Skeletal (14 page)

She did retch this time, and clamped her nostrils shut again to try to stop the reaction. Lunch had been thick slices of ham between springy white bread – a treat that made her wish her mother didn’t know that brown bread was healthier – along with her cordial and an orange for dessert. She didn’t want to lose that to the forest floor. That was her picnic, her day out with her mum, and she was keeping it.

When her stomach settled she moved forward again. Daina no longer wanted to see the source for that smell. She no longer wanted anything but to go back or forward in time to a place that was nice and safe and this was never begun or over.

But she kept going forward because she also had to know. Curiosity. And she wanted to know if she should still be scared. Her muscles were knotted and her neck was starting to hurt. She didn’t want to stay like that forever.

An object had punched down through the trees, punched down through the ferns, punched down even into the leaf strewn ground. When Daina crept forward enough to see what it was she almost breathed a sigh of relief. And then looked again.

It was a man.

A man lying on the ground.

Daina looked back to see if she could still see the edge of the picnic area. It was already dim in the forest even though she’d barely come in any real distance, but she could see through the forest to where the sun was still shining. Still in view.

She pulled the tall ferns back to get a better look.

It was a man, but there was something wrong. Something wrong with the shape of his head. It was wide and flat. Like a squashed peach.

He was dressed in a shirt and trousers, but the cloth had torn apart in the middle. Where the flap of his shirt should tuck neatly into the waistband of his trousers a morass of thick magenta and brown worms were tangled together. There was a splattering of deep maroon radiating out from there, Daina could see a sticky wet drop of the colour on the fern right by her face. She didn’t need to take her hand away to know that was the source of the stench. That was the source of the evil scent that was still coming into her body with every breath, no matter how tight she pinched her nose.

One of the trouser legs had split. It was easy for Daina to see why. The man’s thigh was nearly twice the width of the trouser. It wasn’t just the cloth that had torn. Daina stared in horror at the beige-yellow fat that showed through where the man’s skin had burst like a rotted fruit. Burst like when you squeeze a tomato in your hand.

The vomit came up. Her stomach contents emptied in one regurgitation, fighting to get out of her body. Daina took a step back. She retched again but there was nothing but thick bile which she spat onto the leafy ground even though it wasn’t ladylike. Daina didn’t feel ladylike. She may never feel ladylike again.

It was the thump that made her turn and run. Her head replayed it, pitch perfect, as though it were happening again right that second. The first perfect recall of sound. It wouldn’t be the last.

Daina heard it, felt it, and the thin film of fascination that had held her in place burst wide open and the panic spilled out.

She turned and ran. Fell on the slippery leaves. Scrambled on her knees until she gained purchase to stand. Ran again. Ran out into the bright light. Blinding white light.

She fell to her knees again. On the clean grass. Grass that had never witnessed the horror that lay just metres to its side. Grass that she lay on, put her face on; rubbed her cheek on. Clean grass.

And when she heard the small click, heard the man clear his throat, saw his shadow fall over her. When she looked up to see the small circular barrel of a gun only centimetres from her face, it was clean grass that her bladder emptied itself on. Her mind spinning away, out of control, fleeing the scene like a drunk driver fleeing the scene of an accident.

part two – spy

Daina 2004

The clinic picked me up. I stayed next to the phone box until they did. Every time I heard approaching footsteps I hid around the other side, moving from one wall to another as the footsteps progressed past, then back into the safety of the box itself.

My heart was beating faster and faster. The pain pulsed in my head and my shoulder, and at one stage I had to crouch down when the world took on a greyish tinge.

When the van parked next to me on the street I thought I would faint. My brain was tearing itself apart – of course it was the clinic, they’d said they were coming – of course it’s not the clinic, it’s a trick to hurt you more.

‘Daina,’ a woman’s voice called out softly. The tearing feeling became worse, not better, but I forced myself to walk out of my telecommunications cocoon and respond. Not because I wanted to, any more than I’d wanted to call them in the first place. Because the Grey Man had told me to, as if this course of action should be obvious to anyone, and I didn’t want to disappoint him or appear stupid.

Mary drove me to the clinic. There was soft jazz on her car radio, and apart from checking that I was okay for the moment, and glancing at me every two minutes, she drove on without engaging me.

I leant my head against the window. The cooling night air had made the glass chilly and it felt soothing against my swollen face.

‘This is us,’ Mary said, as the vehicle came to a stop. Her voice was low and soft. I wondered if she spoke like that naturally, or if she put it on so that I wouldn’t be startled. She came around my side and opened the door for me. I stepped down and followed her inside.

The clinic wasn’t anything like one. There were soft sofas and cheerful paintings, quiet areas for private chats. I’d been expecting rows of hard wooden seats and a receptionist encased in a glass and concrete booth.

