SOPHIE
1 May 2017
Twenty-eight
James is jubilant. Sophie can feel the excitement emanating from him: muscular, sexual, infectious. He is a young man, again, at the peak of his physical and intellectual power. James as he was when his crew won head of the river; who would scale a college wall to surprise her late at night and then make love until two in the morning despite being up a few hours later for rowing. The James who snatched a first despite leaving his revision as late as possible, and who won his admittedly safe seat with such a massive swing that it confounded the psephologists; the man who demanded attention at the school gate; throughout Westminster; and even in this court.
‘My darling.’ He is ardent; his kiss passionate, his grip almost painful as he grasps her around the waist and pulls her towards him in one effortless movement, so neat it is as if they are choreographed.
‘Would you look at my wonderful wife?’ he asks John Vestey and Angela, as he kisses Sophie fiercely, then releases her to make his way out of the building where he will make a brief statement in which any jubilation will be tempered by his gratitude for the fairness of the British judicial system, the insight of those men and women of the jury who unanimously recognised his innocence, and his concern that this case was ever brought to trial.
The crowd of reporters and cameramen jostle as he stands on the stretch of pavement outside the court. It is all too much: the shafts of the cameras thrusting forward; the gaggle of reporters with their bulbous microphones and spiral notepads; eyes lit with the need to grab a telling quotation; to capture each word that spills from James’s lips so that it can be blazoned across a front page or played repeatedly on the rolling news.
‘Over here, Sophie; over here.’ There is an incessant whirring and clicking as these men behind the cameras – and the bright-jacketed women with their microphones, who seem equally if not more pushy – call and cajole. She spies Jim Stephens – always in the thick of things – and shrinks away, her relief at the verdict – so intense she feels it is a physical clutch of her heart – compromised by an almost overriding need to escape.
Later, she sees the news and barely recognises herself: the rabbit-in-the-headlights expression, the minimising posture. But I felt elated, didn’t I? And yet she knows this is not the case. The sheer weight of relief allows no room for light-heartedness; for the jubilation her husband is experiencing. She is drained; disorientated after months of anticipating the very worst, and also conflicted: questions she still wants answering still niggling away.
She steps back, trying to absent herself from the crush. It is James they are interested in; brow furrowed; voice deep as he speaks eloquently and briefly. Chris Clarke had advised that any statement should be short and non-triumphant, merely thanking those close to him for their support and stressing his determination to focus on his constituents and his party’s work in government; for there is still so much to do.
But her husband does not understand her desire to flee. He is referring to her now, thanking her for her ‘continued, unflinching support’. She doesn’t recognise the woman he is talking of and guilt tugs as she thinks of her doubt, sparked as she pored over that evidence in Devon, which has only intensified over the past few hours.
‘These last five months have been a living hell for my wife and children. I want to thank them for standing by me and for trusting I was innocent of the terrible crime of which I was accused,’ he continues and the words wash over her: anodyne; slick; pre-scripted. He had refused to countenance, at least publicly, the possibility of going down.
And now his tone grows deeper with just a flick of disquiet, a hint of blame. ‘There are serious concerns about why this case was brought to court: questions the police and Crown Prosecution Service will, in due course, have to answer. We all want the perpetrators of serious offences to be brought to justice; none of us wants public funds wasted when it is clear that it is a case of a brief relationship that has turned sour, nothing more or less. I am grateful that the twelve members of the jury unanimously accepted that I was innocent. I now ask for a little time with my family and then I am keen to get back to the job of representing my constituents and supporting this government in all they must do.’
And then he nods and John Vestey makes it clear that there will be no questions, thank you very much, Mr Whitehouse really has to get away, and they are being ushered into a black cab that has swept up – no ministerial car any longer, or not for the moment – and falling against the seats, James gripping her hand.
London flickers past as they drive down Ludgate Hill towards Blackfriars and Victoria Embankment, the steel-grey Thames swimming alongside them as they head west towards home but first past the scene where it happened: her husband’s affair. The House of Commons sits bathed in a sheen of golden light; and Big Ben thrusts, proud and resplendent, its clock tower – all brick shaft and cast-iron spire – piercing the soft pale blue of a dusky sky.
Pedestrians scurry as the cab scoots round Parliament Square, then past Westminster Abbey and down Millbank – taking the tourist’s route for a woman who is so disorientated she feels as if she is seeing the city she knows so well afresh. After living in a tunnel of fear for so long, she is almost agoraphobic: the brightness and bustle of central London too sharp and intense; the cars too close; the tourists with their cameraphones – not interested in them, she knows, but still – clicking away, bearing down on them.
