There has been a little confusion of late over the definition of a troll. One is short-tempered, ugly and lives under a bridge. The other is a warped, lonely male probably still living in his mother’s basement, with stale ejaculate in the cracks of his computer keys.
‘@rapehernow disgusting bitch . . . should have been aborted with a clothes hanger’ and ‘SHUT YOUR WHORE MOUTH . . . OR ILL SHUT IT FOR YOU AND CHOKE IT WITH MY DICK’ were probably not the ideal greetings first thing in the morning. But, as Phyllis’s court case came closer, the abuse on social media became more cretinously cacophonous.
Every time I turned on my iPhone there’d be a twisted message on Twitter. ‘Nine Nos and one Yes is still a Yes, bitch.’ ‘Raping a prostitute’s not rape. It’s shoplifting, slag.’
Chantelle’s Facebook, Snapchat, Whatsapp and AskFM sites were clogged with equally delightful messages from strangers announcing that she’d ‘seen more pricks than a second-hand dartboard’. Or telling her to drink bleach, hang herself or cut off her vagina, as she was a ‘diseased slut’. Cyber-bullies created a Facebook page, posting Chantelle’s obituary. A fake profile in her name offered abusive comments about men and how to frame them with rape claims. We closed her accounts and reported the abuse to the police but were told it would take weeks to investigate.
Television offered no respite. It seemed that whenever we gathered on the sofa after supper and tuned in, some chippy ‘comedian’ would be thrusting his testosteroned misogyny down our throats.
‘The cops said “Men who rape will be named” . . . Cool, can I have “Nightstriker” or has that already been taken?’ bantered some weedy bloke on a comedy panel.
‘The only girl in the room said, “I’ve often wondered if I’m strong enough to stop someone trying to rape me” . . . Turns out she’s not,’ leered another, as the studio audience roared with hilarity.
Flicking on the radio one morning, I heard a politician pontificating that a woman being sexually assaulted while she’s drunk ‘is akin to falling over when inebriated’.
‘Except, of course, the pavement doesn’t choose to insert itself into your vagina,’ I grumbled back.
Even when shopping for new trainers with Portia at the shopping centre, the lyrics of rap songs seared into my psyche. ‘Mad cases of manslaughter, I rape this man’s daughter, then put the shit on camcorder,’ I was charmingly serenaded in the shoe shop, along with other songs about ‘ho’s and ‘slapping my bitch up’.
I tried to make a joke out of my discomfort by covering my daughter’s ears, but she shrugged me off. Since my mother and I had forbidden contact with her grandfather, my once effusive, ebullient child would utter only a few grunts in our direction. In a supermarket queue we stood behind an old codger who was holding the hand of a little girl. ‘Why can’t I get to know my grandfather? I mean, it’s not like I have a dad any more,’ Portia implored. It was the most she’d said in weeks. Even the traumatized, shell-shocked Chantelle was more verbal than Portia these days.
‘Your father, who has the loving and affectionate nature of volcanic rock, is otherwise occupied in his role of emotionally constipated shagger of my ex-friends’ is what I wanted to say, but I bit my tongue, replying instead, ‘Your daddy loves you very much, but had to go away on a research trip.’ Which sounded like the crap it was. Portia marched off towards the car, her eyes rolling. Since the arguments about Danny had begun, she had been doing so much eye-rolling, passers-by must be wondering if epilepsy ran in the family.
But, even though Roxy had banned us from having anything to do with Danny, Danny was obviously determined to have a lot to do with us. With ‘Shoemaker and the Elves’ fairy-tale magic, we’d wake in the morning to find the front door painted or the garden weeded. The gate no longer squeaked and the hedge was pruned. There were suddenly flower boxes on the outside sills and no leaves in the guttering. Not only were our cars waxed and polished, but Roxy’s MG Midget could now reverse and the soft top opened and closed with ease. Roxy was reluctant to believe this was all Danny’s doing until the parking officer who was about to tow her car was found hanging from a tree branch by his pants.
‘Okay, now that’s classic Danny,’ Roxy drawled, with the tiniest hint of begrudging appreciation.
