Behaving Like Adults (32 page)

‘When?'

George looked as if he wanted to sink through the polished walnut floor. ‘It looks like later this morning.'

Caroline cried, ‘Holly, I'm so sorry. You know we'd give anything for it to be different. Do you want me to give Claudia a ring, see if she can come round and be with you?'

‘I don't know,' I said. It was true. The world was flat, the sky was green. I didn't know anything any more.

TWO DAYS LATER
I got glandular fever. Do not ask me how. It's also known as ‘the kissing disease' and is caused by a virus which happens to be a member of the herpes family. As if Fate hadn't kicked enough sand in my face, she was now tipping it over my head with a bucket. (Issy has a client named Mrs Slapper, the mention of which gave the office a morning of hilarity – ‘And so, are you a London Slapper, or a Manchester Slapper?' etc – but even Mrs Slapper didn't have to suffer the indignity of a personal association with the Herpes Family.)

Anyway I was glad of it. Glandular fever saved me from consciousness. Being conscious proved a waste of time. Any moment I was awake was inescapable hell. I was in shock. I took it personally. Before, it was one person. Now, it was the world. I couldn't believe they'd do this to me, it had taken me long enough – even Stuart had failed to make me feel like this, but the Crown Prosecution Service had succeeded – for the first time, I felt like a victim. The trauma seeped into me, I was saturated with it. I found myself screaming, ‘I'll kill them, I'll firebomb their offices, the fucking bastards!' If I wasn't screaming (unwise, with glandular fever), I cried, noisily, until my eyes were dry and sore.

Slowly, I graduated to a prison of ifs. If this, if only that. If only I'd reported it right after he'd left. If only I hadn't let him in my house in the first place. If only I wasn't such a
bungler
. What if he does it again, to someone else? What if he's
done
it again? It will be my fault. And the fucking
Crown Prosecution Service, the fucking bastards, I'll firebomb their offices, etc . . .

Yes, everyone was trying to train me to not feel responsible for Stuart's actions, but that was easier said than done. I always feel responsible for other people's actions. As if feeling responsible for my own isn't enough of a burden. I felt dreadful, and when your throat is as sore as if you'd swallowed hot coals and you have a temperature of a hundred and three, and your skin is tinged yellow, lending you a startling resemblance to Marge Simpson, and you're sweating obscenely, and your tonsils are swollen to three times their size, you do not require extra helpings of dreadfulness.

The only piece of cheer was that the doctor had told me to avoid sports. Actually, that's a lie. There were a few pieces of cheer. One of the nicest episodes – and this may sound weird – was when Claudia asked Nige to drive us to the doctor. I felt so weak and tired I could barely walk. I fell asleep in the car on the way home, and half woke to find Nige carrying me into the house and upstairs to bed, Claudia on his tail. It reminded me of one of the best memories of childhood, when you return from a day out so woozy that your parents wrap you in a blanket like a bug in a leaf and lovingly transport you to the Land of Nod.

Claudia was wonderful. She kept reassuring me that she, Issy and Nige would take good care of Girl Meets Boy while I rested. Well, she and Issy would. I tried to look grateful and probably failed. Nige had been asked to audition as the understudy of a Hollywood actor who was starring in
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
in the West End, and his agent thought it was ‘99 per cent' he'd get the part. Claw expected he'd be overjoyed but Nige was being snooty. Apparently, you can be
too
good at being an understudy. Your fabulous reputation spreads, you're only ever offered parts as an understudy and you never step on stage again. Also, he'd asked to view his dressing room and it was the size of a cleaning cupboard, with a view of a red-brick wall
and a dead pigeon impaled on a railing. Nige's only chance of glory would be if I came backstage as a ‘fan', kissed the star on the mouth and gave him glandular fever.

Secretly, I felt that Girl Meets Boy was doomed (I had made no attempt to pay back my overdraft) and it didn't bother me. Why should it? I wanted to spite the world with a show of indifference. If I didn't care, then no one could hurt me more than they already had. The truth? While the shock wore off, my anger remained white hot. Problem was, as the virus set in, I no longer had the strength to voice it, not even inwardly. To
feel
anger, let alone act on it, requires energy. Your heart pounds, your blood boils, the thoughts race. Self-pity was a more languid emotion, easier to wallow in. There was a deep and savage wound to the heart, as if the bigger children had picked on me in the playground because I smelt and when I'd told the teachers, they'd laughed at me and agreed.

