Nemesister: The gripping women's psychological thriller from Sophie Jonas-Hill

by Sophie Jonas-Hill

  ‘Why did you do that?’ I asked her.

  ‘Who cares?’ She sniffed. ‘It only stuff, an’ stuff don’t mean shit, end of day.’

  Sometimes, when I couldn’t sleep, I would question her about what we’d planned to do, marching round her room asking her over and over again.

  ‘Are you really going to do this? Are you sure you can? You can’t go there and do all this and then not go through with it, not if you’re gonna get away.’

  She’d argue with me, her hip jutting to one side, hands out like she was in a street gang, adopting a stance.

  ‘You know what Red did to her …’

  ‘Sure, but—’

  ‘He beat her, locked her up, maybe even raped her, all of it in front of his Daddy.’

  ‘Yes, but … but why hasn’t she called, why hasn’t she—’

  ‘You read the emails, right? You saw what she said, you sayin’ you don’t believe her now, huh?’ She would suck on her teeth, slapping the air at me or kicking at the bed. ‘You callin’ your sister a liar?’

  ‘No, of course I believe her!’

  ‘Yeah? Well sometimes you act like you think she ain’t worth it, like she’s just makin’ trouble, like what Mom and Dad used to say.’ Arms crossed, chin jutted forward, glaring at me, daring me to argue.

  ‘You weren’t there. You don’t know how it was!’ I’d say, a hot, righteous anger blazing in me, the words ‘circle of trust’ crashing about my brain.

  ‘Well, tell me how it was then, ‘cause I don’t get it sometimes. How come Daddy did what he did to her, but he never touched you, huh? What, you special or something?’ Was I special? Hell no, not me. Not special at all.

  ‘I’m not special … it’s just the way it was.’

  I’d sit down on the bed, hands in my lap, all the fight gone out of me. There wasn’t a reason, not a reason I could see, it was just how it was, how it was all the time, until Lisa went away. ‘I read up about it, you know, it can go like that; families give each other roles, and one of them can be given the role of victim. It’s a recognized phenomenon.’ And what had there been after she’d gone? A wall put up and best left in place, in case removing it tumbled everything down for the whole family, all of us. Never the right time, what with Dad getting sick, and Lisa in tough-love camp, and crazy-kid camp, and bad-girl camp. Never the right time, because then I messed up too, in my own slightly less spectacular way, throwing all my exams, then my retakes, then year one of the third-rate college that finally took me. There wasn’t time or space to risk the havoc it would have wreaked, not with the holiday home and all.

  ‘Yeah, well, all I see is that you ain’t stickin’ up for her no more,’ Margarita growled, ‘like you always said you would. Ain’t that a recognized pho-nom-ina, ain’t that call’ lying’?’

  ‘I am sticking up for her, and I am gonna find out what happened, I swear it!’

  ‘Oh, you know what happened, girl,’ she said, her voice dark and quiet inside me. ‘You know old Rooster Levine killed her, and there ain’t nothing no one’s gonna do about it, but you.’

  We had a file on him, on old Rooster Levine. It’s amazing what you can find out when you’re motivated, and when you’ve got a nice, distinctive name like that to play with. His Daddy also, because there was a lot more about him, and his political campaigning, and his charity work, and his financing of this and that. He was the sort who cropped up in local newspapers and websites, who opened things, who pronounced on local affairs, who could be relied on for a sound bite. There was a paper trail for his son Rooster too, but it was an altogether thinner, more insubstantial thing than Pappa Levine’s. He was not exactly a ghost, but he was not a man much versed in social media, nor was he a prominent feature in his father’s world. Reports mentioned his service record, the unit he was most recently affiliated with, but the details were vague. He’d been decorated sometime around the millennium, which flashed the image of fireworks and fairy lights through my mind, as if Red were a kind of Christmas tree. He’d seen action ‘overseas and in the Middle East,’ but that was all. He was back, I worked that much out, but there was none of the fanfare one might have expected for the return of a conquering hero. I had a handful of pictures of him, mostly indistinct, mostly looking away from the camera as if avoiding my gaze. But there was one, one where he had to face me.