Nathaniel was also paying us a lot of attention. He’d discovered that my mother kept bees, as did he. ‘Bees are endangered, just like beautiful, smart, feminist women,’ he’d said. It gave him the perfect excuse to drop in with jars from his own hive. Then he’d linger and stall over coffee and tea, which often turned into joining us for dinner, followed by wine and nightcaps. Whenever Nathaniel was around, the Countess laughed flirtatiously and made many extravagant, comical gestures with her arms. Roxy would always turn up in her tightest leopardskin trousers. The downside to this intestine-constricting sartorial pant choice was that one night she ate a cupcake too many and they split at the crotch.
‘That cake was the straw that broke the camel-toe’s back,’ the Countess quipped, and they both fell about, killing themselves laughing. If the death threats didn’t get them, their own riotous cackling surely would. Or perhaps ‘toy-boy-itis’ would be the cause of my mother’s demise? Roxy was currently dating a 24-year-old gym instructor. I’d had to give her new partner a safe-sex talk, as in, what to do if my mother has a heart attack.
Eventually, his addiction to computer games tried her patience. She kicked him out and joined us for a celebratory helping of Phyllis’s scrumptious Beef Wellington.
‘I simply can’t believe you’re over fifty, Roxy,’ Nathaniel flattered.
‘It’s all those age-preserving chemicals found only in champagne,’ I said a little censoriously, as I watched my mother down her third glass in a gulp. ‘You really shouldn’t encourage her, Nathaniel. She’s quite bad enough already.’
‘The badder the woman, the better, in my view,’ he flirted. ‘I so enjoy coming around to your house. It’s like entering a comedic coven. But where’s Portia’s father, if you don’t mind me asking? What happened to him?’
‘The glass slipper didn’t fit Tilly any more,’ Roxy volunteered, mid-munch.
‘Yeah. It’s on another woman’s foot,’ the Countess added.
‘Okay! No need to blab my entire life history to all and sundry.’
‘I hope you consider me to be a little more than “sundry”,’ Nathaniel said, placing his hand over mine.
Roxy and the Countess signalled astonished delight through ocular semaphore.
Portia always says that a smirk is a thought that appears on your face. And I did a lot of smirking that night, as Nathaniel kept finding any excuse to brush up against me, take my arm or touch my leg. Now that he’d ascertained my single status, a date could not be far off.
As Nathaniel’s interest in me became more obvious, the only thing that could wipe the smile off my face was my deteriorating relationship with my daughter. Not only was Portia communicating exclusively by grunt, but her school marks were dropping. Her religious studies teacher sent me a copy of her essay on Buddhism, which started, ‘Buddha is something you spread on bread.’ Her economics teacher said that her essay on globalization had been a paragraph-long rant about the Western world getting too fat, which Portia described as ‘globulization’. The teacher wanted to know if anything was going on at home.
Of course, these were small border wars compared to Phyllis’s predicament, but I was starting to wonder if it was too late to reconsider rigorous boarding schools and arranged marriages. But, finally, one Saturday afternoon, I heard Portia’s voice fire with enthusiasm, ‘Wow! Oh, wow!’ She was peering through the living-room curtain. A scallop of sunlight fell across her face, reminding me of her delicate beauty. She bounded for the door. Curiosity meant I wasn’t far behind her.
It was the first time I’d seen my father in daylight. I stood for a moment, peering at him. My daughter’s high forehead and long limbs, the dimple we both shared – these obviously came directly from him. He was battle-scarred but handsome, strongly built, with bulging muscles. His eyebrows resembled worn toothbrush bristles. He didn’t look like the demon of my nightmares but more like an amiable, fighting-fit, slim-line Santa: a man who should be in a big chair in Harrods, as kids wriggled in his lap, whispering action-figure names in his ear.
I was still taking stock of him when I heard my mother’s footfall in the hall behind me. ‘Don’t tell me, it must be National Asshole Day.’
‘Peace offering.’ Danny held a bottle of wine out to my mother. ‘A nice Aussie drop of red. I think the label reads, “Because we’re fussy bastards”.’
