I got an ancient VCR and an even older ghetto blaster for cheap off someone flogging them in the Ridley Road Market. My room came with a bed, bed linens, comfortable chair, small settee, desk, wardrobe, and a small color TV. I also had a little two-hob cooker and mini-refrigerator. The compact bathroom had a toilet, basin, and stand-up shower. I bought a TV license and charged up a blue plastic electricity key for the pre-pay meter that supplied me with heat. And there I nestled against the warm radiators off the Amhurst Park Road among the Hasidic Jews. This area of Hackney was less rough than further south toward Dalston and Clapham. I was lucky that the building where I lived mostly housed Orthodox Jewish yeshiva students. I didn’t share space with the usual mice and dysfunctional blokes. None of the flats were being used as crack houses, and prostitutes and curb crawlers didn’t do a high-volume business on our street. I still heard the police sirens and helicopters every night but felt safe in my cosy bedsit.
I kept mostly to myself even though I secretly desired a modest social life, isolation being a common symptom of OCD. When I isolated myself, I wasn’t involved in anxiety-provoking situations with other people that over-stimulated my brain and gave me hours of agonizing over every interaction and every little thing I’d said to anyone, wondering if I’d done something wrong. Constantly needing reassurance, that’s another one.
On Sunday afternoons I stayed home religiously to watch the omnibus edition of EastEnders, my favorite soap opera. Sometimes I walked to the Video Exchange on Stamford Hill Road to rent videos. I found a boxing club nearby and went twice a week for four quid a session. And I did enjoy walking around London wrapped up in thoughts about the women in my head, always keeping my eyes open for them.
Now, on a drizzly afternoon, I wrapped my enormous green-and-white Exeter University scarf around my neck, buttoned up my coat over my gray, hooded Jam sweatshirt with the blue, white, and red mod circles large like a target on my chest, and went for a perambulation. I love rain on red brick and, after growing up in a postcard-pretty town—see how far that gets you when you don’t fit in—filled with rich white people, I enjoyed the shabbiness and ethnic diversity of Hackney. I had hated living in a town that was so much prettier than I was. Of course London could be beautiful, but it didn’t make me feel like I had to be perfect in order to live there.
I passed the turquoise “1 Nation” graffiti and went down Vartry Road, a sea of red and brown brick terraces with white lace curtains. In the background, council tower blocks rose into a white sky. I stopped for a Coke at the newsstand, then rounded the corner by the British Rail line. I went up Amhurst Park Road to the shops on Amhurst Parade where the Hasidim hung out in long, black coats. I liked the small shops in this indentation off the main road: the Hebrew Book and Gift Centre, Tasti Pizza, which delivered kosher pizza, a grocer’s, kosher sandwiches, and an off-license. At the end of the parade, the windows of the flats above the shops jutted out with their pale, thin curtains. Opposite Amhurst Parade was a Turkish grocer’s that always had gorgeous smells emanating from it. At the corner of Stamford Hill and Amhurst Park was the massive, dark-brick Safeway. Its letters glistened bright red in the rain. Orthodox women in headscarves wheeled their prams down the aisles. Across the big intersection between Amhurst Parade and Stamford Hill was the Boots Chemists. On Stamford Hill, I got takeaway from Spicy Wok Chinese Food/Fish & Chips, and Uncle Shloime’s.
I jumped on a red double-decker bus and, even though it was only a short ride to Dalston, climbed to the upper level. I always tried to sit on one of the two front seats so I would have the most expansive, unobstructed view of the streets below. It was hard to miss the old Rio Cinema, a large, clunky-looking art-deco building on Kingsland High Street. The cinema specialized in foreign films, and I saw a depressing Iranian one called The Circle about how hard a woman’s lot could be in post-revolutionary Iran.
