Guilt

by Amanda Robson

  My phone buzzes. You Zara. A text.

  I’m outside. Come and see me right now.

  OK, I text back, sighing as I leave my desk. My boss won’t like me leaving the office in the middle of the day. But the way I feel right now about my job, about everything, what does it matter?

  I step outside to find you waiting for me on the pavement outside my office block, wrapped in the new coat you chose with Sebastian. A blanket of a coat that makes you look like a hippy.

  ‘Come on,’ you say. ‘Chop, chop. I’ve booked you an appointment.’

  ‘An appointment?’

  ‘With our GP.’

  I groan.

  ‘Yes. I told you I would. And you are going to see her.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘In ten minutes. Got a cancellation. And I’m coming with you, to make sure you get there in time.’

  ‘OK, OK. I’ll text my boss to tell her I’ve an urgent doctor’s appointment. She has to let me go I suppose.’

  I text. She replies.

  Fine. Thanks for letting me know.

  Polite for Ms Sudbury. I expect I will have to make up for it later. Perhaps she will have me redacting documents into the small hours. It’s a cold day. Watery sunshine. The first scent of spring in the air, as you link arms with me, and accompany me on the five-minute walk to the medical centre.

  We sit next to one another in the waiting room, which is full of people coughing and spluttering. People ignoring one another, staring at the wall in front of them. Fiddling with their iPhones. I join in the endless modern ritual, and fumble nervously with mine too.

  No new emails. Nothing much on Facebook. The Twitter feed is moving as fast as ever, lots of silly comments from people whose names I don’t recognise. BBC News: nothing much new happening there. Something unpleasant in Syria. But then there is always something ghastly happening in Syria. I watch shots of an explosion, and buildings that look like decimated concrete moving towards me as if from another world, completely dissociated from mine.

  After what seems like forever, the doctor calls me.

  I stand up. You stand up too.

  ‘You’re not coming with me.’

  Your face crumples with concern. ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to?’

  ‘Yes. Yes. Thanks, but I really want to go alone.’

  You shrug your shoulders. You sit down. I walk along the corridor feeling as if I am walking through space. I can’t believe I am finally here to see the doctor. Something I know I should have done sooner, but I just couldn’t bring myself to. I suppose I didn’t want to admit what had happened, not even to myself. I knock on the door of Dr Dale’s consulting room.

  ‘Come in,’ a cheery voice floats out.

  As I enter the consulting room with its grey walls and thin orange curtains, a woman swathed in pink cashmere that clashes with the colour of the curtains is looking up at me from her swivel chair, smiling condescendingly. Her smile makes me feel uncomfortable. It doesn’t look natural. It extends too far around her face.

  ‘What can I do to help?’ she asks.

  I do not reply. I sit down. My mood has swung full circle. I shouldn’t have come in. What was I thinking of? What has happened is private. It only belongs to Sebastian and me. I am sitting on the edge of an abyss, about to fall in. She leans towards me, smile evaporated now.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  Still I don’t reply. I try to but my lips don’t move.

  ‘Please,’ she says. ‘You can’t shock me. I’ve heard everything.’

  The silence is solid. Tangible. From somewhere behind it, I hear myself speak. ‘What makes you think my problem’s embarrassing?’

  ‘You just seem a little hesitant.’ She leans back in her chair a little and folds her arms. ‘Try me. I don’t bite. There is nothing in my job that I haven’t seen or heard.’

  ‘OK.’ I take a deep breath. ‘I’ve got a burning pain between my legs.’

  She raises her eyebrows a notch. ‘Since when?’

  ‘A few days ago.’

  She picks up a pen and pulls the notepad in front of her a little closer. ‘Does it hurt when you pee?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So when do you get it? Is it there all the time?’

  ‘Just sometimes. I can’t figure out why.’

  She makes a few notes, then she looks up at me. ‘Do you mind if I examine you?’

  I say no, but I do mind. I mind very much. After what has happened I feel so very embarrassed about my private area. It feels distended, violated. Ugly. I feel heat burning in my cheeks and realise that I am blushing.

