The Choice

by Gillian McAllister

  I move toward her. She backs away.

  “Closer?” she says. She looks wary now. Takes another step back. Her rucksack hits a stand of Quick Reads, and she reaches to steady it with her hand as it rocks.

  “To finding out,” I say.

  I brush my hair from my face and notice my hand is shaking. Surely she sees it, too. Her eyes stray to it, then back to mine.

  She doesn’t say anything for a moment. She shakes her head, biting her bottom lip with those white teeth of hers. She glances at my face, her eyes scanning mine. Can she see my tears?

  “No, not really,” she says.

  And, for a moment, the paranoia is extinguished, replaced by a strange kind of jubilation. This is guilt, I am learning. The odd ups and downs of it. The inconsistencies. The relief, followed by the opposite, because true, lasting relief is no longer possible.

  I nod once. “You can always tell me. Talk to me about it,” I say.

  She just looks at me. Says, “Right,” and turns back to the books. I have frightened her.

  I spin around, then start, feeling adrenaline rush from my heart and down my arms and legs: Ed is right behind me. I didn’t hear him. His tread is soft, like a cat’s. I should have been more careful, but I look closely at him and see he hasn’t heard. His expression is entirely neutral, impassive. He can’t have heard, with the noise of the heating above us. It’s like a dim roar.

  Ayesha takes out eighteen books. It’s more than the maximum, but I let her anyway.

  When she leaves, Ed touches my arm very lightly. “You okay?” he says softly. “Must be tough thinking about Wilf.”

  “I’m fine,” I say.

  “You’ve lost so much weight.”

  “I know.”

  * * *

  —

  Later, I should be meeting Laura for our Friday-night tradition. It’s still raining, and I’m sheltering in the doorway outside the offices. The air has that gray quality that only February seems to have, like everything is filtered by Inkwell through Instagram.

  She said she would text me when she was finished. There’s no point walking home when I could get the Tube from here, and so I’m standing, outside our offices, even though Ed has locked up. I’ve told him I don’t want a lift home, but now I think I do. I can’t be bothered to go. What’s the point?

  She didn’t ask to meet; she just presumed we would. We see each other almost every Friday. It would be strange if I canceled. We won’t go to a bar, I decide. We’ll go to a café instead.

  I picture Laura finishing whatever she’s doing—she and Jonty are always doing random things with their collection of people who occasionally live on their boat with them. Dropping them at airports and traveling to Stoke Newington to buy a car for a man called Erik who lived with them for a few weeks. That kind of thing.

  But she’ll text. I know she will. She’s reliable like that, and she’ll have been looking forward to it all day. I feel distracted and insane about Ayesha’s visit to the bus. Maybe she’s keeping tabs on me. Maybe she knows. I’ll have to lie to Laura about why I’m distracted, putting up barriers where they haven’t existed before; new, ugly, sixties-style concrete blocks in the middle of my most important relationships.

  I’ve got to get home. Away from everyone.

  I’ll go home—to Reuben. The thought of that curdles my stomach more. Maybe I can avoid him, too. Avoid lying to him. Where could I go?

  I don’t go to see Laura. I cancel on her. And I don’t go home, either. I go to the cinema, alone. I watch some Will Smith film, staring at the screen, not blinking, until my eyes sting. I can’t follow the plot, but I don’t care. I want oblivion.

  Reuben texts me at eleven. Good time? he says, and I feel a dart of pleasure. He’s been texting me more, recently. Trying to reach me, I guess. And then another appears. Two in a row. I’m tired. In case you’re not back. No. 2,650—the way you prioritize time with Laura.

  I stare at the closing credits of the movie blankly. He is even wrong in his love for me.

  * * *

  —

  It’s half past eleven when I get home. This time two months ago, I am thinking. It was happening. It had just happened. That decision that would change everything forever.

