Guilt Page 13

  The pub is Friday-night jovial. An atmosphere I usually miss due to my long hours at work. A Friday-night world of loud voices and laughter. People excited to see one another. People having fun. But sitting here with Sebastian I do not feel part of it. I do not know what to say to him. The way he keeps coming on to me behind your back really, really unnerves me. I can’t work out what motivates him. For however much he tries to get off with me, whenever he is with you he seems totally engrossed.

  ‘She’s given up cutting,’ he says as he sips his pint.

  ‘I know.’

  He raises his eyebrows. He seems surprised. ‘She told you then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  A leering grin. ‘Does she tell you everything?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so. Nobody ever tells anyone everything.’ I take a sip of my gin. It is so bitter I wince. ‘I’m thrilled she’s given up cutting,’ I continue. ‘I’ve been worrying about it for years.’

  He pushes his eyes into mine. ‘Have you ever cut yourself?’ he asks.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ever been tempted to try?’

  ‘No. Twins don’t always want the same things.’

  ‘How do you know if you don’t try?’

  ‘We don’t even want to try the same things.’

  His eyes are like black holes, trying to pull me in and destroy me.

  ‘Pity.’

  My heart is pulsating. I finish my G&T and bang my glass onto the table in front of me. ‘Thanks for the drink, Sebastian, but I need to go home now – I’ve got a few chores to do.’

  I am standing up, putting on my coat, but I feel a little dizzy and sit down again.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asks. ‘Do you feel all right?’

  I am looking at him and his face is swimming a little. I know I need to sit for longer before I walk home.

  ‘Can I get you another drink?’

  I shake my head. ‘No.’ I’ve had enough.

  ‘A soft drink then?’ He pauses. ‘A tonic water, perhaps?’

  I give in. ‘OK, thanks.’

  He leaves me and heads for the bar. I watch him amble across the room, his full head of wavy hair, his confident stride. I feel light-headed. But despite that, I am beginning to feel relaxed and happy. Perhaps, after all, it is fun to be part of the Friday-night crowd. Perhaps it is good to be out in town. I watch the groups of people standing in the bar chatting. They are beginning to look shiny and exciting. Sebastian returns with another pint of beer for himself and a tonic water for me. And another packet of cheese and onion crisps.

  ‘Thanks.’

  We demolish the crisps very quickly. An unhealthy treat. Afterwards I feel very thirsty and gulp the tonic water down gratefully. He suggests we go home. Now I do not want to leave the warmth of the pub, but I make myself stand up. I have a lot to do tomorrow. It is sensible to go.

  He links arms with me as we walk back. I allow him to do that. Linking arms seems platonic enough. When we arrive at the flat, he unlocks the door and opens it. I step inside. He follows me. Feeling woozy, I walk towards my bedroom, planning to get inside and lock the door. Suddenly I want to sleep and sleep.

  But I don’t get that far. He pulls me into his arms and kisses me. His tongue is in my mouth. For once I don’t seem to mind what he is doing. It feels nice. I kiss him back as we move towards my bed. He is undressing me. I am allowing him to. Then I lie, arms above my head, completely naked, watching him strip off. First he kicks off his shoes and rips his socks off. Then he peels off his skin-tight jeans, revealing muscular legs, and a large snake tattoo. T-shirt next. Then underpants. He is hairy. I am fascinated by his naked body. He is so dark and swarthy. So mysterious. He is fully erect as he stands looking at me.

  ‘That’s good. That’s good,’ he whispers. ‘I’m ready for you. I want you to be ready for me.’

  He is on top of me, kissing me, rotating his tongue across my skin. Down my neck, onto my breasts, biting, playing with my nipples.

  He takes it slowly. He turns me over. He enters me from behind. He builds gradually, relishing every stroke, every thrust, gentle at first then more insistent. He guides my hand. He encourages me to squeeze his balls. His breathing is becoming faster and faster. His groin pumping in overdrive. He grunts in my ear and his body goes limp.

  It’s over.

  I feel so tired and confused. Not sure whether I have dreamt this, or whether it has really happened. I snuggle against him, feeling as if my body is not my body but a puppet being controlled by someone else. When I wake up in the small hours, entangled in his arms, I look at his face child-like in sleep, and cannot believe what I have done. I am shaking. I feel sick.

