Backwoods Adventure

Humphrey Nightgall was in the mood for adventure. At 84 years old, he was perhaps a little way past his adventuring days, but he was still in the mood.

He promised himself that he would not go far. He got up out of his battered leather armchair and went to the pantry. He selected a few tins - corned beef, baked beans, soup - and a few other essentials, enough to last a couple of days at least. He looked around the cabin for his haversack. It was in the corner by the door. He took it into the pantry and placed his provisions into it. Then he went through to the bedroom and pulled a change of clothes from the chest of drawers. From the bathroom he brought a toothbrush, toothpaste and some soap. He added a flashlight and spare batteries to his supplies.

Outside the cabin, the first snows of the year had not yet fallen. The sky was a hard flat grey. Humphrey Nightgall considered that an adventure was not an adventure without some adverse weather conditions. He still felt like a young man. He strapped his snow-shoes to the haversack.

Angela Foster stirred in her bed. The duvet was kicked and shuffled into disarray, her pillow was half hanging over the edge of the bed. Her face was pushed up against the other bunched half of the pillow. Her husband's arm was flung across her head. She woke up and pushed herself upright. Her husband opened his eyes.

"What?" he said, as though she had asked him something.

"Nothing. Didn't speak. Morning," she muttered through her sleep-thickened mouth. "Man! What's the time?"

Angela Foster's husband flung an arm out and grabbed for the alarm clock. He peered at its face. It was 10.30.

"I should be at Grandpa's." Angela Foster continued to kneel on her side of the bed, staring unfocused at her sloppy pillow.

Humphrey Nightgall shut the cabin door behind him and headed out into the woods. A short way up the track that passed through the woods was a sheltered part of the river where Humphrey moored his flat-bottomed boat. Reaching it now, he placed his haversack in its flat bottom and climbed in himself. He started up the outboard motor and unfastened the mooring rope. Slowly he began to make his way up the river, going further into the backwoods up country.

Humphrey still felt like a young man. He knew how to skin a rabbit. When Mary had still been alive, when he had actually been a young man, he would catch rabbits and skin and gut them for her to make stews and pies. He thought he might try to catch a rabbit on this adventure. He had his knife in its sheath in one of the pockets of his hunting jacket. He patted it now, as he steered the boat up the river, with his free hand, to make sure.

Angela Foster dried her hair while her husband continued to lie in bed. She hated the way he just lay there, solid like a log, unmoving and unmovable. She hated him more and more recently. She turned off the hairdryer and looked at herself in the mirror. Was she a fool? She looked at him through the mirror. Or was she just too idle to leave? She sighed and began to dress.

Humphrey Nightgall had travelled a fair distance up the river. He had seen no-one on either bank. He had heard only distant sounds of life from the woods. He reached a sheltered spot in the water, with a gentle shore on one bank of the river, and decided that this would be a good place to moor the boat while he continued his journey on foot. If he was not mistaken, further ahead the river would begin to narrow anyway and become unnavigable. He steered the boat for the shore, allowing it to run slightly aground, then he cut the engine. He tied the boat to a conveniently hanging branch, shouldered his haversack, and began to beat a path into the woods. It was hard to tell the position of the sun through the canopy of trees above him, but Humphrey guessed that it was around midday. He looked at his watch. He was right. It was 12.15. From a pocket in his hunting jacket Humphrey drew a slim pistol. He had captured this from a German Officer in France during World War 2. He had also had the foresight to take a good supply of bullets for the pistol at the time. Although he had used the pistol infrequently over the years, this supply was now beginning to dwindle. Humphrey loaded the pistol as he stood in a small clearing, then he began to make his way cautiously through the undergrowth, keeping an eye out for rabbits, maybe a hare, or at the very least a squirrel. There were pigeons in the trees above, he could hear them, but although he still felt like a young man, Humphrey doubted his ability to shoot as accurately as he had been able to then. Not where pigeons were concerned anyway. He continued on his way, further up country, keeping the river on his right to ensure that he did not become lost. He paused to pat a pocket in his hunting jacket, to check that he had brought his compass, but he did not think to take it out and check his position. He was distracted. Up ahead he saw a rabbit. He stood very still and slowly raised the pistol. He sighted his quarry along the barrel, then slid back the safety catch. There was a slight click. The rabbit twitched and looked at him. Humphrey held still. The rabbit did not move. He fired. The rabbit bolted. His shot missed. Of course, Humphrey told himself, he should have made allowance for that. A good hunter always aims an inch in front of his quarry to allow for movement at the sound of the shot. He supposed that he would have scared everything else away with his blunder. Certainly the pigeons were no longer coo-ing. Humphrey crashed a little petulantly through the undergrowth. He would have to open a few tins.

