Hope's Vengeance (8 page)

Session Seven

Dawn paced the room, her steps sturdy, meaningful, waving her hands firmly as she uttered the words, over and over. “Hope, I can’t see you any more. Hope, I can’t see you any more.” She growled, waving her fists in frustration. “Hope, I fucking can’t fucking see you any fucking more because I’m a fucking failure!”

She glowed red when she realised the door was ajar and Gayle was leaning through, sniggering. “Finished?”

“Pah! Goddamn it!” Dawn threw herself into a chair. “She’s here, isn’t she?”

“Yes she is, and I hope she didn’t overhear your little outburst!”

Elbows on knees, head in hands. “I wish she had, it would make this easier! Show her in, Gayle, let’s get this over with.”

The darkness in the room lifted, wintry sun beamed through the window, and the air warmed alongside the uncommonly cheerful smile. “Hi Dawn.” Hope sat opposite, a tinge of concern on her face. “Are you okay?”

Dawn sighed deeply. “Hope, I, I… damn!” She stood, smoothing her hands along her jeans, stopping at the knee. “I, I, shit, I can’t do this! Look, Hope, I…” Dawn lowered her head, beaten. She knew the best thing for Hope would be to hand her over to another counsellor, but Dawn didn’t want to let her go, she realised she needed to see her, to feed off her, to bask in her strength. Momentarily weighing the unusual situation up, she thought of the fantastic rapport they were beginning to share, the trust. Maybe Hope needed her too, maybe she was the only person who could help her, the only person who could understand her many layers, the chasmic depths. Pat’s words echoed in her head, ‘She’s gotten hold of you, and you’ve let her.’ The relationship was too intense. But the thought of not seeing Hope again? Not suckling from her unique power? Dawn knew that a life without Hope would be a life without a soul now, it was too late to retreat.

Her mind frantic, she searched for a feasible question, and the unplanned words tripped from her lips. “I wanted to ask you about the first rape.” Dawn’s eyes implored her client to ignore the telling silence before the question had been posed, and the contemplation on Hope’s face, the furrowed brow beneath the chestnut fringe, indicated she’d got away with the white lie.

Grateful and relieved, Dawn watched as Hope mentally played with her answer, lost inside her own memories. She took comfort in the familiar sip from the plastic cup, knowing the gulp that followed would initiate the painful outpouring. Satiated, Hope began. “I was twenty. Funny enough, I met the guy through Lucy.” A short, ironic tinkle. “Not very good for me, is she!”

Dawn wasn’t listening, her mind still debating the hold Hope seemed to have over her, it was as if she’d cast a spell. She was just a client, that was all. Famous, yes, but Dawn wasn’t the type to be star struck. Why couldn’t she let her go? Maybe somebody needed to force the point. Maybe she should tell Pat what was going on, then she could intervene and place Hope with another counsellor, maybe even another company.

“Dawn.” Hope was holding her arm, shaking her. “Dawn, someone just knocked at the door.” Her attention was back with a jolt, she shrugged Hope’s hand away and swooped to the door, accepting the coffee-laden tray. “Dawn, you’re really jumpy today, what’s up?”

“Hope, what do you think of the occult?” The question came from nowhere, it stunned Dawn, a shock tinged with ambivalence.

Perplexed, Hope held her palms up, shrugging. “I don’t know, I guess I’m on the fence.”

“What about witchcraft? Do you believe in witchcraft?” Her heart raced in her chest, thudding above the ticking clock, the white noise of the world outside. Where was this heading? What was she doing?

Hope’s face was contorted with confusion, the delicate hands still raised, bemused. “I don’t know, no, I guess not, no. Three hundred candles, a sprig of rosemary and a disembowelled frog to make someone love you? It’s piffle, I guess.”

Suddenly unable to breathe, Dawn sprang up, lean limbs lumbering towards the door. “Hope, can you just give me a minute, I just need to do something.”

“Of course.” Dawn staggered from the room, lungs aching from the lack of oxygen. Calmly seated, relaxed into the folds of the chair, Hope smiled serenely, her eyes fixed on the door, unaware that on the other side of the wall Dawn was slumped, deep breaths straining her ribcage, pallid hands scraping at her beading forehead.

Panted words whispery, she repeated her new mantra, once, twice, over and over, reprogramming the glitch in her brain. “Nothing sinister going on. Nothing sinister going on. Nothing sinister going on.”

