by Nicole Trope
I felt watched and hunted, but I knew that no matter how terrible I felt, he felt worse. His whole life was in tatters. Everything he had ever done, everything he had achieved meant nothing. As the days went on I noticed that his shoulders hunched more and more. Most days he got around in his pyjamas and robe, and the shuffling sound made by his slipper-clad feet told me where he was. His age was finally apparent, and the gap between us was more obvious than it had ever been.
‘For God’s sake, get dressed, have a shower, do something!’ I wanted to shout, but I could see that even climbing out of bed had become a monumental task for him.
‘He should be on antidepressants,’ said Rosalind when we discussed his dejected state.
‘I’ve tried, but he refuses to take them,’ I told her.
‘This will all be over soon, I’m sure,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ I agreed, but neither of us spoke with much conviction.
‘They have withdrawn the offer to induct me into the Hall of Fame,’ he had told me the day before.
‘Oh no, Simon. How could they? They have no proof. You haven’t been charged with anything.’
‘I haven’t been charged with anything yet, my dear, but that, I fear, is coming. They’re going to launch an investigation and then they will dissect our lives and hound me until I confess to whatever crime they want.’
I couldn’t find the words to comfort him. I couldn’t find a way to make it right. If I had been able to believe him with the same unconditional trust that I’d felt when the first woman came forward, I might have found the words to reassure him, but there were too many stories, too many women and I was doubting him, doubting myself, doubting everything.
I was stirring pasta and crying softly when he called me. ‘Rose dear, will you come up here for a moment.’
I turned off the stove and wiped my eyes. He did not like to see me cry. Thank God I turned off the stove before I went up to his study. It was directly above the kitchen, so it was easy to hear him when he called. In any case, I had been listening for him. I suppose I had been listening for him my whole life, waiting for him to need me or want me.
He was sitting at his desk and I thought again how old he looked. He was only seventy, but he was as bent and frail as someone near the end of his life. The skin on his hands was covered with liver spots, and the veins were so prominent I could almost see the blood moving through. His hair was snow white, not a trace of gold left, and the deep blue of his eyes had faded to a milky washed-out colour. Age is so cruel, I thought when I looked at him, separating myself and my own ageing from the way my husband looked. How can they have done this to him?
‘I have just received a call from Eric, my dear,’ he said.
‘And?’
‘And it seems that all the little worms are wriggling out from under their rocks.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘More women are coming forward. More every day. They are saying that I have done things to them, terrible things. They are accusing me of touching them when they were on the show, of molesting them in corners like a common criminal. And Eric says that the police will announce the official launch of an investigation in the next hour.’
‘What do you mean there are more women? How can that be possible?’ I said.
‘Indeed, how can any of this be possible?’
‘How many more women?’
‘Now there are twelve in total,’ he said.
‘But how can that be possible?’ I said again. I could feel my body turn away from him just a little. One woman was easily discredited, two women could be looking for their own fifteen minutes of fame, three women were a pattern but could still be dismissed—but four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve women were . . . what? Twelve women were a certainty.
‘How can it be possible? I will tell you how, because evil exists in the world, Rose. You are isolated from it, cocooned in this house and your blissfully safe domesticity, but I have always known it was there. You have no idea what I have had to face, what I have sacrificed. I have played the clown so that you could have everything your heart desires. I have gone out to work to support my family, knowing that I needed to keep my show on the air lest the three of you lose the lives you have become accustomed to. These latest women who are coming forward have their own agendas. Perhaps they are unhappy that they too have not been the focus of some sordid magazine article. Perhaps they find themselves older and still without fame and that makes them angry.’
‘Perhaps,’ I agreed, but I felt as though I was hearing, for the first time, something else behind the words Simon was using. Behind the denial was the thin thread of justification that I could almost hear running through his head. I wanted to reassure him that everything would be fine, that these women should be ignored and that we should just get on with our lives, but something stopped me. I could not play the same tape again. I could not repeat the words he wanted to hear.
‘Simon, is any of this true?’ I said, and I realised as I said it that it was the first time I had asked the question. The first time I had asked it directly, looking straight at him, not comforting, not consoling, not wanting to hear anything but the truth.
He looked up at me. ‘Does it matter, Rose?’
‘Does it matter? Does it matter?’ I raised my voice. ‘It is the only thing that matters. It is the only thing that has ever mattered. I will support you, I will stand by your side as I have done since this began, as I have done our whole lives, but I need to know if you have done things that were inappropriate. I need to know.’
‘I have been a faithful husband.’
‘I’m not questioning that. I’m asking you if you’ve . . . if you’ve touched a child. Have you done the things the woman in the article accused you of? That all these women are now accusing you of? It’s a yes or no question, Simon.’
‘Badgering me, always badgering me,’ he said, wringing his hands in his lap and directing his words to the wall behind my head as though he were speaking to someone else. ‘You’re just like them. Just like all the dreadful people saying all those things about me.’
