The Art of Friendship (36 page)

She knew that she must act quickly. She must say the essentials before her body closed down and stopped working. Already her vision was blurred and she felt light-headed like she was about to faint.

Her throat felt tight and narrow like a straw. When she finally opened her mouth and formed the words that had lived inside her head for nearly twenty years it sounded like a stranger speaking.

‘My father abused me for the first time on New Year’s Eve when I was eleven.’

Patsy let out a little gasp and Janice opened her eyes but she did not look at her friend. She concentrated very hard on a dark brown knot, like a stain, on one of the old wooden floorboards. A pain, like a shard of glass, shot through her brain making her wince. But she was determined. She had lived in the shadow of fear and self-loathing all her life. She would not let him win – not this time.

She forced herself to go on, her voice flat and emotionless, like it was disconnected from her altogether. ‘It went on for years. When I got away to university I thought I had finally escaped him. I went completely mad. By the age of twenty, I’d slept with forty different men, Patsy. I can’t even remember their names, never mind their faces. And then one day, my father came up to visit me and when he found out I had a boyfriend, he raped me again.’

‘Oh, my God, Janice. Oh, my God.’

‘I never told my parents I was pregnant. I knew they wouldn’t support me. I knew that if I told the truth, no-one would believe me. So I had Pete on my own, living on benefits. They’ve never seen him. I met Keith and moved away and told everyone they were dead. I hope they are dead, both of them.’ Tears came now, silent and abundant, cascading down her cheeks like the rain on the windows. She had stopped shaking, but the knot in her stomach was as tight and hard as it had always been.

‘Your father is…’ Patsy gave a cry and then went quiet.

‘That’s right. Pete’s grandfather, my father, is also his father.’

Patsy muttered something unintelligible like a whispered prayer and then there was silence for some moments before Janice spoke again.

‘There’s so much hurt inside me. My daddy betrayed me and so did my mammy.’ Janice paused and swallowed a ball of grief that threatened to choke her, the way she did almost every day of her life. ‘For years I didn’t want to believe that she knew what was going on. But I think now she must’ve known. My father was a bully and she was afraid of him. I can never forgive her.’

She looked at Patsy then and was unable to summon up any expression at all. Patsy was crying silently. Her face was
a mess of tears and snot. She fumbled in her pocket, pulled out a crumpled hankie and blew her nose loudly. When she was done Patsy said, ‘Did you go to the police? Was he prosecuted?’

‘No,’ said Janice simply, too exhausted to offer an explanation. How could she explain to someone who had never been abused what it was to live in terror? To believe that you had somehow brought this terrible thing upon yourself? To be told that you had ‘asked for it’, that deep down you ‘wanted it’? To be told these terrible lies often enough, and always under the shadow of fear, so that you came in the end to believe them to be true? It had taken Janice years of secret counselling to unravel these deceptions, to finally see herself as an innocent victim. And still she could not shake off the sense of shame, of worthlessness.

Patsy pressed the handkerchief to her lips. ‘Why are you telling me this now, Janice? After all these years?’

‘Because I want you to understand. From the moment I held Pete in my arms, Patsy, I could not love him – not wholly and completely. I remember the first time I had to…to…change his nappy.’

Her stomach heaved and she ran into the loo again. Nothing came up but her body retched and retched all the same. When she was done this time, Patsy was behind her, supporting her under the arm, guiding her back to her place at the bottom of the stairs. Janice slumped down, worn out – telling her story had taken almost every ounce of physical and mental strength.

‘Wait here,’ said Patsy and she went and got a glass of water from the kitchen. She knelt in front of Janice and pressed the cold glass into her hands and said, ‘It’s okay. You don’t have to say any more.’

‘No, I want to,’ said Janice, summoning up the strength
to go on, determined to finish what she had begun. She took a sip of water and continued. ‘When I had to change his nappy, I used to…I used to vomit.’ The glass shook so much she thought the contents would spill out over her. She took a long drink to try and calm herself and, when she removed the glass from her lips, words came tumbling out, one on top of each other as though, imprisoned inside her for so long, they were now desperate for freedom.

‘I couldn’t bond with him. I couldn’t love him no matter how much I tried, no matter how often I told myself that it wasn’t his fault, that he was an innocent. It was so hard trying to raise him. Sometimes I used to leave him crying in his cot for hours because I couldn’t bear to touch him.’

Patsy looked horrified. She put a hand to her mouth.