Outside in the soft, blue neon glow, people sloshed briskly past me. I felt invigorated by the cold, soggy weather and walked up Stoke Newington Road to the Due South for a quiet pint. I was soaking wet by the time I reached the dark blue pub. The silver letters above the front window glittered and blurred between raindrops as I squinted to look up at them. I settled myself at the window with a warm—well, really room temperature—pint of bitter.
A really cute punk woman with spiky, medium-length black hair was sitting at a table near me with some mates. I felt immediately drawn to her in a way I didn’t understand. It was more big-sisterly than sexual. But she had definitely grabbed my attention. She was wearing Doc Martens, black trousers, and a blue Nirvana T-shirt, a picture of Kurt Cobain kneeling down holding his black Strat with the “Vandalism: Beautiful as a Rock in a Cop’s Face” sticker on it that he’d smashed in Paris. The black leather jacket that hung over the back of her chair was peppered with metal and blue-jeweled studs and had a large, black-and-white fabric back patch that was a picture of the Clash up against a wall with their hands up like they were getting nicked. For some reason, she seemed familiar. Was she someone I’d gone to school with? No, she seemed too young for that. But she looked tough, in that cool, Chrissie-Hynde-like way. She looked like someone I’d like to know, and I wondered, post-revelation about animal rights, if her jacket was real leather or some cruelty-free synthetic substitute.
I wished I could say something to her, but I didn’t have the nerve. I couldn’t walk up to a strange woman in a gay pub and say, “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” It would sound like a chat-up line, and I didn’t want to pick her up. I just wanted to meet her and possibly be her friend. I tried out introductions in my head. “Hi, I love your jacket.” My American accent sounded so obscenely pronounced in my own head I couldn’t bear it. “I have that same Nirvana shirt.” Why would I tell her that? Did I think she’d stolen it? “Oi, wotcha, can you tell me where the bog is, mate?” Yes, do tell me where the toilet is so I can flush myself down it. Phony English accents are nauseating. “Hi, my name is Amanda, and I don’t know anyone socially here in London. I’ve selected YOU, yes, lucky you, to be the first person I meet.”
It was only after the punk woman had left with her mates that I realized she reminded me of the younger woman I saw inside my head. Shit! My mind went numb. I felt like my heart had jumped into my throat and I was going to choke on it. I left the pub and started running, but I didn’t know where I was going. I couldn’t see her anywhere. I didn’t know what to do. The rain had stopped. It was a big-mooned, freshly washed night. Because it was late and I was hungry, I walked back down Stoke Newington to the Istanbul Iskembecisi, a Turkish restaurant that stayed open until five in the morning. I passed a twenty-four-hour garage, a grocer’s, then reached Aziziye mosque. It had two silver domes and marble tattooed with intricate blue-and-turquoise designs like flowers. The blue mosque also served as a Halal butcher, restaurant, and supermarket. I liked this part of Hackney with its synagogues and mosques. It could be dodgy late at night with gangs, guns, and drugs, but I felt safe on the main roads, which were well-lit and had lots of traffic.
I ordered falafel, chips, and a large Coke to take away. While I waited, I noticed the Kurt-shirt girl and her mates getting up from a table. When they brushed past me, I couldn’t make myself say anything. I watched them from the window as they stood outside talking. Then the others went in one direction and Kurt-shirt went on alone down Kingsland High Street. I didn’t know if I should charge out after her without my food and introduce myself. I froze.
When my food was ready, I splashed salt and malt vinegar on my chips and rewrapped them, the whole time thinking, why are you wasting time? But I knew if I caught up with her, I wouldn’t know what to say. “Am I mistaken, or did you used to visit me inside my head?” I walked in the direction she’d gone even though it was the opposite of where I lived. I told myself I was going to get a bus on Dalston Lane and wasn’t really going out of my way. But she had already disappeared from view.
I never got aggression on the High Street. The Turkish men’s cafés were open all night with people sitting outside drinking coffee. Sometimes I got verbal hassle, but it amounted to nothing. I wouldn’t have gone on any of the side streets. Many of those weren’t even lit because the Hackney council said it had no money to buy replacement light bulbs.
