Rebound

by Aga Lesiewicz

  ‘Anna?’ I hear Nicole’s voice.

  ‘Yes?’ I put down my coffee and go out to the hallway.

  Nicole is standing by the open door, looking pale, clearly distraught.

  ‘Nicole, you OK?’ I go to her, pull her gently inside and shut the door. ‘Come through to the kitchen. What happened?’

  ‘There was another rape on the Heath this morning. The whole area’s been cordoned off. There’s police everywhere.’

  Nicole sinks heavily down onto a kitchen chair.

  ‘Another rape?’ I can’t believe what I’m hearing.

  She starts sobbing uncontrollably. I put my arm round her and wait for her to collect herself. Then I get up and pour her a glass of water. She takes a sip and wipes her face with her hands. Belatedly, I offer her some tissues. She blows her nose noisily and clears her throat.

  ‘I don’t know the details, but the other dog walkers were saying he’s done some horrible things to her . . .’ Her chin begins to quiver again.

  ‘Have they caught anyone?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  We both fall silent, digesting the terrifying news.

  ‘They were saying she was a jogger. But someone said she was a dog walker and they’re still trying to catch her dogs . . . Oh, Anna, I don’t know if I ever dare to go back there again . . . My favourite place in the whole world, my sanctuary, my livelihood . . .’

  ‘I’m sure they’ll catch him.’ I know how feeble it sounds but I don’t know what else to say. I turn the kettle on and prepare two mugs. Tea, the universal British remedy. With our steaming mugs we move to the sitting room where I switch on the TV and search for the BBC News channel. They are talking about golf, but there is a red crawler at the bottom of the screen flashing the headline BREAKING NEWS and LATEST. We wait impatiently as it crawls along: ‘G20 finance ministers back an action plan drawn up by the OECD to crack down on tax avoidance by multinationals,’ followed by ‘Israel to free Palestinian prisoners.’ And there it is: ‘Police are appealing for witnesses and information following a serious sexual assault on London’s Hampstead Heath.’ That’s it. I know there’ll be more on the Internet and Twitter, but I don’t want to further upset Nicole. I switch the TV off.

  ‘Look, Anna, I think I’m going to take some time off and go to my parents in Milton Keynes. I’m sorry, I really don’t want to leave you in the lurch, but I don’t think I’ll be dog-walking for a while . . .’

  ‘I totally understand. Absolutely, go to your parents, that’s a great idea.’

  ‘I’d better go then and call them.’ She puts her mug down and gets up from the sofa. ‘Oh, nearly forgot, your keys.’ She hands me my front-door keys.

  ‘Thanks, Nicole.’ I close the front door behind her and put the chain on. Then I go to the study and sit down in front of my laptop. There isn’t much about it in the news yet, just a short item:

  Police are appealing for witnesses and information following a serious sexual assault of a woman on London’s Hampstead Heath. Officers were called to Cohen’s Fields area of the Heath at 7.00 a.m. this morning after the victim was discovered by a passer-by. Detective Chief Inspector Vic Jones is asking the public to stay away from the area . . .

  It’s followed by the usual phrase about contacting the police.

  But Twitter is buzzing with information. The police are now linking all three attacks. I wonder if that means his previous victim has been able to give a description of him. Apparently this woman was a jogger. She was attacked on the path not far from Kenwood Nursery and dragged into the bushes. There is one tweet that is particularly horrific, if it can get any more horrific than it is already. She was found unconscious, with her knickers stuffed in her mouth.

