Killing Me Softly Read online

  When Adam came back, he showed no interest in the article beyond a contemptuous frown at the cover: ‘What the fuck does she know?’ was his only comment. Later, in bed, I read the anonymous criticisms of Greg out to him. ‘What do you think of that, my love?’ I asked.

  He took the paper from my hands and tossed it on to the floor. ‘I think it’s crap,’ he said.

  ‘You mean it’s an inaccurate description of what happened?’

  ‘I forgot,’ he said, laughing. ‘You’re a scientist. You’re interested in the truth.’ He sounded derisive.

  It was like being married to Lawrence of Arabia or Captain Scott or the boy on the burning deck or somebody. Almost everybody I knew found a reason to ring me up in the next couple of days for a chat. People who had been disapproving of the indecent haste with which I had got married suddenly got the point. My dad rang up and chatted about nothing in particular, then casually mentioned having seen the article and suggested we come round some time. In the office on Monday morning, everybody suddenly had something urgent they needed to run by me. Mike came in with his coffee and handed me an unimportant piece of paper. ‘We’re never really tested, are we?’ he said, with a musing gleam in his eyes. ‘It means that we never really know ourselves because we don’t know how we would react in an emergency. It must be wonderful for your… er, husband, to have been at the centre of a disaster and to have come through as he did.’

  ‘What do you mean my er husband, Mike? He’s my husband. I can show you the piece of paper if you like.’

  ‘I didn’t mean anything like that, Alice. It just takes some getting used to. How long have you known him?’

  ‘A couple of months, I suppose.’

  ‘Amazing. I must say that when I first heard about it, I thought you’d gone off your rocker. It didn’t seem like the Alice Loudon I knew. Now I can see that we were all wrong.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Everybody in the office.’

  I was aghast. ‘You all thought I’d gone mad?’

  ‘We were all surprised. But now I can see that you were right and we were wrong. It’s just like in the article. It’s all about the ability to think clearly under pressure. Your husband has it.’ Mike had been looking into his coffee cup, out of the window, anywhere but at me. Now he turned and looked at me. ‘You’ve got it too.’

  I tried to stop myself giggling at the compliment, if that’s what it was. ‘Well, thank you, kind sir. Back to business.’

  By Tuesday I felt I had talked to everybody in the world who had my phone number in their book, except Jake. Even so I was surprised when Claudia told me there was a Joanna Noble on the phone for me. Yes, it was really me she wanted to talk to and not just as a way of getting to Adam. And, yes, it was important and she wanted to meet face to face. That very day, if possible. She would come to somewhere near my office, right now if I had the time. It would only be for a few minutes. What could I say? I told her to come to Reception and an hour later we were sitting in an almost empty sandwich bar round the corner. She hadn’t spoken except to shake my hand.

  ‘Your story has given me a sort of reflected glory,’ I said. ‘At least I’m the wife of a hero.’

  She looked uncomfortable and lit a cigarette. ‘He is a hero,’ she said. ‘Between ourselves, I had qualms about some of the piece, dishing out blame the way I did. But what Adam did up there was incredible.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He is, isn’t he?’ Joanna didn’t respond. ‘I assumed you would be on to another story by now,’ I said.

  ‘Several,’ she said.

  I saw she had a piece of paper which she was fingering. ‘What’s that?’

  She looked down, almost as if it had arrived in her hands without her knowing and she was startled by it.

  ‘This arrived in the mail this morning.’ She handed me the paper. ‘Read it,’ she said.

  It was a very short letter.

  Dear Joanna Noble,

  What you wrote about Adam Tallis made me sick. I could tell you the truth about him if you were interested. If you are interested, look up in newspapers for 20 October 1989. If you want you can talk to me and I’ll tell what he’s like. The girl in the story is me.

  Yours sincerely,

  Michelle Stowe

  I looked up at Joanna, puzzled. ‘Sounds deranged,’ I said.

  Joanna nodded. ‘I get plenty of letters like that. But I went to the library – I mean the archive of newspapers and cuttings at the office – and found this.’ She handed me another piece of paper. ‘It’s not a very big story. It was on an inside page, but I thought… Well, see what you think.’

