Читать книгу The Book of You - Claire Kendal, Claire Kendal - Страница 19

It is the morning after your book launch party. I fight my way out of a nightmare, thrashing to get free of a very dark place. I am in my own bed, lying on my side, my back to you. You are pressing the front of your body into me, spooning me, and I can feel your erection. Your hand is over my breast, stuck to it like a suction cup. You are kissing the nape of my neck and whispering that you’ve been watching me dream. You are holding me so tight I have to struggle hard to wriggle out of your arms and snatch my dress from the floor to cover myself as I rush into the bathroom to be sick. When I’m finished, grabbing the sink to balance, I look down at my body. Spots of blood have dried on the insides of my thighs, where there are red marks that I don’t want to think about. They will turn into bruises the next day. My lips and wrists and ankles are chafed. My hair is matted and tangled. My eyes hurt too much. I turn the lights off. I stand beneath the hot shower in the dark, shampooing my hair and soaping every inch of my skin. It stings, when I wash between my legs. I brush and floss my teeth. My jaw aches. The last thing I can recall is your taking my dress off. After that, there is only blackness. The bathroom door is locked behind me. I ignore your repeated knocks and concerned questions from outside. Late that afternoon I need an emergency appointment at the doctor’s to get antibiotics for a bladder infection. I am ill for three days, after: I have a pounding headache that just won’t go; I vomit and vomit until there is nothing left but bile; I sleep and sleep. No matter how much I sleep, I cannot wake up.

Miss Lockyer began to pant. Abruptly, dramatically, her skin paled. It was easy to see this in the clear light pouring through Court 12’s domed glass ceiling and the row of windows on the wall behind Clarissa – the only windows in the room and far too high to look out of. It could have been a ballroom. Maybe it was, long ago.

‘I need a break. I’m sorry. I need a break.’ Miss Lockyer covered her face.

They were sitting in the small, windowless waiting room just outside Court 12.

‘She’s not coming back,’ Annie said.

Clarissa said softly, ‘I’m sure she’ll be back.’

Annie rolled her deceptively gentle brown eyes and swung her shiny black hair and puffed her apple blossom cheeks. Beneath the artificial lights, her creamy skin was faintly yellow.

‘You’re probably right,’ Clarissa said quickly. ‘You watch all the time. I write too much. I take too many notes. I’m probably missing something by not looking.’

Annie’s face was cherubic and heart-shaped. Her angelic features seemed to relax a bit. She tapped her sweet little chin several times with her index finger. ‘What did she think was going to happen, stealing those drugs from them?’

Clarissa pulled out a Japanese pattern book. There was a nightdress with a crossover bodice she loved the look of – she had some silk the colour of a bruise that she’d use. She’d make two, and send one of them to Rowena once she’d managed to get Rafe safely out of her life.

‘My wife used to sew.’

The owner of that voice must have noticed what she was looking at. Her face reddened as she hurriedly shut the book. In the chair opposite was the tall man who sat in front of her in the jury box. She liked his dark brown hair, so short it made her wonder if he was in the military; she’d spent a lot of time over the last two days with that hair in her view; she thought it would feel bristly.

‘Does she not any more?’ she said.

His jaw – strong and square and so unlike Henry’s – stiffened almost imperceptibly. She had the impression that he was considering what to tell her, though his pause probably seemed longer than it actually was. ‘She died. Two years ago.’

‘Oh – I’m so sorry.’

His name was Robert. She told him her own name as the door into Court 12 opened and the usher invited them back in. She stood and lined up with the others, but Robert’s voice soon made her turn around.

‘You left this on your chair.’ He was holding out the Japanese pattern book. The nightdress she’d been studying – very pretty, but a little revealing – was featured on the cover, hanging against a wooden wardrobe. The picture was covered by his large hand.

She bit her lip slightly and shook her head in ironic embarrassment, surprised at the same time to find herself noticing how symmetrical his lips were, and that they were perfect – not too big and not too small, not too red and not too bloodless, but just right. His eyes were the brightest sapphire blue she’d ever seen in human eyes. She thought she might be blinded if she looked too long at them.

Despite its remarkable features, his face was neutral, perhaps even expressionless. ‘I think you’re right,’ he said. ‘I think she’ll be back.’

And she was, though her eyes were rimmed in red and she had to swallow hard several times as she spoke.

‘They made me lie down on the floor. They threw a quilt over me. They started … kicking me, hitting me. I was in a ball, trying to shield my breasts, my head. I thought they were actually going to kill me, and they’d covered my face so they wouldn’t have to see me while they did it. I started screaming that I’d call my grandfather, that he’d give me the money.

‘Sparkle took the quilt away, handed me my phone. “Dial,” he said. I told my grandfather I was desperate, that I needed fifteen hundred pounds, but he said no. I thought they’d start beating on me again then but Sparkle said I could pay him back by dealing for him. He gave me three hundred pounds’ worth, so I could get started. Then he drove me to the train station and let me go.’