I held out my glass to him. He shook his head. So I got up and bought it myself and drank it down standing at the bar. I came and sat back down opposite him. He looked hard at me.
“Where can we go that feels safe Pete?” I asked. “I don’t want to feel on edge.”
“Actually,” he gave me a swift sideways glance as though gauging whether I meant what he thought I might mean, “Dad’s taking Mum out to a gastro pub on the river tonight. Their table’s not booked until eight, so we’ll probably have until at least eleven alone in the house…”
I glanced at the pub clock. Five to eight. I stood up. “Let’s go then.”
In his room I tried to shut everything out. But images kept flashing before my eyes. Not just the sick memories from the other night, but visions of that little Vietnamese prostitute we’d found handcuffed to the bed kept coming into my mind. Those pictures of Kes and Siân having open air sex that I didn’t think at the time had affected me, well they kept floating up too. And the ones of myself in the newspaper. The rape ones.
I gripped him really tight and I went really wild. I wanted him hard and fast and furious. I bit his shoulder and bit his arms.
“Ow,” he said afterwards rubbing bits of himself. “What’s wrong with you? Have you gone feral? You seem to want it really rough! What did Tyler do to you, Eve?”
I turned sharply away, offended. “Tyler was really kind and lovely. He never ever hurt me, ever!”
“So what’s happened Eve? You used to be really sweet…”
“No Pete, that’s one thing I’ve never been. No-one has ever described me as sweet!” I turned on my stomach and kept my head turned away from him.
He ran a gentle hand down my back. “Yes you were. You were really sweet and innocent on the sexual side of things. You just looked at me with big trusting eyes and smiled all the time.”
That was a description I didn’t recognise. Sounded really sickly if you ask me.
“I’m sorry I hurt you, Eve. Looking back on it and remembering how young and trusting you were I just don’t know how I could possibly have done that to you. No wonder everyone went so ballistic with me.”
I sighed. “It’s nothing you’ve done Pete. Stop apologising. What’s done is done. Let it go!” Those poor girls, I thought. They’d fall in love with those men when they were years younger than I was when Pete betrayed me. Years younger. And then those evil men would do that to them. I wanted to spit in their face.
“Has something happened?” He asked perceptively. “Has something happened like what that Trevelyn guy did to you?”
I tensed at Trev’s name. Pete tried to stroke the tension away and I pushed him off slapping out at him. “Sorry,” he said, backing off immediately. “I shouldn’t have brought that up.”
I’d forgotten how nice Pete was. I sat up abruptly. “I’m going to the loo,” I said.
Sitting naked on the toilet, I sat with my head in my hands. This was awful. I couldn’t cope if this was what it was going to be like.
When I came back, Pete was sitting up. He’d put some boxers on. He glanced at me. He’s realising he doesn’t like me as much as he used to. That he doesn’t actually know me anymore. Perhaps that was a good thing. It would help him move on.
I sat on the top of the covers, with my legs drawn up and my arms wound tightly round them.
“I can’t seem to satisfy you somehow,” he said at last.
“It’s nothing to do with your technique,” I said quickly. I gave a slight laugh and darted him a sideways look. “Or didn’t you notice that extensive orgasm I just had?”
He smiled briefly. “I sense a ‘but’?”
“But nothing anyone could do would satisfy me. And it’s not fair of me to expect that of anyone. I’m a big aching void inside and I can’t expect sex to obliterate it…”
He raised his eyebrows. “Is this about Tyler again?”
“Maybe,” I said tentatively.
He pulled his knees up too, a bit protectively, and rested his chin on them. “What was so seriously special about Tyler that no-one can take his place?”
I sighed. “I don’t know, Pete. And it wouldn’t be fair to go on to you about how patient and generous and loving he was.”
I saw his fists clench and I knew I was right. It wasn’t fair to talk about Tyler to Pete. You can’t compete with a paragon who’s dead.
“I’d better go now,” I said, reaching for my clothes.