There was no escaping the examination table, the feet together and let your knees drop exposure. Careful coaxing didn’t stop my face burning, my eyes tearing, my throat lumping.

I lay on my side on the table afterwards. My eye had been examined and cleaned and there was a butterfly plaster holding the raw edges of my split eyebrow together. It was late, I was tired but also wired. Tonight didn’t feel conducive to sleep.

There was some cajoling to report the events. I kept insisting that the assault wasn’t related to the rape; the rape hadn’t been me screaming, ‘No.’ At one point I explained that since I had accepted the terms it probably didn’t even count as rape and I was wasting everybody’s time. I had exchanged sex for clothing. An even trade.

It was the only time that there was an edge of anger to the voices in the clinic. Emphatic denial that any trade existed, that coercion was rape, that fear of being hurt was assault, that threat of assault to force capitulation was rape. There must be ease in knowing you’re right.

A large part of me wanted to give in and report this to the police. I wanted to please the people who had so painstakingly helped me for no return. Who had given me the tools to make sure I wasn’t pregnant, wasn’t bleeding, wasn’t infected.

It wasn’t the arduousness of a prosecution that put me off, but the thought of the Grey Man who’d helped me, that stopped me short of saying yes. I let their arguments run dry, and let them bundle me home with warmth, safety, and caring.

But I didn’t let them report it. And I didn’t let them know my real name. And I didn’t let them drop me off home, instead going around the back of a distant neighbour’s house and knocking at a window so they’d turn a light on. Made it look like I’d walked in through the back door and made it inside.

When I heard the van drive away I scurried around to the roadside again and ran the short journey home. The motion jolted my aches and pains but I needed to get inside to the safety of my room more than I needed a pain-free existence.

I didn’t disturb my mother as per her request. I went straight upstairs and got into my narrow bed fully clothed. Paul’s clothing was in a supermarket bag. The clinic staff had whisked it off me and given me a t-shirt and jeans in exchange.

So much thought put into how I would feel. I felt the flush of shame again that I hadn’t fallen in with their suggestions. It competed with the flush of shame that I’d caused such a fuss over nothing. Over having consensual sex with a boy in a park. Despite their protestations it wasn’t so.

The door opened and let someone out of our house. Mum’s visitor was gone.

I curled onto my right side and moved the pillow so a cool area touched against my swollen eye. My mind raced through a cache of images. Flicking through, not stopping. Each image as raw as the last.

When the front door opened again I jumped in surprise, and my whole body went rigid. Footsteps moved, a low hum of voices, and then my mother’s door closed. Another visitor or the same? Surely the same.

As I fell into the sweet release of sleep my mind drew distant images together to form a new picture. A complete picture.

My mother’s prostituting herself.

Sleep.

***

Saturday morning, I stayed in bed. Late in the afternoon I got into the bathtub, and had to force myself out over an hour later when the water had turned pink. I’d scrubbed at my skin so hard for so long that little beads of blood dotted its surface.

Sunday, my mother caught me in the kitchen and exclaimed over the bruises on my face.

‘I fell over in the park,’ I explained away. ‘Hit my face on the end of the see-saw.’

There were random caresses, a vague offer of arnica – never realised – and then my mother drifted off to her bedroom to sleep.

Monday passed by in a blur of dread for the following day. And then Tuesday dawned, and I had to go back to school.

Before I was halfway along the front gate – not even
inside
the school grounds – I knew that something was wrong. There were fingers pointing, a shrill of giggles from behind me, a nudge in the ribs before me.

And I had no option but to brazen it out. As my Grey Man had told me, my friends weren’t my friends, but my enemies were still my enemies.

Based on past behaviour I even had a pretty good idea of what I was about to see when I entered the corridor to my home room and saw gaggles of teenagers staring at the walls.

I wanted desperately to be an adult. To have the capability right then and there to say no, and just walk away. Pack up and go like my mother had packed up and fled a dozen, two dozen bad situations, money-owing furnishings repossessed situations. Take what you want and leave.

Maybe if I’d sat down with her on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, I could’ve talked it through and she might have pulled me out without a second thought. Maybe. Or she could’ve glazed over, stroked my hair back from my forehead, and let every word I was trying to tell her fall into the black hole that replaced her memory every time she was a few hours from sobriety.

I ground my teeth together and walked on through. If I could get to class and sit down I should be fine. I could gather myself and wait for everyone to arrive and paste some semblance of a smile on my face to recognise that a joke had been played on me. Or I could start weeping and not stop.

Michelle stood snidely by the side of the English room door. Blocking my path. I turned to go back outside, I’d rather wait out there than stand near her, but a few of her friends blocked my exit; trapping me in.

There were A4 printouts of naked me Sellotaped to the walls and locker doors. I couldn’t look directly at them, but my peripherals were bad enough. The whole corridor had fallen into silence, broken only by shuffling feet and low whispers.