  Sixty days on. And what have I done to help myself? My clothes are at the library, soon to be laundered through a system designed to get rid of them forever. I wonder if December-me would be pleased that I am getting away with it. I don’t think so. There’s no pleasure in it. It’s not my choice, not truly. Like women who have abortions being described as pro-abortion by the press. There’s no truth in it. We are making the best of a bad situation.

  I let myself silently into our bedroom, but Reuben’s sitting up, with the light on. I stop, like a burglar, caught, my body freezing midstep.

  “How was Laura?”

  “Annoying,” I say. I don’t know why I say it. To add flavor to a night out that never happened. Because I do feel annoyed with her, maybe, and with him—irrationally—for expecting our relationships to stay exactly the same when everything has changed.

  “Don’t bitch,” Reuben says softly. “She’s not even here to defend herself,” he adds needlessly.

  “Sorry,” I say, meeting his eyes eventually.

  It’s not the worst thing I’ve done, that bitching. Not even close.

  * * *

  —

  I recognize their knock, somehow, when it comes the next day. Reuben is at work, and I’m about to leave. It’s an early knock, designed to catch me off guard, I expect.

  It’s the same two men again. Short and tall. Blond and dark.

  “Joanna,” Lawson says.

  He lets himself in, really, or perhaps I step aside. I don’t know. My limbs are shaking and my ears are rushing and my vision feels blurred. Here they are.

  “Hi,” I say.

  They go through to the living room, and I follow them. Their crisp suits look strange among my soft furnishings.

  “We have spoken to this Sadiq of yours,” Lawson says.

  “Yes.” Fear moves outward from my stomach and down my arms and legs.

  “He says he didn’t harass you. He says nothing happened.”

  I stop and think for a moment. Of course. Of course he won’t just admit it. God. I’m so stupid. “Well, he’s hardly going to say so to two policemen, is he?”

  “Maybe not. We could check the CCTV? If he was behaving so obviously badly toward you, maybe he’s our man for the attack.”

  “Maybe,” I say faintly, thinking, Surely they know the difference between a sexual predator and a random attacker? Sadiq may be the former, but I am the latter.

  “So, things definitely happened as you said?” he observes casually. “Sadiq’s behavior in the bar? And . . . after?”

  “Yes,” I say, trying to look indignant, as I would be if I were innocent. “Yes, just as I said.”

  “Okay.” Lawson waits, sitting on my sofa, looking at me. “And your route?” he says.

  “Just as I said. To avoid Sadiq.” I stand up, ready to assert myself, to see them out.

  “Let us know if you remember anything else,” Lawson says.

  “You’ll be the first people I call,” I say.

  Lawson stops at the door. It must be his trick.

  “Thanks so much for putting yourself forward. You’re the most important person in this investigation. See you again soon.”

  22

  REVEAL

  I meet Sarah in a sterile Costa off a wet high street in Hammersmith. There are winter drinks for sale—bizarre concoctions—and shoppers fueling themselves midtrip. Sarah arrives just a few minutes after me.

  “Hi,” she says simply. “Brace yourself,” she adds, which strikes me as a strange thing to say. She stands over me, folding up her umbrella and putting her bag under the t
able. “What do you want?” she says.

  “Just a tea.”

  She lays a small stack of papers in a cellophane wallet, which she’s been carrying under her arm, on the table. “Read while I buy,” she says. She’s got a dark, plum lipstick on, but it ages her, showing up the lines around her mouth.

  I inch the wallet over to me, then open it.

  I flick to the back, to our expert’s report on the victim’s injuries. It’s full of incomprehensible words.

  Coup. Contrecoup. Frontal-lobe injury.

  Sarah returns. She’s in wide-leg trousers that collect the contents of the floor as she strides over.

  “I don’t understand this,” I say to her.

  “Don’t worry about that.” She takes the papers off me. “Experts’ reports are always complicated. Imran is fully awake,” she says.

  Something in her expression troubles me. It’s only momentary, but I see it. It’s the slightest of frowns. Her gaze goes down, then up again as she looks at me.