James’s phone pings. It has been ringing almost incessantly with congratulatory calls that he takes but this is the message that matters. A text from Tom. He smiles, indulgent, and – atypically – shows her: ‘Many congratulations. Welcome back. T.’
He hasn’t received a text from the prime minister since he was charged. Hardly the most secure form of communication and Tom wouldn’t want it to emerge that he was supporting an alleged rapist, though he has conveyed his ongoing support through Chris Clarke. ‘A friend of yours says: Chin up, almost over;’ ‘The big man has the utmost respect for you.’ These snippets and a handful of snatched conversations have had to be enough to sustain. For there have been no late-night chats in the den at Downing Street; no games of tennis at Chequers; no relaxed kitchen suppers with Tom and his wife of eight years, Fiona. They have been virtually personae non gratae for a solid six months. But now the door to their social and political rehabilitation has been opened, and more than a chink.
‘It’s the least he could say,’ she manages, as she reads the text, and dwells on this former, hurtful exclusion. She doesn’t add ‘after what you did for him’ but the words hang in the air.
He smiles, magnanimous now, able to make allowances, and she is surprised at how moved she is by this promise of resumed friendship. A fat sob takes her by surprise; her habitual self-control compromised so that her breathing becomes ragged, gasps fluttering as she tries to still it; eyes pricking with tears she blinks away.
‘Come here, my darling.’ In the back of the cab, he takes her in his arms, and she lets herself give in to the force of this relief for a moment; feeling the strength of him; the firm beat of his heart through his charcoal wool overcoat; the warmth of his torso and its familiar firmness, hard against her chest. She slips her hands beneath his coat, feels his white cotton shirt where it is tucked into his waist; strokes his back, much as she might with Finn or Emily; to try to convey the comfort and reassurance she needs herself; to reconnect.
‘Everything is going to be OK,’ he whispers into the top of her hair, and she feels a shiver of unease.
‘Don’t say that,’ she whispers into his shoulder, her voice just discernible. ‘You said it before.’
He pulls away – his face quizzical as he fails to countenance the memory. ‘No.’ He is clear and precise. ‘Everything. Really. Will. Be. OK.’
There is no point dissenting. Nothing will ever truly be the same again – she knows that, instinctively, in this moment – but this isn’t the time or the place to risk an argument. Not here in this taxi, with the driver watching them in the mirror, hazel eyes framed by a rectangle of glass, knowing that the fare he picked up from the Bailey is the Tory MP who has just been cleared of rape – the one that BBC Radio Five Live will be talking about any moment for the five o’clock news bulletin is coming up; she can hear the music rolling up to the news on the hour as James speaks.
But her husband takes control, as he always does. Presses the button to speak to the cabbie, who makes a fair stab at pretending he hasn’t been watching them.
‘Could we have Radio Four instead?’ He leans back, expansive, and listens as news of his acquittal tops the news bulletin. The words wash over her; the authority of the newscaster making it somehow more official; lulling her, briefly, into the sense that – at least to the outside world – everything is OK.
‘Come here. I love you.’ He flings an arm around her in the back of the cab, his lips curling into an expression of intense relief that she understands – of course she understands – but is half-appalled by. There are no words to explain; no reason to demur. And so she does what she so often does: gives herself up to the force of his personality; of his sentiments; and tries to still the relentless scurrying of her mind.
The children are delighted, of course. They rush at him as Cristina opens the door, James having breezed past a couple of waiting photographers, polite but definitive – ‘I’ve said all that needs to be said. Now, I need some time with my family.’ Finn’s face is an oval of joy; Emily’s more wary for she has some inkling of what has been happening – not the nature of the charge, for they have glossed over that; said merely that a poorly lady has made things up about Daddy; but the fact that her lovely father has been in court.
Sophie watches as he pulls them to him as if his life depends on it; eyes tight shut as his head nestles between two domes of soft, light hair. She swallows, trying to dislodge the hard lump that seems permanently at the back of her throat; and to prevent the tears that spill now – in the safety of their own home – for she mustn’t let the children see her upset; they will not understand that they are not just tears of relief but of trepidation for the coming, unchartered days and weeks.
He looks at her over the top of Emily’s head and smiles with eyes filled with distilled love and she finds herself smiling back: the response is automatic. This is James at his very best. James, the loving father and husband, for whom his family’s happiness is paramount. The James he would always like to be. The only problem is that his is too large a personality, and he is too complex, too conflicted, too selfish a man to be this James entirely – and James the politician, James the philanderer, creeps in.
