Broken (2 page)

***

T
he first thing I realise when I wake up, is that I’m not dead. The second, that I’m in a lot of pain. Alice’s brother, Martin, is kneeling beside me. He passes me a glass of water, from which I take a small sip and hand it back to him. My neck feels like it’s broken. Above me hangs what’s left of the rope, the rest cut in two and cast to the side of me. I let myself collapse against the floor.

“You’re lucky I had a key”, Martin says.

I haven’t got enough energy to respond to him. I can’t even say thank you.

“You want to go to the doctor? The hospital? The psychiatrist?”

I shake my head to all of the suggestions. I don’t know why but I’m smiling. I must look like a complete dick. Smiling, crying, a swollen, lacerated, red neck.

Martin helps me up. “Come on, buddy”, he says, pulling me into him. “That only leaves a hug.”

9
October 2015. Twelve days after.

Almost two weeks and still nothing from the police. The bruises are fading, time is passing, if I didn’t feel so numb, I could be convinced that it didn’t happen at all. Sometimes I catch myself wondering if it’s as bad as I make out, if I’ve made a fuss out of nothing.

I haven't told my family, my friends either. Every time I think about how, it feels like I’m running through a confession to something
I
shouldn’t have done. Like I’m responsible in some way for what happened to me, and although they’ll understand, they’ll be disappointed, as though there was something I could have done to avoid it. Some conscious decision I could have made not to be raped. I can’t help but think they’ll think I’m less of a person because of it.

Weak, defiled, broken. I feel like less of a person. I feel like my second life began that day. I’m Jo, twelve days old. I was born when he raped me. Nothing is the same now as it was before.

This secret feels like a cancer. The longer I leave it unattended to, the bigger it grows and the harder it becomes to deal with. I can’t go on much longer like this. I want to cut it out of me and burn it. I want to go back to my normal life before all of this happened. I don’t want to be the victim.

1
2 October 2015. Thirty one days after.

There are reminders of Alice all over the house. Everywhere I go, she’s there already. She’s in drawers and cupboards, all over walls and shelves, in the fabric of the sofas and the bed. I often find myself staring at the stain on the living room floor I know is her blood, trying to get some kind of sense out of it. I can’t.

It’s been a month since it happened. A month of attempting to readjust to a life that no longer seems like your own. I feel like a ghost in my own house. I find myself entering a room only to forget why I’m there in the first place, or staring at things for long periods of time without realising I’m doing so.

They upped my medication. I now get something to take the pain away, and something else to put me to sleep. It doesn’t work.

Martin has moved in. He says it’s a temporary measure until he’s convinced I’m better. If I didn’t let him, he said he’d tell the doctor about my suicide attempt, so I had no choice. He spent a whole day getting rid of things he believed I had the potential to kill myself with, and helped me string up the punching bag in the basement, from the same structural concrete over beam that nearly took my life. I don’t think about killing myself anymore, but it’s good to have him around anyway. He reminds me of her. There are subtleties in the way that he carries himself and the way that he does certain things, that are exactly the way Alice did them. I can’t get used to talking about her in the past tense as though she belongs there forever. We talk about her sometimes, but we never talk about what happened. Martin knows I don’t want to.

I have a routine now. I work the punching bag for half an hour or so every morning, and I go out to run. I have counselling twice a week and group therapy twice a month. It’s a free session the police encouraged me to go to and although I don’t believe it does anything useful for my situation, it feels good listening to other people’s problems for a while. It means I don’t have to concentrate on my own.

For the rest of my time, I think about him. I fantasize about what I’m going to do to him when I find him. I’m not numb anymore, that’s sunk away now like the tide receding over a wrecked ship. I’m broken and I’m angry. I want revenge for the things he took away from me and I’m ready to fight.

Everyone says I need something to focus on, something to keep me going after what happened. Well, this is it, this is what I’m focusing my energy on.

The police have done nothing. All I know is that they are carrying on their investigations, while whoever is responsible for raping and murdering my wife and the unborn baby she was carrying are still out there, ready to do the same again. It makes me sick.

