He shoved her back down on to the floor, banging her head smartly against the wood, then lay his forearm across her throat and pushed. Not even that hard. Immediately, she began to choke. He leaned a little harder. Terrified, struggling, desperate to breathe, she saw how easily he could kill her. It happened all the time. Women got raped and killed and it was happening to her. Her vision was going black at the edges and instantly she became silent and floppy. She had to live through this. That was the only thing that really mattered. Anything else . . . well, she’d deal with it afterward, but she couldn’t die.
He began to shove and batter at her with his penis and, unexpectedly, she had a pinprick of hope: maybe it wouldn’t happen, maybe she was too tense for him to get in. But he kept stabbing until he found an entry point, then he ground his way up into her. He began to move back and forth and it felt raw and terribly wrong.
I am being raped. This is what it’s like.
For the first time since he’d brought her to the bedroom, he spoke. “Is it good for you?”
Mutely, she gazed at him, then she had the strangest sensation, of leaving her body, of spiraling away through the crown of her head. She was gone; she was waiting outside herself until it was over. She could see herself, rigid on the floor, her eyes tightly shut, tears leaking from beneath her lids; she could see him lying on top of her, thrusting and shoving and, strangest of all, whispering words of love. “You’re beautiful.” “I love you.” “You really hurt me.”
It seemed to go on forever. He lost his erection twice and they had to wait until he was ready to recommence. A few times she returned to her body and it would still be happening and she would have to leave again.
After a long time, he climaxed, spurting into her. Pregnancy, she thought. Chlamydia, she thought. Evidence.
Cold metal. An internal examination. Swabs and photos. An STD test. An Aids test. Too soon, of course, to do a pregnancy test. Feet back up in the stirrups for another internal. Matt holding her hand. Checks for bruising, tearing, internal bleeding. A whole world that she’d known nothing about.
After David had finished with her, he’d rolled off and lay on the bedroom floor, staring at the ceiling. She had lain rigid, wondering what he was going to do to her next. But, as the seconds had ticked by and nothing happened, she’d scooted away from him, and in a sudden frenzy of activity, she’d been pulling up her knickers and jeans, still expecting him to stop her, to wrestle her back down on to the floor and start it all over again.
A different woman might have said to him: You raped me and I’m going to tell everyone. But she’d had no thoughts of vengeance. All that had mattered was that she got away while she was still alive.
Downstairs, she’d unchained her bike. She hadn’t been able to ride it, she couldn’t get on the saddle, but she couldn’t leave it here. She had to take away every part of herself; she could leave nothing for him. So she’d set off half-running, wheeling her bike a distance of over two miles, and the next moment, so it seemed, she’d arrived at her own front door.
She hadn’t rung Matt; she hadn’t wanted to disturb his evening. Instead, she’d sat, small and cold, on her sofa, waiting for him to come home. And when he did, he was confused, at least initially, but he believed her.
Two police, a man and a woman, took her statement.
“You got the . . . stuff?” Maeve asked, trying not to shudder. “You can do DNA, prove it was him?” She hadn’t had a bath, she hadn’t washed away any evidence; she was proud of that. She’d gone home and waited for Matt, and though she’d felt like she was dreaming it all, she’d intuitively known that she shouldn’t even change her clothes.
“We’re getting a bit ahead of ourselves here,” the man guard said. Vincent, his name was. “We don’t know yet that it was non-consensual.”
Maeve looked at him blankly. “But it was.” She looked at Sandra, the woman guard. “But it was,” she repeated. She looked at Matt. “But it was.”
“I know,” Matt said.
Calmly, Sandra eyeballed them. “Let’s start at the beginning. What were you wearing?”
“Those clothes.” Maeve indicated the polythene evidence bag containing her jeans and underwear. Once again, she’d done exactly the right thing: she’d known her clothes would be taken from her, she’d known to bring a spare set.
“Not very provocative, are they?” Matt said, with a flash of defiance.
“It would be better if Mrs. Geary just answered the questions,” Sandra said. “Maeve, you weren’t wearing a dress?”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s no easy job to pull down someone’s jeans while restraining them.”
“Yes, but . . . he did.” How could she explain David’s dead weight, his strength?
“Here.” Vincent handed her a wad of tissues and Maeve realized that silent tears were streaming down her face.
“How would you describe your relationship with Mr. Price?” Sandra asked.
“Who—Oh, David. He used to be my boyfriend. Before I met Matt.”
“You went to his flat earlier this evening.” Sandra checked her watch.
“Still today, just about. You went alone, just the two of you? Why didn’t your husband go?”
“He had a work thing,” Maeve said at the same time that Matt said, “She has a right to her own life.”
“But your husband approved of this visit?”
“He didn’t know,” Maeve had to admit.
“But I wouldn’t have minded,” Matt said.
“You didn’t tell him that you were going to visit Mr. Price? Why was it a secret?”
“It wasn’t a secret. It was just something I didn’t tell him.”
“You and Mr. Price had a drink together? Would it be fair to say that your inhibitions were lowered due to alcohol intoxication?”
“I had one beer. I didn’t even drink it. Look, I didn’t even want to see him but he said he wanted to give me a wedding present.”
