Making Marion (17 page)

Jake and I had become friends now. It never crossed my mind he would take my saying yes to the party as agreeing to more than that.

A reason not to go? Eight pints of beer, countless shots and a simmering rage of seasonal rejection.

Sometimes we do well to listen to our fear.

T
he party took place in the village hall. Most of the usual faces were there. Jake bought us each a drink, and we found seats. His Christmas had been tough, without his mum. The fragmented remains of his family had spent the holiday eating, drinking and ripping one another to shreds.

The conversation widened during the evening as a few others came to join us, including Jake's band mates and their girlfriends. Reuben came over to say hello.

“Where's Erica, then?” Jake craned his neck at the crowd.

“She's gone into Nottingham with her flatmates.”

“What? You've let her out on her own on New Year's Eve? Man! You're brave. Or stupid.”

Reuben's jaw clenched. “I'd be a lot stupider to spend the evening following Erica and her friends about on their tour of overcrowded, overloud, vomit-soaked nightclubs from hell just because you thought I shouldn't trust her. I'd actually rather be here. Even if it means having to talk to you.” This last sentence he said under his breath. Jake didn't quite catch it, but his expression soured as he watched Reuben walk away.

As Jake continued drinking, he touched me more and more often, his arm draping around my shoulders, or his hand stroking up and down my leg. He shuffled his chair until he was almost facing me, side-on to the table, and started whispering into my neck, drunken
ramblings that sent bugs squirming down my ear holes and sweat prickling the back of my knees.

Jo invited me to dance with her and a few others. I gratefully accepted, feeling the weight of Jake's stare with every step.

After a couple of songs, he crept up behind me and snaked his arms around my waist. Spinning me around, he pulled me up against his chest. I tried to ease back, but his embrace clamped tight.

“Come on, dance with me, Marion. Loosen up, have some fun. It's New Year's Eve.”

“You're the one who needs to loosen up. You're crushing me.” I laughed, but it was shrill and hollow.

“Sorry.” He switched to a ballroom hold, swaying us across the dance floor, knocking into people and never quite in time with the music. I clamped my teeth together and waited for the song to end.

“I'll be back in a minute,” I muttered, making a quick exit.

Locking myself into a cubicle in the ladies, I collapsed onto the seat and tried to work out how I could get Jake to back off. I scrunched my eyelids together, refusing to cry. It was fine. Jake was my friend. He would be more embarrassed than anything.

Someone banged on the door, yelling at me to hurry up. I left, and spotting an open fire exit I stepped outside to phone for a taxi. Before the call connected a hand grabbed me. I dropped the phone.

“Jake!” My phone had split open on the concrete surface of the car park. I bent down to pick up the pieces. Jake shoved his hands under my arms and jerked me back up.

“Who are you phoning?” His face was right in mine, eyes burning, skin clammy with sweat.

“A taxi. I'm not feeling great. I think I need to go home.”

“What? It's not midnight yet. You can't go now.” He smiled, waving an unsteady hand at the sky.

“I know, but I'm really not feeling well. I'm not going to be much fun.”

“Oh, come on.” He leaned forwards, propping himself up on the wall beside me. I backed away, but hit another wall. I was boxed in.

Jake started stroking my hair. I could smell his hot breath: beer and whisky and something sour that I didn't recognize. “You're lovely, Marion. I think about you all the time – about what it would be like to kiss you.”

“Jake! I said I'm not well. Don't do this now.” I wasn't lying. My skull was being hammered from the inside. I thought I might throw up.

He lifted his other hand to the wall, trapping me between his arms. Bending forward to kiss me, his lips pressed hard against mine, his tongue forcing its way inside my mouth.

Please, don't.

Lost in blinding panic, I was fifteen years old again and tied up in Ballydown woods. It was no longer brick scraping my back but the gnarled bark of an oak tree. I could smell the wet peat and Declan's rank sweat. My body had shut down. The only scream was the soundless cries from the girl inside my throat. Hands gripped my ribcage, working to push up my top. When the freezing cold air hit the skin on my stomach I came to.

It's Jake. It isn't him. Move! You are not tied up. YOU ARE NOT TIED UP.

I brought my knee up, hard, between Jake's legs. He twisted to the side and relaxed his grip enough for me to get both my hands on his chest and push. He stumbled, losing his balance. I pushed again, harder, furious.

He lurched to the side, his head smacking off the wall next to us. “What are you playing at?”

I was already moving away from the wall, gearing up to run. He stretched out his hand to grab hold of me, and I whirled away from his grasp.

There was a shout, a screech, a loud thud. Everything went black.

 

I woke up enveloped in the softest quilt, patterns of light filtering through shutters scattered across the wall beside the bed. The room was large, although warm from a lit fire that crackled and popped
in the stillness. I could see a white iron bedstead, a white vanity unit and chest of drawers, along with a bedside table and armchair. The walls were papered in soft pink, and I had the surreal feeling of having been transported back in time while I slept.

A clock on the table said ten to two. Judging by the light, this was afternoon not early morning. Sluggish and disorientated, it took me a while to bring to mind where I was, and what had happened. The Hall. Of course. I vaguely remembered Ginger helping me into soft pyjamas, washing the scrapes on my back and leaving me with hot tea and ibuprofen. My head still ached, but only noticeably so when I touched it. I could feel bruises on my shoulders and back, and discovered more on my legs and hips, starkly purple against the ivory skin.

I lay in bed for a long time. When my tears had dried up, I swung my feet onto the polished floor. Cautiously lifting my body out of the bed, I slipped on the pair of fleecy slippers someone had left out for me, and the towelling robe I found hanging on the back of the door. I wanted to stay in this cocoon forever, but I needed to empty my bladder and, more urgently in my mind right then, I had to find out what had happened to Jake.