I was almost to Dalston Lane when I heard what sounded like a scuffle off the main road to my left down a cut-through to the bus stop. It was safe to use during the day. There was a vegetarian restaurant that did a lot of business. But I wouldn’t walk there after dark. I stopped at the mouth of the dirty, narrow side road and thought I heard somebody cry for help. Part of me wanted to run away and get help. But I knew that even if I found someone willing to come back with me, I might arrive too late. The image of the Kurt-shirted girl flashed through my mind.
I crept cautiously between the Allsorts Bargain Shop and a McDonald’s thinking, safe, safe, keep me safe. I rounded the corner and walked alongside a deserted brick building. Near bags of rubbish behind the veggie café, I saw them. A man was shoving a woman up against the wall and ripping at her clothes. Her T-shirt was pulled up and her trousers were unzipped. I could see him trying to force his hand down her knickers. At first I didn’t believe what I saw. My mind couldn’t digest it fast enough and went numb with shock. No one else was on the street. In the few seconds it took me to react, the man slugged the woman in the gut and she went down on the pavement. He climbed on top of her and smacked her in the face as she resisted him.
I finally found my voice. “Hey, you!” I wasn’t scared yet because I figured he would see me and run away. But he didn’t. He just leered at me with an exaggerated attitude of entitlement like I was the one who was out of place. The light was dim, but as he held her down behind the row of parked cars, I could see it was Kurt-shirt girl. I hadn’t recognized her without her leather jacket, which had been flung on the ground. I had to do something. I was still holding my takeaway. I threw my soda at his head. Ice and Coke exploded all over him. He wiped his face with his hand, looking pissed off, sticky and unfazed. “Help!” I shouted. “Somebody, help!” At that hour, no one came running. Even the McDonald’s had closed for the night. But I kept jumping up and down making noise anyway. He was a medium-sized white bloke with a shaved head wearing a green bomber jacket, white T-shirt, red braces, rolled-up blue jeans, and brown Doc Marten boots with red shoelaces—the old uniform of a skinhead in the National Front. He pointed his finger at me and said, “Shut up! Or you’re next.”
I threw my bag of food at his head. He stood up and came for me, saying, “I’m gonna kick yer fuckin’ ‘ead in.” He grabbed me, as I kicked and struggled, and threw me against a parked car with so much force I skidded across the hood and landed on the other side on my head. My hands had partially broken my fall, but I sat dazed on the pavement. Impervious pigeons scrounged around me for garbage.
I stood up slowly. Over the car, I could see that the woman hadn’t got away. She was still gasping for breath after being punched in the stomach. Guiltily I felt grateful she hadn’t left me there alone with him. Thinking I’d been neutralized, the man had turned his back on me and had gone back to assaulting her, jamming his hand all the way inside her knickers while she fought him.
I looked at my fingers to reassure myself, said a brief prayer for the safety of my teeth, then dizzily got into my best boxing stance and tried to remember everything I’d been taught. Left side forward. Hands up. People who throw hooks get hit by hooks. The jab is the most-used punch in boxing. Now he was unzipping his own trousers. “Stop! Police!” I screamed in desperation. “Call 999!” I was terrified he’d give her AIDS or kill her on top of everything else.
He jumped up, yanked up his jeans, and came after me. I’d never actually hit anyone to defend myself before. I threw a tentative jab at his jaw, and he easily knocked my hand away. Now I was scared. I knew I was in trouble. I was in way over my head, and my abdomen fluttered in panic.
Again he shoved me hard against the car. But at least my amateurish attempts to save the dark-haired punk woman were stalling his efforts to continue raping her. I reached in my pocket and slid my house key between my fingers, remembering that, according to women’s self-defense tips picked up at Take Back the Night marches, it would make my fist a more effective weapon.
