The Slap (25 page)

They walked across the park. She was deliberately silent, her face hard, but Richie did not seem to notice. He was humming beside her. It was really shitting her.

‘Stop that.’

‘What?’

‘You’re so off-tune.’

‘What’s up with you?’

‘Fuck you.’

‘Fuck you too.’

She stopped in the middle of the path. A young man with prickly short, grey hair, a half-dozen or so rings looped around his right ear, rock star looks and poise, was wheeling a pram, a little girl skipping at his side holding his hand. She was chatting away to him, something about school, and Connie stepped aside as they passed. Richie had turned around, was watching the man casually stroll away.

That would be right. He was such a fag.

Richie turned to her. His smile was gone. ‘What’s wrong, Con?’

She couldn’t speak. He came up to her and placed an arm around her shoulder. She punched it away.

‘What’s wrong with you?’

‘You took the photo, didn’t you?’

His face went pale, then a deep rose shade, a blush that seeped down to his neck. He let out a silly weak whistle, like a frightened bird. She wanted to slap him.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

He was a fucking liar.

‘You took the photo.’ She had no doubt about it. He was guilty and he was gutless. He’d lied to her. She resumed walking up the path, her strides long and furious. He tried to keep pace with her.

‘Connie, what have I done?’

She refused to answer. Her eyes moistened and she pinched her palms, determined not to cry. But she couldn’t stop it, the dumb tears fell. Richie grabbed her arm and she struggled against him. He tightened his grip.

‘If you don’t let go of me I’m going to scream.’

They were at the edge of the park, the station across the road from them was lit by the strong glare of the streetlights on Hoddle Street. A train was coming through. Richie, his grip still tight on her arm, glanced right and then rushed them across the road, onto the traffic island. She thought of kicking him, then rushing off. But she was crying now and her body seemed listless, lacking all energy. Richie waited for a break in the traffic and they hurried across to the other side. He dragged her under the railway bridge, pushed her through the gap in the fence and across the railway lines. She could hear the train coming and thought for a moment, I’m going to trip and I’m going to get killed by the train. He’ll have to watch all of it. It will be his fault and he’ll have to live with it all his life. She had a flash of the funeral, his distraught, panicked face. It would serve him right if he killed her. He pulled her up on the embankment and sat her on an old bluestone and sat down next to her. Her arm hurt from where he had tugged at her. The train thundered past, and they watched it slow down as it approached the station.

She turned to him, ready to yell at him, that she hated him, and noticed that he too was crying. She was suddenly terrified. She wanted to make it better, to stop the confusion of shame and fear and sadness that overwhelmed her. She wanted to take back the last half-hour. She wanted to be back in the garden with him again, outstretched to the sun, listening to the laughter and the bounce of the ball. She gulped and then started to really cry, her body heaved and rocked on the bluestone. Scared, Richie placed an arm around her. She wanted to make it better, she wanted it all to make sense.

‘Hector raped me.’

The words were muffled by her sobs and she had to repeat them. Shocked, Richie dropped his arm from around her, then brought his hand awkwardly back up again, to comfort her. Her sobbing calmed. It was like being in a movie. Like she was floating above both of them, looking down, directing the action.

‘When?’ Richie looked stricken; he had turned pale. ‘How, I mean . . .’ He hesitated, swallowed and tried again. ‘Tell me what happened, Con.’

She was suddenly confused. She didn’t want to say any more. She didn’t want questions, hadn’t anticipated them.

She drew a shuddering breath. ‘About a year ago. He gave me a lift home from work. It was in his car.’ As she started to speak, she could suddenly fantasise the whole memory. She just let the words rush out. It was last winter, it was pouring outside. He’d come to pick up Aish and then offered me a lift home as well. He dropped her off first and then said he’d take me home. Except he drove to the boat-house, parked there and started to kiss me. I wanted to scream but he had his hand over my mouth. His hands were on her legs, then up her cunt. He was suddenly inside her. It had hurt but she couldn’t scream. She should have bitten his hand. She wished she had bitten his hand. She didn’t know why she hadn’t. He had fucked her and it had hurt. He was kissing her neck and breasts. He had come and he had lit a cigarette afterwards. His zip was still undone. Her panties were still around her knees. She was bleeding. But she had asked for a cigarette. He had told her that he loved her. He had said that if she told anyone that would be the end of him and Aish. He kept telling her he loved her. She had told him that if it ever happened again she would go straight to the police. She told him he was a bastard. She told him that she hated him.