“I’ll run you back,” he said heavily, reaching for his own. “You’re drunk.”
I wasn’t. But maybe it was better that he assume that I was drunk rather than conclude I was mental.
It was a big occasion for Buxton. A World Qualifier. All the stars and superstars were there. And for once it had been quite relaxing for us. Five pm at a track so close to us. Bit of a luxury. But I was still out of kilter. I could feel it pressing in on me. Pete came over still dressed in his normal clothes. In this hot weather we put off getting geared up in our sweltering fire proof stuff. A balaclava in a heat wave for goodness sake! He put a casual arm around my shoulders. He was wearing a cut off tee-shirt and his arm was bare and slick with sweat. I turned round and sank my teeth in.
“Ow! For fuck’s sake Eve!” He exploded pulling sharply away. “Will you please stop biting me!”
Jo and Paul turned round and stared at us. I looked guiltily round at them. “Sorry,” I said. “Really sorry…”
“What on earth do you mean Pete?” Jo had her hands on her hips.
He held out his arms. There were semi-circular purple bruise marks all up his upper arms.
Jo stared at the tell-tale offending marks then stared at me. Paul frowned.
“What the hell are you doing Eve?” Jo demanded of me. “Creeping up behind him in the barn and taking a crafty chunk out of him or what? How the hell did you manage to do all that damage?”
I hung my head in shame. “I’m so sorry Pete.” I walked away and sat at a distance with my arms on my drawn up knees and my head down on my arms.
“What are you doing now?” Jo demanded, sounding outraged.
“Putting myself on the naughty step,” I said in muffled tones.
Pete came over and sat down beside me. He put an arm around me. “Are you really angry with me or something Eve?”
I shook my head. “It’s nothing you’ve done, Pete. I think I’m just angry with men in general. I’m sorry. And I think you should move away now, Pete,” I added in controlled tones. “Or I might just bite you again.”
Pete, wisely, swiftly removed himself out of range. The Satterthwaites all glanced at one another.
“Maybe you’ll feel better after you’ve slammed into a few men on the oval,” Paul said with a wry smile.
“Maybe,” I agreed from inside my protective wall of knees and arms.
I seriously can’t remember that race. At the end of it I looked around like I’d woken up from a dream. Jo was hauling me out of the cab. “God, Eve. You’re a maniac. You want to watch out that you don’t get banned for something. That was a massacre out there. You’ll be getting yourself a reputation!”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Like you don’t know,” she said sniffily.
“I mean, where was I placed?”
“How can you not know that?” She snapped. “First of course, bloody miles in front.”
“And your Dad?”
“Dunno, about fifth. You slammed him out the way quite early on and he got caught up in a scrum and didn’t get free from it until too late.”
“Ok,” I said weakly.
She looked at me. “Are you safe to drive down to Cornwall tomorrow?”
I shook my head.
“Are you safe to drive once you get there if we managed to transport you down there without you having to drive?”
I nodded.
She frowned at me. “Promise me you are fit to drive?”
I nodded, even though that was entirely debateable.
“Promise me you won’t bite Pete again?” Her hazel eyes raked my face suspiciously.
I nodded, even though I couldn’t really be sure why I was doing it myself.
We set off for Cornwall straight after Buxton. We had to get to St. Day for about midday, so we needed to break it into two four hour stints. I noticed they kept me away from Pete. First off Jo and I travelled in the car towing the trailer, and then two hours in, they swopped me and Pete over and Pete took over the wheel of the car from Jo, while I was transferred into the Beast. I lay gratefully down in the back. I felt exhausted. About ten minutes after setting off again, Paul glanced into the mirror.
“What’s wrong Eve? Has something happened that we don’t know about?”
“Pete asked that,” I reported wearily. “He asked outright if I’d been raped again.”
“And what was your answer?” Paul asked in neutral tones.
