“What about our customers?” asks Tuba.
“When we get back on track, we’ll offer them a discount.”
I step back from the door and wrap my arms around my chest, shivering, but it’s not from the cold. I don’t trust any of these people. I should have stolen the pizza money from Keeley and caught a bus to London. I should have gone back to Cyrus. Even if he sent me to Langford Hall, it wouldn’t be forever. What am I afraid of? I’ve spent most of my life in one box or another. Waiting.
The meeting is breaking up. Tuba and Kev leave together, filling the corridor with their laughter and bulk. Carla ignores me as she passes, disappearing in a cloud of cigarette smoke.
Keeley is wrapped around Felix, almost dry-humping his leg. He pushes her away and reaches into his pocket, removing a tiny plastic bag, which he shakes against his thigh and gives to her.
“Now piss off. I’m busy.”
Keeley looks at me with a mixture of disgust and loathing, but also a strange emptiness behind her eyes, like she’s already left the building.
I hover in the open doorway until Felix tells me to sit down. He gets another beer from a chest fridge, removing the top by hooking the cap on the edge of the counter and thumping the bottle with his fist.
“You want one?”
I shake my head. “I thought I was delivering stuff.”
“Not tonight.”
“But my money.”
“Chill. You’ll get it.”
He turns on a stereo and cranks up the volume on an electro-pop track with so much bass it shakes my insides.
“What sort of music do you like?” he asks.
“Not this.”
He grins and sits on the stained sofa whose fabric has been worn thin by squirming asses. Beer at his fingertips, he takes a small glass pipe from his pocket, which has a bulb on one end like a pregnant test tube. It reminds me of the science lessons at Langford Hall where we distilled salt water into fresh water using a Bunsen burner and two flasks.
Felix takes another clear plastic bag from his thigh pocket and holds it up in front of his eyes, examining the contents that look like tiny granules of rock salt. He pinches some of the crystals between his fingers and drops them into the glass pipe, where they settle at the base of the bulb. Taking a cheap lighter from his pocket, he triggers the flame and holds it under the glass, filling the room with a soft crackling sound. Smoke, as white as cotton wool, appears in the pipe. Felix draws it deep into his lungs, puffing out his cheeks and letting his head loll back. The same smoke slowly leaks from his lips, lifting the corners of his mouth into an odd smile. It’s like a chemical reaction—cause and effect—flooding his eyes with bliss.
He hands the pipe to me. I shake my head.
“Relax. Lighten up.”
“I’ll have a beer.”
Felix collects one from the fridge, turning his back as he removes the top. I’m still staring at the glass pipe and the darkened crystals in the bulb. I have smoked weed before, but nothing like this. Maybe I should try it. What harm could it do? It’s not as though my life has been a picnic up until now. The opposite is true. All questions and no answers; a real shit show.
Counselors and therapists have always told me to accept my reality, but none of them has ever explained why. In a world full of suffering and sadness, why should anybody “accept their reality” when they could change it? That’s why those makeover TV shows are so popular—they feed on people’s compulsive desire to be someone else; to swap their boring, shitty life for something better. To avoid, to deny, to forget . . .
Felix hands me the open beer. I wipe the top with my sleeve and take a drink, filling my mouth, cooling my throat. I don’t stop until the last drop falls on my tongue. Another beer is pulled from the cooler. This time I hold it between my knees, telling myself to drink more slowly.
Felix picks up the pipe and thumbs the flame. Smoke curls along the glass tube as he inhales.
He holds the pipe towards me and turns the lighter upside down.
“Don’t be afraid. Relax. Let it happen.”
I lean forward, opening my lips.
“It’s like riding a dragon,” he says. “It’s like drinking in clouds.”
My stomach spasms and the walls of the room suddenly bulge and suck away.
He gave me something. He spiked my drink. I know about such things—roofies and date rape drugs—but I didn’t think . . . should have thought . . . Stupid girl! Foolish girl!
Felix is talking. His features seem to morph and transform into Halloween masks and monstrous creatures, all lips and teeth and multiple eyes.
“What did you give me?” I slur, not recognizing my own voice. When did the music change?
He pulls me up. I stumble. He catches me, putting his arm around my waist. I try to speak, telling him I want to lie down, but my words are garbled and make no sense. He’s leading me along the hallway, holding me up as he fishes for the keys. The door opens to reveal a bedroom, a bed, a camera, a tripod . . .
He lets me fall backwards onto the mattress, where I curl up, wanting to sleep, but a bright light blasts through my closed eyelids. He puts his hands on either side of my face and kisses me, his tongue pushing into my mouth, ammonia on his breath. I gag, turning my face away and grabbing his shoulders, trying to push him off, but he has wedged his knee between my thighs, forcing them open. Fingernails scratch at my skin, pulling elastic aside, rummaging like he’s searching for a lost pound. I beg him to stop, but my voice won’t make the sounds.
In slow motion, Felix leans back and unbuckles his pants. He grabs my head, pressing his thumbs into the soft flesh beneath my ears, guiding me towards him. I understand. I fight. I pull at his fingers, pleading for forgiveness or for mercy, although I don’t know what “mercy” means. This is my life. Who I am. What I’ve been. That person. Used. Abused. Unloved. Unlovable.
