‘Jordan please. You know I’m going with Conner . . .’
‘He won’t know,’ the voice slurred into my neck, ‘we don’t have to tell him.’
‘But I don’t want to.’
‘Sure you do, honey.’
‘No, I . . . please. I don’t want to.’
‘But what do you think we’ve been up to all morning?’
Awful words. What do you think we’ve been up to all morning? We’d been taking photographs. At least that’s what I’d thought was happening. Nothing else had been going on. Had it? But they were sexy photographs; he’d encouraged me to pout and loll about in the sexiest way I knew. And I’d enjoyed it. Had fun showing myself off. Felt the power of my own attractiveness. Had I had any right to say no when I’d been posing more or less naked for this man all morning?
Then the escalating panic as I felt him push me down onto the floor.
‘No!’ I said again quite loudly. ‘Jordan. I’m saying no. No! ’ One heavy hand across my mouth to shut me up. Should I scream? Bite him? Fight? But it was a big apartment and there was no one else around.
The hard surfaces of the bathroom kept me quiet. I sobbed and swore, but basically shut up. I knew it would be easy to crack someone’s head open against all that beautiful marble. I imagined the back of my skull splitting open and a pool of deep-red blood spreading out around my head, flowing across the shining floor.
‘Hello,’ I said. Jordan, slowly smiling, took a couple of loping strides towards me, like some awful predator. I turned my face away as he bent to kiss me. I could tell he smelt my fear.
‘What are you here for?’ I asked. He shrugged, pretending to be casual, easygoing.
‘I’ve come to talk about you and . . . about the calendar,’ he said. ‘I’ve already told you I don’t want it published,’ I snapped. I could almost taste the bitterness in my mouth. The knowledge that I’d allowed myself to be taken in by this creep, to be tricked, cajoled, and used, sickened me to the core. The humiliation of knowing what a vain sucker I had been was the worst part of it all.
‘Why don’t you just go!’ Jude said loudly from the doorway, her mouth half full of the apple she was eating. Jordan spun around in surprise. Jude was simply standing there, one foot resting against the wall, eating her apple and casually watching us. Jordan looked her up and down, took in the cropped hair and cheap, unfashionable clothes. She was so small, dark and defiant. A flood of love for her washed through me before I’d had a chance to think about it.
‘I see,’ he sneered, turning to me. ‘So your little dyke mate knows all about it, does she?’
‘I said, piss off!’ Jude snarled aggressively. I gasped. I was so physically afraid of him myself that the idea of someone else not feeling the same seemed incredibly foolish. Also astonishing. I was about to tell her that he was dangerous, that she should be careful, when I saw that her brazenness had affected him too, put him off balance.
‘All in good time,’ he said. He pulled a form from his pocket and held it out to me, a silver pen in his other hand.
‘I was hoping we’d be able to have a nice talk and sort a few personal things out,’ he said, eyes lowered. There was a heavy moment before I heard my own voice.
‘Like the rape?’ I said calmly as I took the paper and made as if to read it. ‘You’ve come to talk about that, have you?’
‘And what proof do . . . ?’
‘None,’ I cut in coldly. ‘None at all, because there was no one else there and I didn’t get my head smashed in . . .’
‘Oh c’mon, girl, don’t tell me you didn’t want it.’
I looked up from the paper and stared at him. I swayed a little as I imagined plunging the silver pen straight into his heart like a sword. He looked away and I knew that he didn’t believe what he’d just said. The weak bastard! It is one thing to do something terrible, quite another to lie to yourself about it.
‘Okay, okay,’ he said brusquely, crossing his arms over his chest as though he’d somehow understood what had been going through my mind. ‘Let’s get on to the formalities straight away. If you just put your name down there everything will be taken care of. You’ll be paid and you won’t have to worry about a thing. And, of course, your real name won’t be used.’
But there’d been a shift of power in the room. I could see he’d felt it too. He was desperate for me to sign so he could get out. Rape is such an uncool word to say aloud.
‘No,’ I said firmly, handing back the form. ‘I won’t.’