  It was in the local paper, the ‘T.P’, in their social column. There he was, under the only headline to bill him as a ‘war hero’, smiling out at me, with Lisa beside him in that dress with the high lace collar, and all those little pearl buttons that would sound like rain when they scattered over the floor. It was pinned to Margarita’s bedroom wall, with all the other scraps and snippets about him, and about men like him, and about the war in Iraq, and men and women from his unit, everything I’d found. Together we looked at him, and he looked back at us, Rooster Levine, while he held my big sister’s hand.

  ‘But, do I have to kill him?’ I asked Margarita, after we were both quiet for a long time. ‘For Christ’s sake, look at him; he’s a solider, a goddam Iraq veteran. Do you seriously think I can take him down, alone?’

  ‘No.’ And she’d smiled. ‘But you’re not alone.’

  I went to bars and hung around at the jukebox, feeding quarters into them relentlessly, watching the room from the corner of my eye, under the cover of the chink of coin. I walked through the battlefields of the gender war, through empty parking lots, back alleyways, shortcuts through ill-lit parks. I went armed, I went prepared. I went to lose my fear. But I never went alone.

  It happened first when I found a truck stop on the freeway, forty miles out of town. A lonely bubble of light and coffee in a long, cold night, under a neon sign with a herd of big rigs clustering for warmth. I filled up, then parked in the muddy ground out back and went into the store.

  There was a small group of tables huddled round some vending machines, and a narrow shop counter, where I bought cigarettes and chewing gum. Three isolated men watched me as I entered. I felt their gaze on me, hungry and lost. I moved casually, looking round as I waited for the clerk to find the smokes I’d asked for, and sized them up. Which one would it be, which would be unable to resist?

  The clerk glanced at me when he’d found the cigarettes.

  ‘You got a restroom?’ I asked.

  ‘Out the back.’ He nodded left.

  ‘Thanks. Put my smokes on the side.’

  When I found it, I watched my face in the mirror as I ran water, and deciphered the graffiti scrawled over the sink to calm my mind. The tap dripped brackish liquid into the chipped basin, plink – plink – plink. I counted as I waited, slowing my breathing until it was in time with the noise. Plink – plink – plink. I lingered long enough for the idea to take hold in one of them, and when I came out, one of them had gone. He’d made his choice, as I’d made mine.

  I nodded at the clerk and paid. As I walked back to my car, I slipped my hand into my pocket and fit my fingers into the brass knuckles lurking there.

  You don’t have to do this, I said to myself, but I wasn’t talking to me or Margarita. I was talking to him.

  Which one are you? The one with the red plaid shirt and the blue cap, turning his spoon over and over against the tabletop, or the thinner, older one, with the bald head and the tuft of white hair behind each ear? Neither. It was the third one: blue shirt and grey pants, the toes of his camel brown boots buckled and stained with oil. He was a family man, he’d been at the counter when I paid for the cigarettes, folding his change into his wallet. For an instant I’d seen a picture, a child and a woman inside. He’d stood close to me, closer than he might have. Maybe he thought he recognized me; maybe he was just showing paternal concern for a young woman alone in the night.

  For a moment, as the cold air touched my face, I let a thrill wash over me. So it’s you, I thought as I heard his step behind me. You’re the coward, you’re the one who just can’t help himself. How will you explain the scratch on your face, which
is all you think I’ll do to you? How will you answer when your wife asks you why you smell of my perfume? She’ll be angry, suspicious – she’ll accuse you of cheating on her, she’ll think that’s the worst you’re capable of. You’ll dust the mud from your jeans when it dries out, leaving only a stain on each knee that your wife will wash clean for you. Even if she suspects you, she’ll never know you. Not like I do.

  ‘You all set, doll?’ Margarita purred inside me.

  I was six feet from the car, and he must have thought that I’d reached for my keys, because he quickened his pace. I let him come, my heart rate slowed and a cold expectance tensed my muscles.

