The Party Read online

  ‘Oh, don’t be silly, you’re not imposing.’ Liz takes a bite of her bacon sandwich, before dropping a Berocca tablet into her own glass of water. She offers the packet to me and I take one, gratefully, dropping it into my glass and watching the bubbles start to erupt. ‘I didn’t realize you’d stayed to be honest; I thought you must have left with Gareth.’ Oh shit. Gareth. He’s going to be furious, I should imagine.

  ‘Well, thank you. For the hospitality, I mean. I don’t really remember going to bed.’ I watch her carefully, hoping that she’ll tell me who it was that must have helped me upstairs. Who bruised my arms, and my thighs, and … worse? And did I go willingly? Liz gives nothing away, sipping at her travel mug and still munching on her sandwich, taking each bite with relish.

  ‘God, I don’t think many of us do.’ She gives a huff of laughter through a mouthful of food, a stray crumb flying from her mouth and landing on her plate. It makes me feel sick. ‘Never let it be said that the Greenes don’t know how to throw a party.’

  ‘Right.’ I look away, wanting to ask her if she saw anything, but not wanting at the same time, afraid of what she might say. ‘Was I … was I bad? Like, drunk?’

  ‘Oh darling, we were all tipsy. I don’t remember you doing anything you shouldn’t have, if that’s what you mean. Gareth left early, and you wanted to stay for another drink, no harm in that. It was New Year’s Eve, after all.’ She pushes her plate to one side, and makes to take my hand but I pull away, grabbing at my glass of water. No harm. Only, I think maybe there might have been.

  ‘It’s bloody New Year! Gareth needs to lighten up,’ Neil says, as he slides his own sandwich onto a plate. ‘Rachel, it’s lovely to see you, and if you’re sure I can’t tempt you with my fried pig slices, I’m going to slope off and watch last night’s Hootenanny.’

  I wait for Neil to leave the room, headed for Jools Holland and a mild food coma if the amount of food on his plate is anything to go by, before I speak again.

  ‘Did we … did we argue, do you know? Me and Gareth?’ I pick at the skin around my nails as I ask, not wanting to make eye contact with Liz, as I feel as though I’m confessing to being absolutely hammered last night. You’re a disgrace. The words float through my mind, spoken by someone else, an unseen, unknown someone, and I feel a hot flush of shame. ‘I know he must have left without me, but I just wondered if we’d had a disagreement about things and that’s why he left.’ I raise my eyes to look at her, as she sips from her travel mug again, gripping it tightly in her hands as if afraid I might snatch it away.

  ‘No, not that I’m aware of,’ Liz says briskly, but her eyes slide away from mine, and I get the feeling that maybe she’s not telling me something. ‘He’s probably at home wondering where you are.’

  ‘Oh God, probably. I need to go. Thank you for … everything.’ The urge to leave overwhelms me and I push back the chair roughly, slipping my sandals back onto my feet, the straps rubbing across the top of my foot. Startled, Liz gets to her feet but I hurry out of the front door before she can speak again, calling out a goodbye to Neil, and step out into the cold January air. Frost glitters on the front path, and I carefully make my way across the square to my own house, where I can make out the glow of the Christmas tree lights through the front window, calling me home. Home, to Gareth. Hoping that he can shed some light on what happened last night – why I can’t remember anything … and why my body feels as though something, or someone has broken into the very core of my being.

  2

  As I walk up my own front path, the chill morning air making my exposed toes shriek with the cold, I realize that I don’t have a door key. My heart sinks at the thought of having to ring the bell and not only face Gareth’s wrath at not coming home, but also waking him up. Gently I press down on the door handle, sighing with relief when it gives under the pressure. I slide in through the door, closing it on a whisper behind me. Maybe if I can make it into the front room without being seen and get my shoes off, Gareth will just think I spent the night on the couch. I’m not sure why I feel like this is the best course of action, maybe because after everything that has happened between us over the past few months I doubt if he’s likely to believe that I spent the night at Liz’s, alone. I desperately want to avoid us having another row – I don’t want to start the New Year with us fighting. And I don’t know right now if he’ll believe me when I tell him that I don’t know what happened last night.

