I vomited the fish and chips. He reared back as though scalded, swearing at the mess on his clothes. Marching me into the small stark bathroom, he made me undress. I stood naked on the freezing floor and noticed the semen and blood on my thighs. I cried. He said he was sorry. I felt sad for him.
In the weeks and months that followed, we knocked on many more doors without saving any souls. We had sex in the basement afterwards and Mr. Bowler said that when I turned seventeen we were going to run away together and live in a house by the sea. He showed me photographs of pretty cottages covered in wisteria or ivy. In the meantime, we had to keep our love secret because he was married.
That summer Mr. Bowler took his family to Cornwall for a holiday. I thought I’d be relieved, but instead I missed him and couldn’t wait for him to come home. He brought me another present—a fossil of a snail that was millions of years old—and he said our love would last that long. I knew that wasn’t true.
I grew more silent as the weeks passed. “Where’s that pretty smile?” he’d ask, and I would try to smile. “You like this, don’t you?” he’d say as his hot breath puffed against my face. “Tell me you like it.”
One day he asked me if his youngest daughter, Bernie, had a boyfriend or if any boys had shown an interest in her. I didn’t know. He became quite agitated at the thought of some “grubby teenager pawing her” and asked me to spy on her and report back to him. I recognized the hypocrisy. He thought it was OK to have sex with me, but his daughter had to remain pure. I watched Bernie in the playground, chatting and laughing with her friends. She was pretty and popular and excited to be alive. I knew I would never be like that again, never clean or happy.
Mr. Bowler had sex with me for another year, never using a condom, always withdrawing from me at the last second. When he finished, he buckled his belt and told me to clean up before he took me home.
One evening, as he seesawed into me, I felt my mind separate from my body and float upwards, looking down on the room. I could see Mr. Bowler’s white buttocks and the corduroy trousers around his ankles and the sleeveless sweater his wife had knitted him. I opened my mouth to scream but no sound came out. Instead I felt a creature slide down my spine and slither between my organs until it curled around my heart, stopping it from breaking.
I came to with Mr. Bowler slapping my cheek and calling my name. I didn’t want to wake.
“You must have blacked out,” he said, zipping up his fly. “You made a strange sound, as though you were talking to someone, but it wasn’t your voice. I hope you don’t talk in your sleep at home.”
Mr. Bowler no longer helped me with my homework or asked me to go door-knocking. And as the weeks passed, he found more and more things to criticize about me. My skin. My weight. My smell. He didn’t kiss me anymore or tell me he loved me.
The creature woke and slept and slithered inside me, whispering advice, scribbling spidery words on the pages of my diary, laughing at my feeble attempts to express my feelings.
Nobody cares what you think.
Mr. Bowler cares.
He doesn’t love you. He thinks you’re getting fat.
No.
That’s why he pinches the rolls of fat above your hips. He finds you disgusting.
He loves me.
He doesn’t kiss you. He doesn’t buy you presents. He doesn’t take you door-knocking.
I turned fifteen. There was no birthday celebration. My mother asked me about my last period. She gasped when the doctor confirmed I was pregnant. My stepfather demanded to know the name of the father. I shook my head. He looped my hair around his closed fist and lifted me off my feet.
I remember the look on their faces. Shock. Disbelief. I was sent to my room, where I sat on the bed and listened to them arguing. My mother wanted to call the police, but my stepfather said the elders would know what to do. I scratched at the Little Mermaid stencil on my headboard, slowly peeling it away. The notion that I was carrying a baby seemed ridiculous. I still had a dollhouse and a dress-up box.
The following day my parents received a phone call and I heard my stepfather ask, “Is it a judicial committee hearing?”
I didn’t hear the answer.
I was taken to Kingdom Hall and interviewed by three elders whom I had known since I was a child. Brother Wendell ran a carpet-cleaning business, Brother Watson installed blinds, and Brother Brookfield worked as a gardener for the local council.
They asked me questions. When did I have sex? Where? How often? Was Mr. Bowler circumcised? (I didn’t know what that meant.) “How far were your legs apart?” asked Brother Brookfield, who had a face like a tomato.
“Pardon?”
“Show us how far your legs were apart.”
I was sitting on a hard wooden chair, wearing a knee-length dress. The elders were lined up along a long table. I opened my knees. They leaned forward.
“She must be lying,” said Brother Wendell. “How could she be raped with her legs like that?”
“Why didn’t you tell your parents?” asked Brother Watson.
“Mr. Bowler said he loved me.”
Brother Wendell scoffed. “So you willingly had sex with him?”
“No. Yes. I didn’t enjoy it. Not the sex.”
“Did you tell anyone else?” asked Brother Watson.
“No.”
“Did anyone see this happen?”
“We kept it a secret. Mr. Bowler said when I was seventeen we would run away together and live in a house by the sea. He showed me pictures.”
I thought they might laugh.
“When was the first time?” asked Brother Brookfield.
“I don’t remember the exact date.”
“Were you a virgin?”
“Yes.”
“Surely you must remember the date,” said Brother Wendell. “The week . . . the month?”
I struggled to think, eventually guessing a date. “Around Easter.”
“You don’t sound very sure.”
“I think it was around then, but I’m not sure.”
The elders left me alone. I wanted to go to the bathroom but I was too scared to ask. Instead I crossed my legs, squeezing everything shut. Soon I heard Mr. Bowler shouting in another room, accusing me of telling lies. A little bit of wee came out.
When the elders came back they had my parents with them. Mr. Bowler entered through a separate door. Before it closed I saw his daughter Bernie standing behind him. She was holding her mother’s hand.
The judicial committee took their seats at a long table. My stepfather sat behind me and my mother stood just inside the main doors, looking bewildered.
Brother Wendell spoke first.
“Very serious allegations have been made against Brother Bowler, a senior member of our flock. Sister Agatha is pregnant. She claims that on more than one occasion, Brother Bowler fornicated with her and made her perform other sexual acts. Brother Bowler denies any wrongdoing and has made a countercomplaint against Sister Agatha, accusing her of slander. He has asked for permission to question his accuser.”
I thought I was going to vomit.
Mr. Bowler crossed the room and stood directly in front of me. He wore familiar corduroy trousers and a sleeveless sweater. Smiling kindly, he said hello, telling me he was sorry to see me in such circumstances.
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“No.”
“So you haven’t had sex with a worldly boy from your school.”
“No.”