Sofka Zinovieff - Putney

Wankers

Dave ♥ Linda

Fuck

A lone tear pressed its way out of one eye and ambled down his cheek.

The round window in the cell door opened with a metallic scrape, an eye and nose appeared and then the cover closed again. This happened about three times before Jeb arrived, incongruous in the hose-down lock-up with his snappy suit and groomed, gun-grey hair. He shook Ralph’s hand and attempted a tentative Englishman’s hug that was more a pat on the shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, Boydie. We’ll get you out of here.’ They sat down on the bench and Jeb leaned forward, hands on thighs, glancing down as though checking his handmade shoes. ‘Nina called,’ he said. ‘She told me about your health issues. I’m sorry you’ve been having a hard time. Of course, the good thing is it should help with getting bail.’

Ralph looked at him with disbelief. ‘You mean otherwise they might keep me locked up?’

‘I’m afraid the system’s bonkers. They go into overdrive with this abuse business. If they know you work with children’s choirs they might consider you a risk. But I’m confident we can get you out.’ His smile provoked a rush of renewed fear in Ralph.

‘Now listen, I’ve seen the charges and I don’t want to hear your version. Yet. OK?’ Jeb looked straight at Ralph who nodded. ‘You need to think hard about this before you give me your instructions. She says she was thirteen. And younger when other… acts took place. Now, if a man has unlawful sexual intercourse with a thirteen-year-old girl, that’s rape. Your only way out is, “It didn’t happen.” There’s no other excuse. Zilch. It can’t be a “reasonable mistake”. And if you admit it or try to excuse it to me, I’ll be buggered in running a defence for you. You can’t change your defence to me later. And I can’t misrepresent your case to the court. Understand?’

This was a relief. He had never spoken to anybody about Daphne and the prospect of revealing his precious secret to a man of the world like Jeb was atrocious. Only worse was the prospect of public scrutiny – about as welcome as having his bowels pulled out on a busy pavement.

Jeb stood up and stretched as naturally as a cat changing its position by the fireplace. ‘I’m afraid there might be a bit of publicity. The excuse is that it can bring other “victims” out of the woodwork. But don’t fret. That’ll blow over.’

‘Christ, I just remembered you’ve done this before. The guy from that pop group. What was his name?’

‘Tony Teller, from The Lost.’ Jeb used a neutral voice, though the sorry story came back to Ralph now. The lead singer from a famous 1980s boy band. In his fifties, with cheeks turning flabby and several young children by a second wife, he’d been hauled through the system, the poor sod, accused of raping numerous underage girls. ‘The tabloids called it the groupies’ revolt,’ said Jeb. ‘Nothing like your case, of course,’ he added – unnecessarily, thought Ralph. ‘You can’t imagine what it was like for pop groups with all those girls hanging around. They threw themselves at bands. Not a subtle form of seduction. More like raping the boys than the other way round. For the band it was just a question of choosing – like picking out the lobster from the restaurant tank.’ Neither man mentioned that Teller had gone to prison. ‘Jailbait time bombs – that’s what they were. Though nobody knew it then, least of all the girls.

‘Anyway,’ continued Jeb, ‘the good thing about your problem is that it’s all so long ago and if it’s a one-off case then it’s basically her word against yours. From what I remember, didn’t she go off the rails? Drugs, that sort of thing? Dodgy boyfriends? If she’s revealed as an unreliable witness, that’s a good start. False memory syndrome and so on. And if we show her character’s a mess, it could all go your way.’

‘And the bad thing?’

‘The bad thing is the police seem to think the CPS will go for this – that they have enough evidence. But we have to wait and see. It’ll probably take weeks for them to assess everything.’

‘And then what?’

‘Let’s cross one bridge at a time.’

‘Give me an idea, Jeb. I need to know.’

‘So, the accusation refers to 1976.’ Jeb stared at the wall, calculating. ‘That’s “vaginal penetration by the accused’s penis” under the 1956 Sexual Offences Act.’ The phrase echoed in the empty space. I could turn that into a piece of music, thought Ralph. Bitter, authoritarian words describing something so beautiful – using a machine gun on a butterfly. He gripped the blue plastic mattress and winced at its tacky surface.

‘I don’t want to scaremonger, Boydie. But if you’re found guilty, it’s prison. Couldn’t say for how long, but the watchword at this stage is caution.’

Jeb looked down to admire his shoes again, then turned to Ralph. ‘So remember, “No comment” when they interview you. Don’t give them anything they can twist and use against you. The most important thing is to get you home. Then we work out how to proceed.’ He slapped Ralph on the back, said ‘Good luck!’ and knocked to be let out, his face steeled with a show of optimism. A guard unlocked the heavy cell door and Jeb fled without a backward glance.

Matron brought some lunch: chicken tikka and a slimy, strawberry dessert in a plastic pot. He ate both mechanically, putting the disgusting rations into his body as fuel, hardly noticing. I need to retract and curl up so I can face the barrage, he thought. How has it come to this, where my life is about to collapse? Everything I built up will crash down because one stone has been pulled out. And that particular stone isn’t just some brick in a wall, it’s a rare gem of a stone. How could she do this?

He stretched out on the bench and shut his eyes. What could have brought about this horrific change in Daphne? In all the years he’d known her, he only remembered loveliness. They’d been friends and allies, and even after they were no longer intimate, there was the whiff of collusion and affection that remain after a love that was not shattered or ripped apart, but that merely ran its course. It was true that they had not seen a great deal of one another in the thirty or so intervening years. As a rule serendipitously rather than by design, but she never appeared hurt or angry. He knew she’d been through grim times, but that was nothing to do with him. She had emerged on the other side and he was glad. No, there was nothing he could identify to hint that Daphne would turn on him and rip him apart.

He thought back over the occasions he’d seen her since Ellie died. There weren’t many. Once, they’d run into one another at a party when she was still in her early twenties. He supposed it must have been when she’d separated from the Greek fucker, but they didn’t discuss it. Nina wasn’t at the party – probably at home with children, too tired, or getting on with her painting. He and Daphne drank vodka shots and went into a bathroom where she produced a tiny paper package. He watched her familiar, monkey hands chopping the powder, fast and efficient with a razor blade, the way Nina cut garlic on a board.

‘Have you got a fiver?’ He gave her a ten-pound note and she rolled it up, placed a finger over one nostril, sniffed up one of the four tidy, white lines and then briskly did the same on the other side. He copied her and then put down the money, which she pocketed. Staring at their reflections in the bathroom mirror, he liked what he saw of himself – energetic and tousle-haired. He felt unassailable as an emperor. Daphne was skinny and fragile with dark patches around her eyes. A lost waif, he thought, but marvellous. He put his arms around her and they kissed hard and without tenderness until someone banged on the door. Afterwards, they danced and it seemed as if they had an unspoken pact that would always keep them close.