Roxy pushed past Portia and me to slam the door. Danny put out a muscular arm to prop it ajar. And so we stood there, three generations of the Devine clan, facing our phantom patriarch.
‘The law of machoness prohibits men from admitting that we’re ever wrong. But you’re right, Roxy. I have been the world’s biggest asshole and I want to spend the rest of my days making it up to you. And getting to know my daughter.’ He patted me gingerly on the back, as if I were an unknown dog which might bite his hand off. ‘And, of course, my darling granddaughter. Can you find it in your hearts to forgive me?’
‘Can’t you see he’s sorry, Gran?’ Portia chirped. ‘He has such a puppy-dog look.’
‘Then get him wormed,’ Roxy scowled.
‘The thing is, when I was born . . . way back in, oh, about 1533, we didn’t question authority. I was only twenty when I joined the force. I thought I was just doing my job . . . But when I found out we were using the names of dead babies . . .’ Danny looked down at his feet, totally dejected. ‘Well, it turned my stomach. And then I fell for you, Rox . . . Which meant I had to leave Special Branch and get out of your life. Because how could I confess the truth to you? You would have hated my guts anyway. The police force used and abused me, too, you know,’ he said bitterly. ‘But I would never have scarpered if I’d known you were expecting. On that, you have my word.’
‘Gee, let me add that to my list of things I don’t give a fuck about.’
‘You’re as beautiful as ever, Rox. I have a face which would launch a thousand dredgers, barges, tugs . . . I know that. But I do have a big and loyal heart. And I want to give it to you.’
I sensed genuine contrition and melted a little towards him, but Roxy answered by slamming the door on his arm. He leapt back, yelping. Portia made a move towards the door. My mother blocked her, arms folded.
‘I’m sorry, possum. But this is for your own good. You just don’t understand the male of the species, darling.’
‘That’s because you never let me meet any!’ Portia retorted mulishly, before executing another exaggerated eyeroll.
‘If you keep doing that, darl, you’re definitely going to shake loose a few brain cells. And then all those Montessori pre-school fees and maths tutoring will have been for nothing.’
My daughter looked to me for help, her eyes large and pleading.
‘Danny does seem genuinely sorry, Mum. He says he really loves you,’ I ventured.
‘Yeah, he loves me kinda like an Aztec high priest loves the still-throbbing heart of his human sacrifice.’
‘My grandpa’s not the type to give up, you know,’ Portia said rebelliously.
‘That’s because the man’s not normal. If he was a normal man, I would hit him repeatedly over the head with copies of The Female Eunuch until he bled to death, repenting.’
‘I agree with Portia, Mum. Somehow, I don’t think killing Danny would entirely eliminate his desire to befriend us. I suspect he would just come back and haunt us.’
A note came through the letterbox, followed by a disembodied male voice. ‘This is where I’m living, temporarily. The lift seems to be powered by oxen and I have to share a communal laundry with several Baltic republics. But you’re all welcome, any time.’
I picked up the folded piece of paper from the mat and scanned the address. It was a flat on the canal near King’s Cross. Portia snatched the note and memorized it, too, before Roxy grabbed it back and tore it up.
Half an hour before my daughter went missing again, I was sitting up in bed with a coffee and a Sunday newspaper, vaguely wondering what gift to give Portia for her thirteenth birthday while also concerned about a world in which Saudi women can be electronically chipped so that an alarm goes off if they try to escape, when a phone call came from Portia’s best friend, Amelia, informing me that my daughter hadn’t turned up to dance class. A Saudi-type electronic chip was starting to look like a pretty attractive birthday gift all of a sudden . . .
My mother and I drove straight to the address Danny had given us. The whole harrowing trip, I experienced once more that cold, nauseous shock of dread all parents feel when a child goes missing. We parked half on the pavement and, the car wheels still spinning, shot up the stairs. I banged on Danny’s door while my mother took aim with her capsicum spray.
‘What kept you?’ Danny said, motioning us inside. He had opened a bottle of wine and put out three glasses on the coffee table. Portia was curled up on her grandfather’s couch, eating birthday cake. She looked so happy it was as though she were being tickled from the inside with a feather.