“You’re all mouth and no trousers!” I yelled, having recently heard the expression on EastEnders. “I’m throwing you a wobbly!” The woman, stunned, looked at me like there was no hope in hell and we were both going to die. I broke into American. “Don’t fuck with me, motherfucker!”
The skinhead paused. I used his second’s hesitation to throw a quick right fist to his nose. The key slashed him. It was so unexpected he put both hands up to his face. I kicked him in the balls and, as he bent forward, grabbed his shoulders and brought my knee up into his ugly mug. I threw a left hook to the head and a right hook that caught him on the ear. I knew that had to sting.
“Run!” I grabbed the woman’s hand and yanked her up off the ground, hoping she wasn’t too injured to move quickly. In spite of her terror, she still had the clarity to snatch up her leather jacket before following me. Now there’s a good punk, I thought, impressed.
We stumbled onto the main road, the woman holding up her trousers as we sprinted back up Kingsland High Street. We were so full of adrenaline, we ran all the way to Stoke Newington. “There’s a cop shop up ahead,” I choked out as we crossed Evering Road.
“No.” It was the first word she’d said to me.
“But we have to.” I stopped running. “Don’t we?” I looked around and didn’t see him behind us. I held her jacket, and she zipped up her trousers.
She clutched my arm. “Please.”
I didn’t have the heart to argue with her. I took her hand, and we dashed up the High Street. We passed the massive Stoke Newington police station, which looked like a big Tesco, all glass and brick, then half-jogged all the way to Stamford Hill. I took the woman to my bedsit because I didn’t know what else to do.
We climbed the front steps, and I unlocked the door. We stood outside my room, gasping. “God, I’ve never been so knackered in my life,” I said, pulling her inside.
She was doubled over, catching her breath. I sat her in the comfy chair because I was afraid she would go into shock or something, not that I was even sure what that was. Her nose and lip were bleeding.
“You’re hurt,” I said softly. I dipped some toilet paper—bog roll—in warm water and cleaned her up a bit. “Shit. He hit you pretty hard.”
We didn’t mention where else he had hurt her. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do for shock, so I plugged in my electric kettle and made tea. It was the sanest thing I could think of doing. I felt responsible for her and also wanted to be a good hostess.
“Ta.” She took the mug from me with trembling hands.
I looked into her pale, delicate features and said in my best Londonese, “Are you alright? Maybe we should call you a casualty.”
She looked at me like I was nuts. “Maybe we should go to casualty?” she suggested.
“Yes, to hospital. To make sure you’re alright.”
“I’m alright. And you don’t throw someone a wobbly, by the way. You throw a wobbly. When you’re angry.” She was crying, and I felt bad for her, so bad that I couldn’t have arrived sooner, been a better boxer, and kept her from being traumatized.
I asked, “What’s your name?”
“My mates call me Nick.” She was trying hard to pull herself together and project a firm stance, but her vulnerability drew me toward her.
“I’m Amanda.”
“I don’t know how to thank you, Amanda.”
“It’s quite alright. I wanted to meet you.”
Nick looked alarmed.
“God, I don’t mean I was stalking you or anything. I just meant I saw you earlier in the pub, then at the Iskem, and I wanted to talk to you. We have the same Nirvana T-shirt,” I finished weakly. You’re babbling, I castigated myself. Christ, had it been that long since I’d had a proper, normal conversation with anyone? Nick was the first visitor I’d had to my bedsit, and I felt relieved not to be alone for once. This is life, I thought. Life has come to my room.
Nick looked down at the picture of Kurt in a blue sweatshirt clutching his guitar on her chest, saw blood and seemed freaked out. I was feeling shaky myself. My legs swayed, and I sat down heavily on the bed.
“Are you gay?” Nick asked because I’d been at the Due South.
“Yes, I am,” I said, and because it seemed right, “you’re safe here.”
