The Woman He Loved Before Page 25

  They made me undress to prove I wasn’t hiding any cash anywhere, then they threw me naked outside the room. Thirty seconds later, laughing loudly, they threw out my dress, my jacket, my underwear, my stockings, my shoes and my bag. With shaking hands, and with their laughter on the other side of the door still clanging like an alarm bell in my ears, I ran to the end of the corridor and got dressed.

  Another woman could go to the police. She could verbally sketch out the image of the two white men with emotionless eyes and carnivorous grins who were her attackers. She could describe the number of curves and points that made up the serrated edge of the blade and how it felt pressed into her skin. She could explain the smell of fear that filled her nostrils. She could tell of the terror of thinking she was about to be raped and left with her throat slit in a small hotel in London. She could outline the horror of imagining the details of your life and your gruesome, sordid death factually noted in a small column in a newspaper. She could recall the disgustingly delicious mix of relief and humiliation as she ran to the end of the corridor and stood by the lift getting dressed as quickly as possible, and to still feel it when she finally got home.

  But I wasn’t another woman, I wasn’t any woman. I wasn’t a ‘woman’ at all, was I? I was a hooker, a whore, a prossie.

  The police won’t care that I got robbed. They would probably arrest me for soliciting; they would probably question me to find out if I was on drugs. In the grand scheme of things, the hierarchy of crimes, something happening to me would rank somewhere near the bottom rung. Even if I was murdered, who would really care?

  X

  17th February 1995

  ‘Aren’t you going to work?’ Elliot asked me earlier.

  I haven’t been out to work in three days. I’m too scared. I can admit that here. I’ve been telling myself I don’t need to work because I’ve already earned enough to get by this month, despite being robbed the other night, but in reality I am too scared to go out there. The reminder that no one would care if something happened to me added to my fear.

  Elliot was out when I got in the other night so I had bathed and cried – the first time in ages – before I forced myself to go to sleep. It would be better in the morning, I decided. But I woke up in a sweat, panicked and terrified several times in the night, and felt heavy-headed and weak by the time the sun came up.

  He hadn’t noticed anything was wrong – not even that I’d taken up smoking again. Now he noticed because I wasn’t out there, earning. I often didn’t work over the days of my period, but that was last week.

  ‘No,’ I said, simply, focusing on the television.

  ‘Why not?’ he asked, as if my job was a normal one, as if I was stupid to put it in jeopardy. As if he shouldn’t mind what I do.

  ‘Because three nights ago two men attacked and robbed me at knifepoint,’ I said. Stating the cold hard facts of what happened sent a chill through my heart. Did that really happen to me? I thought. From nowhere, the time I was attacked outside Habbie’s came into my mind. I’d stopped working for a few days after that, too.

  ‘You didn’t give them all your money, did you?’ Elliot asked, his concern for the money so very touching.

  ‘Yes, I’m fine, thanks for asking,’ I replied.

  ‘Well, you’re obviously fine,’ he replied, as if I was stupid. ‘Did they get all your cash?’

  ‘Why haven’t you asked if they raped me?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, they can’t can they?’ he said with a casual shrug. ‘You’re a prossie.

  You can’t rape a prossie.’

  ‘Oh, fuck off, you wanker,’ I said to him.

  ‘What? You can’t, can you?’

  ‘No means no – whoever is saying it. When I went up to that man’s room, I had agreed to have sex with him for money. If I changed my mind and didn’t take his money, that doesn’t give him the right to do it anyway.’

  ‘Yeah, but—’

  ‘Shut up. If you want to carry on living here and getting money from me, just shut up.’

  I turned up the sound on the TV, pulled my legs up to my chest and stared hard at the screen. I had to get away from him, I realised. He was poison. If he hadn’t stolen all my money, I would not be sitting here, disgusted with my body, unsure of who I am, desperate to be able to get out of this cycle I’m in.

