Asking for It (18 page)

Ballinatoom used to be popular with tourists. Before this, it was known for its friendly locals, the folk club, the beautiful beach. Tourism is how towns like ours survive.

Business has been down, they say. No one wants to spend their holiday somewhere like this now. Less money around the place. (My fault.)

We walk into Camden Lane, where the farmer’s market is held. My mother calls out thanks to the apple seller for setting up a table for her under the roof of the alleyway, shielding us from the rain. She arranges a selection of her baking on to mismatched floral plates, cutting off chunks of cake for free samples, placing them on a large white plate in the middle. The other vendors are setting up too, the man selling veggie burritos firing up his grill, the fishmonger in his white apron and green wellies piling mounds of ice on top of the salmon and cod and mussels to keep them fresh, writing the specials on his blackboard with a piece of broken chalk, a moustached man with a jaunty scarf around his neck picking out folk tunes on his guitar. Then the customers begin to arrive. The older women in biscuit-coloured clothing, clear plastic headscarves tied around their heads to protect their freshly set hair from the rain, complaining about the bruising on the apples. Small children running around in neon-coloured rain boots, jumping into puddles, ignoring their harried mothers pushing babies in prams, telling them to be careful. Hipster couples who had moved down from the city for a better quality of life, always with their reusable bags in hand, the fathers proudly toting their babies in cotton slings around their chests. They joke and smile, nodding as the organic pig farmer shows them some pork chops, pointing out the fat marbling and giving them a ‘special price’. I picture them at home, making kale chips for their children, delighted with themselves for integrating fully into small-town life, oblivious to the fact that they were still, and always would be, blow-ins. There were other strangers too, Polish accents asking the price of a jar of local honey, women with intricately braided hair haggling with the butcher for weird cuts of meat that no one else would want anyway. No one ever seemed to know where the refugees actually came from, their black skin marking them both as different but as one, an indistinguishable mass.

Not Eli, though. He was one of us.

I shake my head. I don’t want to think about Eli.

My mother and I stand by our table, watching the people mill around the market. Some pause when they see me. They stop at our stand to buy an apple tart, place a hand on my arm. They look hurt when I flinch. Others talk to my mother in hushed tones, asking about the court case, the chances of prosecution,
sure you can see them walking around town, not a care in the world, it’s a disgrace is what it is, an absolute disgrace
, eyes wide with the drama of it all. They want to hear that I had taken enough drugs to fell a small animal, they want to hear that I was assaulted by the entire football team, that I got pregnant with triplets and had to go to England for an abortion, they want to hear that I try to kill myself every day, twice on a Sunday for good luck.

I catch a young couple looking in my direction, their cheeks burning when they realize I’ve spotted them. They approach our stand, he with his bushy brown beard, she in printed harem trousers. ‘Do you use agave in your baking?’ she asks. ‘Or maple syrup?’

‘It would have to be top-grade maple syrup though, one hundred per cent,’ the husband interrupts.

They grimace when my mother tells them she doesn’t, that she’s a plain, traditional baker, but do they want to try a sample anyway? They back away as if she has offered them rat poison, but it’s clear they’re disappointed, as if they wanted to show me their support in some small way.

I wake in the middle of the night. I remember. I am pink flesh. I am splayed legs. All the photos and photos and photos. I open my laptop. I read the articles on Jezebel and xoJane and the Journal and the
Guardian
and the
New Statesman
. And then I scroll down to the comments.

Some of those commenting claimed to be from Ballinatoom, to know me, to know my family, that they’d always thought I was a little slut who was just asking for trouble, that I had been easy with my favours and had regretted it in the morning and decided to yell rape, and that I was ruining those boys’ futures, that I was an attention seeker, that I was embarrassing the town, that I deserved it, that they hoped I got AIDS and died, that I was a dirty slut.

I look around at the people walking around the market, buying groceries, throwing a euro coin into the open guitar case, the busker smiling his thanks. Did any of these people write those comments? Did all of them?

