Faith (17 page)

Each time she looked at them, they were kissing or dancing cheek to cheek, and it was quite obvious that Roger was totally smitten with her friend. So Laura kept topping up her glass with more cider and tried to hide her mounting panic that she wasn’t wanted by anyone.

By eleven the flat was so crowded with people that she could barely see Jackie amongst the dancers, and she couldn’t see Steven at all. All at once the room began to spin, and she realized she was going to be sick. When she found the bathroom occupied, she stumbled down the stairs out into the road.

After vomiting violently several times she sobered up, but chilled to the bone because she had no coat, desperate to go home but unable to unless she went back to the flat and got her coat and bag, which would mean she’d have to explain herself, she sat down on the front steps and began to cry.

A warm hand on her bare shoulder startled her. She looked up to see Steven looking down at her with real concern. ‘Laura! What on earth are you doing out here?’ he asked. ‘You’ll catch your death of cold.’

‘The cigarette smoke was making my eyes sting,’ she lied.

‘You’ll get pneumonia if you stay here,’ he said, and pulling his thick sweater off over his head, he popped it over hers. ‘Come in and sit on the stairs, it’s warmer there,’ he added, pulling her to her feet.

Once inside the hall, he took her hands between his and rubbed them. ‘I don’t think it’s the smoke that made your eyes run. You’ve been crying,’ he said reproachfully. ‘Why, Laura? Did you feel left out because I couldn’t be with you all evening?’

She felt warmer now with his jumper on, and his gentle tone made her want to admit that was exactly how she felt, that she knew she’d worn the wrong clothes, everyone was too posh for her, and she got drunk to deal with it. But he was a sophisticated man about town, he wouldn’t want a silly young girl who didn’t know how to handle herself at parties. She had to come up with something that would make her look more adult.

‘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 weeks, especially when she knew Roger was taking Jackie out and Steven was in alone. Once at his flat she would cook for him, wash and iron his clothes and clean up, and though she would’ve preferred it if he asked her out properly as Roger did Jackie, she felt sure he was falling in love with her.

Often as she took the tube to work she asked herself if she loved him. She could reel off plenty of reasons why she wanted to be with him – that he was handsome, had a nice car and money – yet she didn’t feel any of the heart-tugging stuff that people spoke of when they were in love. He was really quite dull, very serious and career-minded, and if Jackie wasn’t spending all her spare time with Roger, she wasn’t even sure she’d want to be with Steven. But it made her feel good having a real boyfriend, someone she could boast about at work, and she liked staying at his flat and having him fussing round her.

She felt no guilt about stealing a couple of pounds from his wallet here and there; after all, she saved him money because he rarely took her out. She often told him lies to make herself look smarter, braver or more vulnerable. She told him once that a male friend of her Aunt Mabel had tried to force her into having sex with him when she was thirteen, and that was why she was afraid of having sex with him.

But as time went on and she saw Jackie head over heels in love with Roger, and he with her, Laura began to feel aggrieved. She missed their girls’ nights in together, meeting up after work, going to the shops on a Saturday, and the family meals at Muswell Hill on a Sunday. She might still see Jackie all the time in the boys’ flat, but it wasn’t the same. Jackie was becoming like all the girls in Kensington – polished, poised and too wrapped up in Roger even to notice her best friend.

Sometimes when the pair of them burst into the flat, laughing and glowing with happiness, and disappeared into the bedroom together, Laura resented it so much she wanted to spoil things for them. They did all go out in a foursome occasionally, but even then it wasn’t much fun as Jackie and Roger spent the evening whispering together, and shutting her and Steven out.

Steven also began to lose patience with her refusal to have sex with him. He was becoming increasingly grumpy, often saying he wanted a night in on his own, and as Laura sat in her own bedsitter, imagining him going down to the pub and finding another more willing girl, she panicked.

When Roger took Jackie home to his parents for the weekend at the end of April, Laura decided that now was the right time to give in to Steven as they’d be alone in the flat. She was very nervous when she arrived straight from work on the Friday evening, but perhaps Steven sensed she was weakening as he’d changed the sheets on the bed and tidied up.

‘Why don’t you have a bath while I make us something to eat?’ he suggested. ‘I’ve got you some Babycham too, and we’ll have a cosy evening by the fire.’

No girl could have had a better lover than Steven for her first time. He caressed and played with her, kissed every part of her body, telling her how beautiful she was. By the time he did enter her, she wanted to do it as much as he did. It did hurt a bit, but not as much as she’d expected, and when it was over he said such wonderful, loving things that she cried.

