Hanging Hill

she took the chance to bring her foot into his groin. She made contact, felt him begin to double over. He fell heavily against her, almost knocking her off balance, but she danced out of his way. He staggered a few steps forward, his head down as if he was going to ram the fireplace. She turned and clasped her hands together in a fist above his head, brought them down hard. She was aiming for the back of his neck but she got a point between his shoulder blades. He roared with pain, twisting and flailing with one hand to grab her leg. She wasn’t expecting that – you broke the first rule: never wait to see the effect of the punch, just get in there with the second. He got her behind the knee and pulled so fast that she lost her balance and went down on her back with a thud.

He dropped to his knees next to her, his expression almost bored, as if this was too tiring, too wearying to be bothered with, and punched her hard in the face. Her head was thrown sideways with the force. Something flew out of her nose. Then he got a handful of her hair and lifted her head off the floor – there was the tiny pop-popping noise of a hundred hair follicles being yanked out – raised his fist and hit her again.

He dropped her head to the floor again and she lay there, panting thickly, staring through bleary eyes at a place about ten inches from her face where a spatter of blood had appeared on the bottom of the door. There was a noise – a wah-wah sound, as if someone in the room was squeezing out the air. The light coming through the french windows seemed suddenly greasy and unsteady, as if it was being manipulated. She tried to lift a hand to her face, but it wouldn’t obey. It rose a short way then fell, like a piece of dead meat, and lay near her face as if it didn’t belong to her. Kelvin was moving around the room, breathing hard. His weight on the floorboards tested the joists under her – as if the floor was bending slightly wherever he went. She thought about Lorne’s face. The blood and the bruising. There was a tube of tennis balls in the next bedroom. How many gamekeepers played tennis, for Christ’s sake? How could she have been so fucking stupid?

Kelvin grunted. He got his hands under her armpits and lifted her on to the bed. She lay on her side, breathing rapidly, still unable to move. There was a pool of blood on the floor where her head had just been, bright red, like the ink from the luminous pens they used in the office. A clump of hair too, with something white attached to it. Her skin, she realized.

‘I’m going to tie you up now. OK?’

She tried to move her legs. They wouldn’t budge. They just hung down over the edge of the bed, no life, no feeling. She understood what was going to happen now.

‘Come over here.’

He pushed her a little further onto the bed. She was shivering, cold and hot at the same time. Where his hands touched her they felt like warm muscle meeting glass.

‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘Now here.’

He lifted her numb legs and placed them on the sheets. She could see the veins in the whites of his eyes. An unhealthy yellowish film over the sclera. He smelt of woodsmoke and engine oil and dirty clothes. Zoe recalled the lines of blood running down Lorne’s cheeks. Her skin had split. Really split. ‘It’sh OK,’ she slurred.

He looked her in the eye, puzzled. ‘What?’

‘It’sh OK. You can do it to me.’

Kelvin kept his eyes on her, not expecting this. There was a white line on his lips, either from dried skin or toothpaste or spittle, she couldn’t be sure. If she died now Ben would see the marks – everyone would know she’d put up some resistance. You were supposed to fight, weren’t you? Fight for your honour. Except there were times that to win the war you had to lose the battle.

‘It’sh what I want.’

He lowered his chin and looked at her steadily.

‘I mean it.’

He sat on the bed, making the springs creak. ‘You what?’

‘I want it.’

He gave the sly grin he used to give her from the back of the audience, the one that made her sure the dirtiness in her was on the inside, deep, deep down, not something superficial she’d picked up from working in the club.

‘You want what?’

She gritted her teeth.

‘Say it. Say what you want.’

‘I want you to fuck me.’

‘Say, “Kelvin, I want you to fuck me.”’

‘I want you to fuck me, Kelvin.’

‘No. Get it right. Say, “Kelvin, I really want you to fuck me.” Lick your lips when you say it. Like you used to.’

She held his eyes. The trembling was starting under her ribs. ‘Kelvin.’ She put her tongue between her lips. Shakily moved it across them. ‘I really want you to fuck me.’

He unlaced his boots and set them to one side. He stood and unsnapped the waterproof leggings, throwing them on to the floor. He unzipped his jeans and stepped out of them. He wasn’t wearing anything underneath. No underwear. She could see his red testicles and penis dangling under the plaid shirt. He went to the dressing-table and sorted idly through the items on there. Please not a tennis ball. Please not that…

He found instead a condom and split open the packet. She followed it with her eyes as he came back and sat on the bed. He wasn’t stupid: he wouldn’t leave a trace. It was what he’d done with Lorne.

He sat down on the bed and began fumbling with her trousers. She didn’t move – she couldn’t. He got the zip undone and slid the jeans off, dragging her knickers with them. She kept her teeth clenched tight. Tried to shrink all her thoughts into a tight, hard knot in the centre of her mind. He pulled her sweater off over her head and dragged her bottom to the edge of the bed. Her feet clunked dully back on the floor. He knelt in front of her and put on the condom. ‘Open your legs.’

The trembling under her ribs grew into a body-length spasm.

‘Open your legs.’

She managed to get them a small way apart and he used his knees to move them further, then pulled her closer and pushed himself inside her. He watched her closely while he worked at her, eyes on her face. She clamped her teeth together, and kept her eyes locked hard on a button on his breast pocket, holding them there, concentrating all the time on the tight place in her head. The feeling was coming back into her body now. She wished it wouldn’t, she wished she could feel nothing. The blood from her nose ran down the back of her throat. The blood in Lorne’s nose had congealed, blocked her nose. It had been what had killed her. What had Amy said in the barge? It seemed like an eternity ago. That rape was all about men and the way they secretly hated women?

Then, suddenly, it was over. He was finished. He pulled away from her and removed the condom. Tied it in a knot and dropped it on the floor. Then he sat on the bed next to her, almost companionably, reaching over, pushing a hand up inside her T-shirt to massage her breast. ‘You liked that. Didn’t you?’

She licked her lips. She could taste the blood. Salty, like sweat.

‘I said – did you enjoy that?’

She closed her eyes and nodded.

‘Your nose is bleeding.’

She raised a shaky hand, still weak, and wiped it. Kelvin stood and went out. She opened her eyes and blinked at the empty room. The tennis ball, she thought. Now he’s going to get the tennis ball. But when he reappeared next to the bed he was holding a towel. He handed it to her. She tried to sit up but failed. He pulled her upright and she sat there with the towel pressed on her nose. The feeling was coming back to her legs now, pricking like pins and needles.

‘I’d like to come back another time.’

‘What? What did you say?’

Once, years ago, Zoe had interviewed a rape victim. The girl had said the same thing to her attacker – she’d said afterwards, I really like you – can we do this again? He’d believed her and instead of