Martin doesn’t know this is what I’m planning to do. Nobody knows. As far as anyone else is concerned, I’m concentrating on pulling myself together and getting on with my life. The thing is, I don’t have one left. Nothing has meaning to me anymore.

The plans we had for the future? The family we were going to bring into the world? The romantic dinners, the holidays, the growing old together? I don’t see that anymore. I don’t see anything at all but him, every night before I go to sleep, breaking in, threatening my pregnant wife with a hunting knife, forcing himself into her violently and repeatedly, and then stabbing through her belly and later into her chest, so many times he broke six of her ribs and carved her right lung almost to nothing.

Martin’s waving his arms at me. I have to kill the engine to hear what he’s saying.

“Whoa, whoa, buddy, there won’t be any grass left!”

I wipe sweat off my forehead and just kind of stare at him for a while. I’ve been drifting again. One moment concentrating on the task in hand, the next on something else. The blood stain, the murder, him. Always him.

“You’ve been out here for four hours pushing that thing around. Come on, the game is on, let’s drink a beer and relax.”

Sundays. Sundays in this house used to mean something to me. Alice curled up on the sofa reading a book, a long bath.

“Ok”, I say, smiling, happy to defer. “It’s a good idea.” I turn around to survey what I’ve done. I nod to it. “I reckon I’m kind of done here anyway.”

Martin puts his arm around my shoulder. “You should see our garden man, nothing but weeds up to here.” He marks the height against his chest. “We could use you over there if you’re that keen on mowing.”

“I’ll think about it”, I say.

“Yeah”, Martin says as we walk back to the house. “that’s what Sadie keeps telling me too. We’ll think about it.”

Watching a game and drinking a beer. This is what I used to do, what normal people do, but I don’t feel normal anymore. I don’t feel anything anymore.

1
4 October 2015. Seventeen days after.

“Is everything alright, Jo?”

My manager has called me into his office to have ‘the chat’.

“Sure, of course”, I lie, casually squeezing myself into the chair in front of him. “What’s up?”

“You just, I don’t know”, he smiles. “I just wanted to make sure you were ok. You’ve been a bit distant recently, a bit quiet. Not your usual self. We missed you on Friday.”

“Is it the work?” I ask.

“No, the work is great”, Alex says. “Your work is always great.” He drums his fingers on the table. “It’s-”, he hesitates. “You know, if you ever need to chat. I like to think we have a relaxed attitude here. If there is something bugging you.”

“Seriously, I’m fine”, I lie again.

Alex is a good guy, and he’s right. This is a small design company with thirty odd permanent staff. We’re like a family. People care about each other here. “Maybe I’m a little tired, I don’t know, I hadn’t noticed.”

Alex doesn’t need to know. It would just complicate things if I told him. I’d become
that
girl.

“Are you coming this Friday? We’ve got a big night planned, drinks, pizza, bowling, you might meet a guy.”

Alex does a kind of weird seat dance while my heart lurches at the suggestion. I almost cry. It’s there inside me ready to come out and I think he sees it. I stumble a response, almost unable to give it. Alex jumps in.

“I thought you liked bowling?”

I compose myself. “Sorry, Alex. I’ve got family commitments that night.”

“Oh”, Alex says, disappointed. Friday nights are big for him. A chance to get everyone from the office together to do something social. I used to go all the time, I haven’t since it happened.

“You sure you haven’t got some secret you want to tell us about, huh?!” Alex says, jiggling his eyebrows up and down. This is Alex all over, brightly colored shirts and bow-ties. Spiky gelled up hair, a couple of earrings. A positive, upbeat attitude. It would destroy him if I told him. His rose-tinted view of the world would be crushed.

“No”, I say evenly. “Mum’s got some thing, you know. I’ve got to-.”

And then it hits me and I know I won’t be able to stop it.

“Alex, do you mind if?-.”

I know he’s stood up, watching me bolt out of his office, shocked I’ve done so seemingly without reason. I know he’s not the only one either.

The tears come before I have a chance to get to the restroom. I barely manage to lock myself in a cubicle before Sasha comes in to see if I’m ok.