I
knew
Caroline spoke the truth when she said she believed me. But the CPS deciding not to prosecute intensified the pain. They were denying that I'd suffered. It was as if the authorities (and my parents had – wrongly, it seemed – brought me up to respect authority) had sneered at what I'd gone through, dismissed it as unimportant. I was a subject who paid my taxes and yet my country had decided that I wasn't worth wasting time or money on. Yes, it was Stuart's word against mine, but why wasn't my word deemed as good as his? He'd be laughing at me. He'd got away with it. And they'd let him. Call me naive – I was a white middle-class girl, I'd
expected
justice.

Claudia understood, even though I didn't say anything. She asked my permission to organise a rota with my mother and Gloria, so that I was never left long in the house alone. Frankly, I didn't give a damn. So what if Stuart decided to break in and kill me for grassing him up? I toyed with the notion of fetching my favourite knife from the kitchen to fight back but I had too much of a headache. If he murdered me, at least then he'd go to jail. This time
I'd take precautions to ensure a conviction. I'd scratch him, to obtain some under-the-fingernail DNA for whoever it was in London did Patricia Cornwell's job. And I'd paint ‘Stuart Marshall did it' on the wall in my own blood. (Or ‘Stuart M' depending on how fast I was dying.)

I'd forbidden Claudia to tell anyone, and I was sure she'd kept her word. I was humiliated, and recent events had added to my humiliation. I didn't want to tell my friends because the implication of the CPS deciding not to prosecute was – even though Caroline insisted it wasn't – that I'd been lying. I could do without Rachel and Nige whispering that I must have wanted to punish Stuart for luring me into casual sex. That I was one of those psychotic women who wanted to be a
lady
and was furious at the man for making her a slut instead. That if I accused him of sexual assault then I could hang on to my Victorian self-image.

I suppose it was harsh of me to suppose that Nige would think any such thing. There was no danger of him having any opinion on the subject, as he simply wasn't the sort of person who was deeply interested enough in others to suspect anything other than what he'd been told. (Despite his frequent claim, ‘I
love
other people, that's why I became an actor.') As far as he knew, I had glandular fever, and Claudia asked him to come over to entertain the invalid occasionally. Again, he didn't question it, because he
thought
of himself as an entertainer. (Or rather, artiste.) He just sat at the end of my bed and talked.

‘And so this guy actually turned up at the office and said he wanted me to cancel his membership and return his cheque because he'd seen the LLN programme and as far as he could tell the agency was full of ugly selfish people. So
I
said, by all means, I'll cancel it, return your cheque – great, fine by me, there'll be one less ugly selfish person on our books! Well, I'm sorry. But darling, good news –
Glamour
might want to do a feature on us. It's not certain, but they might be sending someone down next week. Let's
hope we haven't folded by – ah, only joking – did I tell you about the new girl this Tuesday? The one who'd asked on her membership form not to meet any accountants? Oh, you'd have laughed. Turned up utterly wasted. She was so drunk by date three we had to lift her out of the toilet. I'm half considering calling up some of the rejects we have on our perpetual waiting list. You know, that hairy one with a monobrow and a beard – a
beard
at thirty-two? I mean, is he a tramp? – who's rung us once a week for the last nine months and just
will
not get the message? He turned up at Seb's this week! I'm serious! Came and sat at the bar. I wanted Seb to throw him out, told him to say they had a ‘no beard' policy and, believe me, Seb wanted to, but there's enough going on in his toilets that he'd rather not be reported to the plod. So anyway, this creep just
sat
there, ogling our women, and every time there was a break he'd try and buy them a drink. Happily, as he looked like some escapee from the Taliban, he got short shrift . . . oh look it's your ghastly friend, Rachel . . .'

