‘Cassie.’
‘I . . . I haven’t done anything.’
In the background, Amira rolled her eyes. Cassie saw that, registered it. Amira had never done that before, not to her. They rolled their eyes at other people.
Miss Hall said, ‘Cassie, I think you should come with me.’
Sitting in the nurse’s office, with its crinkly exam couch and smell of plasters and lollies, waiting for her mother to pick her up, Cassie found herself reliving it. That night, and all the different things that had happened. Things that her mother didn’t even know about.
‘He sounds like a total prick.’ That was what Jake had said, when she’d finished telling him about Aaron.
‘He’s top of all his classes. Oxbridge stream.’
‘Oxbridge stream,’ mimicked Jake. ‘Since when does that make someone not a tosser? Look at this lot.’ He and Cassie were back in the swing seat, with the bottle of wine Cassie had pilfered while her parents were busy fussing over their guests. Would anyone like an amuse-bouche? Or even some crisps? Dinner’s a little held up, sorry. Cassie’s mum was so anxious all the time. For someone who didn’t really work, she seemed mega stressed. Who cared what time dinner was at? It wasn’t even dark yet. The grown-ups, six of them, were sitting round the wooden picnic table. On one bench were Callum and Jodi, like a massive marshmallow. On the other were her parents, her mum looking round her anxiously every few minutes, at the kitchen, or at Cassie, or the living room where Benji was playing Xbox. Bill, who was a cool guy, was sitting on a chair at one end and Karen was at the other. She’d dragged over a stool and her legs were propped on it. She’d changed since earlier. Instead of jeans she had on a black jersey dress, a bit like something Cassie might wear. On one of her legs there was a bruise that looked fresh.
‘So this what’s-his-name . . .’
‘Aaron.’
‘Whatevs. Have you done it yet?’
Cassie said nothing for a minute. ‘Not really. Nearly.’
‘But not?’
‘He wants to.’
‘And you?’
She shrugged. ‘I’m old enough. Everyone else has.’
‘That’s not a good reason.’
‘You can talk, you big old virgin.’
Jake drank some of the wine, making a face. ‘Well, I don’t want to just shag the first girl who’ll do it. I’m not an animal. I want someone I can talk to, so it won’t be awkward and shit and a mess. Someone older would be better. That Swedish woman Bill lives with . . .’
‘She’s like fifty! Gross! Anyway, they broke up.’
‘Shame. She was cool; I remember from the wedding they came to.’
Cassie picked at something on her ankle. An ingrown hair. ‘I should do it. Get it over with. It’s not really fair, we’ve been going out for months.’
Jake had looked so angry then. ‘Fuck’s sake, Cass. Do you never listen to anything your mum says? If you do it and you don’t want to it’s rape.’
‘It’s not rape! For God’s sake.’
‘It is, if you don’t want it. So make sure you want it. Anyway, I bet it would be rubbish.’
‘Because you know so much.’
‘I read stuff. Blogs. Books. I’m educating myself ready to meet a hot older student. Maybe a tutor, who knows.’
‘Gross,’ she said, but she’d made her voice cold and distant, like her mother when she was pissed off with Dad. Jake nudged her with his foot.
‘Hey, Cass. I mean it. You’re awesome. You deserve someone who isn’t a prick, and I don’t care if he’s going to bloody Oxbridge. Fuck’s sake. That’s not even a thing. OK?’
‘OK,’ she said, still distant. ‘Maybe you’re right, Virgin Man.’
Bloody Jake. He’d ruined it for her, the tentative feeling of excitement she’d held in her stomach all through the boring-ass dinner. They might think they were so old and smart, but she was going to have sex that night. She had a boy, a cute and successful boy, who was going to wait for her in the woods and they were going to do it. But then Jake had started with his Don’t do it, he’s forcing you, and it was nearly all ruined.