My spirit was breaking. My body sagged as though it were a physical thing departing, no longer propping me upright, a virtual spine packing up to go.

‘Everybody out!’ a voice shouted from the head of the corridor. I turned and saw Ms Pearson striding down the halls looking ten feet tall and breathing fire. She clapped her hands together. ‘Michelle, Daina, you stay. Everybody else get out right now. Not that way, boy,’ She grabbed Michael by the collar and turned him neatly the other way, ‘The door’s locked. Go out the front.’

She pulled level with us and eyed down a few strays that hovered as though they might be left out of the roll-call. When one didn’t move quick enough for her liking, ‘Miranda, you can leave now or you’ll be in detention tonight and you won’t be coming out until the end of term.’ Miranda scuttled down the hallway. She dropped a textbook on the floor, glanced at Ms Pearson, and decided to leave it in lieu of getting the hell out.

The door closed and only we three still remained.

Ms Pearson walked to the entrance doors and locked them shut. She strode back to us both.

‘Michelle, take those photos down,’ she ordered.

‘I’m not the one who put them up Miss,’ Michelle replied looking like butter wouldn’t melt.

‘Michelle, there is not a word that comes out of your mouth that I believe. Get those photos down now.’ She popped her hands on her hips and gave Michelle such a glare that after a moment she complied.

Ms Pearson turned her attention to me. I could feel a list of excuses as to why it was nothing to do with me popping straight to my lips, but before I could say anything she whispered, ‘Are you okay?’

There was concern in her voice. Genuine concern. A tear rolled down my face in response, I couldn’t talk. I shook my head, and she placed a hand, gentle and soft, on the side of my face and wiped it away with her thumb.

‘I’ll get you somewhere safe in a moment,’ she said, and then turned her attention back to Michelle.

‘Don’t drop them on the floor, Michelle. You spent time and effort putting these pieces of degradation together; treat them with some care.’

Michelle turned with her lip curled up into a snarl. ‘I didn’t put these up, I didn’t put them together, and I’m not taking them down.’ She threw the one in her hand to the floor and crossed her arms.

‘You will take them down, you did put them up, and you’ll get a move on, girl. I’m not unlocking these doors until they’re all removed, and if Mr Fitzsimmons has to come down here to investigate why, you’re probably going to be on your last day at this school. And good luck getting a placement elsewhere with this on your record.’

‘You can’t exclude me without proof.’

‘Girl, if you think that I can’t find a dozen witnesses to turn you in, you’re out of your barking mind. Why the hell do you think I’m down here? Because I had a psychic flash? Your “mates” have started to dob you in already, and it’ll only take one assembly to get the whole sorry pack to cough.’

For the first time Michelle’s composure slipped, and she looked unsure.

‘As it is, I’ve already reported this incident to the police. I don’t know if you’re bright enough to realise or not, Michelle, but we’re not talking about a prank here. We’re talking about assault. Sexual assault, maybe. How’d you like to explain your way out of a lesbian sexual assault, Michelle, would you like
that
on your record?’

I just stood and stared at the woman. She knew how to give a tongue-lashing. Then the words
Police Assault
processed their way through my shocked brain. I couldn’t have the police involved.

‘Ms Pearson I…’

She cut me off with her hand, then folded her arms again and continued to stare down Michelle each time she dared to try to stop doing as ordered. The walls and doors were soon bare, and Michelle gripped a pile of photos I hoped never to see again.

‘Are there any others?’

Michelle just stood mute, her head hanging down.

‘Look at me when I talk to you, girl! Are there any others? Have you posted these pictures anywhere else in the school? Are there any other nasty little surprises that you need to clean up before you go home?’

Michelle didn’t look at her, but she did shake her head convincingly to the other questions. When Ms Pearson pulled the photos out of her hand Michelle took a sudden step back, her eyes wide.

‘Go home, Michelle. The school will be in contact with your parents in due course. Until then I don’t want to see you here, do you understand?’

At the mention of her parents Michelle looked terrified. That look reminded me that she was really no different from me. Over the days from Friday she’d grown into a monster in my imagination, occupying more and more space. Now she was back down to size.

She picked her bag up from her locker and walked to the end of the hall. Ms Pearson let her go, continuing to stand there and stare. Michelle reached the door and couldn’t exit. It was locked. She’d forgotten.

I walked down the hall towards her, and it wasn’t till I moved that Ms Pearson started to as well. She unlocked the door, letting Michelle escape to freedom and parental dread, and then she escorted me through to her office, away from the curious stares.

When she sat down I leaned forward. ‘I can’t have the police involved, Ms Pearson. Thanks for your help and everything but I…’

Once again she cut me off with her hand. ‘I haven’t called the police. I can, if you want me to, but Michelle is quite right. We don’t have proof that she’s behind any of this. And if you’re not going to make a statement, then it’ll die a natural death anyway.’