The Girl Before(41)

Carol only smiles sadly and shakes her head. I get the impression she’s heard something similar before, perhaps even from Emma.

Suddenly I’ve had enough of this room, with its soft furnishings and its clutter, its cushions and tissues and psychobabble. I stand. “Thank you for seeing me. It’s been interesting. But I don’t think I want to talk to you about my daughter, after all. Or about Edward. I won’t be coming back.”





THEN: EMMA

I can’t go to the public gallery after reading out my impact statement because of the Special Measures. So I hang around outside the court, waiting. It’s not long before DI Clarke and Sergeant Willan rush out, looking troubled. With them is the lawyer for the prosecution, Mr. Broome.

Emma, come this way, Sergeant Willan goes.

Why? What’s going on? I say as they whisk me off to another part of the lobby. I look back at the courtroom doors just as Nelson’s lawyer emerges. With her is a dark-skinned teenager in a suit. He turns in my direction, and I see a flash of recognition in his eyes. Then his lawyer says something and he turns back to her.

Emma, the magistrates have granted bail, Sergeant Willan is saying. I’m sorry.

What? I say, bewildered. Why?

The magistrates agreed with Mrs. Fields—the defense counsel—that there were some difficulties with our case.

Difficulties? What does that mean? I say. From another door, the one leading to the public gallery, Simon appears. He makes a beeline for me.

Procedural difficulties, DI Clarke says grimly. Principally around the issue of identification.



No DNA, you mean?

And no fingerprints, the barrister says.

DI Clarke doesn’t look at him. At the time, of course, there was no allegation of rape. It was classified as a breakin. A decision was made by the duty officer not to dust for prints.

He sighs. And then later, we should probably have put Nelson into a lineup. But since you’d told us he was wearing a balaclava, there didn’t seem much point. Unfortunately, a clever lawyer can use that sort of thing to imply the police have been jumping to conclusions.

But if that’s the problem, why don’t I do a lineup now? I say.

Clarke and the lawyer exchange glances. It might help, when it comes to trial, the lawyer says thoughtfully.

This is very important, Emma, DI Clarke says. Have you at any point during the proceedings today caught sight of the defendant?

I shake my head. After all, I don’t know for sure that was Nelson I saw. And even if it was, why should he get off just because the police are so incompetent?

I think we should consider it, the lawyer says, nodding.

Emma? Simon calls, desperate to break into the conversation. Emma, I know you meant it.

Meant what? I say.

That it was only because of that bastard we split up.

What? No, I say, shaking my head. That was for the court, Si. I didn’t…I’m not going back.

Emma, Edward’s voice says, calm and authoritative behind us. I turn to him gratefully. Well done, he says. You were brilliant. He enfolds me in his arms and I see Simon’s horror as he realizes what this means.

Jesus, he whispers. Jesus, Emma. You can’t be.

Can’t what, Simon? I say defiantly. Can’t choose who I go out with?

The police officers and Broome, aware they’re present at some personal drama, look down and shuffle their feet. As usual, Edward takes charge.

Come with me, he says. He puts his arm around me and steers me away. I glance back once and see Simon staring after us, mute with misery and anger.





NOW: JANE

At the weekend, Edward takes me to the British Museum, where an assistant unlocks a cabinet and leaves us alone to examine a small prehistoric sculpture. The carving has been smoothed by time, but it’s still recognizably two lovers, entwined.

“It’s eleven thousand years old—the oldest depiction of sex in the world,” Edward says. “From a civilization known as the Natufians, the first people to create communities.”

It’s hard to concentrate. I can’t stop thinking about the fact he spoke the exact same words to Emma as he did to me. Some of Carol’s other comments I can disregard, given that she never met Edward, but the hard evidence of her notebook is more difficult to ignore.

But then, I think, we’re all guilty of dropping into the same familiar phrases, the same linguistic shortcuts. We all tell the same anecdotes to different people, sometimes even the same people, often in the same words. Who doesn’t repeat themselves sometimes? Aren’t repetition compulsion and acting out just fancy terms for being creatures of habit?

Then Edward passes me the carving to hold, and immediately all my attention is focused on that. I find myself thinking how incredible it is that people have been making love for so many millennia; but of course it’s one of the few constants of mankind’s history. The same act, repeated through the generations.



Afterward I ask if we can go and see the Elgin Marbles, but Edward doesn’t want to. “The public galleries will be full of tourists. Besides, I make it a rule only to look at one thing in a museum. Any more and your brain gets overloaded.” He starts to walk back the way we came.

Carol Younson’s words come back to me. Edward’s behavior seemed reasonable enough to Emma so long as she colluded with it—that is, so long as she allowed him to control her….