  “Is he—recovered?” I say.

  “Getting there,” she says shortly. “This is what I want to go through with you.”

  She takes the front statement off and passes it to me. The back page comes loose, and I see it’s a photograph. She lays it facedown on the table and hands me the statement.

  I scan the first three sentences, then stop. “This is Sadiq,” I say. “Sadiq from the bar?”

  “Yes,” Sarah says, a slim hand moving gently across the table toward the statement. She reaches out a fingertip and neatens up the papers. “I met with Sadiq. But I’m afraid he approached the police, after he spoke to me.”

  “But . . . why?” I say.

  “He didn’t agree with your version of events. He offered to help them. I’m guessing some sort of deal was done. He didn’t want them to accuse him of harassing you. So he helped them. He’s produced this statement.” She wordlessly turns over the photograph.

  Of course. Of fucking course. It’s the selfie. The selfie we took.

  “He says you were chatty. Friendly. He says you had a bit of a flirt. A hug. And then nothing further happened.”

  “But he . . . he grabbed me. He pushed his—” I stop, unable to go on, unable to allow myself to remember. Not only the events that preceded this, my life now, in cafés with lawyers trying to keep me out of prison, but also because of the event itself: a man pushing himself into me, against my will. I haven’t spoken about it. Haven’t been allowed to come to terms with it.

  “I know. And we’ve got Laura and her supportive statement. But, nevertheless, I got the CCTV,” she says, reaching into the side pocket of her laptop bag and pulling out a USB stick. Wordlessly, I watch as she boots up her computer, inserts it, and finds the file. She turns the screen to face me.

  It’s three files. The first, the selfie. I’m laughing at something, tilting my body toward Sadiq. Laura is moving away, not me, but I blindly follow her. It always strikes me when I see myself on video how small and meek I look, as though there is nothing going on in my mind, when, in fact, it is busy and full. It’s strange to see.

  The second frame is shorter. In the upper-right corner, in among the dancers and the revelers, he grabs me. I see his hands reach for me. But in the video, I look complicit. I do nothing, my face grainy and blank. He holds me while I do nothing.

  And then the final frame. He reaches for my hand. My face is open. I hold his hand, doing nothing, actually extending my hand where his goes, not fighting back, not trying to attract any attention whatsoever.

  “Oh shit,” I whisper as I watch them.

  “I know,” Sarah says.

  “That wasn’t—that wasn’t how it was.”

  “I know.”

  “He was frightening. He grabbed my hand so hard I couldn’t do anything.”

  “I know, Jo. I know. But—we’ve got a battle on our hands. Proving that. You don’t look . . . you don’t look frightened there.”

  “Laura will testify.”

  “Of course. Of course she will.”

  “And maybe others in the bar?” I say, though I know it’s useless.

  It looks commonplace, that stupid hug. That hand-holding. Why would anybody remember?

  I keep replaying the look on my face. That blank look. Stupid Joanna, I think to myself. Pretending I was somewhere else, blanking it out, looking vacant, passive, when I should have been active.

  “I’ll appeal for any witnesses,” Sarah says, though it sounds perfunctory, as though she’s appeasing me. She’s not looking at me, is rhythmically drumming her index finger on the table, gazing behind me.

  She pushes my tea toward me, and liquid slops over the side. They’ve used full-fat milk; I can see the grease in pearlescent swirls among the brick-colored tea.

  23

  CONCEAL

  You didn’t come up last night,” Reuben says. He always says this: up, even though we’ve never lived in a place with a staircase. It’s a hangover from his old house, his childhood home, the rickety pub with its multiple narrow wooden staircases, the rooms in the roof.

  We watched The Godfather (number sixty) last night. I said I’d come to bed, but I didn’t. Instead, I counted the days. How long since Before.