‘Mummy hug too?’ Finn, always the most inclusive of children, the most loving, turns to try to pull her into their group embrace. He has regressed over the last week and in his childishness shows how clearly he wants them to be together. She lets herself be half-pulled: her boy’s arms tight around her waist; her daughter’s resting on her back; James’s mouth crushed against her hair.
‘All home. All one family.’ Emily seeks to put the world to rights; her view black and white, with no room for dissent.
‘All home together,’ James agrees.
If only things were that simple, she thinks, and simultaneously: try to hold on to this moment. The fact that your children have been spared seeing their father branded a rapist and sent to prison; that they will never experience the desertion of losing a father; need never feel any sense of shame.
You need no more than this, she tells herself, as she enjoys the warmth for a moment: the closeness of her children’s small hands around her, holding her tight. And yet, there is that building disquiet: those questions she cannot quash and with them the desire to push her husband away, firmly. To experience only her children’s embrace.
She challenges him that night – once the children are in bed. She almost doesn’t: tries to just drink the champagne he opens and enjoy the moment. A moment steeped in gratitude more than elation and clouded by exhaustion – the strain of the past few months a debilitating drain on her body, like the aches felt a day or two after a marathon or a rigorous boat race.
James remains on a high. Taking congratulatory calls; arranging a private meeting with Tom – all terribly hush-hush; he will be smuggled into Downing Street first thing – stopping to spin her in his arms as he paces past; then finally collapsing next to her, champagne flutes refilled and his expression still joyful as he leans in for a kiss.
He is all tenderness as he takes her in his arms and begins to unbutton her blouse, nuzzling her neck in a way that she usually loves but which she now associates with other women. She reciprocates with a tight, closed mouth before extricating herself and wriggling away.
‘What’s wrong?’ His handsome face is a question mark, and she almost relents and leans back into him. Tells herself not to ruin things. But this is the moment and if she doesn’t say anything, the questions will eat away, incessant, and corrode their marriage like the rust blooming on the planters Cristina left out in the rain.
‘There’s no easy way to say this . . .’
‘What?’ His face crumples. Perhaps he thinks she wants to leave him?
‘I need to know what exactly happened . . . I can’t help thinking about what really happened in the lift.’
‘What?’ he repeats. ‘You know what happened in the lift. I just stood up in court and told the whole world.’
‘I know what you said in court, yes . . .’ She twists to face him, feet planted firmly on the floor in front of her, hands cradling her elbows as if she could comfort herself by rocking. ‘But I need to know what really happened. Was it exactly as you said?’
‘I can’t believe you can ask that.’ He bends and picks up his phone from the lounge table, shaking his head as if immensely saddened by her question. ‘After all I’ve gone through. After all you’ve heard me admit to, you doubt me?’ His voice hardens. ‘I didn’t think it of you. I’m off to bed.’
‘Just tell me that she never told you to stop.’ She can hear a strain of desperation in her voice but she needs to know. ‘That she really never said, “No. Not here.” That,’ and here her voice cracks with the weight of her unease, ‘you never said: “Don’t be such a prick-tease.” ’ The terrible words spill out in a rush. ‘That you never said any of it.’
‘What do you think?’ He looks down at her, his voice calm, again, and reasonable: the James who is utterly in control and will argue at his clinical best.
‘I don’t know. I worry that it’s possible she said something about wanting you to stop and that you ignored it because you didn’t think she meant it.’ The words that have reverberated around her mind fall into place in this neat, easy line that lies between them. Craving reassurance, she waits.
But he sits back down on the sofa, with an ironic shake of his head and a glance of what looks like admiration.
‘You know me too well.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ Something jars inside her. I know you can be economical with the truth if it suits you, she wants to say; I know you’ve done it before – but she can’t quite go there.
‘She may have made some sort of half-hearted attempt to fob me off.’
‘What?’ She hadn’t wanted him to agree.
‘But she didn’t mean it.’
‘How can you say that! How can you presume to know what she thinks?’
‘Because I know she didn’t mean it. She was always up for it.’ He takes in her crumpled face, for his words have punched her in the stomach, hard. ‘I’m sorry to sound crude but I’m trying to be straight.
‘It was what she was like: always pretending to resist but then coming round. It was a game to her: it seemed to make her feel wanted. She wasn’t always like that but she was in these risky situations – whenever we had sex and there was a chance that others might come in.’
She sits stunned. It is too much to take in: the admission of habitual risky sex, the reference to Olivia’s desire, the details of their game-playing. She gropes for the nub of the issue amid the fog of his speech.
‘But perhaps she didn’t want it this time?’
‘I very much doubt it.’
‘And she told you she didn’t want it?’
‘Well . . . she may have done.’
‘Did she or didn’t she?’