Even though I hadn’t had breakfast, I immediately took a big, nerve-soothing swig of vino. ‘Some day, Portia, when you have your own children, you’ll understand why I drink.’ What with dating, InterRailing, sex talks and driving tests to come, I needed Valium even to contemplate the years ahead. When women I meet at work tell me how stressed they are with their small children, I think to myself – Just you wait!
‘Don’t give the kid a hard time. Portia’s supposed to be rebellious. I mean, she’s practically a teenager – the period when your offspring are certain they’ll never be as bloody stupid as their parents. When she’s having a teen tantrum, I suggest you just keep eye contact, back off slowly and sleep on the nature strip,’ Danny joked in an attempt to ease tensions.
Roxy turned her capsicum spray in Danny’s direction. ‘What the hell would you know about raising a kid?’
‘Nothing, worse luck,’ Danny admitted. ‘But I want to learn. I know you don’t believe me,’ he entreated earnestly, ‘but I’ve changed. You changed me. You changed my world view on everything. Nuclear weapons. Animal testing. Even page-three topless models . . . Jesus, do you remember the time we stormed the Miss World contest and flour-bombed the judges?’ He gave a crinkle-eyed smile.
‘Who could forget?’ my mother said. ‘Those Miss Worlds couldn’t spell their country’s name without looking at their sash.’
‘And you suggested to the press that it was only fair that women who’d had cosmetic enhancement assure the judges that at least 75 per cent of their body parts came from their country of origin.’
‘Oh God, I do remember that. Then you got hold of the loudhailer and announced that the beauty contestants from countries with military dictatorships must vow not to topple duly elected winners.’
Danny grinned. ‘Yeah, that’s right. Just before you got arrested.’
‘Christ, don’t remind me. I was wearing a sash that read “Fuck You!”’
A momentary truce ensued. My mother holstered her capsicum spray back into her leopardskin handbag and sat down at the small kitchen table.
‘You got arrested?’ Portia asked, enthralled, all big eyes and ears.
‘Hon, why don’t you get along to dance class now and leave the grown-ups to talk for a bit, there’s a good girl.’ The dance studio was only a block or two from here, in Bloomsbury. She could walk quite safely and join in the last hour of her class. ‘Your mum and I will pick you up afterwards and go shopping for birthday presents, okay?’
‘Okay, Gran.’ My daughter beamed. Her job here was done. All the people she most cared about were sitting in the same room, talking things through, and there were no visible lethal weapons, obvious body wounds or signs of bloodshed. As soon as Portia skipped down the stairs, Roxy turned towards Danny.
‘If I changed you so much, why did you bugger off?’
‘I didn’t want to shatter your illusions. How you would have hated me had you known the truth – that I was working undercover.’
‘People trusted me, Danny! People believed you were who you said you were because I had welcomed you into my life.’
‘Yeah. I know. Doesn’t exactly win me Boyfriend of the Year, right?’
‘And why now? Why come back after all this time?’
‘Do you really want to know?’ Danny sat down opposite Roxy.
‘Yes.’
‘Well, I’ve always had this inclination to small, invigorating bursts of danger. Jesus. I’ve got so many bullet scars and wounds after my Special Services mission in Afghanistan, my chest X-rays look like the national grid. But then I really nearly did die. I was bodysurfing. In Sierra Leone. Got dragged out by a rip. It was a remote, ugly place. I can only remember the floppiness of my arms and that feeling of shifting apart from everything. I lay on my back, I cried, swore, said things like “Oh God!” a lot.’
‘There’s no such thing as an atheist in a big surf,’ Roxy interjected flippantly.
‘And then all I could think about was you, Roxy . . . Okay, I’ve had a lot of women. Sure. But I never felt the same connection. I couldn’t settle . . . Anyways, my next memory is of touching a sandbank with my foot. By giving up trying to swim, I’d drifted free of the rip and washed ashore like an old bit of driftwood. I crawled up the beach, threw up, then lay on the warm sand, waiting for the loneliness to go away. Only it didn’t . . . and I realized for the first time that I won’t be here for ever. And that there’s only ever been one person I’ve ever given a damn about.’