She was shivering. I wanted to hold her and press my lips to her raven hair to comfort her. To say I felt close to her after what we’d been through was an understatement. And if she were the woman I’d known inside my head, we were practically related. But the last thing I wanted to do was violate her sense of personal space after she’d been raped. I took the duvet off the bed, and she let me wrap it around her shoulders. She was breathing fast, and I could see the beginnings of some nasty bruises on her face.
“I think I should call a doctor,” I said. “Someone should look you over.”
She looked up. “My best mate’s sister’s a GP.”
“She has a jeep?” I asked, confused.
“She’s a GP. She’s a doctor,” Nick enunciated carefully. She had a northern regional accent that I guessed was Mancunian because she sounded like Annie.
“Christ, GP.” I shook my head. “Can we ring her?” Nick gave me the number, and I stepped out of the room to use the payphone in the hall. A woman answered, and I hesitated. “Dr. Jones? You don’t know me. My name is Amanda. I’m calling on behalf of Nick.” On behalf of, my mind repeated. Who talks like that?
“Is anything wrong?” she asked quickly.
“As a matter of fact, yes,” I said awkwardly, not knowing how to explain it in the least upsetting way. “She was—assaulted. Someone—” I didn’t want to use the word rape. “I think she should be looked at.”
The woman’s voice was firm and calming. “Tell me where you are.” I gave her my address. “I’ll be right there.” She rang off.
I felt better now that she was on her way, like I wouldn’t have to make any more complicated decisions. For the first time in a long while, my heart felt light. As we waited, I remembered a sign I’d seen in a photograph of a café door in Iran: “Sister, be quiet about yourself.” Like hell, I thought.
I opened the door to a woman who looked like she was in her late thirties, or possibly early forties. “How you doing, love, alright?” she said to me. Her eyes looked worried as she quickly scanned the room behind me.
My mouth dropped open because she was gorgeous. “Alright.”
She knelt in front of Nick and put down her medical bag. “Nicky, what happened?” Nick put her arms around her neck and sobbed into her coat. The woman held her. “It’s alright, love. Tell me what happened.” She looked up at me and said, “I’m Melissa.”
I opened up my mouth but nothing came out. Oh my God, I thought. Her name is Melissa. This cannot be happening. I felt dizzy. She had shortish light-brown hair that looked invitingly disheveled and soft. I wanted to sweep back the waves from her face with my fingers. Her quick smile promised sweetness like ripe plums and showed white, even teeth. All I could think of was the romantic biblical poetry of the Song of Songs: “Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair.” But I didn’t know if she’d mind my saying that her teeth were “like a flock of ewes all shaped alike.” She possessed the reassuring presence of the woman who’d sat beside me on the bed the night I almost tried to kill myself. And I wondered, am I making this up or is it real? So that I could function at all, I distanced myself from these thoughts. She’s just another person in the room, I told myself. You don’t know her. For God’s sake, try and act like a normal person.
“I haven’t met you,” Melissa was saying. “Are you a mate of Nick’s?”
“I’m Amanda. We never met before tonight.”
“Nicky, who attacked you? It’s alright, baby. You’re safe.”
Melissa had Nick lie down on my bed. She covered her with the duvet and asked her where she was hurt. Then she asked me for a wet flannel. I didn’t have a clean washcloth, so I wet part of a towel in warm water. She cleaned Nick’s cuts with antiseptic and gently felt the bones of her face. She got two of those flashlights doctors use out of her bag. She looked into Nick’s eyes and ears with them. I watched Melissa prod Nick, expertly checking for injuries. I imagined the touch of her hands was light as spring rain, precise and soothing.
“Honey, did he rape you?” Melissa asked gently.
Nick had still not articulated exactly what had happened. Now she cried harder.
“Was he—inside you?” Melissa asked in the softest voice I’d ever heard. “I have to know. You’ve got to tell me. Has anybody called the police?” She looked at me.
I said, “No,” and stepped away to give them more privacy. Only the noises of traffic and a train passing under Amhurst Park Road reached us. Melissa stroked Nick’s dark, curly hair. I looked at the street lamps outside the window.