‘All right. I think she said it once, OK?’ His voice rises in exasperation. ‘Hey, let’s drop it, shall we? I didn’t expect the third degree.’
But she won’t drop it, she is dogged now.
‘You think she said it?’
‘Christ. What is this? Another cross-examination? Look, she said it just the once, pretty half-heartedly, OK?’
His admission winds her and when she speaks, her voice is quiet, almost disbelieving: ‘But, in court, you told them she didn’t say that. You said that she never said it.’
‘Oh, don’t go all puritanical on me.’
‘But that’s what you said.’
‘Well, perhaps I misremembered.’
‘You misremembered?’
‘I didn’t lie, Sophie.’
She is silent. Trying to think carefully. An error in remembering; an omission; a lie: all shades of inaccuracy.
‘What about “prick-tease”. Did you say that to her as well?’
‘Ah well, there you’ve got me.’ He has the grace to redden. ‘I may have done. But she wouldn’t have taken offence. She was always teasing.’
‘Did you or didn’t you?’ She is crying.
‘And what if I did?’
For a moment, their eyes lock and she sees raw anger in his; knows hers are clouded with hurt and confusion: the realisation that everything she assumed about him has been wrong. He smiles quickly, trying to neutralise that anger, suggesting it can all be smoothed away.
‘Listen,’ he says, and he gives her a look of contrition: a look she would usually succumb to. ‘In my police interview, I may have misremembered events. Rather than cloud things, I stuck to my statement in court. She said no, half-heartedly, just the once and I knew she didn’t mean it because I knew her, I knew the context: that she’d wanted it so many times in similar risky situations before. Equally, I may have used that phrase – all right, I did use that phrase – because she teased a lot: and she liked the idea that I saw her as that – that I saw her as a prick-tease, even. Frankly, that’s what she was. But I denied it in court because I didn’t think it relevant; and I knew that if I changed my story, having not mentioned it previously, it would only have muddied things.
‘But none of this matters, don’t you see?’ He smiles, confident that he is winning her over, that he is as persuasive as ever – and she is bemused at this self-belief. ‘I knew the truth and that was that, whatever I may have said, and whatever she may have said briefly, half-heartedly and just the once, could be disregarded because at the point of penetration – the point at which, legally speaking, consent matters – she truly wanted me.’
‘But you didn’t tell the entire truth, did you?’ She speaks carefully, as if trying to get to the bottom of an argument between Emily and Finn, for she feels woozy and is fumbling her way to her own understanding here.
‘I told the truth, near enough. Or the truth as I saw it.’
Her head is reeling. ‘But it doesn’t work like that, does it?’ Of that, she thinks she is clear.
‘Oh, come on, Soph. The truth was that she’d wanted sex several times before in similar, risky situations; and that I thought she was up for it this time. If I failed to mention something in court – or even contradicted her – well, I was only telling the truth as I saw it, then.
‘We all adjust the truth from time to time,’ he goes on. ‘Look at what we do in government: manipulating statistics; putting a positive spin on things; omitting figures that undermine our arguments; pushing the envelope. Look at what we do with Budget statements – all that double accounting. Look what Blair did with the Iraq dossier.’
‘That’s irrelevant.’ She can’t be deflected like this. Knows he’s playing games; is trying to wheedle his way out of this; to outfox her as he does in every argument. ‘We’re not talking about anything like that here.’
‘So you wanted me to confess to something that I knew wasn’t relevant – and that would increase my chances of being branded a rapist and sent to prison? Is that what you wanted? For me to do that to us – and to Finn and Em?’
‘No, of course not.’ She backtracks, for she hadn’t wanted that at all. ‘I just think you should have told the truth!’ The words burst from her, as fresh and unsullied as newborn babes. Her heart aches at the realisation that he has twisted the truth to suit him; that he lied in court – and that he thinks it is acceptable to do this. She knows every flaw of his personality – every last unpleasant nuance. And yet she no longer recognises him.
‘Look.’ His smile is tight now; a grin bared with a determination that she listen to him. ‘Even you bend the truth from time to time.’
‘I don’t!’ Her panic is rising.
‘Yes, you do. You told your mother you’d love her to come and stay when it wasn’t convenient; you told Ellie Frisk you admired her dress at the State Opening though you whispered to me that it aged her. You even told Emily that having your ears pierced before the age of sixteen increased the risk of them turning septic.’
‘That’s rather different,’ she says.
‘In what way? You said those things to ease a situation – or in Emily’s case to scare her into accepting your point of view. All I did was tell the truth as I understood it so as not to confuse the jury but to ease their understanding; to clarify things.’
