Stranded (4 page)

Control, then, I thought, daring to let myself feel relieved as I sat down at the table. At once, Claire stamped her authority on the conversation. How was I enjoying London? Was it as I expected? How were things in Russia? How was life changing for ordinary people?

By the time we hit the second drink, she was flirting with me. She wanted to prove she could own me the way she owned her lover. Elinor was consigned to the sidelines, and her acquiescence to this confirmed all I believed about their relationship. My heart ached for her, an uneasy mixture of love and pity making me feel faintly queasy. I don't know how I managed to eat dinner with them. All I wanted was to steal Elinor away, to prove to her she had the power to take her life back and make of it what she wanted.

But of course, she left with Claire. And in the morning, I was on a plane back to St Petersburg, half-convinced that the only healthy thing for me to do was to end our relationship.

I didn't. I couldn't. In spite of everything I know about the tentacles of emotional abuse, I found it impossible to reject the notion that I might somehow be Elinor's saviour. So I kept on writing, kept on telling her how much I loved her when she called, kept on seeing her face in my mind's eye whenever I slept with other people.

More weeks trickled by, then out of the blue, an e-mail in a very different tone arrived.

Natasha, darling. Can you get to Brussels next weekend? I need to see you. I can arrange air tickets if you can arrange a visa. Please, if it's humanly possible, come to Brussels. I love you. E.

I tried to get her to tell me what was going on, but she refused. All I could do was fix up a visa and collect the tickets from the travel agent. When Elinor opened the hotel room door, she looked a dozen years older than when I'd seen her in London. My first thought was that Claire had discovered our affair. But the truth was infinitely worse.

We'd barely hugged when Elinor was moving away from me. She curled up in the room's only armchair and covered her face with her hands. ‘I'm so scared,' she said.

I crouched down beside her and gently pulled her hands away from her face. ‘What's wrong, Elinor?'

She flicked her tongue along dry lips. ‘You know I'm mostly working with HIV patients now?'

It wasn't what I'd expected to hear, but somehow I already knew what was coming. ‘Yes, I know.'

A deep, shuddering breath. ‘A few weeks ago, I got a needle stick.' Her eyes filled with tears. ‘Natasha, I'm HIV positive.'

Intellectually, I knew this wasn't a death sentence. So did Elinor. But in that instant, it felt like the end of the world. I couldn't think of anything else that would assert her right to a future, so I cradled her in my arms and said, ‘Let's make love.'

At first, she resisted. But we both knew too much about the transmission routes of the virus for the idea of putting me at risk to take deep root. Sure, it meant changes for how we made love, but that was a tiny price to pay for the affirmation that her life would go on.

We spent the weekend behind closed doors, loving each other, talking endlessly about what she'd have to do to maximise her chances of long-term health. At some point on Sunday, she confessed that Claire had refused to have sex since the diagnosis. That made me angrier than anything I'd previously known or suspected about the abuse of power between the two of them.

That parting was the worst. I wanted to take her home with me. I wanted our passion to be her cocoon against the virus. But realistically, even if she'd been able to leave Claire, we both knew her best chance for access to the latest treatments would be to remain in the West.

Oddly, in spite of the cataclysmic nature of her news, nothing really changed between us. The old channels of communication remained intact, the intensity between us diminished not at all. The only difference was that now we also discussed drug treatments, dietary regimes and alternative therapies.

Then one Monday, silence. No e-mail. I wasn't too worried. There had been days when Elinor hadn't been able to write, but mostly those had been on the weekend when she'd not been able to escape Claire's oppressive attention. Tuesday dragged past, then Wednesday. No reply to my e-mails, no phone call. Nothing. Finally, on the Thursday, I tried to call her at work.

Voice-mail. I left an innocuous message and hung up. Friday brought more silence. The weekend was a nightmare. I checked my e-mail neurotically, every hour, on the hour. I was afraid to go out in case she called, and by Sunday night my apartment felt like a prison cell. Monday, I spoke to her voice-mail again. Desperation had me in its grip. I even considered taking the chance of calling her at home. Instead, I hit on the idea of calling the department secretary.