  It was a photocopy of a small news item headed: ‘Judge Raps Rape Girl’. A name in the first paragraph was underlined. Adam’s:

  A young man walked free on the first day of his trial for rape at Winchester Crown Court yesterday when Judge Michael Clark instructed the jury to find him not guilty. ‘You leave this courtroom without a stain on your character,’ Judge Clark told Adam Tallis, 25. ‘I can only regret that you were ever brought here to answer such a flimsy and unsubstantiated charge.’

  Mr Tallis had been charged with raping Miss X, a young woman who cannot be named for legal reasons, after what was described as ‘a drunken party’ in the Gloucester area. After a brief cross-examination of Miss X, which focused on her sexual history and her state of mind during the party, the counsel for the defence, Jeremy McEwan QC, moved for a dismissal, which was immediately accepted by Judge Clark.

  Judge Clark said that he regretted ‘that Miss X had the benefit of the cloak of anonymity while Mr Tallis’s name and reputation were dragged through the mire’. On the court steps, Mr Tallis’s solicitor, Richard Vine, said that his client was delighted with the judge’s verdict and just wanted to get on with his life.

  When I had finished, I picked up my coffee cup with a steady hand and took a sip. ‘So?’ I said. Joanna said nothing. ‘What is this? Are you planning to write something about it?’

  ‘Write what?’ said Joanna.

  ‘You’ve built Adam up,’ I said. ‘Maybe it’s time to knock him down.’

  Joanna lit another cigarette. ‘I don’t think I deserve that,’ she said coolly. ‘I’ve said everything I have to say about mountaineering. I have no intention of contacting this woman. But…’ Now she paused and looked uncertain. ‘It was more about you than anything else. I didn’t know what was the right thing to do. In the end, I decided it was my responsibility to show you it. Maybe I’m being pompous and interfering. Just forget about it now, if you want.’

  I took a deep breath and made myself speak calmly. ‘I’m sorry I said that.’

  Joanna gave a thin smile and blew out a cloud of smoke. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘I’ll go now.’

  ‘Can I keep these?’

  ‘Sure. They’re only photocopies.’ Her curiosity visibly got the better of her. ‘What are you going to do?’

  I shook my head. ‘Nothing. He was found innocent, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Without a stain on his character, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So I’m going to do nothing at all.’

  Nineteen

  Of course, it wasn’t quite that simple. I told myself that Adam had been found not guilty. I told myself that I had married him and promised to trust him. This was the first test of that trust. I wasn’t going to say anything to him; I wasn’t going to honour the slander with a response. I wasn’t going to think about it.

  Who was I fooling? I thought about it all the time. I thought about this unknown girl, woman, whatever, drunk with a drunk Adam. I thought about Lily, taking off her T-shirt to reveal her pale mermaid’s body and her livid back. And I thought about the way Adam was with me: he tied me down, put his hands around my neck, ordered me to follow his instructions. He liked to hurt me. He liked my weakness under his strength. He watched me carefully to track my pain. As I examined it, sex between us, which had seemed like delirious passion, became
something else. When I was alone in my office, I would close my eyes and remember different excesses. Remembering gave me a queasy and peculiar kind of pleasure. I didn’t know what to do.

  The first night after I had seen Joanna, I told him I felt lousy. My period was about to start. I had back cramps.

  ‘It isn’t due for another six days,’ he said.

  ‘Then I’m early,’ I retorted. God, I was married to a man who knew my menstrual patterns better than I did.

  I tried to joke away my discomfort. ‘It just shows how much we need the Drakloop.’

  ‘I’ll give you a massage. That’ll help.’ He was helping someone in Kennington rebuild a wooden floor, and his hands were more callused than ever. ‘You’re all tense,’ he said. ‘Relax.’

  I lasted two days. On Thursday evening he arrived home with a great bag of groceries and announced he was going to cook, for a change. He had bought swordfish, two fresh red chillies, a gnarled hand of ginger, a bunch of coriander, basmati rice in a brown paper bag, a bottle of purplish wine. He lit all the candles and turned out the lights, so that the dismal little kitchen suddenly looked like a witch’s cave.

