"She going?" the journalist asked mildly.
"Yes."
He shrugged and turned back to the women. "Now, Cornelius Kolig, for example, might take a different approach to the issue of sexual abuse…"
The women uncrossed and crossed their legs with the absolute symmetry of a dance troupe and leaned forward, ignoring Rebecca, eyes fixed on the journalist, ready to suck up his words.
"You bunch of pricks," she said suddenly, pushing herself away from Caffery. "Can't you see it's all bollocks?" She plucked the bottle of absinthe from the table and waved it around wildly. The liquid moved like melted emeralds in the lights, sloshing out on to the floor, and the girls looked up in surprise. "It's all a huge joke don't you get it? The joke is on you." She stopped for a moment, swaying slightly as if she was surprised to find herself standing up. "You you She took a step back and almost lost her balance, putting out her hand to steady herself. "Oh She stopped suddenly, breathing hard, looking helplessly around her. "Jack?"
"Yeah, come on."
"I want to go…" She slumped slightly and began to cry. "I want to go home."
He managed to get her out of the club without attracting attention. Outside, when the night air hit her, she reacted slowly, raising dead-weight hands to rub her arms but she allowed him to bundle her into the passenger seat of the Jaguar and fasten the seat-belt across her. "I want to go home."
"I know." He propped her up and pushed her hands inside the car, where they remained, on her lap, her head slumped against the window as he drove in silence through Dulwich, glancing at her from time to time, wondering how she had let herself become a sideshow like this. Rebecca had a long, vibrant survival streak in her it was the first thing he'd noticed about her, the thing that most repelled and most attracted him. It was incredible to see her so demoted, so helpless, so needful. Her face in the car headlights was a little grey, her mouth bluish.
They stopped at lights in Dulwich, outside a white weather boarded villa they could have been in a Pennsylvanian Amish village, not South London and he put out a hand to touch her head, to stroke the sturdy little tufts of hair. "Rebecca? How you doing?"
She opened her eyes and when she saw him she gave him a muzzy little smile. "Hi, Jack," she murmured. "I love you."
He smiled. "You all right?" Her mouth was a dusty purple shade. "You
OK?"
"No." She dropped her hands. She was shivering. "Not really."
"What's the matter?" She fumbled for the door, her feet rucking up the rubber mat on the floor. "Becky?" But before he could pull into the kerb she stuck her head out of the door and vomited on to the tarmac, her body shaking, tears coming up.
"Oh, Jesus, Becky." Caffery rubbed her back with one hand, his eye on the traffic in the rear-view, looking for a space to pull over. She was shuddering and crying, wiping her mouth with one hand and trying to close the door with the other.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry '
"All right, just a moment, just a moment…"
The lights changed and he cut across traffic to pull the car on to the kerb. She dropped back into her seat, sobbing, her hand to her mouth, mascara running down her cheeks. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen her cry.
"Come here, come here He tried to pull her to him but she pushed him away.
"No don't touch me, I'm disgusting."
"Becky?"
"I took some heroin I took some smack."
"Some what?"
"Some smack."
"Oh, for God's sake." He sighed, dropped back in the seat, raising his eyes to the ceiling. "When?"
"I don't know. I don't know maybe a few hours ago…"
"Why?"
"I…" She rolled her eyes to him and now he wondered why he hadn't recognized that glazed smacked-up look before. "I wanted to try it."
"Do you have to try everything? Every fucking thing?"
She wiped her mouth and didn't answer. The traffic was slowing down to see what was happening to see if there was an argument. He leaned over and pulled her door closed so that the interior light didn't give the passers-by a stage-lit show. "Is this the first time?"
She nodded.
"OK." He shoved the Jag into gear. "I'm not going to lecture you. Let's get you home."
In Brockley he got her cleaned up and made her drink tea. She sat like a child in bed wearing one of his shirts, her hands wrapped round the mug, a pale, numb look on her face.
"I'm getting a doctor."
"No. I'm OK." She stared into the bottom of the mug. "I feel better now. Will you…" she didn't look up at him '… will you come to bed?"
He stood in the doorway, his hands on the doorposts, and shook his head.
"No?"
"No."
"I see." She was silent for a while, as if moving this new resolve of his around in her head. Then suddenly she let go of the mug and put her face in her hands. The mug rolled off the bed and shattered on the wooden floor. "Oh, Jack," she sobbed, "I'm lost '
"OK, OK." He sat on the bed and rubbed her back.
"I'm lost. I used to know where I was, but I just I just don't know any more She cried so hard she seemed to be crying for everything for every small disappointment, for everything she had ever lost. Tears boiled down her cheeks.
"Becky…" he put his arms around her and kissed her head '… you can't go on like this."
"I know." Her shoulders were shaking and her neck had grown hot. She shook her head. "I know."
"What are you going to do about it?"
"I don't know I She rubbed her eyes and took deep breaths, trying to control herself.
"Rebecca?" He dipped his head to look at her face. "What are you going to do?"
She wiped the tears off her cheeks. Her breathing was getting steadier.
"Well?"
"Uh." She turned her head away. "I'm going to I don't know, I'm going to tell the truth, I suppose."
"OK '
"No, I mean really tell the truth." She raised her hands, then dropped them again. "Jack."
"What?"
"I've been I've been lying. A bit," she stumbled. "No not a bit, a lot. Jack, I've been lying to you all the way along I've lied and now I'm so sorry and it's because I lied that we've got like this and it's all my fault and I'm '
"Hey ssh, come on, calm down, what have you been lying about?"
"You'll hate me '
"What have you been lying about?"
"About Malcolm."
"What about him?"
She took a deep breath and squeezed her eyes closed, speaking into the air as if reciting a hard-remembered poem. "I don't remember what happened, Jack. The last thing I remember is getting on my bike to go to Malcolm's and that's all until you were going to Paul's funeral." Silence. She opened her eyes and looked at him. "Jack I know I've fucked up and I'm sorry I just thought oh, I don't know I thought there was something wrong with me if I didn't remember or or '
He dropped his hand from around her shoulder and sat for a long time in silence. So this was what it had all been about. He thought about the statement in the hospital, he thought about the inquest, about her dead flat mate body lying in the hallway, about Rebecca, hanging in the kitchen. And then he realized that what she had just done was to take a step towards him.
"Is that what it's all been about? The sex?"
"I got scared, I must've thought I might suddenly remember while we were oh, fuck." She jammed knuckles into her eyes. "I know it's stupid '
"Because I've been trying to make you think about it?"
She nodded, her bottom lip twisted under her teeth. All her eye makeup was down on her face, the eyelashes quite soft and naked.
"You didn't report it, did you?"
"Of course not you didn't really think…?"
"Bloody hell, Rebecca." He pulled her closer, pressing his face into her lopped-off hair. "Bloody hell."
Twenty-six.
(26 July)
"Yes, hello?" A woman's voice on the answer phone in the hallway, the sound echoing through the house. Upstairs, stretched out on the floor next to the radiator, Benedicte jerked awake, pawing blindly towards the sound.