‘But I do, Lucy. Why shouldn’t I? I know what this woman is, better than most. But not, I think, better than you. She’s an abortionist. A murderer. And someone took you to her, didn’t they? You didn’t go yourself. Someone took you there for the slaughter, Lucy. Because that’s what it was. A dual murder. You and your child. Isn’t that what happened?’
His clear eyes had become almost expressionless as he spoke to her.
She had nodded, unable to speak at first. She thought that she was feeling nothing.
‘My mother. Dragged me there. Twice. Didn’t even tell me where we were going. The first time they sent me on to hospital because I had this miscarriage right there in the reception. The second time round I worked out for myself what was going to happen.’
It was as much as she could say to begin with. He waited for her to continue. She spoke again, quickly, her words tripping over each other, as unstoppable and irretrievable as the gush of opened veins.
‘It was my dad. Did it to my little sister as well. Tried to anyway. I couldn’t stop him. Stevie did though. He’s my brother. He’s not as big as Dad so he didn’t help me. But when I left and he worked out what Dad was trying to do to Mel, he said he couldn’t handle it. He knocked Dad right out of the door, said he’d kill him if he touched her. He told me Mum just stood there with her mouth open. Dad’s a coward, you know. He never went near Mel again.’
Lucy laughed with relief as she talked.
‘Do you know my dad’s got cancer now? Did I tell you that? Stevie told me he hasn’t got that long to go. He’s playing around with dying too now. I can say to him, hey, Dad it’s you and me now. We’re both at the same game. How do you feel about that?’
Her voice was shaking.
‘And your mother took you to this woman.’ Graeme tapped the piece of paper. ‘And she helped your mother and your father hide from the world what he had done to you. Because that is what this woman is. Someone who has no conscience. Let me tell you what happened to you in there, Lucy, in that clinic — and let’s give it its true name, a Hellhole. She raped you once more. That’s what happened to you there. An evil, evil thing.’
The words entered her memory, fixing themselves as unconditional and unshakable truth, as tangible to her as the scrap of paper she always carried with her. The images of her memory converged. The fixed injury impressed onto her by her father — still felt, to the point that she wanted sometimes to scrub away her skin — coalesced into its parallel remembrance, the entry of steel into her vagina.
‘Yeah. That’s exactly what she did. You don’t know what happens in there. They hook you up, she cleans you out — it’s like you’re fucking nothing. And no one cared. They didn’t give a shit. How could she do that?’
Lucy had taken back the scrap of paper and begun folding it up, compressing it. Her actions were repetitive, compulsive. She did not cry.
Relief was spilling through her, her heart had opened out. She felt a strange lightness, an intoxication. Her mouth was open, her breathing sharp and shallow, breath that did not get down into her lungs.
‘Do you know what she said to my mum when we were driving away? She came out after us — Mum said she almost ran her down in the car park. Do you know what she said?’ She was staring at the piece of paper that she had folded small. ‘About me. She said to my mother, she can’t have sex for a fortnight. I thought, fuck you. No one is ever coming near me again, I don’t care what you say. I was gone after that.
As soon as I got home and I could get out of there. I was gone.’
‘Let me have that piece of paper, Lucy,’ he said to her gently. ‘You can trust me with it. I promise.’
She held it, her hands still shaking, feeling that to give it away was to give up some essential piece of herself. Even so, she handed it to him as he had asked.
‘You’ve got to be careful with that,’ she said. ‘The second time I was there, at that clinic, I took it. It’s to remind me that’s when I said, I’m out of here, I’m gone for ever. You can’t lose it.’
‘I will be careful with it. This is a very precious piece of paper, Lucy.
Wait here for me. Trust me.’
After he had gone, she lit another cigarette. Her hands continued to shake. When he came back, he placed a file on the table and took out of it a photograph of a woman’s face, scrawled with the word
‘Murderer’ and splashed with a translucent red dye.
‘This is her, isn’t it?’ he asked.
‘Yeah, it is.’
He smoothed out the torn paper and attached it to the photograph on the file, then set the documents between them.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘this piece of paper is very important. You see, Lucy, this woman and you, you are connected. And that connection is indissoluble. This is her fate, Lucy, this scrap of paper. This paper is her crime against you, against God, against the world, and it is also her fate.’
He spoke as though they were two old friends who had always understood each other and who alone knew the real truth. He tapped the stains on the photograph.
‘Do you see the blood on this woman? This is your blood. She can’t escape you now because you know what she is. A mass murderer. A serial killer. You are one of her survivors. You can accuse her. You can stand up before the world and say, this woman is my murderer.
Someone who is paid to kill and takes pleasure in it. Someone who smiles each time another victim walks out of her abortuary carrying the same scars that torment you now. But she doesn’t care. It was your blood that she spilt, Lucy, your blood and the blood of your child. But she doesn’t care.’
The vehemence with which he spoke surprised her.
‘It was my dad too. And my garbage mother. It wasn’t just her.’
‘But your mother is a weak and foolish woman. And your father has been accounted for now, hasn’t he? He will answer for what he has done to you very soon. But not this woman. She is still out there, still free and practising her trade. On young girls like you.’
Lucy said nothing. Her cigarette hung from her fingers, burning, ash falling on the table.
‘She could have been worse,’ she said after a while. ‘Tried not to hurt me, I guess.’
‘That isn’t the point, is it?’
No, it wasn’t. Lucy looked at the rough surface of the picnic table.
Cruelty. This was her word, she sought it out and repeated it to herself, it carried the weight of her memory. The doctor asking her all those so-what questions.
She had said only the quietest word in reply. Yes. She just wanted it over with.
She did not say any of this. She sat there shaking these thoughts out of her head while he watched her. She dropped her cigarette to the ground and did not crush it out. She could not speak, she sat with her hands in front of her mouth. He looked at her with his clear and gentle eyes.
‘I hate her, you know, for what she did to me. I hate them all. Mum, Dad. You shouldn’t do that sort of thing to people.’
‘She does what she does, Lucy, because she’s a murderer, pure and simple. She killed your child and tried to kill your spirit. But in your strength, you survived to bear witness. She should fear you. Because you know her.’
‘You know what I hear sometimes?’ Lucy said after a few moments.
‘I don’t know why. Kids crying, little kids. I hear them in my head.
They stay with me. Sometimes I think they are me.’
He smiled at her and closed the file.
‘I know of others who have been tormented like that. They don’t let you rest, do they? We’ll find a way to make them go away. You see, Lucy, here you are with people who understand you. Sit there. Try and relax your spine.’
He stood behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders. He began to massage her neck, working at the tight knot of muscles. She felt his closeness, the human warmth, the imprint of his reassuring hands.
‘Listen to me. Those voices in your head. They are the voices of your heart as you say. But they’re your children as well.’
‘No,’ she said, ‘they didn’t ever exist. I don’t want them to.’
‘But they did exist. They were living. They were your children and they are still living. You and they are indivisible, it’s their grief that you’re hearing.’