Cassie was able to sneak downstairs with no trouble. She’d heard her mother go to bed ages before, pissed probably. Benji was fast asleep and so was the annoying pregnant Jodi. The door to Benji’s room, where Bill was sleeping, was also shut. She peeked out the hall window: her dad and Karen and the rest were out in the garden still, even though it was pitch black. She saw the white flash of her dad’s T-shirt. The only light came from the tips of cigarettes that she thought probably weren’t cigarettes. They were passing it round in a circle. Dad too. She stored that one away to counter his next lecture about her drinking. She eased open the back door, which creaked from lack of use, and went out the garden gate. It was the reason her mum had bought the place, the fact it backed on to the woods. It also meant it was easy for Aaron to get out from his house a mile away, cycle through the woods and meet her.
‘Hey.’ He was there already. All in black, the hood of his raincoat pulled up even though it was the driest and most scorching night of the year.
‘Hi.’ She was whispering. The woods weren’t scary woods – the main road was only like twenty metres away – but it was different at night. Sounds were different. And there were rustlings. ‘The aged boozers are still up so we have to be careful.’
He pulled on her leg, making her sit down beside him under a tree. Then his mouth was on hers, crushing it.
‘It’s all dirty.’ Plus there might be fox poop. Aaron made a noise of annoyance and took off his coat, spreading it on the ground. It felt cold and rubbery under her bare legs. Without saying anything else, he started to take off her top.
‘I don’t know . . .’
‘For fuck’s sake. What’s the matter?’
‘Someone might come.’
‘It’s three in the fucking morning.’ His hands were on her thighs, moving under the waistband of her pyjama shorts. She wondered what she was doing – out of her house, in the woods, in something so flimsy? He was now pulling her shorts right down, and she let him, knowing it would be easier, unable to explain why she didn’t want to. Was he forcing her? No. She was just letting him, even though she didn’t want it. That was different.
Aaron was quickly unzipping his jeans, his breathing getting faster and faster, and then she was lying back. She could smell him. Sometimes she literally couldn’t cope with it, his aftershave, his hair gel. It sent her crazy. Aaron, the most popular guy in school, was her boyfriend. Was that even true? She knew lots of girls would give anything to be in her position, about to have sex with him.
‘Wait.’
‘What?’ he snapped.
‘I don’t know if I . . . I’m not ready.’
Aaron sat up. It was dark, but she could see he was cross. ‘You said you were!’
‘I know, but I – maybe I’m not.’
‘For Christ’s sake, Cassie. It’s been months now.’
‘I’m sorry.’ She wanted to cry. But Jake’s voice was in her head, saying don’t do it if you’re not sure, you can’t take it back. She was trying to get her shorts back on. Her bum was numb and cold. ‘I can’t.’
‘You can’t just say yes then say no!’
Cassie started trying to explain, trying to channel her mother, tell him that of course she could, that was how consent worked, but the words wouldn’t come. ‘I have to go.’ She scrambled up. ‘I . . . I’m sorry.’ She liked going, actually. Leaving while he still wanted her. She hated it when she could feel he wanted her to leave so he could play Call of Duty or watch Netflix. But this, to leave him like this, it was a big risk. Was she making a mistake?
His voice had gone low and cruel. ‘Walk away from me like this, you’ll regret it.’
‘Look, I just can’t right now, OK? Not tonight. I’m sorry.’
As she left him, he was standing on the wood path, only his pale face visible in the dark. And then she went back into the garden, sq
ueezing round the side of the house, and everything was different, for ever. Now Jake was in prison, and her dad was in hospital and would maybe go to jail too if he ever woke up. And Aaron had finished with her. The rush of fear was so huge she couldn’t breathe for a moment. No. It wasn’t true. She’d held on to him for six months, longer than anyone thought. It would all be sorted out. Just as soon as she could prove her dad was innocent.
How long had Aaron been in the woods before Karen started screaming? It had taken her a while to creep round the side of the house, pushing through the bushes that grew against the fence, afraid of spiders. Plus, she had been crying a bit, upset by what had happened. When had the screaming first started? She wasn’t sure. It was all so jumbled up.
The door to the nurse’s office opened, and on the other side she saw not her mother but Bill. And even though she’d only really known him for a few days, and even though it was weird he was hanging round their house when her dad was gone, a strange sort of calm came over her, like the same feeling she got when she was little and came home on a cold day to the fire lit and cartoons on and snacks ready on a plate. Her mother the way she used to be.
