Till We Meet Again

  ‘I didn’t,’ she said. ‘I remained a loner. I was never the girl I’d been when I was with Suzie, ever again.’

  There was something so plaintive about that statement that Steven turned on the settee to look at her face. Her lower lip was trembling, a deep and terrible sadness in her green eyes. He remembered how Susan had remarked on Beth’s sadness, and clearly it hadn’t been there while they were still friends. He had no doubt that talking about the past had opened up an old wound. That wound must have been inflicted somewhere between her last visit to Stratford and when she went to university, for she’d already stated that she re-invented herself there.

  ‘What happened to you, Beth?’ he said softly. ‘I know something did. Tell me.’

  Her eyes met his, then darted away. A guilty look he’d seen so often in clients’ faces. ‘It’s late,’ she said tersely, her whole body stiffening beside him. ‘It’s time you went home.’

  She was right, of course, it was after twelve, but the way she was frantically trying to pull down the shutters was just confirmation he was right too.

  ‘I told you about Anna because I trust you,’ he said. ‘I think I knew, too, that you would help me to face up to it and deal with it. So please trust me, and let me help you.’

  Her wide mouth twisted scornfully. ‘What’s this, some kind of plea bargaining?’

  Steven took his courage in both hands. ‘People’s minds and bodies aren’t like your washing machine,’ he said carefully. ‘When something is damaged you can’t just go out and get a new spare part. It has to heal. I think…’ He paused. ‘No. I know,’ he said more forcefully, ‘that you’ve got a wound which hasn’t healed. I won’t claim I can heal it, but at least let me look at it.’

  ‘What are you, some frustrated shrink?’ Beth said scathingly. ‘I’m a grown woman, I don’t need a man who can’t even press his own suit to suggest I’m troubled.’

  Steven blushed. ‘I don’t get enough time to iron the girls’ clothes as well as I’d like to, let alone ponce myself up,’ he said. ‘Don’t try to hurt me to cover up your own pain.’

  ‘You’ve got a bloody cheek,’ she said, getting up and flouncing across the room. ‘You came here uninvited, I cooked you supper and gave you drinks as a way of showing my appreciation for your dealing with my flood. Okay, maybe because I told you about my childhood, you think you’ve got the right to pry into everything about me. Well, you don’t. Everything I told you tonight was background to Susan, nothing more.’

  Steven stood up. He was afraid to persist in case he smashed up the groundwork they’d already laid down this evening. Yet he could sense he was close to getting the truth. She hadn’t actually opened the door to fling him out, and there was a certain note in her voice which suggested that subliminally at least, she wanted to spill it all out.

  ‘It happened somewhere between sixteen and eighteen,’ he said gently but firmly. ‘Something so shattering you couldn’t even tell your friend. That’s why you dropped her, isn’t it? You could have gone to see her in Stratford once you were at university, but you didn’t dare, in case you let it slip. I’m right, aren’t I?’

  Beth just stared at him, eyes wide, face chalky-white, and her wide mouth slack. It was the expression of a child who had been caught doing something wrong. She was terribly afraid. He moved towards her and caught her up in his arms. ‘Don’t be frightened,’ he whispered, holding her tightly. ‘I’ll never use it against you, I only want to make you better.’

  She went limp in his arms, and suddenly she was crying, leaning on his shoulder and sobbing like a small child. ‘It’s okay,’ he said, stroking her curly hair with one hand, holding her tight with the other. ‘You are safe with me, Beth. Just tell me.’

  ‘They raped me,’ she croaked out. ‘Three of them, in an alley, one after the other.’

  Steven was struck dumb with horror. He certainly hadn’t expected anything like this, he’d been thinking more along the lines of her getting pregnant, or being jilted by a boyfriend. In his profession he’d met many women who were rape victims, and he knew how it blighted their lives.

  His instinct was purely paternal. He picked her up bodily, carried her to the couch, then cradled her as he would have done his own girls if they were hurt.

  ‘You’ve said the worst bit now,’ he said soothingly, stroking her hair back from her face. ‘Now tell me exactly how it happened.’

