Without Consent (7 page)

‘Yes,' said father at last. ‘A very good girl. Always worked, Shell. Never cost us.' Bailey could not help himself, he leant forward with his arms resting on his thin knees. His legs were too long for the narrow room; Todd thought he had a face like a hatchet.

‘What exactly do you mean by “good”? Do you mean
good in school, good at helping blind people at zebra crossings, kind to animals, or not many boyfriends?' He spoke with all the congeniality of a cobra, but quietly, scratching his head as an afterthought to suggest genuine confusion. Both mum and dad bridled; mother spoke first.

‘I mean a good girl, that's what I mean! Not one of those dole spongers! And she lives with this decent bloke. Been going out with him since she was sixteen. Works hard, he does, too. Electrician; works shifts. They got a flat on a mortgage. Getting married.' She spat the last with a note of triumph.

‘She liked animals,' father added as a delayed reaction. ‘Least, she did when she was a kid.'

Mother darted from her chair and produced a photo album, as if by magic. She placed it on Bailey's lap with a smart thump and retreated to her own seat to sit with folded arms. Todd sensed a conversational hiatus, filled it blithely, looking at the bovine face of dad.

‘What kind of animals?'

‘Pardon?'

‘She didn't really like animals,' mother interrupted, anxious to avoid anything which might suggest a lack of hygiene in any sense. ‘Only gerbils and things.'

Bailey was suffering from a desperate desire to laugh, another to scream. He was turning the pages of the album, seeing Shelley as an overdressed baby, held aloft by her mother like a trophy; Shelley at school, earnest in socks; Shelley with her mates and cousins on her thirteenth birthday, a pretty child, refusing to smile for the camera. He felt only relief that these parents had never met the age of the camcorder, the better to depict in movement what was, to
his jaundiced view, that fleeting sly expression of their child. Did not like animals. Having reached the point where the photos tailed off, Shelley aged fifteen, he snapped the album shut and placed it back in Mrs P's lap. She had the impression of a large pale ghost coming towards her and retreating, quailed slightly and blinked. By the time she looked again, he was back as he had been, legs crossed this time.

‘When was she getting married?' Todd asked, looking like an earnest bank manager, almost cocking his hand behind an ear for the reply.

‘What do you mean,
was?
She still is, isn't she? Next month, sometime. She isn't dead, is she?'

Oh, she lied, she lied. All mothers know the date of a daughter's wedding. Did they? Bailey was getting married himself, sometime next month. When the weather was fine, whenever; month decided, date not fixed; a register office do. Left deliberately vague, God help them both. Summer, Helen had said. We'll think about the arrangements two weeks before. It occurred to him, in this frozen room, just why they might both be so diffident. This daughter's mother seemed to regard a wedding as a prize for winning a race.

‘He's a lovely lad, her fiancée,' Mrs Pelmore said fondly. ‘Lovely. It was him reported it. Then, after the police came, he phoned me. He's good to her. Steady.'

‘Did you know about her other involvement with the police?' Todd asked.

‘She's never been in trouble with the police,' dad cut in.

‘I know,' Todd said easily. ‘But there was an occasion, not long ago, when she went out clubbing with a friend,
and the friend had an accident on the way home. Shelley helped us with information. We think that's how she met Mr Ryan.'

Mrs Pelmore looked blank.

‘How often do you see Shelley?' Bailey asked.

There was a long fidgeting pause. Mother opened her mouth to speak and closed it again. Father hauled himself upright, the bones of his elbows crunching on the uncomfortable chair. Mother put out a warning hand which he ignored.

‘She never comes near us,' he said flatly. ‘Not if she can help it. He comes, though, her boy. He comes to see us. That's how we know how she is.'

‘I
know,' said Anna Stirland, ‘about rape. Oh, I don't mean in a legal sense, I mean I know about violation. I work with women, you see. It's a kind of violation, having a baby you don't want, by a man you don't love. I don't meet many men, though in my kind of environment there are a lot of them around. Men seem to like me well enough, but they don't, well, look at me. I'm one of the lads, a good sport; they'll put that on my gravestone. To tell the truth, I don't do much looking either; no point in a great lump like me flirting, is there? Only when I look at these baby kids, I know how I'd like my life to go: in the direction of a household with a nice man and a couple of children. Especially children. Well, I'm over thirty and the prospect gets ever more remote. I just don't like men well enough to try. Then I met John. That isn't his real name. I'm not going to tell you his real name.'

