‘If you used a voice, you could tell me what’s really going on with you. You’re always so bloody enigmatic. It doesn’t have to be robotic – not like that crap one on your tablet that makes you sound like a sat nav. I looked into it. You can get a better app than the one you use – one where you can pick accents, tone, everything, to suit you.’
He’d looked into it? Jenny supposed that was a sign that Harry still cared at some level, but his rejection had hurt. He may’ve hidden his real reason but it wouldn’t have changed the verdict. The words that she was ‘not enough’ had haunted her. She wasn’t enough for him or any man to stay with her, not even her dad.
Thank Dr Jerome Lapido for that particular neurosis, she thought with grim self-knowledge.
‘Jenny? You’ll keep in touch, won’t you?’
‘Why?’ she signed.
‘I do care, you know. We’ve been friends for nearly ten years.’ And went out for three of those. ‘You’re just a lot for a selfish guy like me to handle. Complicated. Not just the voice thing but the nightmares and such from … you know?’
Of course, she knew: it was her life that nearly ended at fourteen. She regretted she’d eventually told him the details but she’d had to as he needed to know to avoid some of her panic attack triggers. At least he appeared to have kept his word and not told the others. It would’ve been much worse to be looked on with horrified pity.
She almost typed her wish for him to have an empty, uncomplicated future of meaningless, no-strings sexual partners, but thought better of it. It would show she still carried a grudge from their break-up. You’ve got my number she wrote instead. We’ll see each other at work.
‘Yeah.’ He seemed reassured by that. ‘And good luck. Do you need any help with your stuff?’
She shook her head.
‘OK then. And sorry.’ He got up and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. He still smelt good, the bastard. ‘Look after yourself, Jen.’
Jenny splashed out on a taxi to transport her stuff from Ebbisham Drive to Blackheath. To avoid the taxi driver striking up a conversation, she thumbed through her old messages. As friends and family knew not to call, there was plenty of these. It was hard to keep up with her mother’s continual one-sided chat. She’d turned texting into a Virginia Woolf stream of consciousness and Jenny would often find her phone had fifty or so unread message if she neglected it for a few hours. Scrolling down she came across one from a number her phone didn’t recognise. She could see the beginning of the message. Well done. You kept your promise.
What was that about? What promise? Was it a marketing technique? On any other day she would’ve ignored it, but she had time. Opening it, she read the rest of the message.
Well done. You kept your promise. I enjoyed our time together when you were 14. Want to relive the experience?
Her heart thumped against her ribcage with the first flutter of terror. So sick. She had thought these had stopped. Initially after the attack, she attracted messages from all sorts of weirdos. Her mum and the police shielded her from most, but occasionally she’d see one, or they’d find an innocuous cover and get through. They had ranged from suggestive messages, like this one where someone was pretending to be her attacker, to the seriously disturbing glitter and cutout words in cards or letters that seemed a celebration of the crime. She’d learned that there was a whole subculture of people who followed violent attacks. Her counsellor had tried to explain the pathology but even she, the professional, had struggled. As Jenny got older and seen more of life, she felt she had got to grips with some of it. People had fantasies, horrible, shocking ones, and projected them onto victims who hadn’t asked for any of this to happen to them. These sick people either liked tormenting victims or wished to be one themselves – the second seemed even worse. In Harlow, Jenny had even attracted a few so-called friends who only hung out with her because they found a vicarious thrill in being associated with her. Unsurprisingly, her trust in the goodness of people had taken a severe battering.
What to do? In the years after the incident, Jenny had had a number to forward the messages for the police to examine but she guessed that was long since defunct when the case went cold and got shuffled into the pile of unsolved. Her mum would still have a record of a current contact if one existed.
Her thumb hovered over the message, weighing up whether to upset her mother with this.
Oh fuck it. She wasn’t going down that rabbit hole again. She was so tired of being terrified. The past was the past. She was on her way to making a new start and wasn’t going to drag this into Gallant House with her. Sick caller, goodbye. She blocked the number and hit delete.
The taxi driver, unaware of the turmoil Jenny was experiencing on the back seat, couldn’t refrain from whistling appreciatively as they drew up outside Gallant House.
‘Lovely place.’
Still shivering, she nodded. With its tawny bricks, white sash windows, privet hedge and black railings it was the house equivalent of a person dressed up for a night on the town.
‘You live here?’
She smiled a ‘yes’.
‘A nanny, are you?’
She nodded. Sometimes it was just easier to agree. Her life was a confection spun of such little white lies to avoid having to admit she couldn’t speak.
‘Best of luck with that. In my experience, kids from houses like this can be spoilt little monsters. You’ll have your work cut out for you.’ He helped her pile her belongings just inside the gate. She gave him as generous tip as she could afford which probably wasn’t as much as he’d hoped. ‘Bye, love.’
She turned away as the taxi headed off across the heath to scout for fares by the exit from Greenwich Park. Taking her violin and computer bag to the front door, Jenny pulled on the bell. It literally was a bell: she’d seen it hanging in the hallway; the bell was connected to a metal rod which ran to a white knob outside, all pleasantly direct and mechanical. It took a while for Bridget to answer, long enough for Jenny to start slightly panicking that maybe she had been dreaming the offer of a room.
‘Jenny! From Kris’s message, I wasn’t expecting you for another hour. Come in, come in!’ Bridget stood by the door as Jenny ferried her belongings in from the road. ‘Do you want me to get someone to help? I’m afraid with my back I daren’t risk it.’
Jenny shook her head. There wasn’t much.
‘Just leave it in the hall for now and come and meet my guests. I didn’t tell you about my Tuesday gatherings, did I?’ Jenny shook her head, wondering what excuse she could conjure to avoid being dragged before a crowd of strangers. It was always so humiliating for her and frustrating for them. ‘You’re welcome to bring friends. It’s such a lovely evening, we’re in the garden. Keep your jacket on. There’s a definite nip in the air.’ She didn’t wait for an answer but assumed Jenny was following her down the stairs to the basement, out of the dark passageway and into the brightness of the garden.
Run upstairs, or follow? There wasn’t really a choice, was there?
Bridget’s guests were having drinks under the huge lilac tree that dominated the upper lawn nearest the house. It was a patchy, twisted thing, dead branches mingled with those bearing blossom, attesting to its great age. The flowers were white, their scent quite overwhelming. Dark butterfly shadows fluttered to rest on hair and shoulders of those below every time the lilac tossed its branches in the evening breeze. Jenny blinked, trying to clear her sight of the sun-dazzle on cut-glass