by Ruth Dugdall
‘I need a wee,’ she said, dashing into the cubicle.
Flora and I both pretended we couldn’t hear Jena taking a piss. She was back out in seconds, tugging her jeans up.
‘Hands, Jena.’
‘Yes, Miss.’ Jena grinned at me like I was in on the joke, but it was in moments like this that she seemed most changed, disinhibited by the accident. Or was it simply that she was bouncy with happiness, and I’d forgotten what a happy Jena was like?
‘I’ll see you later, Jena.’
‘Back at the hospital?’
‘No. In just a few minutes. I’ll be waiting downstairs in the restaurant.’
Back in the booth, the pizza plate had been taken away, and Douglas was halfway through a mound of chocolate sponge swamped with cream. Rob gave me a questioning look, and I made a small motion to tell him, yes, this was the moment.
Douglas sucked up the last of the chocolate sauce.
‘We need to pay,’ he said, but he didn’t make any move for his wallet. Instead, he leaned across the table. ‘Get mine, will ya, son? I’ll owe you later.’
‘This one’s on me,’ I said, smiling sweetly. ‘My treat.’
‘Thanks, girl.’ His eyes wandered over me. Then he stopped. Mid-sentence. Mid-movement.
He was staring over my shoulder and I knew he’d seen her because his eyes were wide as saucers, and I could hear Jena, talking loudly to Flora, on their way back to their table. ‘I want Knickerbocker Glory, but if they don’t do that I’ll have . . .’
I turned, and sure enough, she’d stopped too. Uncertain which way to turn, her gaze fluttered then landed on Douglas. I turned and looked into his eyes, to see if there was any clue written there. Though I desperately longed to watch Jena, to see if she remembered him, to confirm that he was guilty, I couldn’t look away from Douglas’s stricken face. White as a sheet. Pale anyway, at that moment he looked deathly, his eyes dark as seaweed, jaw slack. Was that what guilt looked like?
Jena said, ‘Oh no. Douglas . . .’
Her beautiful face split open with a grimace of pain, her hands risen to her neck as if to protect herself. I moved quickly to her side, afraid of the memory I was ripping open like a scab.
‘It’s all right, Jena.’
She clung to me, her weight against me like my own guilt, turning in so we were in an embrace that felt like drowning. I had planned this, caused this.
A hand braced my shoulder, pulled me away from my sister, and I expected to see Flora’s paint-splattered nails. But the hand was larger and the knuckles tattooed.
‘Let her go.’ Douglas was still touching me, pale as death, looking at Jena. ‘I’ve been wanting to see you. You and me need to talk. Seems that whoever hurt you had the same idea.’
Her deep frown, her quivering down-turned lips, made my mouth ache.
A few yards away, Flora started fluttering, uncertainly hopping from foot to foot.
‘Why didn’t you meet me that day, Jena? Why get me all the way to Suffolk and not turn up?’
‘I wanted to. I was going . . .’ She started to weep, words struggling to come through between sobs. People had stopped eating to stare, and the waitress was by the till, talking to a young man in a red cap and waistcoat who must have been the manager. Lance was the one person who didn’t keep a distance; he came beside us and put his arm around Jena’s waist. Douglas was still waiting for Jena to finish her sentence, looming so close his face distorted. ‘Go on, talk!’
‘I was going to meet you,’ she said, desperately. ‘But then there was . . . someone. Stopping me. I hurt my head.’
The manager was walking towards us, pulling his cap more firmly on to his head. Douglas reached out, put a firm hand on her arm to silence her crying.
‘So what about now, Jena? You can still tell the truth, sixteen years too late, but better than never. Only you can end this, and you know what you promised me.’
‘No.’ She shook her head, she backed away, into Lance’s embrace. He comforted her as she repeated, ‘No, no, no, no.’
‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave,’ said the pimply manager, sweat beading on his temples, but resolute. ‘Or I’m going to call the police.’
It was over. The confrontation I’d planned, over just like that. Moments later, Flora was comforting Jena, coaxing her back to her table to collect their bags and coats. I paid quickly, and the manager sent me, Rob and Douglas outside in his bid to restore order.