‘Hello, babes, how you doing? Did I hear a prat squeak? Sweetie, I've brought you some caviar and a spoon, only for some reason your bossy little sister wouldn't let me bring it upstairs . . .'.

I turned to face the wall, but Rachel stayed regardless, she and Nige talking over each other until Claudia marched in and ejected them. She sat down on the edge of the bed.

‘Careful,' I croaked. ‘Emily's under there.'

‘Ugh,' said Claudia. ‘So unhygienic.'

Emily was indeed under the covers. She liked me to sleep on my back, bow-legged, so that she could curl up between my knees. It was a highly uncomfortable habit that had started with Nick. We understood each other about Emily. We always placed her bowl on a sheet of the
Guardian
and if she disliked her food she'd rake at the newspaper, like she raked at her litter tray after making a deposit. A devastating critique of the catering. We'd hear her rustling
and I'd say, ‘Emily's reading the mewspaper again.' Nick would reply, ‘Yeah, looking for the miaowsic section.' I'd add, ‘She hates their coverage of current a-furrs.' Nick would retort, ‘She prefers the litters page.' Silly. But
us
.

We hadn't spoken since Penge. Another reason why it was nice to escape to unconsciousness.

‘Listen,' said Claw. ‘Gloria guessed. She found all the leaflets Caroline gave you in the drawer. But! Before you get upset. She, er, well she wanted to talk to you. It, uh, happened to a cousin of hers. In different circumstances. She was living in the States. En-Why. This guy dragged her off the street into a park. After, he tried to slit her throat.'

With effort, I lifted myself onto my elbows. ‘Why are you telling me this?' I said.

Claw looked uncomfortable, and not because she was perching on the edge of the bed with half a buttock. ‘Gloria's cousin got a conviction. But, well, Gloria says that the American police were really unsympathetic – brusque and unsupportive, didn't even examine her in private – and the whole court process was so disgusting that if she'd known what she was going to have to go through, the cousin wouldn't have even reported it. She said she felt like a fish being gutted. Her whole life was twisted round by the defending attorney to make her look like a lying tart. She felt like
she
was the one on trial, not her attacker, she said it was like being abused all over again. So, Gloria thought—'

‘She thought wrong. I'm not interested in other people right now.'

This was a lie, of course I was interested, it was like discovering someone had attended the same (rather horrible) school as you. But if I expressed enthusiasm, Claudia might think I was coming out of my hypersulk and that this news was a
comfort
to me. I wanted to make it plain that I was inconsolable. This was the only means I had to convey to everyone that my wretchedness was not some transitory emotion that could be jollied away with
the thrilling lure of other people's woes. The justice system might not give two hoots but my misery was serious to
me
. Unlike Gloria, I did
not
have a guardian angel.

Wisely, Claudia suggested I get some sleep and shut the door. She didn't bother me with chat again until a few days later, when the fever began to lift. I could tell my health was improving because I had a sudden hankering. When I was at junior school, I thought all the food they served apart from cabbage was delicious. (And compared to my mother's food it was.) I loved the roast dinners – I used to stuff the skinny slices of beef into my Yorkshire pudding and spoon the gravy on top, I drooled over the Rice Krispies syrup cakes, the chocolate brownies with a silvery-baked crust. But my great favourite was cornflake and chocolate goo squares, and this was the craving that dragged me from my slump.

‘Claw,' I said, when she trotted in with my daily mug of spinach soup. (Shop bought – Claudia and I take after my mother. Mum had offered to cater for the duration of my illness but added in the same breath, ‘Although, dear, Dad says you'll recover health much faster if we do a big shop at Tesco instead.' As soggy potatoes and Sahara turkey – named by Claw because it was so dry it sucked the moisture from your mouth – were still fresh in my memory from that last stay in Penge, I'd graciously surrendered.) ‘Claw, remember the cornflake and chocolate goo squares at junior school?'

‘Yup.'

‘I'd die for one of those. I wonder if they still make them. I'd pay you to ring up the kitchen and get the recipe.'

Claudia plonked the spinach soup in front of me on its tray. ‘Now you're taking liberties. Drink this, it's obviously doing you good.'