  I blink back the hot tears that sting my eyes and pull off my shoes, before I push open the door to the living room. As I step into the room, Gareth stands from where he has obviously been sitting on the couch, waiting for me. He looks tired, the skin around his eyes grey and wrinkled, worry pulling at the corners of his mouth. He still wears the shirt and jeans that he pulled on to wear to the party.

  ‘You decided to come home then.’ His voice is flat, his eyes cold. ‘That’s good of you.’

  ‘Please, Gareth,’ I force the words out, too tired and feeling far too fragile to be able to argue with him right now, not when I can barely stand up straight. ‘Can we talk about this later?’

  ‘Later? Are you kidding me?’ As the level of his voice rises, so does the pounding at my temples, and once again I have to fight the urge to be sick. ‘Rachel, you don’t get to stay out all night, especially after what you’ve done, and then tell me we’ll talk about it later.’ He snorts in disgust. ‘Look at the state of you, you’re a disgrace.’ His words sting, just as they are supposed to, and I close my eyes against the nausea that the words induce.

  ‘Look, I didn’t stay out on purpose, OK?’ I rest a hand on the back of the couch, to steady myself, the heightened emotion making me feel dizzy. ‘I was at Liz’s, I swear. I … I stayed in the spare room. Please, Gareth, I don’t want to argue.’

  ‘Oh right, that’s OK then, isn’t it?’ He steps towards me, a flash of anger in his eyes, and I feel ever so slightly afraid of him at that point, afraid that he’s so angry he’ll go one step further than just shouting at me. When he speaks again, his voice is low, the words catching in his throat, and it’s as if all the rage has suddenly drained out of him. ‘I’m not an idiot, Rachel.’

  ‘You can ask her!’ I take a step backwards, stumbling slightly as I pull my hand away from the couch, dizziness making me lose my footing. I close my eyes briefly, wanting the world to stop for just a second. ‘I swear to you, Gareth, I stayed at Liz’s. On my own.’ I push away the thought of the soreness in my thighs, the bruise on my upper arms, the layer of fear that sits just under my skin, jangling my nerves and making me afraid to remember.

  ‘You said you were going to stay for one more drink, Rachel. That was just after midnight, and now you’re only just getting home, ten hours later.’ Gareth raises his eyes to mine and I am shocked to see they are bloodshot and raw, as though he’s been crying. ‘What the hell am I supposed to think? My wife stays out all night, with no explanation, and I’m supposed to just be OK with it?’ Before I can answer he speaks again, his voice hard once more, the flinty edges of his words scraping at my nerves. ‘I saw Ted there, Rachel. Don’t take me for a fool.’

  ‘Ted?’ Confused, I try to think, did I see Ted? Was Ted there? Nothing, I can’t remember anything, just that gaping black void and a sense of vulnerability. ‘What does Ted have to do with things, Gareth? I told you, anything between Ted and me is over, it’s been over for weeks.’ He huffs out a noise that sounds like laughter, but isn’t, cut with a sharp, bitter edge, before pushing past me towards the kitchen. Angry, confused, and desperate to clear this up so I can just go and lie down and try to get things straight in my head, I follow him as he stalks over to the work surface and snatches up his phone.

  ‘Gareth, please. Why would I lie to you? I told you it was over with Ted, we agreed that we’d try and make this work, so why would I jeopardize it? I chose you, Gareth.’ I want to reach out to him, but he bristles with animosity, so instead I tug my sleeves down over my hands. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t co
me home, I slept in the spare room at Liz and Neil’s house, I swear.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you answer your phone?’ Gareth throws his phone across the kitchen table at me and I fumble to make the catch, almost dropping it. Swiping across the screen I see the unanswered calls and text messages that he’s sent to my phone over the course of the previous evening.

  ‘I …’ I lay his phone down and run my hands over my hips, even though I know the cheap, tacky leggings don’t have any pockets, and my phone isn’t in there. It hasn’t even crossed my mind to think about my phone, so intent was I on getting home to Gareth. ‘I don’t have my phone; I don’t know where it is. I must have lost it.’ I picture the room I woke up in, Liz’s spare room, but I don’t recall seeing my phone anywhere – definitely not in the jumble of my clothes that I found on the bedroom floor.

