Faith - Lesley Pearse [57]
‘No, of course not. I understood you had to look after all your guests,’ she said. ‘It was just that I had a terrible experience earlier today. It shook me up.’
He cuddled her then and asked her to tell him about it.
‘A man followed me home from the shops this morning,’ she lied. ‘I thought he lived in one of the other flats when he came up the stairs behind me, but he didn’t. He came right into my room and tried to push me down on the bed. I think he was going to rape me.’
‘God! How awful!’ he exclaimed in horror. ‘What did you do?’
‘I screamed and kicked him hard. It stopped him in his tracks, but he grabbed my handbag and ran off with it.’
She began crying again, almost believing her story. She said her wages were in the bag and a month’s rent for her flat, and she was afraid the man would be lying in wait for her another day.
‘Did you call the police?’ Steven asked.
Laura was thrilled that he looked so horrified as that meant he really cared about her.
‘No, I didn’t. I wanted to but I knew if I did they’d take me down to the station to make a statement, and I’d be there for hours. It was Jackie I was worried about. She was so excited about coming to the party, I didn’t want to let her down.’
‘That was kind of you, but she’d have understood,’ he said, wiping her eyes tenderly with his handkerchief. ‘If you’d rung me I would have come right over and taken care of you. I would even have postponed the party for another night.’
‘I couldn’t have let you do that,’ she said, sniffing back her tears. ‘I wouldn’t have wanted to spoil anything for anyone. I didn’t even tell Jackie what had happened because she was looking forward to coming here so much. Please don’t tell her now, it isn’t fair to burden her with this. And don’t tell Roger either because he’s bound to pass it on.’
Steven wanted to take her to the police right away, but Laura deftly pointed out they would only tell them to go to the police in Hornsey tomorrow and it would spoil his party.
For a spur-of-the-moment lie it was a huge success. Steven spent the rest of the evening glued to her side, while she played the brave victim, selflessly keeping her troubles to herself.
People began drifting off around two in the morning and Jackie disappeared into Roger’s room with him. Finally everyone left and Steven cuddled her on the sofa.
‘You sleep in my bed, I’ll stay on here,’ he said gallantly.
Jackie lost her virginity to Roger that night. Whether this was because she couldn’t help herself, or because once in Roger’s bed she couldn’t back away, she didn’t say. But Laura felt rather superior because Steven hadn’t put her under pressure to have sex with him, not even when she asked him to share the bed with her because she was afraid to sleep alone.
That, and because the next day he gave her £20, the money she was supposed to have had stolen, fixed it in her head that being sweet, brave and chaste was the key to holding on to him.
Two days later she rang Steven after work and said she’d been to the police to report her attacker and he asked if she would like to come over to his flat. Once again she stayed the night in his bed, but wouldn’t allow anything more than kissing and cuddling. Despite having made up her mind that she was going to let the tragic fictional story of her childhood die, she ended up telling it to Steven.
His sympathy was wonderful. He even apologized for being so tactless in going on about his family and praised her for being so capable and strong. ‘I have to be,’ she said with a shrug. ‘There isn’t anyone to fall back on so I have to manage living alone. But since that man followed me home I haven’t felt very safe there.’
She played that card again and again in the following