My chest felt tight. When he wrapped both arms around me, I kept my hands by my sides. He kissed my neck, where his chain lay cold against my skin. His mouth was warm, but it left a cold, damp trail as he brought his lips to mine.
I recoiled and he stopped.
‘Have you been playing games with me? Leading me on?’
‘I . . .’
‘You want to be here, don’t you? You liked dinner? And the necklace?’
‘Yes.’ It was true: he’d been kind, had listened to me. When I’d told him I missed my mother and father, he’d reached out and held my hand.
‘But now you want to go?’ he asked.
He looked contemptuous and a muscle pulsed in his jaw.
Mutely, I shook my head.
‘Good.’ He kissed me, his mouth wet. He pushed his tongue against my lips and I knew he expected me to open my mouth, but everything in me clamped together; my muscles were rigid.
He pulled away from me and, even in the half-darkness, I could just make out his frowning confusion and the hard anger in his gaze.
‘I thought you liked me,’ he said.
‘I do.’ This seemed like the right thing to say, the polite thing to say, the way to stop him getting even angrier.
‘Kiss me, then,’ he said.
So I did.
I let him kiss me, and I let him lie down next to me on the sand. When he tried to shift his body onto mine, I froze again and pushed him away. But he was so much bigger, so much heavier, so much stronger than me. My arms pressed against his chest made no difference. When I turned my face from his kisses, he put his lips to my neck. His teeth grazed my skin. And I could feel his hands gathering my skirt, pulling it above my hips.
‘No!’
‘Don’t be like that, Con.’
‘Get off me!’ I shoved him. It was like pushing on a rock, like heaving a wall off my body.
He didn’t move. He kissed me again, harder.
‘Get off!’ I shouted, with the little air I could gather in my lungs. ‘Get –’
And then my words were cut off by his hands around my throat.
I choked and coughed, beating my legs on the sand, batting my hands against him, trying to claw at his face. My chest burned; my vision narrowed to the single point of his features – eyes, lips, teeth.
I’m going to die here. I’m going to die.
I tried to slap his face again. He grabbed both my hands in one of his and then tried to press his other arm on my neck to hold me down. His arm brushed my lips. I opened my mouth and bit down, hard, until I tasted iron, until something crunched between my teeth.
He yelled and jumped off me. I drew in a lungful of air and stumbled to my knees, crouching, retching.
‘You bitch!’ he shouted, clutching his arm. ‘You bitch!’ His voice was full of fury, his face twisted, and he moved towards me. I began to run.
I don’t know why he didn’t chase after me. When I got home, Dot had fallen asleep on the sofa. I crept past her and filled the kitchen sink with cold water, then washed myself. I scrubbed at the livid scratches and purple bruises until my skin felt scorched. I threw away my ripped skirt, knowing she’d ask questions if she found it.
In the following days, I wore a scarf. I refused to tell Dot where I’d been. And, as more bruises bloomed maroon and blue on my neck, I stayed inside the Kirkwall house, shut away, safe from prying eyes. But the rumours started anyway.
Dot came home from the grocer’s, her face flushed. ‘You need to tell me what happened with Angus,’ she said.
I stared out of the window, wrapped my scarf more tightly around my neck. ‘I don’t need to tell you anything.’ The thought of her knowing how stupid I’d been, the thought of causing her pain . . . The shame was more than I could bear.
‘I found your skirt. The one you threw away.’
I bit the inside of my cheek, fighting the burning behind my eyelids.
She took my hand between hers. ‘People are saying – Angus is saying that you led him on. He says you went onto the beach with him. That you kissed him and then . . . He says you bit him.’
I flinched, blinked, breathed. I didn’t deny it. There was nothing in what Dot had said that wasn’t true. I felt her watching me. I felt her expression change.
‘I still love you,’ she said. ‘No matter what.’
My cheeks burned, but I didn’t say a word.
Three weeks later, Dot and I left to come to Selkie Holm. In my pocket, I took the gold chain Angus had given me, as a reminder not to trust anyone, as a reminder of my disgrace.
Now, in the chapel, looking at the bright spots of colour on Dot’s neck, I can’t escape the idea of Cesare’s fingers there, of his mouth there. I can’t rid myself of the thought of his body on hers.
Bile rises in my gullet. The chapel, sunlit as it is, feels suddenly dark and airless. I feel my throat narrowing, as if I have swallowed a stone, or as if someone’s arm is pressing down on my windpipe.
‘I have to go,’ I manage to choke, and then I shove past Dot and out into the glaring sun.
But before I can run back to the bothy and lock myself away, Dot grabs my shoulder.
‘There’s nothing to be scared of,’ she says. ‘We’re safe here. I promise.’
I stare at her bright eyes, her earnest expression. She believes her own words. On her neck, still, are red marks – from his lips or his fingers, I can’t tell – and yet she truly believes what she’s saying. And it’s impossible to know what to do.
There are so many pathways to disaster: I walked out with Angus and I can still feel his hands around my throat;