  ‘Come on, girl,’ he said from behind me. ‘You best not be out here on your own.’ He grabbed my shoulders and pushed me forward against my car, unaware that I went limp as he did, dissipating the force of the impact, because I was ready for him.

  ‘Yeah, what we got?’ He pressed onto me, urgent and filthy. He wanted me to scream, he expected me to scream, so he clamped his meaty hand over my mouth. But I didn’t need to scream. I was not afraid. His other hand clutched the crotch of my jeans. ‘Yeah, what we got here? We gonna have us a fine time, you ‘n’ me, girlie.’ I let him touch me. ‘That’s it,’ he said, his breath shuddering over me. ‘You hush up, and I don’t gotta hurt you none.’

  The moment came, and I was ready for it. Overconfident at my apparent submission, he leaned round and tried to force his left hand down the front of my pants. As his fingers clawed at my flesh, I snapped into action and stamped my heel into his ankle.

  ‘Bitch!’ He crumpled sideways. I twisted and slammed my elbow into his ribs, then smacked my brass-clad fist into the side of his neck. Women always think they’ll knee them in the balls, but that’s a mistake; a second’s hesitation and you’ve given your attacker your thigh to hold, you’re off balance and then you’re on the floor. You go for the eyes, the nose or the neck, all of which are routinely exposed, and all of which react with involuntary spasm to pain. The man sprawled across my car. I jerked back, then punched him as hard as I could in the small of his back, the brass thudding into his flesh – once, twice, three times.

  ‘Jesus, fuckin’—!’ I twisted round and kicked the back of his knees, sucking air into my lungs as he crashed to the ground, hugging the driver’s side wheel.

  ‘You run then,’ the voice of my instructor Ralph came back to me. ‘You don’t stick around to see if he’s okay or to teach him a lesson, ladies. You run and get the hell out of there.’ That’s good advice. That’s what you should do if you’re a victim of sexual assault, or any kind of assault. But I wasn’t.

  I dropped and forced my knee into his side where I’d already hit him.

  I punched him twice in the face, and felt the bones in his nose twist and splinter. He screamed. I forced my hand over his mouth as his face gushed blood. ‘You hush up,’ I hissed, ‘and I don’t gotta hurt you none.’ He sobbed, his fleshy lips squirming against my palm. I ground the brass into the side of his head. ‘You done?’

  He whimpered, struggling against the pain, then he nodded. I pulled my hand away from his mouth.

  ‘You done this before?’ When he didn’t answer, I grabbed a handful of shirt and wrenched his head up.

  ‘No … no ma’am.’ I hit him again. ‘Oh, Jesus my face, my fuckin’— yeah, I done it before … bitch!’

  I pulled his head up as far as I could. ‘Good.’ I slammed him back down and stepped away.

  You know why they say get away when you can – to run, don’t look back, don’t try and teach them a lesson? Because the moment you do that, the moment you turn back and stamp on the head of, or kick the side of, or spit on the face of some dirty fuck who’s done this to you, you stop being a victim any more. And that will lose you the sympathy of a jury. He might not get off, if they catch him, if he doesn’t take a plea; but then again, it might just stop the DA seeing you as a safe bet. If you want to get a conviction, you need to be a victim. You need to be a good girl.

  Not caring if my victim was conscious or not, I walked round to the passenger side door and climbed across to the driver’s seat. I had to force the brass knuckles off my fingers, which were already swelling with the pounding I’d given them. My hands were bloody, more of it smeared on my jacket. I pulled it off, wiping my hands on the sleeve, then balled it up and stuffed it in the footwell. I drove away.

  The freeway arced away from my headlamps, a seemingly endless grey ribbon snaking through darkness. As I drove, the reality of what I’d done seeped into my limbs, until my hands shook and the breath struggled to escape my chest. I managed to get to my exit, pulled over when I could, and threw the door open. I ran to the trunk, leant against it and was sick. Afterwards, I pressed my forehead against the cold metal and closed my eyes.

  ‘You’ all right,’ Margarita said. ‘You’re all right. I got you.’