I heard Nick wail, “But I don’t want to go to hospital,” and Melissa trying to console her.
“I promise I’ll be with you the whole time. No one’s going to hurt you. I’ll make sure.”
Melissa got up and came to me. She was wearing a yellow, pink, and green T-shirt from the punk band Chelsea under her brown, fuzzy coat. It said “Alternative Hits” and had a picture of a bloke in bright pink socks shooting up. She’s a punk doctor, I thought triumphantly.
“Is she alright?” I asked, trembling because she was standing so close to me.
“I’ve got to take her to A and E.”
“A and E?”
“Accident and Emergency. Like your emergency room in the States.”
“Is her face broken?” I asked, my thoughts moving like sludge in my head.
“I don’t think so, love. But she still needs to be examined. The bones in the face are very delicate and I’d like to make sure nothing was fractured. And—I have to know if she needs an internal exam. Can you tell me exactly what happened? Were you with her?”
“I was there part of the time.”
“Are you hurt, love?” Her voice was empathetic, and I tried to stop shaking. I was not going to cry in front of this—stranger. After all, I was only a bystander. Chances were she wasn’t the Melissa I’d imagined at all. Who did I think I was anyway, Zeus giving birth to Athena out of his head?
I shook my head to indicate I wasn’t hurt, and Melissa asked, “Did you see what happened?”
“Most of it,” I said in a raspy voice, coughing to clear my throat.
“Was she raped? Come on,” she said, as I remained silent, “I need to know the details.” I glanced anxiously at Nick, and Melissa put her hand lightly on my arm. “Don’t be afraid to tell me.”
“This guy,” I said, and my voice broke. I took a breath to calm myself. “This neo-Nazi skinhead,” my voice quavered, “assaulted her. I came around the corner and he was hitting her, trying, you know, to get her clothes off.” I couldn’t look at Melissa. I felt guilty for not stopping it sooner. “He was shoving his hand inside her knickers. He knocked her down. I was—he didn’t stop. It was awful,” I blurted out.
“Traumatic, was it?” Melissa said, and I nearly burst into tears at the concern in her voice. I realized then how shocked I was by what had happened. I’d thought I was handling it really well.
“And then what happened?” Melissa asked. “Did he rape her?”
“He—I think so. I mean, he didn’t get his, you know, inside her, but his hand. He got part of his hand inside her. At least—well, I don’t know for sure. I assumed that it was. What would you call it?”
“I’d call it rape,” Melissa said with conviction, looking me right in the eyes. “Did he get anything else inside her?”
“No, I stopped it then.”
“Are you absolutely sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Alright. Tell me what you did.”
Carefully I tried to describe everything with as much detail as I could remember but still left a good bit out.
“You did that?” Melissa said. “You know how to box?”
“Not really,” I admitted. “I’m just a beginner. I think he was more surprised than anything else when I hit him. It stopped him long enough for us to run away.” Look at you, I told myself. You’re having a conversation in a normal tone of voice. You’re not sounding like a complete lunatic. Good going. Keep it up.
“Well, it was very brave.” She took one of my hands in hers. My knuckles were bruised and swollen. She manipulated my fingers gently. “Does this hurt?” She took my other hand. Her hands on my hands made me feel better, and I wanted her to keep holding them.
“No,” I said. “I don’t feel a thing.” You don’t feel a thing, I repeated to myself. Who are you kidding?
“You might do later. Are you hurt anywhere else?”
“I’m okay,” I said, forgetting about landing on my head.
Melissa sat beside Nick again and asked her to confirm what I’d said. “Sweetie, did he actually get inside you? I know this is painful. I’m sorry. But it’s better I ask you now when it’s just us, right?”
I heard the soft hum of Nick’s voice but couldn’t make out what she said.
“Are you bleeding?” Melissa asked. “Do you know? Does it hurt a lot?” Melissa stayed there holding Nick’s hand until she quieted down. Then she stood up and said to me, “Come on. Get your gear on. I’m taking you with us to A and E.”
