Part Thirteen
Lauren was watching Eastenders when the doorbell rang later that evening. As can happen so often in August, the rain had suddenly appeared, transforming what had been a pleasant sunny day in to a torrential downpour. On opening the front door, she was greeted by the sight of a thoroughly drenched Karen. Moving in to the hall, Karen shook her wet hair out of her face.
"You look like a drowned rat," Said Lauren beginning to laugh.
"Yes, you wouldn't think it'd been sunny this morning. Is Yvonne in?"
"Sure." Lauren led Karen towards a carpeted passage that led off the hall. "She's probably listening to some of that country crap she calls music, all guitars and South American drawl." Karen followed Lauren passed a couple of closed doors, to one at the end, which led in to what Yvonne liked to think of as her bit of personal space. In dimensions it was very similar to the lounge at the other end of the house where Lauren had been watching television. An enormous sofa full of cushions faced the large fireplace, with an equally cavernous armchair to one side. Karen also took in a stereo, which was currently playing something just as Lauren had described. There was a bookcase, which looked to be stocked with paperbacks ranging from trashy to crime, and a large desk in the corner where Yvonne was sitting, simultaneously sorting through bills and e-mails on a small computer.
"Mum," Lauren broke in to Yvonne's concentration. "Someone to see you." Yvonne looked up and on seeing Karen, said,
"Jesus, did you take a dip in the pool on the way here?" Karen smiled.
"It's throwing it down. Are you busy?"
"Nothing that can't wait," Said Yvonne closing down the computer. Lauren had disappeared back to Eastenders. Trigger, who had been sprawled in his favourite place under the window, ambled over to Karen and leaned his head against her thigh. "Bloody useless guard dog, he is," Said Yvonne grinning. "Didn't even hear the doorbell. He's getting lazy in his old age." Karen ran her hand over his head.
"How old is he?" She asked.
"Nearly twelve. He's doing well for an Alsatian." As well as being full of all Yvonne's favourite pastimes, this room was also liberally dotted with pictures of dogs. The one that had pride of place over the mantelpiece was an enlargement of a magnificent blue lurcher. Noticing Karen looking at this, Yvonne said,
"You shouldn't have favourites, but she was mine. Would you like a drink?" She asked, gesturing to the bottle of Scotch on top of a small sideboard.
"Please," Replied Karen. "I need some Dutch courage."
"Is this about what happened today?" Yvonne asked, pouring a generous amount in to each glass.
"In a way," Karen acquiesced. "There's something you need to know, about why I took up with Ritchie in the first place." Handing Karen her glass, Yvonne moved to one end of the sofa and Karen took the other.
"What exactly did Fenner say to you?" Asked Yvonne lighting a cigarette.
"He pointed out that I wouldn't want it coming out in court how much of a slag I am."
"But you're not," Said Yvonne without a second thought.
"That isn't quite what you said when you found out about me and Ritchie."
"Well, I don't doubt that you'd have felt pretty similar if you discovered Ross was shagging someone ten years older than him. Besides, that was before I found out what a bastard Ritchie is."
"Jim threatened that if I didn't cover up for him in court, try and remove any blame from him about Snowball getting undeserved access to the library and her interlibrary loans, he'd make the jury well aware of my liking for making fake allegations."
"Again," Said Yvonne, "You don't."
"That's not quite how Grayling and area see it, and it definitely isn't how the jury would see it."
"So, what allegation did you make against Fenner that area couldn't do anything about?"
"Yvonne, this isn't easy for me. Letting someone in isn't how I do things these days."
"That's obvious," Said Yvonne gently, realising that whatever was coming was something Karen would never have spoken about if she hadn't been forced to.
"I was raped," saying it like that had made it seem to Karen almost like she was talking about someone else. Saying, he raped me, would have been even more personal, which she knew was ridiculous.
"Jesus. I always knew Fenner was an evil bastard but that just proves he's rotten to the core. When did it happen?"
"A while before all of this started, not long after Crystal's baby was born."
"What happened?" Karen looked ready to run.
"You don't need to know specifics, Yvonne."
"Maybe not, but you've clearly never talked about it."
"When did you become so wise?" Asked Karen, making a feeble attempt at changing the subject.
"It's something that place does to you," Yvonne replied. "You learn a lot about human nature, enough to know that if something as emotionally crippling as being raped is kept inside an never allowed to come out, it eats away at you till you go mad."
"The one and only time I went through every detail of that night was an utter disaster."
"I'm assuming that's when you told the police about it."
"Yes, but as I didn't have any evidence, they refused to take it further."
