Perfect Death. Helen Fields
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Edinburgh Bespoke, a furniture-making factory. Because of his experience and his manner with the other men, his employers made him foreman very quickly. We were able to move out from rented accommodation and buy a flat. We were stretching ourselves financially but it was all right. We were young and in love, and we got by. Your father was proud of himself. He was twenty-five, had a good job and we’d begun talking about starting a family. That job meant the world to him. He made every day funny, you know? He came home with stories about his colleagues, their families, little things that went wrong. He had this photo of me, taken during our first dance at the wedding, that he kept on his desk at work. He used to tell me how the other men would say that I was beautiful, that he was lucky. It was silly, vain, but I thought it was harmless.’
She broke off on a sob, one hand at her throat. Callanach wanted to put his arms around her but couldn’t. Assault victims required space, not human contact, when reliving their experiences. He knew the form, had been trained endlessly on pro-tocols and procedures. Still, none of it had prepared him for this.
‘It was the work Christmas party,’ Véronique said, hardening her voice, gulping a breath. ‘I was wearing a green dress. Your father had bought it for me especially. He wanted me to look my best. It had a swing skirt, just above the knee. I told your father it was too expensive but he insisted. The party was at the warehouse. It was decorated, there was a tree, they put on some music, made punch. It was nice for me to meet the people I’d heard so much about, I felt like I knew them already. I was dancing with your father. He was driving us home so he hadn’t had any of the punch, but I had. Just a couple of glasses, although that was enough to make me a little dizzy. I wasn’t used to spirits and I don’t know what they’d put in it, but it was stronger than I’d realised.’
As if she was still there, Véronique reached out for a glass that was sitting on top of a cabinet, opened the hotel fridge and poured sparkling water. She took a long drink and sat down on the deep window sill, legs huddled up into her chest.
‘There was a telephone call. One of the company lorries had broken down and it needed to be towed to a garage, but it was full of furniture that had to be delivered the next day. Someone had to take out another lorry and bring the goods back to the warehouse. Your father was one of the few people still sober who could drive the truck. I hadn’t wanted him to go, but there was no real option. I remember wanting to go home, but I was persuaded to stay. Mr Jenson, one of the partners, said he would look after me. I hadn’t wanted to seem antisocial.
‘As soon as your father was gone, Mr Jenson offered me a tour of the warehouse. He made me feel important, talked about how much they valued my husband, did I want to see his office, and I went. I never thought for a moment … The music was on loudly by then, very loudly. People were singing, dancing, there was a lot of alcohol. We went up to the top floor, which was deserted. I recall wondering why he was showing me, that there wasn’t anything to see. The corridors were dark and there were heavy fire doors between sections of the building. We got to the far end, as far away from the party as you could get, and Mr Jenson told me that was where his office was. He opened the door. There was another man in there, one I hadn’t spoken to but I knew that it was the firm’s other partner, Mr Western. He got up from the desk, came to shake my hand, complimented my dress. Although he didn’t say anything wrong, I remember feeling that I shouldn’t have been there. It felt strange, two men in such a small room with me.’
Callanach could picture it more clearly than he wanted. His mother – young, incredibly beautiful, too scared to put a foot wrong, to insist that she return to the party. His father’s bosses – entitled, made braver by alcohol and the knowledge that no one could hear what they were about to do. It was a scene that had been replayed through history, across decades, social classes and genders. It was about the powerful and the powerless. It was just because they could.
‘I told them I needed the bathroom and that I had to go back downstairs. They had a bit of a laugh about something, I can’t recall what, then I saw Western nod at Jenson. I think I knew when I saw that tiny movement, just how much trouble I was in. That was all it took. The fact that they had communicated with one another, excluding me. They put a …’ She broke off, panting hard, shoulders hunched, head down.
‘Maman, don’t …’ Callanach said.
‘I have to,’ she replied. ‘They put a bag over my head, something rough, then one of them held me while the other … it was fast. I thanked God for that. And it was only one of them. Then the phone rang and it was as if, I don’t know, they woke up. Like they’d forgotten where they were, or who they were. I was pushed to the floor and Western pulled the bag off my head, threw it at me, told me to clean myself up. There was some bruising on my arms – I’d struggled and they’d been forceful holding me. My hair was a mess from the bag and there was makeup running down from my eyes. I was shaking and clumsy. I think it was Jenson who got annoyed, telling me to hurry up.’
Véronique stopped, studying the empty glass she was still clutching and forcing her fingers to relax so she could put it down.
‘What did Dad do?’ Callanach asked. He needed to move the story along. It was a selfish perspective, he realised that. His mother had had the courage to relive the worst moment of her life and all he wanted was to scrub the image from his mind. He wanted to turn back the clock never to have heard it.
‘I didn’t tell him,’ Véronique said. ‘I found my shoes. They’d been kicked across the room when I’d struggled … and I wiped the tears from my face and tried to leave. Western grabbed me just as I was opening the office door. “Tell anyone,” he said, “and your husband is out of a job. We’ll tell him it was you who came to us. And we’ll tell everyone else in this city that your husband stole from us. He’ll never work again. Not so fucking high and mighty now are you, miss pretty French piece of ass?” I heard those words in my head for years. His voice. The hatred in it. I don’t know if it was the picture on your father’s desk that set them off, or the way I spoke and the fact that I was French. But they chose me. They knew what they were doing. They gambled on the fact that I would never be able to tell your father, and they were right. So I went to the ladies’ room and I cleaned myself up. I waited outside for your father for an hour in the freezing cold. I told him I was unwell and he took me home. I vomited as soon as we got back and he must have thought it was the alcohol, so that’s what I let him believe.’
‘You couldn’t tell him?’
‘Losing his job would have been the best-case scenario, Luc. Your father adored me. He’d have killed them, both of them, for hurting me that way. The thought of losing our house didn’t matter to me, we could have lived on the streets and been happy, moved to France to find work, lived with my parents. But do you think your father would have walked away? Never. He would have ended up in a prison cell and all for the sake of me needing to share my pain. I loved him too much to tell him. Worse things happen to women, Luc. That’s what I told myself. It was easier to stay quiet. Easier to bear my shame quietly, alone. Better than risking it all.’
‘So no one ever knew?’ Callanach asked. ‘You’ve carried that alone all this time?’
‘I told my mother, after your father died when we moved back to France. Your father’s death devastated me but it released me from the need to stay in this country, near those animals. I was free to take you away and start again, and I was able to stop lying to the man I loved. I’m sorry, you don’t need to hear all this.’
‘There are counsellors, Maman. Even now it might do you good to get some help,’ Callanach said.
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ Véronique said, smiling gently at him. ‘I don’t want it to be part of my present. It’s the past. I’m sorry that I didn’t have the strength to tell you before. Instead, I ran. Not from you, though. From the memories.’
‘I understand the trauma,’ Callanach said. ‘But you know me. You know I could never be capable of causing the harm those men did you.’
‘I do know that. Really, I do. But there’s something more,’ Véronique said. ‘If I don’t tell you now, I never will. Eight weeks after that Christmas party I