‘A woman would have to have a heart of stone to listen to that story . . . and not guffaw hysterically,’ Roxy scoffed.
‘Fair enough. I don’t blame you for being sceptical. But actions speak louder than words. Your line of work is dangerous, Roxy. You ruffle a lot of feathers. And, well, with my training and skills, I just figured there could be times when I could be useful. Protection, phone tapping, breaking and entering, surveillance, some persuasive conversations with wife beaters in which they’re dangled by the scrotum from the odd windowledge . . . Is there anything I could do for you right now, for example?’ When Roxy ignored him, he turned to me. ‘Matilda?’
‘Well,’ I sighed, ‘I have been feeling the need to wear a bulletproof bra of late . . . what with all these abusive tweets.’
‘Abusive? How abusive?’
‘Let’s just say that the word “pussy” is being used in a nonfeline context.’
Danny flinched and his jaw muscles flexed.
‘It’s just some scrote of a troll.’ Roxy waved a dismissive arm. ‘Just tweet back suggesting he try not to use words that are bigger than his dick.’
‘Roxy doesn’t take death threats seriously. When she got a Twitter message recently from some maniac, warning that he was going to hunt her down and kill her, she tweeted back “I’m in Boots on Camden High Street, buying haemorrhoid cream. See you there!”’
Danny’s face went granite hard. ‘This isn’t funny, Roxanne.’
I looked at my mother, amazed. I’d never heard anybody use her full name.
‘Trolls hate women because they’re so repulsive they never get laid. If a troll went to a prostitute, she’d get a headache.’
‘Roxy’s blasé, but I’m terrified. Portia’s safety’s my only priority. One guy is threatening to throw battery acid over us, like some crazed Muslims did to those poor English girls in Zanzibar. “Do you like to eat?” he tweeted. “Coz acid likes to eat you.”’
‘Show me,’ Danny said stonily, putting his hand out for my mobile.
I helped him click on to my Twitter feed and let the abuse scroll down the screen:
‘I’m gonna be the first thing u c when u wake up, man-hating bitch.’
‘Drink bleach and die, fuckface.’
‘Silence is golden, but duck tape is silver.’
‘You carpet-munching cunts needs to get raped.’
‘RAPE RAPE RAPE RAPE.’ #hopeyougetraped.
‘A car bomb will go off outside your house at midnight. I will be watching you to make sure you burn.’
‘Hi again slut!! It took twitter 30 minutes to ban me before. I am here again to tell you I will rape you tomorrow at 6.pm.’
‘Do these assholes know where you live?’ Danny asked quietly.
‘Well, I did get a rock through my window. And, I don’t know if it’s related, but my bike was chained up outside the house the other night and it got mangled.’
I clicked on to my iPhone camera icon and showed Danny a photo of my twisted bicycle. ‘As you can see, I think it might be time to buy a new bike.’
‘What kind? Armoured? Steel-plated? Or perhaps a stealth bicycle with long-range missiles and a couple of drones aboard?’
‘For God’s sake, calm down, both of you.’ Roxy sighed. ‘Truth is, if you’re possessed of breasts and an opinion, you attract trolls quicker than the three Billy Goats Gruff. It’s all bluster and bullshit.’
‘You don’t know that, Rox. You need protection. Call the cops again. Or let me hassle them for you. I’ve still got some good mates on the force.’
‘We’re big girls. Phyllis’s case will be over in two weeks and then things will go back to normal.’
‘Roxanne, this is serious. You need help.’
‘Don’t tell me what I do and don’t need!’ She wagged a chastening finger.
‘You can’t be expected to cope with this kind of threat on your own.’
‘Well, I’ve coped very well on my own so far. Where the hell were you when I did need you, ’eh? To do the midnight feeds and go to parent–teacher night? If I can cope with that on my own, I can cope with these filth-breathing fleabags.’
‘I have all the gadgets and gizmos of the PI trade. Let me help you. I’ll do surveillance on your house. I have GPS trackers that can be deployed magnetically anywhere on a vehicle. Anyone acting suspiciously, I can track him and see exactly where he lives, then, thanks to Google Earth, focus on his kitchen and see what he’s having for fucking breakfast.’