‘Hello, Karen,’ my mother says as Karen Hennessy tries to pass our stall without stopping, her eyes focused firmly on a point in the distance. She hesitates just for a second, then spins on her heel.

‘Nora! Emma!’ she says, pushing her sunglasses up into her hair, tied in a bouncy ponytail. She’s make-up free, her clear skin taut, her forehead slightly waxy. ‘Excuse the state of me,’ she gestures at her lean body in the lululemon yoga pants that she buys in bulk every time she goes to London. ‘I’ve just had Yogalates.’ She shifts her wicker basket full of vegetables from one arm to the other.

‘Emma,’ my mother admonishes me, ‘say hello to Karen.’

‘Hi, Karen.’

‘Hi, Emma.’ She smiles at me. ‘How are you, sweetheart? You look exhausted.’

(
You look stunning
, she said. We are in Mannequin. I am standing in front of the mirror in a dress that I will never be able to afford.
You could be a model.
)

The memories flutter in my brain like moths.

You could be a model. You could be a model. You could be a model.

I make my mind go blank. I am not that girl any more. I am an It. I am a collection of doll parts, of pink flesh, of legs spread open for all to see.

‘You poor thing. I hope you’re taking care of yourself.’ She turns to my mother. ‘Why isn’t she at school? God, all I hear from Ali these days is the Leaving this and the Leaving that.’

‘Oh,’ my mother says, ‘Emma wasn’t feeling very well today, and it’s just, well, things . . .’

‘Yes,’ Karen says when my mother trails off, ‘I understand. It’s awful really. Mind yourself, Emma, and you too, Nora. I can’t even imagine how stressful all of this must be for you.’

She starts to walk away. ‘Wait,’ my mother calls out. ‘Do you want to buy anything?’

Karen looks at the stand. ‘Oh, I can’t, Nora, I’m on a cleanse at the moment. Maybe next week?’

An hour passes, then another, and the other vendors start packing up their stands. ‘How did you get on today, Mrs O’Donovan?’ the apple man asks when he comes over to dismantle our stall.

‘A little quieter than usual, Pat. You know how it goes,’ she says. She looks old all of a sudden, and so thin. ‘Do you want to take some home for Cathy and the girls?’

‘Was it quieter today?’ I ask my mother once we’re back in the car.

‘Ah, it’ll pick up again next week, I’m sure of it.’

‘Do you think it’s—’

My mother sighs. ‘Emma, don’t worry, OK? Some days are better than others; that’s just the way it goes.’

Maybe my mother’s baking isn’t that great after all.

Maybe it has nothing to do with me.

My mother stops the car outside Spar, and then Centra, and then SuperValu, dumping a little bit of the leftovers into the steel bins located outside each shop, two loaves of bread here, a few muffins there.

I stare at her.

‘Don’t.’ She tightens her grip on the steering wheel. ‘I can’t dump it all in one bin,’ she says. ‘People notice that. They’ll talk.’

*

‘Emma. Time for dinner.’

I am lying on the sofa. The curtains are closed. It is dark. I like it better that way. The dark is softer. I tap my foot against the armrest, beating out a tune for my mind to dance to so I don’t have to think.

‘Emma.’ The door to the TV room opens, a shaft of light from the hall carving a square panel on the floor. My mother switches on a lamp. I blink.

‘What are you doing in here by yourself in the dark? Dinner is ready.’

She leaves. The light is still on. I look at all the furniture. That is a sofa. That is a seat. That is a lamp. I say the words over and over again until they no longer have any meaning. I need to sit up. I need to get off this sofa. I need to turn the light off as I leave, shut the door behind me. I need to walk into the kitchen for dinner. I need to act normal.

I am tired just thinking about it.

Precious has shit at the foot of the coffee table. Small hard pellets. I can smell it.

‘Emma, I’m not calling you again.’ My mother’s voice floats in from the kitchen.

I pull the rug over and cover the mess with it.

The room is cold. My mother is sitting at the dining table, a plate of steaming hot food and a glass of wine in front of her.