There was no spell, no power, no sorcery. Hope was just a normal woman, a regular client. She was just a counsellor, a fine one, and she was going to go back into the room like a professional, and continue to help this troubled woman to be at peace with herself. With a final deep breath, the palpitations subsiding rapidly, Dawn re-entered the room.

“Are you okay?” The serenity had been replaced with comforting concern.

Dawn smiled, her golden curls bobbing as she returned to her chair. “I’m fine. I’m sorry about that, had an urgent phone call to make. I’ll give you an extra five minutes at the end to make up for it. Now, where were we?”

“You asked me about the first rape.”

Nodding her head enthusiastically, Dawn leaned forward and put her chin in her hand, fingers drumming her sparkly pink lips.

“Lucy and I went to different high schools, so we lost touch for a couple of years, no falling out or anything, just the way kids do. I bumped into her again when we were nineteen. You see, when I was seventeen I bought a flat with my first husband, Frank, we moved to Maidenhead. Anyway, we split up, and I was a single mum to Penny, and working in Reading, so when we sold the house, I put my share of the profit into a flat back in Reading so I could be nearer my family. Not that they were much help, but that’s a different story.”

Dawn waved her hand. “Just to clarify, you’re nineteen, failed marriage, baby, moved to Reading. Right?”

Hope nodded. “Uhuh. A few weeks after moving back, I bumped into Lucy. We were both pushing buggies, and we had a chuckle that we’d both become parents so young. Anyway, she’d got a council house about two miles from me, on the Dee Park Estate, and I started going to her place. She always had friends popping by, we’d put Penny and Callum upstairs to bed, go and get pissed, groups of us, it was a laugh. Just a laugh.

One of the guys, Peter, we used to talk. He was nice, I thought so anyway, and everyone guessed he was gay. He wasn’t effeminate, in fact he was a big bloke, but he never hit on any of the girls, and he certainly never hit on me. We just talked.

I was going through a rough patch at work before it happened, and a group of us had arranged to go out pubbing and get pissed.”

Hope shook her head, forcing her fingers into her temples. “I need to go back a bit to explain first. You see, Frank and I split up shortly after I conceived Penny, and he refused to have anything to do with the pregnancy or the baby. It had upset me at first.”

Dawn sat straight and waved her hands. “How far are you going back! You’re only nineteen at this point, or is it twenty. Let me get this straight. You and Frank were married, right, were you seventeen when you married?”

Hope shook her head. “No, eighteen, as soon as I turned eighteen.”

“And you split up?”

Hope laughed, embarrassed. “Eighteen!” She sipped her coffee. “We found out just before we got married that I was pregnant. I was ecstatic. I know I was young, but I’d always wanted to be a mum. Anyway, when I told Frank he was furious.”

“So I’m guessing it wasn’t planned.” Dawn’s recovery was complete, she was hooked on the story.

“No, I was on the pill. He said that I had to have an abortion. I told him I wanted to keep the baby, but he said if I did he’d leave me, the wedding would be off.” Dawn couldn’t help the sneer, she’d been in a similar situation and had foolishly met his wishes, a decision she regretted every single day, especially since finding out she was infertile the year before. “I promised him I’d sort it out after the honeymoon, and I did, but when it came to it I just couldn’t go through with it. I thought he’d come round to the idea of having a baby, but he didn’t, he just left, went back to his mum and dad’s. I didn’t see him again for a long time.”

“When did he first meet Penny, I mean, you’re in touch now, aren’t you?” Dawn finished her coffee, setting the mug down and retrieving her pad and pen from the table, along with a chocolate biscuit.

Hope nodded. “It was New Year’s Eve. She was six months old. He came round unexpectedly with a bottle of wine, saying he wanted to make amends, make it up to me for not being there. Penny was asleep in her cot, so he looked in on her. He said she was beautiful.” Her eyes clouded over, a light smile edging her lips. “She was a beautiful baby, she’s gorgeous now! A bit chubby, but it’s only puppy fat.”

Hope swallowed hard, inadvertently pressing at her protruding ribs, and Dawn watched, intrigued. “Anyway, Frank, I didn’t want him back, I was coping with motherhood and working full time so well, why go and upset the applecart! But then his mum, Rita, she turned up the next day. She was gutted because Frank had only told her the night before after visiting me that she had a granddaughter.”

Dawn knew she shouldn’t but the words fell out. “He sounds like a bit of a shit, if you ask me!”