‘He kept saying, I love you. Over and over. It was sick.’ Richie’s hand—hot, sweaty—was covering hers. The girl above them, the girl watching it all, the girl directing the movie, it had happened to that girl. It was real.

Connie wanted to pull her hand from under Richie’s, but didn’t know how to. The boy was the first to take his hand away and she sighed in relief.

‘Have you told anyone?’

‘No. I can’t. I don’t want Aish to know.’

‘She should know.’

He couldn’t say anything. He mustn’t say anything.

‘I can’t say a word to anyone. Just you.’ She was almost wailing, terrified now. ‘You can’t say a word to anyone, Rich, not a word, not fucking ever.’

The boy was silent.

She was panicking.

‘Rich, you have to promise. You have to. You have to.’ She was shouting. Hugo was like this when he wanted something he couldn’t get. Almost desperate. ‘You have to promise!’

‘I promise.’ It sounded like he was sulking.

‘Promise?’

His face was fearful, sad and confused. ‘I promise.’

They walked home hand in hand.

 

‘You look great.’

Connie grimaced at her aunt’s words. Their bathroom was tiny, an old alcove shoddily added to the main house, and the ruthless light from the overhead bulb above her seemed to accentuate every blemish on her skin. She pursed her lips and softly touched the freshly applied lipstick with the tip of her tongue. Tasha was standing in the doorway. Connie, her hair still wet from the shower, was in her underpants. She had slugged on an old gym sweater to keep warm.

‘No, I don’t. I look awful.’

Tasha laughed and came into the room, standing behind Connie. ‘I said you look beautiful and you do. What are you going to wear?’

‘My jeans. A T-shirt, I guess.’

‘I think you should dress up.’

‘Tash,’ Connie moaned. ‘It’s just a party.’

‘Exactly, it’s a party, probably the last party before exams and before you finish school. You’ve been working so hard, you deserve a big night. Save your jeans and T-shirt for when you get trashed at the end of the year. I think you should dress up tonight.’

Connie examined her aunt’s reflection in the mirror. Tasha was wearing a floppy moth-eaten lime-green jumper and faded grey track-pants. She had no make-up on and her hair was loose, uncombed.

‘What are you doing tonight?’

‘I’m staying in. Getting take-away and watching
The Bill
.’

Connie bit her bottom lip. The lipstick smeared and she gently rubbed at it. ‘That doesn’t sound like much fun.’

Tasha laughed. ‘Darling, believe me. It’s what I’ve been looking forward to all week.’

Connie didn’t believe her. She was sure Tasha would much prefer to be going out to a bar with friends, or maybe on a date. It had been a long time since her aunt had been on a date. Years. Connie turned and wrapped her arms around Tasha. The older woman, surprised, squeezed her niece tightly.

‘Thank you, Tasha.’ Connie’s words were muffled. Her face was covered in the light fleece of her aunt’s woollen jumper. It felt soft and warm, the bristles tickling her cheeks. It smelt of Tasha, her faintly apple-ciderish perfume, her tobacco. It smelled good.

‘Thank you for what?’

Connie couldn’t answer. Her father had said, from his hospital bed, just days before he slipped into his coma, in the weeks where he was slipping in and out of lucidity, You’ll love Tash. You’ll hate all the other cunts in my family, but you’ll love Tash.

It had not been exactly true. Neither of her grandparents, and no, not even her uncle could be described as ‘cunts’. There are other ‘C’ words, Dad. Conservative, contrary, maybe even a little cowardly; even now, they couldn’t speak words like AIDS or bisexual. Even now they couldn’t bring themselves to say who he had really been, how he had really died. But they certainly weren’t ‘cunts’.

‘I didn’t hear you, angel.’

‘Thank you for looking after me. Thank you for putting your life on hold.’ Even as she said the words she knew her aunt would be furious. She knew she was being self-pitying, that she was seeking assurance that she was loved. She knew all this but still said the words. She wanted to be held, to be assured.

