Thorn in the Flesh

by Anne Brooke

  Kate frowned as if she didn’t understand him. ‘What would that be?’

  He paused and then spoke quickly, as if wanting to get all his words out before they were swallowed up again. ‘Were you all right? Did you have the abortion after all?’

  Before answering, Kate stared out of the window. She could see cars, buses and people outside, but could hear no noise. For a moment she understood how that could be true of a life as well, and then the knowledge of it was lost. She turned back to her companion. Peter was leaning forward, his napkin crushed between his fingers.

  She shook her head. ‘No, and if you’d looked at me once after breaking up with me, you would have known the truth of that. Even though I didn’t show, not until the very end. I thought you might come back to me. In spite of what you’d said. For a long time, I still hoped for it.’

  He blanched and sat back in his seat. ‘Yes, I know. I’m sorry. I was very young and very frightened. I said some stupid things, some very stupid things which weren’t true, and I’m sorry.’

  She said nothing. There didn’t seem anything to say now, so many years on. It was he who broke the heaviness of the silence between them.

  ‘What happened after the baby was born, Kate?’ he asked. ‘And what happened to your life? Is that why you want to see me now? Is it about our child?’

  She took a sip of coffee before replying. The sultry power of it in her mouth gave her courage.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I was all right. And, no, I don’t want to see you because of our son. At least, not in the way you think. There’s something else I want to discuss with you.’

  When Kate looked up at her companion, she could see at once he was no longer listening.

  ‘A son,’ he whispered. ‘I have a son. I didn’t know that.’

  She waited as he passed one hand over his eyes and stared at something over her shoulder, beyond her.

  ‘I have a son,’ he said again. ‘What happened to him? Where is he now?’

  ‘What does it matter to you?’ she asked, placing her hands, which were trembling slightly on her lap, out of sight. ‘You never wanted to see him when he was born either, so why be concerned today?’

  ‘Now that’s unfair, Kate.’

  ‘Is it?’ she said, leaning forward and holding his gaze. ‘Is it unfair? Not as unfair as your apparent reasons for starting our relationship. And your reasons for ending it. Not as unfair as not wanting to know what happened to me, never trying to get in touch again. And not as unfair as allowing me to deal with pregnancy and birth almost on my own.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘Wait. I haven’t finished. Meeting you, being with you all those years ago, set something in me free. I was passionately, physically in love with you. Can you understand that? It was as if I suddenly knew all the words there were in the world. In all the different languages. Do you know how that feels?

  ‘No, I didn’t think so,’ she continued as he shook his head once. ‘It was like nothing else I’ve ever experienced either before or since. When you left, everything around me turned grey. I thought I might die then, but I didn’t. I thought about having the abortion – I didn’t want a child anyway, never have – but it would have been killing something of you and I couldn’t do that. So I held onto the hope that when the child was born you might reconsider, come back to us, because of him. Even though I’d been sensible, arranged for an adoptive couple to be contacted, done all the right things, I still hoped you’d come back. Humiliating, I know, but it was the way it was. I would have taken anything.’

  He made as if to speak, but Kate carried on, ‘When our son was born, you weren’t there. I’d left a message for you at Castle, but you never came. Because of that, I didn’t want to see or even touch Stephen. Oh yes, that was what the couple named him. Stephen. I had no objections. By then, I didn’t care. Because of you, I had no feelings towards him then and I have no feelings for him now. Because of that, you have no right to ask me where he is. But in any case the truth is I don’t know. I simply don’t know.’

  He had stopped eating. As if from nowhere, the waiter reappeared and began to collect the plates. For a few vital seconds, the conversation, or rather her monologue, was put on hold and Kate took the opportunity to lay on the table what she’d brought to show him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, I never received any message. If I had, perhaps I would have … I don’t know, Kate, I don’t know what I would have done. What I said to you all those years ago about being with you because of a stupid dare was only true at the beginning. Later, well, later it was different. It might even … I don’t know, you overwhelmed me. Your feelings were so strong, I didn’t know if I could deal with them. You frightened me. Perhaps if …?’