“A wedding present?” Sandra raised her eyebrow and Maeve realized how sleazy the phrase sounded.
“I have to ask you this, Mrs. Geary, because, if this case gets to court, you will be asked the question again: when you were the girlfriend of Mr. Price, did you have sexual intercourse?”
She swallowed. “We did, but this was different.”
“You’ve been examined thoroughly. You display no bruising or internal injuries.”
“There must be bruises. I banged my head on the floor and he put his arm across my throat and tried to choke me.”
“Your clothing isn’t torn, you’re not cut, there’s no evidence of a struggle.”
“But I did struggle.”
“Any meaningful bruising would be visible within minutes. It’s over four hours since the alleged incident.”
“I did struggle but he was much stronger than me.”
“If I was being raped, I’d put up a mighty struggle.”
“I was afraid he’d kill me.”
Again that raised eyebrow. “Kill you?” she asked, writing something down. “Wow.”
“Well,” Matt said heartily, as the two guards left the interview room. “She was a right cunt.”
An unexpected giggle escaped Maeve. “You can’t say that word.”
“I wouldn’t normally, but I’m prepared to make an exception for her.”
“What do you think is happening?”
“They’ll be talking to . . . him.”
“And what, they’ll arrest him? He’ll go to prison . . . like, tonight? Is that how it works?”
“I don’t know. He might get bail. Like, until the trial.”
Trial. Court.
“Matt? I feel like I’m dreaming.”
“So do I.”
“This time three days ago we were on our honeymoon.”
“We’ll get through this.”
With sudden urgency, she said, “Matt, don’t tell Mam and Dad. They couldn’t take it. They’re so . . . innocent.”
br /> “It’s okay. We’ll keep it to ourselves, just you and me.” They’d wrestle this huge, horrible thing into a little box, then they’d bury it and hide it forever.
“Matt, can you see a bruise on my throat?”
“Step nearer to the light, till I have a proper look.”
“The front bit,” she said. “On my Adam’s apple.”
“I think I can see something,” he said uncertainly.
“Maybe there isn’t anything there,” she admitted miserably. “He didn’t have to press very hard.” The lightest of pressure had been enough to start her choking and put her in fear of death. “What about my head? Is there a bruise on the back of my head? Is there a lump?”
With gentle fingers, Matt explored the back of her skull. “I can’t really see anything because of your hair. Does it hurt?”
She wished it did. “Not any more but it hurt a lot at the time.” The unthinkable occurred to her. “God, Matt. What if there’s no evidence? What if they think I’m making it up?”
“No one would think that.”
Hours passed. Propped up against each other’s shoulders, they waited while everything was being fixed and they could go home and back to normality. “I wish someone would just tell us what was happening,” Maeve said, trying to keep her voice steady.
“They will soon. It’ll all be grand.”
Eventually, they both nodded off, and just after four in the morning, a sound at the door made them jerk into dry-mouthed wakefulness. The man cop, Vincent, had come back. He pulled up a chair and said, “Right, this is the situation. We’ve interviewed Mr. Price. He admits you had sexual intercourse. He says it was consensual.”
Fear, sour and sticky, flooded into Maeve’s mouth. “But it wasn’t.”
“It’s your word against his. Look.” Vincent leaned closer to her. “Are you sure you didn’t just, you know, get a bout of the guilts? One last go, for old times’ sake, then got afraid that hubby there might get wind.”
“I’m sure.”
“Are you sure you want to go ahead with this? Taking it further?”
“I’m sure.”
“Because it’ll ruin his life, you know. Just so as you know.”
Eight days later, Officer Vincent called to their flat. “The DPP isn’t going ahead with the prosecution.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means the DPP thinks there isn’t enough evidence to get a conviction.”
“But I know there is.” Maeve couldn’t feel her lips as she spoke.
“But you don’t bring the case. It’s the DPP. Director of Public Prosecutions.”
“So . . . does that mean, like, there won’t be a court case?”
“That’s right. No court case.”
She’d been dreading it, she knew they’d probe her about her sex life and they’d try to make out that she was a slut; but now that it wasn’t going to happen, she felt as if she’d gone into freefall. They needed to go to court. How else could things be put right?
“Why not?” Matt’s jaw was clenched.
“The DPP doesn’t have to give reasons.”
“You mean, you think David is innocent?” Maeve felt so dizzy she wondered if she might faint. “You think I made it up?”
“I mean that the DPP doesn’t think there’s enough evidence to get a conviction.”
“So . . . so, like, nothing will happen to him?” Matt’s face was white and pinched.
“Innocent until proven, and all that.”
“But how can it be proved if it doesn’t go to court? Maeve and I, we work in the same place as him. You’re saying he’ll just carry on with his job and everything like nothing happened?”
“In the eyes of the law he’s done nothing wrong.” The officer heaved himself up to leave. “Why should the man lose his job?”
“Wait. No, wait.” Maeve couldn’t let him go, not until he changed his mind. Because if he left now, with things as they were, they were stuck with them forever. “Can we appeal?”