  I read the paper and watched him as he washed the coriander carefully, making sure each leaf was free from grit. He laid the chillies on a plate and chopped them finely. When he felt my gaze on him, he put down the knife and came over and kissed me, keeping his hands away from my face. ‘I don’t want you to get stung by chilli,’ he said.

  He made a marinade for the fish, rinsed the rice and left it to stand in a pan of water, washed his hands thoroughly, then opened the wine, pouring some into two unmatching glasses.

  ‘It will be about an hour,’ he said. He put his hand into his trouser pockets and pulled out two slender leather thongs. ‘I’ve been thinking all day about tying you up.’

  ‘What if I say no?’ My voice came out in a blurt. Suddenly my mouth was dry so I found it hard to swallow.

  Adam lifted his glass to his mouth and took a small sip. He looked at me consideringly. ‘How do you mean, no? What kind of no?’

  ‘I’ve got to show you something,’ I said, and went over to my bag and took out the photocopied letter and article. I handed them to Adam.

  He put his wine down on the table and read them through, taking his time. Then he looked up at me. ‘Well?’

  ‘I… the journalist gave them to me and…’ I came to a halt.

  ‘What are you asking me, Alice?’ I didn’t reply. ‘Are you asking if I raped her?’

  ‘No, of course not. I mean, look at what the judge said and – oh, shit, we’re married, remember? How could you not tell me something like this? It must have been a big thing in your life. I want to know what happened. Of course I do. What the hell do you expect?’ To my surprise, I banged the table with my fist so that the glasses jumped.

  For a moment he just looked sad, instead of angry as I had expected. ‘I expect you to believe in me,’ he said in a quiet voice, almost to himself. ‘And be on my side.’

  ‘I am. Of course. But…’

  ‘But you want to know what happened?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Exactly what happened?’

  I took a breath and said firmly, ‘Yes, exactly.’

  ‘You asked for it.’ He poured himself some more wine and sat back in his chair and looked at me. ‘I was at a party at a friend’s house in Gloucestershire. It was eight years ago, I guess. I’d recently returned from America, where I’d been climbing in Yosemite with a mate. We were pretty strung out, ready to have a good time. There were lots of people there, but I didn’t really know any of them, except the guy who was holding the party. There was plenty of drink flowing. Some drugs. People were dancing, kissing. It was summer, hot outside. There were a few couples in the bushes. This girl came up to me and pulled me up to dance. She was pretty drunk. She tried to undress me on the dance floor. I took her outside. She had her dress off while we were still walking across the lawn. We went behind this big tree; I could hear another pair going at it a few yards away. She kept going on about her boyfriend, and how they’d had this big row, and how she wanted me to fuck her, do things to her that he didn’t do. So I did just that. Then she said I had raped her.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘Did she want you to?’ I asked, in a low voice. ‘Or did she ask you not to?’

  ‘Well, now, Alice, that’s an interesting question. Tell me, have you ever said no to me?’

  ‘Yes. But…’

  ‘And have I ever raped you?’

  ‘It’s not that simple.’

  ‘Sex is not that simple. What I do to you, do you like it?’

  ‘Yes.’ Beads of sweat were standing out on my forehead.

  ‘When I tied you up, you asked me to stop, but did you like it?’

  ‘Yes, but… This is ghastly, Adam.’

  ‘You asked for it. When I…’

  ‘That’s enough. It’s still not that simple, Adam. It’s about intention. Hers, yours. Did she want you to stop?’

  Adam took another sip of his drink, swallowed it slowly. ‘Afterwards. She wanted me to have stopped. She wished it hadn’t happened, sure. She wanted her boyfriend back. Then, we want to change things we’ve done.’

  ‘Let’s be clear here. There was no point at which you thought she was resisting or unwilling?’

  ‘No.’

  We stared at each other.

  ‘Although sometimes’ – he went on gazing at me, as if he were testing me – ‘it’s difficult to tell with women.’