  ‘You had it last night. I asked you, before I left, if you had your phone and you waved it at me. So, if you had it then, where is it now?’ He folds his arms across his chest and waits for me to answer.

  ‘I told you, I don’t know. I must have dropped it somewhere at the party. I’ll call Liz and ask her if she’s seen it.’ I move towards the landline phone that hangs on the kitchen wall, before I remember that I don’t know Liz’s number, not off by heart. It’s stored in my mobile, like everybody else’s.

  ‘Leave it, Rachel. I don’t want to hear any more, OK?’ Gareth sighs, and scrubs his hands over his face, wearily. ‘You can tell me whatever you like, stories about staying at Liz’s or whatever, but I don’t want to hear it. Not now. Did you even stop to think about Robbie? About what he might think about you staying out all night?’

  ‘Where is he?’ Guilt creeps over me in a hot wash, as I realize that Robbie, my boy, the one thing that has kept me going through all of this with Gareth and Ted, will know that I didn’t come home last night. My cheeks burn with shame. ‘Is he home?’ I don’t want him to hear us arguing – he might be eighteen, but he’s had to listen to us rowing for long enough, no matter how hard I’ve tried to protect him from it. When Gareth and I agreed to make this work between us, I swore to Robbie that the rows were over.

  ‘No, he’s not home. He stayed at Sean’s last night, if you remember.’ Gareth turns away and busies himself by putting the kettle on and I realize this is also eating away at him. Not only did I not come home, but also Robbie stayed at Sean’s last night – at Ted’s, if you want to get technical about it.

  ‘Sean’s been his best friend since primary school, Gareth, you can’t begrudge him spending time with him just because of what happened.’

  ‘Oh, you mean when you decided your best course of action was a rampant affair with Sean’s father, you mean?’ Gareth slams a mug down on the counter and whirls round to face me, a deep red flush burning its way up his neck. ‘Just fuck off, Rachel. You can’t tell me how to feel, or how to act when you prance around doing whatever you want, not caring if you make me look stupid, not giving a damn if people think you’re a whore.’ On that last, spiteful word, one that scorches and burns, he slams his hand down on the table and I flinch.

  ‘I can’t talk to you right now,’ I whisper, my whole body aching as though I have the flu, my head thumping and the fear and disgust that I first felt upon waking beginning to flood through my veins again. I don’t wait to hear if he answers, just run from the room and upstairs to the bathroom, where I lock myself in and let the tears come.

  Hot water thunders into the bathtub, and I move slowly and cautiously, aware of the muscles that twinge and pull with every movement I make as I pour in my own blend of aromatherapy oils and reach for a clean towel. I pull the leggings from my body, peeling them away from my skin, leaving my exposed legs feeling clammy and sweaty, before throwing them towards the laundry basket that sits next to the shower. They miss, landing in a heap on the bathroom floor, looking much the same as they did screwed up on the bedroom floor at Liz’s. Sighing, I bend to pick them up, the sudden movement jarring my head and making bile rise in the back of my throat. Shoving the leggings deep down into the basket I have to move quickly to reach the toilet, before the vomit that has been threatening all morning rises up, quickly, urgently, scorching the back of my throat as I throw up the glass of water and anything else that was in my stomach, until finally, I crawl into the bathtub, exhausted and weeping.

  I know that something happened last night at Liz’s party … I rotate my arm, brushing away the bubbles that cling to it, in order to inspect the bruise on my bicep. It’s a deep, angry purple colour, sore and tender, clearly the result of someone holding me far too tightly, but who? And what did I do? Did I upset someone? No. I shake my head; despite the way it seems to make my brain roll around inside my skull. My fingers slide into the warm water, smoothing over the skin on my inner thighs. I clear a hole in the bubbles, raising my leg up and out of the water, flinching at the chill air that hits my skin. Peering closely, I can see now that there is more bruising to the inside of my thigh, round greenish-purple dabs, almost like fingerprints, that hurt when I press lightly on them. Jesus.

