6
‘She doesn’t believe me.’
‘She doesn’t know whether to believe you.’
‘Do you really think that makes it any better? That she doesn’t know whether to believe me?’ Becky leaned forward in the chair, grasping its arms with both hands. Her face was screwed up in a grimace of anger and distress. She had a cold sore at the corner of her mouth and her hair was lank and unwashed. ‘Because it doesn’t. It f*cking doesn’t. She’s my mother. She’s supposed to be on my side. Now she looks at me as if I smell rank or something. I embarrass her. She speaks to me in this high, careful voice and can’t look me in the eye. I wish I’d never met you. I wish I’d never told you anything.’
‘Do you?’
‘I was doing OK and you made me drag everything out in the open and now it’s there and I can’t hide it away again.’
‘Your mother –’
‘My mother thinks I made it up.’ Becky gave a sharp sob. ‘That it’s a fantasy. What kind of person would have a fantasy like that?’
‘People make things up all the time. All sorts of people for all sorts of reasons.’
‘Don’t you believe me either? Now that you’ve made me ruin my life?’
‘I do believe you,’ Frieda said steadily.
‘Why? You don’t know me. Maybe my mother’s right and you’re wrong. Maybe you’re just too trusting and gullible.’
‘I don’t think many people would agree with that.’
‘So why?’
Frieda paused, considering. ‘You rang true,’ she said.
‘So you don’t think I’m just trying to draw attention to myself.’
‘I know you’re telling me the truth. It must have felt terrible, Becky.’
Becky wrapped her thin arms around her thin body and stood in the centre of the room as if she was trying to protect herself or hide herself.
‘Yes,’ was all she managed. ‘Yes, it did. It does.’
‘Do you want to sit down?’
Becky sat, but on the edge of her chair, as if she was about to jump up again.
‘She said I shouldn’t talk about it to other people, that it would all die down.’
‘What did you actually say?’
‘Not much. I couldn’t. It took all my courage to get the words out. I was sick – literally sick – before I went downstairs and told her. I just blurted it out.’
‘So, no details of any kind?’
‘No details.’
‘You didn’t tell her the circumstances?’
‘I said it was at home, in my bedroom.’
‘Do you remember it?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t want to.’
‘So you’re trying to push it away into the darkness and bury it.’
‘Yes. I have been since it happened. Until you came along.’
‘You were raped.’ Frieda paused, watched Becky intently. ‘A terrible thing was done to you, and now you feel polluted and ashamed, as if it was your fault.’
‘Maybe it was.’ Becky’s voice was a whisper.
‘Why?’
‘Like, I’d been asking for it.’
‘Asking for it in what way?’
Becky was staring down at her knotted hands. Her face looked grey; old and babyish at the same time.
‘I was in with a crowd of guys and I slept with one of them. Just a couple of times. But it was a bit out of control, really.’
‘Was it one of them who raped you?’
‘No. I mean I don’t know, but I’d know if it was.’ She had perspiration on her forehead. ‘It was a man, not a boy. Wouldn’t I know?’
‘So you feel ashamed because you think it was some kind of punishment for what you’d done before?’
‘I guess.’
‘Listen.’ Frieda’s voice was strong and clear in the little room. ‘This is very important. Many people who are raped feel that in some way or other it was their fault. Most of them, I would say. They feel that they led their rapists on, didn’t struggle enough, didn’t say no clearly enough or, like you, they have a feeling that they were getting what they deserve. It’s not true.’
Becky gave a small murmur.
‘Do you understand, Becky? It is not true. It was done to you but it doesn’t define you.’
‘I knew as soon as I woke up that something horrible was about to happen,’ said Becky. ‘I could have called out.’
‘Go on.’
‘I woke up and it was all quiet. Quiet inside the house and quiet outside as well. Dead quiet, but I could tell something was different. I thought maybe I’d had a bad dream, but I knew it wasn’t a dream. I don’t know how. I just lay there in the dark and I could hear my heart beating. My mouth tasted funny, as if I hadn’t cleaned my teeth. I remember thinking that. Now I clean my teeth ten times a day.’
Frieda didn’t speak.
‘I thought of turning on the light, but I didn’t. I just lay there. Then I heard someone move. It was like a creak and then a rustle.’ She bent even lower in her chair so her dark hair hung over her face, like a curtain. ‘I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even breathe.’ She stopped, rocked forward and back, just once. ‘There was a hand.’
‘Where?’
‘On my mouth. To stop me making a noise. It was warm and smelt of soap. I remember that. I remember thinking it was quite a nice smell. Maybe an apple smell. I can’t.’
‘You can’t what?’
‘I can’t say it all.’
‘You don’t have to.’
‘I opened my eyes but I couldn’t see anything except a dark shape just above me. He pulled off the duvet. I was wearing pyjama trousers and a T-shirt and he put his other hand down my trousers and I could see his shape above me, but not his face. He was wearing something over his face.’
‘It’s all right, Becky.’
‘Why doesn’t she believe me?’
‘It’s complicated.’
‘I didn’t struggle properly. I didn’t try to stop it happening. I was so scared. I thought I was going to die. I wish I had. I wish I’d died.’
Frieda handed Becky a tissue.
‘I can’t remember it all. I don’t want to. It was just dark and nasty and silent and ugly and fumbly. I wanted to shout but his hand was still over my mouth. I could hear him panting but it sounded weird and muffled through the cloth over his face. He was just, like, this thing, and I was like a thing as well. It hurt.’
‘I’m so sorry that this was done to you.’
‘He kept trying to arrange me, like I was a doll.’ Becky suddenly looked worn out by it all. ‘It’ll never go away, will it?’
‘It won’t stay the same. With work –’
‘I don’t want to work at it. I want it never to have happened.’ Becky pulled a face that made her look like a toddler. ‘I know, I know. It did.’
‘It did, yes.’
‘Mum’s very angry, isn’t she?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘With you. She’s ashamed of me but she’s angry with you. She says you’ve let fame go to your head.’
‘Does she?’
‘She says this is my last time here.’
‘I’m going to recommend someone for you to see. I think your mother will agree.’
‘Why not you?’
‘Because I know your mother. I’ve got someone in mind. I think you’ll like her, and if you don’t, I’ll recommend someone else.’
‘But I want you!’
Frieda couldn’t help smiling. ‘I’m not the right person. But you do need to keep seeing someone, Becky. This is just the beginning of a journey for you, but you won’t have to make it alone. You’re strong and you’re intelligent and you can come through this.’ She leaned forward slightly, fixing Becky with her dark eyes. ‘You will feel better one day.’
‘Will I?’
‘Yes.’
Just as Becky was leaving, Frieda asked her, ‘Tell me, have you thought any more about going to the police?’
‘No. They wouldn’t believe me. Why should they if my own mother doesn’t?’ Her voice became flat and dreary. ‘He was right.’
‘Who was right?’
Becky made a visible effort. ‘He said no one would think I was telling the truth.’
Frieda gazed at her. ‘Is that what he told you?’
‘He said it in my ear, in this muffled kind of voice, thick and lisping through the mask but I could make out the words. I think it was the only time he spoke, the whole time. I can hear him saying it, like he was saying something loving.’ She shivered again. ‘He said, “Don’t think of telling anyone, sweetheart. Nobody will believe you.” And he was right.’