Sophie Hannah - Hurting Distance

You grinned. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. I probably ought to, yes.’

‘Well . . . why don’t you come back in, then?’ I said, deliberately flirtatious.

‘I suppose I could.’ You frowned. ‘But . . . maybe I should get moving, actually.’

I wasn’t going to let you get away. Something amazing had happened, quite out of the blue, and I was determined not to let it slip from my grasp. ‘Would you have done what you did—bringing that food and wine—for anybody?’ I asked.

‘You mean anybody who’d just been handed a plate of decaying chicken?’

I laughed. ‘Yeah.’

‘Probably not,’ you admitted, looking away like a shy schoolboy. That was the happiest moment of my life. That was when I knew that I was special for you. You did something no one else would have done for me, and it set me free. It made me feel I could be as crazy as you, that I could do anything. There were no limits or rules. I saw your wedding ring and disregarded it entirely. You were married. So what? Bad luck, Mrs Robert Haworth, I thought, because I’m going to take your husband away from you. I was utterly ruthless.

For two years I hadn’t considered getting involved with a man. The idea of sex had repulsed me. Not any more. I wanted to tear off my clothes right there in the car park and order you to make love to me. It had to happen; I had to have you. Meeting you enabled me to discard my whole history in an instant. You knew nothing about me, except that I was an attractive woman with a temper. That Magret de Canard aux Poires might as well have been a glass slipper from a prince. Everything was different now, all saved and redeemed. My life had changed from a nightmare to a fairy tale in the space of minutes.

An hour later we were booking room eleven at the Traveltel for the first time.

The doorbell rings. I run into the hall, thinking it’s Yvon.

It isn’t. It’s DC Sellers, who was here this morning. ‘Your curtains are open,’ he says. ‘I saw you were still up.’

‘You just happened to be driving past my house at two in the morning?’

He looks at me as if it’s a stupid question. ‘Not quite.’

I wait for him to continue. I am as afraid to discover that you’ve abandoned me by choice as that something terrible has happened to you.

‘Are you all right?’ Sellers asks.

‘No.’

‘Can I come in for a minute?’

‘Can I stop you?’

He follows me through to the lounge and perches on the edge of the sofa, his large stomach resting on his thighs.

I stand by the window. ‘Do you expect me to offer you a drink? Ovaltine?’ I cannot stop acting. It’s a compulsion. I craft lines in my head and deliver them in a brittle voice.

‘On Monday, you told DC Waterhouse and DS Zailer that if they went to Robert Haworth’s house, they’d find something.’

‘What have you found?’ I snap. ‘Have you found Robert? Is he all right?’

‘On Tuesday, you told DC Waterhouse that Robert Haworth raped you. Now you’re concerned for his welfare?’

‘Is he all right? Tell me, you bastard!’ I begin to sob, too exhausted to stop myself.

‘What did you think we’d find in Mr Haworth’s house?’ Sellers asks. ‘And how could you be so sure?’

‘I told you! I told Waterhouse and Zailer: I saw something in Robert’s lounge, through the window. It made me have a panic attack. I thought I was going to die.’

‘What did you see?’

‘I don’t know. ’ There’s still a huge black hole in the middle of my memory of that dreadful afternoon. But I’m sure I saw something. I’m surer of that than of anything else. I wait until I’m calm enough to speak. ‘You must know that feeling. When you see an actor on television, and you know their name’s buried in your brain somewhere, but your memory can’t quite grasp it.’ I’m so exhausted I can hardly focus. DC Sellers is a blur.

‘Where were you last Wednesday night and last Thursday?’ he says. ‘Can you account for every minute of your time?’

‘I don’t see why I need to. Is Robert all right? Tell me!’

It’s always worth fighting, no matter what the cost to yourself might be. This isn’t a popular view anymore. The world becomes more languidly callous by the day, and blanket condemnation of any and all wars, even wars of liberation, is the obvious symptom. Still, it’s what I believe, passionately.

‘How can you treat me like this?’ I yell at Sellers. ‘I’m a victim, not a criminal. I thought the police had polished up their act. I thought you were supposed to treat victims sensitively in this day and age!’

‘Of what are you a victim?’ he asks. ‘Of rape? Or of your lover disappearing?’

‘I’m the one who should be asking you: of what am I suspected?’

‘You’ve lied to us, by your own admission. You can’t expect us to trust you.’

‘Is Robert alive? Just tell me that.’ Three years ago I vowed that I would never beg again. Listen to me now.

‘Robert Haworth never raped you, did he, Miss Jenkins? Your statement was a lie.’ Sellers’ rubbery face is mottled and pink; it makes me want to be sick.

‘It was the truth,’ I insist. With my defences down and my energy reserves drained to beyond empty, I resort to what’s easiest: concealment.

It was the first thing I thought of after the rape, the only thing that mattered to me once I was certain that the attack, in all its phases, was over and I’d survived: how to hide from the world what had been done to me. I knew I’d cope with a private trauma better than I could cope with the shame of people knowing.

No one has ever felt sorry for me. I’m the most successful of all my friends, all my contemporaries. I’ve got a career that I love. I sold a typographical font to Adobe while I was still at university and used the money to set up a profitable business. To the world it must seem as if I have everything: rewarding, creative work, financial security, lots of friends, a great family, a beautiful house that I own outright. Until the attack, I had no shortage of boyfriends, and although I wasn’t cold-hearted or anything, they mostly seemed to love me more than I loved them. Everyone I know envies me. They tell me all the time how lucky I am, that I am one of the blessed few.

That would all have changed if they’d found out what had happened to me. I’d have become Poor Naomi. I’d have been trapped for ever—in the thoughts of everyone I knew, everyone who mattered to me—in the state I was in when the man dumped me by the side of Thornton Road after he’d finished with me: naked apart from my coat and shoes, tears and snot all over my face, a stranger’s semen leaking from my body.

No way was I going to let that happen. I pulled off the eye mask, checked no one was around. The road was empty. I told myself I was lucky that nobody had seen me. I walked briskly to my car and drove myself home. As I drove, I took control of the situation inside my head. I began to deliver a lecture to myself, thinking that it was important to impose some sort of order as quickly as possible. I told myself that it didn’t matter how I felt—I’d worry about that later. For the time being, I would simply not allow myself to feel anything. I tried to make myself think like a soldier or an assassin. All that mattered was behaving as if I was fine, doing everything I would normally have done so that no one suspected a thing. I turned myself into a glossy robot, externally identical to my old self.

I did a brilliant job of it. Another achievement, something most people would never have been able to pull off. No one guessed, not even Yvon. The only part I couldn’t manage was the boyfriends. I told everyone I wanted to focus on my career for a while without distractions, until I met someone special. Until I met you.