Carol came back with the news that Jenny had been released from hospital twenty-four hours after the attack, having had ten stitches to her scalp and mild concussion. She’d been picked up by her mother and taken to her old home in Harlow where she was reportedly incommunicado.
That was the first time he’d heard rehab called that.
Should I ask Keith if I can visit her? Take her flowers or something? he messaged. She likes flowers. Besides he knew a thing or two about coming back from an addiction. It was a hard road and Jenny would just be entering the very early stages. That’s if she wanted to get clean.
He could imagine Carol thinking over the publicity angles: housemate rushes to bedside of his friend as soon as he could after release from police custody. If Jenny agreed to see him, it would do a lot to bolster his claim of innocence. It would show she wasn’t scared of him. Then all he’d have to do was demonstrate that he wasn’t responsible for what happened to Bridget. That was a matter really between Jenny and their landlady. He’d just been caught in the crossfire and fended off Bridget’s frenzied attack. Yeah, that would fit the facts.
Make sure the police clear it first, messaged Carol.
Neither of us are charged with anything. It’s Bridget who’s in trouble.
Still check. There’s just enough doubt about your role. It’s a delicate balancing act coming out of this smelling of roses.
So Jonah shot off an email to Keith and started looking up ways to get to Harlow. A couple of hours later, he got his reply.
The police would prefer you not to see Jenny but I pointed out that both of you were currently regarded as victim and witness, not perpetrators. Until they change their mind over charges, that is the official position. You are free to see Jenny.
Great. Jonah tapped on Jenny’s number and sent her a message.
Hi gorgeous. I hear the Wicked Witch of the West did a number on you. Can I call round with supplies of chocolate/flowers/witty repartee? Jonah
Only after he had sent it did he recall the last time Jenny had seen him. Oh bugger. Well, plough on, Jonah, as if there was nothing to be embarrassed about. So what if he’d earned his place in the house by offering the owner a little thrill in her sex-starved life? It had meant nothing. If Jenny was going to be all messed up about it, then that was her problem.
As a displacement activity, while he waited for her reply, he opened the mini fridge and took out all the alcohol. Waiting was oddly nerve wracking. He hadn’t realised how much he’d come to value his friendship with Jenny. He wasn’t used to caring about someone. Turning a can of beer around in his hand, he caressed the top. He’d so loved beer once upon a time. He picked up the telephone and rang room service.
Five minutes later came a discreet knock on the door.
‘Thanks for coming, mate. Can you put these somewhere else please?’ Jonah handed over the unopened bottles. ‘I’m on the wagon. Can’t be handling the temptation, you know?’
‘Of course, sir.’
Jonah patted his pockets wondering if he needed to tip the guy. He wasn’t used to this sort of thing.
The man held up a hand, part demurral but also ready to accept a tip should it come. ‘Really, sir, it’s my pleasure. Is there anything else I can get you?’
Jonah handed over a couple of pound coins. ‘No, thanks. I’m fine.’
Closing the door, he wondered how much the guy would make selling that little detail to the tabloids. Jonah hoped he’d get more than the measly two quid he’d rustled up. That was rather the point of making a fuss about the alcohol – a bit of Jonah brand management that Carol would like. It was either that or read lies about himself being holed up in a drunken stupor in his room, refusing calls. Feed the press a crumb and they’d make a loaf.
By the time he returned to his phone, he discovered that the message he’d been waiting for was already in.
Yes. Please come.
That was brief, even for Jenny. The phone binged again with the address.
I’ll be there asap.
Two hours later, Jonah was ringing on the buzzer for Flat 12, John Clare Road, Harlow.
‘Hello?’
‘Hi. Is that Jenny’s Mum? It’s Jonah – Jonah Brigson.’
‘We’re on the fourth floor. I’ll buzz you in.’
Jonah gave a cheery wave to a hardy member of the local press who was still staking out the victim. At least the guy’s watch had paid off. He was already on his phone so there would be more journalists when Jonah left. He realised he’d come empty-handed so as a last-minute gesture he dropped his bag in the doorway to stop it closing, and broke off a sprig of lilac from a bush in the communal gardens. That was the kind of behaviour that went with his image so he wasn’t too worried that he’d been photographed doing so. He gave a thumbs up to the watcher.
Nikki Groves was looking out into the corridor for him.
‘Sorry, had to get some flowers!’ he said.
‘Come in, please. Let’s go through to the kitchen.’ Nikki took the lilac from him, making no remark as to the origin of the clearly stolen bloom. ‘I’ll put this in some water and explain the situation.’
