The Stranger

by Mark Ayre

  "Can I get you anything to drink?"

  "What do you reckon?" said Bobby. "Share a bottle of wine with me?"

  "I don't drink when I'm—" Abbie stopped herself. She couldn't say she never drank when on a job because Bobby didn't know she was on a job.

  "When you're what?"

  "At the weekend," she said, which neither fit the end of her sentence nor made any sense.

  "A weekday drinker?" he said. "You're an unusual girl. Will you make an exception, for me?"

  Making exceptions was a bad idea. Abbie was angry at Ben and had time to kill before meeting with Eddie. Hence the exception of being on a date at all. But drinking was different. It was a depressant. It would make her tired and sluggish. At that point, she wasn't lashing out at Ben—if ever she was—but she might well endanger Eddie. Who knew what might happen tonight. Abbie needed to be alert.

  "Americano," she said, pointing at the menu. "Black, strong. No milk, no sugar. Thank you."

  Rather than a bottle, Bobby ordered a glass of white wine, which indicated he would not try to persuade her to change her mind. As the waiter departed, Abbie apologised.

  "I'm not here to push you into anything," said Bobby. "You're reserved, I get that. You think this is a bad idea."

  Abbie didn't know what to say. It was nothing to do with him. But it was a bad idea. She couldn't explain why without seeming crazy.

  "You're not married, are you?" Bobby asked.

  Abbie shook her head. "No. Not married. Not in a relationship."

  "But there is something?"

  "Something. Lots of things. I'm damaged."

  "Aren't we all?"

  "Many, not all," Abbie said. "And few are as damaged as me."

  "Want to talk about it?"

  This would usually be a flat no. For some reason, the negative did not today come so easily. Abbie managed to shake her head, but in doing so convinced neither him nor her.

  "It's difficult," she said. "I'm rusty at this date thing."

  "I thought this wasn't a date?"

  "That's a good point."

  "If it were," mused Bobby, "I would have to confess to being as out of practice as you."

  "Unsurprising. Working two jobs can't leave much time for socialising.”

  "Oh, I don't know," said Bobby. "I get at least two hours a week where it's not work but play."

  "I hope you're not wasting this week's allocation on me."

  "Not wasting, no."

  Abbie smiled. "Make that judgement at the date's end."

  "I think I can call it now."

  "And I think," said Abbie, "I've decided what I want to eat."

  The waiter appeared at Bobby's shoulder to leave their drinks and take their orders. Two minutes later, he was gone, and Bobby was looking at his glass as though about to confess it was stolen.

  "I shouldn't have had alcohol. Poor form, as you're not."

  "No, no," said Abbie. "With so few hours earmarked for socialising, you must make the most of them. Kick back, have what you want."

  With a nod, Bobby took his glass and sipped. Abbie watched him. Waited. As he replaced his glass on the table, she straightened, leaned in a little.

  "If you don't mind me asking, why do you work so many hours? I assume it's necessity rather than desire?"

  "You assume right," he said. After that, he clammed up for a while. Long enough for Abbie to lean back and raise a hand.

  "You don't have to say. I didn't mean to pry."

  "I never talk about it," he said.

  "I know how that goes," said Abbie, thinking of her baby, of Violet, her brother.

  Bobby took some more of his drink, then shook his head. This time, he leaned forward.

  "You ever heard of that thing they used to do in the past?"

  "Hmm," said Abbie. "You may have to be more specific. Way I understand it, there have been at least ten years of past within which people have done upwards of, like, thirty things."

  "You're funny," said Bobby. "People ever tell you that?"

  "I tell myself all the time. People tend to throw things at me."

  "People are the worst."

  "Aren't they?"

  "Fine, more specific," said Bobby. "Doctors used to do this thing where they would cut open an ill person's arm, or leg, or whatever, and let them bleed because they thought the illness was in the blood, and it needed letting out. Like bleeding a radiator. You know what I mean?"

  "I know metaphors are at their most effective when their deliverer fully understands the thing they are using as a point of comparison."