  Kate shook her head. It was too late for any of this.

  ‘Never mind,’ she said. ’It’s over now and you already know how much you hurt me. But all that has to remain in the past. What is important today is this.’

  With her this, she pushed the letters across the white cotton space between them and pointed.

  ‘I’ve been getting these letters,’ she said. ‘Since Christmas. The first person I could think of who could have been sending them was you.’

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘Read them,’ she said.

  He did so. As he turned the pages, reading a few in full and skimming others, she watched his face redden and then grow pale again. When he finished, he looked up at her and she could see the lines more clearly on his face.

  ‘They’re horrible,’ he said. ‘Why has someone been sending these to you? And why would you think they’d be from me?’

  ‘They mention things only you would know. Our relationship. My pregnancy. The birth of my son.’

  ‘But I didn’t know about the birth, Kate. I swear it. And I swear these letters are not from me,’ he picked one up with the tips of his fingers and dropped it back on her side of the table as if to demonstrate his disgust at the whole idea.

  Staring at him, she could tell it was the truth. His eyes held a world of bewilderment and also shock. He was not so good an actor. She’d been wrong. As she’d feared. She would have to start again. And from a place she had no wish to visit.

  While she’d been in a reverie, he’d been talking to her but she hadn’t heard his words.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ she said, blinking and gathering up the letters. ‘I didn’t catch that.’

  ‘Of course,’ he said and took her hands in his own. His touch flared her body with heat but she shook him away. ‘You must be worried. You should go to the police, Kate.’

  ‘Never.’

  The strength of her own reaction drove her to her feet. The room around her seemed to quiver and the people at the tables, together with the sounds they were making, drifted out and back in her vision. She mustn’t faint. She’d never fainted before in her life and she wasn’t about to start now.

  ‘Kate? Are you all right?’

  Peter was standing, slipping round the table, holding her elbow.

  ‘Yes. I’m fine. Really.’ She eased herself out of his grasp and took two steps back. Behind his shoulder, she could see the waiter’s thin shape looming. ‘It was good to see you, Peter, but I must go. I can pay my half of the bill.’

  ‘No, no.’ He waved her offer away. ‘I’ll deal with it.’

  In the end, she watched as he paid. Surely he owed her that.

  Outside, on the street, with London beginning to swarm into life for the day, she turned to leave, but he reached out and took her wrist. His touch again made her hands tremble. She looked at him, unsure what he wanted. A part of her longed to go, but another part, a part she was unable to acknowledge, also longed to stay.

  He gazed at her, his expression unfathomable.

  ‘You’re still a beautiful woman, Kate,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry for what happened between us. I wish I could change it, but I can’t. Please, stay in touch if you feel able. And if … if you find our son, I’d li
ke you to let me know.’

  He let her go. Her hands were no longer trembling; everything within was as calm as stone.

  She shook her head.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I can’t. You don’t understand, but I can’t.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Later, at home, she knew that if he’d asked her, she would have slept with him again, even after all the years apart. Her skin, her flesh, all of her had wanted him, but he hadn’t made that offer, and she couldn’t voice her need. But, no, it would have been impossible. Not now, after everything that had happened.

  First, she had to defeat the past. Accept it, and defeat it.

  And a step forward to this end was the knowledge that Peter had not been responsible for sending her the letters. Then again, how could he have been? The one immediately after her attack had threatened her with the same treatment again, and Peter had had no idea what had happened to her. There had been nothing in his eyes to tell her he knew. Even though that wasn’t, of course, one of the letters she’d taken to show him, she was still sure of it. That avenue of discovery and, yes, hope, was suddenly closed to her; her answers lay elsewhere, but, for the moment, she could go no further in that direction.