My stomach spasms and guts erupt.
Felix rears back uttering a sharp cry.
“Bitch!”
He’s holding his arms out, looking at the masticated mush of cheese and pizza dough clinging to his shirt.
“This cost me a hundred quid.”
He goes to the bathroom and takes off his shirt, scrubbing it under the running water.
I know I have to run. I try to stand but topple over. I crawl on my hands and knees until I reach the corridor and heave the remaining contents of my stomach onto the carpet.
Getting to my feet, I stumble down the passageway, swaying from side to side, bouncing off the walls. I take in gulps of air, trying to focus.
Somewhere behind me the tap is turned off and light spills past me.
“Hey! Where are you going?”
I’ve reached an unlit exit sign. I push down on the horizontal bar, shouldering the door open, and lurch across a landing to a short flight of stairs. Felix is close behind, reaching for me, clawing at my face to stop me screaming. He slams me against a brick wall, but his thumb has found my mouth. I bite down hard, feeling his skin break, reaching bone. He curses and releases his grip. I lash out with a boot, finding his shin.
“Psycho bitch!” he yells.
I’m free. Running. Revived by the cold air. Aware that my skirt is partially undone. I’m through the fence and onto the road, stumbling towards a light. A car swerves, braking hard, wheels locking. I spin away, turning the corner, not looking back. A bus, brightly lit, sounds a horn. I don’t stop . . . I won’t stop . . . because he is somewhere behind me.
Suddenly, my head fills with the blast of a police siren and a spotlight turns everything white. Momentarily blinded, I bounce off the side of a parked car and fall to the pavement. A police officer is crouching next to me. He’s saying something, but I can’t make out the words.
I’m a child again, fuddled by sleep and feverish dreams, conscious of a door opening, a figure backlit, whispering my name, pulling back the bedclothes, saying, “You know I love you. You know I won’t hurt you.”
A hand touc
hes my arm, telling me to lie still.
I would cry if I weren’t so tired, so desperately tired . . .
47
* * *
CYRUS
* * *
“Her ribs are bruised, but nothing is broken,” says a triage doctor wearing crumpled blue scrubs and a cotton surgical cap cocked at a jaunty angle. A rust-colored rosette of toilet paper is stuck to his neck that must have been there since this morning. He’ll soon need to shave again.
“Evie said her drink was spiked, so I’ve organized a tox screen and given her drugs to counteract whatever she might have taken. I’ve also prescribed her some painkillers. Raising her arms above her head is going to hurt, so she might need help getting dressed.”
“Was she . . . ?” I don’t finish the question.
“Sexually assaulted? I have no idea. She refuses to let anyone examine her internally.”
The waiting room of the ER is dotted with the broken, wounded, grazed, and bleeding, all with jaundiced-looking faces from the fluorescent lights. I’ve been here since just after midnight, when the police messaged my pager. Evie gave them the number before she fell asleep in an ambulance on the way to the hospital.
She’s awake now, talking to the officers that found her. I take a seat and watch a man with fuzzy hair and a food-stained shirt arguing with a triage nurse, demanding painkillers. She uses his first name and tells him to sit down or she’ll call security. The man retreats to his shopping trolley, which is parked outside the automatic doors, laden with filthy blankets and folded cardboard.
Two officers emerge from the consulting room and have a conversation, heads together, before summoning me. The more senior one looks at me with a sullen animosity, as if I’m personally to blame for his working nights and never seeing his family.
“I’m PC Burton,” he says. “This is PC Huntley. How do you know Evie Cormac, sir?”
“I’m her guardian.”
“Do you have any ID?”
I show him my driver’s license.
“What was she doing out last night?”
“What did she tell you?”
“She said she went out to meet friends and her drink was spiked. She says she can’t remember what happened after that . . . where she’s been or who she was with. She doesn’t want to give us the names of her friends because most of them were underage. Can you help?”
“Not really.”
“When did you last see Evie?”
“Yesterday afternoon,” I lie.
“Do you have any idea where she was last night?”
“No.”
The officer is taking notes in a small flip-top notebook.
“Listen, Cyrus. Can I call you Cyrus?”
He’s going to do it anyway.
“Evie was found with no money or phone or ID. The state of her clothing and her bruises indicate that she was attacked, robbed, and possibly sexually assaulted. It may be that she’s too scared to reveal the identity of her attacker. You should talk to her. Tell her it’s in her own best interests.”
Is it, though?
“Of course,” I say, trying to sound genuine, when I have no idea what to tell Evie. I have treated dozens of victims of sexual assault—some who reported their attacker to the police and others who kept it secret. I can’t say for sure which of them made the right choice. For every perpetrator who was punished, three walked away without being charged or were cleared by a jury. Right now, all I can think about is Evie—what she’s been through, how to make her whole.
Finally they let me see her. She’s sitting on the edge of an examination table with her head down, letting a curtain of hair cover her eyes. She doesn’t acknowledge my arrival or the sound of my voice.
“How are you feeling?”
“Like shit.”