  ‘It was in the Christmas holidays, early January 1968, in Hastings. We had the January sale on at the shoe shop and instead of going straight home I went to the Rococo coffee bar,’ she blurted out, as if wanting to get it over with as quickly as possible. ‘Everyone at school went there all the time, it was “the” place to hang out. But I’d only ever been there during the day, because I wasn’t allowed out in the evenings. It was about six when I got there, and I thought I’d hang about and catch the half past seven bus home. If Father said anything about being late, I’d make out I’d been stocktaking.’

  Beth’s face was taut with tension and she gripped Steven’s arm tightly as she told him exactly what happened that night.

  The reason she wanted to stay in Hastings, despite it being bitterly cold, was because she’d met a boy called Mike on the bus whom she really liked, and she knew he went to the Rococo. She didn’t think she looked too bad in her work clothes, black mini-skirt and skinny-rib sweater, and she could take off her school coat as soon as she got in there.

  The Rococo was above a shop, two rooms fitted out with lots of low seating and dim lights, a steamy place with loud music from the juke-box. To her disappointment Mike wasn’t there. She drank several cups of espresso, chatted to a couple of girls she knew from the shop, put a few records on the juke-box, and finally at around twenty past seven she left a little disconsolately to catch the bus home to Battle.

  Frost was glistening on the pavements, and the wind coming in straight off the sea was so cold it seemed to cut right through her. The streets were completely deserted now, and it seemed strange to see all the lighted shop windows without anyone looking in them.

  She heard someone whistle at her, and looking over the street towards the clock tower, she saw two boys waving to her. It was too dark to see clearly but she thought one of them was Mike and ran over to him.

  It wasn’t until she was just a few yards away, that she realized it wasn’t Mike. She didn’t know either boy. The one she’d thought was Mike, was several inches shorter, and older by at least three years. Close up, he looked rough and dirty, the only similarity was that he had blond hair cut in a Beatle style like Mike’s.

  ‘I thought you were someone else,’ Beth said, stopping short, terribly embarrassed by her mistake.

  The boy she had thought was Mike said something about what did it matter if she didn’t know him and made some crack about her being so tall.

  She was well used to jokes about her height, but they always stung her, and she always retaliated with an insult. ‘Maybe you think that because you are rather stunted,’ she said in her best snooty voice and turned to walk away.

  ‘Wha’cha mean?’ he called out, then came after her, looking up at her scornfully. She was scared then, wishing she hadn’t made the remark – she could smell drink on his breath and his leather jacket and grubby jeans suggested he was one of the town’s hard cases.

  ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just that it’s not very nice having people making jokes about how tall I am,’ she said, moving away from him.

  ‘They should put a lamp on yer ‘ead and turn you into a lamp-post,’ his friend chimed in, and roared with laughter at his own joke. ‘’Ere, Bob, look ‘ow skinny ‘er legs are an ‘all,’ he added gleefully.

  ‘The nearer the bone, the sweeter the meat,’ Bob with the blond hair laughed sneeringly.

  Beth began walking away from them fast. But they followed her, making remarks about her hair, her school coat, and the fact that her feet were big. She was frightened even then. The streets were
deserted, and she was scared they might follow her on to the bus.

  ‘Please leave me alone,’ she said, stopping and turning towards them.

  ‘Please leave me alone,’ Bob repeated in a parody of her voice. ‘You ain’t ‘alf posh. I always wanted to shag a posh bird.’

  Beth ignored that and walked on, and when she saw a man come out of a side turning and call out to them, she thought they’d be distracted enough to leave her.

  A quick glance was enough to see he was much older than the other two. He was tall and well built, wearing a black Crombie overcoat, and he had a droopy moustache and an almost shaved head. As the two younger ones stopped to speak to him, she hurried on, but their voices carried on the wind and she could hear they were talking about her.

  Suddenly all three of them were trying to catch her up. The one called Bob shouted out to her and asked if she’d wanted to meet ‘Bonio’. ‘We call ’im that ’cos ’e’s ’ard,’ he added, and gave a raucous laugh.