‘My life is not on bloody hold, Con. What the fuck are you talking about?’

‘I just meant . . .’

‘I know exactly what you meant. It may seem strange and bizarre to you, but there will come a time in your life when you too will look forward to being at home on a Saturday night and watching the telly. Putting your feet up is what they call it. I’m raising you. I enjoy that. You know that.’ Her aunt turned and stormed down the hall. ‘That was a fucking horrible thing to say,’ she called over her shoulder.

Connie couldn’t help smiling as she looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. She walked into the lounge where her aunt had plonked herself on the couch and switched on the television. Connie sat on the arm of the couch.

‘What do you think I should wear?’

Tasha ignored her for a moment, her eyes fixed on the images flickering on the screen. Connie turned to look. Something about bombs, somewhere overseas. She took the remote and switched off the sounds and the images. She looked back down at Tasha, who was trying not to smile. Connie leaned down and softly tickled her aunt’s sides.

Tasha curled over laughing. ‘Don’t!’

‘What should I wear?’

‘Something elegant. Something sophisticated. Not some horrible brand sports gear.’

‘No logo. Boss. I like that.’

‘Please don’t speak like a teenager, Con.’

‘I am a teenager.’

‘Yes, an unusually intelligent teenager. I just can’t stand the way you young people speak. For God’s sake, what is so wrong with complete sentences?’

And then Tasha started to laugh again. Even more loudly than before.

Connie looked at her, perplexed. ‘What’s so funny?’

Tasha touched Connie’s cheek. ‘What we were and what we become, angel.’ She rose from the couch. ‘Wait here.’

Tasha came back with clothes draped over both arms. Connie could see a swirl of fabrics. A black and scarlet vest, delicately embroidered with glittering ruby- and sapphire-coloured beads, a camel-hair long skirt with large silver buttons down one side. There was even a hat, made from some thick ivory-coloured material, with a squat conical top that abruptly tapered at the end at an oblique, steep angle.

‘Where did they come from?’ Her voice was high-pitched from excitement.

‘They were mine.’

‘You used to wear them?’

‘I made them. No logo.’ Tasha smiled. ‘Is that boss enough for you?’ She lay the clothes across the couch. ‘Actually, it’s not true that there was no label. We did have a label. Nietszche. How pretentious was that?’

Connie was holding up a dress, part of a charcoal suit, the skirt and jacket made of the same coarse wool. She ignored her aunt.

‘It was the early eighties. It made sense back then, nuclear winter and all that. We were all listening to Public Image and Joy Division.’ Tasha smiled at her niece’s delight in the clothes. ‘You probably have no idea what I’m talking about.’

‘I do. Dad loved Joy Division.’ Connie picked up the long skirt, placing it against her hips. ‘I like some of their stuff. They’re a bit dark.’

‘Dark is good. Better than all that fluffy pop you mob listen to.’ Tasha snatched the skirt away from her. ‘You can’t wear that, sweetheart. It’s too heavy.’

Connie picked up another dress. It was a simple design; a knee-length, strapless dress with two satin panels forming a double-diamond pattern across the front. The fabric was a fine cotton, ethereal and white, with a trace of light blue shimmer.

Connie hugged it to her body. ‘I can’t get away with this one, can I?’

‘Of course you can. You’ll look terrific in that.’

‘I can’t.’ Connie ran into her bedroom and stood in front of the mirror. She looked at the dress against her skin. Her aunt came and stood in the doorway. When Connie turned around she looked so distressed that Tasha rushed to her.

‘I can’t.’ This time it was a wail.

Tasha ignored her. She said nothing. Instead she gently sat her niece down onto the bed and looked around the room.

‘I need a brush and some hair gel.’

Connie pointed to her sports bag on the floor. Tasha rummaged through it and found what she wanted. She sat back on the bed and squeezed gel into her hands. She rubbed them together and then began to run the gel through Connie’s hair. They were both silent. Tasha started to brush Connie’s hair back over her head, pulling at it till Connie winced.

‘I’m going to slick it back. That’s the look for that dress. Unless you want to try the hat?’