  Sliding my legs back into the water, hiding the bruises from sight, I lay my head back against the cold enamel of the bath, hot tears stinging my eyes. Think, Rachel, you have to remember. Taking a deep breath, I sniff away the tears and try to pull myself together. The only way to deal with this is to try and remember what happened yesterday – then I can decide how best to move forward. Closing my eyes, I let out the breath I’ve been holding and try to concentrate. I remember getting ready…Gareth was in the shower, and I was drying my hair in front of the bedroom mirror, Radio X playing loudly in the background, and I remember feeling annoyed by one flick of a curl that I couldn’t get to lie flat. Gareth came in from the shower, towel wrapped tightly about his waist, smelling of Hugo Boss aftershave and the fresh scent of shaving gel. He had tutted at my singing, as I wailed along to ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ by The Cure, and I remember feeling secretly relieved that he was in a good mood, seeing as he’d spent most of the afternoon complaining that he didn’t want to go to the party.

  ‘Why are you tutting?’ I had grinned at him in the mirror, while putting the finishing touches to my hair. ‘Don’t you like my singing?’

  ‘Ha.’ Gareth looked up from buttoning his shirt. ‘Let’s just say … I didn’t marry you for your voice. You have far better talents than that.’

  The unexpected compliment had brought tears to my eyes, and I had blinked them away quickly before my mascara could run.

  ‘I could say the same for you,’ I stood up, pushing the chair away from the mirror, to find Gareth had crossed the room and was standing directly behind me.

  ‘You look lovely … really beautiful.’ He had looked down at me, brushing that stubborn curl that just wouldn’t lie properly away from my forehead, before giving me a soft kiss on the lips, not even minding my pink lip gloss. ‘Just, please … and I’m begging you, now … don’t sing any more.’

  I had swatted him on the arm, laughing, feeling buoyant and as though maybe, just maybe, we could put things behind us. I remember shivering as we crossed the green, on our way to the party, too stubborn to wear a coat, or a jacket, as it would have ruined my outfit and Gareth pulling me into him to keep warm, the huff of his breath on my hair as he laughed at me for being so ridiculous.

  So, we were OK, at least when we set off for the party. Tears sting my eyes again, at the difference in Gareth’s tone this morning when I arrived home. Another memory swims into view – the one that came to mind earlier this morning – Liz, pulling the door open and smiling at me, the faint scent of booze on her breath as she leaned in to kiss me on the cheek, Neil’s raucous laugh in the background. That’s all I remember. The rest of the night is just a blank, a darkness so thick and dense that I don’t feel as though I’ll ever see through it. My head feels packed full of cotton wool, fuzzy and blurry, as I wash myself slowly and deliberately, scrubbing every inch of my exposed skin, until I feel raw and sensitive, my usually
pale skin shining a vivid pink as I roughly towel myself dry. My fingers skim over my inner thighs again, and I wince, unable to stop myself from pressing down on the bruising that mars the otherwise unblemished skin.

  Pulling on clean pyjamas, I climb into bed, embracing the cool of the cotton and the darkness provided by the blackout blinds, trying to think rationally through what I do know. What happened? Did I go upstairs willingly with someone and let them do this to me? No, surely not. Was I angry with Gareth – did we fight? Not that I can remember – I remember feeling happy, as we walked over to the party. I didn’t have that feeling this morning, the one that I’ve woken up to so many times lately – that prickly, miserable feeling that tells me Gareth and I went to bed on an argument. And even if we had argued, I wouldn’t have slept with someone else at the party to get back at him. I wouldn’t have slept with someone else willingly, not after what happened with Ted, and the hurt and upset that caused.

  As I try to fall over the edge into sleep I fail miserably, as I attempt to force away the only other answer I can come up with as to what happened at the party last night. The idea clings stubbornly, like a stain that’ll never wash out, which is appropriate really, and every time the words cross my mind I feel that same wave of nausea. Something bad happened. Someone did this to me – someone hurt me, and did things to me against my will. Someone raped me.

  3

  AUGUST – FOUR MONTHS BEFORE THE PARTY

  I catch sight of Gareth’s scowling face in the mirror as I lean in to smack my lips together, evening out the pink lipstick that stains them. He is frowning as he buttons up his shirt, his displeasure written across his face, and I sigh.