After gratefully locating the bathroom, I limped down the back staircase to the kitchen, where I found Sunny making soup. He said nothing, but brought me a mug of hot tea and some toast, resting one hand gently on my shoulder for a moment before going back to his chopping. I sipped the tea to soothe my throat, leaving the toast. Once I had finished, Sunny wiped his hands on his apron and sat down opposite me.

“Are you ready for the running of the gauntlet?”

I nodded. I wanted it over with so I could go back home. I would have simply walked back in Ginger's pyjamas, except that I knew they would come after me, and the thought of this invading my caravan was unbearable.

“Are you sure, now, Marion? You should be eating first.”

I took a bite of toast, which made it about three inches down my oesophagus before I threw up.

An hour later, just after sunset, I tried again. Having managed a few bites of a cheese sandwich, washed down with more sweet tea and ibuprofen, I sat with Katarina and waited for the lord and lady of the house.

I don't know if it was upper-class English reserve, or unusual wisdom and sensitivity, but – God bless them – Ginger and Archie got through the next two hours without tears, touching, flapping or fuss.

Did I want to contact the police about Jake?

No, I did not.

Did I want them to speak to Scarlett?

I couldn't see any way around that. But, as ridiculous as it sounds, I didn't want Jake to lose his job.

“What happened to him?”

Ginger looked steadily at me across the table. “Archie took Jake home.”

“How many people know?”

“Everybody knows you were hit by a van in the car park. Only us, Sunny, Katarina and Reuben know it was something more serious than too much to drink that sent you spinning into the path of the van.”

My head seemed too heavy for my neck. I propped it up on my hands, letting my hair fall in front of my face. “It wasn't anything more serious. That's all it was.”

“
That's all it was?
” Reuben's rough hand tipped up my chin, so my hair slipped to the side. He stalked away, returning a minute later with a mirror that he had taken from the cloakroom wall. He shoved the mirror in front of my face so that I had no option but to see.

I closed my eyes, too late. Angry to be crying again.

He slammed his hand on the table-top. “I saw you with him, Marion. You need to tell Brenda what that scum did.”

“Sit down, Reuben.” Ginger spoke softly, but she meant it.

“There's nothing to tell.”

Was that true?

“So what happens next time he gets drunk and does nothing again – to some other poor girl?”

I pressed my hands against the ache in my chest, sure the growing pressure would crack my ribs.

“Jake isn't a monster. Believe me. I would know.”

“So what, you do nothing? Let him get away with it?”

I shook my head, too battered to argue.

Archie moved his chair next to mine. “You are absolutely sure you don't want us to contact the police?”

I nodded. Rightly or wrongly, I was sure.

“Okay. Well, whatever happened, I spoke to Jake this morning. He is going to stop drinking and attend counselling for his other issues.”

Reuben shook his head in disbelief. “Do you really think, even if he could stop drinking, it would make a difference? You're either the kind of animal who is capable of this, or you aren't.”

Archie levelled his gaze at his son. “You're wrong. Alcoholism and depression are fearful compatriots. Separately and alone they can cause noble men to do terrible things. Together, unchecked, they can destroy any trace of the decent man that once was. If Jake will accept help now, after this first fall, he has a good chance of recovery. This can become the wake-up call to snatch him back from the brink of a very slippery slope to hell.”

“How can you be so sure? How do you know you aren't kidding yourself?”

Archie sat, back straight, shoulders squared. Ginger extended her arm and took hold of his hand.

“Because I have been that man.”

Reuben became very still.

“When your brother… When we lost Henry, I entered a very dark time in my life. I don't need to describe it, or who I became. But by the grace of God, and the astounding love of your mother, herself suffering beyond what any woman should have to bear, I was
able to find restoration before any permanent damage was done. Your mother chose to forgive, and to believe. If Marion can offer that same hope to Jake, I am prepared to stand with them.”

“You're assuming Jake is going to go along with this.”

“Yes.”

“And if not?”

Archie frowned. “Then God help him.”

I pushed my chair back and levered myself up. “Please! Nothing happened. Jake tried to kiss me, I pulled away, and didn't see the van. Can't we let it go? Forget about it?”

Reuben left the room, slamming the door behind him. I then registered the bandage on his right hand.

“His hand?”

Katarina sat back and lifted her palms in the air. “Oh yes, Marion, did you not see? Jake will have black eyes and a breaking nose to go along with his sore head today.”

 

I insisted on going home. Archie drove me as I was, still dressed in the pyjamas under a borrowed coat, the bag containing my washed clothes on the back seat. I shoved them, still in the bag, to the back of one of the cupboards.

In the caravan, Archie made me yet another cup of tea, which I left untouched on the table beside an uneaten piece of cake. He left soon after. With the door locked and every curtain closed, I stepped into the shower. I stayed there, my tears intermingling with the spray, until I couldn't stand up any longer. Pulling on my own jogging bottoms and sweatshirt, I fell into bed, knowing from experience that even though my bones sagged with exhaustion, I would not sleep that night.

I allowed myself three days of blurry, tear-streaked wallowing. I ate nothing but chocolate and the soup Katarina brought in a flask, poured out into a bowl and threatened to spoon-feed me if I didn't take it myself. I lay in bed, on the sofa, curled up on the bottom of the shower. I said nothing, thought about everything, watched with
fascination as my bruises turned black, then green. I forgave Jake. I forgave myself for trusting him. I read my ridiculous New Year's resolution and decided to keep it. On the 5th January, I looked in the mirror at my brutal complexion and laughed.

“Get over yourself, Marion. You were groped. It happens to women every day, all over the world. So it brought back some foul memories? Just be grateful it wasn't anything close to what you had to deal with before. You know he's gone for good. Jake is not the monster. Just a rubbish date.”