• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 497 0

It was strange enough to see another woman’s naked body in her bathroom, but to see her own sister’s. To see all the skin and muscle and flesh that Zoë walked around in, the covering that she lived in day to day and was so used to she didn’t even look at. Not so different from Sally’s, with the dimples and the small pouches and sags and records of life, except that Zoë was so tall and slim. And something else – she was covered with injuries. Welts and cuts and bruises everywhere. Some looked old, some new. She winced as she settled in the bath, soaked a flannel and held it to her face. The nails on her right hand were broken and black with blood.

‘You’re so beautiful,’ Sally said. ‘More beautiful than I ever was. Mum and Dad always said you were the beautiful one.’

There was a silence. Then Zoë began to cry. She pressed the flannel into her face, leaned forward and took long, convulsive breaths, her shoulders shaking and shuddering. Sally sat on the edge of the bath and put a hand on her sister’s naked back, looking at the vertebrae standing white and sharp under her skin. She waited for the spasms to slow. For the awful, racking sobs to fade.

‘It’s OK now. It’s OK.’

‘I was raped, Sally. I was.’

Sally took a deep breath, held it, then exhaled. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Tell me.’

‘The man who killed Lorne Wood. He raped me – I got away. I’m supposed to be dead.’

‘The man who killed Lorne? But I thought Ralph Hernan—’

Zoë shook her head. ‘It wasn’t him.’

Sally didn’t move for a few moments. Then she reached for the towel. ‘You shouldn’t be in the bath. Get out. They have to test you.’

‘No.’ She pulled her knees up to her chin and hugged them. ‘No, Sally. I’m not going to the police.’

‘You’ve got to.’

‘I can’t. I can’t.’ She dropped her forehead on to her knees and cried some more, shaking her head. ‘You think I’ve been strong and independent all my life, don’t you? But that’s wrong. I was stupid. When I left school I was stupid. All the money I got to travel the world? I told Mum and Dad I’d got a magazine to pay for it – that I was working for them.’

‘The travel magazine.’

‘Oh, God – it never existed. I got the money from doing stupid stuff.’

‘Stupid stuff,’ Sally said hollowly. She was thinking about the way Millie had got her money, from Jake. That had been stupid. ‘What stupid stuff?’

‘Nightclubs. You know the sort of thing. The sort of place David Goldrab would have hung around. It was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done and I regret it. Oh, Christ.’ She wiped her tears with the back of her hand, avoiding touching her nose. ‘I’ve spent the rest of my life regretting it. The rest of my life.’

‘You took your clothes off? Stripping? Or pole-dancing or something?’

She nodded miserably.

Sally frowned. ‘But that’s – that’s nothing. I thought you meant something really serious.’

Zoë raised her tear-stained face, puzzled. Sally opened her hands apologetically. ‘Well, I can think of worse. It’s just …’ She faltered. ‘You? It seems so …’

‘I had to make some money fast. I had to get out of the house – you know why.’

‘But it’s the sort of thing someone would do if they …’ Sally groped for the word. ‘Well, if they didn’t much like themselves.’

There was a beat of silence. Zoë’s face was rigid. Then Sally got it.

‘But, Zoë – how could you? I mean … you’re beautiful and brave and you’re clever. So clever.’

‘Please stop saying that.’

‘It’s true.’

‘Well, I’m not very clever now, am I? I’ve been raped and I can’t do a thing about it.’

‘You can. We’re going to report it.’

‘No! I can’t. I can’t go and report this bastard to them because …’ She shook her head. ‘He knows me, this guy. From the clubs – he used to work in one of them as a handyman. He gave me the creeps, the way he was always watching me. He’d use it in his defence. I’d have to stand up in the witness box and his fucking brief would point out to everyone that I used to …’ She wiped her eyes angrily. ‘I can’t tell them. I can’t say a thing.’

Sally tapped her mouth thoughtfully with her fingernails. ‘There has to be a way. Who is he?’

‘You know him. You won