In the street, Douglas sucked air and glared at me, his face high above mine and his voice pinning me with each syllable.
‘You’re Jena’s sister? Did you know this, son?’
Rob moved forward, to stand between us.
‘I know everything, Dad. So leave Sam alone.’
But Douglas wouldn’t move back, and as he crowded me my heart pounded, hands clenched, and I felt rage pump through me.
‘I just want justice. For Jena.’
Douglas scowled. ‘For that lying bitch? She wasn’t no innocent, you know, even at thirteen. She kept coming in the chippy, hanging around like a pretty stray. I felt sorry for her, fool that I was. I didn’t know she was about to fuck up my life with her lies.’
My fingers itched to push him to the pavement, to see his head cracked open.
‘She was just a child and you raped her! And then you came back, all these years later, to hurt her again.’
He stepped forward and held my arms to still me.
‘You better hush your mouth, girl. That’s slander.’
‘Get your fucking hands off her!’ Rob moved forward, against his dad, just like he did when he was a child and got that scar. But Douglas held him off.
‘You don’t believe this crap, son? You don’t really think your old man would do those things?’
Rob moved, so he was closer to me. ‘How would I know? I don’t even know you.’
Douglas’s eyes welled with tears. ‘Because they stole me from you, son. Their lies. Jena’s. Andy’s.’
‘What’s Uncle Andy got to do with this?’
Douglas’s tears disappeared as his eyes narrowed. ‘He never wanted me to be with your mum, so when he had the chance to stick the knife in, he did. Went and made a statement supporting Jena’s, some crap about me fancying her, so I looked guilty. Turned your mum against me, and sounds like he turned you against me too.’
Rob’s face was crumpled with confusion, and I knew just how he felt. But he was my ally, and I needed him.
‘Don’t listen to him, Rob. He’s a criminal and a liar!’
Douglas swivelled, his eyes still fixed on me, so close I could smell the garlic on his breath.
‘There’s things you don’t know, girl, about your sister. After they arrested me for rape the police said there would be some kind of evidence, something physical. They said she was pregnant. But when my legal team asked about doing a DNA test on the foetus, they said she’d had a miscarriage – how convenient. She’s a liar. A lying little bitch, and there are people in this town who have very good reasons to want to hurt her.’
Rob still had the look of confusion on his face, and I saw how strong the desire to believe his dad was. I felt I was losing him, and I had to show Douglas for the liar he was.
‘Who would want to hurt her?’ I demanded. ‘Tell me!’
‘I’m not telling you anything. I don’t owe you, not after that stunt you just pulled. Making my son stand against his own father; it’s not natural. You’re just like Jena: a scheming little liar . . .’
‘You’re the liar!’ I shrieked. People in the street were stopping to watch the commotion. ‘I know things too, Douglas. That you were in Suffolk, outside her flat, eight weeks ago. That you found a coat with blood on it.’
He looked shocked; his jaw fell slack. ‘You saw my police statement?’
Rob had got a hold of himself, and was trying to calm me; he tried to put an arm around me, but I shrugged him off. ‘It’s all right, Sam.’
‘It�
�s not fucking all right!’ I was screaming, not caring that everyone nearby could hear. The Pizza Hut manager was standing in the doorway with his phone in his hand. ‘Jena’s in a hospital; her home is a crappy ward called Minsmere, and she can’t even take a shower without asking permission.’
Douglas caught the collar of my jacket in his fist, and I heard the manager speak into his phone, asking for the police. Rob heard too, and started to steer us away.
We left before the police arrived, and as we walked Douglas pulled my face close to his, his hand under my jaw, so I could feel every word.
‘A terrible thing happened to Jena that day, and it wasn’t the first time something bad happened to that girl either. Maybe she asks for trouble. But if you think it was me who hurt her, you’re dead wrong.’
CHAPTER 27
23 January
I find Pearl beyond the door marked FIRE EXIT, an outside area that is off-limits to patients (unless there’s a fire), and for good reason.