‘Why not?'

‘You'll see. And if this is dictation, you aren't supposed to interrupt.'

‘Sorry.'

‘He worked in the same place as me. We got on well. I used to watch his hands and think, God, you are the most beautiful creature nature ever invented. He had all the humanity I like in a man; vulnerability, too. Not the sort of drivel you'd put in a statement, is it? I suppose it might have been obvious that I went into spasms whenever I saw him, but the others didn't seem to notice, so I thought he hadn't either. We copers have self-control, you know. Yes, you probably do know. What would have been more obvious was the fact that I sparkled when he was around, became the life and soul of the party, full of wit and energy. Falling in love must be like that. I've always hated the phrase. I thought the best thing would be to be friends first, let love, or whatever you choose to call it, grow like a plant. But desire isn't like that, is it? It's a bloody affliction. It has nothing to do with approval, mutual feeling and appreciation, nothing at all. It's a ghastly virus, immune to medicine.'

She gulped her wine. Helen sat in front of her notepad, trying to make herself as anonymous as a shorthand-taker at a board meeting.

‘And we were friends, I thought. He has a special smile he reserved for me; he seemed to seek me out, even when every other female in the place simpered and would have thrown their knickers at him, given half the chance. So I let hope spring eternal. Perhaps one day he'd say, let's have a drink? How about dinner sometime? The one thing I wasn't going to do was make the suggestion: I was too
scared of rejection. I sort of prayed it would come from him. It's always better to live in hope than risk the negative, don't you think? Well, it is if you look like me. Such sensitivity, I have.'

Her fingernails were neatly trimmed, Helen noticed. There were flecks of paint on the back of both wrists. Anna stuffed her hands into the long sleeves of the kaftan she wore, as if hiding them.

‘But no, he didn't take whatever bait I was offering, not in months, and then he was posted somewhere else. A man with a career path, you see. I was devastated at the thought of not seeing him again. So there I was, acting out of character, saying, why don't you come round to supper before you go? He said he couldn't, but he'd drop round for a drink sometime. I had to be content with that. Had to? I
was
content. Doesn't take much to please me. I worshipped him.'

Helen caught a waft of scent from the garden. It would be pleasant to eat at this table, with the doors open like this and the blaze of flowers outside.

‘I waited, of course one waits, but not all the time. He turned up, like they do, when least expected. It was that hot spell, a couple of weeks since; freakishly hot. Midnight or so, too late for a casual call. I looked a mess; it made me flustered. I was in the living room.' She jerked her head in the direction of the first room off the hall which Helen had only noticed briefly. ‘I was doing my ironing. Well I tried to smooth myself down, fetched us a drink, but it isn't easy to look both alluring and casual when all you have on is a long T-shirt. I was too flustered to get the ice; he did that.' She gulped.

‘I put down the drinks: gin and tonic, first things first; I was joking and had my back to him. I wanted to unplug the iron, put the board away, because I didn't want the damn thing littering up the room. I wanted … I wanted him to see what a nice room it was. Admire me for it. Pathetic, isn't it?'

‘No,' Helen said. ‘It isn't.'

‘And then he was on me. No preliminaries, no nothing. I thought at first he was hugging me from behind, fooling around, and I didn't want that. I didn't want a quick poke, for God's sake; even I can get one of those if I want nothing more. I wanted sweet words, admiration, some sort of tentative beginning, some curiosity about
me …
Oh, I don't know what I wanted, I didn't even want him to see my bare knees.' Her voice fell into silence. Helen wondered if it was permissible to smoke a cigarette and decided not.

‘Oh, do smoke if you want. I think I'll have one too. It's amazing the number of nurses who smoke, you know. Doctors, too.'

‘Was he a doctor?'

‘Did I say that?' Anna said sharply. ‘No, I didn't say that. Of course he wasn't a doctor, how could he be? A sort of technician, really.' She took the cigarette with a shaking hand.