  I’m stuck again, of course. I didn’t want to do this long-term, but here I am two and a half years later.

  Things have got to get better soon, right?

  Right?

  Lady (ha ha) In A Mess

  chapter fifteen

  libby

  ‘What would you like to get out of these sessions, Libby?’ the woman sitting opposite me asks.

  I am in a room in her basement flat where she works from. The opaque blinds that cover the large windows let in some light from the street, and the space is a delicate mixture of functional and comfortable. Two of the walls have bookcases filled with books on psychology, psychotherapy, counselling and trauma. The third wall, behind her head, and beside the door is taken up with her framed diplomas and qualifications. Beneath the window, behind me, is a large wooden desk, which is neat and orderly. She has also managed to fit in two large, squashy chairs that you sink into. Both have three cushions – excessive but probably necessary to create the illusion of comfort. Nothing like comfort is going to take place in here.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I admit.

  I want to get back to being me again, I want to go back to the part of my life where I thought Jack loved me and I only needed to give him time to heal so he could show me so completely. I want to stop having weird dreams. I want to have my face and my hair back. I want to understand how someone who seems as nice as Eve can get sucked into the world she did. I want a lot of things that are highly unlikely to come from just talking to this woman.

  ‘That’s a good place to start, believe it or not. You’re probably more open to the process if you don’t have any unrealistic expectations.’

  I’ve been known to give the unrealistic expectations spiel to people who come to have a facial in the hopes it’ll reverse the twenty years of sunbaking/sleeping in make-up/smoking/excessive drinking they’ve done. ‘You’re lucky to have a good underlying bone structure,’ I used to say. ‘A long-lasting, youthful complexion comes down to genes as well as taking care of yourself. I think a course of facials will help a lot, but I can’t promise it’ll reverse all the damage.’ In other words, you have unrealistic expectations – the only way they would be realistic is if I had access to a time machine so I could go back, slather you in sunblock, slap the cigarette out of your hands, stand over you while you wash make-up off every night or send you home to bed after just a few drinks.

  I’m sure this woman is saying the same thing because she heard briefly about my problems on the phone and probably thought I was a textbook case who she could talk and nurture back to health. In 3D, full Technicolor, she is now probably thinking the same thing I think when I see a sun-loving, booze-swigging smoker who wants to look like the young model on the front of a magazine: unrealistic expectations.

  I say nothing to Orla Jenkins. Most people I give the spiel to accept that I am going to do the best I can while expecting a miracle. I am realistic enough to know that there will be no miracles from this process – I might be lucky and walk away feeling better about myself but with all the other issues still raging in the background.

  ‘What’s the most pressing problem you have at the moment?’ Orla Jenkins asks.

  I want to leave my husband. I’m obsessed with a dead woman. I still can’t completely assimilate the horror of looking in the mirror and seeing someone completely different to the image I have of myself in my head. Leaving the house is like a hell where I am being tortured in the most intimate ways. ‘I can’t get into a car.’

  ‘How did you get here today?’

  ‘I walked.’

  ‘And how was that?’

  ‘Not easy, since walking anything
but a short distance is very hard.’

  ‘Have you been in a car since the accident?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes, on the way home from the hospital. I couldn’t get on the bus so it had to be in a taxi.’

  ‘And that’s it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How did it feel being in the back of that taxi?’

  ‘Not good,’ I say. ‘It probably wouldn’t be so bad if I was driving. I don’t like the idea of sitting there passively and being …’ My voice stops working.

  ‘And being?’ Orla Jenkins prods.

  I shrug. ‘I don’t know,’ I mumble.

  ‘Being in control seems quite important to you. Do you like to be in control?’

  Doesn’t everyone? Aren’t even the people who relinquish control to others constantly plagued with doubt that they’re not doing the right thing? ‘Yes, but I don’t see that as anything unusual. Don’t most people like to be in control?’

  ‘But life is full of things and instances that are out of your control.’

