SIXTY-NINE

Emma

SUNDAY, APRIL 29, 2012

I thought I’d feel better when I told Jude. I thought she would acknowledge her guilt. But of course she didn’t. She denied it. I’d expected her to argue at first, but I thought, in her heart of hearts, she would know. She’d see the truth when I laid it out in front of her. But no. Will still has that hold over her.

But I’ve started now so I must go on. And Kate is going to help me.

As we drive out of the car park, she says it could get ugly if we confront Will, but I say it couldn’t get any uglier than it is.

“I deserve this moment,” I say. “And so does he.” Deep breath. “I don’t want to go to the police yet. I don’t think they’ll believe me—and if they don’t act, it’ll be over, won’t it? I won’t get a second chance.”

Kate nods. I think she’s on my side.

“We need a confession,” I say. “Fronting him up” is what Kate calls it.

Kate gets an address for Will from a colleague and we drive out of London. I’ve already decided what I’ll say and I’m practicing it in my head.

I need to eat something or I might faint, I think. I can’t remember when I last ate. I feel dizzy at the thought of seeing him, but I know this is the right thing to do.

I wonder what he’ll do when he sees me. The specter at the feast. I wonder if the shock will kill him. For a second, I fantasize that he’ll have a heart attack, right there in front of me. But I want my moment with him.

I’ve waited twenty-eight years for this. My mouth waters and I feel dizzy again. There is this image of an avenging angel in my head. The beating of strong wings, the rush of heavenly winds. Stop it. I need to get a grip.

•   •   •

His cottage is like a picture on a biscuit tin. Roses round the door. The whole thing. How inappropriate, I think as Kate knocks.

And there he is, Professor Will. Smiling a welcome to her, a stranger, and then spotting me.

He masks his shock well, turning on the urbane charm and saying: “Well, this is a surprise. How are you, Emma? What are you doing here?”

“I want to talk to you, Will,” I say.

“What about?” he says. “I’m not sure we have anything to talk about.”

He is nervous now. A neighbor passes his gate and calls “Hello, Professor Burnside” to him and he quickly ushers us out of public view. Doesn’t want a scene, I think.

He leads us into his chintzy sitting room. There’s a cup and saucer on the coffee table, brown toast and honey, and the Sunday supplements spread out on the sofa.

He sits down, crossing his legs to reveal yellow socks and tanned calves.

“So, Emma, who is this with you?” he says, as we perch on the armchairs.

“A friend, Kate,” I say—I don’t want him to know she’s a reporter, and Kate has agreed not to say anything. “She drove me down here,” I add, in explanation.

“Hello, Kate,” he says and waits for one of us to speak. Smiling all the time.

The tension is making me feel ill and I force myself to speak.

“I came to talk to you about what happened when I was fourteen.”

“Goodness. This isn’t going to be a short visit, then,” Will says. “Do you want to talk about your vicious lies or your screaming fits? They are all still quite vivid in my memory.”

“No, about how you raped me,” I hear myself say.

It is as if the world stops. None of us move or even breathe. The word “raped” seems to echo round the room, bouncing off the sprigged wallpaper and china shepherdess ornaments.

The color has drained from Will’s face, then floods back as he half-rises from his seat to protest.

“Rape?” he says as if he’s just heard the word for the first time. “What are you talking about? This is preposterous.”

He realizes he is shouting and sits back down again.

“Dear me, Emma. You really are not well, are you?” he says, back in control.

I look at him and he looks back. Challenging me to repeat the allegation.

“You raped me, Will,” I say. “You picked me up in your car when I was walking home. You had sex with me and said I made you do it. That I led you on. But I was a child, Will.”

“Hardly, Emma,” he sneers. It was a mistake, and I see Kate rock forwards, outraged.

“A child, Will,” I repeat loudly. “I was fourteen.”

“Emma,” he says. “Please calm down. You and I both know that you were a very troubled girl. And it appears you still are. I want to feel sorry for you, but if you are going to make up this sort of slanderous nonsense, I may have to act.”

“I am going to act,” I say, because I am. It is part of my plan now that I’ve seen him. “I’m going to the police.”

“Well, it will be your word—the word of a deranged woman with a history of mental problems—against mine,” Will says, his tone a shade harder. “You may want to reconsider.”

“No,” I say. “It is time.”

He turns to Kate and does this two-adults-with-a-difficult-child look, radiating weary empathy. “I don’t know what she’s told you, Kate,” he says, “but it is all lies. She has mental health issues—did you know that? Had to be sent to live with her grandparents. She’s making the mistake of her life.”

“It sounds like you were the mistake of her life, Will,” Kate says. “She was the daughter of your girlfriend. She trusted you like a father.”

And I want to hug her.

Will drops the charm offensive immediately.

“Rubbish! This is total rubbish,” he says, uncrossing his legs so quickly he bangs into the coffee table and upsets his cup. “Look, I never wanted to have to say this, but your friend was no innocent flower. She’d had an older boyfriend in Brighton. She told me. It was all part of her Lolita act. She was begging for it,” Will says.

Kate nods to herself. I think she has heard what she’s come to hear. She believes me. My avenging angel.

“Of course, having sex with a fourteen-year-old with or without her consent is a crime. But I’m sure a man of your education knows that,” she says and he shuts up.

“And Emma had a baby, Will. Your baby,” she adds. It comes out almost as an afterthought and Will does a sort of double take.

“There was no baby. I lived with her and her mother. There was no baby. More lies,” he says, but his nerve seems to be failing. “Lies,” he repeats as if he has run out of words. He looks smaller now on his big sofa, with his ridiculous yellow socks.

“Actually, you are wrong. You have misjudged Emma,” Kate says.

“Just like Jude and I misjudged you,” I add. “But I know who you are now. I won’t listen to any more of your vile excuses. You will have to tell them to the police instead.”

Kate takes my arm and we walk to the door with Will ranting about legal action behind us.