  Her eyes soften as she watches me. She gets up from behind her desk, rips a fresh piece of giant kitchen roll from the holder on the wall, and places it carefully on her examination couch.

  ‘You can leave most of your clothes on. Just take off your knickers and tights. And then sit up on the couch.’

  I move towards the couch. She turns the area around it into a cubicle by drawing curtains around it and steps outside to allow me to sort myself out. With trembling hands I pull down my tights. And I am back. We are on my bed. He is undressing me. He is pulling my knickers down. I am crying. Tears run down my face.

  When my knickers and tights are rolled up in a ball pushed inside my handbag, I pull myself up onto the couch and sit up as she asked.

  ‘Ready,’ I shout over the curtain.

  Dr Dale reappears wearing thin plastic gloves, and her surprisingly un-reassuring smile. She has a speculum in her right hand and a little torch on her head. I look at her moving towards me and shudder inside.

  ‘Open your legs,’ she commands.

  He overpowers me. He shoves me face down onto the bed, pushing my mouth into the duvet so that I can hardly breathe. Clamping my arms so tightly behind my back that I can hardly move.

  ‘You’re greedy for it,’ he says as he puts his head back and laughs.

  I clamp my legs tightly shut, knees pressed together. Tears are streaming down my face. I know because I can feel their salt as they reach my mouth. She puts her hand on my knee.

  ‘Please Miranda, I promise I won’t hurt you.’

  I concentrate. I close my eyes. Slowly, slowly, I move my knees apart.

  ‘I’m going to take a swab, just to make sure there’s no infection,’ she says as she pushes something inside me. He enters me from behind. It hurts. It really hurts. A burning pain in the walls of my vagina. A burning pain that will never go away. She pushes something inside me and I cry out in pain. She pulls back. She pulls it out, puts the swab in a test tube and seals it.

  ‘Sorry. Did I hurt you?’ she asks.

  The burning pain is escalating. My insides are on fire. ‘It hurts. It hurts so much.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Get dressed, and come and sit down. I’ll run through what I think,’ she says disappearing through the gap in the curtain again to leave me in peace.

  Shivering and trembling, I pull on my knickers and tights. I move back to the patient’s chair again and sit, watching and waiting. Watching her watching me. Wondering what she is thinking. Waiting for her to speak.

  ‘Miranda,’ she says. ‘It all looks healthy down there. There doesn’t look to be any tissue damage. Nothing to suggest anything is wrong. I’ve taken a swab, which I’ll send to the lab, just to make sure. And we’ll get a urine sample just to make sure there’s no UTI. But as it doesn’t hurt when you pee that situation is unlikely.’ She pauses. A long considering pause, head on one side. ‘Please Miranda, tell me, are you having a sexual relationship with anyone at the moment?’

  I shake my head and try to push back the tears that are prickling behind my eyes. She is watching me too carefully. It’s making me feel nervous. The tears start to fall. I wipe them away with my handkerchief.

  ‘Has anyone forced themselves on you?’ she asks gently.

  I know I should tell her. I should speak out to protect other women. But I cannot tell anyone about this – Zara must never find ou
t.

  ‘Of course not,’ I say, still wiping away my tears as I stand up to leave.

  74

  Zara

  Miranda, what is wrong with you? Why won’t you tell me? Where have you gone? Only the shell of you is left. Are you anaemic? Diabetic? Depressed? Historically, you were the calm, confident one. Now our roles have been reversed. University life invigorates me. Being an accountant is destroying you. I am sitting in the waiting room at our surgery, waiting for you to come out of Dr Dale’s consulting room, eager to hear what she has to say to you. I look at my watch. You’ve been nearly half an hour. What’s taking so long?

  I want you back, Miranda, the way you used to be. Sebastian keeps telling me to stop worrying. He thinks I’m trying to be a surrogate mother to you.

  ‘It’s not good for twins to be too reliant on one another,’ he said this morning as he was getting out of bed.

  ‘In what way?’ I asked sleepily, still languishing beneath the covers.

  ‘Over-reliance is damaging.’

