Then the Harvey Weinstein story broke on 5 October.
Immediately, everyone began talking about how it was a watershed moment, and that this was going to change the way women responded to sexual abuse forever.
The following day Jonathan Day uploaded a new vlog to his new YouTube channel:
‘None of this is confined to Hollywood, this is in every area of real life too. It’s also not just about women being abused by men, it’s the continued abuse of power full stop that has to change. If you know what that powerlessness feels like, that shame, that sense that it was probably your fault anyway, you don’t have to suffer in silence. There are people who will listen and will help. No one will laugh at you, no one will call you a liar.’
‘But you are a liar,’ said a voice over my shoulder.
I jumped, not realising Alex was stood behind me as I watched it on my laptop over my lunch. I paused it quickly. ‘Hey! You’re up! Fancy something to eat? I could make you some pasta? Or maybe a sandwich? Talking of food, shall we get a Friday night curry later, and watch a movie?’
She stared at the screen. ‘How does he live with himself, exploiting other people’s genuine suffering? Knowing everything he says, he’s made up? I hate him so much.’ She darted down and inspected the screen. ‘Twenty thousand views? Are you fucking kidding me?’
‘It’s all going to die down,’ I reassured her. ‘The spotlight will move off him now. You’ve just got to hang on in there.’
‘I wish he’d die.’
She said it so vehemently I glanced up at her in surprise. There was a moment of silence and then I cleared my throat and said: ‘I’ve arranged for an agency girl to come over to meet Maisie and Tilly after school, just to have a chat with me about helping us out next week, I hope that’s OK?’
But Alex didn’t seem to hear what I’d said. She was fixated on Jonathan Day’s face, paused, with the play button under him. She reached out and clicked it so he sprang back into life.
‘If you’re not sure you’ve been the victim of inappropriate behaviour, ask yourself how you’d feel if it had happened to someone you love – your sister or brother maybe – instead of you. If the answer is you’d be unhappy, or angry, it was inappropriate and it shouldn’t have happened. It’s OK to speak out.’
‘Argh!’ Alex shrieked. Before I realised what was happening, she reached out and grabbed my mug of tea and hurled it at the screen as hard as she could. It shattered instantly as the whole lid almost rebounded with the impact. The hot tea arced up and splashed over the table into the keyboard and began to drip on the floor as the mug rolled off the edge and fell to the ground, smashing instantly.
‘Alex!’ I said incredulously. ‘Stop!’
But she didn’t. She reached out and shoved the laptop sideways off the table, and as the whole thing somehow landed on the floor right side up, she started kicking the screen with the side of her bare foot, as she stepped in among the shards of broken china on the other one.
‘What are you doing?’ I shouted. ‘You’ll hurt yourself. It’s glass, Alex!’
I reached out and tried to pull her off, but she half shook free and, still screaming, tried to bend down, reaching out her fingers, attempting to pick up the screen. Terrified she was going to manage it and then throw it through the kitchen window, or hurl it at the wall, I grabbed her round the waist and with all my strength lifted her completely off the ground, away from it all. I was shocked to realise how comparatively easy it was – how light she’d become, how thin her frame felt beneath her baggy T-shirt, jumper and pyjama bottoms.
She kicked and thrashed about wildly, hammering her fists on my clasped hands, but just as quickly as it had started, she ran out of energy; her screams turned into desperate wracking sobs, and she leant back first against my shoulder, turning her face into my neck, and went completely limp. I half staggered over to the kid’s sofa in the playroom part of the room, more or less completely carrying her, and we collapsed down as I held her tightly.
‘This is so unfair!’ she cried. ‘I didn’t do it! I got drunk, I had a one-night stand. That’s all, and I’ve lost everything!’
‘No, you haven’t. It just feels like that.’
‘Everyone’s acting like I’m a dangerous, obsessive sex-offender.’
‘No, no they’re not.’ I stroked her hair, and rocked her like I would Maisie or Tilly.
‘Then where are all of my friends? Who has come to see me, or called me, apart from Rachel and David? They’ve sent me emojis or texts and that’s it. They’ve ticked the box without actually having to talk to me. Who has offered me actual support? They all looked and whispered at school or ignored me completely. I have told the truth about everything. I KNOW the injury he first came to see me with was made slightly more unusual given he’s type 1 diabetic and perhaps I should have been able to remember him on first sight in the club, but I just didn’t! I was hammered. I wouldn’t have noticed him as being good-looking when he came to see me about his leg. He was a schoolboy! Even if George Clooney had walked in for an appointment I wouldn’t have taken any notice, because I’m too fucking tired! I see someone pretty much every ten minutes of every working day I’m there. Yes, that’s a lot of people with a lot of very ordinary problems, but it’s also a lot of really weird ones too, kids with bizarre things they’ve shoved up their noses and in their ears, hideous inflammations or cysts people have been too embarrassed to come and get checked out, lumps they’ve tried to cut out of themselves. A kid with an AstroTurf burn just isn’t that memorable. That probably offends his precious little mummy’s boy ego, but it’s true. I didn’t notice him. Maybe that’s even part of what’s pissed him off so much. He’s evil. He doesn’t care about ruining us, what this will do to the girls or you, never mind me. You didn’t see him in the car park when he threatened me unless I slept with him again – he was totally comfortable saying it, like it was no big deal at all. And now all of this other stuff is in the news and such a hot topic he’ll use that and feed off it. In this climate, no one will dare suggest he might be lying, and the GMC will be desperate to show how well they handle sex allegations, and they’ll make an example of me. I’ll get struck off and it’s so, so unfair. I’ve done nothing wrong.’
She began to weep, finally burnt out after her lengthy tirade, and as she fell silent, I carried on stroking her hair and making calm soothing shhhh-ing noises, while trying to hide my fear, because I just hadn’t realised the relentless extent to which she was chasing every dark detail round and round in her mind, like tracking a flock of ever-circling birds. It was making her ill – really ill. I could see that now.
‘Sweetheart, let’s take you up to bed. You’re exhausted. Would you mind if I called David to come and have a look at you? I know you won’t want to go and see anyone formally, but I’m sure he’d be happy to pop round as a friend. Maybe we could ask him about the sleep issues you’ve been having?’
‘You really wouldn’t mind?’ she asked, so quickly that I wondered instantly if that’s what she’d been hoping I’d say. ‘I know you don’t like him, but he’s offered to help when I need it – and I do.’
‘Of course I don’t,’ I said. The truth was, I wasn’t happy about it. While he’s never been anything but respectful to me, I’m not stupid and I know how he feels about my wife. You just do when someone fancies your other half, it’s instinctive. But, I wanted Alex to get some proper help and feel like there was someone else on her side other than me, far more than I cared about my own feelings. ‘You go up and I’ll call him now, if you give me your phone?’