Authors: S.E. Craythorne
How You See Me (17 page)
I am INNOCENT, Mab. Read the writing on the wall. You have to get me out of here. I don’t know how it works. I asked for a lawyer and they stuck me in here to wait for the duty solicitor. Should I have just gone into the interview alone? Surely you know someone who is better than any solicitor they will provide? Maybe Aubrey will help? Do I need someone to post bail, or is that just on cop shows? It’s a bit scary that my only frame of reference for my present situation is stuff I’ve seen on Dad’s TV.
Help me, Mab.
Daniel
3rd April
My prison cell
Dear Mab –
| Policeman: | Right, we have a great deal of information here. Ms Williams’ claims of sexual assault and harassment appear to be borne out not only by the letters you sent her, but by your own accounts given here. Of course, you claim that any sexual acts were entirely consensual. [PAUSE] For the tape, please, Mr Laird. |
| Me: | Yes. I mean, I nodded. That’s true. In fact she – Alice – instigated some of them. She was angry when I left her. She – |
| P/M: | Ms Williams was angry? And how did she express this anger? |
| Me: | She wouldn’t write to me. I invited her to my father’s exhibition and she didn’t come. |
| P/M: | Couldn’t this silence be interpreted as a refusal to conduct any kind of a relationship with you? |
| Me: | Of course we ‘conducted a relationship’. Do you think I’m crazy? It was just a game of hers. She wanted me to come home. |
| P/M: | So, again I must ask you how she expressed this wish. Was there any conversation or communication between you that could be construed as encouraging your advances? |
| Me: | It was everything. She loved me. She told me that she loved me all the time. Or rather, it was one of those things she never had to say. From the first time we met – |
| P/M: | That was outside the offices of the therapist who employs you as his… assistant. Is that right? |
| Me: | Yes. Aubrey. He was here, wasn’t he? He can tell you. I mean, she was obviously far more unstable than I realised. She was seeing a therapist, for Christ’s sake. She might have been taking medication. Maybe she should have been taking medication. [PAUSE] Anyway, she started talking to me. Of course I was there. My boss works there. It’s not as though I was waiting for her. She wanted a cigarette and we talked. We had a connection. That’s where it all started. |
| P/M: | Yet Ms Williams claims not to remember exchanging more than a few words with you before the first alleged assault. |
| Me: | I’m the victim here. She’s the crazy one. I would never do anything like this… this… horrible thing she’s accusing me of. I didn’t rape her. I didn’t harass her. I was in love with her. Is that a crime? [PAUSE] I’m not a criminal. You’ve had half my family in here talking to you. They’ll tell you. They can explain. |
| P/M: | As you say, Mr Laird. However, if we return to the letter dated 23rd January. That would be directly following the second alleged assault? |
| Me: | There was no assault. We spent the night together. Why do you have those letters? They were for Alice. They’re not meant to be read by anyone but Alice. |
| P/M: | Ms Williams passed us these as evidence of your stalking. This has been explained to you. And I can’t help but note, when we asked you for any evidence of her correspondence you were unable to provide anything. And found within your possessions were these photographs – |
| Me: | Those are private! They are nothing! I mean – they are proof of our love for each other. How dare you sully them with the idea – |
| P/M: | Isn’t it in fact true that, until your invitation to this exhibition, Ms Williams didn’t have any idea where you were living or where the letters were coming from? For the record, this was the same letter in which you threaten the victim with further assault. Threats which finally led Ms Williams to contact the authorities. |
| Me: | I was upset because she wasn’t coming to the show, that’s all. All couples argue over silly things like that. She didn’t need to write to me. She didn’t need to say or do anything. We were in love. She loved me. That was all I needed to know. |
| | |
| Daniel | |
| |
5th April
The Studio
Dear Aubrey –
Yes, they let me out. I don’t know what you told the police, but I think I owe you a debt of gratitude. You must have been very convincing.
It really has been the most horrible time. I’m actually grateful to be back with Dad and Tatty. It must have been worse than I thought.
Mab collected me yesterday and brought me back before heading to London. She seemed annoyed with me. As if I’d orchestrated the whole business to embarrass her. But most of the guests had left by the time the policemen came to get me, and I think those who remained had enough
champagne in them to be convinced it was some kind of elaborate joke. I certainly don’t see why I should be blamed, let alone subjected to the silent treatment Mab gave me on the journey back from the police station.
When I asked after Freya she actually turned on me with genuine anger.
‘You’ve learnt nothing from this, have you, Dan? Well, I have. I don’t know why I ever let myself be talked into bringing my girl here. Why I ever let her near you. I suppose I thought – I hoped – that even you wouldn’t go there with a member of your own family. I think I actually started to believe the lies I’ve been telling for all these years – believe you could actually change. But I remember, Danny. I’m a fucking elephant when it comes to you. You can’t even see the truth when it’s played out in front of your face.
‘And I
knew
– you fucking well
told
me – about this new girl! Why didn’t I realise? Why didn’t I tell that little shit Aubrey?’
Then she burst into tears. We had to pull over while she recovered herself. I don’t know what on earth she had to cry about. I’m the one who should be weeping after all I’ve been through. I suppose she must have heard about Freya’s behaviour at Dad’s exhibition. I wouldn’t have taken Mab for a strict parent, but it’s amazing what age can do to change a person. Still, it was sad not to be able to say goodbye to my niece.
Mab was good enough to find me a decent solicitor. Not that he had much to say during the endless interviews or when they were reading my private letters or asking me in graphic detail about the minutiae of my sex life. And don’t think I didn’t ask. Still, he got me out, though
he took great pains to explain every last restriction to my new-found freedom. I am not to write, call, visit or contact Alice in any way. I am to remain at home as much as possible and generally keep my head down until the police decide they want to see me again. I am to report to the local police station once a week, just so they can be sure I am doing or not doing everything they have instructed I do or don’t do. It’s fucking ridiculous. I’m being punished for something I haven’t done; for something Alice decided.
