Rose Gifford’s sexual history has been a lopsided affair.
Her first encounter happened at eighteen, which felt embarrassingly late in comparison to her peers. But when she went to do the A levels required to join the police, it’s fair to say she made up for it.
Having to retake all her GCSEs after failing badly the first time around, Rose was a little older than her fellow students and, yet again in her life, an outsider. It was through the job she did several evenings a week in a popular pub in Camden that she discovered, for the first time, that she could have fun.
Rose would be invited to parties all the time there and while she turned down many invitations, she met a number of men that way. The longest relationship was with a plumber and part-time DJ called Josh, whom Rose saw on and off for a year. But she always held back. She could never really talk about her childhood, and she wouldn’t take anyone home where Adele Gifford might get her claws into them. Eventually, Josh ended things. He’s now happily married with two children, Rose has discovered from some light social media stalking.
There were plenty of one-night stands then too.
One morning, she came into the house in order to shower before college and Adele made a comment about time repeating itself. That this reminded her of Rose’s mother, Kelly, at a similar age. Kelly had died of a drug overdose and beyond a fleeting memory of sitting on a woman’s knee as she read picture books to her, Rose has no real recollection of her. The barb had reached its target though.
Rose is different to her mother and her grandmother. This is important. No, it is the most important thing. So she had reined in the partying and concentrated on her A levels, finally doing well and being propelled into her police apprenticeship.
Apart from a couple of dates here and there, her night with Sam Malik from Silverton Street last year had been the only recent encounter she’d had. But Sam and her clearly weren’t meant to be.
Now she extracts her thick hair from the ponytail she wears most days and fluffs it around her face a bit, hoping to look less like a person who has come from a difficult day at the office. She applies eyeliner and lipstick, before undoing two buttons of her patterned shirt.
‘Not too bad for a big weirdo,’ she murmurs at her own reflection in the pub bathroom mirror.
The guy, who is called Ewan, is a pleasant surprise when he walks into the bar, dark eyes scanning for Rose. Floppy dark hair, beard. Easy smile. He’s about six foot two and subtly muscled, his chest and arms showcased by a black T-shirt.
They get talking over drinks. He works for a PR company specializing in the electronics market in Newbury and is here on business. Rose says she works at the head office of Marks and Spencer, simply because it sounds like quite a nice place to work and why not? She imagines all the free knickers she might get in this other, carefree life.
They talk about being native Londoners. They talk about television and they talk about nothing much. They get drunker. Rose notices him catching sight of himself in the mirror behind the bar at one point and fiddling with a bit of dark brown hair that has fallen over his eyes to position it just so. And wait, did he slightly suck in his cheekbones then? Rose is overcome with a desire to giggle.
She leans in close and murmurs, ‘You are really, really ridiculously good-looking,’ then starts to laugh so hard she can’t stop. Either Ewan has never seen the male fashion send-up Zoolander, or he is choosing to ignore this because he grins and pulls her in for a kiss, warm and soft and lingering.
Half an hour later, they’re back in his hotel room. Rose is moving on top of him and thinking he has quite an appealing sex-face, which is a relief. He snaps open his eyes and grins and then skilfully turns her round so she is lying beneath him, and she doesn’t think about anything at all apart from bright, focused pleasure for a few moments.
She is almost there, feeling herself begin to ride a wave when a sudden picture comes into her mind of a man in black leaning over her, pressing gloved fingers across her mouth and nose, pressing, pressing, pressing the air from her lungs.
She can’t breathe.
Her body stills.
Stop! NOW!
A scream wrenches itself from her throat and she reaches behind and smacks her fist into his thigh.
‘Stop!’ But he doesn’t straight away and so she wriggles hard from underneath him so he almost falls off her, and she semi crawls across the bed and thumps onto the floor, hurting her shoulder.
‘I said stop, for fuck’s sake!’
He peers down at her, an undignified, terrified naked huddle on the floor, a look of shock and yes, anger on his face.
‘I didn’t hear you!’ he says. ‘What the fuck happened then? I thought you were enjoying yourself!’
Rose hurriedly picks up the items of clothing near the bed and begins to stuff her legs into her knickers and her shirt over her head.
‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbles. ‘It’s not you. I need to go.’
Ewan swears quietly under his breath and gets up before going into the bathroom and closing the door.
Her heart thuds sickeningly loud in her chest and her ears feel oddly muffled, as though she is under water.
Out on the street, she’s trembling and can’t seem to get warm.
But most of all, she’s angry. She can’t have a proper relationship because of the complications of her life, and now, evidently, a bit of quickie sex is out too thanks to what happened last year. It’s not fair.
Since she was a little girl, she had been asking the question: ‘Why can’t I just be normal?’
Nothing changes, it seems.