  It’s been sixty-five days. Wasn’t that how long Jesus spent in the woods, repenting? No—wasn’t that forty, actually? Or was he in the desert? I don’t know. I should ask Reuben. He’s one of those staunch atheists who gets into rows at parties about it, but he’s read the Bible, in order to reject it, he told me once. That fascinated me. That somebody would be so dedicated to their private beliefs.

  I fell asleep counting the days, on the sofa. It felt safer in the living room, away from his raw, naked form. I told myself that the police were following up on the loose ends because they have no idea who did it.

  In the night, dreaming of Sadiq and Imran, I awoke, thinking I heard the police knock again, but they hadn’t. As I was awake, I thought about the library keys, still in my handbag. I have been too afraid to return them. Too afraid of being caught, unable to find time alone in the offices, but also not wanting to give them back—in case I need them. It’s stupid, but it’s true.

  My neck is stiff. My hand throbs, too. The dreams are fading from my memory and I feel as though I am sorting through what’s real and what’s fake, like a child with a shape sorter. Sadiq and Imran were not here, in my living room, as I thought in the middle of the night. But the rest is real.

  Reuben is drying a mug. It’s his favorite mug. Trust me, I’m a social worker, it says on its side. He got it the day he qualified, from his parents. I was there on the last day of his MA. I considered him truly grown-up that day. The way he rose to the challenges of his course, the volume of work, finding a job at the end of it—and a serious job, a job that mattered. He matured during that two-year MA, becoming—somehow—taller and more muscular. He held himself differently. I was fascinated by it, by the transition I witnessed in my boyfriend of two years. It was a transition I never made.

  And now. He’s continued to change. Never just doing one thing. Going in-house at the charity. Bringing boys home, against the rules, who sleep in our spare room. He took one boy, Ozzie, all the way to Bristol, to show him he could use the train again, after a stabbing on it. Beyond the call. And then the work with our MP. It’s so recent, attending her clinics. If he knew . . . if everybody knew, it would surely stop.

  Suddenly, the burden of him is too much to bear. The burden of his goodness. It is impossible to live with somebody who is never tempted into jealousy or greed or rash decisions. He is never prone to egotism or materialism or miserliness.

  “No,” I say. “I slept downstairs. Rewatched The Godfather,” I add, although I didn’t.

  I don’t know why I say it. I want, I suppose, to discuss it. Michael Corleone’s transformation from good to evil. I am always loo
king for an outlet, a way to discuss the themes of my crime without talking about them directly. To discuss it and to not discuss it, all at once. As though, somehow, I might find a way of telling Reuben without really telling him.

  “Oh, I thought we’d watch part two tonight,” Reuben says. “It’s number fifty-three, anyway. Godfather Two.” He finishes drying the mug and places it neatly in the cupboard, then turns back to look at me. I have never once slept on the sofa before, away from his warm body.

  “Well, I’m sick of it now,” I snap.

  “What’s next—number fifty-nine?” he says. He runs a finger down the blackboard.

  “I don’t want to watch any,” I say, looking up at him, across the room from me, thinking, Why can’t you just be bad, like me?

  “There’s something weird about you lately,” Reuben says. His tone is soft. Almost wheedling. I look over, and his jaw’s clenched. “You don’t want to do anything.”

  I say nothing, staring at him.

  “No,” he continues, “not like you don’t want to do anything. Like you don’t want to do anything with me.”

  “Well, I do,” I say. “I just . . .”

  “You’re never moody,” he says to me.

  Tears fill my eyes as I stare down at my phone. I open Facebook. Close it. Open Instagram. Looking for likes.

  He’s right. Before all this, I was happy-go-lucky, too happy, if anything; busy ignoring my problems, prioritizing ASOS orders and having just the right amount of tea, and three square meals, and being in just the right mood, before doing anything important.

  “But you’re moody. At the moment,” he adds.

  “I’m not,” I say quietly, wanting him to stop talking and wanting to tell him, all at once.

  “Seriously. You’ve been in a mood for ages,” he says. He shuts the cupboard, irritated.