  "How do you know I'm doing a metaphor?"

  “True,” said Abbie, "it's probably a simile."

  Sitting back, folding his arms, Bobby nodded. "Go on then."

  "Okay," said Abbie. "Bloodletting is the practice, via leeches or via a physician with a sharp tool, of drawing blood from a body to prevent or cure an illness. It was one of the most frequently used medical practices for thousands of years, right up to the 19th century, when it fell out of fashion, although it was still used as late as the 20th century in some places."

  "Impressive knowledge," said Bobby.

  Abbie shrugged. "When you spend most of your time alone, unburdened by family or friendship, you read a lot. When I'm not travelling, I can read a book a day, as many non-fiction as fiction. My knowledge retention is good, so I know a lot of stuff. Most of it useless, some of it not."

  This was all true. Abbie's permanent residence was a three-bedroom. The largest of these rooms she had converted into a library and stuffed with hundreds of books. When she was home, she read insatiably.

  "I think that's the first real thing I've learned about you," said Bobby.

  This was probably true. Abbie spent her life shrouded in lies, and it had been many years since someone knew anything real about her. To avoid dwelling on it, Abbie said, "Your metaphor, or perhaps simile, is that by opening up with each other about our darkest truths, we are letting them off, the same way those doctors from years gone by would let off the blood of their patients. Bloodletting didn’t often work. Bad memory letting, you'd argue, does."

  "I'd certainly like to give it a try."

  "A wise person," said Abbie, "once invented the saying, A problem shared is a problem halved, so people like you didn't have to labour over such difficult similes."

  Leaning forward, Bobby said, "I think you were right."

  "About what?"

  "We shouldn't have come on this date."

  Bobby's smile made it seem as though he didn't mean this. Then again, a man who could maintain a near-permanent smile while working almost every hour of the week would probably smile at his grandmother's funeral, even while drying the tears from his eyes.

  His laugh indicated he was joking, and Abbie laughed too. Then the mood turned solemn.

  "You really think me revealing my dark memories will make me feel better?" said Abbie

  Bobby tilted his head this way and that, so-so. "I think if it's true we'll never see each other again, and you find it as easy to talk to me as I to you, what better person could there be on which to unburden oneself?"

  Abbie considered. Then said, "I might say as I don't often date, as I get on with you, I want this to be a pure, beautiful experience."

  "How can anything be pure when such dark secrets hang over our heads like poisonous rain clouds?"

  "How poetic," said Abbie. "If you have time for a third job, you should consider writing greeting cards."

  "You know you use humour as a defence mechanism?"

  "Well, it was that or this knife," said Abbie, lifting it from the table, "but I'm loathe to ruin this fine table linen with your blood."

  He raised his eyebrows, though his smile had become a smirk.

  "Okay, okay, I'm proving your point," she said.

  Abbie's coffee was no longer hot, now warm. She took a few gulps. Coffee left to go cold was vile, and Abbie was keen to avoid the experience.

  "My past might j
ust scare you away."

  Bobby placed his hands on the table, one over the over.

  "You don't have to tell me anything," he said. "I'll still open up to you. If you want."

  Abbie considered. There was no escaping the past. No forgetting it. Every day it haunted Abbie, tore at her insides. How long had it been since her last emotional bloodletting? How long since she let it out? Had she ever? Even with Bobby, she could not release it all, but some of it? How long since she'd felt a connection like this? It didn't change anything. She was still leaving town tomorrow and would never see him again, so why not open up?

  She lay her hands on the table, as had he. Placed one over the other, as had he. She edged them forward until they were close to the table's centre. He did the same. So the tips of their fingers were only an inch apart.

  Because there was no other way to do it, Abbie went direct to her trauma. While she spoke, she looked at the clean white linen because she could not bear to meet Bobby's eye.