‘I am not just like them! I’m the only one making you dinner. I’m the one who will sleep next to you tonight. You need to explain this to me. I need to know if you’ve done these things.’
I had never, in all our married life, questioned him in this way. Simon had told me when we would get married. He had bought the house without discussing it with me. He’d furnished it without my input. He made the rules for our family. I had been so young when we had met. I hadn’t had time to grow fully into myself. His opinions became my opinions. We never fought about anything, except occasionally the children when they were being difficult, and at those times I would try to keep them away from him. I sheltered and protected and loved and adored him.
‘I need to know, I need to know now,’ I said, and it’s a strange thing to say but at the age of fifty-four I felt myself, for the first time, to be an adult.
Simon leaned forward and opened the top drawer of his desk and took out the antique gun I had inherited from my father. It is a Luger P08. It was manufactured in 1944 and was stolen from a dead German officer by my father. He fought with the resistance because, as he said, ‘Evil cannot be allowed to triumph in this world.’ Since he’d had no sons it had come to me when he died. I wanted to simply get rid of it, but Simon said, ‘No, my dear. This will be very valuable one day. It’s a collector’s item and should be saved.’ As always, I gave in, but I insisted that it be kept somewhere secure. ‘Lock it away,’ I’d said. ‘My father took very good care of it and I know it still works. I wouldn’t want the children getting hold of it.’
On that evening twelve months ago, I hadn’t seen the gun for twenty years. I watched Simon’s hands touch the polished metal of the barrel and was suddenly incensed that he should be touching something that had belonged to my father. I felt that his hands were making the gun that had meant so much to my father—a man who ha
d never swayed from his values and morals—dirty.
‘What are you doing with that?’ I said and he looked up at me and gave me an odd humourless smile. My heartbeat sped up and then a ringing started in my ears. I put my hand to my chest.
‘My heart is broken, Rose. The police are coming. They will search our house and my things. They will question me and humiliate me. I cannot let that happen.’
‘You’re being ridiculous. Anyway, if they search the house they will find nothing. Eric will sort all of this out. You still haven’t answered my question.’
‘They mean to destroy me.’
‘Simon, I cannot keep talking in riddles. Who is “they”?’
‘The women, all these vengeful women. They were lovely little girls, sweet and filled with innocence, but they have grown into harpies, dreadful crazed harpies, demanding my blood.’
‘Stop being so bloody dramatic. Tell me what happened. Tell me what you did.’
Simon shook his head at me and then he opened another drawer and placed a small Polaroid photograph on the desk. ‘The truth, the truth,’ he almost sang, ‘everyone wants the truth.’
I took a step closer so that I could see it clearly. The girl in the picture looked vaguely familiar, around thirteen years old. In the photo she was wearing a blue dress printed with red cherries. I could see from her hairstyle and the faded print that the photo was more than twenty years old.
‘Who’s that?’ I said, and then I looked at it again. ‘Is that the woman from the magazine? It is her, I can see that. She doesn’t look that much different to now. Is that her? Where did you get this picture?’
‘I took it the day she auditioned. She let me take it. She wanted me to take it. Do you see how happy she was? Does she look hurt or upset?’
‘Why have you kept it? Why do you have it?’
He didn’t answer me. Instead he reached into the drawer again and brought out another picture of a girl. This one looked older than the first girl, about fifteen or sixteen. She also wore a pretty dress and smiled at the camera. Just like the first picture, this one had been taken in Simon’s office at the studio. Behind the girl was the familiar painting of a sailboat out on the ocean that I had helped Simon choose to hang on the wall. That I had agreed would be a good picture. I had accompanied him to buy it. The choice had been all his.
‘I don’t understand,’ I said. My palms were clammy. I said I didn’t understand but I was beginning to. I knew what he was saying, but because he wasn’t using words I couldn’t put my fingers in my ears and silence the truth. The pictures were speaking for him, and as I watched he took another one out of the drawer, and then another and another. Behind each little girl the boat floated on the ocean, riding on the waves, illuminated by sunlight. They kept coming one after the other. All those little girls, so many little girls. All smiling dutifully for the camera, all happy to be in the office of the great Simon Winslow. I looked at them, all of them, so many more than just the twelve who had come forward. I looked at their eyes, studying them for evidence of his crime, but the truth was hidden. They hid behind their prettily cocked heads and wide smiles.
My whole life has been a lie, I thought.
Even now, looking back, I do not know how to process it. I believe I went into a state of shock. I stood there watching him place picture after picture on the desk until the entire surface was covered.
I had always stayed out of his study. He even cleaned it himself. ‘In marriage it is a good idea for a husband and wife to each have their own private spaces,’ he told me when we first bought the house.
‘I don’t need to keep anything private from you,’ I said.
‘Well, I need my space, my darling, and I’m sure that you will not begrudge me this little room.’
It is almost laughable now when I think that I’d imagined he was using the study to attempt to write a book—a dream he’d always had.
‘I don’t . . . I can’t . . . Why, Simon . . . why?’