Hope giggled. “I know, he was a right idiot when he was young! He’s okay now, turned out to be quite decent in the end. But I don’t know what I saw in him! So, getting back to the rape, now Rita knew about Penny she wanted to be a big part of her life, and that suited me. She started having her every other weekend, every Tuesday night, and three days a week while I was at work.”

“Wow! Good mother-in-law to have!” Dawn leaned back, grinning.

“I know. Like I said, I’d been managing fine, but I hadn’t gone out for over a year, I had no social life, and the childminding costs really hit my pocket. So Rita helped me financially and socially, really. It was on one of the weekends Rita had Penny, Lucy’s mum had taken Callum so we could go out. There was a huge group of us, all the regulars who hung around at Lucy’s. We went to the pub, had way too many, it was a fun evening. But I was having big problems at work, a contract accountant kept hitting on me, and he was threatening that if I didn’t sleep with him he’d get me fired. So as I got drunker, I started to feel down, and I went outside, away from the noise, the laughter. I think I needed some tears, but I’ve always found it difficult to cry, well, since I was about seven or eight, anyway.”

Dawn remembered the tears from before, and she glanced at Hope, questioning.

Hope laughed. “I know what you’re thinking, but that was a one off, I was really down that day. Normally I have to get really pissed and be alone before I can cry, it’s like I have to decide that I need to, then put a date in my diary!” She continued laughing, not realising the significance that hit Dawn.

“Anyway, Peter followed me out, said he’d seen me looking upset. He didn’t drink alcohol, and he suggested we go for a drive, he could stop at an off licence, get me some brandy, and I could offload my burdens in private. I jumped at the chance, I trusted him. I thought he was gay.”

Hope’s voice trailed away, this was the first time that had happened in a while, now that there was so much trust between the two. Dawn became aware that Hope was holding back the tears she’d said were difficult, and was perplexed by the mass of contradictions that came from her client. “I know what you’re thinking. I just said I found it difficult to cry, and now I’m fighting hard not to.”

“You’re right, Hope, I was. Why don’t you just let them out?” She shifted forward, lifting a box of tissues onto the table. “You’ll feel a lot better.”

Hope bit down on her fist, not registering the pain in her desperation not to lose face, but it was too late, they spilled down her cheeks, over her chin, dripping uncaught onto her leggings, copious, and now unchecked. She took a handful of tissues and continued to speak, unashamed now.

“We got the booze, I was just drinking from the bottle, I was a bit of a pisshead when I was young.” Hope omitted mentioning that she probably drank more now than the vast amounts she used to consume, rather than less, and she glanced at Dawn from under her fringe, looking for reassurance. “He drove, I drank, and pretty soon my mood had gone and I was laughing. We turned the music right up, it was Def Leppard, and I love them. Gods of War, on a jet-black night, in the early hours of the morning, so loud it felt like my ears were going to burst. I felt free. Happy.

We ended up on Hayling Island somehow, it was deserted, silent. Obviously we turned the music down. I’d drunk half the bottle, and I was slurring, I’d been pissed before we’d even got the bottle. I needed the loo, so he found a car park with some public toilets and pulled up. Well, when I came out, he’d turned the car off, lights off, and he was sitting in the back. He asked me to get in, said it was more comfortable for him without the pedals by his feet. I genuinely believed he was no threat, so I did.”

Hope swallowed, her jaw tensing, eyes deadening to a slate grey. Her voice became gravelly. “He started caressing me, you know, my chest, my legs. I was intrigued, I thought he was gay, and here he was making a move on me. I’d never even considered if he was good-looking or not, the question had never registered. I put my hand on his to stop him, he stopped, and we said nothing, I just looked at him, debating whether I fancied him or not. To be honest, I realised I did. He was tall, dark, and he had a kind face, chubby, but kind, and a cute smile. I took my hand off so he could continue.”

Another dried swallow, her face was grimacing at the memory. “Something changed. Quickly. It went from gentle to harsh. He was pawing at me, grabbing me hard, it hurt. I tried to push him away, kept saying stop, get off me, you’re hurting me, but he kept on. Scratching, biting me, biting my tits, my bum. It was really painful, and I was scared. I tried for the door handle but he’d locked the car. I was scrabbling about, trying to unlock it, but he was forcing his bodyweight onto me, and I’m only small, I was trapped. He bit me so hard in places it broke the skin. He didn’t bother to take my pants off, just lifted my skirt, moved them aside, and did the business. I kept fighting, but it just seemed to pleasure him more.”