‘I did. And I know it’s awful. But I didn’t know what else to do. I actually thought about ending it at times and killing Pete too. And then I met Keith and my life changed. He saved me, Patsy. He saved us both. Without him, I don’t think I could’ve carried on.’

Patsy nodded.

‘He never asked questions, you know. He just accepted me and Pete for what we were. And I’m so grateful to him for that. And for loving Pete unconditionally – the way I should’ve.’

Patsy’s hand fell away from her face. She placed them on Janice’s knees. ‘Oh, Janice, you were a good mother. I was there. I saw you.’

Janice placed the glass of water on the floor. ‘It’s sweet of you to say that, it really is. But you’re wrong, Patsy. It was always an act, an effort. I tried, I really did. But a part of my heart has always been closed to Pete. I went through the motions of being a loving mother, but Pete knew. He
knew.
He was always too clever.’ She paused, wiped her nose with
the back of her hand and sniffed. ‘There’s not a day goes by that I don’t think about what happened. I can’t look at Pete but I see my father. He has his mannerisms and his features, even his voice when it broke was my dad’s.’

Patsy looked away from Janice and sniffed.

‘You are right to blame me for what Pete did, Patsy, because I am responsible for what he is. Those early years scarred him badly and I could never make it up to him. The emotional damage was done, I couldn’t undo it.’

Patsy shook her head vehemently. ‘You’re not responsible for Pete’s character, Janice. And after all that’s happened to you, I think you did a wonderful job. No-one could’ve done better.’

Janice let the praise wash over her, absorbing none of it. She deserved none. ‘He won’t speak to me now, you know,’ she said quietly, staring at her hands. The shaking had stopped. ‘We told him that Keith was his adoptive dad and of course he straight away wanted to know who his real dad was. I told him I didn’t know.’ She looked up into Patsy’s face, blotchy from crying. ‘How could I tell him the truth?’

Patsy shook her head in response.

‘He called me an old tart, or something like that.’ Janice forced out a croak of a laugh. Her throat felt dry and rough.

‘That’s awful,’ said Patsy with feeling.

‘It’s okay,’ said Janice with a weak smile. ‘I don’t care if he hates me. All that matters is that he never finds out.’ She was filled with a sudden sense of unease. ‘You understand that, don’t you? How important it is that Pete never finds out?’

Patsy sighed, and made a tutting sound with her lips. She took Janice’s hands in hers, pressed her palms together and held them the way you would if teaching a child how to pray. ‘I understand why you feel like that, Janice. But would
it be so terrible if he found out? Is it any worse than the alternative – believing you were promiscuous and don’t even know the name of his father? It’s not like you did anything wrong. You’ve nothing to be ashamed of.’

Janice shook her head incredulously. ‘You don’t understand. I
know
I’m not to blame. I spent years listening to a therapist telling me I wasn’t to blame. And yet the shame never goes away. I don’t want Pete to have to live with that shame. Can you imagine how he would feel if he knew that he was the result of…’ She looked away from Patsy and took a few seconds to compose herself. ‘The result of rape and incest?’ She brought her gaze, hard and determined, back to Patsy. ‘I want to spare him that, even if it means we’ll never be close.’

‘I don’t know what to say. It’s bad enough him knowing he’s illegitimate. But this…’ Patsy’s voice trailed off.

‘Illegitimacy doesn’t carry the same stigma it used to, Patsy. No-one cares about that sort of thing any more. But this is too grotesque for him to ever find out. It could destroy him. This way I protect him. This way the shame is mine, not his.’ Janice slipped her hands out from Patsy’s grasp and folded them defensively across her chest. ‘And anyway, he has a father. He has Keith.’

‘But,’ said Patsy gently, leaning back a little, ‘if you let him go on believing this, he’ll resent you.’

‘Even if he knew the truth, he might still resent me. He might even be disgusted with me…blame me. Who knows? I can’t bear him to know the truth.’ She shivered and ran her hands up her arms. ‘I just can’t.’

‘Don’t you want to have a close relationship with Pete?’

Janice put her head in her hands. ‘Of course I do. In an ideal world. But we didn’t have a close relationship before this and I’m not sure anything would change that now.’

‘Being honest with him might.’

Janice shook her head and rubbed her brow. ‘No, it wouldn’t. And I can’t be honest with him. I won’t. Not about this.’

Patsy let out a soft sigh and her shoulders dipped. She looked defeated.

‘Promise me you won’t ever tell anyone about this,’ said Janice.

‘You don’t need to ask me that. But, yes, I promise. I take it Keith doesn’t know, then?’