  For a long while I just sit at my desk, feeling cold and numb. How could this be possible? One of the most peaceful places in London has just been tainted with yet another brutal, grotesque act of violence. I feel as if someone has deliberately taken away one of the things I value most, a place I connect with freedom, well-being, spontaneity. And what about the victim, presumably a young woman, running one minute, full of life, brutalized and left for dead the next. Will they catch the attacker? Will the Heath ever be able to recover? My thoughts go back to the Dior Man. It’s not him, it’s not him, it’s not him, I keep repeating to myself. Then why do I feel somehow responsible for unleashing all the violence? Here we go again . . . Perhaps I should have myself checked for OCD and do something about the inflated sense of responsibility. My mobile rings and I let it go straight to my voicemail. But its shrill sound brings me back to reality. I need to deal with some practicalities. I won’t be able to find a replacement dog walker at such short notice and Bell, who is usually my emergency Wispa-sitter, is away. That reminds me, I have to email her, just in case the Heath news filters through to Vancouver, although I doubt it. It’s not the Stock Exchange or the Royal Family after all. I email Claire and let her know I have a stomach bug and am taking Friday off. I know I shouldn’t be doing this, especially not with everything that’s going on, but I simply can’t face work just now. Claire replies almost instantaneously, wishing me a quick recovery and updating me on the news. I’ll be very sorry if she ever decides to leave her job, I don’t know what I’d do without her. I compose a short email to Bell, just to let her know I’m alive, and then I curl up on the sofa in the sitting room and fall asleep.

  I wake up to Wispa snoring on the floor by the sofa. My back is stiff from being curled up in one position for too long. I look at my iPhone and realize I’ve slept for two hours. It always happens when I’m stressed, it’s my body’s way of switching off to let the mind rest. There are five voicemails on my phone. Two from work (Gary and Sarah – both can safely be ignored), two from Michael and one from my friend Kate in Norfolk. I call back Michael straight away.

  ‘I was a bit worried about you. This Heath thing, how awful . . .’

  ‘Terrible. I must say, it’s shaken me badly.’

  ‘No kidding. I couldn’t believe it when I heard it on the news . . . What are you doing tonight?’

  ‘Me? Nothing.’ I really don’t fancy any social activities.

  ‘That’s perfect, darling. I’m coming over with a bottle of wine. And I won’t take no for an answer. Shall I bring some food as well?’

  ‘I’m sure I can rustle something up.’ I smile at his way of being bossy.

  ‘Lovely. Have to rush now, see you in a couple of hours.’

  I put the phone down and realize I’m really glad he’s coming. I was dreading an evening on my own.

  I grab Wispa’s leash and we walk to the High Street’s grocer where I pick up some mushrooms, broccoli, beef tomatoes, rocket, a couple of ripe avocados and gloriously fragrant fresh basil. It’s going to be a pasta night. I throw in a punnet of huge yellow raspberries, get a tub of ice cream at Tesco and the dinner is sorted. It’s not going to be Ottolenghi, but simple flavours with a nice bottle of wine can be equally satisfying. I decide to take a larger loop going back home and enter Waterlow Park for the second time in a day. It looks different in the sunset: with the longer shadows and reddish light it feels more dramatic, mysterious. Wispa trots off with her nose to the ground and I sit down on a bench, absorbing the view. It’s hard to imagine anything bad happening in such a peaceful place. I think of the Heath and the horrendous drama that played out over there this morning. Such an evil act changes the energy of the whole place, makes it cold and unfriendly, with danger lurking in every shadow. Will I ever dare to go back there? Will I trust it again? I call Wispa, who is sniffing around a rubbish bin, collect my shopping bags and climb the path towards home.

  Before I start cooking I go to my study and check the BBC news on my laptop. There’s a bit more about the Heath rape. The victim has been identified as a twenty-eight-year-old woman who lives locally. There is a short video of Detective Chief Inspector Vic Jones addressing the public. She’s a tall woman with short curly hair and a kind face.

  ‘This
was an appalling and violent attack by an individual with a propensity for violence towards women,’ she says and somehow I trust her that she’ll do everything to catch the rapist. ‘I am grateful to a number of witnesses who have already come forward and appeal for anyone else with information to contact us. We would particularly like to hear from any other women who live in this area who may have been assaulted on the Heath.

  ‘I can understand why you may not have come forward, but if this has happened to you then you may have a vital piece of information that can help us stop him.’

  The video clip ends and I sit staring at the laptop, digesting what she’s said. She’s linking the rape attacks, although she hasn’t said it directly. Any piece of information can help them stop him. Stop him, I repeat in my head. It means she thinks he’ll do it again. I play the clip once more and this time it feels as if she’s talking to me. You may have a vital piece of information. Do I? Is it relevant? Is it up to me to decide? And do I have a moral obligation to go to the police with the Dior Man story? I vacillate, unable to make up my mind.

