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‘What’s that smell?’ Nick said.

The smell was his aftershave.

‘Oh, just some smelly stuff from the hotel. I had a shower,’ she said, kissing his forehead.

‘Pooh. Stinks,’ he said, and she tried to smile.

‘Go to sleep, darling. I’m here. I’m going to bed now too,’ she lied.

‘You said you’d keep the door open,’ he said, trying not to let his eyes close, but they were fighting him.

‘Yes I know. I’m sorry. Look. It’s open. Shh, ssh, sweetheart, go back to sleep,’ and she carried on stroking his hair until his eyes won, and closed. It only took a few minutes. She heard him move behind her. She felt him standing over her and Nick. She saw him look down at Nick, then take his knife and move it over Nick’s sleeping eyes. From left to right, the blade hovered over her little boy’s lashes. She held her breath as she stood up and moved towards the door. She needed to get him out of Nick’s room. Thank God he followed her. If Nick had woken … What would he have done?

Back in her room she told him to lock the door, and he smiled as if he thought she didn’t want them to be disturbed again.

‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘Now where were we?’

She’d put her T-shirt on again when she’d gone in to Nick, and so she peeled it off once more. Slowly this time. She wanted to win him over. She didn’t want him to hurt her or Nick and she hoped that maybe he only wanted to look. She heard the click of the camera as she pulled the T-shirt over her head. She didn’t know what to do. Should she pose? What should she do?

He looked at her, standing there in her knickers. They were plain, white. Decent. Modest. He was disappointed. He went over to the chest of drawers and opened the top drawer and riffled through. He found the underwear Robert had bought for the holiday and he held it out to her.

‘Put these on,’ he said. So she did.

‘Sit down on the bed.’ She sat down on the bed.

‘Sit back a bit. Relax.’ She tried to. She put her arms behind her, leaning back a little.

‘Open your legs,’ he said. She did.

He sat down on a chair and looked at her.

‘Put your hand in your knickers.’ Oh fuck, she thought. She took a deep breath and put her hand in her pants.

‘Be nice to yourself,’ he said. ‘Make yourself come.’

How could she? She couldn’t. But she had to. Her fingers began to move and he put his eye to his camera and waited. She was dry. Nothing there. She moved her fingers faster and then she heard the click, click, click begin, the whine of the zoom as he came in closer and closer, and she shut her eyes and tilted her head back. She parted her lips, gasped, faked, bit her top lip, moved her fingers, groaned and she knew she would never get there but he would never know and then a final groan, a sigh. And she waited. She kept her hand there, not daring to move, wondering if that was all he wanted. Would he touch her? Or had her touching herself been enough? Click, click, fucking click. Slowly she took her hand away. Slowly she turned to look at him. He was sitting down. He looked relaxed, the camera hanging round his neck. No sign of the knife.

‘Please. Please go now,’ she said. ‘Please.’ And suddenly he wasn’t relaxed and there was the knife again. She’d made a mistake. She shouldn’t have said that. She should’ve pretended it was what she’d wanted too. He took his knife and cut her pants and then he grabbed her hand and shoved it down the front of his jeans, his pants. Wet. She could smell it, the pungent smell of his spunk. And her hand felt him getting hard and her heart raced and her throat clenched and she knew it wasn’t over. She felt sick with terror. Panic. Fear for herself, fear for her little boy. Her hand gripped his penis and she wanted to rip it from his body. He pulled her hand away.

‘Not yet,’ he’d said, as if she was impatient for him. ‘Turn over.’

‘No, please don’t …’ She’d started to cry, hoping that somewhere he would feel pity for her. Instead he walked over to the door adjoining Nick’s room.

‘Shall we show him what Mummy likes doing?’ And she imagined, for a moment, what it would do to her son if he saw what had happened, and what might happen. What would that do to him?

‘OK, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’

He looked at her.

‘Please, come back,’ she said. He came back and she got on all fours and he pulled her pants off, which were only hanging by a thread.

‘Smile,’ he said. She did.

‘So I can see you,’ he said, and she turned her head and smiled.