In the morning it was even better, and they stayed in bed nearly all day, only getting up for food and cups of tea. They had a bath together, he washed her like a child and cuddled her dry, and to her this seemed like true love.

For six or seven weeks everything was wonderful. Steven wanted her with him all the time, and they could hardly get in the door before they ripped each other’s clothes off and leapt on one another. Laura could think of nothing but Steven; he was the centre of her world.

She would sit next to him in his car studying his profile, marvelling at the length of his eyelashes, his jutting cheekbones and the neatness of his dark hair. After sex she would smile at the tender expression in his eyes, snuggle into his arms and inhale his scent gleefully. She believed they would be together for all time and any day he’d ask her to marry him.

Years later she was able to look back and see that she wasn’t actually head over heels in love with Steven. She was just needy and desperate to
be
loved.

She hadn’t really been ready for a sexual relationship and once into it she felt she had to justify her enjoyment of it by building it up as true love. The fact that Steven didn’t ask her to marry him, or even say he loved her, always used a Durex when they made love, and only ever talked about his career when she asked him about his plans for the future, made her feel used and insecure. Because of this, she became jealous of everyone in his life.

She interrogated him about his old girlfriends; every woman he so much as glanced at was a threat; even a mention of the girls in the flat upstairs or his male friends was enough to make her sulk for hours.

When he left her alone in the flat she went through all his papers and things, looking for evidence of past affairs. She found a letter from his mother in which she urged him to be cautious because Laura was so young, and she threw a saucepan at him when he came in.

‘It’s just that kind of infantile behaviour my mother is afraid of,’ he retorted angrily. ‘How dare you read my letters? And why can’t you just be happy with what we’ve got?’

But Laura couldn’t be happy until he’d told her he loved her and asked her to marry him. And to achieve that end she resorted to telling him ridiculous lies. She would say that she’d fainted on the tube, that another girl had attacked her at work, anything to get him to say they must get married so he could look after her.

But her ploys didn’t work. All she saw was exasperation in his eyes, and she felt him withdrawing from her.

The last weekend in May he didn’t invite her over, but she went anyway. His face fell when he opened the door to her.

‘I wanted a weekend alone,’ he said stiffly.

‘But we always spend the weekends together,’ she said, and walked on past him, putting her overnight bag down and turning to kiss him.

He put his hands on her shoulders, holding her back from him. ‘I can’t do this any more,’ he sighed. ‘It was nice while it lasted, but you are too jealous and immature for me, Laura. Go home now. It’s over.’

She burst into tears, but that didn’t soften him. She begged him to let her cook him a meal, and said she’d clean up his flat which looked as though a bomb had hit it.

‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘If I want a meal I can cook it, I can clean up too when I get sick of the mess. I made a big mistake with you. I realize now I just felt sorry for you because you have no family. But I can’t do it any more, you’ve taken over my life and I want it back.’

‘But you can’t end it,’ she exclaimed, feeling sick with fear. ‘I love you, Steven, you’re the only thing in my life.’

‘That’s part of the problem,’ he said, his face as cold as a January morning. ‘I’m sick of you depending on me for everything, you drain me dry. You don’t enjoy being with any of my friends, you don’t share any of my interests. All you want to do is play house, and keep me a prisoner in it.’

She argued that this wasn’t so, that his friends looked down on her, but he was barely listening.

‘Just go,’ he said irritably, ‘before I say something really hurtful. I want to go down the pub and talk to people who make me laugh. I do not want to spend another night listening to you wittering on about nothing and playing Little Girl Lost.’

She felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach, but she was sure she could change his mind if she could just think of something dramatic enough.

‘You can’t pack me in,’ she sobbed. ‘I’m having your baby.’

She expected that would at least make him stop short. She hoped it would make him cuddle her and promise he’d do the right thing by her. But instead his dark eves narrowed in distaste.

‘Liar!’ he exclaimed. ‘God, you’ve told me some whoppers in the past. But that one beats them all.’

‘I’m not lying,’ she retorted. ‘I’m about six or seven weeks gone.’

‘You can’t be, I’ve always taken precautions,’ he insisted, running his fingers through his hair distractedly. ‘For God’s sake, get out of here, Laura, I’m at the end of my tether with you and I can’t take any more.’

There was not a shred of sympathy in his face and he looked as if he was tempted to slap her.

‘Then I’ll have to have an abortion,’ she threw back at him. ‘And if I die because of it, it will be your fault.’ Grabbing her bag, she ran out of the flat and clattered down the stairs.