‘Hey, it’s OK,’ said Bill, as Cassie burst into tears.
Chapter Twenty-Two
‘Is she OK?’
Cassie had been in her room when I got back from the police station, and was there again now, saying nothing in answer to my questions. Benji had fallen asleep, tired after the school week. Bill had gone to pick them up, made dinner, and was now washing up. Was this man too good to be true?
‘Hard to say. Maybe she shouldn’t go back to school for now.’
‘But her exams! Oh, why can’t something go right for once?’
Bill looked at me. ‘Where were you today?’
A dart of shame went through me. I knew what Bill would think of me if he found out I’d gone to the police station and sold Karen down the river. But I had to. I couldn’t see any other choice. ‘Just at the hospital. Thank you for getting her. Thanks for everything you’ve done this past week. I couldn’t have coped without you.’
He bowed his head. ‘Ali – I think maybe I should leave tomorrow.’
‘What? Why?’ Panic opened into my veins. He couldn’t.
He paused, looking away from me at the sink. ‘I think you know why, Ali. It’s just – too hard, after all these years.’
I watched the back of his neck, the taut brown skin, and I thought of Bill walking me home that night I’d drunk too many vodka Red Bulls in the King’s Arms. Putting me to bed. I’d woken at six, twitchy and furious, to find my bin placed thoughtfully by my bed with a glass of water. Bill, catching a trout off the back of a punt. Bill, folding the tea towel on the counter. Before the worst happened, and the wave hit, and left us all stranded on this alien shore. But there was still Bill, unmoving as a lighthouse. When I was young – when I’d spent most time with him – I used to think a lot about how things happened. How you went from hours sitting on a boy’s bed, talking at right angles, both of you offering up band names and countries you’d been to, collected like Scout badges. Waiting for one of you to make the move, like a grown-up game of Blink. How sweet that feeling was, that delay. I’d had it with Bill, I remembered, many times. Gathering bands I thought he’d think were cool. Nirvana. Pearl Jam. Once, his hand on my foot, stroking gently. Sometimes falling asleep together, but nothing more. He was gay, maybe, we speculated, not knowing where to put a teenage boy who didn’t mark you like his territory. I could have pushed it but I never did. Afraid maybe. That I’d lose what I had with Mike, gossamer-thin as it was. I’d lose my moral high ground too, that sense I’d waited for him so patiently. Or maybe afraid of losing what I had with Bill, the vague delicious sense that he saw me. That I was wanted, to feel I could matter to him a lot, if only I leaned over.
Now I was old, and I’d forgotten how to play these games. When things happened between Mike and me it was as scripted as steps in a dance. Saturday mornings after the gym, or ‘mum and dad’ time on Friday nights. Something we’d said to the kids, now a semi-joke. Mike had said it in front of Cassie once, meaning it as a special wink-wink message to me, only to see her gag. She was ten. We’d both been surprised she understood.
‘Bill.’ I rarely said his name, and it felt so formal. I put my hands on the table as if to steady myself. So expensive. Mike had forbidden any spills or hot food on it. How stupid was that – a table that was no use as a table. ‘I don’t know what I’d have done without you. This past while. You’ve been . . .’
He shrugged off the compliment. ‘I was happy to. But – I can’t stay.’
‘But you’ve always been there for me.’ It was a cliché, and both of us knew it wasn’t true. Not since the end of uni – that summer ball. Not since I’d chosen Mike. ‘Except once,’ I said, judging the tone carefully. ‘You didn’t come to my wedding. Why didn’t you come to my wedding?’
He could have said: the money, the distance, work. He paused, as if judging it too. ‘You know why.’
Something flooded through me. Joy, relief, a wild fear. I’d opened it, that locked box. I’d pushed things over the line. ‘I . . . I think I might.’ I stood up from the table. There was only a few feet between us, and already I could feel it drawing me in, whatever it was between us that had never gone away. An energy, a magnetism. How had I lived without this for so many years? ‘And . . . after all this time?’
He looked at the water, the pot he was scrubbing. ‘I loved Astrid. But, well – these things don’t just go away, no.’