"Why not start from the beginning?" Asked Yvonne, sensing that Karen was avoiding this on purpose.
"Perhaps because that's the hardest part." Yvonne got up and refilled their glasses. Karen looked like a deer caught in the headlights.
"Do you remember that day when he stormed off the wing after you made that quip about him and Grayling?"
"Vaguely," Said Yvonne, "But there were so many days like that."
"I tracked him down to the B and B where he was staying, and I went to see him. I've never seen him so depressed. He kept pouring me drinks." Karen stopped, as if prevented by some impenetrable force. Yvonne reached out to take her hand, but there was such an aura of "keep off" resonating from Karen that she withdrew. Karen was staring in to the eyes of the lurcher in the painting. It seemed to provide her with an anchor, something to prevent her from looking in to Yvonne's face to see the scorn that she was sure must be there. She was a mixture of desperation to maintain the barriers she had so irrevocably erected after that night, and a craving to let go of the cords that were holding her senses so tort that they would surely snap. What Yvonne could feel in watching this woman whom she had come to look on as one of the dearest, closest friends she'd ever had, was the pain, anger and fear that were coming off Karen in waves. All Yvonne could do was watch. She had no place breaking in to Karen's torment. Allowing the walls to crumble, or building them even higher was Karen's choice, nobody else's. Eventually, Karen's far too brittle shell began to crack, not unlike an egg that has been left too long to boil.
"I was so stupid," She said, with a strangled softness that only threatened a further loss of the reins.
"Why?" Yvonne tentatively asked, almost feeling like she was breaking in on a personal viewing of the mind's uncremated remains.
"I got in to bed with him," Karen replied, the tears beginning to slide almost regretfully down her face. "I actually got in to bloody bed with him. Do you have any idea how much I loathe myself for doing that?"
"Tell me," Encouraged Yvonne gently.
"If I hadn't done what I did, he wouldn't have assumed I was offering what I wasn't." Yvonne suddenly noticed an odd thing about Karen, crying made hardly any difference to her voice. Even though Karen's body was clearly fighting against the constriction of too many unshed tears, her voice had hardly altered, except to display the pain and self-loathing she so clearly felt. Also sensing that something to hold on too might not go amiss, Yvonne moved slowly forward, gently putting her arms around Karen. She gave Karen plenty of time to back away, but the presence of Yvonne's gentle arms and unthreatening body seemed to give Karen the permission she needed to bare her entire soul. Karen made very little sound as she cried. Her body simply shook in Yvonne's soothing embrace.
"Sweetheart, listen to me," Yvonne cajoled. "What Fenner did to you wasn't your fault. So what if you ended up in bed with him. That doesn't give him the right to do what he did. You said no, and no means no. You just have to start believing that."
"When you have no-one to publicly blame, it all becomes a bit internalised," Said a muffled voice from the region of Yvonne's shoulder. Karen couldn't believe she was doing this. She hadn't been this close to a woman since her mother was alive, and probably not even then if she was honest with herself. She'd known Yvonne as more than an inmate for about a year now, but never had they touched on anything so deep and soul destroying. Though if having your son do what Ritchie had done to Yvonne wasn't bad for the heart, Karen didn't know what was.
"I'm sorry," Karen said softly. Yvonne raised Karen's face to meet hers, and looking at her with the famous Atkins stare, she said,
"Let's get one thing straight, you have absolutely nothing to be sorry for. Do I make myself clear?" Karen gave her a watery smile.
"It might take a bit of working on," she said, looking Yvonne straight in the eye for the first time that evening.
"Trust me," Said Yvonne, "I intend to. You've got to start believing in the good things in life again."
"And there we come back to one of the things in life that isn't good right now," Said Karen, leaning her head against Yvonne.
"You mean Ritchie," It was a rhetorical question.
"We've never really talked about men, have we?"
"Apart from how useless most of them are, no," Said Yvonne matter-of-factly. "But then as you've been single since Ritchie, and I've been single since I got out, sex has never arisen as a general topic of conversation. Why?"
"After Fenner," Karen began hesitantly, "That side of mine and Mark's relationship was a total disaster. Sleeping with someone who knows how weak and pathetic you are capable of being isn't good." Yvonne gently rubbed Karen's arm as if to give her strength. "Mark couldn't get passed the fact that I had willingly gone to see Fenner and got even remotely close to him. I think part of him despised me for that. The rest of him was all to aware that I probably wasn't enjoying anything we did."
"And you insisted on sleeping with Mark to try and prove that what Fenner had done didn't matter."
