Where the Memories Lie
By: Sibel Hodge
That night in bed it felt like I had the old Ethan back at first. After I’d seen a sullen and uncommunicative Anna to bed, we went upstairs to avoid Nadia and Lucas’s jibes to each other.
‘It’s only nine o’clock.’ Ethan lay on top of the bed, rigid, like a corpse. ‘I feel like a prisoner here, too. It’s like we’re in limbo. I can’t stay here anymore. I need my own space.’
I felt the same. The only one who was enjoying being at Nadia’s was Poppy.
‘What about Anna, though?’ I asked. ‘You said we’d stay until the weekend. This is a lot for her to handle. Just give it a few more days.’ I lay on my side facing him, propping my head up with the palm of one hand.
I twined my fingers through his. He stared down at them as if they were something foreign.
He sighed. ‘OK.’
I stroked the stubble on his cheeks. He hadn’t shaved in days, and it was flecked with grey now.
‘Are you growing a beard?’ I laughed, trying to lighten the mood. ‘I hate beards. Especially grey ones.’
Where the Memories Lie ‘What about Sean Connery? He’s got a grey beard and you fancy him.’
His words catapulted me into the past, sparking off a memory.
I gasped. ‘I don’t think it was Tom’s baby.’
He glanced at me sharply. ‘Why not?’
‘Because I just remembered something. One day Katie and I were having a conversation about older men, and she’d said they were disgusting and they made her feel ill. I mean, I was talking about good-looking older men at the time, and I was listing my top five actors who I fancied.’ I waved my hand around. ‘Anyway, I said Sean Connery and Jack Nicholson and ? God, I can’t remember who else ? but she got . . . I don’t know, really angry about it, and upset. Saying it was sick and twisted to have some old man pawing at young girls and they had no right to do it and why didn’t anyone listen to them.’ I shook my head. ‘I mean now, suspecting Jack might have sexually abused her, it puts all that into context, but at the time I just thought she was overreacting.’
Ethan watched me without saying a word.
‘So, you know, she wouldn’t have slept with Tom, would she, if she felt like that? Did you ever see Tom looking at her in that way when she was at the house with Chris or us?’
‘In what way?’ He pronounced every word slowly like I was stupid, and it was clear he was only humouring me.
‘You know. A sexual way.’
‘I can’t believe you’re even saying it. No, I didn’t notice that. Of course not.’
‘Neither did I. Unless . . .’ Another horrible thought hit me.
‘What if he raped her?’
Ethan dropped my hand and sat up. ‘He did not rape her.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because no one needed to rape her. She would’ve dropped her knickers for anyone.’
223
Sibel Hodge
A fire sparked in my head, molten anger bubbling to the surface. I sat up. ‘I can’t believe you just said that. How can you trivialise being raped?’
He rolled his eyes. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, here we go again.’
‘What?’ I blew out an angry breath.
‘I can’t say anything right these days, can I?’
‘Well, neither can I!’ I hissed, hyper-aware that the walls were very thin and we were in someone else’s house. ‘Victims of abuse come in all shapes and sizes. Even the strong ones can be abused, you know. I once worked with this surgeon whose husband was beating her up. You’d never have guessed this composed, confident, competent woman was a victim of domestic violence.’
‘How do you know Jack wasn’t the one who got her pregnant?’
He bit back.
‘If Jack raped her, she wouldn’t have kept the baby, would she?’
I muttered.
‘What?’
‘DI Spencer said she was almost six months pregnant. Why would she have kept it, if it was Jack’s baby? She would’ve had a termination, wouldn’t she? I mean, no one in that situation would want to have their father’s baby.’
‘How the hell do I know what she thought? Maybe she couldn’t afford an abortion.’