what Robbie thought, I didn’t care that he’d spent all his life telling himself he did nothing wrong; that’s what men like him do. And what does it matter what he thought? He was nothing to me. What mattered was you, what you knew and didn’t know, and that I’d been punishing you all your life for something you didn’t do. And now I had no way to tell you I was sorry.
Back in Beckford, I stopped the car on the bridge, climbed down the mossy steps and walked along the river path. It was early afternoon, the air was cooling and the breeze was getting up. Not a perfect day for a swim, but I’d been waiting so long and I wanted to be there, with you. It was the only way now that I could get close to you, the only thing I had left.
I took off my shoes and stood in jeans and T-shirt on the bank. I started to walk forward, one foot after the other. I closed my eyes, gasping as my feet sank into the cool mud, but I didn’t stop. I kept going, and when the water closed over my head, I realized through my terror that it did feel good. It did.
Mark
BLOOD SEEPED THROUGH the bandage wrapped around Mark’s hand. He’d not done a very good job of patching it up and, try as he might, he couldn’t stop himself from gripping the steering wheel too tightly. His jaw ached and a bright, startling pain pulsed behind his eyes. The vice was back again, clamped around his temples; he could feel the blood squeezing through the veins in his head, could almost hear his skull begin to crack. Twice he’d had to stop the car at the side of the road to throw up.
He had no idea where to run. He’d started off by driving north, back towards Edinburgh, but halfway there he changed his mind. Would they expect him to go that way? Would there be roadblocks at the entrance to the city, torchlight shone in his face, rough hands dragging him from the car, quiet voices telling him there’s worse to come than this? Far worse. He turned back and took a different route. He couldn’t think with his head splitting like this. He needed to stop, to breathe, to plan. He turned off the main road and drove towards the coast.
Everything he’d feared was coming to pass. He saw his future unravelling before him and he played it over and over in his mind: the police at the door, the journalists screaming questions at him as he was dragged, head covered with a blanket, to a car. Windows repaired, just to be smashed again. Vile insults on the walls, excrement through the letter box. The trial. Oh God, the trial. The look on his parents’ faces as Lena levelled her accusations, the questions the court would ask: when and where and how many times? The shame. The conviction. Prison. Everything he’d warned Katie about, everything he’d told her he would face. He wouldn’t survive it. He’d told her that he wouldn’t survive it.
That Friday evening in June, he hadn’t been expecting her. She was supposed to be going to a birthday party, something she couldn’t get out of. He remembered opening the door, feeling the rush of pleasure he always got from looking at her, before he had time to process the look on her face. Anxious, suspicious. He’d been seen that afternoon, speaking to Nel Abbott in the school car park. What had they been talking about? Why was he speaking to Nel at all?
‘I was seen? By whom?’ He was amused, he thought she was jealous.
Katie turned away, rubbing her hand against the back of her neck, the way she did whenever she felt nervous or self-conscious. ‘K? What’s the matter?’
‘She knows,’ Katie said quietly, without looking at him, and the ground fell away, pitching him into nothingness. He grabbed hold of her arm, twisting her round to face him. ‘I think Nel Abbott knows.’
And then it all came tumbling out, all the things she’d lied about, the things she’d been hiding from him. Lena had known for months, Katie’s brother too.
‘Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ, Katie, how could you not tell me? How could you … Jesus!’ He’d never yelled at her before, he could see how frightened she was, how terrified and upset, and yet he couldn’t stop himself. ‘Do you understand what they’ll do to me? Do you fucking understand what it is like to go to prison as a sex offender?’
‘You’re not!’ she cried.
He grabbed her again (he felt hot, even now, with the shame of it). ‘But I am! That’s exactly what I am. That is what you’ve made me.’
He told her to leave, but she refused. She begged, pleaded. She swore to him that Lena would never talk. Lena would never say anything to anyone about it. Lena loves me, she would never hurt me. She’d persuaded Josh that it was over, that nothing had ever actually happened, that he had nothing to worry about, that if he did say something all it would do was break their parents’ hearts. But Nel?
‘I’m not even sure if she does know,’ Katie told him. ‘Lena said she might have overheard something …’ She tailed off, and he could tell by the cut of her gaze that she was lying. He couldn’t believe her, couldn’t believe anything she said. This beautiful girl, who had entranced him, bewitched him, couldn’t be trusted.
It was over, he told her, watching her face crumple, disentangling himself as she tried to wrap her arms around him, pushing her away, gently at first and then more firmly. ‘No, listen, listen to me! I cannot see you any longer, not like this. Not ever, do you understand? It is over. It never happened. There is nothing between us – there was never anything between us.’
‘Please don’t say that, Mark, please.’ She was sobbing so hard she could barely breathe, and his heart broke. ‘Please don’t say that. I love you …’
He felt himself weaken, he let her hold him, he let her kiss him, he felt his resolve subside. She pressed herself into him and he had a sudden, clear image of another pressing against him, and not just one but several: male bodies pressing against his beaten, broken, violated body; he saw this and pushed her violently away.
‘No! No! Do you have any idea what you’ve done? You have ruined my life, do you understand that? When this gets out – when that bitch tells the police – and she will tell the police – my life will be over. Do you know what they do to men like me in prison? You know, don’t you? Do you think I’ll survive that? I won’t. My life will be over.’ He saw the fear and hurt in her face and still he said, ‘And it will be down to you.’