“No, I’ve not been raped again,” I said abruptly. But other people have been, I thought. I lay on my back and stared at the ceiling. The Beast rocked me from side to side. “Yes, something is happening and no, I can’t tell you, and I’ll be ok by the end of the weekend if you just give me some space, and maybe you’ll get to know by the end of the year,” I reported. “That’s all I can say.”
Paul glanced back in the mirror again, but I guessed he wouldn’t be able to see me, lying back down here. “Ok,” he said. “If that’s all that you’re free to tell me, then we’ll leave it at that.”
I yawned and fell asleep.
I woke up in the morning to find that they’d obviously been unable to wake me up, and had had to fit themselves around me. I opened my eyes to see Pete already lying awake at right angles to me and looking at me. I smiled at him and he smiled back and we reached out hands across the void and just touched finger tips. He was kind Pete was. I remembered that about him now. He needed someone so much nicer and more stable than me, I thought.
Fifty percent of the drivers we’d also seen at Buxton, so that meant they’d all done the same insane journey as us. The other fifty percent were southerners who hadn’t bothered with Buxton. There was a big spectator turn out and the weather was glorious. I decided to stay absolutely focused today. I kept myself to myself, then glanced across at Pete in the next car. I imagined he was smiling at me. You can’t tell under a full face helmet.
Staying focused didn’t have the effect I hoped. I was trying too hard to think consciously about every decision and missed being in the flow. Paul came first, Pete second and I was back in fourth.
“Oh Jo, you shouldn’t nag her so!” Pete said to his sister when we were all back together. “You should just leave her to drive. Poor thing, I saw her hesitating every time she went to get past someone. I could just see her thinking – do I do this or will I get the terrible reputation that you threatened her with last night? She was awesome at Buxton!”
“She was lethal at Buxton!” Jo glowered at her brother with folded arms.
They both turned to their Dad like two year olds to arbitrate their dispute.
Paul glanced at me. I was standing back, keeping silent, keeping out of the way. Then he looked at his daughter. “Let her just drive. Don’t tell her what to do. She needs to be free to drive to the conditions, not be worrying about a set of instructions that may no longer fit the situation.”
Jo sulked as we packed up. I said nothing. Everyone cheered up when we parked up at our favourite haunt on the St. Day jaunt. A lovely little seaside town where we could sneakily park in a public carpark and use the public loos, have fish and chips and spend the evening on the picturesque beach.
We leaned back against the sea wall and I remembered that this was where Pete and I had had it out after the break up and I’d sobbed because I realised he wasn’t going to come back to me. Now here we were, sitting here, laughing over fish and chips, secretly shagging again. God, if you could see the future…
Pete was obligingly massaging my neck for me. Jo was glaring a bit. She doesn’t like outward shows of physicality.
“No wonder your neck is stiff after Buxton,” Pete remarked. “You were treating it more like a ten pin bowling alley than a race track!”
“Zanna is insisting I order a neck support for her,” Jo reported. “She says it will cut the effects of all the impacts by more than half.”
I frowned. “I don’t want to wear it though. I don’t want to be the only one. I don’t want to look like a wuz.”
Paul looked across at me. “Actually, I think it’s a good idea.”
“But they’ll think it’s because I’m a wimpy girl and I can’t take the pace,” I protested.
“I was thinking of ordering one myself,” Paul came back surprisingly. “I was talking to one of the other drivers who swears by his. Says it cuts out all those Monday morning stiff necks and headaches, and I can tell you Eve, that’s one thing I really haven’t missed during my retirement, and they’ve come back now with a vengeance.”
“Zanna says all the drivers will be getting cumulative brain injuries as well, like rugby players and boxers,” Jo put in. “She says a neck support will cut down on the impacts to the brain. I saw some dummies being tested in them in footage online, and you could really see the difference in the reduction of how their heads were thrown around.”