“Are you in pain?”
“No.”
The officers are watching how she reacts to me—reading her body language. No doubt my name will be run through the Sex Offender Register and they’ll contact Social Services, checking on my status as a foster carer.
“I need the bathroom,” Evie says, pushing past me. We still haven’t made eye contact. A nurse escorts her to the ladies’ and waits outside. The officers are talking on their phones. Occasionally, one or both of them glance at me.
“Can I take her home?” I ask the doctor.
“Unless you want me to refer her to the psych ward.”
“I’m a psychologist.”
It raises an eyebrow.
Minutes pass. Evie has been gone too long. There could be another exit. She could be trying to run again. I have to stop myself grabbing a nurse and getting her to check inside the cubicle, but suddenly Evie appears. She has slicked down her hair with water and rubbed and washed her face. A nurse must have given her lipstick and eye shadow.
For the first time I notice her clothes—the suede skirt, torn blouse, and ankle boots—and wonder how and where she got them.
“Put this on,” I say, giving her my coat. “It’s cold outside.”
PC Burton stops us before we reach the main doors. He gives Evie his card, telling her to call him if she remembers anything. She nods in a noncommittal way.
The younger officer escorts her outside, while his partner puts a hand on my shoulder, leaning close until his mouth brushes my ear.
“If I discover you’ve touched her, I’m going to break your jaw and shit down your throat.”
48
* * *
CYRUS
* * *
Reaching for her seat belt, Evie flinches and turns her face away, staring into the lightening sky. I start the engine and we pull out of the parking area, driving along near-deserted roads wet from the rain.
“Where did you go?” I ask eventually.
“I found a poker game.”
“For two days?”
She doesn’t answer.
A bus pulls out ahead of us. I overtake, catching a glimpse of the brightly lit interior, where a handful of bleary-eyed shift workers rest their heads against the glass.
“I won,” whispers Evie.
“The police said you had no money.”
“I was robbed.”
“Who robbed you?”
“I didn’t take down their names.”
Normally a line like that would be delivered with sarcasm, but Evie doesn’t seem to have the energy or the anger.
“Why didn’t you go to the police?”
“Why do you think?”
“You could have sent me a message.”
Evie looks at me with unexpected coldness, laying waste to something within me. Not for the first time, I recognize something missing inside her—a deficit or arrears. I have never met such a pure nihilist. She is like a new species of human, raised in almost total annihilating self-hatred that has destroyed any self-regard she may once have had. In her mind and heart she is an insult to the ground that she walks upon and the air that she breathes. All her strength, all her mental faculties are telling her that she must hate the world, that she must smash it to pieces before it destroys her.
Yet all my experience tells me that she wants to be normal. She wants to be included. She’s like a child who has never been invited to a party but who presses her face against the glass, listening to the laughter and watching the games being played, hoping to be asked to join in, yet willing to burn the house down without a second thought.
“Are you sending me back?” she asks, biting on the inside of her cheek.
“I haven’t decided.”
“What? I’m on probation?”
“You’ve always been on probation.”
My fingers grip the wheel too tightly and I realize—not for the first time—that I’m afraid of Evie. I fear her physical proximity and her darkness and the damage she could inflict upon me when she senses her power.
She gazes out the window, no doubt aware that we’re not heading home or towards Langford Hall, but she doesn’t say anything. I’m taking us
east, across the river, past Trent Bridge cricket ground, and through the outskirts of Nottingham where the houses give way to patchwork fields stitched together with hedgerows.
The Radcliffe Animal Centre has a small shop attached to a series of kennels and prefabricated buildings that look like miniature aircraft hangars.
“Come on,” I say, getting out of the car. Evie is still wearing my overcoat. She follows me into the front office, where a woman behind a desk is chewing on a triangle of Marmite-covered toast.
She licks her fingers. “You’re up early.”
“We’re looking for a dog,” I say.
Spinning her chair, she pulls out a form. “Adopting or fostering?”
“Fostering,” I reply. “For the moment.”
I pass the form straight to Evie. She blinks at me, lost for words.
“You put your name and address at the top.”
There are questions on the page, wanting to know the size of our yard and whether we want an inside or an outside dog, what breed and gender. Evie keeps glancing at me, unsure of how to answer.
“You choose,” I say.
“You can meet a few,” says the woman, picking up a walkie-talkie and summoning someone she calls Raptor. Moments later a young man appears dressed in a green uniform with heavy work boots. His hair is dyed blond at the ends and pulled back into a ponytail. We follow him along a cement path to a series of low kennels and wire enclosures. The dogs have heard us coming and set off barking, spurring each other on.
“I got just the one for you,” Raptor says. “She’s my favorite. She loves being around people and doesn’t cope with being on her own, you know. Separation anxiety.”
He tells us to wait in the yard. Evie watches him leave. Her hands are deep in her pockets. She seems to be holding her breath, anxious that I might change my mind.
“Is this a trick?” she whispers.
“No.”
“Why are you being so nice to me?”
“That’s the thing, Evie. You shouldn’t be surprised when people treat you with respect. It’s how it should be.”
Good Girl, Bad Girl Page 27