  She had only about twenty-five yards to go to the bus stop now, she could see it up ahead. But there was no one else waiting, not a person in sight anywhere, and the three men were whispering together.

  Her heart was hammering with fear and she willed the bus to come now so she could sprint to it and be gone. Then suddenly the two younger men were on either side of her and they clamped their hands on to her arms.

  ‘Bonio’s got something ‘ard ‘e wants to show yer,’ Bob said.

  She let out a scream but it was stifled immediately by a hand from behind her. She was pulled and pushed into a passageway between two shops, at the end of which was a narrow, dark alleyway.

  Beth tried to get away, but they were too strong. When she kicked out at the one called Bonio, he only laughed.

  ‘Spirited, ain’t yer,’ he said. ‘I like that. There’s not many birds wot put up a fight with me.’

  Until the moment Beth saw Bonio unbutton his coat and pull down the zipper on his trousers, she’d imagined they were going to beat her up. That was frightening enough, but now she saw rape was their intent, she was absolutely terrified. She screamed again and tried to shake off the hands holding her, but they had her in such strong grips she couldn’t. They forced her down on to the ground in the alley and the one whose name she hadn’t heard stuck something, a scarf or a handkerchief, in her mouth to silence her.

  She was seventeen, and her only experience with boys until then had been a few kisses. But now she was on the hard, cold ground, and the man was yanking up her skirt, ripping her tights and then her knickers apart at the crutch, and he was leering down at her, urging the other two to hold her tight while he had what he called ‘his go’.

  Beth could smell cat’s pee and rotting rubbish, but it was so dark she could see nothing more than the walls of the shop yards looming either side of her. Then even that was obliterated by the man lying down on top of her and forcing himself into her.

  ‘I bet she’s a bleedin’ virgin,’ the blond one chortled close to her ear as he held her tightly. ‘Is it tight, Bonio?’

  She tried to scream despite the gag and even managed to make some noise, but Bonio put the side of his hand hard against her throat to choke her, and she could hardly breathe, let alone continue to try to make herself heard.

  The pain was excruciating, she felt as if she was being split in two. Then suddenly he stopped and the next one took over, pushing her even harder down on to the rough ground, muttering filthy things about her being wet and hot.

  When it was the third one’s turn she was too stunned and broken even to attempt to fight any more. She saw Bonio turn towards the wall, only a couple of feet from her head, to relieve himself, and somehow that act of contempt for her and her feelings was every bit as bad as the rape.

  ‘She’s like a bill poster’s bucket now,’ the man whose name she hadn’t heard remarked as he got to his feet, then kicked her in the side as she lay there, too ravaged even to cry, let alone move. ‘Filthy slag. You liked it, didn’t you?’

  They were gone with the speed of rats in the dark, leaving her lying there in the filth like a piece of sodden rubbish.

  ‘Oh, Beth.’ Steven’s sigh brought her back to the present, and she saw he had tears trickling down his cheeks. ‘I thought I had the right words to say for any occasion, but for once I can’t say anything except how sorry I am.’

  She was shocked at herself for telling it all so graphically, but she felt a huge sense of release that she’d been able to. In the weeks that followed that night she’d done her best to erase most of it from her memory, and what she was left with was just her shame. Yet reliving it again, it wasn’t shame she felt, only sorrow that her life had been permanently tainted by it.

  ‘What can anyone say?’ she sighed. ‘I know now that only a very small percentage of men can do that kind of thing, but for a very long time I was terrified of all men.’

  ‘What happened, did you report it?’ Steven asked. He was shocked to the core. It made him feel ashamed of his gender. He had hoped that by getting her to tell him it might heal her, but he couldn’t see how anyone could ever get over something as monstrous as that.

  Beth didn’t answer for a moment. Even now, at forty-four, with vast experience under her belt, she was shivering again just the way she had that night as she struggled to get up, with that disgusting mess running down her legs.