  I slip out of the bed and pad across the flat to the shower. I shower in scalding-hot water, to disinfect myself, to take his scent away. I want to bury what has happened so deep inside myself that it will vanish. So that nothing like this will ever happen again.

  I wrap a towel around my naked body and creep back to the bedroom to get my stuff, hopefully without waking him up. I need to get away from here. To be alone. To cry. To think. But he is wide awake with the light on, lying naked on top of the cover, erect again.

  ‘Not so frosty-faced today,’ he says.

  ‘Frosty face. Is that what you call me?’

  He doesn’t reply. His grin widens. I feel like crying as I stand in front of him. I feel ashamed. So ashamed.

  ‘Sebastian. I made a terrible mistake. I really shouldn’t have done that.’

  ‘You seemed to enjoy it.’

  ‘Whether I enjoyed it or not isn’t relevant. It is enjoyment that may cause a lot of pain.’

  ‘No pain. No gain.’

  ‘Don’t be flippant. Sebastian, I made a mistake. I’m sorry. I don’t want to have a relationship with you.’

  ‘How are you going to manage that when you’re so attracted to me?’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll manage.’

  He puts his head back and laughs. ‘Come here, sweet Miranda. Let’s do it again.’

  ‘No.’

  He gets off the bed and walks towards me. He pulls my towel off and draws my body against his. I stiffen. I struggle against him, using my full force to push him away.

  ‘No Sebastian. No.’

  ‘You were greedy for it before. So greedy.’

  I don’t want him to remind me. I want to blank it from my mind. Never to think of it again. I try and stick my elbow in his ribs.

  ‘No. Sebastian. No,’ I tell him.

  But he is much stronger than me. He overpowers me. He shoves me face down onto the bed, mouth pushed into the duvet so that I can hardly breathe. Clamping my arms so tightly behind my back that I can hardly move. My buttocks are curved awkwardly over the edge of the bed. I cannot stop him. I cannot protect myself. I suppose I am still wet from earlier and he enters me easily from behind. But this time it hurts. It really hurts. A burning pain in the walls of my vagina. A burning pain that I fear will never go away.

  70

  Zara

  When the train arrives at Weston-super-Mare no one helps me with my cameras, but I manage. I lump them together over my right shoulder and hobble off the train. As soon as I step off the train I am embraced by the flavour of the sea. The smell. The sweet, sharp, salty tang of the sea. The cry of the gulls. So high-pitched. So haunting.

  The taxi winds through the higgledy-piggledy streets behind the seafront. So far Weston-super-Mare looks to me as if Bath and Bristol have been shaken up together in a jar, and Weston has appeared as a mix-up of them both. I see a curved row of yellow sandstone town houses, very fine and balanced, very Georgian. I see line after line of Edwardian comfort, built in pale stone slabs with creamy sandstone window frames. Substantial and comfortable surrounded by the smell and taste of the sea.

  I arrive at my hotel, dump my bags, grab one small cine camera, and head straight for the seafront. Having allowed myself to fall in love with the architecture of Weston too quickly, the brutal architecture
of the seafront disappoints me. It’s too Victorian. Ugly grandeur. Bold and unforgiving. Telling tales of another era, not accepting that life has moved on. Buildings with an artificiality about them. As if they are trying to pretend life was better then, when we now know that for many it was far worse. Fronted by the pier, a spiky contraption that spoils the sweep of the bay. It is so dark that as I walk away I can only see the outline of its monstrous bulk, shining between the street lamps. I step onto the beach, my back to the pier. Unencumbered by the sight of architectural ugliness, I move towards the sea. Black sea churning and heaving in the moonlight.

  I sit on the sand at the water’s edge and take my camera out. I watch the sea through the lens. Listening to the waves explode across the sand, so mesmerised I do not go back to the hotel. Waiting to watch dawn break across the horizon. Fingers of orange, peppered with red. The sun rises whole, like an egg yolk, dousing the world with pale early morning light. An ebony sea turns to lace-trimmed hyacinth. A cold icy blue.

