Алия Уайтли - Skein Island

David will think I’m crazy. But, after Christmas, I must attempt to explain it to him. And he will react as a hero should, he will attempt to protect me from myself. His desire to do this, to take control and make the decisions, will only get worse.

The feeling of foreboding, of dread, knowing that I’m about to be controlled, dominated – I am familiar with this. I felt it that night the stranger walked into the library and said, Get in the back. Take off your clothes and lie down .

I can’t bear it, can’t sit here waiting for this to happen all over again. A part of me thinks my fear of it is the reason for its creation. I must be making this whole thing up in order to bring my fear to life. This is an elaborate construction of explanations, assurances, abandonments; is it of my own doing? Am I mad? Rebecca would find a textbook way of putting it. I’ve had a break with reality. I’ve rationalised a traumatic experience.

I push the doubts away. I am the strong one. I have worked so hard to be the strong one. I can’t even begin to rationalise it, but I know I have to tell myself that I am indomitable, have been ever since the day he came into the library and said Get in the back. Take off your clothes and lie down .

And I said—I said—

I wrench my mind away. My heart is a runner on a long, straight road. I am prickly with sweat, on my scalp, under my arms. The world is out of control, doesn’t anyone see it? Men set buildings on fire and other men run into those buildings. Men are divided and killed and born and they must be men of action, while I must lie down, take off my clothes and lie down, take off, lie down.

‘David’s here,’ says Patty. ‘He’s early.’

I am amazed at myself. I say, in a perfectly even tone of voice, ‘Oh good, I’ll come out to the front. You can take off now if you like, Patty, and I’ll lock up.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Absolutely. David’s here.’

She accepts that with a grateful nod because, after all, David is a man. She knows he will protect me. She gathers her things – anorak, umbrella, woven shopping bag – and says, ‘Have a good Christmas, then.’

‘Are you working on the twenty-seventh?’

‘No, twenty-eighth I’m down for, afternoon and evening.’

‘Great. I’ll see you then. Are you cooking for everyone?’

She sighs. Every year Patty buys an enormous turkey and invites all the lonely members of her extended family to her house for Christmas dinner. She has a number of unmarried cousins and widowed aunts, along with an ancient grandfather who ruins everything if he gets the chance. Last year he spat his false teeth into the gravy boat. I wonder if Moira will have an effect on his villainous behaviour this year, and he’ll have some macabre masterplan in mind, such as demanding to carve the roast and then stabbing someone with the meat fork.

‘Good luck with that,’ I tell her, sounding so much like my old self that I have to resist the urge to reward myself with a smug smile.

Patty leaves, and I close down the computer. Then I follow her out. In the bright library, standing alone in front of the rotating display of slushy paperbacks, is David. He faces the window that looks out over the car park. I can see his reflection in the glass, his lips pressed together, his eyes moving over the darkness, as if scanning for something or someone.

‘Nearly ready,’ I say. ‘You’re a bit early. I’ve still got to shut down.’

‘I was with your father.’

Is that why he’s so anxious? ‘I know, I’m sorry, I will get round to speaking to him. I just can’t face it now, but I will go and make it up with him after Christmas, okay?’

David turns to face me. The way he looks at me is disquieting. He wants something from this conversation, and the energy in his expression scares me. ‘Arnie said another woman was attacked. The week after you. In the car park.’

‘The library car park?’

‘Right outside the building.’ He jerks his thumb into the darkness. I realise he’s angry. Beyond angry.

‘That’s terrible, but it’s the responsibility of the police to—’

‘She was assaulted.’

I wait for a moment, then say, very carefully, ‘That’s terrible. I gave the police a description of him. It’s up to them. If it’s the same man.’

‘I need to stop him. I want you to tell me what happened. Every detail. I know it’ll be difficult for you, but I’m sure you understand—’

‘I told you already.’

‘So he came in, you said no, he left? What was so different the next time, that it ended up in an assault?’

‘I don’t know! These people… progress. On to worse things. They get up courage. I was lucky. If you want to call it that.’

‘I just… I get the feeling you’re not telling me the truth. I feel like you haven’t told me the truth in a long time.’ He looks sad, so sad, and it’s terrible to realise that I have done this to him. Not deliberately, never that, for he’s still my husband, but I should have realised that he would know on some level that I was feeding the world a pack of lies.

There must be a way to find words for the truth, for all that has happened to me. It would be impossible to spit it into sentences, recreate it in syntax, grammar, punctuate it with exclamation points. I did this, I didn’t do that. All those declarations on Skein Island, all the words that Moira took into herself – what did they mean? How can we tell the truth when it will change the lives of those who listen? ‘Are you ready?’ I ask David. ‘If you want the truth, I’ll give it to you.’

‘Will you?’ He sounds doubtful.

‘If you want me to. It won’t be—It’s horrible. The words don’t even begin to describe it.’

‘I need to understand it. Then I’ll know how to stop him.’

So I turn out the library lights and lock the door. We are shadows, lit only by the bulb from the back office, and I tell him, ‘It started like this. It was closing time. I was about to lock up when he came in, and stood in the doorway. He told me to go into the back office and take my clothes off. He wanted me to lie down.’ It doesn’t sound right to me. My voice is different, strained, with a saw-edge of fear. It’s the memory of it, coming to life, taking me over. The edges of that night and this night are bleeding together.

David stands perfectly still. He says, ‘No. Right? You said no.’

I shake my head.

‘What did you say?’

‘I asked him not to hurt me.’

David pauses, swallows. ‘What then?’

‘Then I did as I was told.’

I lead the way into the back office. We stand together under the strip light.

‘I took off my clothes,’ I say. I don’t whisper, or shout. I am calmer now, emptier. This is the moment I have been dreading, fighting against, but now it’s here and I am ready for it.

‘All your clothes?’

‘Everything. I folded them and put them on the desk.’ My white knickers, folded, on top of the trousers, the waistcoat, the shirt, the bra, in order: so neat. I don’t look at David. I don’t want to get caught up in his emotions. It is so much easier if I pretend this is not something that happened to me. I, I, I. It helps if I picture this as a story. So I find myself changing into a different form of speech. ‘She took off her clothes,’ I tell David. ‘But that’s not where the story began.’

I am a distant measurer of words as I tell him:

There was once a man who was born evil.

He knew it from the first moment he knew himself. He was meant to do no good. He was certain of it. And that thought made him proud and excited and sad and lonely, all at the same time. But there was no way to express it, because the wrongness within him was palpable. Whenever he tried to talk to anyone about the evil inside him, even his own family, they refused to listen. They didn’t want to spend time with him, because they were afraid of what was inside him too.