  But she had other paths to explore. Ones that didn’t make her skin grow cold and her hands clench with the effort of suppressing terror and guilt. And shame. It was possible that her letter-writing rapist knew someone who was aware of what had happened in her past. And only two people would have access to those facts. Peter she’d discounted. That left only one.

  Her son.

  She would have to find Stephen. In the end, she’d always known it would come to that. To do it, however, she needed help. So tonight she would tell Nicky everything.

  Almost everything.

  It seemed a long time till evening. During the day, the garden was bright, calm and controlled, but at night it took on a different character. Shadows flowed between the yew hedge and the roses, shadows of birds or small animals Kate couldn’t identify. Now and again, a fox would pad through, its yellow eyes gleaming in the darkness. The first time she’d seen the fox, after she’d moved in, it had made the breath catch in her throat, imagining an intruder or other kind of evil surrounding the safety of home, but now she’d grown used to the fox’s occasional appearance. There were more piercing dangers to be afraid of. In fact, she’d welcomed the animal’s coming; she liked to think it was the same one she always saw. It made her feel less alone.

  Now as she gazed out of the window waiting for her friend, no fox appeared. Simply the darkness and the dull patter of rain which disturbed her thoughts. If she’d hoped to gather her words together to explain to Nicky some of the secrets she held, her hopes had been thwarted. She could think no further than Nicky’s arrival, in half an hour, and what she had decided to tell her. Beyond that, all was shadow.

  She must have fallen asleep, dozing off in the chair, because the crisp tones of the doorbell woke her and she sat up, blinking. When she peered through the window, she could see no-one on the porch, but the view was limited anyway. Her watch said 8.25pm. It had to be Nicky.

  Checking her hair in the hall mirror, she could see smudges under her eyes and thought she looked pale. Through the spy-hole, instead of Nicky’s warm smile, she saw nothing. No visitor, only the outlines of the rose bushes in the garden, a study in shades of grey now, and the slight sway of the trees. She must have imagined the bell; her need to speak to her friend was playing tricks on her. But no, the security light David had installed at the end of the porch was on. That was why she could see the roses. Somebody had been there.

  Somebody who wasn’t Nicky had rung her doorbell. In which case where was that person now? Her heart was thumping and her throat felt dry. She should ring the police, or David. The thought of his familiar voice at the end of the line made her stumble away from the spy-hole and reach for the telephone, even though her hands were trembling. No, she was being foolish. She shouldn’t assume something bad was happening or about to happen. In Bruges, hadn’t she promised herself she wasn’t going to let the rape colour how she lived her life? Didn’t she want to be free of the nagging anxiety and always looking over her shoulder at shadows? And she’d received no more letters in the last few days. She had nothing to fear. Nicky would be here soon.

  Nicky.

  Where was she? What if it was Nicky who’d rung the bell, but someone had snatched her away? What if her friend were out there somewhere, needing help, while Kate stood quivering with indecision inside the house? What if …?

  ‘Nicky?’

  Without another thought, Kate slammed the bolts back and pulled open the door. The faint warmth of the night breeze filled the hallway as she ran out onto the porch, almost knocking over the smallest of her row of pots. Behind her the door clicked shut. ‘Nicky? Are you there?’

  No reply. She ran to the front of the garden but, when she glanced wildly left and right, the road was deserted. Skirting the bushes, thorns snatching at her hand, she brushed past the yew hedge and down the side passage to the back garden. The slope stretched in front of her, empty of terror or pain as far as she could see. Still she stumbled upwards, all the time calling her friend’s name. She heard nothing in reply but the shriek of a startled bird and the throbbing sound of a party a handful of gardens away. Her legs felt weak and she almost fell, saving herself at the last minute by clutching at the plum tree she’d planted four years ago.

  She was being ridiculous, as she’d thought before. No-one was there. She was safe and Nicky would be here soon.

  But as she turned to retrace her steps, a flicker at the corner of her eye made her swing round again. ‘Hello?’