  I am cold. I am hungry, but still I do not move. The waves speak to me of continuation. Of eternity. Of love. Of freedom. Of my freedom from cutting.

  71

  Miranda

  He grunts in my ear like a stuck pig as he climaxes. I vomit in my mouth and swallow it. He pulls out of me. The burning pain he was causing me increases. It is almost unbearable. I do not move, even though with my head stuffed into the duvet I can hardly breathe. I cannot bear to pull myself out of duvet and look at him. I hear him moving about my bedroom. I presume he is gathering his clothes. What can he be thinking? Is he pleased with himself? I hear the bedroom door open and close. Now he is gone, I feel able to move my head so that I can breathe more easily.

  I lie there, anaesthetised by shock, for what seems like hours and hours. Until the heat in my body has gone and I am shivering as I think about what has happened between us. At what he has done. At what I have done. I lie there numb until a voice in the distance of my mind begins to call. A voice telling me to carry on. Not to let this man defeat me. Get away from him. Go to a hotel for the weekend. Get away from him. Stay safe.

  So I pull myself to standing, feeling faint. The burning pain between my legs starts up again. I manage to find some clean clothes and get dressed. I cannot bear to wear the clothes I was wearing when we first ripped them off. I leave them on the floor where they fell. I shove a random selection of clothes and toiletries into my backpack, along with my computer, my phone and some books. Quietly, quietly, I creep out of the flat, without hearing him. Without seeing him.

  It is early morning. Six a.m. No one is about. A cat skulks in the shadows near the bins. A solitary taxi sweeps past the end of the road. I step around the corner to the Ibis Hotel. I think of you, Zara, so excited about your project, so unaware of what has happened while you are gone. I cry inside. I love you, Zara. I am sorry. So sorry for what I have done.

  When I get to the Ibis, I press a buzzer on the door and a pale young night porter lets me in.

  ‘Do you have a room?’ I ask. ‘To check into now?’

  ‘Funny time to be asking,’ he comments.

  I stand staring at him without smiling. He taps his fingers on his computer keyboard, consulting his screen.

  ‘You’re lucky, I’ve got one left. Wouldn’t usually at the weekend. Had a last-minute cancellation.’ He frowns as he continues to consult the computer screen. ‘Checking in at this time, you’ll still have to pay for two nights. Special offer: £120.’

  One hundred and twenty pounds to avoid Sebastian for the rest of the weekend. Cheap at the price. I hand him my credit card and he swipes it.

  ‘Room 107. Use the lift on the left to get to the first floor.’

  I smile limply.

  ‘Thanks.’

  The young man is staring at me, as if he wonders what I’m doing checking into a hotel on my own in central Bristol at this time in the morning. Watching me to see whether I’m off my head on drugs, or whether I’m pissed. Too drunk to get home after an all-nighter at a club, he probably thinks. Let him think what he wants. I don’t care, I tell myself. But I do care. I hate the way he is looking at me. I hate being judged. I know tears are beginning to well in my eyes. I swallow hard to try and push them back. The pain between my legs is rising. I wince. I turn away from him and walk slowly towards the lift. But his eyes are burning into me and I can’t wait to be rid of his gaze.

  The hotel bedroom is shiny and clean, benign and sterile. Its anonymity wraps itself around me and makes me feel a little better. A little better to be away from him, to know that I am safe. A little better to be away from where it happened. I step into the shower and scald myself with burning water for the second time today. Then I dry myself and slip into this impersonal bed. No scent. No smell. No memory. But it doesn’t work. I cannot sleep. I cannot bury the memory.

  ‘No. No,’ I say.

  ‘You know you mean yes. You know you want me.’

  By morning I am not sure whether I have been awake or asleep. Awake or asleep a montage of what happened keeps running through my brain. The sound of his climax. The taste of my own vomit. The look on your face, Zara, as you reach for his hand. By morning I know I have to get hold of a morning-after pill.

  72

  Zara

  A perfect weekend, totally alone. I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. How much my own company left me feeling at peace. Being alone gave me time to free my mind to concentrate on my project.

