Clare Layton - Those Whom the Gods Love

Hours later, he reared up off the pillow, sweat pouring from his skin. Choking, he flung back the duvet. This time the dream had had an added extra torture. As he’d advanced on the body and felt it swing against the flat of his hand, he’d looked up and seen that it had Ginty Schell’s face. This was ridiculous. He hadn’t done her any harm. Not yet anyway.

Harbinger got out of bed and staggered to the bathroom to get a glass of water. The taste of curry in his mouth made him feel gross, and the sight of his pouchy eyes and clammy grey-pink face in the mirror turned him up. He looked about a hundred-and-fifty. He’d be ill soon if he didn’t find a way to stop all this.

It must have been Kate’s loony accusations that had set off these dreams. He was a decent bloke, whatever she’d said. Look at Ginty Schell. He’d given her a leg up without any nefarious intentions. Her Rano interview was going to give her a much higher profile than she’d ever have got writing for Maisie Antony or any of the other women’s mag harpies.

He tried going back to sleep, but it didn’t work, so he poured some more whisky and put on another video. Sometimes now, he slept in front of them, waking with his back wrenched and his tongue bitten. But usually he watched until dawn, then went back to bed and managed to get another hour or two. He was so tired, he sometimes wondered how much longer he could go on. It was even worse than when the kids had been babies.

Perhaps all he needed was another girlfriend. He still wasn’t sure about Sally Grayling, but he could always give her a go. See how it went. She wasn’t the sort of hardfaced bitch Kate had turned into, and she might know a plumber.

Ginty had been afraid that her voice would be squeaky with nerves when she was eventually taken to the studio to be introduced to the presenter and her fellow-speaker. But the atmosphere was so relaxed and so cheerful that she felt her throat ease a little, and when she said good morning to them her voice sounded almost normal.

A thin plastic beaker of cold water from the filter just outside the studio door reassured her that she wouldn’t have to croak. She waited, trying to feel confident as she watched the clock over the presenter’s head for the programme to begin. The seconds jerked by, the clock’s hand bouncing a little at each green dot. As the hand reached the top, a red bulb glowed beside it, and the presenter nodded towards a dark glass wall between her and the engineers.

‘You’re listening to My Radio, and I’m Annie Kent,’ she said in her familiar, seductive voice, as though she were talking to someone she knew and trusted.

Ginty reminded herself to copy it. On the few previous occasions when she’d been interviewed on the radio, she’d sounded as though she’d been talking to a vast lecture hall full of hostile strangers.

‘We’re here this morning to talk about rape . I have with me Doctor George Murphy, who has been working with sex offenders for the past twenty years, and Ginty Schell, who is just back from the refugee camps, where she has been interviewing rape survivors about their experiences.’

The doctor produced an affectionate-sounding ‘hello’ for listeners, but Ginty wasn’t quick enough to say anything.

‘Now, Doctor Murphy,’ said Annie, obviously speedreading a sheet of paper on a clipboard in front of her, ‘you have written in support of the new theory that rape is not, after all, a crime of violence. It’s an evolutionary adaptation to ensure the survival of certain genes. What exactly did you mean by that?’

Ginty bit her tongue. She should have done some research before agreeing to come on this programme, but there hadn’t been time. If she were going to have to argue with a man whose beliefs sounded like a cross between Rano’s and her mother’s, she might lose it.

‘And what do you think, Ginty?’

She pulled herself together, not having listened to the doctor’s answer, and licked her lower lip. ‘Well, I don’t agree. I do think rape is about violence, but, even more, it’s about control.’

That was a bit lecture-y, she thought. Relax.

Annie Kent was smiling, but she gestured with her right hand to make Ginty speed up. She tried to obey: ‘I’m sure, too, that some men use it as a way of terrorizing people who might otherwise be a threat.’

‘Is that what you think’s happening in the war?’

‘Yes. I can’t believe that the rapes have really been organized to make sure that the next generation of children belongs to both sides, whatever Doctor Murphy assumes.’

‘But …’ he began, but Ginty was launched now. She couldn’t hold in the words.

‘I think the whole campaign has been organized to destabilize the enemy. It’s an appalling example of men using women’s suffering in their own fight with other men. Unforgivable, but unfortunately typical.’

‘Doctor Murphy?’

‘Did you know, Ms Schell, that rape is more likely to result in conception than unforced lovemaking?’ he asked in a voice so reasonable that it sounded patronizing.

Ginty swallowed, thinking about Maria and the child she’d murdered.

‘No, I didn’t,’ she said, ‘but I don’t see that that makes any difference.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t see how it’s relevant to whether rape is or is not a violent crime.’ Clumsy, she told herself. Make it personal, specific: ‘Do you ever talk to rape victims, Doctor Murphy?’

‘Not many. My business is with offenders, who are sent to me for treatment.’

‘Well, I don’t see how you can bring them to understand what they’ve done, unless you yourself know what it’s like for a woman. Any victim of real rape could tell you that it’s definitely a crime of violence and power; nothing to do with procreation.’

‘The two are not mutually exclusive, and …’ Doctor Murphy began, just as Annie Kent started to talk, overriding him with ease, even though she didn’t sound remotely bossy:

‘What do you mean by “real rape”, Ginty?’

‘Forcible rape by a stranger,’ she said quickly, the anger she’d felt as she listened to Maria coming back to loosen the words in her mind. ‘The stories I heard out there have made me intensely impatient with women in countries like this – and the States – who may have had a bad time in bed, or drunk more than they meant and regretted making love, then gone on to claim they’ve been raped. However unpleasant, uncomfortable or humiliating what’s happened to them, it’s not the same.’

What a speech, she thought, as she heard the pontifical note in her voice and forced herself to stop.

‘And what about Rohypnol?’ said Annie with deceptive gentleness. Ginty wished she’d kept her mouth shut.

‘That’s different,’ she said, hearing the power in her voice diminish. She felt as she always did when arguing with her mother, outmanoeuvred and under-informed. ‘Giving someone a drug covertly is forcing them. It’s not like one drink too many, taken knowingly – of your own free will.’

‘A lot of people have fought hard – are still fighting – to establish the fact that “No” means “No”,’ Annie Kent said, making it clear whose side she was on, so Ginty had to answer.

‘I’m not suggesting for one moment that a woman can’t go out with a man and still decline to have sex with him. Of course she can. Women must be allowed to dress attractively, flirt, kiss or behave in some other way that leads men to think they’re going to get lucky, and still refuse. Of course they must. But if a man then persuades a woman against her better judgement, or encourages her to drink so much that she loses her inhibitions and does sleep with him, calling what’s happened “rape” diminishes the real thing and short changes the real victims – like the women in those camps. The word “rape” implies violence – or at least the threat of it.’