‘It’s what they wanted, my dear. I was powerless to resist. But I never cheated on you, Rose. I did nothing wrong. They came to me with their little breasts pushed forward. They wanted to be touched. “Oh, Mr Simon,”’ he said in a high-pitched, eerie girlish voice, ‘“I’m so sad about not coming first, please just give me a little hug. Can you see how pretty I am, Mr Simon? Don’t you want to touch me? Please touch me.” How could I say no, my dear?’
‘Oh, Simon,’ I said, because there were no words. ‘Oh, Simon.’
‘I didn’t hurt them, Rose. I didn’t hurt any of them. It was just a little touch here and there. Most of them probably can’t even remember it.’
He was touching the pictures, running his fingers over them, occasionally picking one up and bringing it close to his face. As he ran his hands over his ghastly mementos, a smile played on his lips. He was speaking to me but he was lost in the memory of those girls, lost and happy to be there.
‘Oh God. I think I’m going to be sick,’ I said, and I turned to go.
‘Wait!’ he commanded. ‘You must help me. You cannot leave me to face this. I will not be held up to ridicule. I would rather die, but you must help me.’ He picked up the gun and handed it to me. I took it, intending to fling it out of the window, but he grabbed my hand and made me hold on tight.
‘Let me go,’ I said, and I was astonished at the strength in him. He looked weak and frail but I could not pull myself away. I glanced over at the desk again and my eyes swept across the pictures. I felt my body grow limp as I recognised one that hadn’t been taken in the office at the studio. It was taken in front of the aviary. ‘Isn’t that the little girl from next door?’ I said. And then her name came back to me. ‘Is that Felicity?’
He held me fast and nodded his head. ‘She was such an angel. Such an angel. She was so open to being loved by me, to being touched by me. When we were together she gave me such joy . . . such joy. It was almost as though God himself had sanctioned us. How can that have been wrong, Rose? How could it have been wrong?’
‘But she was just a child, she was so little. Only six or seven. Oh God, let me go. Let me go right now! How could you have done such a thing? How could you?’ I was fighting him again. I summoned all my energy. I needed to get away from him. All I could think about was being out of his study and far away from him.
‘I wanted you to know, Rose. I have wanted you to know for such a long time. I have kept part of myself from you, my darling, and I never wanted to. I have loved you always, and I know you love me. Help me now, Rose. Don’t let them take me away.’
‘Let go!’ I shouted. ‘Let go right now!’
But he didn’t let go. As I struggled to back away, he pulled me closer. He wrapped my hand tighter around the gun and I felt my finger touch the trigger. As I tried to pull away from him I worried that the gun would simply explode, killing us both, and at the same time I was sure that the gun was too old and it would no longer work and Simon would have a heart attack. His face was flushed red and we were both panting as we continued our struggle. If I had been watching elderly white-haired Simon grapple with his middle-aged wife I’m sure I would have found it almost comical.
I tried to kick out at him but I couldn’t lift my leg high enough. ‘I mean it, Simon, let go.’
He took one hand away from me but the other held me fast, and then he reached into the drawer again and pulled out one more picture.
‘I fear my own desires, Rose. I fight against them every day, but I fear them.’
He turned over the picture.
It was Lottie. My granddaughter. Our granddaughter. It was Lottie.
She was standing in front of the aviary. Her long brown hair hung in a braid over her shoulder, and her smile showed the gap where she had lost her two front teeth.
‘Help me, Rose,’ he said, ‘help me.’
And the gun went off.
Chapter Twenty-one
Rose is in the hospital unit. She sprained her ankle running to Allison’s office. S
he fell over and hurt herself.
She will only stay there for one night. If she was very sick, Allison would call an ambulance and she would be taken to the big hospital, but only her ankle is sore so she is not very sick. Jess told me about Rose. She was there when Rose fell and she helped her.
I need to go to the hospital unit. I have been thinking and thinking about how to make sure she understands that what she did was wrong, but as soon as I heard about her hurting her ankle I knew what to do. In the hospital unit I will be close to Rose, and I need to be close to her.
I have to go to the unit and I know how to do that. I can make myself vomit. Vomit and vomit and vomit. I will make sure that Jess knows I’m feeling sick and then I will keep vomiting until they take me to the hospital unit for the night. I will be put into a bed right next to Rose, because there are only two beds in the hospital unit. It’s not really a hospital at all.
Two months ago I cut my hand on some metal in the shed. I was trying to get to the seed so I could fill up the trays and I didn’t see the metal and my hand got cut. Monica sewed it up for me, but because she said it was a bad cut she made me stay in the hospital unit for the night. ‘Just so I can check on you every couple of hours,’ she said. Monica runs the hospital unit but she sleeps next door and comes in to check up on her patients. She checks every couple of hours. I only need a few minutes.
I will lie next to her and I will wait until she is asleep. I will think about Mr Winslow and about how he stood next to me at the finch cage and turned into the raggedy man. I will let myself hear his raggedy, raggedy breathing and I will let all the bubbling anger inside of me come out.