He’d handed it back to me, the box. The court. I could have said: I wish I’d picked differently, but we’d never acknowledged that I had picked at all. I didn’t want to hurt his pride. ‘I’m glad,’ I said. ‘I’m glad it didn’t go away.’
I knew that, as soon as he looked at me, it would happen. I kept my gaze steady, and then, finally, his eyes met mine. Twenty years and more between us since we’d sat on our beds and drunk red wine from mugs. ‘I missed you,’ I said. Still he didn’t move. Twenty years is a very long time to suppress something. I’d have to go to him, I realised. ‘Will you . . .’ I held out my arms. ‘I need a hug, please?’
He hesitated, but it would have taken a colder man than Bill to say no to that. And he turned, and slowly put his arms round me. His hands were damp. I breathed him in, smoke and soap. He was so tall. My mouth fitted into this collarbone, and suddenly I’d found a pulse there, and I felt a shudder go through him.
‘Ali. Are you . . .’ So many reasons to stop. Mike. Astrid. Karen. Cassie, Benji. But now I was in his arms, my mouth on his skin, I understood that some things are right in themselves. And I knew he had to stay, that he couldn’t go away again. I fell into him, offering my mouth like a sacrifice, and thank God, thank God, after twenty-five years of turning away, Bill took it.
When I woke up the next day, the world was different.
Throughout the night, he’d said several things to me.
‘Is it because of him?’ Meaning: are you doing this to get back at Mike, Mike who screwed your best friend for years behind your back.
No, I said, into his mouth. No, no, no. And it was true. I wasn’t.
‘Ali,’ he said, as if meeting me for the first time. As if seeing me. Being naked with him felt familiar – even in the bed I shared with Mike, even with Benji and Cassie in their rooms nearby – as if we could finally say the things we hadn’t said for years. I’d forgotten how delicious that was, to talk of your past together with a lover. When you first saw each other. When you first realised. He said, ‘Do you remember, it was in the bar, and you had this T-shirt on with some cartoon on it . . .’
‘She-Ra.’
‘Yeah. And you looked around you like you were lost, and it was all, I don’t know, wonderful to you . . .’
‘It was. I grew up in Hull, remember . . .’
‘And I saw you come in. Right across the room I saw you.’
‘You remember that?’
/> ‘Yeah. I remember everything.’
Other memories. ‘After the summer ball . . . you remember that?’
‘Of course.’ He turned over in bed, propping himself on an elbow so he could look at me. His chest was firm and muscled, where Mike had gone soft. I marvelled at the differences. Bill so tall his feet dangled over the edge of the bed. The different smell of him in the sheets. My hands shaping themselves around his shoulders, his ribs, his hip bones.
I remembered that night. Me and Bill running through the gardens, me barefoot in my taffeta silk, the skirts billowing. Dawn breaking on our bleary-eyed faces. No sign of Mike or Karen. ‘Did you want something to happen, that night?’
His long fingers traced patterns on my stomach. ‘I never thought it could. You and Mike. But I saw him with Karen, earlier, at the ball.’
I sighed. ‘I’m so stupid.’
‘No. You trusted them. Should I have told you?’
‘I don’t know. I might not have listened.’
‘What will you do?’ It was a wider question, I knew. The light was lifting in the bedroom, the grey of a summer dawn. It was a long time since I’d stayed up all night and it made me feel exhausted, and young, and reckless.
‘I have no idea. I just have to look after the kids right now.’
He flipped on his back, and I rested my head on his chest as if we’d been doing this for years. I could hear the thud of his heart beneath me. ‘It must be nice in a way. To know what you’re supposed to do. Your first priority. I’ve no idea what to do with myself now. I’m a forty-three-year-old man with no wife, no home, no job.’
My heart quickened on the word wife. This was Bill. Single at last, and me – was I single too? I couldn’t think about that.
Chapter Twenty-Three
‘I’m so sorry.’
I thought of how often I’d heard that phrase in the last week. Police, doctors, lawyers. They were sorry, but professionally so. They saw this all the time, lives ruined, screeching off their pathways and mangled to bits against walls. It didn’t really matter to them, not really, if Mike never woke up or if he did wake up and went to jail for something he hadn’t done. They would still go home and sleep at night.
What You Did Page 15
