Singled Out (17 page)

‘Yes, Mrs Fisher, right. Well, there's no nice way of telling you this, so I'll just have to be blunt. I'm afraid a complaint has been made against your son.'

‘Against Tom? What kind of complaint?'

‘A complaint that he attacked a fellow student.'

‘Tom? But that's most unlikely. I mean, he's the least aggressive person I know. I suppose maybe if some drunken man picked a fight with him he'd retaliate, but –'

‘The complaint did not come from a man.'

‘What?'

‘It was made by a female student.'

‘And what's Tom supposed to have done to her?'

‘Beaten her up, Mrs Fisher.'

As the full implications of this body-blow sank in, Laura was silent, and Chris Gregory continued, ‘This is the kind of allegation that I'm afraid we have to take very seriously indeed – particularly in the current climate. There's been so much publicity recently about violence against women and date-rape cases and all that sexual harassment stuff, that it can't just be shuffled under the carpet or put down to youthful high spirits as it might once have been.'

He sounded almost wistful for that less egalitarian but simpler time. ‘There are enough feminist groups amongst the students – and indeed even more among the staff – to ensure that something like this won't go away quietly. I just hope to God the tabloid press doesn't get hold of it. I also hope that any enquiry and, if necessary, disciplinary action can be kept as a private matter within the university. However, I'm not optimistic. There has already been talk of criminal charges.'

Laura had by now sufficiently recovered from her shock to ask, ‘From whom?'

‘From the victim.'

‘Who is the victim?' Laura asked wearily. The question was a formality. She knew the answer.

‘A girl called Emily Howard. I think you've met her. She and Tom have been going round together for a while.'

‘Yes, I know the girl you mean. What happened?'

‘Well, I don't have the full details. The procedure within the university is that a student requiring to make a complaint of this kind – or any kind, come to that – should first approach his or her tutor. That's what happened this morning. Emily Howard went to see her tutor – who unfortunately is one of the rampant feminist brigade …'

He paused, regretting his lapse into prejudice, and tried lamely to cover it up. ‘… but, nonetheless, a very fair and responsible woman. So, anyway, everything I know comes at second hand from Emily's tutor, who rang me as soon as the girl had spoken to her. The tutor's call was a kind of warning shot – so that I should be prepared for the … for the mayhem that's about to be unleashed.'

He was silent, again letting Laura feel his repugnance for the role into which he had been forced.

‘So what was Emily's actual allegation against Tom?' she asked.

Chris Gregory cleared his throat, swallowing embarrassment, and answered, ‘Apparently, last night the two of them went to bed together …'

‘Nothing wrong with that.'

‘No, I agree, and no university in the country would dream of trying to stop its students going to bed together. But,
if
you'll allow me to finish, Mrs Fisher, I will explain why this case is rather more serious.

‘According to Emily Howard's account, in the course of their love-making, Tom became violent and started hitting her.'

His words brought to life the nightmare which for years Laura had tried not to contemplate. ‘But why?' she managed to ask.

‘That I don't know yet. One would assume it was the usual kind of scenario. Girl apparently says yes – boy gets excited – girl either never meant yes in the first place or changes her mind and tries to signal no – boy by then out of control and uses violence to get what he wants.'

This was Tom who was being discussed, Laura had to keep reminding herself – Tom, her son, the perfect blond-haired child on whom she had lavished all her love. Tom had committed a crime of violence against a woman. But what crime? ‘Are you talking about rape, Mr Gregory?'

‘Emily Howard did not actually claim she was raped, no – and I'm sure if she had been she would have done – but the allegation of violence remains a sufficiently serious one.'

‘Yes, I can see that. How badly was she injured?'

‘I haven't seen the girl, so again my only information comes through her tutor, but apparently Emily suffered extensive bruising round her face and shoulders.'

‘Did she need medical attention?'

‘No.'

‘So it can't have been that bad.' The words came out before she could stop them.

