The Forgotten Woman: A gripping, emotional rollercoaster read you’ll devour in one sitting

by Angela Marsons

  ‘But I enjoyed—’

  ‘And it will not do your long-term career any good at all. Prosecutors are merely numbers called upon to send the dregs of society to prison. They become bitter and twisted and quite often fall away from the legal scene, especially young ones.’

  Fran couldn’t take it any longer. The disapproval and disappointment that came at her in waves was too much.

  ‘But defending isn’t bad—’

  ‘Good decision, Frances.’ Her mother talked over her cheerfully. ‘I took the liberty of calling Geoffrey Windsor at Windsor and Travers in Birmingham. It’s a wonderful firm of young solicitors and they owe me a favour or two. They want you to start on Monday.’

  Fran was just too tired to argue and left the house as the dessert dishes were being cleared.

  The drive back to her tiny bedsit was long and miserable. She tried turning on the radio to distract herself from reflecting on her own weakness and stupidity. It didn’t do any good. All it did was help to scramble her untidy, crowded mind. Only one thing would bring order to the chaos and there were bottles of it in her pantry.

  She’d opened the pantry door before she removed her coat. The bottle accompanied her everywhere – the kitchen, the bathroom and the bedroom.

  As the empty vessel fell to the floor she realised that she had tried on for size the person her mother expected her to be, and found that it now fitted her perfectly.

  ‘Good morning, Frances, we’ve heard many good things about you,’ said Geoffrey Windsor warmly as he shook her hand.

  He was just as she’d imagined him – tall, thin with a bald patch that he tried to disguise with hair that should have arced over his ears. The mouth smiled while the eyes appraised every detail of her jet-black, well-cut trouser suit. He observed the wild red hair that remained tightly shackled to the back of her head. Yes, definitely a friend of her mother’s.

  Her first few cases were bread-and-butter cases, testers to see how she coped. She impressed them all, but as her office grew bigger and the cases more sought after, her popularity waned in the eyes of her peers. Fran understood: you were allowed to do well, but not too well.

  Three days after her twenty-second birthday she was asked by her mother to defend the son of a personal friend. As usual she tried to say no and failed. The knowledge that her mother would be in the courtroom ensured she had a bigger breakfast – must keep her strength up. She drank two bottles of vodka instead of one.

  I can’t fail, I can’t fail, she chanted to herself. She’s behind me, third row on the left. She’s watching and she’s judging. I can’t fail. How will she look if I fail, how will she explain to his father that I messed up? She’s never watched me in court before. I just can’t fail.

  Fran realised a second too late that everyone around her was standing. She stumbled to her feet. Bloody good start! No lost cases, I won’t fail.

  She almost slept through the formalities and knew she’d come alive once the case began.

  ‘Objection!’ she cried as it occurred to her that the prosecutor’s last question was misleading.

  ‘On what grounds?’ the sour-faced judge asked.

  She couldn’t quite remember; she sat back down.

  She studied the judge’s face and found his solemn, unchanging expression amusing. Was that a mask? Was the real judge in his chambers drinking tea?

  The vision forced a slight chuckle from her lips. Furtive glances her way told her she’d done something wrong. She coughed, thinking it was the best thing to do.

  She looked sideways at the eighteen-year-old on trial for a hit and run. He hadn’t even had a licence; he’d just taken off with Daddy’s sports car. Pillock, she thought, watching his face as it grew pensive. You should go away for years, you toffee-nosed little git! The realisation that she was his defence lawyer almost caused her to laugh hysterically.

  He looked sideways at her again. Oops, should she have raised an objection to something? Never mind, it was too late now.

  She straightened up in her chair. I can’t fail, she told herself, trying to force some clarity into her cluttered mind, but the yellow legal pad lying on the desk looked so comfortable, almost like a fluffy pillow. If she could just rest her head for one minute, she’d be fine.

  ‘Would counsel approach the bench, please?’

  By the time the delay mechanism in her sozzled brain heard the words the little git was pushing her towards the bench.

