‘What kind of juice?’ said Agnes, playing for time.
‘Mango.’
‘I’ll take tea.’
The preliminaries over with, they sat down in two facing armchairs. Greta’s flat was small but light. Being on the ground floor, Agnes could observe passers-by on the pavement outside. That combined with the comfort of her chair and the steaming cup of tea could have served to make the ensuing silence quite pleasant, had Agnes not found herself becoming rather annoyed. It was her job to comfort and reassure, but she could surely not begin it until Greta had completed her own task of confessing, weeping even, and most importantly requiring her assistance. She began thinking about the more straightforward work she had left behind at the office.
‘You’d better go,’ said Greta. ‘I’m sure you’re busy.’
‘Not at all,’ replied Agnes politely. ‘How are you, anyway?’
‘Fine, fine,’ mused Greta vaguely. ‘The proofs are due back tomorrow and since I didn’t show up there must be heaps to do.’
‘Jean’s taking care of it,’ said Agnes, abandoning her only means of escape, ‘It’s almost finished, anyway. What’s wrong with you, actually?’
Greta gazed at her. She seemed to have no intention of replying. Agnes found something quite unsettling in her bearing, as if she had left her body to go through the motions while her mind hid somewhere dark and quiet.
‘I’ve been thinking about my father,’ Greta volunteered. ‘Normally I don’t think about him, but today he’s been on my mind.’
‘Oh.’
‘I really hate him, you know.’
Interesting though this was, Agnes could not help but wonder nervously where it was all leading.
‘Why?’ she said, hoping for something specific. ‘What makes you hate him?’
Greta gave an explosive snort of laughter.
‘Well, what particularly?’ Agnes persevered. ‘I mean, why has he been on your mind?’
‘Well, I was thinking about the last time he spanked me, actually,’ Greta replied. ‘He pulled down my pants, you know, and did it with his bare hand.’
‘How old were you?’ said Agnes. She couldn’t think of what else to say.
‘About sixteen. What a sleaze, huh?’ Greta folded her arms over her chest. ‘Not that it was anything unusual. It was just kind of part of the scenery in our house. He used to beat all us girls, and my brother too until he got too big to hit. The first time I remember him doing it was when my parents came back from this trip to Toronto. My dad used to go there sometimes for work and Mom would go to shop. Anyhow, they left the others in charge which was pretty dumb, seeing as they were into some weird stuff in those days. When my folks were away they could get pretty wild.’
‘How old were you?’ said Agnes. It sounded even less interesting second time around.
‘About six, I guess. What they used to do was, they would smoke a lot of pot and then they would make me smoke some. Then they used to dress me up in funny clothes, like my sisters’ lingerie, you know, suspender belts and things. Then they would put this big fat joint in my mouth and take pictures of me. Like that. Weird. Anyway, I remember my dad coming in the room and everyone stood up because they were so surprised. They didn’t hear the car or anything. I was kind of lying on this sofa in this dumb underwear and I couldn’t get up because I was so stoned, and he just stared at me, like stared without saying anything. Then he threw the others out and he came over to me and spanked me. You little tart, he said. Thwack.’ Agnes flinched. ‘That’s what he called me, a little tart. I was, like, six!’
Agnes sat in silence. She wished she had never asked Greta about her father. She was unequal to such revelations. There had been a time, a while ago, when she had felt embarrassed by Greta’s candour and somehow superior to it. Now, however, she felt embarrassed by her own inadequacy. Greta had shown her a secret wound, and Agnes had merely driven slowly by like a prurient motorist past a pile-up. She remembered the first night her lover had come back to her house, when they had sat on the bed exchanging pleasantries while the unspoken thrashed and flailed between them. She wondered when exactly in her life she had ceased to act, had ceased to be effective. Every time she came to the brink of another person, their borders lapping, she would draw back, afraid to jump across.
‘Has something happened?’ she said then, rather stiffly.
Greta nodded. Tears began to roll down her cheeks.
‘I was raped!’ she cried, shaking her head. ‘I — he raped me!’
‘Who?’ said Agnes, horrified. ‘Your father?’
‘What? No, not him. That guy, the one — the guy I met on the tube. London Transport.’
She began to sob uncontrollably. Agnes got out of her chair and knelt awkwardly beside her.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ she said. This was a line borrowed from innumerable television dramas which Agnes had hoped to pass off as her own.
‘Not really,’ gasped Greta, her chest heaving.
Agnes regarded her in agony of uncertainty. The television dramas had never dealt with rebuffal. She put a tentative arm around her, and felt Greta sag heavily against it.
‘He came here last night,’ she said thickly. ‘He said he wanted to talk so I let him in. I let him in!’ she cried, turning her shiny face incredulously to Agnes. ‘And he wouldn’t leave, so I said I was going to call the police and then he just kind of came up behind me. And there was nothing I could do. Nothing! He was really strong, you know? I didn’t know people were that strong. I just — I just screamed and screamed.’ A strangled laugh escaped from her throat. ‘And then I hit him with that hat-stand over there. I guess I must have drawn blood. And then he left.’
Agnes felt Greta’s body shake, and then realised that she herself was shaking. She felt sick to her stomach. Her heart felt strangely as if it were actually bleeding. She also felt something else, something rather like anger or disappointment; a blind, enraged surge of bitterness that the world should turn out to be so cruel and inferior a place, when all they had ever done was believe in its authority.
Down at the police station, Greta sat on a bench while Agnes attempted to attract the attention of one of the officials on duty. The station was bleak and neon-lit, and the air was heavy with misdemeanour. A man with wild nest of grey hair was striding up and down the waiting area, ranting at those who entered.
‘It’s black against white,’ he informed Agnes. ‘The forces of evil are rising up, all around! They come by night — they come by night, in the darkness, when we can’t see them. They prowl through the streets!’
‘Go home, then,’ said Agnes curtly. ‘That way you won’t have to worry about it.’
The man strode off, muttering. A few minutes later, Agnes secured a policewoman and related Greta’s misfortune. The woman went to make her a cup of tea. When she returned, she informed Greta that she would have to go to hospital, but that first she would have to give details of the incident. Greta assented quite cheerfully. She seemed to have recovered some of her composure.
‘And then I whacked him over the head with a hat-stand,’ she informed the balding policeman who was taking notes.
‘A hat-stand.’
‘Yeah. Victorian mahogany with these kind of curly bits at the top. Oh, yeah, and when he was leaving I yelled after him, “You bastard, you could at least have worn a condom.” ’
The policeman’s face twitched.
‘Is that all?’ he said.
‘Well, what did you expect me to do?’ Greta demanded. ‘Invite him back for goddamned elevenses?’
Finally Agnes got Greta home. She put her to bed, and stood for a moment watching her sleep. Her face was open and vulnerable. It alerted Agnes to the presence of something new in herself, something small and hard like a marble. By the time she left, it was growing dark.