Sophie Hannah - Hurting Distance

‘Robert worked in the kitchen, then? He wasn’t a waiter.’

‘No, he was a chef. My second-in-command.’

I nod. That’s how you were able to get your hands on your little surprise for me. They knew you at the Bay Tree—you’d worked here—so of course they trusted you. Naturally, they let you take a tray and cutlery and a napkin, and Martin Gilligan was only too happy to cook Magret de Canard aux Poires for you when you told him it was urgently needed to help a woman in distress.

I don’t need to ask any more questions. I thank Gilligan, and he returns to the kitchen. Like Etienne, our waiter, he is too discreet to demand to know why I felt the need to interrogate him.

The same doesn’t apply to Yvon. As soon as we’re alone again, she orders me to explain. The temptation to be facetious and evasive is strong. Games are safer than reality. But I can’t do it to Yvon; she’s my best friend, and I’m not Juliet.

‘Robert once said to me that being a lorry driver was better than being a commis,’ I tell her. ‘I didn’t understand. I thought he meant Commie, Communist, which didn’t seem to make much sense, but he didn’t. He meant a commis chef—c, o, m, m, i, s. Because that’s what he used to be.’

Yvon shrugs. ‘So?’

‘The man who raped me served a three-course meal to the men who watched,’ I say. ‘Every now and then he disappeared into a room at the back of the theatre and came out with more food. That room had to be a kitchen.’

Yvon is shaking her head. She can see where I’m going, and she doesn’t want it to be true.

‘I’ve never really thought about who cooked the food.’

‘Oh, God, Naomi.’

‘My rapist had his hands full. He had to entertain the men, clear each course, bring the next course. He was front of house.’ I laugh bitterly. ‘And we know he didn’t operate alone, from what Charlie Zailer’s said. At least two of the rapes took place in Robert’s lorry, and it was Robert who raped Prue Kelvey.’ I am making the agony worse, deliberately taking as long as I can to arrive at my conclusion. Like when you’ve got an elastic band round your wrist and you pull it back as far as it’ll go, stretching it until it’s taut and skinny, then letting it snap back against your skin. The further away it is, the more you know it will hurt you in the end. Hurting distance. Isn’t that what you called it?

Yvon has stopped trying to defend you. ‘While that man was attacking you, Robert was in the kitchen,’ she says, giving up, letting me know I’ve convinced her. ‘He cooked the meal.’

I jolt awake, with a scream trapped in my throat. I am soaked in sweat, my heart drumming fast. A bad dream. Worse than being awake, than real life? Yes. Even worse than that. Once I’ve waited long enough to check I’m not having a stroke or a heart attack, I turn to the radio alarm clock by my bed. I can only see the tops of the digits, small glowing red lines and curves poking out behind the tall pile of books on my bedside cabinet.

I knock the books on to the floor. It’s three-thirteen in the morning. Three one three. The number terrifies me; the hammering in my chest speeds up. Yvon wouldn’t hear me if I called her, even if I screamed. Her room is in the basement, and mine is on the top floor. I want to run downstairs to where she is, but there isn’t time. I fall back; fear pins me to the bed. Something is about to happen. I must let it happen. I have no choice. Pushing it away only works for so long. Oh, God, please let it be over quickly. If I have to remember, then let me remember now.

I was Juliet. I pulled that certainty out of the nightmare with me. I’ve dreamed of being your wife for so long, but always while I’m awake. And the dream was that I, Naomi Jenkins, was your wife. I have never wanted to be Juliet Haworth. You talked about her as if she were weak, craven, pitiable.

In my dream, the worst I’ve ever had, I was Juliet. I was tied to the bed, to the acorn bedposts, on the stage. I had turned my head to the right, so that my cheek was flat against the mattress. My skin stuck to the plastic covering. It was uncomfortable, but I couldn’t turn to look straight ahead, because then I’d have seen the man, seen the expression on his face. Hearing what he was saying was bad enough. The men in the audience were eating smoked salmon. I could smell it—a disgusting pink fishy smell.

So I kept my head where it was and stared straight ahead, at the edge of the curtain. The curtain was dark red. It was designed to go round three sides of the stage, every side apart from the back. Yes, that’s how it looked. I didn’t remember that before. And there was something else unusual about it. What? I can’t remember.

Beyond the edge of the curtain was the theatre’s inside wall. I looked down at a small window. That’s right: the window wasn’t at eye level, it was lower than that. It wasn’t at eye level for the men around the table either.

I wipe sweat from my forehead with the corner of my duvet. I’m sure I’m right, the dream was accurate. That window was odd. It had no curtain. Most theatres don’t have windows at all, not in the auditorium. I had to cast my eyes downwards to see it, and the men would have had to look up. It was between the two levels, in the middle. As it got darker, I stopped being able to see anything. But before, when I was Juliet in the dream and I was lying on the bed, and that man was cutting off my clothes with a pair of scissors, I could see what was outside. I fixed my eyes on it, trying not to think about what was happening, what was going to happen . . .

I throw the duvet off me, feel the chill night air rush in to cover me instead. I know what I saw through the small theatre window. And I know what I saw through the window of your living room, Robert. And why I had the dream I’ve just had; I know what it all means now. It changes everything. Nothing is as I thought it was. Thought I knew it was. I cannot believe how wrong I’ve been.

Oh, God, Robert. I have to see you and tell you everything—how I worked it out, put it all together. I must persuade Sergeant Zailer to take me to the hospital again.

20

4/8/06

EDITED TRANSCRIPT OF AN INTERVIEW SPILLING POLICE STATION, APRIL 8, 2006, 8.30 A.M.

Present: DS Charlotte Zailer (C.Z.), DC Simon Waterhouse (S.W.), Miss Naomi Jenkins (N.J.), Mrs Juliet Haworth (J.H.).

J.H.: Morning, Naomi. What is it they say? We must stop meeting like this. Did you and Robert ever say that to each other?

N.J.: No.

J.H.: I’m relying on you to help me talk some sense into these morons. They all woke up this morning convinced that I’m a porn magnate. [Laughs.] It’s ridiculous.

N.J.: Is it true you first met Robert in a video shop?

J.H.: Why would a woman run a company that profited from other women being raped? [Laughs.] Though I suppose you might say that someone who tries to pulverise her husband’s brain with an enormous stone is capable of anything. Do you think I did it, Naomi? Do you think I sold tickets to men who wanted to watch you being raped? Paper tickets, torn in two at the door, like when you go to the pictures? How much do you think you were worth?

S.W.: Cut it out.

N.J.: I know you didn’t do that. Tell me about how you met Robert.

J.H.: Sounds like you already know.

N.J.: In a video shop?

J.H.: Oui. Si. Affirmative.

N.J.: Tell me.

J.H.: I just did. Have you got Alzheimer’s?

N.J.: Did he approach you, or did you approach him?

J.H.: I bashed him over the head with a video, dragged him home and forced him to marry me. The funny thing was, all the time he was shouting. ‘No, no, Naomi’s the one I love.’ Is that what you want to hear? [Laughs.] The story of how I met Robert. Picture poor little me in the queue for the till, clutching the video case in my sweaty paws, shaking with nerves. It was the first time I’d left the house in ages. I bet you can’t see me as a nervous wreck, can you? Look at me now—I’m an inspiration to us all.