‘Katerina,’ he pleaded, his eyes flickering sideways uncomfortably, ‘I don’t know what you’re on about. They’re very good photos. The boss is very pleased with them.’
‘I’ve changed my mind,’ I said.
‘Those photos represent nearly two weeks of my time, baby,’ he said, the menace returning to his voice. ‘And I don’t make a habit of working for nothing. You see,’ he smiled at me as if I was a little girl who’d misunderstood something important, ‘if this calendar doesn’t go ahead, I don’t get paid.’
‘I don’t care.’ I was still staring into his face, holding my ground.
‘Well, I do care,’ he hissed.
‘Consider it payment for what you took,’ I said. ‘What you took against my will.’ His face reddened. A flicker of pure fury pulsed through his eyes and around his mouth. I was humiliating him. He was like a horrible spider pinned to a backboard, all eight legs floundering and protesting.
He folded the contract slowly and placed it in his coat pocket.
‘So that’s your last word is it?’ he said softly.
‘That’s my last word.’
‘Well, I don’t think we can let such good pictures go to waste.’ He smiled again, rancour and hatred all over his face, and waited for me to register. My heart pounded like mad, but I said nothing.
‘I think I’ll manage to find someone who’ll be interested in them, now that your name is so well known.’ He reached over and flicked my hair with one finger, laughing when I flinched. ‘I take it you have seen your name in the paper today?’
‘Yes,’ I said feeling the blood rush to my face.
He laughed again before backing slowly out of the room. ‘And it will be there again, baby, when your court case comes up. I’m sure there will be a lot of interest. Little Miss Law School without her clothes on.’ There was nothing I could say.
‘We all have to live with our mistakes, sweetie,’ he called. ‘It’s a shame you’re not even going to be paid for yours!’
Jude and I stood together, listening to him open the front door, and then slam it as he left. I was shaking. His visit had transported me backwards into a nightmare, a tangled sticky nightmare. Would I ever escape?
‘He’s all bullshit, that guy,’ Jude said gruffly.
‘You think?’ I said, my heart lifting.
‘For sure.’ She smiled at me. I was still standing in exactly the same spot as when he’d left. ‘He’s a nobody going nowhere. Don’t even think about him.’
‘Jude,’ I said. ‘What do you honestly think I should do?’
‘Let’s eat first,’ she said. ‘And then try and forget about him and everything else. Just concentrate on your work. All this stuff will blow over.’
‘You really think so?’
‘I’m sure of it.’
JUDE WAS RIGHT IN A WAY. THERE WASN’T much I could do except try to forget everything and hope Jordan wouldn’t follow through with his threats. Exams were in less than a month and if I was going to do well, I had a lot of work to do. Every time the phone rang that week my heart would race. I would hold my breath, expecting it to be my outraged family – M um or Dad or Louise – livid and cold with anger, having heard of my misdeeds. But although it was often, the conversations were always pleasant and loving. Louise and Jean-Paul had decided to marry the following autumn. Only six months away. She asked me to be a bridesmaid alongside Elaine. Louise wanted the bridesmaids to wear deep russet red, but Mum thought that it was an ap
palling idea. She was adamant that something subtle – peach, pale apricot, or even lemon – would be far more suitable.
‘After all, Louise,’ she called when Lou was on the phone trying to convince me, ‘we don’t want your sister to look like a shop girl!’
The invitations were to be sent out over Christmas. Would I come home soon and help them finalise the list? Already there was some bad feeling and a couple of noses out of joint because Auntie Jean had been told about the engagement before Gran. And when Uncle Jock heard that his Rolls wouldn’t be needed on the day –L ou had decided that a fleet of new Mercedes would look better – he walked away from a family get-together in a huff.
If Jude was home after one of these phone conversations I’d run out and tell her the latest and we’d both fall about the room laughing. With just the two of us in the house together, we had begun to get along. We were both intent on our studies, so I suppose that helped. But every day it got a little easier. We had started to find out a bit more about each other. I’d let down my guard, stopped being so cool and aloof. And she had stopped dismissing me as a rich bimbo.