‘Fifty-four steps,’ Pearl tells me through huffed breaths, her bare feet slap-slap-slapping on each one of the black iron steps, then she presses her palm flat against the red-brick wall, propels herself into a spin and goes right back down again, the knot of her bandana bobbing as she moves up, then down. It’s exhausting just to watch.
‘How long have you been here, Pearl?’
She doesn’t even have to think about it. ‘Enough to do this one hundred and eight times. One hundred and nine . . .’
I sit on the top stair, squeezed against the wall so I’m not in her way. Sweat drips from the tips of her elbows, and the hair not covered by the bandana is matted around her face.
‘When can you stop?’
‘When the staff make me. Until then, every step burns a calorie.’
Starving. Exercising. Purging. Pearl is a perfect anorexic. I’d like her to sit beside me and tell me why she does this to herself, but I’m not sure I could bear to hear the answer. Because I know, even without asking, that love and family and hurt will be at the heart of her problem.
I look out, to the North Sea, and feel the chill in the air. Snow is coming.
This time, when I arrive at his office, I expect Clive to ask how I’m coping without the tube. He doesn’t.
‘Aren’t you even going to ask if I’m eating?’
Clive’s jowls sag, and I see a conflict cross his eyes. ‘If I do, would you tell me the truth?’
It is a stand-off; he knows I purged my feed yesterday, and he can see from my narrow face and frame that food and keeping it inside are still battles I fight. We could waste many hours talking about it.
‘Probably not,’ I admit.
Clive rests his head on his hands, elbows on the desk, as if he needs to support himself or he might melt. Today, he looks defeated, and I don’t like this. One of us must be strong, and it should be him. If he stops believing in my recovery, then like a parent losing a love of Christmas, he will destroy magical possibilities. I am that child, and I need him to have faith.
‘Do you think it’s too late for me, Clive?’
He lifts his head and forces a smile. ‘We still have some time left, Sam. But we need to use it wisely, and I think my role here is to ask you about the past. It’s the road we are travelling, and we shouldn’t deviate. Though we are getting to the very part that will cause you the most pain, that can’t be avoided. I’m sorry, but it’s an exorcism of sorts, and very necessary.’
Anger runs through me, quick and sharp as a blade.
‘You in your fucking ivory tower up here, thinking you’ve got all the answers! But you never really say anything. It’s me doing all the talking.’
His face returns to its earlier despondency. ‘I don’t think I have the answers, Sam; I wish I did. I just don’t know what else to do to make the board look favourably on your case. On 1 February, I want to tell them that we have talked about everything that happened, and that you are now mentally stable and also remorseful. I want to be able to say that, whilst there is still healing needed, most of the work is done, and that you should be free.’
Free. Free from here, and free from the past. Is it really possible? How I long to believe, like a child; how I long for a touch of magic in my wretched life.
‘Okay. Then let’s get on with it.’
I don’t even know if I deserve this special attention. I’m a mess, a bag of bones, head full of crap. I think about telling him that Pearl needs him more than me; if I told him about the Fire Exit marathon, he’d realise her need was more urgent than mine and leave immediately, my session forgotten. I’m a selfish bitch; I don’t want to share his attention.
Still, Clive waits and I don’t tell him about Pearl. Instead, I return to that terrible June, when the sickness surfaced.
After we left Pizza Hut, I went home. Rob didn’t want us to part; he was worried about me, but I needed to be alone, and I needed to be away from Douglas. Thoughts were crowding my brain, and my forgotten body was begging me to sustain it, weakening me with the idea of food and calories, when I knew better. A single thought, capturing Douglas, was the line I needed to cling to, to follow to the bitter end.
That night, sleep offered meagre relief, a threadbare covering that lasted fleetingly, deserting me totally long before dawn. Douglas had said that Andy gave a statement against him, back when Jena was raped at thirteen, and I liked that he had tried to protect her, but still wondered why he seemed to have abandoned her now. And Douglas had been so adamant that he was innocent, both of the rape and the attack, that it raised doubts in my head that I didn’t want. Only Jena could answer my questions.