‘I've been trying to contact Dr Stevenson,' I said when I finally got through.

‘Dr Stevenson is away at present,' the stiff English voice said.

‘When will she be back?'

‘I really can't say.'

I'd been fighting fear for days, but now my defences were crumbling fast. ‘Look, I'm a personal friend of Elinor's,' I said. ‘From St Petersburg. I'm due to be in London this week and we were supposed to meet. But I've had no reply to my e-mails, and I really need to contact her about our arrangements. Can you help me?'

The voice softened. ‘I'm afraid Dr Stevenson's very ill. She won't be well enough to have a meeting this week.'

‘Is she in hospital?' Somehow, I managed to keep hold of my English in the teeth of the terror that was ripping through me.

‘Yes. She's a patient here.'

‘Can you put me through to the ward she's on?'

‘I'm . . . I'm sorry, she's in intensive care. She won't be able to speak to you.'

I don't remember ending the call. Just the desperate pain her words brought in their wake. I couldn't make sense of what I was hearing. It ran counter to all I knew about HIV and AIDS. It was a matter of months since Elinor had been infected. For her to be so ill so soon was virtually unheard of. People lived with HIV for years. Some people lived with AIDS for years. It was impossible.

But the impossible had happened.

I spent the next couple of days in a frenzy of activity, staving off my alarm with action. I couldn't afford the flight, but I managed to get the money together by borrowing from my three closest friends. I couldn't explain to my boss why I needed the time off and we were under pressure at work, so there was no prospect of making it to London before the weekend. The rest of my spare time I spent trying to sort out a visa.

By Thursday evening, I was almost organised. The travel agent had sworn she would call first thing in the morning about last-minute flights. I'd managed to persuade a colleague to cover for me at the beginning of the following week so I had a couple of extra days in hand. And the visa was promised for the next afternoon.

I'd just walked through the door of my apartment when the phone rang. I ran across the room and grabbed it. ‘
Da
?'

Breathing rasped in my ear. ‘Natasha.' Elinor's voice was little more than a whisper but there was no mistaking it.

‘Elinor.' I couldn't speak through the lump in my throat.

‘I'm dying, Nat. Pneumocystis. Drug-resistant strain.' She could only speak on the exhalation of her shallow breaths. ‘Wanted to call you. Brain's fucked, couldn't remember the number. Claire wouldn't . . . bring me my organiser. Had to get nurse to get it from my office.'

‘Never mind. We're talking now. Elinor, I'm coming over. At the weekend.'

‘No. Don't come, Nat. Please. I love you too much. Don't want you to remember . . . this. Remember the good stuff.'

‘I want to see you.' Tears running down my face, I struggled to keep them out of my voice.

‘Please, no. Nat, I wanted you to know . . . loving you? Best thing that ever hit me. Wanted to say goodbye. Wanted to say, be happy.'

‘
Ya tebyeh lublu
,' I gulped. ‘Don't die on me, Elinor.'

‘Wish I had . . . choice. Trouble with being a doctor . . . you know what's happening to you. A couple of days, Nat. Then it's . . . DNR time. I love you.'

‘I know.'

The breathing stopped and another voice came on the line. ‘Hello? I'm sorry, Dr Stevenson is too tired to talk any more.'

‘How bad is it?' I don't know how I managed to speak without choking.

‘I shouldn't really speak to anyone who isn't immediate family,' she hedged.

‘Please. You saw how important this call was to her. I'm a doctor too, I know the score.'

‘I'm afraid her condition is very serious. She's not responding to treatment. It's likely we'll have to put her on a ventilator very soon.'

‘It's true she's signed a DNR?'

‘I'm very sorry,' the nurse said after a short pause.

‘Take good care of her.' I replaced the phone as gently as if it had been Elinor's hand. I'd spent enough time in hospitals to read between the lines. Elinor hadn't been mistaken. She was dying.