  I have been picking at my nails and manage to break a small bubble, to slip the edge of my thumb nail under it then lift away a flap of base coat, varnish and top coat in one go. It peels back across my nail like the lid of a yoghurt pot. It’s gratifying enough to take away the sting of her words, a reminder that I am walking proof that most of life is random and out of control. That a man I have never met, who thinks he can make a dash for a small gap in traffic but misjudges it because he has his mobile hooked between his chin and his shoulder and isn’t concentrating, can change my life. I’m not going to say ‘wreck my life’ because it isn’t wrecked. I still have my life, I can still walk and talk, I haven’t lost anyone in the purest sense – Jack is an exceptional case – so my life isn’t wrecked. Although I’ll probably never go back to being a beauty therapist. Even with make-up and a wig until my hair grows back, I don’t think I could do that job again. But despite that, I am still lucky. I know that.

  ‘Maybe,’ I say. ‘But that doesn’t change the fact I don’t like to live my life in a state of chaos or anarchy. I like to be in control as much as possible.’

  Orla Jenkins sighs. ‘The thing is, Libby,’ she says in that tone someone uses only when they’re about to tell you off, ‘I’m concerned that you seem to be intellectualizing a lot of what has happened to you. You’re not allowing yourself to feel.’

  Not allowing myself to feel? I feel a lot. I’ve cried, buckets. ‘I’ve cried more in the past few weeks than I’ve cried my entire life,’ I say to her.

  ‘But you’re not able to let go and cry properly, are you? You must be so angry and sad – I’m sure anyone would be in your situation – but you don’t seem to be allowing yourself the space or permission to feel that.’

  ‘What good would getting angry do apart from upsetting everyone around me?’ I ask her. ‘And who would I be angry at?’

  ‘Who do you think you would be angry at?’

  ‘The idiot driving the other car,’ I say without conviction. For some reason, I can’t think about him in terms of what happened after the crash. Whenever the police call to tell me what is happening, I can’t talk to them and I ask them to speak to Jack instead. The first few times he tried to tell me he stopped talking after a few words when he realised I was staring at him with glazed-over eyes and had put my hands over my ears. I didn’t want to know; I couldn’t know, for some reason.

  ‘You don’t sound very sure,’ Orla Jenkins says.

  ‘Has it been an hour yet?’ I ask.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh, well … Look, I’m sorry, you’re very nice and you have fabulous skin, and I’m sure you’ve helped lots of other people, but I can’t be here. This isn’t my thing at all. I think … I think I’m just going to have to get on with it. You know? Stop being so pathetic. If I try to be more positive, focus on the things I’ve got, I think I’ll be all right.’ I stand, pull my hat further down my face and wrap my rain mac around myself again. ‘Thanks, really. You’ve been great.’

  ‘I’m sorry this hasn’t been what you expected,’ she says, standing too. ‘But if you change your mind, you’ll know where I am.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say again. ‘I’ll get in touch if I need to.’

  I won’t. We both know that I won’t.

  But I know exactly what I’m going to do when I get home.

  libby

  When I get home, the door to the ‘Eve cupboard’ in the cellar is ajar and it is empty. It wasn’t like that yesterday. I stand staring at it, a feeling of dread creeping through me. I hope he didn’t do that for me. I hope he didn’t dispose of her belongings because of me. I’m not worth it, not to him.

  If he destroys or rids himself of her belongings because he thinks it will change anything between us, he will start to hate me for ‘making’ him do it, and he will hate himself for being weak enough to go through with it.

  He can’t help not loving me. No more than I can help still being in love with him.

  ‘It’s all a bit of a mess, isn’t it?’ Eve says, sitting with her legs pulled up to her chest and watching me with sympathy.

  ‘For both of us,’ I reply. ‘And yes, I am aware that I have completely lost my mind – talking to my soon-to-be ex-husband’s dead wife is probably as close to crazy as a person can get.’

  eve

  25th May 1995

  So, now I’m in Brighton.