‘Mrs Fisher, if you think the relative mildness of the attack in any way exonerates your son from –'

‘No, I don't. I don't think that. I didn't mean that. So … what happens next?'

‘Well, an internal investigation will start here at the university as soon as it can be arranged. It's possible that Tom will have to be suspended during that investigation.'

‘Does he know that's a possibility? Does he know about Emily's accusations, come to that?'

‘I've no idea, Mrs Fisher. Tom has not come in for his lectures this morning. One of the reasons for my call is so that you can tell him to contact me as a matter of the utmost urgency. Presumably he'll come home to you at some point.'

‘Presumably. He might be there now.'

‘I've tried your home number, but there was no reply.'

‘Right. Well, I'm sure we'll be in touch again soon, Mr Gregory. Thank you very much for letting me know the situation. I'm sorry that you've been dragged into all this.'

‘Not half as sorry as I am, Mrs Fisher. My purpose in being at this university is to pursue serious academic research, and I resent intrusions on my time by students unable to control their animal instincts. Goodbye.'

Laura sat dazed after he had rung off. She returned the telephone receiver slowly to its cradle. Her first instinct had been to think Emily had made the whole thing up, that her allegations were part of some obscure feminist agenda. But Laura couldn't convince herself. This was real. There was no question about it; Tom had attacked the girl.

That knowledge lifted the lid on all the fears Laura had for so long managed to suppress. At times, as Tom grew up, she had felt confident those fears would never return, but this one phone call had revived them instantly in all their horror.

Maybe the evil
was
innate. Maybe the ‘bad blood' Kent had spoken of was now bubbling to the surface. The genetic history was too strong. A boy whose father and grandfather had both murdered women would never be able to separate sex from violence.

‘B-b-b-bad news?' asked the local councillor from inside the studio.

‘No. No, no problem,' said Laura Fisher. ‘Let's get on.'

She knew he was there the moment she let herself in through the front door. Laura had left the studios the minute the stutterer's two hours were up, telling Andy there was some work she had to do at home. Her long-cultivated habit of professionalism would never allow her even to hint at any domestic problems. As usual, she had walked briskly up the gradient, cutting across the corner of Brandon Hill Park, to her house.

She moved silently up the stairs. There were small sounds coming from Tom's room, cupboards being opened, clothes rustled. She stood in the doorway. He was instantly aware of her and spun round. On the bed were a beige cardboard folder and an open sports bag, into which a jumble of garments had been hastily shoved.

Tom's expression was haunted, flustered, but at the same time defiant. ‘Why aren't you at work?'

‘I had a call from Chris Gregory.'

‘Oh, right. So you know everything?'

‘I don't think I know everything. I only know what he's told me.'

‘And that was enough to make you leave work and come to look for me? I'm flattered.'

‘What do you mean by that?'

‘Just that it's been pretty rare over the years for anything to do with me to be important enough for you to “leave work”.'

‘Tom, I've always seen to it that you were properly looked after.'

‘Oh yes. “Looked after”. By someone. Someone who was efficient – ideally someone who was as efficient as you were, though there weren't many of those around. And everyone kept saying, “Isn't it wonderful how Laura manages to hold down that stressful career and look after her son at the same time?” And none of them realized that you didn't do that at all. You held down the stressful career, but you didn't look after your son. You had him looked after.'

Laura was stunned by the sheer bitterness of his onslaught. And though Tom was furious, these weren't rash words said in the heat of anger. They were the product of many years' resentment.

‘But, Tom, I never realized –'

‘No, you never realized anything. You got your baby, your nice designer baby – the perfect accessory for the successful career woman – and you organized its welfare. Saw that it had enough to eat, nice clothes to wear, schools to educate it, and you never for a moment thought you had to do any more.'

‘Tom, that's not true. I've always loved you.'