Angela Foster did not even have time for her morning cup of coffee. She was already half an hour late. She was supposed to be picking her grandfather up from his sheltered housing bungalow and taking him to the optician's in town for his check-up. She hoped that he would be sitting ready to go when she arrived. If he was, they could just make it. She flew out of the house and got into the car. She turned the ignition. The engine failed to fire. She tried again. Still it did not catch. She turned it a third time. The engine sputtered into life but she could hear that it was missing. She supposed she would have to take it in for a service. Her husband was useless. He did not have a clue about cars. He drove a company car and felt no responsibility for its maintenance. She drove the clapped out old thing that she had had since graduating. She reversed off the drive, out into the road. The car bucked a little as she was reversing. She put the brakes on and changed to first gear.

"Don't die, don't die," she muttered.

The engine died.

She popped it into neutral and put the handbrake on. She did not want to risk anything today. She was late enough. She turned the ignition and thankfully it sputtered into life again. She lurched and coughed her way down the street. If any of them were up, or not out at some garden centre, she was sure her suburban neighbours would be grimacing behind their net curtains and vertical blinds.

Angela Foster had not chosen to live in this part of town. Her husband had decided that the area, and in fact the particular street, would be convenient for him to get to and from work. Angela worked in the centre of town at a day-centre for adults with learning difficulties. She would have preferred a nice terraced house in the town centre so that she could walk into work. Do her bit for the environment. Rid the planet of the heap she was driving. However, as he was paying most of the mortgage, her husband had decided he had final say over where they were to live.

Sometimes, Angela Foster wondered how she had wound up married to this man. Especially, she thought to her self now as she approached a junction, when there were pleasant men, like Carl at work, to whom she would much rather be married. Carl was lovely. He was tall, softly spoken, gentle and had very close cropped hair, like velvet. Angela knew, she had stroked it once. So had all the other women at work. Carl lived, alone Angela had recently discovered, in a terraced house close to the centre of town. He cycled into work. He had lovely legs. He was a project worker at the day centre. He had warm brown eyes. Angela suspected that he could probably fix cars as well.

She missed the turning off the by-pass that led towards the estate her grandfather lived on, she was so lost in thought.

"Bugger!" she muttered.

Now she would have to drive to the next roundabout and either double back on herself or cut across town, and they would probably not make it to the optician's.

Humphrey Nightgall had trampled down some of the undergrowth to make himself a small clearing. He found a handy rock to sit on and gathered some wood together to make a fire. From a pocket in his hunting jacket he took a box of matches and lit some dried grass he had placed underneath some twigs within the firewood. He soon had a healthy blaze underway. He took a can of beans from the haversack and his billy can. He heated the beans up, dropping some corned beef in with them. It was quite a tasty meal. Who needed rabbit, anyway?

Humphrey went down to the river to wash out the billy after he had eaten, and brought it back filled with water to make a drink of tea. He had remembered to bring tea-bags and a small plastic bottle of milk. For a moment Humphrey was confused. It was a while since he had been out on an adventure and he was beginning to wonder whether he had confused the idea with going on a picnic. Nonetheless, he enjoyed his cup of tea. He sat before the fire for a while, enjoying being out in the fresh air. Living in the cabin was fine, but since they had put the double-glazing in for him, he had begun to feel stuffy-headed. It was definitely good to be out and about.

Angela Foster swung round the roundabout and began driving hell for leather down the other side of the by-pass. She was almost at the turn off for her grandfather's estate when a police car appeared from nowhere in her rear view mirror and flashed her to pull over.