“Wait, me? Why?”
“To get your hands x-rayed. You do play guitar, don’t you?” She nodded toward my guitar, which was leaning in the corner.
“Can’t you just examine me here?” I asked, panicked at the thought of actually going outside again, let alone to the hospital, as if leaving the warmth and safety of my room would cost me way too much.
“I don’t have x-ray vision.” Melissa put her hand on my wrist. “Your pulse is racing. I want you examined. Listen,” she said, as I balked, “I think Nick would feel better if you came with us.” Her deep, ale-colored eyes were kind, and I picked up my coat.
“Are you sure you couldn’t just examine us first and then decide whether or not we’ve got to go to hospital?” I tried again.
“I’m not going to be examining her at all. I can’t perform that kind of examination here, let alone on someone I’m close to. She doesn’t need to feel violated by me. I’ll just be there for support.”
I followed them outside and got into the small backseat of Melissa’s sports car. “You’ve got a fab motor,” I said. It was an old MGB GT in British racing green. Nick was crying a little, and no one talked on the way to hospital.
At A and E Melissa spoke to the triage nurse then disappeared with Nick. My potentially broken fingers weren’t priority next to shootings and stabbings, so I was in the waiting room a while. After the nurse took me to be examined and have my hands x-rayed, I waited another eternity for the result. When I got back into the sitting area, there was no sign of Melissa or Nick. I worried that they’d gone and I would never see them again. I tried to ask the charge nurse if she’d seen them, but she was too busy to talk with me, so I parked my arse into another chair.
Melissa finally came to get me, and I could have wept with gratitude.
“Where’s Nick?” I stood up.
“In the car. She’s been sedated. Come on, let’s get you back to yours.”
“Is she alright?”
“The physical damage wasn’t substantial,” Melissa said, as I followed her out into the cold night air. “How about you? How do you feel?”
“I’m completely fine.” I held out my hands. “Nothing’s broken.”
“Not just that. This must’ve been quite traumatic for you.”
I shrugged. “Whatever. I’m not the one who was attacked.” I didn’t even know what my feelings were. I still felt numb. But I wanted Melissa to think of me as courageous.
When we reached the car, Nick was hunched over in the passenger seat. I climbed in back. Melissa turned on the heat and made it nice and warm. My heart sped up as we neared my bedsit. What am I going to do? I’ve got to get to know these women, I thought. I‘ve got to see them again. Melissa pulled over to the curb. I was so relieved when she invited me round for tea the following day and gave me her address in the West End, I nearly fainted dead away on the pavement. It started raining, just light slivers, as if God was shivering.
“Are you sure you’re alright, love?” Melissa asked as I lingered by her window, leaning against the cold, wet metal of her car. “Do you want me to help you find someone to stay with you?”
“I told you.” I smeared the drops of water on the green skin of her car roof like I was finger painting. “I’m perfectly okay.” I waved goodbye as she drove off.
I lay in bed not sleeping, awash in strong emotions. I wished I had an old electric fire in a fake fireplace like the ones we’d had at Exeter instead of the more impersonal radiators. The soothing orange bars would have made good company. Now that the shock of what had happened wore off, I was aware of each swollen knuckle and every bruise. My head, neck, and arms hurt. I couldn’t sleep. I spent hours with my brain on rapid fire, breathlessly repeating prayers of protection as fast as I could to neutralize the bad thoughts about rape that kept popping into my head.
I sobbed in frustration as my anxiety expanded, filling the entire room. My head pounded like a percussive bass riff. I wished Melissa would suddenly appear on the edge of the bed. My heart ached, and at that moment, I would have given anything to feel her sitting beside me, stroking my hair, though even my hair hurt. The Police song about inappropriate sexual attraction that had been so popular among the girls on my hall at Exeter when I was young, “Don’t Stand So Close to Me,” started playing inside my head.