‘Maybe we should take up Danny’s offer of help, Mum? If only for Portia’s sake. The police aren’t doing much. And so many of the Twitter accounts are bogus anyway, set up on stolen phones with aliases . . .’
‘Let’s just compromise and say I’m right, shall we?’ Roxy said curtly. ‘After the court case, this will all blow over.’
‘Maybe so, but it would make me feel safer to have a little protection,’ I countered.
My mother took a beat. ‘Really? And who do you think has been protecting this family all these years? The whole reason we started Pandora’s, Tilly, was to protect women from men like him.’ She pointed at Danny.
Danny’s face drooped. ‘The trouble with you, Roxy, is that you can’t see a belt without wanting to kick below it.’
‘And who do you think made me that way?’ Anger was bubbling beneath the surface of her words. ‘I brought up Matilda as a single parent. I blamed myself for the fact that my daughter had lost her father . . . When all the time you were probably working undercover a few friggin’ miles away.’
Whatever brief camaraderie had flared between my parents was now extinguished.
‘Yes, Danny’s a submarine dad,’ I agreed. ‘I mean, the man just sank without trace. But now that he’s surfaced unexpectedly, why don’t we let him make amends by helping us?’ I suggested.
‘Absolutely not.’ She rounded on Danny, her mouth a thin slit. ‘You see the mess you’re making? You’re already dividing me from my daughter and granddaughter. No wonder you made a good fighter. You’re a born soldier. You just go around lobbing hand grenades into people’s lives.’
Danny shook his head emphatically. ‘When I nearly drowned, Christ, all I could think about was how I’d wasted my life . . . The sour taste of that. It changed me, Roxy.’
‘You say you’ve changed, but the point is, who the hell are “you”? Cop? Crusader? Masquerader? . . . “Hi, I’m Danny. Allow me to introduce my selves.” You should hire a detective and have yourself followed!’
‘I want to make up for all the deceit, Roxy.’
‘You can never make up for it. Don’t you get it? I don’t know how else to say it without a police restraining order. We don’t need men. And we most certainly don’t need you. Come on, Matilda.’
My mother clomped out of the apartment and down the rickety stairs. I followed reluctantly. Halfway down, I turned to look back up at my father. He had the look of a drowning man.
After a tense afternoon we ate dinner in uncustomary silence. Even though it was Portia’s thirteenth birthday, and she was heaped high with presents, the mood remained muted. Despondency had set in. Chantelle spent so much time crying, I expected volunteers to start stacking sandbags around her. She was also making noises about leaving the country rather than testifying in any rape trial. She told us she’d even called the police officer in charge of the case, who’d informed her that the evidence was pretty shaky already – the defendants had denied rape, claiming consent. There were no witnesses. Whether the case went on at all depended on her testimony. But dropping the rape charge would seriously imperil Phyllis’s defence . . . Which was no doubt why Phyllis was now making noises, too – about skipping bail. This in turn made the Countess, who’d stood £20,000 bail, decidedly jittery and she doubled her alcohol intake. Portia, after half-heartedly thanking us for her presents, maintained that the best gift of all would be if she could move out and live with her BFF, Amelia, in a ‘normal’ family for a while. She was giving us the cold shoulder for not inviting Danny to her birthday party. Only ‘cold’ was an understatement. Put it this way, if we were at a funeral, she’d be confused with the deceased.
After dinner, I found myself scanning the Employment pages of the Guardian. Nathaniel was away at a conference, so I didn’t even have the delicious distraction of his visits. At a low ebb, we all retired early to toss and turn the night away.
It was after 1 a.m. when I heard the thud – the unmistakable thud of an intruder. I flicked on my side-table lamp. My mother was already on the landing, wearing her alarmingly short, frilly pink nightie covered in pictures of cupcakes – not the most ideal crime-fighting ensemble. Her beehive was listing to the left in full leaning-tower-of-hirsute-Pisa mode. She had Portia’s hockey stick in one hand and her capsicum spray in the other. I picked up an umbrella. Thus brilliantly armed, we rattled down the staircase in tandem. I am normally cowed and cowardly, but Portia’s presence in the house lent me strength and resolution. Besides which, I had my formidable mother as a human shield.