  They savaged her youth and innocence, stole from her something she could never regain. At that point she was already a little wary of men because of her father, but she’d still been like any other young girl awaiting her first romance. She would sigh over romantic songs and poems, ponder on the meaning of the little yearning feelings in her body she didn’t understand. Then suddenly after that vicious attack everything was ugly, they took everything from her.

  Wriggling away from Steven, Beth got up and went over to the window, pulling the curtains back to look out. The view in the dark was like black velvet in a jeweller’s shop window, strewn with millions of diamonds. Yet out there in the seemingly sleeping city she knew from statistics that there would be other women either remembering the horror of rape, or even submitting to it as she stood there.

  Steven came over to her and stood by her side looking out, his shoulder just touching hers.

  ‘I staggered out into the street screaming,’ she continued, knowing she must complete the story, but the aftermath was almost as bad as the rape. ‘I ran right into a bunch of women on a night out together. They saw the state of me and took me straight to the police station.’

  ‘What was that like?’ Steven said. He wanted to know everything, but he could see her trembling, and he was afraid of pushing too hard.

  ‘Precious little compassion, sympathy or tact,’ she said sharply, glancing sideways at him. ‘Thank God it’s not like that now for rape victims. They asked me a lot of questions, some so personal I felt as if I was being raped again. Then they left me to wait alone in a room while they went to get my parents. We didn’t have a phone at the house, you see.’

  Beth could still picture that interview room. She’d been in hundreds, maybe even thousands just like it since, but she’d know that one again even if she were led to it blindfold.

  It was about eight by eight, painted pea green, with no window, and it stank of cigarette smoke from the last occupant. A table and two chairs were the only furniture. She remembered a message scrawled on the wall: ‘Jesus lives, it’s me who is dead’. It seemed to be a profound message that night. She could smell those men on her, she wanted to scratch at herself because she felt so dirty. Someone brought her a mug of tea but she couldn’t drink it because she was trembling so hard.

  ‘Monty, my father, came in. Mother had stayed home, I think at his insistence,’ she went on. ‘He was purple with anger, and for a minute or two I thought it was because of what had happened to me. But it wasn’t. He was furious at being dragged away from the TV on a cold night. Guess what his first words to me were?’

  ‘If
it were one of my daughters who had been raped I think mine would have been, “I’ll get them and kill them,” ’ Steven said. ‘But I guess that wasn’t what he said?’

  ‘No, nothing that would make me think he cared about me,’ Beth said, her lips quivering. ‘He said, “This is just like you, always the trouble-maker. I suppose you led them on.” ’

  Steven shook his head in bewilderment. It never ceased to astound him how cruel some parents could be.

  ‘I think even the police sergeant with him was shocked,’ Beth said. ‘He tried to say what a terrible ordeal I’d had and this was no time for recriminations. But he might as well have talked to the wall, Father was too wrapped up in himself to listen. He had a spotted cravat around his neck, I remember, he kept pulling at it: as if it were choking him. The sergeant said I must be examined by the police surgeon, then they’d take my statement, but Father wouldn’t have any of that. He just kept saying I was a stupid fool and he was taking me home.’

  ‘He didn’t want the police to catch those men and charge them?’ Steven gasped in disbelief.

  Beth shook her head. ‘Know what he said to the sergeant? “Come now, my good man, look at the length of that skirt. She was asking for it.” ’

  ‘I wanted to die then,’ Beth said, her voice rasping with hurt. ‘He was saying it was all right for those men to rape his daughter. But it didn’t end there, Steven. He got the police to drive us home, and when we got in he hit me with his slipper and told me I stank like a polecat. He punished me, even after what I’d been through.’

  Steven took her in his arms and rocked her. Once again he found himself robbed of any words of comfort. He wondered how Beth had managed to hold on to her sanity.

  ‘What about your mother?’ he asked eventually. ‘Surely she didn’t take the same line?’

  ‘She did what she always did, wouldn’t go against Father openly,’ Beth sniffed. ‘She came to me later that night when he was asleep and tried to comfort me. I know she was distraught, but somehow that sneaking into my room only brought home how feeble she was.’