"Something like that. So, when Ritchie came along, I thought it was my one chance to put Mark, Fenner and the entire nightmare behind me. Ritchie didn't know anything about me. He didn't know what Fenner had done and he didn't have any idea what I was like normally, which meant he didn't know if I faked it or not." Yvonne gave Karen a little squeeze as if to demonstrate the pain she was feeling on Karen's behalf.
"And did this amazing piece of philosophy work?"
"Not so you'd notice," Karen replied. "It just made me feel more cheap than I already did."
"Karen, you are not cheap, nor a slag, nor anything else you've attributed to yourself tonight." Yvonne had said this so vehemently that she hadn't realised that tears were beginning to run down her own face. She was only alerted to their presence when Karen lifted a hand and wiped away a tear with her finger.
"Yvonne, please don't cry."
"You are a very attractive, very talented woman with an enormous amount to offer anyone. You are worth far more than my useless shit of a son." They sat in companionable silence, with the gentle tones of Alison Krauss coming from the stereo, and the room only lit by candles. Yvonne always preferred the softer, more seductive lighting of candles to the glare of an electric source, even if it did have a dimmer switch. Once the tears had gone, neither of them felt inclined to let go of the other. They seemed to derive some strength from each other's proximity, which was certainly a new experience for both of them.
"What are you going to do?" Asked Yvonne, eventually breaking the silence. Karen lifted her head from its place on Yvonne's shoulder and looked at her quizzically. "In court tomorrow," clarified Yvonne, "After what Fenner threatened this afternoon."
"I don't know," Said Karen. "And I probably won't know till I'm on the stand."
When Yvonne eventually let Karen out of the front door later that night, the rain had stopped and drops of water glistened on trees and flowers. Yvonne stood on the front door step and hugged Karen tightly to her.
"You stay safe," She said, "Promise me."
"I will if you will," Said Karen hugging her back. As she walked to her car, it dawned on Karen that Yvonne had used the words she would have used on a fellow inmate when she was in Larkhall. As she drove slowly towards home, she decided that this more than anything was what had cemented her friendship with Yvonne so irrevocably, perhaps even more so than how Yvonne had reacted to everything she had learnt that evening. Karen expected to feel awkward at how long they had stayed so close together, but she didn't. It was simply a mark of how much better they now knew each other, a sign that they really were equals.
Lauren was watching Eastenders when the doorbell rang later that evening. As can happen so often in August, the rain had suddenly appeared, transforming what had been a pleasant sunny day in to a torrential downpour. On opening the front door, she was greeted by the sight of a thoroughly drenched Karen. Moving in to the hall, Karen shook her wet hair out of her face.
"You look like a drowned rat," Said Lauren beginning to laugh.
"Yes, you wouldn't think it'd been sunny this morning. Is Yvonne in?"
"Sure." Lauren led Karen towards a carpeted passage that led off the hall. "She's probably listening to some of that country crap she calls music, all guitars and South American drawl." Karen followed Lauren passed a couple of closed doors, to one at the end, which led in to what Yvonne liked to think of as her bit of personal space. In dimensions it was very similar to the lounge at the other end of the house where Lauren had been watching television. An enormous sofa full of cushions faced the large fireplace, with an equally cavernous armchair to one side. Karen also took in a stereo, which was currently playing something just as Lauren had described. There was a bookcase, which looked to be stocked with paperbacks ranging from trashy to crime, and a large desk in the corner where Yvonne was sitting, simultaneously sorting through bills and e-mails on a small computer.
"Mum," Lauren broke in to Yvonne's concentration. "Someone to see you." Yvonne looked up and on seeing Karen, said,
"Jesus, did you take a dip in the pool on the way here?" Karen smiled.
"It's throwing it down. Are you busy?"
"Nothing that can't wait," Said Yvonne closing down the computer. Lauren had disappeared back to Eastenders. Trigger, who had been sprawled in his favourite place under the window, ambled over to Karen and leaned his head against her thigh. "Bloody useless guard dog, he is," Said Yvonne grinning. "Didn't even hear the doorbell. He's getting lazy in his old age." Karen ran her hand over his head.
"How old is he?" She asked.
"Nearly twelve. He's doing well for an Alsatian." As well as being full of all Yvonne's favourite pastimes, this room was also liberally dotted with pictures of dogs. The one that had pride of place over the mantelpiece was an enlargement of a magnificent blue lurcher. Noticing Karen looking at this, Yvonne said,
"You shouldn't have favourites, but she was mine. Would you like a drink?" She asked, gesturing to the bottle of Scotch on top of a small sideboard.