  She focused on the middle judge and aimed straight for him, battling with a floor that was like a swirling tornado trying to pull her down.

  The prosecutor was smiling at her. She smiled back.

  ‘Miss Thornton, are you feeling yourself today?’ the judge asked.

  She almost said, ‘Well, it’s been so long I’m sorely tempted’, but she stopped the words just in time.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said as clearly as she could, focusing on a huge red spot on the end of his nose. She only hoped she could get away before it exploded.

  He continued talking to her in a harsh tone. ‘If this continues I’m afraid alternative counsel will have to be arranged.’

  His frowning features brought a picture of the Seven Dwarfs into her head. ‘Okay, Grump… I mean, Your Honour.’

  She turned to walk back to her chair but the swift movement made her head spin. The observers mingled into one and they were all laughing. What were they laughing at? Why hadn’t they told her the joke? She could do with a good laugh.

  Only one person was not laughing: her mother. Uh, oh, thought Fran, she’s got that look. What have I done this time?

  Two steps forward and Frances fell unconscious to the ground.

  5

  Kit

  ‘Kit, Kit, wake up! It’s me, Mark.’ He shook her roughly.

  ‘NO!’ she screamed through the tears. Her flailing arms caught the side of his head.

  Mark caught her shoulders and lifted her top half up from the bed. Her body was covered in beads of perspiration. ‘Come on, Kit, it’s over!’ he shouted. He turned and motioned for the other occupants of the house to return to their rooms.

  Her eyes slowly registered that it was Mark sitting on the bed beside her. Relief suffused her body as she fell against his broad, bare chest. He comforted her while leaning slightly forward to switch on the bedside lamp.

  ‘Same one?’ he asked as the tears began to subside, leaving occasional sobs that surprised her.

  Kit nodded weakly. She knew where she was but she didn’t yet feel completely safe.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ he urged.

  She shook her head.

  ‘It’s okay… they’re gone,’ he whispered softly. He held her for a few more moments until her shallow breathing became more normal then he held her gently but firmly away from his half-naked body. ‘Do you want to talk?’ he asked, moving further down the bed.

  ‘No, you’ve heard it all before.’

  ‘So bore me,’ he offered.

  ‘Will it ever be behind me?’ she groaned.

  ‘You know it will. It’s only been three months, Kit, and six weeks of that was in the hospital. Stop pushing so hard.’

  ‘I can’t. I want it gone. I want to be clean—’

  ‘You are clean,’ he snapped as his eyes bored into hers. ‘You’re not dirty, Kit. It’s a part of your life, which happened, and you can’t ignore that but don’t let it shape you now. It’s your turn to decide what you want to be.’

  She fought back the tears and pointed to her chest. ‘It doesn’t matter how many times you tell me, I don’t feel it.’

  She wanted him to wave a magic wand and make the past disappear, erasing the bastards who had abused her body and ate away at her soul.

  ‘You’re in limbo at the moment. They still taint your life because you had to bring them with you here, but this is your time to cleanse. When you leave here you have to leave them with me.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘You don’t have to leave until you’re ready.
No one is going to force you, but there will come a time when you want to. You’ll itch to move on and explore places and experiences where they have no place or association. Then you’ll be able to leave the past behind.’

  Kit so wanted to believe him. She tried to attach meaning to his words but it didn’t feel real. She only knew that in the confines of the small room, with Mark sitting on the bed speaking softly to her, she wanted to believe it would all be okay. She felt her eyelids begin to droop as though magnets drew them down while the sound of his voice comforted her. Her last thought was the realisation that Mark was getting to know her a little too well. That was the trouble. People got to know you, sucked you in, gained your trust and then spat you so far away, ripping your heart so far out of your body, that it took years to wash away the blood.

  Kit walked down the stairs of the three-storey Victorian house. The bawdy pattern of oversized flowers on the aged carpet grew faded in the middle of each tread. A small puff of dust rose up from each harsh footstep that was almost a stamping of the feet.