  "When I was sixteen, my brother savagely beat and permanently disabled a guy who was almost a cliche in his popularity. Handsome, smart, good at sports, funny, rich. Everybody loved Harry. He was so well-liked it was almost a blessing that Paul, my brother, was arrested within hours of the attack. If he hadn't landed behind bars, an angry mob might have chased him as though he were Frankenstein's monster. Public execution would not have been out of the question."

  Already feeling her chest constrict, Abbie removed her upper hand from the lower and took her coffee, drank over half of what remained, and placed it down before replacing the hand from where she had taken it.

  "After my brother's arrest," she continued, "my mother cornered me in our dining room, grabbed my jaw and slammed me against a wall. Through tears, she made it clear my brother was in jail because I was a slut. Because I had disobeyed her and had failed to keep my legs closed. She wasn't entirely wrong. I was no slut, but it was my fault. Six days previously, I had snuck out of my room on my sixteenth birthday to attend a party. My mother had forbidden me to go, but that was out of the question. After all, my invite had been personally delivered by the most popular boy in school."

  Bobby’s hands were still stacked. Abbie noticed the way his skin stretched as one hand squeezed the other. As though they were doing battle, and the hand on top had the upper hand. No pun intended.

  Abbie watched those hands as she continued. "When I arrived, Harry offered me a drink. I wasn't sure about alcohol, being a timid, quiet girl, but he convinced me to have just one. One was enough because he’d slipped something into the cup. The rest of the night is blurry. I know for sure that Harry raped me but couldn't tell you how many of his friends also had a go. I believe it was between two and six."

  Bobby couldn't stop himself. His hands came from the table to his mouth. There were tears in his eyes.

  The smile was gone.

  "When, the next day, I told my family what had happened, my sister gave me a hug. She was only thirteen, but she alone gave me what I truly needed. My father couldn't look at me. In silence, he left the room. My mother made her feelings clear. She didn't believe Harry had drugged me. She told me this was what happened when I disobeyed my parents and went drinking. When I spread my legs for any boy who smiled at me. By this point, Paul had also left. Unlike my father, he didn't go upstairs to listen to his music but ran off to find the boys who had hurt me. He was due to go to university that summer to study Mathematics. Thirteen years later, he's still in prison."

  Abbie stopped. Dried her eyes. She had intended to go further. To talk about the pregnancy one of her rapists had gifted her that night. How, despite its origins, that baby had given her hope in those dark days. At least until it was taken from her.

  If she could have got past the loss of her baby, she might have gone further, to Violet's death and to Abbie's final, awful confrontation with her mother.

  But she couldn't. Not today. Maybe not ever.

  Taking his hands from his face, Bobby placed them atop hers. Though there were tears in his eyes, he forced himself to look at her.

  "I'm so sorry."

  "For what?" said Abbie. "This happened so long ago. You're right. I never talk about it. I deal with it as best I can, but it's always there. For so long, it consumed me. Harry was disabled, but the rest escaped punishment. No one believed me. There was no jail time."

  "So they got away with it?"

  "I kept tabs on the guys I knew or suspected were involved that night. None of them has since hurt another girl or anyone else."

  This was true but omitted essential facts. Purposely, Abbie had obscured how obsessive she had been about tracking the guys. And while it was honest to say none of them had hurt anyone after Abbie, it left out the fact that two had tried. But Abbie had been there. Abbie had made sure neither would have the opportunity to hurt anyone else. After her intervention, that was two men she could stop surveilling.

  Ben had found her after her collision with the first of these two men. He had helped her deal with the second. He had not always been averse to helping anyone beyond the scope of Abbie’s prophetic dreams.

  Bobby didn't release her hands. There was a flicker of something in his eye that indicated Bobby sensed some of what Abbie had left unsaid. The flicker reminded Abbie why there could be only one date. They got on well. Bobby believed he could see into her soul, but he was missing so much. If Abbie got back her black book from Travis, and if she showed it to Bobby, if she explained to him what the names meant, he would not want another date. He would run screaming and pray to never meet Abbie again.

