She’d told her story in a low voice that Madeline had had to strain to hear, but now she lowered it even further to almost a whisper, her eyes on the hallway leading to Ziggy’s bedroom. “Much too late for an abortion. And then my grandfather died, and that was a big shock to us all. And then I went a bit strange. Depressed, maybe. I don’t know. I left uni and moved back home, and I just slept. For hours and hours. It was like I was sedated or really jet-lagged. I couldn’t bear to be awake.”
“You were probably still in shock. Oh, Jane. I’m so sorry that happened to you.”
Jane shook her head as if she’d been given something she didn’t deserve. “Well. It’s not like I got raped in an alleyway. I have to take responsibility. It wasn’t that big a deal.”
“He assaulted you! He—”
Jane lifted a hand. “Lots of women have bad sexual experiences. That was mine. The lesson is: Don’t go off with strange men you meet in bars.”
“I can assure you I went off with my share of men I met in bars,” said Madeline. She’d done it once or twice. It had never been like that. She would have poked his eyes out. “Do not for a moment think that you’re in any way to blame, Jane.”
Jane shook her head. “I know. But I do try to keep it in perspective. Some people do really like that erotic asphyxiation stuff.” Madeline saw her put a hand unconsciously to her neck. “You might be into it, for all I know.”
“Ed and I think it’s erotic if we find ourselves in bed without a wriggling child in between us,” said Madeline. “Jane, my darling girl, that wasn’t sexual experimentation. What that man did to you was not—”
“Well, don’t forget you heard the story from my perspective,” interrupted Jane. “He might remember it differently.” She shrugged. “He probably doesn’t even remember it.”
“And that was verbal abuse. Those things he said to you.” Madeline felt the fury rise again. How could she fight this creep? How could she make him pay? “Those vile things.”
When Jane had told her the story, she hadn’t needed to try to think back to remember the exact words. She’d recited his insults in a dull monotone, as if she were reciting a poem or a prayer.
“Yes,” said Jane. “Fat ugly little girl.”
Madeline winced. “You are not.”
“I was overweight,” said Jane. “Some people would probably say I was fat. I was into food.”
“A foodie,” said Madeline.
“Nothing as sophisticated as that. I just loved all food, and I especially loved fattening food. Cakes. Chocolate. Butter. I just loved butter.”
An expression of mild awe crossed her face, as if she couldn’t quite believe she was describing herself.
“I’ll show you a photo,” she said to Madeline. She flicked through her phone. “My friend Em just posted this on Facebook for Throwback Thursday. It’s me at her nineteenth birthday. Just a few months before . . . before I got pregnant.”
She held up the phone for Madeline to see. There was Jane wearing a red sheath dress with a low neckline. She was standing in between two other girls of the same age, all three of them beaming at the camera. Jane looked like a different person: softer, uninhibited, much, much younger.
“You were curvy,” said Madeline, handing back the phone. “Not fat. You look gorgeous in this photo.”
“It’s sort of interesting when you think about it,” said Jane, glancing at the photo once before she flicked it off with her thumb. “Why did I feel so weirdly violated by those two words? More than anything else that he did to me, it was those two words that hurt. ‘Fat.’ ‘Ugly.’”
She spat out the two words. Madeline wished she would stop saying them.
“I mean a fat, ugly man can still be funny and lovable and successful,” continued Jane. “But it’s like it’s the most shameful thing for a woman to be.”
“But you weren’t, you’re not—” began Madeline.
“Yes, OK, but so what if I was!” interrupted Jane. “What if I was! That’s my point. What if I was a bit overweight and not especially pretty? Why is that so terrible? So disgusting? Why is that the end of the world?”
Madeline found herself without words. To be fat and ugly actually would be the end of the world for her.
“It’s because a woman’s entire self-worth rests on her looks,” said Jane. “That’s why. It’s because we live in a beauty-obsessed society where the most important thing a woman can do is make herself attractive to men.”
Madeline had never heard Jane speak this way before, so aggressively and fluently. Normally she was so diffident and self-deprecating, so ready to let someone else have the opinions.
“Is that really true?” said Madeline. For some reason she wanted to disagree. “Because you know I often feel secretly inferior to women like Renata and Jonathan’s bloody hotshot wife. There they are, earning squillions and going to board meetings or whatever, and there’s me, with my cute little part-time marketing job.”
“Yes, but deep down you know that you win because you’re prettier,” said Jane.
“Well,” said Madeline, “I don’t know about that.” She caught herself caressing her hair and dropped her hand.
“So that’s why, if you’re in bed with a man, and you’re naked and vulnerable, and you’re assuming that he finds you at least mildly attractive, and then he says something like that, well it’s . . .” She gave Madeline a wry look. “It’s kind of devastating.” She paused. “And, Madeline, it infuriates me that I found it so devastating. It infuriates me that he had that power over me. I look in the mirror each day, and I think, ‘I’m not overweight anymore,’ but he’s right, I’m still ugly. Intellectually I know I’m not ugly, I’m perfectly acceptable. But I feel ugly, because one man said it was so, and that made it so. It’s pathetic.”
“He was a prick,” said Madeline helplessly. “He was just a stupid prick.” It occurred to her that the more Jane expounded on ugliness, the more beautiful she looked, with her hair coming loose, her cheeks flushed and eyes shining. “You’re beautiful,” she began.
“No!” said Jane angrily. “I’m not! And that’s OK that I’m not. We’re not all beautiful, just like we’re not all musical, and that’s fine. And don’t give me that inner beauty shining through crap either.”