  She checked her appearance in the hallway mirror. Yep, her hair was suitably spiked and the habitual black make-up littered her features. Charcoal eyeliner emphasised the sleeplessness of the previous night. She wiped away a smudge of black lipstick and smiled. No one could see through her today.

  ‘Message by the phone for ya,’ said Mara, a recovering crack addict, as she passed by, munching on a piece of jam-drenched toast.

  ‘Me?’

  Mara nodded disinterestedly as she mounted two stairs at a time.

  Great, Kit thought, glancing at the back of an old envelope. Just a number. It was pointless shouting after Mara to find out who had called. Most days the teenager had trouble remembering to take her dressing gown off before she left the house.

  She punched in the numbers, a little bemused but curious at the same time. The phone was answered after two rings by a boyish childlike voice. Kit rolled her eyes: this just got better and better.

  ‘Hello, my name is Kit and someone there wants to talk to me,’ she said, gently, trying to use her voice to find a rapport so as not to scare the child.

  ‘Bugger off!’

  Charming, she thought and was tempted to replace the receiver but curiosity got the better of her.

  ‘My name is Kit!’ she shouted, hearing raised voices of more children in the background.

  ‘Yer name is tit? Tit, tit, tit, tit!’

  She decided to use words this child was likely to understand. ‘Okay, you little shit, go get your mum or dad!’

  The line went quiet for a few seconds and the shouting in the background faded into the distance.

  ‘Kit, is that you?’ said a breathless voice that was vaguely familiar. Kit stepped away from the phone cradle despite the fact that the handset was still against her ear. The voice didn’t yet have a name but if she recognised it, that could only mean it came from her past. And there was no one back there that she wished to know.

  ‘It’s Carol.’

  ‘Carol who?’

  There was a slight pause. ‘Your sister.’

  Kit’s spine stiffened. ‘Don’t call yourself that because it just isn’t true.’

  ‘Just give me a minute.’

  ‘Whatever you’re selling, I ain’t buying,’ she murmured, moving the handset away from her ear.

  ‘Kit, wait, I need to talk to you!’

  ‘Sorry, recipe swapping isn’t my thing,’ she snapped, as bitterness surged through her body. She made no attempt to stop it. Instead she welcomed it. It was comforting. Familiar.

  ‘I know you’re angry but this isn’t about—’

  ‘Now why on earth would I be angry with you? I could stand here and list the reasons but funnily enough I have to be somewhere in about eight hours so I just don’t have the time.’

  ‘It’s Bill, he’s dying.’

  Kit’s eyes glazed over. The messages on the noticeboard in front of her blended into one mass of murky grey paper. Her surroundings dissolved as visions from the past surged into her head. Memories of a damp, dark house in a road where the sun never shone roared up and blinded her mind’s eye. Her brain closed down as she travelled back through the years to the night when Bill had robbed her of the only thing that had not been infected with her life. The memory of his bloated, sweating body humping on top of her returned with the clarity of the present. Suddenly the stench of stale whisky filled the small hallway. Low animal grunts like wheezing last breaths sounded all around her. The foulness of his urine soaking the bed beneath her seeped through her black canvas jeans.

  ‘Kit, are you still there?’

  She used the sound of Carol’s voice to claw her way out of the memories. ‘Y… yes.’

  ‘He’s dying, and he wants to see you.’

  Kit woodenly replaced the receiver, mounted the stairs and closed her bedroom door behind her.

  ‘You off to AA?’ Mark asked, checking his watch as she walked into the kitchen.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Mark, get off my back!’

  ‘Well, are you going?’ he asked, unperturbed.

  ‘Leave me the hell alone!’ she roared. ‘Just get out of my face, Mother Hen! Piss

  off and peck at someone else!’

  Mark tidied away the dinner plates. ‘Just doing my job.’

  ‘Exactly, it’s your fucking job! You get paid to piss us off. I just wish you wouldn’t take your work so seriously.’

  ‘What’s your problem, Kit?’ he asked, adding milk to his coffee.