  No answer. Of course. She swallowed down all the pointless phrases and peered into the top corner of the garden, in the shadows where the yew was thickest and blended into the overhanging branches from next door’s evergreen. For two heartbeats it was as if the only sound in the world was the harshness of her own breath, the only movement the shimmer of the leaves in the wind.

  She’d been wrong. Again. She must learn to keep calm, she must …

  A sudden change in the quality of the shadows and a figure coalesced in front of her as if by magic. It – he – was crouched against the base of the hedge. She’d been gazing at him all the time and hadn’t seen what was there. Kate couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. A flash of lightness in the gloom and she realised she was seeing teeth. He must have smiled, be smiling still. A wave of nausea rushed into her mouth and she swallowed down bile.

  From somewhere, she found a store of courage and took a step towards the figure, words crowding her throat. Her action released the world back into spin. The man sprang to his feet and rushed in her direction. A glimpse of a pale face, and she put up her clenched fists to defend herself, though how, she couldn’t imagine. He gripped her arm. She couldn’t see properly. A darkness more than the night surrounded her.

  ‘No!’

  Before the denial was out in the air, he’d seemed to pause before flinging her to one side. She landed in soil and undergrowth, scrabbling to get to her feet, determined to fight if she had to. But he was already flitting away from her, like a wild animal or a ghost, heading to the fence and, beyond it, the Charterhouse woods.

  Anger ripped through her, separating blood from marrow, muscle from bone. Not this time. He wasn’t going to get away this time. Not without her knowing for sure. She didn’t care what happened to her.

  She chased after him.

  At the gate, he stumbled over the top, his dark jacket catching on the rusted iron of the latch. Three more steps and she’d got him, almost, her fingers snatching on leather, snatching and slipping. He shook her off as if she were nothing, bounded over the wooden slats and down onto the path. She saw him stagger as he landed and then he was off, running into the trees and away. Leaning against the gate, her hands gripped splinters that gouged into her skin. She took a shuddering breath and launched her voice after the fleeing man.


  ‘You bastard,’ she yelled. ‘You bastard. I’ll get you. One day. You’ll see.’

  ‘Kate? Kate? What’s wrong?’

  The sound of Nicky’s voice saying her name brought her back to reality. She turned round and the next second was enveloped in the arms of her friend. Nicky’s skin smelt of perfume and promises. Feeling as if she wanted to stay there forever, Kate shook herself free.

  ‘Someone, there was someone,’ she panted. ‘A man. I saw him. In the garden.’

  ‘Where? What do you mean?’

  Kate pointed over the fence and into the growing gloom of the woods.

  ‘He ran over there,’ she said. ‘I saw him near the hedge and then he ran past me. He disappeared into the woods.’

  ‘Who was it? Did you see?’

  Kate hesitated and shut her eyes. Flashes of colour, red, yellow, white, encompassed her vision. She shivered and opened her eyes. Nicky was gazing at her, a frown creasing her forehead.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Kate said, glancing down. ‘It was too dark.’

  ‘Okay. Let’s get you inside,’ Nicky said, looking around as if waiting for a lurking enemy to reveal himself although now there was no-one there. ‘We can call the police.’

  ‘No. I don’t want to do that. I can’t, I …’

  ‘Kate,’ Nicky took her arm and drew her back down the garden towards the solidity of the house. ‘You have to. You saw an intruder in your garden and after what happened before …’

  She left the sentence incomplete and, in spite of her new resolution to be open about the attack if only to herself, Kate was grateful. And too shaken to argue.

  ‘All right,’ she replied. ‘All right.’

  It was only when both women were at the porch that Kate remembered.

  ‘The key. I’m sorry, I didn’t bring it out with me. I was worried about … about … never mind. I was just worried.’

  ‘So you went out into the garden?’

  ‘Yes. I wasn’t thinking.’ Kate leaned her head against the cool brickwork of the house. ‘How are we going to get inside?’