‘Oh yes, you probably have in your way. Yes, I've never lacked for you telling me you loved me, on the rare occasions when we met … but I didn't ever see so much of the day-to-day nurturing, did I?'

‘You know I've had my work. I've had to pay the bills. And we always had holidays together and –'

‘I was never part of your life!' He spat the words out. ‘No one has ever been part of your life. I was always just an accessory. A convenience. Something you wanted to have to prove to yourself that you were human. Well, you may have proved it to yourself. I still have grave doubts on the subject.'

‘I don't know why you're talking like this.'

‘No. I don't think you do. You think you've done everything all right. You're so selfish you can't see anything from anyone else's point of view.'

‘I'm not selfish!'

‘What? I can't think of anything more selfish than going out to pick up a man to get you pregnant.'

‘You don't know that's what I did.'

‘Oh yes, I do. And his identity was totally irrelevant to you. Just as mine is.'

‘That's not true, Tom.'

‘No? All right, tell me. What do you know about me? Except for the fact that I am your son,
the
son, the
item
you so desired. What do you know about my personality? What do you know about what goes on inside my head?'

‘Well, I –'

‘Nothing. You know absolutely nothing about me. And the reason for that is that you aren't capable of making relationships.'

This was the second time in as many days the same accusation had been made. Laura tried to defend herself. ‘That's not fair. I'm not –'

‘You hold everyone at arm's length. You don't give any of yourself to anyone.'

‘But –'

‘And then you're surprised that I'm the same, that I have difficulty in forming relationships with women, that I can't reach out to someone else. These things are hereditary. You can't break the cycle.'

‘Yes, you can.'

‘No. You can't change the nature you were born with.'

‘You can, Tom. That's the whole point. You can.'

‘You can't! What happened last night … yes, what Emily has gone blubbing to her tutor about … that proves you can't change. What happened was inevitable. That's what I'm like. That's the sort of person I am – however much you thought you could break the mould and re-create me in the nice middle-class image of the son you always wanted!'

‘Tom, please calm down, and just talk.'

‘Nothing more to talk about.' He turned and picked up his bag, pushing in the trailing sleeves. He grabbed a thickly stuffed folder that lay on the bed. ‘I'm going.'

Laura barred the doorway. ‘You're not going till we've talked through the –'

The power with which he pushed her aside winded her. Being slammed against the door-frame jarred her spine.

‘Tom,' she called after him weakly, as he disappeared off down the stairs.

The impact of the front door closing juddered right through the house. Laura sank slowly down the door-frame to sit on the floor. And for the first time since her teens, she let go, and cried.

She lay there for a long time. Sobs shuddered through her body and her eyes streamed as though their reservoir of tears was bottomless. For so long Laura Fisher had held herself together, had convinced herself of the rightness of what she was doing, that the release of that rigid constraint was devastating.

The main blow was to her confidence. She had always thought she was doing right by Tom, that her love for him had communicated itself by the way she had arranged his care. To discover that for nineteen years he had felt himself the victim of emotional neglect hurt Laura like a physical injury. The knowledge struck at the very basis of the life she had created for them, and cast doubt on the validity of every other decision she had made.

Above all, there was the sickening certainty that she did not know her son at all. The child she had nurtured and felt close to, from perfect baby through blond childhood to uneasy maturity, was a stranger to her. All the accumulation of negative thoughts, which she had for so long shut out of her mind, came flooding in unrestrained.

It was maybe an hour after Tom's departure that Laura finally made it to her feet again. Her back ached from its collision with the door, and her whole body felt uncertain and trembly, the body of an old woman.

She rooted in one of Tom's drawers for a handkerchief and wiped it roughly against her smarting eyes. Her son kept his room very neat, put away his own clothes, changed his bed-linen, dusted and hoovered it all himself. That had been part of their deal when he came back to live at home. He had always been an amenable child. When Laura heard what other parents had to put up with from their offspring … Tears threatened again. She thought she had brought him up right, but his outburst showed she had failed completely.