In the quiet house, the empty kitchen, I cut an apple into twenty-nine pieces, one for each year of Jena’s life, and sucked and chewed and swallowed. Hard cuts of apple, white down my throat and into the liquid of my stomach. The only nutrition I would allow myself until this was over.
I dressed without looking down at how my body was changing, melting into the very bones of me. I gathered up my camera and my Black Magic box, placing them in my rucksack, and biked to the train station.
I waited for the rest of the world to catch up with me and wake, and then boarded the first train across town to the hospital. I was there just as the day staff would be arriving; I saw Flora’s lime-green Cactus pulling up in the car park, and quickly darted round the side of the building so as not to be spotted. I cut across the courtyard, bypassing the reception. Jena would still be in her room; I just had to bang on the glass and she’d let me in.
When I saw my sister, she was not alone.
At first, I assumed it was a member of staff helping her dress, that her arms were animated because she was putting on a top of some kind. But then I noticed her hands were open, palms up; she was pleading with someone. And that someone was not a nurse or care worker; it was a tall, lanky man with tattoos on his fists. Although my eyes saw him, my brain couldn’t believe it.
Douglas Campbell was with Jena, in her room.
My hands fell limply to my sides, then my heart thrust itself into a frenzy, and I tensed as if to run away. Flight. Or fight? I squared my shoulders, ready to kill him with my bare hands if I had to.
I slid open the patio door. ‘What the fuck are you doing here, Douglas?’
Douglas stepped forward and grabbed my arm, his firm, tattooed knuckles wrapped around my wrist, and pulled me into the room.
Jena was on the bed, her fingers in her mouth as she nibbled her nails, dark hair over her face, but I could still see she looked terrified. The world tipped as I realised that I had no chance of escape, no way of fighting him off. I was frozen with fear.
‘Quite the stunt you and my boy pulled last night, wasn’t it, girl? Trying to catch me out like that. Your little trick told me where to find Jena, so here I am.’
‘You stay away from her! The police are on their way. You should leave!’
Douglas narrowed his eyes and I could see he didn’t believe me, or if he did, he didn’t care. He produ
ced a ball of gum from behind his ear and played with it between his fingers, the silver cross hanging from his neck.
‘I’ve done enough leaving for one lifetime. It’s time people listened to what I have to say.’ He positioned me on the bed, forcing me to sit next to Jena. ‘You know why Jena wanted to meet me that day? She was going to tell me the name of the person who really raped her. Together, we would have finally set everything right. I would have been able to appeal my conviction.’
I leaned into Jena, so our shoulders touched, willing my love to melt through my flesh to her, to strengthen us both.
Douglas stood over us, and I internally begged for someone to arrive, so we would be saved. He placed a hand on Jena’s right shoulder, the one nearest me, trapping her, his fingers so close to my face I could see the JENA tattoo. He saw me looking at it.
‘See this? I did it in prison, sixteen years ago, serving time for a crime I didn’t commit. Inked her name on my skin to remind me not to be so fucking gullible. Not to forget either.’
His fingers drummed her collarbone and Jena shrank into herself. He was so close I could see the creases around his lips, his brown teeth. And that cross, hanging round his skinny neck.
‘Now tell Sam the truth, Jena.’
She was hunched beside me, like a child being told off.
‘I lied,’ she said. ‘He didn’t rape me.’
Douglas let out an almighty sigh, and released her. His hand free from her neck, he caressed the place where her name was forever tattooed, then focused on me; I could smell the mint on his breath from his last chewing-gum fix. I could see the white skin peeling around his nose, the red blood vessels in his eyes, the relief in them. For a moment, I believed him, that he had been wrongly convicted; he looked so determined to prove his innocence.
‘Look, Sam,’ he said, speaking quietly but making every word a slap. ‘The police can’t see the truth, even though it’s staring them in the face. I didn’t rape Jena sixteen years ago, and I didn’t attack her on 25 April.’