I do wish I could just talk to her. There must be some kind of explanation for her behaviour, though at the moment I’m at a loss to think of one. As for leaving the house, I’m not really in a sociable mood. So far there has been nothing in the papers, but – I’m sure in no small part thanks to Maggie – Upchurch is alive with gossip. Every time I step outside the front door I feel as if someone has hung a sign around my neck with RAPIST written in large, ugly letters.
And talking of large and ugly. Not for the first time, I wish I were smaller and less conspicuous. As far as everyone else is concerned, I have been proved the monster I resemble. How can I fight that, Aubrey?
No, I’m best left here with the silent. Dad and Tatty may not be great conversationalists, but they provide everything I need. Namely, ignorance. I don’t think Dad even noticed I’d gone anywhere. It’s quite reassuring to be able to step back into life here. Even if I’ve lost the promise of Alice at the end of it.
Maggie has been strangely absent since my return. I’m not saying I was expecting a welcoming committee, but, what with Mab’s reaction to me, I was hoping for
some tea and sympathy from Maggie. I haven’t seen Sarah either. Since the exhibition weekend, it’s as if society has evaporated. I didn’t think I’d miss them, but I do. There is no distraction from my thoughts of Alice.
Write to me, Aubrey, or send me some recordings to transcribe or something. I need to believe there is a world outside of this business, and you – God help me – are my great hope.
Yes, I realise this makes me pathetic. There is no reason to elaborate on that in your letter.
Daniel
8th April
The Studio
Dear Freya –
I’m sorry about the horrible confusion at your grandad’s exhibition. It’s been occupying too much of my time and mind. Rereading the light happiness of your letters to me has been a welcome relief. I did so enjoy receiving them. I’m so glad we got to meet properly and ‘connect’ (wasn’t that the phrase you used?). I’m also so sorry we didn’t get to say goodbye properly. Be careful of the nonsense your mother tells you. Don’t trust her too much, Freya.
Life is quiet here. Your grandad continues much the same, though I think the business of the exhibition and the influx of people tired him. He seems to have sunk even deeper into himself, if that’s possible. Sometimes I forget he is even here.
Tatty and I have found new routes for our walks. I am in no mood for the polite enquiries of other dog-walkers. I have to be careful not to cross too close to any of the farmers’ homes. Farmers are not great lovers of dogs on their land or near their livestock. And they have been known to be a little too hasty with the shotgun. We keep to the arable fields.
I was surprised the other day to find a row of crows, butcher-birded on posts, across the middle of one field we crossed. I suppose they were meant to serve as some kind of gruesome warning to other birds to stop them picking at the seeds. I’d seen this phenomenon before from the road, but, short-sightedly, had believed the dead crows to be scraps of black plastic catching the breeze. Tatty appreciated the stench, I think. I did not. The crows in the trees seemed completely indifferent. Though they did keep their distance.
Tell me some tales of Corsica,
Uncle Dan
8th April
The Studio
Dear Mab –
I keep thinking back to our little holiday. That wild stretch of coastline full of wind and salt spray. I know I was stupid enough to run from it, but now it seems it’s chasing me. The new routes I take with Tatty remind me of it so. The stark horizon on every side punctuated only by the silhouettes of oak trees, their branches reaching like coral into the sea of the sky. Strange to think it was thoughts of
Alice which haunted me on that holiday. It was thinking of her that eventually drew me away to Manchester and set this whole thing in motion.
The second assault.
All my dreams and hopes and love. Our beautiful night together tainted by those three words. How can she think of anything that happened between us as an assault?
I want to be back on the north Norfolk coast, with all my hopes alive, being hurried and shoved along the long blank sand, Tatty yapping at my feet. I want to take the walk towards the sea at low tide. To follow the lines of debris licked free from the grey sea’s tongue. One day we found a great ridge of starfish, no doubt picked clean off some rig during a distant storm at sea. They were perfect, but quite dry and dead. I had trouble keeping Tatty from playing with them. Another day, layer after layer of razor clam shells, which broke and cracked underfoot. I came home with shards stuck into the tread of my boots.
Always towards the sea. Our beach had a black wreck set in the middle distance. The estuary eddied around it, leaving it stranded on a sand bank. It was impossible to reach, but always appeared temptingly close at low tide. The one landmark in the land of horizon. We always walked towards it and then followed the deeper water round to find the ocean.
I clapped my hands to stop Tatty lapping at the shallow wash. Once, on the way back from one of our walks on the beach, she had to stop and vomit wave after wave of salt water on to the brackish marshes. I didn’t know her body could hold so much water. Afterwards, she looked so weak that I tried to carry her, but she soon squirmed out of my arms and back on to the sandy path.
Before the sea the wet sand hard, pitted and buckled into pools, peopled by nothing save tiny translucent crabs and the odd scrap of red weed. Further down the coast there is talk of seals and special boat trips out to see them. Here on this winter beach we are alone with the sucking snapping holes of lugworms. Here there is life only if you peer closely. Nothing is obvious but sky and sea.
The sea itself is a surprise when we reach it. Busy with its own flexed muscle, it is entirely indifferent to us. Tatty yaps at the waves a little and then trots back to the pools, chasing some improbable scent. She swats and pisses. The sharp tang of urine snapping back to me in the wind. I stare long and hard, testing my eyes against the ocean’s back. Here, a mile from dry land, it waits with perfect patience and feeds on itself.
I’ve never been that comfortable with being ignored. But there, in my insignificance, I found a kind of peace.