She did so, and switched off her engine. The police officer took his time in walking from his car to hers.

"Oh hurry up," she muttered.

The police officer tapped at her window. She wound it down and smiled at him, she hoped innocently but she knew that it was more likely to be sheepishly.

"Yes, officer?" she said.

"Can you confirm your name and address, please madam?"

Angela did so.

"Are you aware, madam, that you were travelling at 70 miles per hour in a 40 miles per hour zone?"

"Oh, gosh, was I? Oh, I am sorry. You see, officer, I'm supposed to be collecting my grandfather and taking him to an optician's appointment in town and I'm terribly late," she gabbled at him, then smiled again.

"That is no reason for failing to comply with the speed limit, is it madam?" the officer asked as he began to write out a ticket. "May I see your driver's licence and vehicle registration documents, madam?"

"No, officer," Angela Foster said. "I'm afraid I've left them at home."

The police officer handed her the ticket. "You have 7 days in which to present yourself at your local police station with your driver's licence and other vehicle documentation, madam. The ticket gives details of how to pay your fine."

"Yes, officer. Thank you."

Angela set off, more slowly, and continued on her way to her grandfather's bungalow, cursing under her breath as she went.

Humphrey Nightgall trampled out the fire. Even in winter it was important to be careful about things like fires. It was more important to be careful if one lived in Australia, of course. The outback was like a tinder box, by all accounts. But even in the backwoods here, one had to be careful.

Humphrey looked at the bean can and the corned beef tin. He knew that he should do something with these too, but he could not for the life of him remember what. He still felt like a young man, but sometimes his memory let him down. After all, he was 84. He supposed these little memory lapses were understandable. He was not worried about the tea-bag. He knew that would rot away eventually. He looked at the two tin cans before him. He did not want to put them into the haversack as they would be messy and the sharp edges were a hazard. He had already almost cut a finger on one.

Suddenly it came to him. He should bury them. He set about digging a small pit using a stick and his hands. He did not like to get mud under his fingernails. Mary had always said that he had beautifully kept fingernails. Mary would not have forgotten what to do with the empty tins. She would have brought a plastic bag to put them in.

Humphrey put the empty tins into the hole he had created then began covering them over.

Angela Foster stopped the car outside her grandfather's bungalow. She looked at her watch. There was no way now that they could get into town in time for the appointment. She would have to telephone the optician's and try to make another appointment. Which would mean another wasted Saturday. She sighed.

She loved her grandfather, but she was beginning to resent him. Or rather she was beginning to resent her parents for retiring early and clearing off to Spain, leaving her with the responsibility of making sure her grandfather was okay. Her husband was no help, making the most of the opportunities occasioned by her absences to head off to the golf club with his boss and other work colleagues.

She decided that she could not sit outside her grandfather's bungalow like this for the rest of the day. She ought to go in.

She made her way up the garden path and rang the doorbell. There was no reply. She peered through the living room window. Her grandfather was not in there, but Angela could see through to the kitchen, and was able to see that the back door was open. The silly old fool was probably in the back garden feeding the birds. She took her key from her bag and let herself in.

As he was making his way further into the backwoods, Humphrey Nightgall suddenly heard a noise somewhere in the woods to his left. Something was shuffling towards him. He stood still for a moment, behind a nearby tree, listening to the creature's approach. It was probably a bear. He took the pistol from its pocket in his hunting jacket. If it was a bear, it probably would be of little use to try to shoot it, but the feel of the pistol in his hand gave Humphrey a little comfort. He did still fell like a young man, but even so he knew that, running, there was no way he could escape an angry brown bear.

Angela Foster picked up the mail that was behind the door of her grandfather's bungalow. She put it on the table in the living room. She would sort through it with him later. She walked through to the kitchen and stood at the back door. She could not see her grandfather in the garden, which puzzled her, as it was only small. He must have been out there at some point because she could see a pile of earth by one of the rose bushes, where he had obviously been digging.

She called out, "Grandpa?"