"Please," Replied Karen. "I need some Dutch courage."
"Is this about what happened today?" Yvonne asked, pouring a generous amount in to each glass.
"In a way," Karen acquiesced. "There's something you need to know, about why I took up with Ritchie in the first place." Handing Karen her glass, Yvonne moved to one end of the sofa and Karen took the other.
"What exactly did Fenner say to you?" Asked Yvonne lighting a cigarette.
"He pointed out that I wouldn't want it coming out in court how much of a slag I am."
"But you're not," Said Yvonne without a second thought.
"That isn't quite what you said when you found out about me and Ritchie."
"Well, I don't doubt that you'd have felt pretty similar if you discovered Ross was shagging someone ten years older than him. Besides, that was before I found out what a bastard Ritchie is."
"Jim threatened that if I didn't cover up for him in court, try and remove any blame from him about Snowball getting undeserved access to the library and her interlibrary loans, he'd make the jury well aware of my liking for making fake allegations."
"Again," Said Yvonne, "You don't."
"That's not quite how Grayling and area see it, and it definitely isn't how the jury would see it."
"So, what allegation did you make against Fenner that area couldn't do anything about?"
"Yvonne, this isn't easy for me. Letting someone in isn't how I do things these days."
"That's obvious," Said Yvonne gently, realising that whatever was coming was something Karen would never have spoken about if she hadn't been forced to.
"I was raped," saying it like that had made it seem to Karen almost like she was talking about someone else. Saying, he raped me, would have been even more personal, which she knew was ridiculous.
"Jesus. I always knew Fenner was an evil bastard but that just proves he's rotten to the core. When did it happen?"
"A while before all of this started, not long after Crystal's baby was born."
"What happened?" Karen looked ready to run.
"You don't need to know specifics, Yvonne."
"Maybe not, but you've clearly never talked about it."
"When did you become so wise?" Asked Karen, making a feeble attempt at changing the subject.
"It's something that place does to you," Yvonne replied. "You learn a lot about human nature, enough to know that if something as emotionally crippling as being raped is kept inside an never allowed to come out, it eats away at you till you go mad."
"The one and only time I went through every detail of that night was an utter disaster."
"I'm assuming that's when you told the police about it."
"Yes, but as I didn't have any evidence, they refused to take it further."
"Why not start from the beginning?" Asked Yvonne, sensing that Karen was avoiding this on purpose.
"Perhaps because that's the hardest part." Yvonne got up and refilled their glasses. Karen looked like a deer caught in the headlights.
"Do you remember that day when he stormed off the wing after you made that quip about him and Grayling?"
"Vaguely," Said Yvonne, "But there were so many days like that."
"I tracked him down to the B and B where he was staying, and I went to see him. I've never seen him so depressed. He kept pouring me drinks." Karen stopped, as if prevented by some impenetrable force. Yvonne reached out to take her hand, but there was such an aura of "keep off" resonating from Karen that she withdrew. Karen was staring in to the eyes of the lurcher in the painting. It seemed to provide her with an anchor, something to prevent her from looking in to Yvonne's face to see the scorn that she was sure must be there. She was a mixture of desperation to maintain the barriers she had so irrevocably erected after that night, and a craving to let go of the cords that were holding her senses so tort that they would surely snap. What Yvonne could feel in watching this woman whom she had come to look on as one of the dearest, closest friends she'd ever had, was the pain, anger and fear that were coming off Karen in waves. All Yvonne could do was watch. She had no place breaking in to Karen's torment. Allowing the walls to crumble, or building them even higher was Karen's choice, nobody else's. Eventually, Karen's far too brittle shell began to crack, not unlike an egg that has been left too long to boil.
"I was so stupid," She said, with a strangled softness that only threatened a further loss of the reins.
"Why?" Yvonne tentatively asked, almost feeling like she was breaking in on a personal viewing of the mind's uncremated remains.
"I got in to bed with him," Karen replied, the tears beginning to slide almost regretfully down her face. "I actually got in to bloody bed with him. Do you have any idea how much I loathe myself for doing that?"
"Tell me," Encouraged Yvonne gently.
"If I hadn't done what I did, he wouldn't have assumed I was offering what I wasn't." Yvonne suddenly noticed an odd thing about Karen, crying made hardly any difference to her voice. Even though Karen's body was clearly fighting against the constriction of too many unshed tears, her voice had hardly altered, except to display the pain and self-loathing she so clearly felt. Also sensing that something to hold on too might not go amiss, Yvonne moved slowly forward, gently putting her arms around Karen. She gave Karen plenty of time to back away, but the presence of Yvonne's gentle arms and unthreatening body seemed to give Karen the permission she needed to bare her entire soul. Karen made very little sound as she cried. Her body simply shook in Yvonne's soothing embrace.