  For now, Bobby was enjoying their date. He was willing to let the darker stuff go. And, of course, he had to uphold his end of the bargain.

  To him, Abbie said, "I think it's your turn."

  Eighteen

  The food arrived and proved to be delicious from the first bite. Abbie made all the right noises. It took Bobby longer to get into his because it was taking him longer to get over Abbie’s story. It wasn’t his tragedy, of course. He had never been raped, and his brother was not in prison for battery with the intent to kill, or whatever the charge had been. On the other hand, Abbie had had longer to deal with the pain, so she gave him some time.

  Halfway through dinner, after some idle chat about nonsense topics, Bobby said at last, “I feel silly telling you about my problems now. If your tragedy was a city levelling earthquake, mine is a missed step.”

  “Our demons are personal. It’s not a competition,” said Abbie. “Besides, your problems are current, mine from years ago. You get bonus points for that.”

  This coaxed back the smile she feared she had driven away for the evening. Imagine being able to smile through countless shifts at Perfect Chicken and one date with Abbie knocked it off for good? That would have been humiliating.

  “It’s fairly straightforward,” he said.

  Abbie took another bite of her delicious meal. She gave no further encouragement. Waited for him to find the strength to talk.

  “Okay, it’s like this,” he said. “Coming up to the autumn before last, my father was made redundant. At this point, we were a happy family: my father and mother, me, and my two much younger siblings. Afraid to destroy this harmony, my father made the cardinal error of not revealing to anyone, including my mother, his redundancy. Instead, he pretended to go to work while job hunting, sure he would not long be unemployed.”

  Bobby took a bite of his food. Took far longer chewing than was needed. Abbie said nothing; he had to tell the story his way.

  “He was wrong,” said Bobby. “After three months, not only had he not found a job, but the family savings were almost depleted. My mother could not much longer be kept in the dark. At this point, he realised he should have told her of his redundancy the day it happened. It was too late for that. He still would have been better owning up then, even after three months of deceit, but he convinced himself this was impossible. She would leave him and take his children if he was honest. He had t
o fix this alone. To do that, his only option was to make a lot of money and make it fast. But as you probably know, for most people, there’s only one way to make fast money, and that’s via dishonest means.”

  A chill chased up Abbie’s spine. She thought of Michael’s mother with her drugs and her loan sharks; Eddie, with the debt left by his brother’s theft. She thought, Here we go again. But this was Bobby’s story, so she kept her mouth shut and waited.

  “To top up the savings and tide him over until he found a job, dad visited one of Francis Roberts’ loan sharks and from the shark borrowed twenty-five grand. This was the perfect solution, he told himself, because it ensured my mother never had to learn of his deception, and paying back the shark would be no problem because he was days from finding a job. Except, of course, he wasn’t. Still, the job didn’t come. Now, my father was paying back the money he’d borrowed with the money he’d borrowed, but interest meant the same cash wouldn’t cover it. He should have given the whole lot back as soon as it became clear he wasn’t going to get a job anytime soon. That still would have left him in the hole, but nowhere near as bad as if he paid it back piecemeal. That’s obvious from an outsider’s point of view and obvious to my father now, via hindsight. But amid this crisis, enveloped by self-delusion, my father convinced himself he could still make this work.”

  Abbie finished her coffee. She wanted another drink but was enraptured and horrified by the story, so she made no move to gain the waiter’s attention. Because the food was delicious, and she wanted to enjoy it closer to hot than cold, she forced herself to eat even as Bobby continued, though she found it difficult to focus on anything but his narrative.

  “The borrowed money soon ran out,” said Bobby. “Twenty-five grand gone, but because of interest repayments, he still owes the sharks twenty, even though most of the twenty-five grand went back to them. They won’t lend him anymore, and they make it abundantly clear if he doesn’t keep up with the repayments, they’ll be visiting our home, stripping our possessions in place of repayments. And how will my father keep what he’s done from my mother then? He won’t be able to. On the cusp of losing everything, he resorts to desperate measures.”