‘I fell onto the iron. He pushed me down against it; it fell over. I don't know if he meant to do that, but he must have known it hurt, because I screamed. My arm was burnt.' She pulled back her sleeve. There was a triangular imprint of a fading burn mark, still livid.

‘The board fell over. I fell with it, I think; on my stomach, against the iron, then I rolled over against it again. I was
lying on top of it, screaming; he seemed to be pressing me down. I think it was then I realized he meant to do me harm. I started struggling, but I was kind of paralysed, too; I could only focus on how much the burning hurt. Next thing I knew, he'd hauled the T-shirt over my face. I was on my back, couldn't see anything. I began to cry, I think. I thought he was going to rape me, kill me, I don't know what. I couldn't move. He held my arms down, but there was really no need. Even when he moved and I heard what I thought was the rustling of paper, I didn't move. Then I felt this thing going in between my legs. I think I'd already made a half-conscious decision to stay still. Something stuck up me. Rammed. I might have passed out for a minute.'

The ash on the end of her cigarette smouldered and dropped onto the clean table. Helen brushed it away; it burnt slightly against her palm.

‘I don't know why, I thought of a sixty-millilitre syringe.' Anna's voice had gone down to a murmur, as if she was speaking to herself

‘You can use them for irrigating a womb … and other plumbing operations; they're sort of phallic shaped, cold …' Her voice hardened. ‘I was simply aware of being fucked and being icy, icy cold. My stomach in contractions; me, fighting with the T-shirt, getting my face free. The fucking stopped. I certainly can't call it anything else but fucking. Certainly not making love. I somehow sat up, got the shirt over my head, and there he was, sitting in the chair laughing. Me, naked, flopping all over the place; him, sitting with his legs crossed, immaculately dressed as usual. He favoured the smart casual. Nice white cotton tops, smart linen-look trousers, handsome belt.'

‘Dressed?' Helen murmured, incredulous.

Anna extended both her arms, shaking them free of the purple kaftan sleeves. The colour of it suited her. The burns were almost symmetrical.

‘So was I, dressed, I suppose. I was wearing three large burns. And I was so cold. And then what did he do? Swallowed his gin, came over to me, kissed me on the forehead and said, there, poppet, that was what you wanted, wasn't it? Then he left. He was … pleased with himself. As if he'd done me a favour. There's more wine in the fridge,' she added. ‘Could you get it?'

The fridge was empty apart from the bottle. It looked new and reeked of cleanser.

‘Isn't it funny that I can put wine in that thing, but not food?' Anna said chattily. ‘It's all his fault.'

Helen kept her expression calm, privately thinking, The woman has flipped. This is not making sense.

‘I hadn't even got to my feet by the time the door slammed,' Anna continued. ‘And I heard his footsteps going down the road before I moved. Then I looked down between my legs and I thought I was bleeding. A sort of red-coloured trickle was coming out onto the carpet. I stood up and it dripped on the floor. By this time, I was imagining some major haemorrhage. What had he done? Was it a knife? Hadn't I noticed any pain, only cold, because the burns hurt so much and that was all I had room to feel? Bleed to death, go on, I told myself, but I knew it wasn't blood.'

Anna started to laugh. ‘It was a popsicle. One of those cheap ice lollies kids like so much, like a long icicle, wrapped in polythene; horrible things, but I kept them in
the freezer for neighbours' kids. Should I laugh? He laughed. Get the girl all lathered up, then cool her down … it is funny, isn't it?'

‘No. It isn't funny.'

‘Promise me it isn't funny … When I sat on the side of my bed, I was weeping strawberry juice. Tell me, lady lawyer, was that simply a joke, or was that rape?'

Helen cleared her throat, reached for wine and cigarettes simultaneously.

‘According to the letter of the law, no, that wasn't rape.'

Anna began laughing, a grim and mirthless chuckle.

‘No,' she said, ‘I don't suppose it was. That's me, isn't it? Not even worth that.'

‘Where, on the trial of any offence under this Act, it is necessary to prove sexual intercourse (whether natural or unnatural), it shall not be necessary to prove the completion of the intercourse by the emission of seed, but the intercourse shall be deemed to be complete upon proof of penetration only. According to the old authorities, even the slightest penetration will be sufficient … It is submitted that this remains the law under the present statutory arrangement.'