  I’m in the kitchen chopping the vegetables for the sauce when Michael rings the doorbell. As he walks in, dressed in a stylish linen summer suit, he complains about the disappearance of the lovely wine shop in the High Street.

  ‘This is the best I could do.’ He produces a bottle of McGuigan Shiraz out of a Tesco bag.

  ‘It’ll do nicely,’ I tell him as I go back to making the sauce and he opens the bottle and pours us some wine. He peeks over my shoulder and I can feel he’s dying to take over.

  ‘Do we have some chillies, darling?’

  I tell him he can find everything there is in the fridge and sit down at the kitchen table with my glass of wine. I get up again when Michael demands an apron, pointing to his light linen trousers and immaculate shirt. I find him one, a present from my friends in Australia, and he puts it on. Sipping my wine, I watch him whizzing around my kitchen, wrapped in an Australian flag, and I feel warm and cared for. He’s busy putting fusilli into a pan of boiling water when my doorbell rings again.

  It’s Tom, in his running clothes. I look at him, surprised.

  ‘I thought I’d just stop by to say hi. What a terrible tragedy on the Heath . . .’

  ‘Yes, absolutely awful,’ I answer, not sure what he wants.

  ‘Makes you not want to go there for a while. But if you ever feel like venturing out that way again and—’ He stops when he sees Michael in his apron, coming out of the kitchen, a glass of wine in his hand. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you had guests.’

  ‘No worries, Tom, this is Michael; Michael, this is my neighbour Tom.’

  ‘Coming in for a glass of wine?’ asks Michael as a way of introducing himself.

  ‘Oh no, that’s very kind but I have to get back home – it’s the kids’ bedtime.’ He flashes his bright smile at us and is gone.

  Michael looks at me, raising his eyebrows.

  ‘No, no, no, definitely not,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘He’s really just a neighbour, nothing more.’

  ‘That’s nice. Very neighbourly.’ He gives me a look. ‘And very good-looking.’

  He disappears into the kitchen and I follow him. The pasta sauce smells divine.

  Michael helps me clear the table and load the dishwasher. We hold on to our ice-cream bowls, not sure if we want some more dessert. I go to the wine rack in the hallway, pull out a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, get a corkscrew from the kitchen and put it in front of Michael, stretched in an armchair in the sitting room.

  ‘Michael, I have a confession to make.’

  ‘It must be serious,’ he says, looking at the wine bottle. ‘But in the absence of the Pope, I’m prepared to listen, my child.’

  He opens the bottle, sniffs the cork and, satisfied, pours the wine into clean glasses. I sit on the sofa facing him and take a deep breath.

  ‘I have been having sex with a stranger on the Heath.’

  He puts his glass down and stares at me in silence. I feel a hot wave of embarrassment rising from my neck onto my face, something I haven’t felt since I was a teenager.

  ‘And now I don’t know if I should go to the police about it,’ I blurt out. ‘Oh, Michael, what a mess . . .’

  He raises his hand to calm me down.

  ‘OK. Start from the beginning.’

  ‘Remember the conversation we had at the Spaniards Inn?’ He nods slowly. ‘I wasn’t just curious about your experiences . . . I was actually trying to understand my own feelings.’

  He nods again, waiting for me to continue, and picks up his glass.

  ‘I’d bumped into this guy on the Heath. There’s something about him, I don’t know, something straight out of The Great Gatsby, some kind of elegant decadence . . .’ I stop, knowing that what I say sounds silly, as if I’m trying to dress something quite basic and dirty into some lofty guise. ‘OK, I fancied the pants off him, literally, and it just happened.’

  ‘What makes you want to go to the police?’

  ‘I don’t know . . .’

  ‘Do you have any reason to believe it’s him?’

  ‘No,’ I shake my head. ‘I honestly don’t.’

  ‘So why would you want to report it?’

  I’m already regretting telling Michael about it because he’s making me face the truth. But I have to plough on now.

