Rebound (7 page)

‘So, at the end we exchange business cards – imagine doing that in the dark in the middle of Richmond Park – and go our separate ways.’

‘Will you see him again?’

‘I don’t know. But I do know I’m ready for another relationship.’

As I drive back home along Holloway Road I think about Michael and what he said. About the threshold of familiarity which, once crossed, makes it impossible to engage in
anonymous, impulsive sex. Michael is looking for a relationship, someone he can trust, be with on a daily basis. What am I looking for? I have pushed away a man who wanted to start a family with
me, and I don’t mean just teddy bears. James did talk about having kids occasionally and perhaps that was the trigger that made me want to distance myself from him, to run away. Do I want a
family? Do I want kids? As hard as I search for an answer within myself, I can’t find it. I simply don’t know.

When I get home Wispa greets me with a pure joy that compensates for the lack of any real human emotion in my life. Although it’s late, she wangles another walk out of me. I need to walk
off the espresso anyway.

We bounce down Swain’s Lane, our energy disturbing the stillness of the cemetery statues. Wispa leads happily, her tail wagging. The silence is suddenly interrupted by the buzzing of my
phone. I forgot I left it on silent. I look at the screen. It’s Bell. There are a number of unanswered calls from her, which I didn’t hear. It’s late for her, so it must be
something important.

‘What’s up, babe?’

‘Why aren’t you at home? I’ve been ringing your landline for hours. Where are you?’ She’s really wound up.

‘I had dinner with Michael. And now I’m walking Wispa.’

‘Now? It’s midnight!’

‘What’s wrong, Bell?’

‘I’ve been worried about you.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I couldn’t get hold of you.’ She sounds almost hysterical.

‘I’m fine. What’s going on, Bell? Do you want me to come over?’

‘No, no, no.’ I can hear her take a couple of deep breaths. ‘It’s fine. It’s just . . . this woman has been attacked on the Heath, and I got so worried, because of
you and your jogs with Wispa at all sorts of hours, and then I couldn’t get hold of you . . .’

‘Slow down. What happened?’

‘There’s been a rape on the Heath.’ I feel a cold chill run through my body. ‘I heard it on the news.’

‘That’s awful, Bell. When did it happen?’

‘Sometime today, I think, I’m not sure. I was so worried when you didn’t answer your phone.’

‘Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry. I didn’t hear it ring. I’m fine. I’m walking home now. And I’ll text you when I get there.’

‘OK.’ She sounds calmer now. ‘Go straight home and lock the door.’

‘I will, I promise.’

I call Wispa and walk back, suddenly aware of the impenetrable darkness on both sides of the road. When I get home and lock the door, I realize how tense I’ve been. I text Bell and open my
laptop. I find the news almost straight away.

I close my laptop and sit motionlessly in the darkness of my sitting room. Poor woman. I’m paralysed with fear just imagining what she must’ve gone through. A frightening thought
occurs to me. Bell is right. It could’ve been me. Suddenly I’m covered in cold sweat. What if it
was
me? My weekend doubt hits me again and it’s even more alarming than the
first time. What if what I considered a consensual encounter was some kind of a testing ground for a rapist? Is it possible at all that the Dior Man is the rapist? Have I, with my reckless
behaviour, created a monster? He liked the taste of it with me and now he can’t stop and attacks other women? I open the laptop again and frantically look for more information about the
attack. The victim, although they don’t reveal her identity, could’ve been me. Young, probably professional, jogging in the park before her commute to work. But the attacker . . . It
definitely wasn’t the Dior Man, unless he’d completely changed his appearance. And his dress sense . . . light-grey tracksuit bottoms, yuk, I bet he wouldn’t be seen dead in a
pair of those. My own flippancy shocks me. But somehow it helps me to shake off the awful feeling of suspicion and guilt. It’s not him.