  He had a sharpness in his voice that made me wake up. I pulled the duvet away and sat up, blinking in the halogen light. He was wrapping himself in his stripy dressing gown.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean. I thought support of family and friends was essential for feelings of belonging and wellbeing. Miranda feels like family and friend to me. In fact, until I met you I’d say she was the centre of my life.’

  He was staring at me, eyes sparkling. He raised his arms in the air and shrugged. ‘Exactly. You’ve proved my point.’ There was a pause. ‘Combining family and friendship. Too much pressure. Too much intensity. You need to spend more time apart.’

  He walked back towards the bed.

  ‘Why are you saying this?’ I asked.

  He sat on the edge of the bed, pulled me towards him, and kissed me. As usual when he kisses me a pulse of electricity ran through me.

  ‘Maybe it’s because I want you to myself,’ he whispered.

  I push the memory of his touch away. The taste of him. The smell of him. As I watch you walking towards me across the waiting room, shoulders down, bereft. As you come closer, I can see you’ve been crying again. Now you are trying to suppress more tears. I know the tell-tale signs. Swollen eyelids. Red blotches all over your face. You are sniffing and searching in your handbag for a tissue. I walk towards you and put my arm around you.

  ‘How’d it go?’ I ask.

  You don’t reply. Worry escalates inside me.

  75

  Miranda

  A week has gone by. A week with no change, no improvement in my symptoms. No return to my usual level of concentration. So far I don’t think anyone has noticed. Except Sebastian who keeps staring at me at work. He must have noticed my endless trips to the lavatory to try to get away from him for a few minutes, to compose myself.

  I have come back to see Dr Dale today, to get my test results. She is sitting hands clasped together on her knee. I am in her patient’s chair watching her, waiting for her to speak. She is a smart dresser. Wearing cream upon cream. A creamy cardigan. A creamy blouse. Creamy pearls curdled around her neck. Leaning forward and staring at me intently. I wish she would tone herself down, put those eyes away.

  ‘All your tests are clear,’ she says in a chirrupy, singsong voice.

  I do not reply. She leans back in her chair and folds her arms, not taking her razor eyes off me, not even for a second.

  ‘All your tests are clear,’ she repeats. ‘The swab. The urine. The blood test. The internal examination.’ There is a pause. She crosses her legs now too. Arms and legs crossed, making her look streamlined, as if she’s into yoga. ‘So you’ve no infection. No trauma. Nothing.’ Her eyes are simpering with pleasure.

  I do not respond.

  ‘Aren’t you pleased?’ she asks.

  I continue to sit silently, dwelling on my negative results. I still feel so rotten. What can this mean?

  ‘But … but …’ I finally splutter. ‘It hurts me very much. I’m not imagining it. There’s something wrong with me and we don’t know what it is. Why should I be pleased?’

  She smiles. Half a smile. As if she finds consulting me difficult.

  ‘It means you don’t have anything serious.’

  ‘Are you sure? Does it?’

  A frown ripples her face. She bites her lip. She swallows. ‘There is one thing that concerns me.’ She pauses. ‘Sometimes rape victims have symptoms like this.’

  ‘Like this?’ My voice is plaintive. Desperate.

  ‘Yes. Real physical pain left by the psychological trauma of the event. A sort of post-traumatic stress syndrome.’

  ‘Like soldiers get?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Anger explodes inside me. How dare this woman speculate about my private life? She knows nothing about me. I do not want her to guess what happened. I will not come and see her again. I am trembling, every bit of me. My tissue, my guts, my sinews. My fingers, my toes, my lips.

  She is scribbling down notes as I leave.

  76

  Miranda

  Driving up the motorway, escaping from Bristol, back to Tidebury for the weekend. Maybe seeing Mother will help.

  I hate Anastasia Sudbury.

  Second written warning indeed.

  One more written warning and I am out. How dare she. Patronising, sycophantic bitch. The memory of her voice, with its overemphasised vowels and artificial resonance as she ‘mediated’ between me and Sebastian makes me feel sick. Second written warning for not working efficiently with him. I clutch the steering wheel so tightly my fingers ache.

