She spent a couple of hours sorting through the relics of her youth, sustaining herself with cups of tea. Some of the memorabilia was so familiar, handled and examined so many times that the objects were like extensions of her physical self. Daphne’s prized piece of amber was there with its lifelike fly suspended within – the stolen insect now aged fifty million and thirty-eight years. Amongst the theatre programmes, birthday cards and bleached-out Polaroid snaps, she located a couple of notebooks and pocket diaries and placed them on the kitchen table along with the bulging paper bag. At six thirty she ate a bowl of muesli, reading through the diaries with attention and taking notes. She showered, dried her hair with care and greeted Michael with a smile, unwilling to drag him into her plan yet. Even after so little sleep, she felt like a soldier before battle – afraid, but ready to face the fire.
DC Medlar had not come in when she called the police station at eight, so she left her mobile number and asked that he ring her as soon as possible. This spoilt her plan of going straight there – her first work meeting was not till eleven. She tried ringing him again from the bus to no avail. ‘Please tell him it’s important.’ At lunchtime, there was a message from the policeman on her mobile: ‘Hi, Jane, sorry to miss you.’ He left his number, but it went straight to voicemail. By the time they eventually spoke it was mid-afternoon and the exhaustion of the previous night was kicking in. She explained she needed to talk with him urgently about Ralph Boyd’s case, even though it had been shelved. She had evidence that Daphne was not the only child he abused. ‘Please-call-me-Gareth’ was caught up for the rest of the day and away all weekend on work, but could she come and make a statement on Monday morning?
On the way home, the bus took so long she fell asleep, waking to find her cheek pressed against the cold condensation on the window. The roads were choked with the Friday evening rush hour and she considered getting off and walking, but was too tired. Daphne and Libby would be in Greece by now, she thought. Excited, relieved, happy to be doing something spontaneous. It was bewildering that Daphne could forgive Ralph’s crimes as simply and unquestioningly as turning off a light. Could she not see that she was actually harming other young people with this behaviour? One can only protect the vulnerable and the underage from sex attacks and rape by exposing wrongdoing and making it clear that actions have consequences. If men can’t keep their penises in their pants around a child, they must know there’ll be trouble. Why the hell should future Ralphs get away with crimes against children?
She had never told anyone what happened with Ralph – how could she? The memories were nauseating but clear, like meat in aspic. She had now written down the exact timeline for Gareth. It had become external and real. It was a document. On Saturday 1st July 1978, Mr Boyd sexually assaulted me and we had unlawful sexual intercourse. I was fifteen at the time and a virgin. She knew how the questioning would go. It was a relief to face it squarely, cutting slices of the disgusting aspic dish and placing them in a line for analysis. There had long been two versions of the story – the one she told herself as a girl and the one she understood as a woman – but, unlike Daphne, she knew which version was correct. Children cannot always judge what is best for them and they certainly don’t always do the right thing. That is why they need care and protection.
It was a grey summer’s day, that Saturday in 1978. She had the date written down. The skies threatened rain but never delivered. She had arranged to go over to Barnabas Road but they hadn’t specified exactly when. It was like that then – you could just show up at someone’s home and no one thought it strange. By the time she knocked at Daphne’s house it was after lunch. There was no answer. The front door was usually left unlocked and she pushed it open and went inside, calling out ‘Hello?’ Theo came mooching barefoot down the stairs.
‘Oh, hello. Everyone’s out. Are you looking for my sister?’ He seemed bored, or maybe stoned. She could hear distant music playing, presumably from up in his room: Kraftwerk – electronic and geeky like him.
‘Do you know when she’ll be back? We were meant to be meeting up.’
‘Haven’t a clue. She might’ve gone shopping or something on the High Street. Want to wait in her room?’
She made herself at home in the top-floor bedroom, fidgeting pleasurably in the leatherette beanbag and listening to Elton John – comforting as a bar of chocolate. When that got boring, she looked through the clothes in the wardrobe and tried on a few things that didn’t look too tiny. Her first choice was the racoon-tailed Davy Crockett hat, which made Daphne look raffish and funny as well as pretty. Jane longed to be that sort of girl. Then, despite it being summer, she put on the short Afghan coat with embroidered flowers across the back. Finally, the most irresistible item: a pair of purple, needlecord shorts. Having squeezed herself into them, she lay down on the floor and squirmed as they did with new jeans. The zip edged its way up and, though the tiny shorts barely covered her pants, she felt triumphant. Several minutes were spent posing in front of the mirror, admiring her corseted tummy, and turning this way and that as the racoon tail swung back and forth. She inhabited Daphne through her clothes, taking on her aura of boldness. It was so liberating, she felt inebriated and transformed.
There was a small scratching noise at the door, but before she could say anything or move, Ralph was standing there, a cartoon of disappointment: expectant eyebrows plummeted, the smile drooped, and his gaze flickered around the room as if he might spot Daphne concealed beneath the bedcovers. He managed, ‘Hello, Lady Jane!’
‘Hello.’ Though she was desperately embarrassed to be found crammed inside Daphne’s clothes, she also felt protected by them, as though she might be able to behave more as her friend would. She stared back at him, before casually removing the hat and coat and dropping them on the floor. There was nothing she could do about the shorts.
Ralph had only been back from America a few weeks and she hadn’t seen him for almost a year. He looked tired. She knew Daphne was playing games since his return, as if punishing him for going away. She missed appointments and told him about parties with boys of her age. Appearing to gather his wits, Ralph strode over and kissed Jane on each cheek. ‘How lovely! You do look well. And where’s our friend? Hiding?’
She felt a blush rising and, to conceal it, she went to the record player, where Goodbye Yellow Brick Road had finished, and returned the disc to its sleeve. ‘No,’ she replied. ‘I haven’t seen her. Theo says she might be on Putney High Street. I was just waiting.’
Ralph spoke with his back to her, staring out of the window at the river. ‘Shall we make a search party? I’ve got Maurice here – we could drive around and see if we spot her.’ She saw him notice her bare legs and felt a flash of the power of youth that usually eluded her. This was the realm of desire in which Daphne existed and which she longed to taste. She hurried down the stairs ahead of Ralph, imagining his eyes on her, hoping, treacherously, that Daphne would not return before they left.
For a long time, Jane felt guilty about her eagerness on that day and certainly hadn’t held anything against Ralph. Indeed, she remembered being rather pleased when, at Daphne’s summer-solstice party the following year, Ralph appeared to resurrect his interest in her and pulled her into a clinching dance on the unmown grass. It was only in recent years that she had finally been able to view these events through the correct lens: adolescents want to experiment and push boundaries, they are obsessed with their bodies and it’s up to adults to help them do the right thing. But, even now, she could summon up the tightly knotted fear and sexual craving that overwhelmed her.