I never went to London. It would have been an act of selfishness. Claire never called me, which told me that she knew the truth. But the nurse from intensive care did phone, on the Sunday morning at nine twenty-seven a.m. Elinor had asked her to let me know when she died. A couple of weeks later, I wrote to Claire, saying I'd heard about Elinor's death from a colleague and expressing my sympathy. I'm not sure why I did, but sometimes our subconscious paves the way for our future actions without bothering to inform us.

Grief twisted in me like a rusty knife for a long time. But everything transmutes eventually, and slowly it turned to anger. Generally when people die, there's nobody to blame. But Elinor's death wasn't like that. The responsibility for what happened to her lay with Claire, impossible to dodge.

If Claire had not ruled her with fear, Elinor would have left her for me. If Claire had not stripped her of her self-confidence, Elinor would have stayed in Manchester and someone else would have suffered that needle stick. However you cut it, Elinor would still be alive if Claire had not made her feel like a possession.

For a long time, my anger felt pointless, a dry fire burning inside me that consumed nothing. Then out of the blue, I had an e-mail from Claire.

Hello, Natasha. I'm sorry I never got in touch with you after Elinor's death, but as you will imagine, it was not an easy time for me. However, I am attending a conference in St Petersburg next month, and I wondered if you would like to meet up for dinner. I have such fond memories of the evening we spent together in London. It might bring us both some solace to spend some time together. Let me know if this would suit you. Best wishes, Claire Somerville.

The arrangements are made. Tonight, she will come to my apartment for dinner. I know she will seduce me. She won't be able to resist the challenge of possessing the woman Elinor loved.

But Claire is a Russian virgin. She doesn't understand the first thing about us. She will have no sense of the cruelty or the danger that always lurks beneath the surface, particularly in this city of the dead.

She will not suspect the narcotic in the alcohol. And when she wakes, she won't notice the scab on the vein in the back of her knee. The syringe is loaded already, thick with virus, carefully maintained in perfect culture conditions.

It's almost certain she'll have longer than Elinor. But sooner or later, the black magic of those White Nights will take its revenge. And perhaps then, my dead will sleep.

The Writing on the Wall

I
've never written anything on a toilet wall before, but I don't know what else to do. Please help me. My boyfriend is violent towards me. He hits me and I don't know where to turn.

Kick the bastard where it hurts
. Give him a taste of his own medicine.

Get out o
f the relationship now before he does you serious injury. Batterin
g men only batter with our consent.

I can't believe these responses. I asked for help, not a lecture. I love him, don't you realise that? He was raped and battered as a child. Are we just supposed to ignore damaged people?

If you don't ge
t out of the relationship, then you're going to end u
p another one of the damaged people. And who will hel
p you then?

Ask your friends for their support in dealin
g with him. When his violence begins, leave the house an
d go and stay with a friend.

I can't walk out on him. He needs me. And I can't tell my friends because I'm too ashamed to admit to them that I'm in a relationship with a man who batters me.

Sooner or later they're
going to notice and then they're going to feel angry
that you've excluded them from something so important.

How come
you're the one who's ashamed, not him? He's the one
dishing out the violence, after all.

Like I said at the
start, fight back. Let him know what being hurt feels
like.

He knows what being hurt feels like. He spent his childhood being hurt. And he is ashamed of his violence. He hates himself for his behaviour, and he's always really sorry afterwards.

Well, whoopee shit! That must really help
your bruises!

This is the first time I've been in
this loo and I can't believe how unsupportive you're all being
to this woman! Sister, there is counselling available. You deserve
help; there's a number for the confidential helpline in the student
handbook. Use it, please.

It's not just you that needs
counselling. Tell your boyfriend that unless he comes for counselling
with you, you will leave him. If he refuses, then
you know his apologies aren't worth a toss.

Leave him; tell
him you'll only take him back once he has had
counselling and learned to deal with his problem in a way
that doesn't include violence. Anything else is a betrayal of all
the other women who get battered every day.

Thanks for the suggestion. I've phoned the helpline and we're both going to meet the counsellor next week.

I still say leave hi
m till he's got himself sorted out. He's only going t
o end up resenting you for making him go through al
l this shit.

