Only this time her mother had stood her ground, and Dee had been dispatched to a girls’ school in Hampshire. Dee had minded going, but had settled in surprisingly easily. After the tensions at home, the school regime had been almost relaxing.
Still, she’d looked forward to the Christmas holidays, and Edward and her mother had both seemed pleased to see her. There had been the usual seasonal parties, and Edward had paid for several new dresses—including a white mini-dress that showed off her endless legs. She had been self-conscious in it at first, but had worn it at their New Year party and felt tremendously grown-up.
Perhaps she had looked it, too, because no one had objected to her drinking glasses of the wine being passed around. She had been merry rather than drunk, and had danced a lot with an older boy called James. They had ended up kissing in the summerhouse outside. Deborah had enjoyed the kisses and even allowed some minor petting, but she’d had no plans to take things further.
Edward had drawn other conclusions when he’d found them in a passionate clinch. He’d come the heavy father and sent the boy packing, then he’d turned on Dee. She remembered repeating, ‘Nothing happened,’ over and over, but he hadn’t really been listening as he’d grabbed her arm when she’d tried to leave. It was only later she had understood: he’d been drunk, and mean with it.
At the time she’d felt only shame as he’d accused her of being a slut and suggested she’d been ‘begging for it’. There had been more of the same, but, naively, she hadn’t been frightened. Even at that point she’d still assumed he was acting like an irate grown-up. Then the bile about her mother had begun to spill out, and effectively brought their father-daughter relationship to an end.
‘Please.’ She tried to pull away as he regaled her with details of his empty, sexless marriage.
‘Well, at least we know you’re not frigid, little Deborah,’ he went on relentlessly. ‘Not so little, either, now…’
His eyes lowered to her burgeoning breasts, outlined in the brief, tight dress, and the hand that had gripped her arm began to smooth over her bare skin.
Dee fought panic and the desire to be physically sick. This was a nightmare. In a moment, they would both wake up and everything would be as before.
‘Let’s go back to the party, Edward, please…’ Her face was white with shock.
‘Why? So you can let that boy paw you again?’ Edward’s laugh was humourless as he blocked her move to the summerhouse door. ‘Sweet sixteen and obviously dying for it, the way you walk around the house in your shortie nightdresses.’
Dee shook her head and kept shaking it, denying provocation, denying she wanted this, denying his right to do it as he clamped his arms round her and forced his mouth on hers, ignoring her resistance, his teeth cutting into her lip, his tongue a violation. She resisted, and kept resisting, twisting and fighting, kicking and squirming, pushing at his chest until finally, somehow, she was free.
She turned and ran blindly to the house. The party was still in full swing and few noticed as she burst inside and made for the toilet, bolting the door before being violently sick in the bowl.
Dee had intended to tell her mother later, but Edward beat her to it. In his version she had drunk too much and had been throwing herself at everybody, including himself. He made a joke of it, then dismissed the incident as normal adolescence. Her mother didn’t question it, and when Dee tried to say Edward had kissed her she refused to listen.
Now Dee lay on her mattress in the dirty squat and recognised it as the night her childhood had ended. She hadn’t run away immediately; she hadn’t been brave enough. She’d wanted to trust Edward’s promises that it would never happen again, so she had. Until the next time two months later. And the time after that at half term. And so on.
Each time he went a little further and each time she became more locked in the awful conspiracy of silence because she hadn’t blown the whistle loudly enough that first night.
Each episode of kissing or touching or accidentally brushing against her brought them closer to the day he would finally rape her. She threatened to tell on him, but never did. Who to tell? Her mother, who popped a pill at the least upset and was on another planet most of the time? Or family friends, who admired Edward for taking on a ready-made family? And, of course, by not telling she reinforced the lies her stepfather was telling himself: that she wanted him the same way he wanted her.
When he arrived mid-term to take her out for a surprise lunch, Dee wanted to refuse, but what could she say when he sat in the headmistress’s office playing model stepfather? And who else could see what lay behind his smile? Not Mrs Chambers, smiling back as good old Edward charmed and smarmed his way into her confidence. Not her best friend, Clare, who read too many teen magazines and thought her stepfather sexy.
So she went upstairs for her jacket and came down the hard way, throwing herself from the landing. Dramatic, possibly, and certainly painful, as the sprained ankle she’d intended escalated into a torn ligament in her knee. She also had to suffer Edward playing the concerned father and caring doctor, until she wanted to scream at them all, Open your eyes. See him for what he is!
But still it was worth it. A trip to the local hospital took precedence over the lunch.
It was that visit which decided her. She waited until her knee mended and the exams were over, then bought a one-way ticket to London. She stayed in a cheap hotel, unable to find work or the bedsit she’d vaguely planned. After a month and a half her money ran out, and she ended up sleeping in a shop doorway for three nights until the police picked her up, and, not believing she was sixteen, located her on a register of runaways and called her parents.
They came to collect her. Her mother was distressed but forgiving, while Edward just seemed relieved. He walked up to her and hugged her as he had in the old days, with a warmth that was natural and fatherly, and promised her everything was going to be fine. After three nights’ sleeping rough and being terrified, Dee would have believed the devil himself. She arrived home in time for her seventeenth birthday and was lavished with presents.
For eight months Edward kept his promise. Dee didn’t give him much choice to do otherwise, returning to boarding school in the autumn, then spending much of the Christmas holidays on a skiing trip. Then she made the mistake of going home for Easter.
At seventeen, and confident, she imagined she could handle anything, but she was wrong.
She had no real warning. That was the trouble. Her mother had a headache, but that wasn’t unusual. Dee sat down to lunch with Edward and he was in great form, relating amusing anecdotes about hospital life. She didn’t really notice him filling and refilling his glass. She wasn’t aware of a mood change until it was too late…
Dee shut her eyes now. She didn’t want to relive it. What had happened had seemed unreal, but was no less disturbing because of it. She had panicked and she had run, and this time no one had come looking for her.
She had no home now, no family, no past. She could do what she wanted, be what she wanted. She could marry Baxter Ross for ten thousand pounds and not give a damn.
Why not? Would it be so hard to be Mrs Baxter Ross?
She wouldn’t have to sleep with him. She probably wouldn’t have to eat with him either. Talking might not even be required, unless they had an audience.
Ten thousand pounds, and she could lie in a clean bed without listening for every sound in the dark, eat without worrying about where the next meal was coming from, live without fear constantly in the background.
In fact, even a cynic like Dee could see