She is appalled. His understanding of the truth is so different from hers that she wonders if she is going mad.
‘No, you didn’t.’ She fumbles to find her bearings, for hasn’t he acknowledged that he knew he had a choice of whether to tell the truth and he chose not to do something that would increase his risk of going to prison?
‘You told them a version that suited you when you were on oath; when you’d promised to tell the truth in court. You . . .’ she deliberates over whether to use the word but there is nothing else that conveys the strength of his behaviour. ‘You lied in court, James. You committed perjury.’
‘And what are you going to do about it, Soph?’ His eyes are cold now; his mouth set.
And that is the question. What is she going to do?
‘I don’t know. Nothing.’ Her insides hollow. She is utterly pitiful, feels her resolve crumbling, for she will not destroy the family she has worked so hard to keep together – not after all of this.
He raises an eyebrow. It is rare for them to argue like this, and usually he would open his arms, not allow their bad temper to continue. He does not open them now nor would she go to him, if he did.
Revulsion bubbles up at the realisation that he may indeed have forced Olivia into sex. That he raped her. The room sways; the edges becoming less defined as the boundaries of their lives give way. He may persist in believing he did nothing wrong but Olivia didn’t consent to sex in that lift at that moment – and his admission that she said: ‘No, not here,’ and his jibe, ‘Don’t be such a prick-tease,’ suggests he knew it.
She fumbles her way from the room, legs wobbly, eyes blurring; her one thought that she must get away before she breaks down completely. The downstairs cloakroom is small and dark but it has a lock that rams shut; will keep her enclosed and contained. She sinks onto the closed loo seat and lets her horror engulf her; feels a wail rise up that she silences with a fist. Her hand grows wet, her cheeks slippery as she regresses and feels her adult self disintegrate. Her husband is a stranger. Not only a narcissist, who dismisses the truth if it suits him; who thinks it is flexible, but – and the horror comes crushing down on her – someone who is guilty of rape.
Hunched in the dark, she forces herself to analyse if he ever did this to her. No, he hasn’t. The relief is enormous: a wave that sweeps her up and allows a chink of hope that he isn’t entirely amoral; that this ugliness hasn’t spread to their relationship and contaminated it.
But if he hasn’t forced himself sexually, he has imposed his needs over the years; so subtly she has barely registered it. Because it has always been James who decides things.
As the tears run down her face, she counts the ways: he was the one who finished the relationship at Oxford and determined its pace when they met in their later twenties, so that she feared initiating anything in case she drove him away. He was the one who suggested she give up her job after Emily was born, and put the arguments so forcefully it seemed easier not to resist. He was the one who made her an MP’s wife by making it clear from the start that he would be going into politics; who applied for that constituency; who even decided the area of London – as close to Tom as possible – where they should live.
Their friends have been largely his friends, she sees now: Alex and Cat quickly abandoned for Tom and his political allies. The holidays they take are those he prefers – with Tom in Tuscany, before they had children; once he became an MP, in Cornwall for fear an expensive foreign holiday would seem anti-austerity. She would be a vegetarian but she eats red meat with him and even the way she dresses is subtly influenced by his preference that she always makes an effort; that she is understatedly sexy, not frumpy. In Devon, she wears old jeans and sweatshirts, doesn’t blow-dry her hair, consciously chooses not to wear make-up. She relaxes in a way she just wouldn’t for him.
The compromises have largely been on her part, not his, she sees that now. None of these suggestions have been dictated; none coerced. He just stipulates what he likes and it has been easier to bend to his will and go along with it. No wonder she didn’t challenge him properly before the trial. She has sleep-walked through their relationship and only been forced to confront the worst when it was revealed in court, incontrovertibly there.
She wipes her face; feels its heat; wonders when she became so malleable, so weak in their relationship. A memory strikes her of being a second-year student, sculling alone on the Thames. A late spring afternoon: the sun low, the water quiet except for the soft plop of an otter; the cut of the blades puddling on the water and leaving a trail triangling back to where the boat had been. She had just mastered this skill and she felt poised: hands lightly on the oars as she pushed the blades firmly through the water to propel the boat forwards, then let them glide, before dropping them square and anchoring the boat again. Power surged through her feet, legs, glutes, back and arms but she felt no pain. She was invincible. Happiness flared in a way it hadn’t since the previous summer, before the tragedy; before she was dumped by James.
That girl has long gone. And the woman who replaced her can’t conceive of such uncomplicated happiness. Her heart throbs with a sense of loss; and acute, inconsolable pain.
And deep down inside her a question nudges. What is she going to do now, knowing what he has told her: that he lied about raping Olivia – and that he has got away with it?