I swallowed, feeling near to tears. ‘I’ll be fine, but, thank you.’ I reached out my hand and put it on his knee, to show that I understood what he was having to do, even though we were friends – but he visibly flinched and, horrified by how my action could have been misinterpreted, I snatched it back. ‘God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—’
‘It’s fine – don’t worry.’ He quickly reached across his desk for a tissue for me. ‘Go home and please phone the MDU, Al. You’re a female doctor – which is rare in this kind of situation in any case – and the Days yelled their allegation in the most public way they could. This is already out there, and I think we have to expect a high level of media interest.’
* * *
I drove home slowly through the bright sunshine to tell my husband I’d just been accused of sexually assaulting a teenager and was now suspended pending further investigation. I was exactly the same woman who had left for work several hours earlier preparing to document the beginnings of harassment by a male patient. But now, everyone was only going to see my reflection in the seventeen-year-old mirror Jonathan was holding. It was horrific.
I was devastated.
David was right – both Christy and Gary Day knew exactly what they were doing when they walked into the surgery. They wanted maximum exposure, and I don’t believe they considered either the effect it would have on their son, or my daughters, for one second. They just intended to punish me for what they believed I had done wrong… but Jonathan? He wanted to be back in control after I’d taken it away from him on Friday.
I’ve thought about this a lot; Jonathan Day has no autonomy in his relationship with his parents, so he seeks out situations where he gets one up on someone in a parental position instead – I was just a vehicle for his need to lose and then regain control. Sometimes he uses sex to get his own way, sometimes power. He’s happy to play the poor little boy or the powerful man, as long as he has the upper hand. If I hadn’t become his victim, I would have found it fascinating that he could suppress or invoke feelings for the purpose of control, rather than the authenticity of the feelings themselves.
In other words, what had actually happened between us was irrelevant to him. Like all good liars he adapted his story to suit his immediate circumstance.
Did that make me angry?
Of course it did.
6
Jonathan Day
When I stood up the skin had basically been grated off my shin, knee and the bottom of my thigh. They all pulled pained ‘Ooooh’ faces, some laughed, and Dad came jogging over to have a look. ‘You soft sod, what were you thinking?’ He gave me the car keys to go and have a sit down but told me to put my coat over the seat so I didn’t get blood everywhere – nice. I was only there because he’d paid me. They wouldn’t have had enough players otherwise, after one of the usual blokes dropped out at the last minute. I got carried away and forgot we were on AstroTurf, went in for the sliding tackle and that was it.
Mum went into one when we got home, going on about it permanently scarring and the infection risk. She got me a dressing and cleaned it up, but the next morning it still felt like it was on fire, and when I tried to sit down at breakfast my trousers were already sticking to bits of the open skin the dressing wasn’t big enough to cover. Mum took another look and insisted that she make a doctor’s appointment.
It wasn’t that bad – definitely not enough for her to drive me to school, come back later to take me to the surgery and sit in on the appointment herself, which is what she wanted to do. Instead we compromised on me driving myself over that afternoon if she could get me seen, because I’d realised it would get me out of having to hand in a piss-poor Economics essay; Mr Loftus being about the only teacher who still demands handwritten essays to be given to him in class, in person – twat. I got Mum’s text at lunchtime, immediately got signed out and drove myself over to the surgery nice and early for the three p.m. appointment. I sat parked in the car for ages, dicking around on my phone, and watching people coming and going from the chemist opposite.
She arrived at about ten to three, pulling straight into one of the doctors’ spaces. I looked up from my screen because the speed of the movement caught my eye; I thought the BMW was going to smack into the wall before it jerked to a stop – and then she climbed out.
I saw her slim, tanned leg emerge first, then the rest of her. She was wearing brown leather, strappy, heeled sandals and as I followed it up, I arrived at a sand-coloured skirt that she’d tucked a sort of silky cream shirt into. It triggered a memory instantly – the female archaeologist in Indiana Jones; she even had the same blonde hair. Elsa Schneider. I repeated the name to myself. I’d seen the movie about a hundred times. Mostly every Christmas with the family. Doctor Elsa Schneider.
She slammed the door shut and, even from just side on, it was easy to tell she was a) fit and b) pissed about something as she marched alongside the building and disappeared off round the back.
I YouTubed Elsa Schneider and watched Harrison Ford climbing off some boat in Venice before turning round at the sound of a female voice calling him. And there she was. Whoa.
I leant back, loosened my school tie and undid both front windows a bit more, to get more air going through. It was hot in the direct June sunlight.
I got to the bit in the ransacked hotel room where Indy grabs her, pretty much tells her to shut it because he’s in charge, then kisses her. She gets all ‘how dare you’, but sucks his face off in return, bites his ear and tells him she hates arrogant men, before pulling him down onto some off-screen bed.
The clip finished there and, bored, I looked at the clock, climbed out carefully – my leg still pulling where the gammy hairs, sticky with blood, had glued themselves to the inside of my trousers – and walked slowly over to the main doors.
Mum had pulled a blinder and got me the first appointment of the afternoon, so, in theory, it was impossible for the doctor to be running late, but it was still nearly ten minutes past three when it finally flashed up on a screen above my head:
Jonathan Day, Dr A Inglis, Room 10
in bright red, digital old-school letters.
Feeling annoyed that I was pretty much on my own time now, not school’s, and wanting to get it over and done with so I could go and meet Cherry, I shuffled down the hall and knocked on the partially open door to Room 10, to hear a brisk, not exactly warm: ‘Come in.’
I did as I was told, and there, sat at a desk, was Elsa Schneider. I forgot about my irritation immediately. Up close I could see she was older than my first glance across the car park had her down for, but I was still intimidated enough by how she looked to lose the power of speech as I walked in. If I was a tosser, I might use the word cougar, but I’m not. I just thought she was beautiful.
She barely looked up from her computer screen, just said: ‘please sit down,’ so I did, stretching my bad leg out, and finally she turned to look at me, her face registering slight surprise to see it reaching all the way past her, behind her chair.
‘Sorry, my limbs are always somewhere they’re not supposed to be,’ I said apologetically.
‘They really are.’ She laughed suddenly, and I felt pleased to have cheered her up. ‘Anyway, how can I help?’
‘I was playing five-a-side last night on AstroTurf, I slid and I’ve hurt my leg.’
‘OK, let’s take a look.’
I hesitated, not sure if it was best to try and roll my trouser leg up, or what. I leant forward and started to ease the material from the wound, clenching my teeth as it detached away from the raw flesh underneath.
She saw my expression and said quickly: ‘that looks like it’s really painful, does this burn go right up your leg?’
I nodded. ‘To just above my knee.’