  ‘You!’ she screamed. ‘You pretend to care but it’s nothing more than a job to you. You get paid and that’s it.’

  ‘Yeah, and look at the rewards.’ He gestured around the cramped kitchen. ‘I have all this. I live in two rooms, I have no social life and you get to bitch at me whenever you feel like it. Christ, I am one lucky bastard!’

  ‘It’s your job, so deal with it!’ Kit sneered before leaving the room. She grabbed her jacket and slammed the front door hard.

  Kit walked, and thought. She had consciously decided not to tell Mark about the phone call from Carol. She didn’t want him interfering in yet another part of her life. This was a decision she needed to make without his help. She wished now that she’d given a false name and address to Mark as her next of kin and told him she was an orphan, but she hadn’t. Stupid, stupid, she chastised herself. If she’d known that Carol would be informed of her whereabouts she would have told him nothing. And now this call, this intrusion into her new life. The fucking cheek, she thought, unable to suppress her anger. Why the hell should she care if the old bastard was dying?

  And she cared less that he was asking for her.

  His face jumped into her head. A face she had so desperately tried to forget. A face that had forced her into a world of sleaze and filth so deeply ingrained into her pores, skin grafts wouldn’t get it out.

  In London Bill had come to her in many different shapes and sizes. Some young, some old, fat and thin. It didn’t matter, every punter had worn Bill’s head. And that woman, her sister, had the nerve to ask her to go to Liverpool. She had two hopes, none and Bob.

  The numerous pubs and wine bars that she passed beckoned to her. Each one a separate battle to fight. Laughter found its way outside to her. How long since she’d laughed, really laughed? It would be so easy. Just one drink. Only one. She could handle it. Just one drink to banish his face from her head. She had to, needed to. Okay, so the tremors, sweating and anxiety had passed but the need for a drink to guide her back to blissful oblivion remained. Things were so much easier then. It was all still there, she knew that, but she’d been able to hide it, veil it. Now her past slapped her around the face at every opportunity. She craved the numbness of being drunk. Her shaking hand met with the brass of the door handle.

  ‘Kit?’

  The low voice from behind startled her. She turned and breathed with a sigh of relief.

  ‘Frances. What are—’

  ‘My car is parked ov
er there. I couldn’t get a space any closer.’

  Kit remained motionless. Her hand still dangerously close to the brass handle. Her toes pointed towards the door.

  ‘Look, a packet of nuts just isn’t worth going in there for,’ Fran said, taking Kit’s arm. ‘Come on.’

  She guided Kit to the cafe they’d gone to before. Kit hadn’t realised how close she was to the AA meeting room. Fran went to the counter and ordered two coffees.

  ‘Here, drink this instead,’ she instructed.

  ‘What the hell is with you? Are you my mother?’ Kit snapped. The last person she wanted to display weakness to was this woman.

  ‘I’m just trying to help.’

  ‘Regular Mother Teresa you are.’

  ‘And a regular pain-in-the-ass you are,’ replied Fran, without batting an eyelid.

  Kit smiled. ‘Touché!’

  ‘So was it a bag of dry roasted or a packet of crisps that you just couldn’t live without?’ asked Fran, referring back to the pub incident.

  ‘Both. I’m going for an eating disorder next.’

  ‘Christ, at least your teeth will survive the acid in your mouth and they’ll be able to identify the body!’

  ‘Ooh, is that the lawyer talking, Miss Thornton?’ Kit asked appreciatively.

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  Do I want to talk about it? thought Kit. Not a fucking chance! What would this tight-assed bitch think of her life story? She watched as the steam swirled upwards from the coffee.

  Why had she not been able to quickly dismiss the phone call earlier? Did some hidden part of her want to confront him? Was there a part of the masochist left in her?

  Kit looked into the eyes opposite. They held no pre-judgement and no malice. Do I want to talk about it? Do I want to see that heart-shaped mouth turn up with distaste? Maybe if I tell her something she’ll be so disgusted she’ll piss off.