Roxy called out ‘Oy! Who’s there?! I’ve rung the cops, dirtbag.’ From the living room came a wailing sound which might have been feral or human. Or both.
My mother leapt down the last remaining stairs, bellowing obscenities. I followed behind, prepared to face whatever acid-throwing, bomb-planting, bike-mangling rapist troll lay in wait.
When my mother flicked on the light switch, the man in our living room looked ill-defined and blurry at the edges, like a watercolour smudged by rain. His hands were jammed deeply into his pockets, his mouth tightly drawn, his eyes puffy from drinking. At his feet lay the chair he’d tripped over.
‘See? If I can get in so easily, so can a killer. You never would have known I was here if this chair had only taken evasive action . . . But that’s not the real reason I popped by.’ He dropped to one knee. ‘Roxy, will you marry me? Marrying at our age, well, there’s not so much p–p–pressure on the happy–ever–after c–c–clause, right?’
Roxy slowly lowered her hockey stick but, by her stance – legs planted firmly apart, face like thunder – I knew that she hadn’t yet abandoned the idea of clobbering the intruder into a coma.
‘You’re looking at me as though I’ve p–p–pissed on your s–s–shoes.’
‘I’d forgotten how eloquent you are when you’re drunk,’ Roxy finally said.
‘Kiss me, Roxy, darlin’.’ And with that, all six rugged foot of Danny Kincade lunged towards my mother, his mouth puckered.
‘Ugh,’ she said, side-stepping, ‘that’s what I also remember about you. You always want sex when you’re hammered.’
‘That’s not true . . . Sometimes I want a kebab,’ Danny replied from his prone position, where he’d crash-landed on the carpet.
After Roxy had thrown him out, my mother assembled the sleepy female inhabitants of our house into the living room, including a yawning Portia.
‘So, Tilly, what led us to branch out, together, into an alien world of surveillance and sleuthing by starting Pandora’s?’ I looked at her blankly. ‘It can be summed up in one word.’
‘Desperation?’ I suggested.
‘Equality. So, let me say this once and for all. We are not going to be intimidated by any bloke. Now, Chantelle, the Crown Prosecution Service will soon bring charges against your rapists based on your evidence. And yes, there’s a very good chance that the vile footage of your attack, disgustingly overdubbed with moans of pleasure, will be posted online. If you want to back out, nobody would judge you . . . But do you really want those blackmailing bastards to get away with it? And for them to have this power over you for the rest of your life? I do not want to let you become nothing more than a sad statistic. I say we fight back! I say we don’t take rape lying down! I say we nail those amoral monsters so they can never do this to any other woman! I say we fight for Phyllis’s acquittal! Then help Chantelle get those misogynistic ratbags put away in prison, where they’ll hopefully be buggered against their will on a regular basis by twenty-stone, syphilitic psychopaths! Are you with me, girls? What do you say, Phizz?’
Phyllis drew herself up to her full five-foot-nothing height.
‘I say . . . let’s go through ’em for a short cut. Shall we nail ’em . . . Chanty?’
‘I will do it for you, Gran. As long as I can change schools,’ she whispered.
‘Excellent! No woman in this house will ever just lie back and think of England . . . or of Canberra!’ Roxy concluded.
Buoyed up by Roxy’s indomitable spirit – and real spirits, in the form of half a glass of nerve-steadying whiskey – we hugged, a group hug: Chantelle, Phyllis, Portia, Roxy, the Countess and me. My mother then took another husky slug of Glenfiddich and proposed a toast.
‘To Chantelle – the bravest girl I know. To Phyllis, who taught her everything she knows. To victory, because we are bloody well going to win this. To my brilliant barrister daughter, Tilly, who is going to win it for us . . . To Portia – who will one day follow in the family’s high-heeled footsteps and become a legal eagle. To the Countess, who pays for the grog and chocolates which fuel our feminist enterprise . . . And to Pandora’s – where we think outside the bloody box!’