My name had not appeared in the paper again, so my family seemed even less likely to find out about everything. My court case was listed for early December, after the exams. I began to relax.
Of course I had to prepare for my court case, so the week after we returned from Manella, Anton and I went to meet the barrister who had been briefed on the case. It was embarrassing having to explain all the sordid details to her – she was so prim and proper – but Anton insisted that she should know everything, so I just took a deep breath and answered all her questions. We’d had to wait for about an hour before being shown into this incredibly plush office, about twenty storeys up and overlooking the city. The barrister, a woman in her fifties, was sitting behind an enormous polished desk in a silk shirt and square jacket. She stood up to greet us, but her stern, rather handsome face didn’t move a centimetre towards a smile.
‘So you admitted to the police that you had sometimes sold drugs to your friends?’ she asked, incredulity practically dripping from her thin painted mouth as she read through the notes in front of her. I found myself wishing Anton had engaged someone else. Wasn’t she meant to be on my side? Her manner made me feel like I was back in the police station.
‘That’s right.’
‘Do you know exactly what you said?’
‘Well . . . just that sometimes my friends and I bought pills and sold them on to each other,’ I replied in a small voice.
She sighed heavily and covered her eyes briefly with one hand.
‘Oh, dear,’ she muttered to herself in that flat voice again. ‘If I could have a dollar for all the people whose lives have been ruined by this kind of business.’ Her words chilled me. Surely she doesn’t think I’ve ruined my life! I stared at her bowed head, waiting for her to look up and smile and tell me that luckily I wasn’t one of them. But she remained engrossed in the notes in front of her, oblivious of me. I was not used to feeling so young and stupid.
‘You must have had some idea that these drugs were illegal?’ she went on tiredly.
‘Well, yes, but, no . . .I ’d never really thought about it.’
‘And you’re studying Law?’ she went on. I suddenly wanted to scream that it was all very well for her to be so superior. Hadn’t she ever been conned by anyone? Been enticed into a world that seemed really attractive?
‘Do you know what has happened to the supplier? Er . . . your friend?’
‘No,’ I sighed. ‘I haven’t seen him. I went to his house once, but he wasn’t in.’
‘I’d advise you not to go to his house again,’ she said quickly and severely. ‘It would be far better for you to cut off all connection with him.’
‘Really?’
‘You’re not out of the hot water yet, Katerina,’ she said. ‘Should the unthinkable happen and those . . . er, photographs you mentioned be published, the press might smell a rat. Deals like this are not exactly above board, as you know. Your charge could just as easily change back to one of trafficking . . .’ A shiver of fear passed through me. ‘Which, as you know, could have very serious consequences indeed . . .’ I nodded. ‘Now I don’t think that will happen,’ she said. ‘But I do have to let you know the possibilities. These things sometimes get . . . well, out of hand. And it often depends on something as arbitrary as whether the newspapers have got enough interesting stories for that day or not.’
‘I see.’ I looked over to Anton, who was frowning and listening intently. When he saw my face he smiled reassuringly.
‘Let us assume that the charge will go ahead as possession of illegal drugs,’ she said crisply. ‘And that is the most likely scenario. Then . . .’
She went on, asking more questions, taking notes then looked at her watch before putting her pen down carefully. I thought she was going to give me a final ticking off before telling us our time was up, but it was really just a summing up. ‘Assuming everything remains as is,’ she said, ‘if we put in a guilty plea, I don’t think we’ll have too much trouble convincing a magistrate to put you on a good-behaviour bond. But . . .’ I stared at her unsmiling face and wondered why I’d ever thought I’d like a career in the law. ‘I hope it’s obvious to you that you must keep your nose very clean until this court case is over.’ I nodded, an unexpected wave of relief flowing through me.
‘Of course,’ I said meekly.
‘Don’t even speak to your drug-dealing friend,’ she said. ‘And you realise that you’ll probably be asked to give evidence against him at some stage.’
‘How do you mean?’ The idea of having to give evidence against Jules was repugnant. There would surely be some way I could get out of doing that.
‘Well, when they charge him,’ she snapped.
‘Oh yes. Of course.’
