Wronged Sons, The (35 page)

I placed my hand on the bedroom doorknob, and began to turn it. Inside came the stifled grunts of two bodies colliding that did not belong together. I recognised the sounds of your muffled groans the moment I heard them.

I stopped, removed my hand and the world fell silent. I clenched my stomach as a dozen invisible fists punched me over and over again. I didn’t need to open the door to know what was happening. All I’d have accomplished was to allow a mental picture to become a reality that would etch itself into my brain forever. So I left you both to continue my ruin.

I suppressed my tears and crept back downstairs, weaving my way through our friends, then snuck out through the front door and down the darkened lane towards the woods. I bulldozed my way through bushes and bracken before the moon’s glow illuminated a clearing. I threw myself on a fallen tree trunk, buried my head in my hands and wept.

You were the one who knew the most about me. You’d accepted all my insecurities and knew how important family was to me. You were the only one who understood how much emphasis I placed on honesty. It was you who’d encouraged me to believe not everyone was like my mother.

But you’d lied. It was all lies. You’d made the ultimate betrayal and with Dougie, of all people.

I racked my brain to work out how long I could have been oblivious to your poisoned coupling. I thought back to the many occasions I’d returned home late to find him in the company of my family. My family. Not his.

How could I have been so mistaken about him? Everything I had presumed to know about Dougie had been a figment of my own imagination. The kiss he’d given me as a lad had been a foolish, one-off impulse. The covert glances he’d thrown at us over the years had nothing to do unrequited feelings towards me – they’d all been directed at you.

His willingness to cross such a sacred boundary horrified me. His desire for what was mine had more than likely directed his anger towards poor Beth. She and I were collateral damage in a war we were unaware we’d been fighting.

I wondered how many years of devious plotting and scheming it had taken before he found the right time. Me overworked; you under-loved. And that night, the moon and the stars had aligned just perfectly for you both to kill me.

***

September 14, 11.30pm

We squeezed past everyone as I followed Dougie upstairs and into our bedroom. I closed the door and sat on the bed.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s the wine talking,” I began. “I just wanted you to know that I understand and I’m fine with it.”

“You’ve always known though, haven’t you?” he asked; his forehead furrowed.

“Yes; ever since school. It doesn’t matter though because Simon’s lucky to have both of us who care about him so much.”

Dougie smiled and looked to the floor. Suddenly his face fell.

“Yes, he’s really lucky to have someone like you, isn’t he Catherine?” His sarcastic tone took me by surprise.

“Is that why you invite me over?” he continued, “so you can rub my nose in it? So you can keep showing me that you won?”

“What? No! No,” I stuttered. “Don’t be silly. I like spending time with you. We all do.”

“Don’t bullshit me; I’m your charity case,” he shouted. “You do it to feel better about yourself. I listen to you complain about how little time Simon spends with you, while you sit in your perfect house with your perfect children as your perfect husband works all the hours God sends to keep his perfect little Princess happy. Except you’re not perfect, are you?”

I’d never heard Dougie speak to anyone like that and it made me nervous.

“And despite everything you have, still you moan,” he added. “But what do I have, Catherine? What do I have? Nothing. And whose fault is that?”

“You can’t blame me for Beth leaving!”

“I’m not talking about that silly cow; you know who I mean. You took away the only good thing I had in my life.”

“What? Dougie, this is silly,” I reasoned. “Simon never wanted you as anything more than a friend!”

“And what makes you think you’re better for him than me?”

“Because he chose me over you!”

Dougie said nothing and the room went quiet. I wanted to leave, and leave quickly. I didn’t know the man Dougie had become. He wasn’t my friend any more; he was a stranger with a temper I didn’t like.

He glared at me with utter distaste as I stood up and moved towards the door, but he blocked my path with his arm. My pulse raced and I swallowed hard.

“I haven’t finished,” he growled. “What’s so special about you then, eh? What exactly does he see in you? 'Cos I’m fucked if I can see it.”