  That last conversation with Elliot was the wake-up call I needed to get out of the life I was living. The second he left the flat the next day, I packed my diaries, my dress, Aunt Mavis’s rosary, my picture of my parents and me, and the cash I had hidden in Uncle Henry’s kitbag. I took as many clothes as I could get into the bag in a short space of time, then I ran for it.

  After speaking to him, realising how little he thought of me, how much he thought of the money I made from what I did, I decided that I had to put myself first. I splurged on a black cab to Victoria and with every street the driver turned down, the knot of anxiety and fear loosened because I was going to be away from him. I’d already decided to leave London. There was no point sticking around here when there was even the slightest possibility of bumping into Elliot. It’d be too painful, too awful.

  Walking away from everything wasn’t as bad the second time. Leaving my books, my clothes, my underwear, my crockery, cutlery, little knick-knacks was easier this time than it had been when I left Leeds. This time I knew what was important, what money couldn’t replace, and that nothing could be as hard as walking away from my mother.

  So, I am here in Brighton.

  I spent the first few nights in a hostel, then I found a pretty two-bedroom flat to rent in a place called Kemptown. It’s nice here.

  I’m sitting in my clean living room, with seagulls wailing in piercing tones outside as if crying for some lost love, about to leave for my third admin interview of the day.

  Since that birthday I spent in Brighton, I’ve always fancied living by the seaside. And now I am.

  Fingers crossed I’ll get this job and then my new life can really begin. All that other stuff will be in the past and I’ll be worthy of my dress again. Fingers crossed, fingers crossed.

  Eve (Yes, it’s really me again)

  21st September 1995

  Six months in Brighton.

  And this is what I have learned: the men you meet escorting are very different to the men you meet in hotels.

  A lot of them have considered what they’re going to do, I suppose: planned for it, booked a hotel room or made sure they’re alone in their home for the night so they can get a girl like me over.

  Towards the end of my stint in London, I’d lowered my prices because the men just weren’t up for paying as much as they used to. I don’t know why. Dawn muttered something about there being more supply than ever so the ‘clients’ got to be picky. Good old capitalism at work there. With this agency I’ve signed up with, I get much more money than I did, even after the cut they take (thirty per cen
t!). And they do checks on the men to make sure they are safe and legit. No more men waiting for me with knives.

  Henrietta (don’t think that’s her real name but she calls me Honey, so there you go), the boss I had the ‘interview’ with, told me to get my hair done at a posh salon, to make sure I got regular manicures and facials, and that I bought some expensive underwear because the men she sent girls to expected class. And I had a look of class about me … well, I could have if I got myself groomed. She reminded me of Ophelia a little: the same apple-shaped face, swept up greying hair, sophisticated clothes, and posh accent. But unlike Ophelia, Henrietta’s accent dropped every so often and I was sure I could hear hints of Yorkshire in there. But I could be imagining that because I am so often knocked over by homesickness.

  ‘It’s all fanny at the end of the day, darling,’ she said, ‘but these men think the fannies they “visit” should be neat and groomed and smelling sweet. Totally unrealistic view of what women are all about, but what do I care? They can pay anything in the region of five hundred pounds per hour for the right girl, which makes me very happy.’

  It isn’t all about fucking, I soon found out. Some of them do actually want you to escort them to places – to events and dinners, shows, and even the cinema. Some of them want to take you to dinner first, to talk to you, to ask you questions, before you go back to their place. They like to have someone good looking on their arm while they are seen out and about, or they like to pretend they’re on a date. Whatever the activity, it doesn’t bother me – I’m getting paid by the hour so the longer they want to spin it out, the more cash I go home with.

  Some of them don’t want you to fuck them the first few times; they like to talk to you, they want a cuddle, they want to be held. They want you to verbally stroke their egos while you physically stroke their bodies. Some ask you to take your clothes off and to lie in front of them so they can touch you, they can try to pleasure you.