Janice shook her head. ‘After I married Keith I wanted to start afresh. And I did. I put my past, and everything in it, behind me. I became the respectable wife of a lawyer. I changed the way I looked, the way I behaved, even the way I talked.’ She tried to give a little laugh but it came out flat, like a wrong note. ‘I didn’t always talk like this,’ she said, slipping into the down-to-earth Enniskillen accent she had worked so hard to eradicate. ‘You’re the only person, apart from a counsellor, that I’ve told. I don’t want Clare or Kirsty or anyone else to find out.’

‘They won’t find out from me, Janice. You know that.’

‘I’m terrified that Keith will find out what I was like before I met him. All the men…He would leave me – because he would, I know he would – and then the whole town would know what I was really like.’ She was shaking. ‘I couldn’t bear that, Patsy. It would ruin Keith. He’s chairman of the Rotary and the community council and an elder at the church. Can you imagine what the gossip would do to him?’

Patsy got up off her knees creakily and sat down beside Janice, elbow to elbow, on the stairs. ‘Listen to me, Janice. He’s not going to find out. Ever. You don’t have to worry. It’s in the past and that’s where it’s going to stay.’ She pressed her hands between her legs and said in a voice that was
cracking, ‘I’m sorry that you had to endure all that, Janice. It must’ve been awful for you. It must still be awful.’

Janice bowed her head. Patsy was quiet for a little while. She cleared her throat and when she spoke again her voice was more assured. ‘I owe you and Keith an apology. I’m ashamed of myself for carrying on with this ridiculous vendetta against you both. I…I just wanted someone to blame.’ She paused, a sob escaped her lips and she immediately composed herself. ‘I found out that Laura was as much to blame as Pete for what happened, but I didn’t want to accept it. She’s paid a high enough price for her foolishness, God help her. I chose to see her as a victim because it let me channel all my anger somewhere else. That was unjust of me.’

‘That’s alright,’ said Janice.

There was a quiet rush of air as Patsy inhaled, held her breath and asked, ‘Do you forgive me?’

‘There’s nothing to forgive.’ Patsy breathed out and Janice went on, ‘And if it’s worth anything, I think Laura did the right thing having the abortion.’

‘Oh, Janice, how can it be “right”? There is no “right” in that situation. No matter what she did it would’ve felt wrong – abortion, adoption, or keeping the baby and struggling to raise it as a single mum.’

‘I guess what I mean is that it was the best thing to do under the circumstances. I would’ve had an abortion if I could.’

‘No-one would blame you for that, Janice.’

‘You couldn’t get an abortion in Northern Ireland then and I didn’t have the money to go to England.’

‘Nothing’s changed,’ said Patsy bitterly. ‘Laura was alright because she had our support and money to pay for the abortion, the flights and the hotel. We were made to feel like…like criminals, sneaking over the water to a private clinic.’

Patsy put her face in her hands. Janice put her arm around her friend and rubbed the small of her back in a circular motion.

Patsy sobbed quietly. ‘I think of that baby, my first grandchild, every day, Janice. I imagine a little blond-haired boy – or girl – with rosy cheeks and blue eyes running into my arms, playing in my garden in the summer.’

‘You’ll have that one day, Patsy. When the girls are older and married and the time’s right for having babies.’

Patsy sniffed and looked up. ‘Yes, I hope so. But I’ll never forget.’ She wiped the tears from her face with the now-saturated handkerchief and said, ‘Oh, look at me. Blubbering away like an idiot. I’m the one who should be comforting you – not the other way around.’

‘That’s okay. My hurt’s an old one, Patsy, sealed if not healed by time. Yours is still raw.’ She wanted to tell Patsy that her grief would ease eventually, but experience had taught her that was not the case. The pain didn’t ease, it crystallised into something hard and cold, like stone. The hurt was always there.

Janice held onto Patsy’s arm and rested her head on her friend’s shoulder. They sat like that for some time, not speaking, listening to the creaks of the house and the rain outside. Exhaustion washed over Janice – her eyelids drooped like shutters and her limbs felt heavy as rocks. Yet she felt more at peace than she had done in a long, long while. Not just back to the time before she and Patsy had fallen out, but right back to her childhood when she was still innocent. Sharing her story had reduced the potency of its hold over her. It had not erased the horror of her past, but it had polished it until the rough edges were gone and it didn’t chafe the way it used to. The thing she had feared most – telling her story – had, ironically, partly set her free.