“What’s got into you?” I replied, trying to stop my voice from cracking.

“You have. You get under my skin and you make it crawl. You deliberately hurt people then you sit back and enjoy watching them suffer. You think you know everything about everybody, but you don’t. You make me sick.”

“You’re drunk and talking rubbish, now get out of my way.”

I tried in vain to push him to one side, but he wouldn’t budge. Instead, he grabbed my wrists and pulled his face close to mine.

“You aren’t going anywhere sweetheart,” he spat.

Before I could struggle, he turned me around, twisted my arm behind my back and marched me towards the bed. I opened my mouth to scream for help but before I could make a sound, he clamped his hand over it. Then he shoved me face down on to the bed. Instinctively I sank my teeth into his hand but he retaliated by punching the back of my head, dazing me. I kicked my legs but they wouldn’t budge under the weight of his body.

“No, Dougie, let me go,” I shouted, but my cries were muffled by the bedspread.

From behind, I felt him yank down my skirt and underwear, then he pulled down his trousers before forcing himself into me. I squirmed and fought but eventually his brut strength pummelled me into submission.

His hot, foul, beery breath scorched the back of my neck. I tried to yell again but the pain made me wretch, and I covered my cheek and sheets with sick. Every part of me throbbed at the same time, struggling to eject the parasite.

Suddenly amongst the music and voices echoing around the house, I heard footsteps running up the stairs. I begged God to guide whoever it was into the bedroom and end my hell.

Dougie was oblivious to the person outside the door. Then the footsteps stopped as quickly as they started. My scream came out as a muffled moan as my head was pushed ever deeper into the mattress. I begged for the bedroom door to open but my guardian angel paused, and walked away.

I let out my last cry and then, to my eternal shame, I gave up my struggle. Everything fell quiet and all I heard was his shallow breath and the clink of his belt buckle against his shoes before he climaxed.

Even when he finished, he continued to lie on me, his whole wretched body suffocating me. He remained inside me for a few more moments but I was no longer in pain. I’d been swallowed by numbness. My senses shut down until his weight lifted off me.

Then he pulled his trousers up and left without saying another word.

*

I lay there for I don’t know how long, immobilised and still partially undressed, trying to make sense of what had happened. It didn’t make sense, but I needed it to.

I think Dougie had punished me for taking you away. Somehow I’d been responsible for you having a mind of your own and making your own choices. I’d become the one he blamed for everything that went wrong in his life and he needed to force me to understand how helpless he felt by making me feel the same as him.

A voice shouted my name from outside in the garden below and it brought me back to reality. I stood up, took clean underwear from the chest of drawers and headed for the en-suite bathroom. I wiped myself and saw blood on the toilet paper. I flushed it away and then fell to the floor. I was sick in the basin until there was nothing left to bring up. I was empty in every sense of the word.

I raised my head and glanced at myself in the mirror. I’d never noticed how unforgiving it was until then. I wiped my eyes and mouth and forced myself not to cry. I held my hands together so tightly to stop my arms from shaking that I thought my fingers might break.

Then after a time, slowly and awkwardly, I rejoined the party. I looked around nervously, but Dougie must have left. I was relieved when I couldn’t find you either. I had no idea how to tell you what had just happened.

So I carried on, as best I could, like nothing was out of the ordinary. I smiled, I laughed and I topped up people’s glasses. But the life and soul of the party was dying inside.

When the numbers finally dwindled in the early hours of the morning, and you, I presumed, were asleep in one of the kids’ empty bedrooms, I remained wide awake. I washed dishes, scooped rubbish into black bin bags and cleaned the house until everything was spotless.

Except for me.

***

Today, 7.40pm

The world beyond her front doorstep could have exploded into a tumbling mass of fire and brimstone but it still wouldn’t have been enough to break the eye contact between them.