  ‘I saw this policewoman on the news. She said that anyone who’s had a similar experience on the Heath should come forward.’

  ‘Similar to what? Getting raped?’

  ‘No,’ I whisper.

  Michael puts his glass down.

  ‘Anna, has he raped you?’

  I’ve never seen him so serious.

  ‘No, of course not.’ My laugh comes out a bit lame. ‘He’s never done anything I didn’t want him to do.’

  ‘Are you telling me the truth?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I am.’ I look him in the eye. ‘I swear. He hasn’t hurt me in any way, everything we did was totally consensual. I instigated the whole thing and it’s . . . developed.’

  ‘Are you still seeing him?’

  ‘No.’

  Michael visibly relaxes.

  ‘What you’ve been doing is quite dangerous.’

  ‘I know. But I’m fine. It’s just that whole thing on the Heath today has unhinged me and somehow I’ve felt compelled to do something about it . . .’

  ‘Was it unprotected?’

  ‘Yes, but I’ve had myself checked.’

  ‘Good.’ Michael smiles and pours some more wine for both of us. ‘Anna, the Heath harlot. Who would’ve thought?’

  We laugh, a release of tension we both need. We chat for a while about Bell’s Vancouver adventure, my work, Michael’s holiday plans. Suddenly it’s almost midnight and I call a cab for him. Once he’s left I lock the front door and put the chain on. I feel much lighter, as if a great burden has been taken off my shoulders. I’m glad I’ve told him, even though, I realize now, he hasn’t given me any advice regarding going to the police.

  Eight Days Earlier

  I’m woken up by the persistent ringing of my doorbell. Wispa is barking her head off and I have to shout at her to be quiet, which she does, reluctantly. I grab a nightgown that’s hanging on the back of the bedroom door and run down the stairs, combing my hair with my fingers.

  ‘Hello?’ I say as I unlock the door, leaving the chain on.

  ‘Hello,’ says a woman’s voice I don’t recognize.

  Through the crack in the door I see a pale face and it takes me a moment to put a name to it. Samantha, Tom’s wife, the lovely doctor. I undo the chain and open the door wide.

  ‘I’m sorry to bother you so early, but I wanted to catch you before you go out to work.’ She takes in my nightgown and falls silent.

  ‘I’m actually off sick. How can I help you?’ I’m not sure if I should invite her in.

  ‘I was wondering if I could have a word with you.’

  ‘Sure.’ I gesture
for her to come in. What’s it about, I think frantically, hoping they haven’t made a mistake with my tests. ‘Let’s go to the kitchen.’

  I lead the way, then ask her if she would like a cup of coffee. She shakes her head and sits at the kitchen table. Just to keep my hands busy I put a cartridge in the coffee machine and press the button. She waits for me until my cup is ready and I sit at the table, facing her.

  ‘It’s about Tom.’

  ‘Tom? Has something happened to him?’ I say, feeling relief that she hasn’t mentioned my test results.

  ‘No, he’s fine.’ She looks away. ‘I’ve come here to ask you to leave him alone.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ I’m not sure I heard her right.

  ‘I know you’ve been out jogging with him.’

  I just stare at her, not knowing how to react. Let’s try to be civilized about it, I think to myself.

  ‘Look, Samantha, yes, I’ve jogged with him on the Heath once, because he joined me en route, and I called him once to ask for help with Alden who turned up drunk on my doorstep one night. Oh, and I’ve been to your house, for your party. This is the extent of my knowing him. I can assure you there is absolutely nothing going on between me and your husband.’

  ‘I know,’ she says and she looks like she’s about to cry.

  ‘Look,’ I get up from my chair, ‘let me make you some coffee. Or would you prefer a cup of tea?’

  ‘Coffee would be fine, black, thank you.’

  What the hell is this all about, I think as I wait for her cup to fill. Do I have a complete nutter in my kitchen? I put the coffee in front of her and she takes a sip.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Anna, I really don’t mean to upset you . . . or offend you . . .’ She seems a bit more composed now.

  I sit down with my coffee, facing her. I don’t even know if I’m angry with her any more.