  I turn the car radio up in an attempt to drown my thoughts in classical music. But my mind is pumping. Plaintive violins and resonant cellos don’t help. I cannot stop thinking about Sebastian and what he did to me. I feel his hands all over me. I feel him entering me again. I hear his grunting climax. I feel a knife grating the walls of my vaginal passage. As I drive I breathe through the pain.

  I stop at a service station and sit in the car, head in hands.

  Back on the motorway, I know I need to pull myself together. It isn’t safe, even in the slow lane, wedged between heavy lorries, driving when my mind is a kaleidoscope of hate, guilt and pain.

  Classical music. Perhaps that will help. Four hours of listening to Classic FM later, at half past midnight I finally arrive home.

  Mother opens the door. She hugs and kisses me. I step into the hallway. I see our patterned rug, the parquet flooring, the limited edition print that you chose when we were on holiday in the Lake District, so many years ago. Being home intensifies my thoughts of you, Zara. So many shared memories. I hoped coming home would make me feel better, but I feel worse as I stand in the hallway surrounded by echoes of happiness that has passed.

  ‘Would you like a tea, a coffee?’ Mother asks.

  I don’t reply.

  ‘Something stronger perhaps? I’ll open a bottle of wine, and pour us both a glass.’

  I follow Mother into the kitchen and watch her taking a bottle of Beaujolais Villages from the wine rack and start to open it.

  ‘What’s happening?’ she asks with her back to me. ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘You make it sound as if I never visit.’

  She turns towards me, eyes soft. ‘I miss you both, you know that.’

  And I step towards her and hold her in my arms. I pull her against me; my small, resilient mother who has done so much for us, brought us up on her own.

  ‘I need to talk to you,’ I mutter.

  She opens the wine and pours us both a glass. We settle in the sitting room. The room is a time warp. Mother hasn’t changed it since we were ten. A dresser with our school photographs on. A vase containing silk flowers that we bought her one Mother’s Day. I take a large gulp of wine.

  ‘I’m thinking of leaving Bristol,’ I announce.

  Mother’s mouth opens, like a guppy. ‘But I thought you loved it there?’ she splutters, almost spilling her wine.


  ‘I need a break. A fresh start. I’m an accountant with almost ten years’ experience now. I could work anywhere in the world.’

  ‘But what about Zara?’

  ‘She’s not my responsibility. She’s really happy in Bristol. She loves her course. She loves her boyfriend.’ I pause. ‘She doesn’t need me.’

  ‘I need you. I need you to stay in Bristol to keep an eye on her,’ Mother says, her voice thin and plaintive.

  My stomach tightens. It hurts me to breathe. ‘It’s crippling me living there with her and Sebastian.’

  ‘Because?’ she asks.

  ‘She’s better now. They just ignore me.’ I pause. ‘And I’ve told you. I need a fresh start.’

  Mother leans towards me. ‘But you’ve always been there for your sister. What’s happened?’

  ‘Nothing has happened.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’ Her eyes are wide with concern. ‘It’s late. You’ve had a long journey. Let’s sleep on it and talk in the morning.’

  I nod, drain my wine, and kiss my mother. ‘Good night.’

  The familiarity of my bedroom folds around me and makes me feel worse. I want time to go backwards. I want never to have gone to Bristol. Never to have met Sebastian. I wish I was dead. I take my clothes off and look at my body, the body he has desecrated. I weep myself to sleep.

  I wake up in the morning suffused with a feeling of dread. Knowing something awful has happened, but not sure what. Then I remember. The written warning. The sex. The rape. As soon as I remember the rape, the scraping pain begins again. I shower for far too long, soaping my body, pushing soap up inside myself to clean him away. That makes it hurt more. Feeling heavy inside, I get dressed and walk downstairs.

  Mother is in her kitchen domain as usual – laying the table for breakfast.

  Pouring out orange juice she says, ‘I didn’t sleep all night, thinking about what you said.’ She pauses and looks up at me. ‘You can’t leave Bristol. If you do, you’ll have to pay me back the deposit I gave you for the flat.’ Another pause. Head on one side. ‘I really want you to stay and be there for your sister.’