I must have looked worried because she suddenly smiled at me. It lit up her face and took about ten years off her age.
‘I simply want you to understand the seriousness of your position, Katerina. Fifteen tablets could quite easily be converted into a charge of trafficking . . .’
‘I understand that,’ I said. ‘So what happens now?’
‘Anton will brief me properly,’ she said, ‘and we should be in a position to make a strong plea for clemency by December.’ ‘Thank you.’
JUDE HAD BEEN IN CONSTANT PHONE CONtact with Carmel. I had overheard bits and pieces of their conversations and occasionally asked Jude how things were going up there. Carmel’s mother was steadily getting worse, although not as rapidly as had been first suggested by the doctors. The cancer had been diagnosed eight weeks ago, so she’d already outlived the worst scenario presented to her. All the kids were helping, but Carmel was doing most of the work; all the cooking and cleaning, as well as looking after her mother. She sometimes got frustrated and bored, and sometimes her mother drove her mad, but she knew she didn’t want to be doing anything else, things being as they were. She was looking forward to Jude visiting after the exams, and wanted news about the band, the cafe and all the friends they shared.
‘Do Carmel and her mother get on?’ I asked.
‘They’re very different.’ Jude shrugged. ‘Carmel’s mother is smart in that sharp way. She’s practical and she knows everything. She doesn’t recognise Carmel’s talents . . .’
‘What are Carmel’s talents?’ I asked without thinking. ‘Er . . .I mean, apart from her music?’ Jude just looked at me. I turned away, embarrassed.
‘She’s a fantastic person,’ she said quietly.
‘I guess so . . .’ I blundered. ‘I guess I don’t really know her.’ I went to bed thinking about it. And wishing that there was someone in the world who would say that about me. She’s a fantastic person.
A couple of times I tried to sound Jude out about Carmel’s attitude towards me. Did she hate me? Did she really think that I’d organised Kara and Anton? But Jude obviously felt uncomfortable about relaying this kind of info
rmation, so she didn’t say much. She just implied that Carmel had been deeply hurt by Anton and that she didn’t want to speak to either of them about it. Ever.
I’d begun to lead a fairly lonely existence. I wasn’t seeing any of my old crowd except Kara. Swot-vac had come around and I had decided it would be easier to stay near the university library to study than to go home to Manella. Perhaps it was more that I didn’t want to go home to help organise my sister’s wedding. The constant phone calls about it were enough. I thought I’d probably go crazy if I had to try to study in that kind of atmosphere.
It was Kara who found out that Jules had been arrested. Until then I’d become adept at putting him out of my mind. After heading around to his flat that day and not finding him home, I’d decided that he must have done a flit. He had friends in Sydney, so I told myself he’d gone up there after the bust to lie low for a while. I’d also persuaded myself to be annoyed that he hadn’t contacted me. In my head I was trying to even up my betrayal of him with his lack of concern for me. To live with myself I had to find excuses. He had known I had had those pills on me. He’d given them to me! Why hadn’t he called to see if I was all right?
It was a shock when Kara told me. Jules had been caught with a lot of drugs in his possession and had been charged with trafficking. He had been unable to supply the bail set by the court, so he was waiting in the remand centre for his trial. Kara said she’d heard that they’d been watching him for days and had closed in on him when he was dealing the stuff to teenage kids outside a community centre in Flemington.
I ached for him, knowing he must have taken a very fast social nose-dive over the past few weeks to be driven to that. He’d always had such a casual disdain for ‘pushers’. Oh, Jules.
I couldn’t forget him after that. Day and night he was there underneath all my thoughts. I needed to talk to him, find out what he was thinking. Perhaps I needed to confess. I don’t know. I also felt terrible thinking that he was stuck down in the remand centre because he didn’t have enough money for bail. Surely arranging that was the least I could do for him. I gingerly broached the subject with Anton. It would be five or ten thousand. Couldn’t we organise it somehow? But Anton, so supportive of me, wasn’t at all interested in Jules. And I didn’t feel I could push it if he didn’t want to.
Queen Kat, Carmel and St Jude Get a Life Page 38