He thought that was funny. “No, no, you can’t appeal. DPP’s decision is final and binding.” Then he seemed to relent a little. “Mind you, you might be as well off, leaving things as they are. Awful lot of dirty linen gets washed in a case like this.”
No one believed her.
She confided in Yvonne, her best friend from school. “David raped me.”
“How could he rape you? He used to be your boyfriend. You already had sex with him.”
She confided in Natalie. “David raped me.”
“David doesn’t need to rape anyone. He’s a nice guy.”
She confided in Jasmine, her ex-flatmate. “David raped me.”
“But that’s a terrible thing to say. He could sue you for that.”
She stopped confiding in people.
But she was going back to work. In two weeks’ time. Three weeks. At the start of next month. When her two-month certificate ran out. After the summer.
The panic attacks started. The first time it happened, she didn’t even know what it was. All she knew, with absolutely certainty, was that she was about to die. Her heart was spasming in her chest, no air could get in or out and she didn’t think she could survive the intensity of her fear. The same fear she’d felt on the floor of David’s bedroom, his forearm lying so easily across her throat. The expectation of imminent death.
She became terrified of men, of their height, their strength, even a casual look in her direction.
She overate, both she and Matt did, shoving down the feelings with butter and sugar and sweetness. She put on weight, but not as much as she would have liked. She wanted to disappear into a roly-poly body, to become invisible in it, so that no one would fancy her ever again.
She couldn’t be naked, not even alone. The touch of another human being, even Matt, stopped her from breathing. The last time she and Matt had had sex was on their honeymoon.
Her periods stopped. Her hair fell out. Her hands flaked, the skin sore with eczema. She couldn’t sleep without the light on. By the time she finished reading a sentence, she’d forgotten the beginning. She barely spoke.
Fear was the only thing she felt. Otherwise, nothing. It was as though, when she’d spiraled outside her body that evening on David’s floor, she’d never come back in again. Everything that happened to her . . . she seemed to see it almost like a movie. It was happening to someone else, another Maeve, not the real one.
Suddenly, around the four-month mark, things took an upward turn and Maeve felt confident enough to tackle going back to work. But on the morning that Matt drove her into the parking lot and she saw the entrance, she was seized with so much terror that her legs wouldn’t support her. She couldn’t get out of the car and Matt had to drive her home again. She’d tried too soon, and it was best to defer it until the following Monday. Or maybe the one after that.
A new home, Matt decided: that was the answer! A fresh start in a place with no horrible associations. Positive and energized, he visited an estate agent’s, but Maeve found fault with every place he suggested and all Matt’s enthusiasm drained to nothing, leaving him once more miserable and full of dread. Maeve was right. Better the devil you know. Keep the ship steady for the moment, and all that. And he had to admit it would have been a painful wrench to abandon the flat they’d bought, with such high hopes, to launch their married life in.
There was another reason to stay where they were. Money had become an issue. After six months’ absence, Maeve’s pay had been cut by half; now, a year on, it had been stopped entirely.
Then there was the garden—the back garden at 66 Star Street came with their flat. It had been the deciding factor in them buying the place because Maeve had been full of animated plans to grow foxgloves and carrots and tomatoes. “It’s so easy! You’ll see, Matt. We’ll be self-sufficient before we know it!”
They were self-sufficient now, all right, but self-sufficient in the wrong way. They had no one except each other. All of their friends—all
of them—had fallen away because they thought that Maeve had gone so weird, with her strange rape accusations, her insistence that this man was looking at her and that man was looking at her, and her drama-queen antics, the gasping and rocking backward and forwards and clutching her chest. Like, in public.
The social life that Matt shared with his male friends came to a halt because Maeve couldn’t spend an entire night at home without him. She could just about handle it when he went to work things because she knew they had little choice: Matt’s job was all that stood between them and complete penury.
The only person who remained sympathetic was Alex, Matt’s brother, but, in the end, even he’d become wearied by Matt’s chronic unavailability. “She’s got to learn to be on her own sometime,” he told Matt. “You’re making it worse by always giving in to her.”
Painful though it was to be rejected by people they’d previously depended on, there was a strange relief in it. They’d nothing in common with those people any more; their concerns seemed so trivial. To Maeve’s eternal relief, she’d managed to keep her parents from knowing any of what had happened. Matt’s parents were also in the dark. But putting on a show of normality in front of them was so exhausting that it couldn’t be done very often. Her visits down home lessened, and two times out of three she faked sickness so that she didn’t have to go to a Geary family do.
Burning them both up was the thought that David was walking around a free man while they were in prison.
Matt wanted to kill him. Actually really kill him. He saw him most days at work and he fantasized about following him home, lifting him from the street and bundling him into the back of a van, taking him to their flat, gagging him, binding him and making him suffer, making it last.
“I think about it too,” Maeve said. “Did you know that a hit man costs only two grand. I Googled it.”
“So did I.”
But they agreed they couldn’t take a contract out on David.
“It would only reduce us to his level,” Maeve said.
“I don’t care about that,” Matt said.
And neither did Maeve. She was destroyed anyway. “But we’d get caught. We’re the obvious suspects. We’d end up in prison. We can’t let him ruin our life more than he has.”