“Jo?” she asks cautiously, as though I might bite if approached without care. “Are you alright?”

Fuck. I can’t stop bawling. It’s like the tears don’t want to stop coming. I can barely breathe. This is overwhelming.

“Jo, honey, what’s wrong?” That’s Sylvia now, stood alongside Sasha, just outside the cubicle door. “What happened?”

I hear Mandy’s voice next and then Alex’s briefly, before the girls, in unison, tell him to leave.

“
Sweetie?” Sasha says, “open up the door and let me in.”

1
7 October 2015. Twenty days after.

There is a Russian photographer we studied at art school called Anatoly Borodin, who spent his whole life taking pictures of normal people doing normal things. Families at home, postmen, children playing, women chatting. They are simple images of fragments of people's lives, and are usually of them doing something boring or mundane, but each image has a story behind it. Each one when studied alone tells the story of a person and everything that has led them to that point. If you glance at them, you miss it, but if you look closely, into the eyes and the soul of the person captured by the lens, you see it. You see their life. This is what Borodin was trying to say with his work.

I feel like someone from a Borodin photo. A quick glance and you’d think I’m fine, stand and stare a while and you see cracks as big as the grand canyon.

Dad is staring at me open mouthed. Mom has started to cry. I knew it would be like this. It's why I didn't tell them before.

“What the hell were you doing alone at two o'clock in the morning?”

He's angry, I get that. I'm his only girl. His princess. Now I'm
spoiled
goods. Nobody wants to think of their daughter in that way. This happens to drug addicts, prostitutes, the working class, not me, not a bright graduate with a good job, a middle class family and an education.

“I thought you should know”, I say, ignoring dad's question.

I have a good relationship with my parents, but we are not the kind of family that discusses its problems. My father likes to solve them, which is part of the reason we don’t.

“Tell me, please, you’ve been to the police.”

“I’ve done everything I can”, I say. “I went to the police shortly after it happened. They said they’d call me as soon as they knew anything. It’s over, Dad, you don’t need to worry.”

Dad shakes his head, mystified that the situation is out of his control. Horrified he couldn’t do anything in the first place to stop it.

“When they catch this-.” Dad can’t find the words. “I’m going to rip his fucking head off.”

I sigh. “Yeah, Dad, that’s not going to help all that much.”

“You should have said something, darling.” Mom says. “All this time, dealing with it by yourself.” She seems almost as shocked by this as I was. “We could have helped.”

“What did they say at work?” Dad butts in. “I hope they’re paying you for this time off. It’s the least they can do.”

“Dad, this has nothing to do with work.”

“You were on a work function, out with work colleagues. They should have been there for you. Jesus christ, Joanne. Raped. This isn’t someone taking your purse while you’re not looking.”

“I know, Dad. Please. Nobody is at fault apart from the man that did this to me. Please stop pacing the room and sit down.”

“I’m angry, Jo. I’m ready to go out and find him.”

“Dad, that’s what the police are doing. What we need to do-”, I stop to correct myself. “What I need to do is try and move on.”

“You’ll wear the carpet out Mike, sit down.” Mom says.

“Move on”, Dad shakes his head. He’s still pacing up and down, grinding his teeth, snarling like an animal. I haven’t seen him like this since he lost his job. “Is that what the police told you, huh? Move on, like you’ve got to the park to find someone sitting on your favorite bench.”

“Mike!” Mom calls again.

“It’s not that trivial! Raped”, I hear him mutter. “My girl.”

My parents don’t take the news well so I decide not to tell them about the group therapy sessions I’ve decided to join, nor the fact that work still don’t know about the rape and the reason they’ve given me time off, unpaid, is because of ‘family problems’. If he knew any of that, Dad would go mad. He’d try and negotiate paid leave for me from work and organize a therapist, which I definitely don’t want at the moment.

I’m going to go to the group sessions because I can hide much more easily in a crowd. I know I need to talk to someone, which is part of the reason I decided to tell my parents, I’m just not ready to do that one on one. It’s taken me a while to come to terms with what happened, to even call it rape or assault or anything technical or clinical or specific.