That sounded ominous. Jonah followed Jenny’s mum, looking out for the similarities. They had the same small build but Jenny was more full-figured, presumably inheriting that from her dad’s side. Nikki had a neat crop of straight brown hair and warm cinnamon eyes very like her daughter’s. She moved shyly, another thing she had in common with Jenny. Neither of them liked to make a great entrance, keeping their gestures small and ever-so-slightly hesitant.
She put the lilac in a squat little jug, a good choice as the heavy bloom threatened to overturn the normal vase she tried first.
‘I think I should explain that I have you here under false pretences, Jonah. It wasn’t Jenny who invited you, but me. I saw your message on her phone and replied on her behalf.’ She gestured to the new phone lying on the counter. The police must’ve kept the old one but she’d managed to retain the same number.
‘Oh. That’s awkward.’
‘Isn’t it? Cup of tea?’
‘Yeah, thanks.’ Jonah paced to the window and looked out on the estate. Some kids were kicking a ball in the car park below. He had a sudden yearning to go and join them; it would be so uncomplicated compared to this emotional chess he was having to play with Jenny. A couple of cars pulled up and cameramen began hauling equipment out of the boot. No way could he leave so soon after having just arrived.
Nikki filled the kettle. ‘Jenny’s not communicated with anyone except the police and that only the very minimum to make her statement about what that woman did to her. She’s drawn right back into herself like she did when …’ She didn’t finish the sentence, getting a little lost in her own kitchen as if she couldn’t remember how to switch on the hot water.
Jonah took the kettle from her, settled it on the pad and flicked the switch. ‘Yeah, I understand. I know about Jenny’s past.’
‘So I thought a visit from one of her new friends might shake her out of this.’ Her tone was bright and brittle. ‘That lovely boy Harry called round but she refused to see him, but of course that’s difficult, what with him ending things with her.’
‘Harry came here?’
‘Do you know him?’
‘A little.’ Jonah gulped back a laugh. ‘I wouldn’t describe us as friends.’
‘We’ve had flowers, of course, from all sorts of people but she won’t come out of her room to even look at them. I’ve had to put them in the lounge.’
‘Do you mind?’ Jonah gestured to the sitting room which he could see through the open door on the far side of the kitchen.
‘Please.’
He had a quick check of the bouquets. Harry’s looked like he’d picked it up at the station. There was a pretty florist-made one from Louis and Kris, as he expected, and another from the tedious Matt. The largest and most expensive came from someone signing himself ‘Bobby’, which wasn’t a name Jonah recognised. They made his own offering of a stolen lilac look rather pitiful. He went back to Nikki.
‘Milk? Sugar?’
‘Yeah, thanks. One.’
She poured the tea and handed a mug to him. ‘I’m sorry, Jonah. I’ve put you in a bad position.’
He was used to those. ‘No, Mrs Groves …’
‘Nikki, please.’
‘Nikki. Anything I can do to help. Jenny’s a great girl.’
Nikki’s lower lip trembled and she sniffed, trying to hold back tears. ‘Sorry, sorry, I get like this. It’s just so hard …’
‘So hard seeing someone you love hurt?’ He felt like that might’ve been a line in a TV episode he had been in and winced.
Nikki nodded. ‘She’s just been so unlucky. Every time she makes progress something kicks her in the teeth. She lost her job with the orchestra, did you know that?’
Jonah wondered how much of the story Nikki had heard. ‘I did, yeah.’
‘She didn’t even tell me!’
‘Perhaps she didn’t want to admit failure to you?’
‘But I love her no matter what happens!’
‘Of course you do.’ Jonah didn’t have much experience of unconditional maternal love. He could imagine it was a burden to receive. ‘She knows that.’
‘I’m not expecting you to produce a miracle, but if you could just talk to her?’
‘I’ll try.’
‘Take her a cup of tea, will you?’ She handed him a second mug, this one decorated with a Mozart wearing sunglasses.
‘OK. Let’s see if she’ll let me in. Maybe it’s best if you stay back here?’ There might be parts of the conversation he really didn’t want her to overhear on his side, like when he apologised for letting Bridget ride him like a jockey at Ascot Ladies Day.
He carried the two mugs down the corridor to the door with a blue flowered sign in childish handwriting saying Keep Out.
‘Not that one,’ said Nikki. ‘She sleeps in the box room now.’
Of course, she would. The old one would be forever tainted by what happened there.
‘It’s the same flat?’ asked Jonah.
Wearily, Nikki leaned on the doorpost to the kitchen. ‘Maybe we should’ve moved away after the accident. But Jenny refused to go out, panicked if I tried to make her – and housing association flats like this are hard to come by. We just locked the door on it all.’
And that wasn’t a symbol of all the crap Jenny had had to deal with?