The brown bear emerged into the clearing just behind Humphrey Nightgall. Humphrey peered at her round the tree. She could obviously smell that he had been there. She opened her mouth and growled slightly, then she shuffled further into the clearing, heading for the place Humphrey had just buried the tin cans. She snuffled at the pile of earth, then emitted another low growl. Humphrey slowly raised the pistol. If he could just wound her in the shoulder, he might be able to slow her down and give himself a chance to reach the river and head back down to the boat.

Angela Foster crossed the garden to where her grandfather had been digging, for whatever reason. She trod the earth down more neatly.

A slight movement at the bottom of the garden, behind the apple tree brought from the old house just before her grandmother died, caught her eye. She turned towards it.

"Grandpa? Is that you?"

Humphrey Nightgall knew that he had to fire now. The brown bear had obviously caught his scent and was heading towards the tree he had hidden behind. Quickly he slid back the safety catch, aimed, and fired the pistol.

Angela Foster heard the pistol shot and felt the bullet enter her right shoulder. Then her grandfather, clad in his pyjamas, rushed out from behind the apple tree, raced past her up the garden and shut himself in the kitchen.

"Ouch," she managed to say through gritted teeth, but it did not do the pain justice, so she tried a "Bloody Hell, Grandpa," as well.

Her shoulder was bleeding profusely. She put her left hand over the wound, which made no difference, and walked up the garden to the back door. She could see her grandfather watching her through the kitchen window. He was still holding the pistol.

She tried the back door. He had locked it. She saw him aim the pistol at her through the window and ducked just in time as the shot whistled over her head. Miraculously the window did not shatter.

As she crouched on the ground at the back door to her grandfather's bungalow, bleeding from the wound to her right shoulder, Angela Foster thought to herself, 'He's finally flipped.'

She raised herself up slightly with her left hand and looked up at the kitchen window. Her grandfather was peering back at her. He ducked back when he saw her looking back at him.

"Well, at least he's stopped shooting," Angela muttered to herself. "That's something I suppose."

She sat on the ground with her back to the wall and banged at the back door with the flat of her hand.

"Grandpa, it's me. Angela. Let me in please. I'm not going to hurt you. You can put the gun down," she called. "Not that you don't deserve to be hurt, you old git," she said to herself.

There was no reply.

Humphrey Nightgall knew he was lucky to have spotted the old shack that still had a door when he rushed past the bear into the woods on the other side of the clearing. He could tell that he had not wounded her sufficiently to make a proper escape. He would have to hole up in this shack for a while until the bear got bored and left.

He had guessed correctly that she would follow him to the shack, so he had bolted the door behind him. He could see her through the grimy window, trying to scrape at the door with her one good front paw. He aimed at her again though the window. She dropped down just as the bullet whizzed by.

She stayed down for a while. When she reared up again briefly, Humphrey ducked back from the window, afraid that she would try to swipe at him with her great paw, through the glass which miraculously had not shattered.

Humphrey Nightgall still felt like a young man, but that run from the tree to the shack had knocked the breath out of him. He sat on the floor for a moment to regain his composure.

Outside the bear began throwing herself at the door and growling loudly. Humphrey had the feeling that she was not going to leave in a hurry. He was going to have to try to kill her. He would have only one shot, he knew. Calmly he went back to the window.

Angela Foster stood up again. She went over to the window to see if she could tell where her grandfather had gone.

The bullet entered her skull cleanly, right between the eyes. It lodged itself in her brain.

The Coroner said at the inquest that death would probably have been instant.

As he had the whole day off, after the verdict was given in the morning, the late Angela Foster's husband played a round of golf in the afternoon.

© J R Hargreaves

Invisible Woman

She was off to one side, divorced from what was going on, and she could not bring herself to care anymore. She sat to one side and watched them. She wondered more and more what she had in common with them. What she had ever had in common with them.

They were all back together for another of those weekend reunions that involved sleeping on floors. She could not put a name to the feeling she had. Not exactly boredom, not exactly frustration, but something akin to both.