  There was a bottle of water in the glovebox, so when I’d thrown up everything I could, I got it and washed my mouth out. I sat in the driver’s seat for a while with the lights on, engine running and my hands gripping the wheel. I felt sick, but I felt something else. I felt Margarita.

  The car was suddenly illuminated by the blaze of headlights. I saw blue and reds in the rear view, then the cop whooped his siren the once. I ruffled my hair over my face, grabbed a tissue from the glovebox and pressed it to my nose when I saw the officer get out. As he drew closer, I let out the tears I’d been struggling to hold back.

  ‘Miss … Miss could you turn off your engine please?’ The beam of his flashlight blinded me as I did as he asked, shading my eyes. He dipped the light. ‘Can you wind down your window?’

  ‘Hey there,’ I managed my brightest, sweetest smile. ‘Oh, goodness, I’m such a mess!’

  ‘Miss, is there a reason you’re sitting here with the engine running?’ He peered at me. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry …’ I wiped my eyes. ‘I kinda broke up with my fiancé. I’m sorry, I just got real upset. I didn’t think I should drive, you know, ‘cause I was crying so much.’ I smiled up at him. ‘Pathetic, huh?’ I wiped at my eyes, looked down at the black smudge on my fingers. ‘Jesus, I’m such a mess.’

  ‘Oh, no, we’ve all been there.’ He smiled, and I could imagine him biting back the urge to say that I didn’t look like a mess at all; that sure, with a touch of lipstick, I’d look real pretty again. ‘I was just worried in case you broke down or something.’ He straightened up, his radio squawked and he turned his back on me to answer it. ‘It’s been a busy night, miss,’ he said, when he bent down to look at me again. ‘Lot of bad people out there. Wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t make sure you were okay, now would I?’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’ I smiled. He even tipped his hat and winked at me, boy scout that he was. Lot of bad people out there, I told myself as I pulled away.

  Chapter 19

  I STARTED GOING to support groups, ones for abuse victims. I wasn’t sure why at first, because I never thought I was a victim, but maybe I thought being among other women who’d suffered like Lisa, might make me feel closer to her. Margarita’s Facebook friend Mary Contrary joined one too – she put a post up about it, which kind of gave me the idea. I started talking to her, or Margarita did. She said she knew me from school; she said we weren’t close but we got on. She said it was nice to get to know me, because she’d always been a bit in awe of me. It was nice to have a friend. Margarita called her ‘doll’ and they started to talk all the time.

  The first group I found was at a local church, not one of the pretty ones with a spire and stained glass, but a plain, serviceable one, anonymous even, as if God were equivalent to a laundromat or a drive-through. It smelled of coffee, the instant kind, and floor polish and new carpet. We all sat round in a circle as if we had something to confess. It was like an AA meeting, where we all had to own up to how long it had been since the abuse, as if we were responsible for it. That’s how it made me feel, anyway.

  The woman wh
o ran it was large. Had one looked up the word ‘maternal’ in a dictionary, her picture would have been there, all hair and velour leisure suits, wayward bosoms under softness, like overgrown kittens. Meow. People brought cookies – girls with bitten fingernails and scars on their arms, and ones who looked as if they’d eaten three batches already, stuffing and stuffing as if they could ever feel full. Even ones who looked like, oh, they might have eaten a cookie, you know, once, but would never do it again, they promised. Peanut butter crunch, chocolate chip, pecan and maple. They all seemed to want to bake; even the boy made red velvet cake. Well, he had been a boy, when he was a child, when it had happened. She was called Amanda now.

  I wanted to be strong for them. I was strong. Well, I was silent. I listened and, when it was my turn to share, I shared as little as I could, as if my cookies were worth ten of theirs. I let them think that I was waiting until I felt comfortable, let them assume from my reticence that what had happened to me was way worse than anything they’d suffered. I thought about making some shit up, but I couldn’t go there, even I felt too guilty about doing something like that. The group was unsatisfying after a while; there was too much weeping, too much picking over what had been. Margarita got sick of it too.

  ‘Why don’t they do something?’ she’d say. ‘Why don’t they get themselves a stick or a gun and go beat the shit outta them pervs? The law don’t do squat, does it?’