He knew that for twenty-five years, he had got things very, very wrong. And that was by no means the worst of it.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Northampton, Twenty-Seven Years Earlier

September 18, 1.25am

I pretended I was asleep when I heard you get up and leave the bedroom, then quietly close the front door.

I knew you’d been having difficulties sleeping and guessed you’d probably gone to put in a few more hours in your office in the garage. You’d done that a lot and secretly I was glad. What Dougie did to me wasn’t my fault, but it didn’t stop me feeling like I was the most disgusting human being on the planet.

I’d never been more in control of my emotions than I was for those first few days after his attack. I was afraid that if stopped running even for a minute, I’d grind to a halt and fall to the floor into a thousand shattered pieces. So if I kept moving, I wouldn’t have time to think. I occupied every waking moment of my day with multiple trips to the supermarket to buy groceries we didn’t need; playing pirate games with children who’d rather have been with their friends, or digging the garden until there was no soil left unturned.

But being in bed alone - or with you - scared me. It gave me time to think. I considered telling you everything, but in the end I decided I’d have been the only one it would’ve helped. Trusting those closest to you was such a huge part of your make-up that I didn’t want to make everything you believed about your friend to be a lie. I’d have been in pieces seeing you so unhappy.

You might have urged me to tell Roger, but I was drunk, so who’s to say I hadn’t willingly consented, then had an attack of conscience? There were no witnesses and I’d taken so many baths to wash him out of me, there was no physical evidence anything ever happened. It was absolutely my word against his.

Even if there’d been enough proof for the police to charge him, a court case would have meant everyone knowing about that night. I’d have been forced to relive it to a room full of strangers judging me, and his barrister ripping me to shreds. I wasn’t strong enough to be humiliated like that.

Then there were our kids to think about. What if James found out from a friend at school who’d overheard his parents talking? How could I explain to a five-year-old what the word rape meant?

But most important to me was our relationship. I was terrified that you’d never look at me in the same way again; that you’d think of me as damaged goods. If you’d have grasped even a small measure of how dirty I felt, I couldn’t have bared seeing my pain reflected in you. When all things were considered, our family had too much to lose.

Instead, I bottled up my tears and when no one was around, I’d slip inside the garage, shut the door and uncork that bottle until they spilled across the floor. And when it was empty, I’d pull myself together and go back to pretending I wasn’t on the brink of a breakdown.

September 22, 7.55pm

The thought of ever seeing Dougie’s face again petrified me and in a small village, our paths were bound to cross eventually.

When I was outside, I stopped at each street corner and looked around in fear of coming face to face with him. And home alone, I’d lock the doors and keep the curtains closed. Anyone in their right mind wouldn’t have dared to return to the house of a woman he’d raped. But someone who could degrade and violate another person wasn’t in their right mind anyway.

I never brought his name up again, but strangely, neither did you. He just disappeared from our conversations. You didn’t go to the pub with him again. You never asked why he hadn’t been round for dinner, or invite him over to watch a football match on TV. It was like he’d suddenly ceased to exist to you too. The kids were the only ones who seemed to miss him.

“Is Uncle D coming for tea tonight?” Robbie asked us over breakfast.

“No,” you replied quickly, without raising your head.

I can’t explain how relieved I was to hear that two letter word, but I couldn’t ask why. So it was only when I bumped into Annie in the Post Office that the murky waters cleared.

“It’s a shame about Dougie, isn’t it?” she began.

I swallowed hard. “What about him?”

“He’s gone back to Scotland, hasn’t he? He popped a note through our letterbox saying goodbye. Seems very sudden, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” I replied, trying to disguise my relief.

“Simon must be disappointed.”

I had no idea what you were thinking any more. I paid for my stamps and hurried home, asking myself why you hadn’t told me your best friend of more than twenty years had suddenly moved away. I was growing ever uneasy over how our lines of communication were becoming disconnected. But if it was true, that the animal had crawled back to Scotland, maybe I could start to try and live again.

At a time when every part of me craved normality, we were drifting apart in separate lifeboats.