  Although exhilarated, I was tired and cold on Saturday after staying up all night and filming the darkness and the kaleidoscope sunrise, so I was very glad to return to my hotel at just the right time for breakfast. I couldn’t eat much, too energised by my creative experience. But brain and stomach loaded with hot coffee to warm me up, I snuggled into the most comfortable bed I have ever been in and fell asleep like a baby.

  About four hours later I woke up totally refreshed and returned to the beach. The same routine. Ignoring the Victorian architecture, sitting at the water’s edge, filming the sea. But I didn’t stay up all Saturday night. Without any amphetamine pills – I’d left them at home – I couldn’t do an all-nighter twice.

  So, Saturday night I had a break from my artwork. A few chips on the seafront. A seafront I was now coming to like. Softening to the charms of its faded grandeur. It somehow didn’t seem so brutal any more. Pacing along the pavement, head down to protect my face from the wind. Then red wine and TV in my room.

  Sunday I became sea-engrossed again.

  But now I am on the train home, longing to see Sebastian to tell him about my experience. Longing to see you, Miranda. The train is searing through the countryside, cutting a line between shades of green. And I am smiling inside, knowing that being a representative artist is what I want to do with the rest of my life.

  ‘We are now approaching Bristol Temple Meads,’ the guard announces.

  I gather my lumpy belongings and wait at the end of the carriage. Brakes whine. The train slows and stops. The person in front of me opens the door. I stagger onto the platform. Sebastian is here. Walking towards me. Kissing me. Taking most of my cameras.

  ‘How was it?’ he asks.

  ‘Fantastic.’ I pause. ‘I just can’t tell you how fantastic. As soon as we get back to the flat I’ll tell you both all about it.’

  ‘Well it’ll just be me.’

  I raise my eyebrows hopefully. ‘Has Miranda got a date?’ I ask.

  ‘She’s in bed with flu. She’s been away all weekend. I had a quick drink with her on Friday night then she cleared off – didn’t tell me where she was going.’

  ‘Has she met someone?’

  ‘I don’t know – not that she’s admitting to. She came home when you were almost back and went straight to bed saying she felt as if she’d caught flu.’

  ‘Poor thing. I’ll check up on her as soon as we get back.’

  ‘I wouldn’t go near her if I were you. You don’t want to catch it.’ There is a pause. ‘I’ve already t
aken her a Lemsip.’

  ‘You’ve taken her a Lemsip and I’m not allowed near her. How does that work?’

  ‘Come on, Zara. You know she’s got an awkward streak.’

  73

  Miranda

  Sitting in our living room, on the brown leather sofa, holding your hand. Laden with guilt about what has happened between Sebastian and me.

  I can’t understand it.

  I’ve never found him attractive.

  I felt so strange. So sleepy and distant. Out of it. And now I feel so ashamed. I can’t bear to contemplate what happened the second time he penetrated me. A nightmare perpetually runs through my head. A nightmare I can’t move away from.

  You show me the first edit of your sea film. It plays through the TV from your computer. It is so good. If I was feeling normal it would be engrossing. But today it can’t take me away from my worries. I look across at you, lost in your film of the sea at night. The intensity. The darkness. As you admire the golden beauty of the dawn that the film is drawing into, for a second I envy you. You look so enthused. But then my envy turns to pity, as my mind reverberates back to your boyfriend.

  ‘You’ve not been yourself since I went away. What happened?’ you ask.

  I do not reply. I turn my head back to the screen. Another wave cascades towards me.

  ‘Do you think you ought to go and see a doctor? Maybe you’re just a bit run-down?’ you continue.

  ‘Come on. Let’s not talk about it. Not now when I’m so enjoying your film.’

  ‘You’re not getting away with it that easily. Even if I have to arrange the appointment myself.’

  You take my hand in yours and squeeze it. You lean across and kiss my cheek.

  Sitting at my desk in the office, trying to get on with my work. Not concentrating. Sometimes I wonder why I ever decided to be an accountant in the first place. Many years ago when I was a maths student I was excited by its intellectual complexity, the challenge. But now the practicality of the job seems so far removed from the theoretical maths that I loved. It seems so boring. So flat. At the moment I can’t sleep. I can’t concentrate. The numbers in front of me are meaningless and dissociated.