Sofka Zinovieff - Putney

She paused, then nodded, believing him. Maybe she was free, even if it was unclear what this meant.

Ralph’s bedside manner gradually altered from inspector of feet into something slower and more intense as he massaged her legs and then he squeezed alongside her on the narrow bed. She turned to face him and they kissed hard, as though it hurt. Teeth, tongue, lips pressing as if they were becoming one welded creature. I am free, she thought. And this is what I want.

She enjoyed it more this time, as if she’d grown up since yesterday and was getting the hang of this sex business. It didn’t hurt nearly so much. Once more, it didn’t take long from start to finish. ‘I’ll be careful,’ he said before finishing on her belly like the night before. Afterwards, she lay there, feeling the wet turn dry. Yes, I like it, she thought. This is a whole new world I’ve entered.

She remembered the return to Athens as a series of disappointing snaps. The crowded boat to Piraeus that left their faces spotted with black soot. The obese driver of a rusting taxi, who refused to open the windows for fear of catching a chill. The perfunctory goodbye when they dropped Ralph at the KTEL bus station. Her angry tears on the road to Maroussi.

Yiayia ’s house was airless and shadowed, curtains drawn against the blinding light and insupportable heat of an urban summer afternoon. Yiayia was stiff-backed, black-dressed and tearless. She was clear about the protocol, imposing order in the chaos of death, welcoming people, accepting their condolences. She held Daphne’s hands and said, ‘He loved you very much,’ though Daphne doubted it was true. Mourners moved from room to room, voices hushed. It was her first sight of a dead person and there was a strange fascination in Pappou ’s waxy face in the coffin, skin pulled tight over his pointed nose that jutted ceilingwards.

Ed arrived before Ellie, having caught an earlier plane from Germany. He looked outlandishly tall and pale beside the Greeks and was dressed wrong, with a flowery shirt and silky scarf. Daphne held his hand when he paid his respects to his father-in-law and heard him emit a small groan of sadness. ‘Poor George. All over now,’ he whispered.

It was early evening when Ellie entered the house, face swollen, eyes hazy, and wearing a black dress. Daphne ran to her, horrified by the sight of her mother in disarray. Ellie rarely showed anything but strength or anger in a crisis, yet she looked like a forlorn child. Daphne held her tight, not wanting to let go, breathing in the soothing mother smell tinged with aeroplane and competing with ambient wafts of coffee, cigarette smoke and burning incense. Yet even now, her mind returned to Ralph and what they’d done together: the hot joining of bodies, the smell of his sperm, falling asleep in bed with him, the bloodied sheet. Nobody there knew she was changed.

She finished tacking the silk sunbeams to the backcloth so they sliced through the Putney clouds, then she went into the kitchen to ponder the puzzle of supper. It was one of the daily challenges of parenthood, this providing of meals. The dull contents of the fridge gazed back at her as though there was a camera lurking inside and this was a crude TV game show she was doomed to lose. Not that she didn’t like eating good food, she just hated the planning and preparation. Nobody had taught her. As a girl, she didn’t notice; after she married Constantine, they ate out or were too high to care; and then, in the dreadful years, she didn’t eat. Not quite true, she thought. Of course I ate, but I didn’t give a damn. Probably too many fried eggs. There had been some bad times. In the worst phases, she had resorted to ‘dumpster diving’, before eco-warriors gave it that quaint label. The memory still provoked a quiver of shame.

That was all long ago. These days, she was accomplished at the art of culinary cheating. She’d buy a ready-made pizza and throw on some fresh mozzarella and tomato before it went into the oven, or she’d make scrambled eggs on toast and chop some herbs or smoked salmon to go with it. Anything on toast was the best bet.

She was still standing before the open fridge hoping for inspiration, when Libby joined her.

‘Toasted cheese? We’re clean out of boeuf en croute.’

‘Yum, with mustard on the toast? And baked beans?’ Sometimes, Libby’s tender appreciation of these meagre efforts made Daphne feel worse.

They ate the toasted cheese watching television. It was companionable and undemanding. This might not be what ideal mothers did for supper, thought Daphne. They probably laid tables and had instructive conversations. But this was startlingly precious. It was ordinary. And for a long time she’d feared she would never have that in her life. There was no doubt that her existence was divided into before-Liberty and after and, despite all the tests of motherhood, it was like the difference between dank darkness and brilliant, warm light.

She slept badly the night after the reunion with Daphne. Their conversations ran through her mind on a loop and the creepy collage became a nightmare. These were mementoes from a time she had managed to forget and it was harrowing to be confronted by them again. At five thirty, sleepless and drained, she rose quietly, trying not to wake Michael.

‘OK?’ he mumbled, reaching out a hand that would have held her if she’d been close enough.

‘Fine.’ She had avoided talking about Daphne the previous evening, unable to find a way of explaining her wretchedness to him. ‘Fine,’ she had replied, when he asked how it had gone. ‘But I don’t know if I’ll see her again.’

Running was often a way of solving problems and she set off into a leaden dawn so damp she couldn’t tell if it was raining. After reaching the river, she turned eastwards along the empty Thames Path and arrived at Battersea Park just as the gates were being opened. She did a circuit, hardly noticing where she was, tormented by Daphne’s blind insistence that a child can be happily raped by an adult – for that is what Ralph did. How could she blithely claim there had been no negative consequences? It made Jane want to kick and scream, almost as incensed with her old friend as she was with her abuser. It was only on the way home that the regular drum beat of her feet on tarmac calmed her and her spent physical energy brought a feeling of greater control.

By the time she opened her front door, she was drenched in sweat and aching, but she had the beginnings of a decision. Her anger would be channelled and turned into a force for good. There was a way of doing the right thing. Instead of fleeing, she could fight. She could help her old friend, make Daphne realise how misguided she was. She would persuade her that child abusers should not be garlanded in roses and displayed on the wall, but reported to the authorities and put behind bars.

Michael was in the kitchen. The room was warm and comforting, aromatic with coffee and toast. A low rumble of polite, Sunday morning voices burbled from the radio. Jane fetched a glass of water and sat down at the table opposite him. She should have taken a shower and changed her clothes, but this moment needed grasping. Her plan would be made real by declaring it. She had to tell him.

‘That’s very bright and early for a run,’ said Michael, crunching toast and briefly glancing up from the Observer . ‘Impressive. Coffee?’

‘No thanks.’ She wiped her face on her sleeve. ‘There’s something I want to talk to you about.’

‘Oh yes?’ He only put the newspaper halfway down, evidently hoping this would be something easy – a plan with the boys or a work trip.