‘Do it again,’ he said and he snapped away as she reached her hand back, taking herself from behind. She closed her eyes. She was hiding herself from him, and trying to think. What should she do? She had to get him out of there. She had to get him away from Nick. Maybe she could leave the hotel with him …

‘Why have you stopped?’ She hadn’t realized she had. She started again, faster, faster again, her wrist aching, and then he grabbed her, and pushed into her, the pain, blood, then he turned her over, kissed her, his teeth, his spit, she could taste his aftershave, bitter on her tongue. She couldn’t make a sound. He didn’t have to put his hand over her mouth to keep her quiet. How could she scream with Nicholas there? What? Was he going to come and rescue her? She had to take it. And hope to God it would soon be over and he would leave. He pressed his knee into her thigh and pushed into her again, hard, hard, hard. But quick. It was over. Over quick, but he was young and ready to go again. And again. And then finally he had had enough. How long? Hours. It felt like hours and hours. It was three and a half. It lasted for three and a half hours. And she had let him brutalize her. She hadn’t fought, she hadn’t screamed. She had thought of Nick. Don’t scream. Don’t cry. He lay next to her on the bed and took her hand and turned to her and smiled.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘That was nice.’ And she wanted him to die. She would have given anything to watch him die. She did tell his father that. She felt he needed to know that. She couldn’t pretend to be sorry for that. It was real. It’s what she had felt.

He reached into his rucksack, took out a pack of cigarettes and offered her one. She shook her head. He was about to light it.

‘Not in here,’ she said. Nick would smell it, but she didn’t want to say that. She didn’t want to remind him about Nick. She pointed to the balcony. He opened the shutters and the doors and went out.

‘Sure?’ he said, turning back and offering her the pack again, and she thought she’d better and took one and followed him out, closing the door behind them. They stood side by side on the balcony, looking down at the party people, the happy people, the normal people enjoying a night out. Someone glanced up as they walked past. Saw them, standing side by side smoking. Companionably. No idea they were looking up at a rapist and his victim. She remembers finishing the cigarette. He kissed her when he left, one more assault, as if he had no idea what he’d done.

52

Late summer 2013

The door gives its familiar stutter as it closes behind her. When she had finished speaking, she had looked at me and said ‘sorry’. And then she had got up and walked out. I didn’t reply. I had only interrupted her once to ask a question and she’d answered it. I didn’t get up and see her to the door or thank her for coming. I stayed where I was. I wish I hadn’t burned Nancy’s notebooks – I would do anything to have them back. I need the comfort of her words but the house is silent. Except it isn’t. I am trembling so much that the chair I’m sitting on is banging against the table and I have to grip the seat to steady it and me. Why did I destroy Nancy’s notebooks and keep the photographs? What a fool.

I feel raw, as if my skin has been licked off by a cat’s rough tongue, removing my protective layer, and I am not sure I can survive without it. I flail around for something to cling to and grab at the nearest thing. She is a liar. She has been lying for years – everyone knows that. She is lying again now. And I listen out for Nancy’s voice to echo mine, but I can’t hear it. All I hear are Catherine Ravenscroft’s words describing how Jonathan cut a cross on to his arm and made her lick his blood, and I remember the purple marks I saw when we identified his body. Scarring from an injury sustained in the accident, they told us. But so neat and perfectly drawn? I try Nancy again:

‘Why didn’t you ask her about the photographs? Why didn’t you confront her when she said she had never met Jonathan?’ But Nancy remains silent.

‘She has no proof,’ I howl.

I cannot stand the silence and put on my jacket and leave the house. The bus stop is at the end of the road and I march to it: left-right, left-right, eyes front. I can hear the low hum of the bus and turn to see it coming down the road behind me. I quicken my pace, turning round to try and catch the driver’s eye. I put out my hand. I am still twenty yards from the stop. He overtakes me, pulls in and waits. A youth gets off. I am nearly there, but the bus pulls out before I reach it. Didn’t he see me? He must have seen me. How cruel. He didn’t have the decency to wait, a minute, three at the most. I give the rear of the bus a salute as it disappears round the corner and wait for the next.

Time passes without me noticing. I have emptied my head. When the next bus comes I get on and sit behind the driver. An elderly woman sits opposite. She tries to catch my eye but I look past her through the window.

