She didn't ring so often now. Just after I got kicked out of the army and the fuss had started to abate, her attempts then to build a bridge between us had been more earnest, and more frequent. She'd written long letters that I pointedly returned to sender. She'd even driven over to see me a few times.
Now she'd fallen back on the telephone, and even that method of communication had become sporadic. She'd become slowly discouraged by my stubborn lack of cooperation, my refusal to acknowledge that the stance she'd taken had any basis in validity.
I don't know what irritated more. That in some ways she seemed to be giving up on her only child so easily, or that she doggedly persisted. Even with the constantly increasing timescale, I was dismayed to find that talking to her still actually hurt. A physical pain I hadn't been prepared for.
There was a mildly offended pause before she replied, swallowing my snotty behaviour, pouring oil, as she always did. “I don't want anything, darling,” she said soothingly. “I just wondered how you are, that's all. We haven't heard from you in a while, and I just thought—”
“Mother, you haven't heard from me for several years,” I interrupted, stony. “Why would I suddenly either want to get in touch with you now, or want you to get in touch with me?”
Another hesitation, like a fractured satellite link. “Well,” she stumbled. It was uncharacteristic, and unlike her. She valued her poise as much as she valued her classically understated wardrobe and her middle-aged Tory-politician's-wife hairstyle. “I just thought there might be something you needed, or—”
“There's nothing I need from you,” I said, appalled by the waver I let slip through unmasked. I closed my eyes with the effort of stopping back the tears. It was suddenly vital that I didn't let her know she could still get to me. “There's nothing I want that you can give me,” I went on, colder now, in control. “Unless there's something wrong, or either of you are ill, please stop calling me, or I'll have my number changed.”
I thought I heard a soft gasp at the deliberate cruelty. “Oh, Charlotte,” she said, letting her distress through for the first time.
“Goodbye, Mother,” I said, and put the receiver down.
For what seemed like a long moment I sat and stared stupidly at the dead telephone. Parents are supposed to love their children regardless, aren't they? Overlook their faults, forgive their sins. And most of all they're supposed to trust and support them in times of trouble. Not back away. I could understand Nina running for shelter when she'd failed to get the loyalty she'd anticipated from her own parents.
After all, it's not in the Good Parenting Handbook that they're allowed the luxury of letting their distaste show all too clearly, however sordid the predicament in which their offspring find themselves. That's not in the rules.
I thought of Nina again. Oh yes, I knew exactly what it was like. To have your parents frowning at you, with doubt behind their eyes. I think that was the worst thing. That they'd believe I'd willingly taken part in what my attackers were claiming was practically an orgy.
The court martial of Donalson, Hackett, Morton, and Clay had been a shambles. Faced with the prospect of helping convict their mates, vital witnesses on the same squad miraculously developed myopia, or amnesia, or both.
Even one of the girls who was supposed to speak up for me seemed suddenly unwilling to stick her neck out. Either by accident or careful design, it began to look as though I was totally to blame for the “incident”, as they politely termed it.
The end result was that the four accused were let off, and I was unceremoniously chucked out. That should have been the end of it. Sometimes, I wished to God I'd left it there. That way, my mother would never have had the chance to express her doubts about my innocence so publicly.
I sat there, fighting the emotions that crashed over me in waves. Anger was followed by a bitterness I could taste in the back of my throat, and a fierce determination not to forgive my mother, however Christian it might make me feel.
Much as it gives me no satisfaction to admit it, a good dollop of self-pity was in there somewhere, too. I thought I'd stopped feeling sorry for myself. It was disappointing to discover that all it took to bring it all back was something as trivial as an unexpected phone call.
It took me a while to shake myself out of it, to get back to the more pressing problems at hand.
Partly to make sure the phone was engaged if my mother tried to call me back, and partly so I wasn't upset if she didn't bother, I rang Clare. I forced my mind back to the message she'd left on the answering machine. “I hope you've got a strong stomach,” she'd said. Did I really want to know what she'd found out?
I dialled the number anyway. I had another class to teach the day after tomorrow at the refuge, an open one this time, and I just knew I was going to get asked awkward questions about Susie. I needed to know, even if I didn't really want to hear.
I shivered abruptly, as though someone had walked over my grave. Maybe that incident at Shelseley, and now that brief contact with my mother, had just made me more jumpy than usual.
Jacob answered the phone just when I was about to hang up. He told me Clare was in the bath. “Come round if you like,” he offered generously. “It might persuade her to get out of the water before she turns into a completely wizened old prune. I'm going out in half an hour in any case, so you two can have a girlie chat.”
My vision of a quiet night in evaporated. I sighed as I picked up the bike keys and my leather jacket. With a sense of foreboding, I headed for the door.
***
I have to admit that I approached the subject matter for my next class at Shelseley two days later with a new wariness. I'd spent a couple of hours round at Jacob and Clare's place. When I'd left I had a much clearer idea of what had happened to Susie Hollins, and a sickness in my soul.
Susie might have been stupid, and petty, and quick to temper, but as Clare had said, nobody deserved to die that way. The picture that emerged from the police reports the paper had obtained was not a pretty one.
Susie had either gone willingly with her attacker, meaning it might have been someone she knew, or she'd been too frightened by his threats to put up much of an initial struggle. He'd taken her out to a secluded spot, not far away, and there he'd had his fun . . .
Now I faced my class with a new passion. We were in the ballroom, as usual. The light had gone early, dimming until only blackness was visible through the French windows, and all detail of the garden had disappeared from view. Years ago, the ornamental wall sconces had been augmented by a haphazard array of fluoro tubes. They added significantly to the overall light level, but did nothing for the ambience.
It was a largish group, a dozen or so, ranging in age from late teens to late forties. They listened to me gravely. After the earlier rape, and now Susie's murder, I knew I had their full attention.
“Attacks and sexual assaults on women,” I told them, “are rarely carried out in the place where first contact takes place. “We'll call this first location point A, and the second one B. A is where he picks you up, grabs you, and B is where the actual assault takes place.
“Point B is his choice, his territory,” I added. “If you allow yourself to be immobilised and taken there, you will be on his ground. You will not only be at a major psychological disadvantage, but the risk to you doubles. You must do whatever you can to avoid being taken to point B.”
I glanced round their serious faces. I didn't have to elaborate further than that.
“Supposing he's got a knife?” one woman asked. Joy was in her late twenties, skinny to the point of gauntness, but with a very pretty face if you went for the emaciated look, and red hair cut in a bob. She was a relative newcomer, but keen, often turning up at several classes in a week.