"Sweetheart, listen to me," Yvonne cajoled. "What Fenner did to you wasn't your fault. So what if you ended up in bed with him. That doesn't give him the right to do what he did. You said no, and no means no. You just have to start believing that."
"When you have no-one to publicly blame, it all becomes a bit internalised," Said a muffled voice from the region of Yvonne's shoulder. Karen couldn't believe she was doing this. She hadn't been this close to a woman since her mother was alive, and probably not even then if she was honest with herself. She'd known Yvonne as more than an inmate for about a year now, but never had they touched on anything so deep and soul destroying. Though if having your son do what Ritchie had done to Yvonne wasn't bad for the heart, Karen didn't know what was.
"I'm sorry," Karen said softly. Yvonne raised Karen's face to meet hers, and looking at her with the famous Atkins stare, she said,
"Let's get one thing straight, you have absolutely nothing to be sorry for. Do I make myself clear?" Karen gave her a watery smile.
"It might take a bit of working on," she said, looking Yvonne straight in the eye for the first time that evening.
"Trust me," Said Yvonne, "I intend to. You've got to start believing in the good things in life again."
"And there we come back to one of the things in life that isn't good right now," Said Karen, leaning her head against Yvonne.
"You mean Ritchie," It was a rhetorical question.
"We've never really talked about men, have we?"
"Apart from how useless most of them are, no," Said Yvonne matter-of-factly. "But then as you've been single since Ritchie, and I've been single since I got out, sex has never arisen as a general topic of conversation. Why?"
"After Fenner," Karen began hesitantly, "That side of mine and Mark's relationship was a total disaster. Sleeping with someone who knows how weak and pathetic you are capable of being isn't good." Yvonne gently rubbed Karen's arm as if to give her strength. "Mark couldn't get passed the fact that I had willingly gone to see Fenner and got even remotely close to him. I think part of him despised me for that. The rest of him was all to aware that I probably wasn't enjoying anything we did."
"And you insisted on sleeping with Mark to try and prove that what Fenner had done didn't matter."
"Something like that. So, when Ritchie came along, I thought it was my one chance to put Mark, Fenner and the entire nightmare behind me. Ritchie didn't know anything about me. He didn't know what Fenner had done and he didn't have any idea what I was like normally, which meant he didn't know if I faked it or not." Yvonne gave Karen a little squeeze as if to demonstrate the pain she was feeling on Karen's behalf.
"And did this amazing piece of philosophy work?"
"Not so you'd notice," Karen replied. "It just made me feel more cheap than I already did."
"Karen, you are not cheap, nor a slag, nor anything else you've attributed to yourself tonight." Yvonne had said this so vehemently that she hadn't realised that tears were beginning to run down her own face. She was only alerted to their presence when Karen lifted a hand and wiped away a tear with her finger.
"Yvonne, please don't cry."
"You are a very attractive, very talented woman with an enormous amount to offer anyone. You are worth far more than my useless shit of a son." They sat in companionable silence, with the gentle tones of Alison Krauss coming from the stereo, and the room only lit by candles. Yvonne always preferred the softer, more seductive lighting of candles to the glare of an electric source, even if it did have a dimmer switch. Once the tears had gone, neither of them felt inclined to let go of the other. They seemed to derive some strength from each other's proximity, which was certainly a new experience for both of them.
"What are you going to do?" Asked Yvonne, eventually breaking the silence. Karen lifted her head from its place on Yvonne's shoulder and looked at her quizzically. "In court tomorrow," clarified Yvonne, "After what Fenner threatened this afternoon."
"I don't know," Said Karen. "And I probably won't know till I'm on the stand."
When Yvonne eventually let Karen out of the front door later that night, the rain had stopped and drops of water glistened on trees and flowers. Yvonne stood on the front door step and hugged Karen tightly to her.
"You stay safe," She said, "Promise me."
"I will if you will," Said Karen hugging her back. As she walked to her car, it dawned on Karen that Yvonne had used the words she would have used on a fellow inmate when she was in Larkhall. As she drove slowly towards home, she decided that this more than anything was what had cemented her friendship with Yvonne so irrevocably, perhaps even more so than how Yvonne had reacted to everything she had learnt that evening. Karen expected to feel awkward at how long they had stayed so close together, but she didn't. It was simply a mark of how much better they now knew each other, a sign that they really were equals.