Hanging Hill

gates, leaving Sally standing in the rain, trembling under her umbrella.

Shit, she thought, feeling in her pocket for her car keys. Life really was turning out to be the closest thing to hell.

38

‘I don’t want to do this.’ Zoe drew the curtains and switched on the overhead light. ‘You’re making me do this. So I’m asking you – as a fellow human being – to recognize that.’

Sitting on the chair at the end of the room Ben nodded dully. ‘I recognize you as a human being, Zoe. Maybe more than you do yourself.’

She stood in front of him, unbuckled her boots and kicked them aside. She unzipped the trousers and stepped out of them. Her own knickers were still on the floor at Kelvin’s so she was wearing a pair of Sally’s, which were too wide and flopped around her hips as she undressed. She hiked them up and unbuttoned the shirt, threw it on the floor, and stood a step away from him, arms hanging at her sides. She felt totally foolish.

Ben sat forward, his elbows on his knees, his head up. He was expressionless, his mouth slightly open, as he moved his attention all over her face, over the swollen nose, the bruises on her cheeks, and down, over her bare arms, covered with bramble scratches. Then the bruises and the scars. She held out her arms and sighed. ‘This one.’ She put a finger on the scabbed mess she’d made last week, the day he’d admitted sleeping with Debbie. ‘This is recent, but I did it to myself. And these ones here? They’re old. I did them too.’

Ben looked at her in absolute disbelief.

‘This one.’ She gently palpated a new bruise on her arm. She thought about the hatred that had caused it – Kelvin’s need to harm. She wondered how her life had got so twisted that she’d ever imagined doing the same thing to herself. ‘This was done this morning.’

‘How?’

‘When I was raped.’

There was a long, long silence. Then Ben dropped his head forward, put his hands on his temples and screwed up his eyes as if he had the world’s worst headache. She thought for a moment he was going to get up and leave. Then she realized he was crying soundlessly, his shoulders shaking. After a few moments he wiped his face angrily with a palm and raised his eyes to her. There was an expression of such grief, such loss, such fury in his eyes that she had to turn away.

She went and sat down at the table, put her hands between her knees and stared at her thighs, mottled with bruises. She felt every inch of her sore body – the tiny, intense jets of fury at all the places where Kelvin’s fingers had come into contact with her skin. There was a creak and Ben got up from the chair. He came to the table and dropped to a crouch next to her. He laid his hands gently on her knees.

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘Don’t be kind, please. I can’t bear it.’ She couldn’t get her throat to open enough to explain. ‘It’s all right. I mean, it’s not your fault. How could you have been expected to know that I was the most pathetic excuse for a human being that ever walked this planet?’

‘It’s not true. Something’s happened to you – but you’re not to blame.’

She shook her head, bit her lip. A single tear came out of her eye and ran down her cheek. ‘Ben,’ she said, with an effort, ‘you’re going to have to listen. And you’re going to have to forgive.’

39

As Sally got into the car outside the school, still trembling, a figure in a waterproof, hood up against the rain, stepped out towards her from near the school wall. It was Nial. He looked odd. Determined, but nervous. He glanced over his shoulder as if to make sure no one was behind him, then hurried over to her.

‘Mrs Cassidy?’ He bent and peered at her through the driver’s window, raised his fist and mimed knocking on the glass. ‘Can we speak?’

Sally rolled down the window. ‘Nial? What is it?’

‘I’ll give her a lift home. I’ve got the van – it’s parked round the corner.’

She stared at him. The gel in his hair and the way he’d knotted his tie, instead of making him look grown-up and cool, just made him seem younger and smaller. Even more inadequate.

‘What?’ he said.

She shook her head. ‘Nothing. That would be very kind. I’ll pick her up from yours. About seven.’

She started to wind up the window, but he gave a small polite cough. ‘Uh – Mrs Cassidy?’

‘What?’

He bit his lip and glanced over his shoulder again, as if he was sure someone was listening. ‘Millie’s…’

‘Millie’s what?’

‘Honestly? Don’t tell her I told you, but she’s scared.’

‘Scared? She’s got nothing to be scared of.’

‘She says you’re acting weird and she’s got it into her head you’re being threatened by someone. Is that why you don’t want her going home on the bus?’

‘Why on earth would she think that?’

‘I don’t know – but she hasn’t stopped talking about it all morning. She thinks someone’s messing you around.’

‘Listen to me, Nial. Millie doesn’t need to worry about me, about anything. All that’s wrong is I can’t get here by five to collect her. That’s all. Everything’s fine.’

‘OK,’ he said, unconvinced. Then, ‘Mrs Cassidy, I don’t know what’s going on with you, but I can tell you this. If anyone ever tried to hurt Millie…’ he shook his head, sadly, as if he regretted having to say this ‘… then they’d have to get past me first. Nothing and no one is going to get to her as long as I’m around.’

Sally forced a smile and reached for the ignition key. She was getting a bit impatient with his hero act. He was too young to have any concept – any proper way of grasping the truth – of the awful, overwhelming reality of Kelvin Burford.

‘Thank you, Nial,’ she said patiently. She was tired. Very tired. ‘Thank you. I’ll pick her up before seven.’

40

Nothing in Lorne’s bedroom had been touched since Zoe’s last visit. She could tell that from the still, shuttered weight of the air. It needed stirring, needed human breath in it. She pushed her sunglasses on to her head, knelt, opened the lower drawer and began peeling away the layers of clothes. It was gone six o’clock and the rain had passed over the town. The lovely trees outside Lorne’s window dripped with water. Beyond them was the driveway and, at the end of it, Sally waiting in her little Ka. She’d driven Zoe here and now she was as anxious as Zoe was to get this stage of the process right. Sally, little Sally, who was turning out not to be weak-willed and spoiled, but tougher and smarter than Zoe would ever have guessed. And then, good God, then there was Ben…

In spite of everything that had happened at Kelvin’s, the part of Zoe that had been aching for years and years softened a little at the thought of Ben. He was… What was he? Too good to be true? A reality she couldn’t push away with a sarcastic ‘Yeah, right’? Earlier, at her house, instead of speaking, asking questions, he’d simply sat with his arms round her, his chin on her head, listening to the whole story. Everything. And afterwards – when she’d expected him to cough awkwardly, mutter something stiff about how her secret wouldn’t go any further, that maybe she should think about counselling – he’d shrugged, got up, clicked on the kettle and said, ‘Right, got time for a cuppa before we nail the dickhead?’ Now he was in the car somewhere, on the way to Gloucester with a list of