I'm glad you've taken this step forward; le
t us know how you go on.

Sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you all. My lectures were moved out of this building for a couple of weeks because of the ceiling collapse. We've had three joint counselling sessions so far and I really feel that things are getting better!

You mean he only batters you once a week instea
d of every night?

Now he's made the first step, yo
u can tell him you're going to move out till th
e course of counselling has finished.You owe it to yourself an
d to the other victimised women out there to show thi
s batterer that he is no longer in a position of powe
r over you.

Well done. Good luck.

I'm not moving out on him. I'm going to stick with him because he's trying so hard. He's really making the effort to deal with his anger and to resolve the conflicts that make him lash out at me. I love him, everybody seems to keep forgetting that. If you love somebody, you want to help them get better, not abandon them because they're not perfect.

Answer the question; is he still hitting you?

O
h for God's sake, leave her alone. Can't you see she'
s having enough of a struggle helping the guy she loves withou
t having the holier-than-thou tendency on her back?

Save us fro
m the bleeding hearts. If he's still hitting her, she's stil
l collaborating with his oppressive behaviour. She should walk away whil
e she can still walk.

So where's she supposed to go
? A woman's refuge packed with damaged kids and mothers isn't exactl
y the ideal place to study, is it?

Anywhere's got t
o be better than a place where you get hurt constantly.

An
d you think battering someone is the only way to hur
t them? Grow up!

He hasn't hit me for over a week now. He's made a real breakthrough. He has contacted his mother for the first time in three years and confronted her with the abuse he experienced from his stepfather. He says he feels like he's released so much pressure just by telling her about it.

Surprise, surprise. Now he's found a woman to blame
, he's going to be all right.

Yeah, how come h
e hasn't confronted the abuser? How come he has to offloa
d his guilt on his poor bloody mother who was probabl
y battered too?

Leave him. You are perpetuating the circle of violence. He will se
e your forgiveness as condoning his behaviour. Break out. Now. I
f you stay, you are as bad as he is.

Don'
t listen to them. Stick with him. You are making progress
. People can change.

Bollocks. Been there, done that, got th
e bruises. Men who abuse do it because they like it
, not because of some behaviour pattern they can change a
s easily as giving up smoking. The only way to sto
p being the victim of abuse is to walk away.

He is making changes. I know he is. It's not easy for him and sometimes it feels like he hates me because I'm the one who persuaded him to confront his problems, he's started to get really jealous and suspicious, even following me to lectures sometimes. He's convinced that because I suggested the counselling, I'm seeing some women's group that is trying to talk me into leaving him. If he only knew the truth! Are there any women out there who have been through this, who would be prepared to do some one-to-one counselling with me?

Ah, the power of the sisterhood o
f the toilet wall! He's right, though, isn't he? We ar
e trying to make you see sense and get out o
f this destructive relationship.

Sounds like you're swapping one problem fo
r another. The guy is major-league bad news. Sometimes if yo
u love people, the best thing you can do for the
m is to leave them.

I know what you're going through.
I'll meet you on Saturday morning on the Kelvin walkway
under the Queen Margaret Drive bridge at ten thirty. Come
alone. Make sure he's not with you. I'll be watching.
If you can't make this Saturday, I'll be there every
week until you can.

From the
Scottis
h
Sunda
y
Dispatch
:

BODY FOUND IN RIVER KELVIN

Police launched a murder hunt last night after the battered body of a woman student was found floating in the River Kelvin.

A woman walking her dog on the river walkway near Kelvinbrige spotted the body tangled in the roots of a tree.

Police revealed that the victim, who was fully dressed, had been beaten about the head before being thrown in the river.

The woman, whose name is not being released until her family can be contacted, was a secondyear biochemistry student at Glasgow University.

Police are appealing for witnesses who may have seen the woman and her attacker on the Kelvin walkway upstream of Kelvinbridge yesterday.

A spokeswoman for the Students' Union said last night, ‘This is a terrible tragedy. When a woman gets killed in broad daylight in a public place, you start wondering if there is anywhere that is safe for us to be.'