Sometimes I Lie(67)

He’s breathing faster. I have to remind myself not to move, not to make a sound.

‘Anything to say for yourself? No?’ He’s panting like a dog. ‘I still forgave you, watched you, waited for you to realise what a mistake you’d made and put things right. I still thought we might have a chance. But women like you never learn, that’s why I have to teach you a lesson, do you see?’ He stops what he’s doing and for a moment I think it’s over, but it isn’t. ‘I saw you here at the hospital two years ago, when your bitch of a sister gave birth. You walked right past me. Twice. As though I was nobody, as though I was nothing to you. I followed you home that day. I’ve loved you for almost twenty years and you didn’t even remember me. Well, perhaps you’ll remember me now.’

I hear him unfasten his belt. I hear a zip. He turns on a light above the bed then roughly pulls the sheet down and my gown up.

‘Look at all that filthy hair,’ he says and repeatedly flicks his finger between my legs. ‘You used to wax when we were students, used to make an effort. Look at the state of you now. I’m doing you a favour really. You better be grateful.’

The bed shudders as he climbs on top, his skin touching my skin, his weight pinning me down, his breath on my face. He pushes himself inside me and I try to shut myself down. It’s as though this is no longer happening to me, I’m just being forced to watch with my eyes closed. The top of the hospital bed thuds against the wall, a metronome of revulsion beating steady inside my head. I know I can’t fight him, he’s too strong, I’d lose.

‘On a scale of one to ten, how is the pain now?’

He’s hurting me and he’s getting off on it. I have to keep still and silent. He’ll kill me if not, I’m sure of that now. To live, I have to pretend like I’m already dead.

He climbs off me as soon as he is finished. Everything is quiet for a while and I think that he will leave, but he stays standing over me. I can hear his rushed breathing. I can smell him. It sounds like he is doing something to my drip. Without warning he plunges his fingers inside of me once more, then he pulls them out and rubs them on my face, inside my mouth, long fat digits pushing themselves between my lips, rubbing my teeth, my gums, my tongue.

‘Can you taste that? That’s you and me, that’s what we taste like. It wasn’t as good as I hoped, but then looking back it always was a bit like fucking a corpse.’

I hear him fasten his belt. He pulls the sheet back over my body.

‘Goodbye, Amber. Sleep well.’

He turns off the light, then leaves.

It feels like I’ve reached a full stop and there is nothing after it. I’m scared I won’t be able to open my eyes again, I’m scared of what I’ll see if I do. I can’t feel anything any more, so I start to count. After one thousand, two hundred seconds I try to believe that I am safe. Twenty minutes have stuck together to form a wall between me and him. It isn’t enough, but when I open my eyes I can at least see that his physical presence has gone. It’s only now I realise that my fingers have been moving, I have been using them to count. I can move my hands. It’s still dark and my eyes are adjusting. For now, all I can see beyond the edges of my bed is cloudy grey pain. If I can move my hands, I wonder what else I can do. Slowly, as though I might break it, I lift my right arm. It feels heavy, hard to balance, like an overloaded tray. I see a thin tube attached to the back of my hand and pull it out, crying in pain. I need to get help and I need to hurry, but everything seems to be very slow, very difficult.

I still can’t move the rest of my body. I look around at what I can see from my position on the bed until my eyes find a red cord. It looks like the sort of thing you should pull if you need help, and I do need help. I launch my right arm and it shakily manoeuvres itself into position banging the drip on the way. I stop and stare at the half-empty bag of clear liquid gently swaying on the stand. I’m sure it contains the drugs he’s been pumping inside me. I yank it free and manage to throw it in the side cabinet, hoping someone will find it and know what to do. Something is definitely wrong, my eyes want to close and they’re becoming quite insistent. I reach up again for the red cord, this time my fingers wrap around it and I pull. I see a red light come on above the bed and I let my arm fall. My hands grip on to the sheets so tight that my nails dig into my palms. Sleep is pulling me under. I let my eyes close and feel myself fold into black.

I think I might be dying but I’m so tired of living that maybe it’s OK. I allow my mind to power down. Far above me, beyond the cold, black waves, I hear voices, but the words won’t unravel themselves. Two of them swim down from the surface to find me.

‘She’s crashing.’

I crashed.





Then

Christmas Day, 2016


Christmas is a time for tolerating the family you didn’t choose.

‘That’s a lovely scarf,’ says Claire, as she ushers us through the hallway. Paul and I follow her inside. There’s not a hint of tension after our row at the market yesterday, but this is what my sister and I do best. Acting is something we’ve always had in common. Still, I doubt she’d be able to remain this calm if she knew that Paul had found her childhood diaries. She doesn’t even know that I’ve seen them. It’s a strange sensation, reading your own history through another person’s eyes. Your version of the truth is a little bent out of shape because it’s no longer your own.