She looked at her friends now, seated around the pub table. One thing never altered, they still spent so much time deciding what to do that they ran out of time to do anything, and ended up going to a pub. There they were, ranged before her, couples talking couple-speak. House decoration for the women and mortgages for the men. They were nothing if not predictable. Even though she had bought a house, and had a mortgage, she somehow couldn't wring the same enjoyment from the topic as they seemed able to do. Then again, she no longer knew what else she might talk about with them, she had become apparently so off-beam. She chose instead to slide out sideways, leaving her body in position to nod and smile and say something appropriate every now and then, while her true self transferred itself to a solitary place. Her friends never seemed to notice any difference.

This evening, she was already out of her body, slipping to the side almost as soon as they had all sat down. She was ever hopeful that she would be caught at it one time. She wondered what she would do. But her friends were too absorbed in the minutiae of their lives to manage it.

The idea came from a book she had read once. The heroine had physically hidden herself beneath the bed on which her boyfriend and her friends were sitting. Her enjoyment of the joke was delicious, so delicious you could almost taste her amusement yourself. So she had devised her own method of hiding under the bed and listening in on conversations that did not require her.

Sometimes, she slid out of her body and ran off into the distance, far away, across time and space. Sometimes she managed to get so far away that she was a completely different person, capable of anything. And all the while mundanity reigned around her stationary body without anyone noticing a difference.

On the rare occasions that she became desperate with boredom (although these days such occurrences were growing less rare) she killed herself. Right there, in front of her friends. Sometimes she did it quickly, other times she drew it out, making the most of the opportunity to bleed profusely, even decoratively, onto the pub carpet. Even though she was nothing more than a corpse beside them, they seemed unable to see it. It was a wasted effort. She had to bring herself back to life every time.

Tonight she was simply drifting, half-heartedly investigating little pockets of anger she had been discovering within herself over the past 18 months as she wandered the room. There was anger at him, for loving her and waking her up to know what that meant - waking her enough for her to enjoy it and want more of it, but removing her in the process from the cotton wool she had been wrapped up in, so that she felt every tiny splintering piece of herself when she fell through his opened fingers and shattered on the ground. Anger, too, at her friends who had not asked her how she was in over a year, and when they did it was not in a way that made her feel she could tell them. And anger at the fact that she had been left to deal with this by herself, she who was so unprepared. She had brought to her friends' attention all the things that they had chosen to ignore, and still they could not give her their support. They could not give her, without being asked, the one thing she would unreservedly give to them without a second thought.

Before it had even seemed to begin, her life now felt as though it was over. She drifted back through her past. Her childhood. Her adolescence. Her years at university. She saw herself at 10 - a fat child with glasses, but not without friends. Self-confident, a tom-boy, happy. She saw herself at 15 - quiet and studious, shy of boys, feeling the beginnings of rejection - not pretty enough for boys to hang around her regardless, not sure enough of what to talk about to make them interested in her, not thin enough to be anything but a source of embarrassment for any boy seen talking to her. She saw herself at 20 - slimmer at last, but so buried beneath a fatness of mind, and so hidden behind defences of cynicism, self-deprecation and sarcasm that no man could get close enough to know her. Those that tried soon smelled the scent of desperation to be liked that she gave off. Like aniseed to hunting dogs, it was enough to put anyone off the chase.

And now she was an invisible woman. Invisible even to her friends, who claimed to know her but still could not see her. Invisible to the people in the place she now lived, the place to which she had moved to escape seeing him every day without being able to touch him. The place where it seemed she was incapable of making new friends.

She was depressing herself. She could stay tuned into the reality around her if she wanted to feel depressed. She slipped further off to the side and grew in stature. She became magnificent. Stunning. Awe-inspiring. She strutted through the pub, no longer invisible, causing people to fall off their bar-stools, their heads exploding at the magnificence of her. It was carnage in there. She looked at her friends to see if they had noticed, but they were still seated at their table, unaffected by the display. There too was her stationary body, towards which they threw the odd comment. She shrank a bit, like a balloon with a slow puncture, and began helping the others in the pub put themselves back together, apologising as she went.