It’s been nearly a week since I last jogged on the Heath. I have a legitimate excuse – it’s been a hellish week at work. I get to the office early and work
late every day, barely staying on top of the massive tsunami of change that is slowly gathering momentum under the watchful eye of Cadenca Global. The Friday Bake-Off, cheerfully orchestrated by HR
and Happy Workplace, is a distraction no one wants and no one needs. The few cakes, baked by some mad souls who still have spare time and energy to be wasted in the kitchen, sit on the table in the
main conference room, barely nibbled on. There will be no Bake-Off winners this Friday, because everyone is a loser right now. A new structure is being put in place, new job descriptions drawn up
and approved, and the painstaking process of elimination is just about to begin. For some reason I’m reminded of a Borg cube from
Star Trek
, with all the superfluous drones being
ejected into space, their place immediately filled by the newly assimilated useful entities. Resistance is futile, that’s for sure. I have to do my job, while trying to prepare the most
advantageous exit strategy for myself. Bell, a devoted Trekkie who infected me with a passion for the indestructible TV series, would be proud of me.

Bell – I need to see her, to apologize once again for giving her such a fright when I didn’t answer my phone on the day of the Hampstead rape. I’ve been scouring the Internet
for any more news of the assault, but there is none. I wonder if the woman is OK, whether there is an investigation into the incident and who is running it. I also think that I can’t stay
away from the Heath forever. I miss it.

I arrange to meet Bell in YumYum in Stoke Newington, the best Thai restaurant outside South-East Asia, some Stokie locals say. True, the food is rather good and the atmosphere appropriately
exotic. When I arrive, Bell is already there, sitting barefoot Asian style on the floor by a low table. I plonk myself down opposite her, grateful she’s already ordered passion fruit mojitos
for both of us.

‘Just caught the end of happy hour,’ she says proudly.

‘Well done, you should’ve ordered two each.’

‘Things that bad at work?’

I make a face and take a big gulp of my mojito. It tastes divine.

‘Look, I’m sorry I overreacted the other day about the Heath thing. For one crazy moment I thought it might be you . . .’ Bell shakes her head.

‘No, don’t be silly, it should be me apologizing for not answering your calls. I do appreciate you were worried about me.’

‘Well, that’s what good friends are for.’ She clinks my glass. ‘You haven’t bumped into your Heath guy lately?’

‘Nah, haven’t been out jogging for a week. I can feel the fab already building up.’ I pat my stomach, hoping she’ll drop the subject. Luckily a waitress appears to take
our order.

‘How is your Moscow girl?’

‘Good, really good.’ Bell beams at me happily. Oh God, I think, she’s fallen for it again. And, as if on cue, she says what I’ve been dreading to hear. ‘Actually,
I’ve been thinking I might go and see her.’

‘In Idaho?’

‘No, we’ve been talking about meeting up in Vancouver. It’s only a stone’s throw for her and I’ve always wanted to go there.’

‘Vancouver sounds lovely,’ I say, carefully avoiding mentioning her virtual girlfriend.

‘Vancouver is lovely,’ she says, sounding hurt. ‘But I’m talking to my best friend, not TripAdvisor. You haven’t even asked me what her name is.’

‘What is her name?’ I don’t want yet another argument on the subject of Bell’s girlfriends.

‘It doesn’t matter. You think it’s all nonsense, don’t you?’

‘No, Bell, I don’t. I’m happy for you. I just don’t want you to get hurt again. You don’t even know her.’

‘But I do. I’ve spent more hours chatting to her in a week than an average couple spends talking to each other in a year. That’s what long-distance relationships are about.
Talking and listening. When was the last time you really listened to one of your boyfriends?’

Careful, I think, let’s not get provoked into a full-blown row. The waitress saves the day again, bringing our food. We tuck in to our Thai green curry with king prawns and lemongrass
chicken, savouring the subtle combination of spices, sweetness and salt, our girlfriend/boyfriend tiff forgotten for the rest of the evening. I know the subject will surface again, but I’m
relieved it’s not going to happen tonight. And I’m glad Bell has let the subject of ‘the Heath guy’ drop so easily.

