For a second I struggle to find the right words to say. I am conscious that I have to get the truth of the story from both Sash
a and Mike. I am also painfully aware of my own memories, the way they are crowding in, pushing everything else out. ‘I really appreciate you telling me all this,’ I finally say. ‘I’ll make an official report, and we’ll need to talk to Mike, of course, to hear his…’ I trail off, because for some reason I can’t say version of events. It makes it sound as if I don’t believe her, and I do. I most definitely do. ‘And then we’ll need to have a mediated discussion.’
‘I want a tribunal,’ Sasha says, thrusting her chin out, surprising me with her sudden boldness. ‘I looked it up online and I can take the case to an outside committee if I don’t feel it’s being handled fairly.’
I am startled, and a little hurt, by this. ‘Sasha, I assure you I will do everything in my power to make sure this is handled fairly for both you and Mike.’
‘Mike?’ she returns scornfully, and I flush. Did I make it sound as if I were friendly with him? As if I’m biased? Because, if anything, I’m biased in Sasha’s favour. I feel her pain and confusion. And yet there’s Lara.
‘Not a chance,’ she says after Sasha and Leanne have left, and I look at her warily, drained from the conversation, from fighting with myself. All I want is to lie down in a dark room and sleep. Forget about everything this has brought up in me.
‘What does that mean?’
‘Are you honestly taking that seriously?’ Lara demands, now as scornful as Sasha. ‘Look, she’s a young, pretty girl. Did you see what she was wearing?’
‘Lara, that has absolutely nothing to do—’
‘Her skirt barely covered her arse, and that wasn’t even for a night out. Look, Mike might have got carried away, I accept that. But did she ever actually say no? Did she ever tell anyone? Or did she respond and then regret it?’
I taste bile. Lara’s reaction is exactly why I stayed silent so long ago. Still, I try to sound reasonable, even though part of me feels like flying into a rage, like screaming. ‘There’s no reason to think—’
‘Let’s talk to Mike,’ Lara cuts me off flatly. ‘Not that I want it even to go that far, because Mike is a good employee and his wife is pregnant. This is the last thing either of them needs. But we will tick all the boxes. As for a tribunal…’ She shakes her head. ‘That’s never going to happen.’
No, it won’t, I realise with a sickening rush, because more than three months had passed from the incident when Sasha first reported it. With all her hemming and hawing, and my wilful forgetfulness, it’s been over the requisite three months since it happened. She can’t take it to a tribunal, and that is my fault, for not following her up. For not encouraging her to come back after that first meeting in February, because it was easier to let it go.
‘Clearly she didn’t look up that much online,’ Lara says, and for a second I think I might be sick. My stomach churns and my vision blurs as everything presses down on me – Sasha’s story, and my own. It’s too much. ‘Don’t take it so much to heart, Anna,’ Lara scolds. ‘Or you’ll never last in the job.’
‘Clearly I don’t need to give you the same advice,’ I manage before I walk out of the office, to the bathroom, where I rest my forearms on a sink and take several deep breaths, waiting for my mind and vision to both clear.
But it’s no good, because standing there at the sink, staring into the mirror, I see something else entirely. I see myself at seventeen years old, in a darkened room. I hear a low, persistent voice, smell cheap aftershave and stale smoke. You want this, Anna…
But I didn’t, I cry out silently. I only pretended I did, because I was so lonely and so scared.
And sixteen years later, I still feel like that young, frightened girl, the girl I try to hide. The girl who lives alone, who can’t handle relationships, who donates an egg because she’s scared to have a child – a life – of her own.
I push away from the sink, stumbling a bit, before I right myself and walk out of the bathroom. These thoughts are too much to take, to process, so I do my best to blank them out, but for once I can’t. They’re finally screaming to be heard, to be acknowledged, but I know if I let myself do that, I might fall apart and never put myself back together again.
Later that evening, I am sitting in my car, staring straight ahead, feeling too tired even to turn the key in the ignition. I told Milly I’d stop by that evening with a casserole, because I’ve been helping out by making a meal or two a week since her bleeding scare, but even with the shepherd’s pie on the front seat of my car, I don’t want to go. I feel too raw, all my old wounds open and bleeding. Still, I force myself to drive to Redland, because maybe if I act normal, I’ll feel normal, and I’ll be able to forget everything that’s raging in my head.
Milly is anxious herself when I arrive at their house; she’s had some slight contractions so she’s been on bed rest for another week.
‘They say there’s nothing they can do, but I don’t believe that,’ she says as I put the pie in the oven and start loading the dishwasher. She’s sitting on the sofa, her feet up on the coffee table, her arms wrapped around her middle.
‘Surely they would do something if they could.’
‘There are drugs you can take, I’m sure of it. Terb-something.’ She reaches for her phone and starts to scroll. ‘Terbutaline. It stops labour for hours or even days.’
‘But you’re not in labour, Milly,’ I remind her with a slight edge to my voice. ‘You’re just having mild cramps. If they say there’s nothing they can do, why don’t you believe them?’ Too late, I hear the aggressive note in my voice.
Milly blinks at me. ‘What’s got you in such a huff?’
A huff? ‘Nothing. I’m tired, that’s all.’
‘Tired? You shouldn’t have come, then.’
She means it generously, but it rankles anyway. I have no more patience, no strength, to make it all about Milly today. ‘I probably shouldn’t have,’ I agree, ‘but I did.’
Milly frowns. ‘Anna… what’s going on?’