Paul nodded. He was clearly taking this seriously. “It’ll be one of those safety things that they’ll make mandatory during the next ten years, I bet you. I mean, it was only a couple of years back they made fireproof balaclavas mandatory, and in retrospect, that seems insane. And fireproof gloves were only voluntary until quite a short time before that despite a number of drivers getting really badly burnt hands. In ten years’ time they’ll be considering us idiots for not using neck supports…” He looked across at Pete. “I’m announcing a team decision. We’re all going to wear neck supports. We’ll all come out in them on the same day and I’ll say I ordered you both to do it.”
“Oh D-a-a-d,” Pete complained.
“No arguments!” Paul said in inflexible tones. “It’s the only sensible thing to do. And if the Gold and Silver both adopt them, then you’ll soon find others follow your lead.”
Pete subsided, but I could tell he wasn’t happy.
“If we find they make no difference,” I comforted him, “we can always tell everyone that they didn’t answer, and quietly drop them again.”
“The Hybrid seems like the best compromise,” Jo informed us with satisfaction. “More all round vision and better for formats where there are tight turns.”
“Fine,” Paul said. “Order three.”
“Four,” I said. “One for Cody. She’s back with us from the beginning of July when her exams are over. Do you think we could invite her to the Skeggie Speed Week?”
Pete pretended to look horrified. “Oh no! Not the sand car competition! When are you going to grow out of that Eve?”
I grinned at him. “I thought you and Cody against me and Jo this year.”
Pete pretended to be gripped by paroxysms of horror and then chased me squealing up the beach. Out of earshot of the other two he caught me up and held me for a good few seconds longer than strictly necessary.
“Have you got it out of your system?” He asked with a smile. “Will you stop biting me now?”
“Yeah, probably,” I agreed. Then I looked in a sultry fashion up at him. “Can’t promise what will happen in the throes of one of your amazing orgasms though!”
He pretended to look askance at me. Or maybe he wasn’t pretending.
Sahmir rang up. “I’ve got some stuff to tell you.”
“Should we go round to Chetsi and Taib and you tell them at the same time?”
He agreed with what sounded like relief. Yes, it felt safer with Chetsi and Taib along.
We sat round the table. I went first and told them about my close encounters with the men I now knew for sure were involved with the abuse of Jessica. I didn’t go into any gross details, just an outline, but th
at was enough to make the three faces looking back at me, look totally disgusted.
“You’ve no idea what a relief it is to see you three looking appalled!” I realised. “All the time it was happening to me I was thinking this is so subtle. Would anyone think this was abuse? None of this would count and so on…”
“He believed you to be a fourteen year old who’d never had sex and he made you sit with him and watch three people having sex, that’s abuse,” Chetsi said firmly.
“Ok,” I said. And he’d had a hard on of course. And he’d positioned me on his lap so it was right between my buttocks and shifted me back if I’d moved off. And a fourteen year old might not even know that was what was going on.
Chetsi snapped her fingers in front of my face. “What’s going on, Eve?”
I bit my lip. “I was thinking of a detail that I couldn’t bring myself to blog. Even though I’ve been told to blog every detail, I thought, no it won’t help convict anyone. It was just too humiliating to think that people would know about it. And then I thought that if I couldn’t even bring myself to mention this tiny minor thing, how would it be for those girls to have to give witness at a rape trial to much worse things? Nothing’s even happened to me yet, and I feel unclean!”
“Something has happened to you,” Chetsi insisted. “You’ve been abused by those men.”
“But I did it willingly!” I exclaimed. “I answered a text. I wasn’t coerced to go into that room. I even asked the Ash guy for his protection when the Saddiq guy was trying to make me do something. And no-one hit me, no-one verbally threatened me, and yet I didn’t try to leave and I allowed him to sit me on his lap and handle me and all this without even having the excuse of having my will weakened by accepting any of the drink or drug or presents…”
“You are already blaming yourself for abuse that was none of your choosing,” Chetsi pointed out. “So, this is how the girls are feeling.” She paused. “What was that small thing you didn’t blog?”
I didn’t answer.
“Before you didn’t answer,” Chetsi commented, “You sent a swift glance at both Sahmir and Taib, why was that?”
Purgatory Is a Place Too Page 19