  This struck a horribly wrong note. ‘Don’t talk about women like that, as if we were all just generic objects.’

  ‘Well, of course she was an object. So was I. I met her when we were both drunk at a party. I don’t think I knew her name, nor she mine. That’s what we wanted. We both wanted sex. What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘I’m not –’

  ‘Has it never happened to you? It has, you’ve told me so yourself. And isn’t that part of the pleasure at the time?’

  ‘Maybe,’ I admitted. ‘But part of the shame later.’

  ‘Not for me.’ He glared across at me, and I could feel his considerable anger. ‘I don’t believe in worrying about things we can’t change.’

  I tried to keep my voice steady. I didn’t want to cry. ‘That night after we got married. In the cabin. I wanted you to, Adam. I wanted you to do anything that you wanted to do. The next morning when I woke up I felt wrong about it. I felt we’d gone too far, gone somewhere we shouldn’t have.’

  Adam poured me some more wine, and then some for himself. Without me noticing, we’d almost finished the bottle.

  ‘Have you never felt anything like that?’ I asked.

  He nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘After sex?’

  ‘Not necessarily. But I know what you mean.’ He grimaced at me. ‘I recognize the feeling.’

  We drank our wine together, and the candles flickered.

  ‘The swordfish will be marinated enough soon,’ I said.

  ‘I wouldn’t rape someone.’

  ‘No,’ I said. But I thought: how would you know?

  ‘Shall I cook the fish now?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  I hesitated. It was as if my life was on a hinge. I could push it one way or the other; close off one avenue or another. Trust and go mad. Distrust and go mad. From where I stood, it didn’t seem, in the end, to make much difference after all. It was quite dark outside and I could hear the steady drip of rain. The candles were guttering, casting shadows that fluttered on the walls. I stood up and crossed over to where he had dropped the leather thongs. ‘Come on, then, Adam.’

  He didn’t move from his chair. ‘What are you saying?’ he asked me.

  ‘I’m saying yes.’

  But I wasn’t saying yes, not quite. The next day at work I rang up Lily, and arranged to see her early that evening, straight after I left the office. I didn’t want to go to her seamy little basement flat. I didn�
��t think I could sit on the stained sheets surrounded by old photographs of Adam again. I suggested the coffee bar in John Lewis, on Oxford Street – it was the most neutral, least atmospheric place I could think of.

  Lily was there already, drinking cappuccino and eating a large chocolate-chip muffin. She was wearing black woollen trousers, a shaggy mulberry-coloured jersey, ankle boots, and no makeup. Her silver hair was tied back in a loose knot. She looked rather normal and, when she smiled at me, rather sweet. Not so deranged. I smiled back tentatively. I didn’t want to like her.

  ‘Trouble?’ she said genially, as I sat down opposite.

  ‘Do you want another coffee?’ I replied.

  ‘No, thanks. I wouldn’t mind another muffin, though – I haven’t eaten all day.’

  I ordered a cappuccino for me, and another muffin. I stared at her over the rim of my cup and didn’t know where to begin. Clearly Lily didn’t mind the silence, or my discomfort. She ate hungrily, smearing chocolate over her chin. She was a bit like a little child, I thought.

  ‘We didn’t really finish our conversation,’ I said lamely.

  ‘What do you want to know?’ she asked sharply. ‘Mrs Tallis,’ she added.

  I felt a ripple of alarm.

  ‘I’m not Airs Tallis. Why do you call me that?’

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’

  I let it go. After all, there had been no more phone calls or letters for several days now. Not since I had confronted Jake.

  ‘Was Adam ever really violent with you?’

  She gave a yelp of laughter.

  ‘I mean, really violent,’ I said.

  She wiped her mouth. She was enjoying this.

  ‘I mean, were you ever unconsenting?’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean? How do I know? It wasn’t like that. You know what he’s like.’ She smiled at me. ‘By the way, what do you think he’d make of you seeing me like this? Of you checking up on his credentials?’ Again, she gave her quick, spooky giggle.