But I can’t stop thinking about it. Having dropped Bell off at her place, I drive home, allowing myself to form the question I’ve been avoiding for a week. Could
the Dior Man, despite my conviction to the contrary, based mostly on the colour of his track bottoms, be the rapist? Could he be the man who attacked a young woman who was jogging on the Heath one
unlucky morning? Was it him? Should I be going to the police, I ask myself, as I crawl in traffic along ever-congested Green Lanes, watching men standing in front of Turkish kebab shops. No, it
can’t be him. He doesn’t look Mediterranean and, according to the police description, the rapist is medium height. The Dior Man is taller. But how can I be so sure he’s innocent?
I know nothing about him.

It can’t be him because he’s not a rapist. We had rough sex in a public place, but it wasn’t rape. It was instigated by me, after all. Could I have flicked some unknown,
violent switch inside his psyche? I feel I’m going round in circles, asking myself the same questions, again and again. And always arriving at the same conclusion: it’s not him. It
can’t be him. I don’t want it to be him.

There is nowhere left to park in my street, the usual Friday-night car-owner nightmare. I drive round the block looking for a space. Nothing. I make another loop, poised like a panther to pounce
on a freshly freed parking space. Still nothing. I have a choice of either driving out further, towards Highgate Hill, or doing another kerb-crawling circle. Perhaps when people start leaving the
pubs something will become free. I stop in the middle of the street, undecided.

A sudden knock on my window makes me jump. I see a man leaning in, smiling. He’s saying something I don’t understand. My heart is pounding and my foot moves instinctively towards the
accelerator. Then I look at the man again and recognize him. It’s the guy who found Wispa. Tim Something. I buzz down the window.

‘Hi, I’m so sorry I startled you,’ he says with a sheepish grin. ‘It’s Tom, I found your dog the other night.’

‘Of course! Hi, Tom, sorry, I was miles away . . .’ I feel silly for overreacting.

‘No, it’s my fault, I shouldn’t have knocked on your window like that.’ He actually looks cute in his embarrassment.

‘Let’s forget about it,’ I laugh. ‘No harm done.’

‘I was just doing my late-night Tesco run.’ He raises his hand with a pint of milk in it. ‘We always seem to run out of milk in the middle of the night.’

‘I know the feeling.’ I nod with understanding although I don’t. I never run out of milk because I never have it.

‘Actually, we’re having a bit of a get-together tomorrow night, just a few friends from the neighbourhood, nothing fancy . . . would you like to join us? I know it’s last
minute . . .’

Why not, I think. It’s not like I have a better offer for the Saturday night.

‘I’d love to. But . . . can I bring Wispa with me?’

‘Wispa?’ He seems confused.

‘My dog.’

‘Oh yes, of course, do bring her, the kids will be thrilled. Seven thirtyish? We’re just round the corner.’

He gives me the address, we exchange goodnights and he walks off carrying the milk like a trophy. Funny man. I wonder what his wife is like. Miraculously, a car right in front of me pulls out,
leaving a prime parking space just waiting for me. Good karma, I think, I must have done something right today. The good karma feeling continues as I take off my make-up later on and notice the
scab on my face has faded considerably. Healing like a dog, my grandma used to say.

It’s true, their house is literally round the corner from mine. Wispa seems to know the way and she’s first by their front door, her tail wagging. I ring the bell
and Tom opens the door. He looks more handsome than I remember, his curly black hair pushed back with some gel, a dark shadow of stubble on his chin. He seems genuinely pleased to see me as I push
a bottle of Blanquette de Limoux into his hands. Wispa’s already inside – I can hear kids’ voices cooing over her. He leads me to the sitting room, a huge space with French
windows overlooking the garden. There are a few people already there: an older couple I’ve seen around in the High Street, a slim young man with long hair and the lost look of someone
who’s done too many drugs, a tall woman with strikingly red lips and a couple of kids, a boy and a girl, fussing over Wispa, who’s gladly soaking up all the attention. Tom introduces
everybody and it turns out we are all neighbours. The conversation is about tree pollarding, the latest craze to have been plaguing our neighbourhood.

‘It’s barbaric and it should be banned,’ says the woman with red lips, whose name is Fiona.

‘It’s the wrong time of the year for it anyway, it should be done between November and February, not now,’ booms David, the older guy. His wife and the young guy remain silent.
I feel they are expecting me to chip in on the subject of pollarding. I’m frantically trying to think of something to say when Tom’s voice saves me.