‘It’s going to be a lovely afternoon. They said it’ll clear up later,’ she says. I look at her. I want to reply but I cannot speak, so I nod and turn away. A woman with two small children gets on at the next stop and the elderly lady pats the seat next to her for one of the children to sit down. The child looks nervous, she doesn’t seem to recognize the old woman, but the mother smiles, picks her up and pops her on the seat, then picks up the other child, a little boy, and carries him. They are about two years old; I think they must be twins. Now the little girl is staring at me too. I stare back. The two women chat about nothing, but it fills the space nicely between me and them.

She is right, by the time I get off the bus the grey has shifted and the sky is blue, the sun bright, but low. It shines directly in my sight-line and I have to squint. Even then all I see ahead are dark, ill-defined shapes. I turn left through the gate and now the sun is to my right and my vision clears.

This is where Catherine Ravenscroft and Nancy met: the place where Jonathan and Nancy are buried. I used to come regularly to tend their graves but I haven’t been for a while. With Nancy back at home, I haven’t felt the need. We bought our plot when Jonathan died, deciding to settle down with him when it was our turn. For some reason dog walkers seem to think this is an appropriate place for their dogs to stretch their legs and defecate. It usually annoys me but today I sit on a bench and watch them. Jonathan and Nancy are on a rise behind me.

The dog walkers here are good sorts, they always pick up after their animals. I watch a man scoop up his dog’s mess with impressive efficiency. One smooth move, hand in black bag, a swoop down, pick up and then straight into the bin, the lid already raised by his other free hand. I smile and nod as he walks on. I watch him until he is out of sight. I look the other way. A jogger enters the gates but he takes another path, away from my bench. I get up and open the doggy bin and reach in and take out the black bag. Holding it between finger and thumb I walk up to my son’s grave. I untie the bag and the reek makes me gag.

‘You fucking little shit!’ I shout and hurl it at Jonathan’s grave. Some of it flicks out, sticking to his headstone and I am immediately ashamed. Nancy lies next to Jonathan:
Devoted mother, beloved wife, forever missed.

I look round to see if anyone has seen me, but they haven’t. I go to the tap and fill a watering can and bring it back, throwing water over Jonathan’s headstone. It takes three trips to clean it all off, and then I pick up the black bag and drop it into the bin. I return to the graves and kneel down between them and weep.

‘Did you know, Nancy? Did you suspect?’ And my weeping turns to sobs and I am on all fours, prostrate at their feet. I feel a hand on my shoulder.

‘Are you OK?’

I look up at the man I had seen earlier with his dog. He reads the headstones.

‘Your wife and son?’

I nod, expecting another pat before he walks away, but he stays with me.

‘How did your son die?’ There is no prurience; it is a gentle question. My mouth is full of spit and tears and I struggle to get the words out. He offers me his hand and helps me up.

‘He drowned,’ I manage.

‘How terrible,’ he says. I want more.

‘He was trying to save a child.’ I hear him catch his breath.

‘That’s incredibly brave,’ he says, and nods as if he understands now who Jonathan was. ‘And did he? Save the child?’

‘Yes, he did.’

‘What a brave young man he must have been.’ He puts his hand on my shoulder, then walks away.

Yes, he was. Whatever else he may or may not have done, Jonathan was brave to have saved that child, no one can deny that. On that afternoon he had shown courage. He was the first to run in. That’s what the police said. He swam in without a thought for himself. If he hadn’t acted so quickly, Nicholas Ravenscroft would have been swept out too far for anyone to reach. The young Spaniard may have been the one to drag Nicholas on to the beach, but it was Jonathan who really saved him. I would have been too frightened, most people would have been too frightened, but in that moment Jonathan forgot himself and found the courage to do the right thing. ‘He was a very brave young man,’ is how witnesses had described him to the police and how they had then described him to us. ‘He sacrificed himself,’ was their dramatic translation from Spanish into English.

I know that I have never felt as proud of Jonathan as I should have. It shames me to recognize that I never quite believed in his courage. Was it bravery or recklessness? I try but fail to recall a single time, in the nineteen years he was with us, when he put himself before another human being. Not once. So why then? And why couldn’t he swim to shore? Was the sea really too strong?

‘Why did the Spaniard make it back and not Jonathan?’ I had once burst out to Nancy and she gave me the answer I wanted to hear.