‘What is this?’

‘Chicken stir-fry. They make it ready-made for you in the butcher’s. It’s in a sweet-and-sour sauce.’

‘What’s there for me?’

‘I put one of those vegetarian meals in the microwave.’ My mother takes a sip of her wine. ‘I don’t know what Paul was doing getting together with that Heather one. It was obvious he’d never got over Linda, don’t you agree? At least the new wife is a little more age appropriate.’ She gestures with her fork, bits of chicken falling on to the table but she doesn’t seem to notice. I take the ready-meal out of the microwave, peeling off the plastic covering, and sit next to her. I eat it straight out of the container. I want my mother to notice and to demand that I
at least put it on a plate
.

But she doesn’t say anything. She walks into the kitchen area, takes the wine bottle from the door of the fridge and drains what’s left of it into her glass.

‘Where’s Dad?’

‘He’s working late.’

She spears a piece of chicken with her fork, cutting it up into smaller bits, then moving it from one side of the plate to the other. I shovel the food into me as fast as I can. It turns to ash in my mouth.

‘Oh.’ My father stands in the doorway, his leather briefcase still in his hands. ‘I thought you would be finished by now.’

‘Why are you apologizing?’ my mother asks him. ‘I think it’s fairly normal for a man to eat dinner with his family. Don’t you
want
to eat dinner with us?’

The room goes very still.

‘Of course I want to eat dinner with you,’ he says. There’s a bang as his briefcase hits the ground. He hasn’t looked at me yet. ‘You know I do.’

She softens and kisses him on the cheek. He instinctively goes to wipe away the lipstick stain, but there is none there.

‘How was work anyway?’ my mother asks as she goes into the kitchen to prepare his dinner.

‘It was . . .’ he lets out a sigh, his body sagging with the weight of it, ‘stressful.’

‘Oh dear,’ she says. ‘Why so?’ He doesn’t reply. ‘And I can’t believe you went to the office in that suit, it’s as wrinkled. What were you thinking, Denis? What will people be saying?’

‘But you . . . Don’t you remember . . .?’ He picks up his knife, and frowns. He breathes on to it, wiping it clean with his napkin. My mother said the same thing about his suit last night and she had promised to steam it for him before work this morning.

‘Remember what?’ my mother asks as she dishes out some stir-fry on to a plate for him.

‘Never mind.’

I push my seat back from the table, dumping the food container in the bin. As I open the door to the hall I can hear him ask, ‘And how did you get on in the market today, Nora?’

‘Oh, brilliantly,’ she says. ‘Sold out completely.’

Upstairs, I draw my curtains closed and lie on my stomach on the bed. I put my hands over the back of my head, pushing my face into the pillow, but I can’t do it. I come up, gasping for air.

My phone vibrates against my bedside locker. My mother forgot to take it back off me. My phone use is supposed to be strictly monitored these days.
It’s to protect you
, my father told me,
We just want to protect you.

It is not now that I need to be protected.

I unlock my phone, waiting.

Subject: Your side of the story

Subject: We Believe You

Subject: It happened to me too

Subject: Liar

Subject: Dirty Whore

Subject: Fucking Slut

Subject: Kill Yourself.

It goes on and on. I delete them. I see Conor’s name in my inbox. He emails me every day, talking about the pre-exams, or the open day at Trinity he had gone to, how impressed he had been with the School of Medicine there, what his sister Gemma had said about his new haircut (and I had wondered what it looked like, and I had wanted to see it), about how some kid in school had gotten into trouble for calling Mr Canniffe a ‘dick’ for saying that the likelihood of a man developing superpowers after being bitten by a radioactive spider was zero. He told me how Eli was still miserable after the break-up with Maggie. I knew all about that already, of course. Maggie had come to see me straight after it had happened, her eyes swollen and bloodshot, crying and saying, ‘I had to do it. He refused to go and speak to the guards and tell them what happened that night at the party, he kept saying he didn’t know, he wasn’t in the room with you, so how did he know what happened?’