As she could not grab the attention of her friends, she drifted further out to the side, through the pub walls, across the river, back through time, across continents, out into space, floating among the stars. The world was very small beneath her, and she was very small against the white-flecked expanse of the universe. If she concentrated very hard, she knew she could make herself disappear. The temptation was almost overwhelming. She would know then what it was to cease to exist. She drifted there for a while, listening to the echos of conversations crossing time and crossing each other. She began to wonder what it all mattered. If the answer was, as she suspected, nothing, who would care if she actually ceased to exist?

She sat back down next to her body.

"Listen to me," she said to her friends. "Please listen to me. I'm dying inside and I don't know what to do about it. I'm like a mummy somebody dug up, with nothing inside my shell but dust and dry bones."

Her friends continued their conversation, oblivious to her plea. She pointed at her stationary self.

"Look at me sitting there. Can't you see there's something wrong? Do I look normal to you? Why won't you listen? Why don't you care?"

She gave up in exasperation at their unwillingness to listen and went out into the pub car-park. She stood for a moment in the darkness, looking up at the stars. She was so small and the universe was so big. She opened her hand. It had been closed around a small, pearl-handled pistol. The sort that could be found in any number of 1920s murder mystery novels. She looked at it gleaming in the starlight. People come and people go, what was one more going to matter? The gun with its pearly handle blinked at her in the starlight. She shot herself.

Moments later, her friends left the pub. Her stationary self was with them. But she was no longer there.

© 2000 J R Hargreaves

Sometimes

This is the story of a relationship breaking down.

Let me paint you a picture. Try to visualise: my wife and I, young and successful, university graduates, high flyers. Lawyers in different firms with the whole world there in front of us, living lives that most people only dream about.

And we were in love. My wife is still the most beautiful woman I have ever met. Somehow I lost her.

We met at university. She was glorious. A goddess. Bright, intelligent, funny and beautiful. She was incandescent when we were out in a crowd, but she burned with a slow mellow glow when we were alone. It was impossible not to fall in love with her.

We married a year after we graduated. Some of our friends and family thought we were too young, but we knew it was the right thing to do. When we moved into our first home together, she was so excited - choosing furniture, designing layouts and decor. Real nest-making stuff. I was charmed and loved her even more. There was nothing better than waking up next to her in the morning and falling asleep next to her at night.

As we moved up our career ladders, we moved to a house in the fashionable north of the city. We bought bigger cars. We went on holiday to the exotic places we'd visited as students, but staying in the best hotels and eating in the classiest restaurants. We really lived the dream.

We decided not to have children for a while. I was always more keen than she was, but I tried to understand her trepidation. Having kids isn't a decision to take lightly, especially in this day and age. Sometimes I'm glad we made that decision, now that we're apart; other times I think it would have been nice to have created something - someone - that was half her and half me. It would have kept us connected somehow. And I wonder whether, if we'd had children, we would have tried harder to stay together. Maybe if we'd had a child, I wouldn't miss her so much now.

How we moved from happiness to misery to separation isn't an easy story to tell. I'm still not exactly sure how it all happened myself. It began for me one day in a police station.

aaaaaaaaa

The desk sergeant looked up from the report he was filing and looked down the hall. The detective in charge of the case was helping the woman along the corridor. She looked small and crumpled. The desk sergeant turned to face the man seated on the bench opposite.

"Your wife is here Mr Bruce."

Phil Bruce looked up from staring at the floor between his feet. His face was grey, he looked haggard. He rubbed his face with his hands, pressing his fingers into his eye-sockets for a while, before standing to meet his wife. She was clutching her coat shut at her sternum. The detective was speaking to her, but she kept her eyes down, her head lowered.

"Thank you for giving your statement, Mrs Bruce. We'll send out a description of the men. When we locate your assailants, we'll be in touch." He looked to her husband. "You've left your details with the desk sergeant?"

Phil nodded in confirmation and reached out his arm towards his wife. She shied away from him and walked towards the door. He addressed the detective.

"Thanks for your help, officer. Please - find whoever did this."

"We'll do our best, sir."

They shook hands. The detective turned and walked back down the corridor. John Philip Bruce, thirty two, solicitor with a firm of architects and surveyors, followed his wife out onto the street. He could not shake the feeling that this should not be happening to him. His wife was standing outside the police station staring off down the street. He stood to one side of her.

