She folded her arms. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realise I was on trial. Again.’
‘No, don’t be like that, I don’t mean it like that.’ Didn’t I? Suddenly I wasn’t sure. I took a deep breath. ‘Say Jamie’s case does come to a retrial, that’s a discrepancy that could trip you up. I’m trying to help you out here.’ I looked at Kit for back-up but he was looking at the floor, like he wished the pair of us would vanish in a puff of smoke.
‘Ok.’ Beth leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes. ‘If you must know, I lied about the day I came down because I didn’t want them to know how I got there. I didn’t get one of the special coaches. I hitched.’
‘You hitched?’ Incredulity made me temporarily blind to how close I was scooting to my own lie.
Kit’s eyes followed our conversation back and forth.
‘Yes.’ Beth opened her eyes; her chin had a defensive tilt to it. ‘Hitch-hiked. I stuck out my thumb and made a sign and eventually people picked me up. I had an old couple take me as far as the Fleet services, then a couple of girls took me to Helston, then a bloke in a Beetle took me right on to the site. I’m still shitting myself that Jamie’s defence might find one of them. I kept expecting to see him every morning in court. I reckon their lawyers have got one of them now.’
I was simultaneously relieved and bewildered. ‘I don’t get what the big deal is, how and when you got there.’
‘Do you really not?’ I shook my head. Beth sat down next to me on the futon and took my hand. I saw a faint black down on her upper lip that I hadn’t noticed before. ‘Because it was obvious to me, even in the first few minutes.’ She nodded at my bookshelves. ‘You of all people, with your Germaine Greer and your Camille Paglia, should know. Even I read the newspapers, I knew what they did to rape victims. If they knew I’d hitched down, they’d have said I had a history of risk-taking behaviour, or worse. I already knew that it was my word against his. And so I thought I’d take away anything that could be construed as asking for it.’
Speech over, she sank into the cushions and waited for me to say something, but I was still trying to process it all. I had seen Beth in the aftermath. She was too traumatised even to tell me her name, let alone think on her feet like this. She took my confusion for doubt.
‘You see?’ Beth threw up her hands. ‘This is why. I knew they’d judge me. You are too.’ She was on her feet, shoving her things into her bag. ‘I’ll leave you guys to it.’
‘Beth, please, don’t go like this,’ I said. Kit glared at me; this was exactly what he wanted: space, until the next legal step, and he didn’t care if this was the price. But I could no more let this go than he could drop his twin. I was part of this story and I needed to understand all of it.
Beth swept her stuff off our mantelpiece into her open handbag – keys, phone, purse – in a bad-tempered flounce, then bent to tie her shoelaces. ‘I’ll be in touch if there’s any news about the appeal,’ she said.
‘Stay for a drink,’ I said desperately, ‘Let’s talk this through.’
‘Talk this through?’ she said. ‘That’s a fucking laugh. Do you have any idea what it’s like, spending all this time with you both and having to constantly bite my tongue?’
My blood banged against my skin. She’s going to say it, I thought in horror. She’s known all along that I lied for her in court and she’s going to tell Kit now. I could tell from his creased face that I hadn’t hidden my horror in time. I got the feeling that he was somehow reading my mind; that he knew how big this could be. I knew that my script read, ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ but I couldn’t risk the answer.
‘Fuck the pair of you,’ said Beth, and she was gone, bag jangling and hair flying.
After the front door slammed, Kit and I were left blinking at each other in stunned confusion and, in my case, a reprieve that could only be short-lived. I needed to go after her. To beg her to keep biting her tongue for my sake. Kit was the first to move, leaning over the balcony.
‘Where’s she gone?’ I asked him.
‘On to the common, through the trees.’
I flew down the stairs and across the grass to the bus stop, only realising on my way that I didn’t know whether she was heading to Crystal Palace or back up to Nottinghamshire. I checked the bus stops on both sides of the road but I’d missed her. I circled the common twice before giving up.
When I got back, much later, there were three empty bottles already lined up in the recycling. Kit got up to fetch another beer from the fridge, opened it, and gave it to me before getting his next one. Now that Mac was drying out, Kit seemed to be drinking for two.
‘What the bloody hell happened there?’ he said.
‘I’ve clearly hit a nerve,’ I said. ‘She’s hiding something, Kit.’
‘She might not be. Self-preservation is an amazing thing. And you said yourself, people react weirdly to trauma; there’s no such thing as normal.’