Jonah knocked with his foot. ‘Hey, Jenny, it’s me. Make yourself decent because, ready or not, I’m coming in.’ He balanced a mug on the top of a radiator to turn the handle. ‘There you are, gorgeous.’
Jenny was looking up at him from a small armchair by the window, knees up under her chin. They’d had to shave a little of her hair to make the stitches so she looked fairly battered and bruised, but at least when the hair grew back no scar would be visible.
‘Jonah,’ she signed.
Thank God she still used their special symbol. It gave him hope he’d been forgiven.
‘That’s right, love. Your mum sent me bearing tea. She’s a nice lady.’ He set her cup down on the window sill and looked for somewhere to perch. In the end he settled on the floor with his back against her bed, putting himself below her. The body language lessons at RADA were really proving their worth of late in his real-life drama. ‘The police kept me in for thirty-six hours.’
‘Why?’ she signed.
‘Because of what happened in the hall after Bridget attacked you. They took one look at my ugly mug and thought I had to be guilty of something. Bridget collapsed on me and I bruised her a little doing mouth-to-mouth.’ Jonah scrubbed his face, feeling a forgotten sense of embarrassment. ‘Look, I’m sorry about what you saw in the attic – not what I did, but that you saw it.’
She looked away.
‘What Bridget and I got up to up there – that meant nothing to me – just a … a transaction, part of my rent.’
Jenny grimaced and pointed to herself and made a zero sign.
‘Not like that. I enjoyed it when we were together – I wanted to have sex with you. I never wanted it with her. It was just something I did. It wasn’t the sex I had with you though which meant something; it was our friendship. I haven’t ruined that, have I?’
She bit her lip, still looking out the window at grey skies and tower blocks. Like her mother she had the tendency to tears but also tried to hide them. He could feel the struggle like he was going through it himself. She had never been one to play on his sympathies purposely; she’d earned them because he did feel sorry for her. Life appeared to have picked her out for fucking cruel treatment.
‘Why?’ she signed.
‘Why what, gorgeous?’
‘Why does sex mean nothing to you?’
That wasn’t quite the question he’d been expecting but it was easier to answer than questions about Bridget. He’d worked this out long ago. ‘It’s survival. I thought you understood.’ It was hard to raise this down the corridor from a room where horrible violence had once happened. ‘My first experiences taught me that sex is mostly a barter, sometimes an abuse. I’ve not changed my mind since.’
‘I don’t understand.’
Jonah didn’t feel the boiling anger he usually experienced when talking about his past. He was speaking to another victim, not one of those in authority who had failed to protect him when he was a child. ‘I’ll see if I can explain. I might not make much sense. First thing to know was that my mother was an addict and slept around to buy drugs.’
Jenny nodded. ‘I know the feeling,’ she signed.
‘You didn’t? You did?’ She was taking it so seriously, he could tell. Jenny would have hated that particular fall off her high horse. ‘Welcome to the slut club.’
She almost smiled. ‘I’m like your mother,’ she signed.
‘You’re nothing like her; you’re more like me,’ he said quickly. That was something he was sure about. He wouldn’t be sitting in the same room as her if he believed she had anything in common with his monster of a mother. ‘You wouldn’t hurt someone else to get what you want, would you? You sold yourself. She sold me. Big difference. She passed me on to one of her customers and the abuse only ended when she died.’
Jenny had tears trickling down her cheeks now. Finally, someone was crying for the poor lost kid that he’d been. ‘I’m sad for you,’ she signed.
‘Yeah, so am I, bloody sad. I never had a chance really. Someone should’ve taken me away from her earlier but they preferred to ignore the signs. I know I’m ten million ways fucked up but I’m wired to see sex as abusive when the people involved aren’t equals. The only way to survive it is to not let it matter. Our abusers? Sex matters too much to them and that’s what twisted them up so they could do that to someone else.’ He let the silence stretch between them so she could consider his words. ‘You know what I say?’
She shook her head. ‘But you’re going to tell me,’ she signed.
‘Fuck the lot of them. Do what you must to survive but dump the guilt.’
‘I stole from people I love.’
‘If they love you, they’ll forgive you – at least they do in the movies.’ Another corny line he must’ve borrowed. He grinned in self-mockery: he had little experience of receiving forgiveness from anyone; no wonder he was reaching for Hollywood schmaltz for inspiration. ‘Anyway, the Jonah sermon is over. I’m sorry that crazy cow went off like she did. I didn’t expect you both to fight over me.’
‘Not over you,’ signed Jenny.
‘Oh, come off it!’
She pushed up her sleeve and showed him a patch on her arm. ‘We fought for this.’