"The car's just round the corner, sweetheart. Come on."

He put his arm around her shoulder. She was still clutching her coat shut and felt hard and resistant to his touch. She kept her face averted, her head down as they walked. When they reached the car, he opened the door and closed it for her once she was seated. She would not look at him when he sat in the driver's seat. Her face was slightly bruised down the left-hand side and her lower lip was swollen.

"Are you okay?" He put his hand on her shoulder. She nodded. "What did they say at the hospital?"

She licked her lips, opening her mouth slowly and biting down gently on her lower lip before she spoke.

"There's nothing broken, but I should go to the doctor's tomorrow."

He sat with his hand on her shoulder for a moment longer, willing her to look at him. He could not voice all the questions that were running round his head. He sighed and started the car.

They drove home in silence. He kept glancing at her and opening his mouth to speak, but she kept her face turned away from him and seemed locked away in a place where he could not have reached her if he had tried.

He had been called at work earlier in the day by the hospital. His wife had been found in an alleyway across town. She had been assaulted and her purse snatched. Someone had called an ambulance and she had been taken to the hospital where she had been examined. She would not speak, the doctor said through shock probably, but an internal examination had shown that there was semen in her vagina and on the inside of her thighs. Her underwear was slightly torn, as was her blouse. When he had arrived at the hospital, she had already been collected by the police and taken to the station nearest to where she had been found. She was being questioned when he arrived. A detective had spoken with him while he waited. Apparently she had been down town alone on a job from her office. She had been grabbed from behind as she was walking along a side street and dragged into an alley. Two men had pushed her against a wall and tried to grab her purse. She had put up some resistance and one of the men had put his hand up her skirt. She had tried to break free of him, so the second man had hit her across the face and the first man had raped her. She had let go of her purse then.

He pulled up outside the house and got out of the car. He opened her door for her and helped her out.

"I'm all right, I can manage," she said, thickly, and walked up the path, still clutching her coat closed. She stopped at the door. "My keys. They were in my purse."

He unlocked the door, saying, "It's all right - we can change the locks."

"I never put my keys in my purse. They're always in my pocket. Why did I do that?" She did not move into the house. He put his arm around her, shushing her.

"It's all right," he said. "It's all right. Hush now. Come on. It'll all be all right."

He moved her into the house, closing the door behind them, one arm around his wife, who kept her coat front clenched in her whitened fist.

"Come in here. Sit down." He walked with her into the living room. "Let's get your coat off." He put his hand over hers to begin to take the coat from her, but she curled in on herself.

"Stop it. My blouse is torn."

"It's okay. We're home. You're safe. Come on, honey, let me help you off with this."

She sat down, refusing to let him take her coat off her, keeping it clasped shut with her hand, a barrier, a protection.

"Okay. Well, you sit there for a while and take it easy. I'll get you some tea, shall I? And I'll ring around a few places to see how quickly we can get these locks changed. Will you be all right there?" He crouched in front of her, trying to look into her face, but she would not look at him.

He went into the kitchen. The fluorescent lights made it seem harsh and sterile. He leaned into a work unit, supporting his body weight with his arms and hands against the cool work surface. He tried to pull his thoughts together. He did not know what to think. He was not even sure what had happened, he was struggling to grasp it. It horrified him to think that someone could do that. He wanted to go out there, find the men that had done this. He wanted to kill them. They had violated his wife. He hoped the police would catch them soon. He would have a few things to say to them, to ask them. He took a deep breath.

He took the tea through to his wife, but she was not there. He heard the shower running and went upstairs. Her clothes were in a pile in their bedroom. He picked them up and began folding them neatly. He hung her coat up inside the wardrobe and placed the skirt and torn blouse over the back of a chair. He did not know what to do with her bra and pants, so he dropped them onto the bed. He went into the bathroom. Through the frosted shower screen he could see that she was standing perfectly still, just allowing the water to run over her. He stood watching in obscurity for a moment, then he began to feel like a voyeur, so he went back into the bedroom and sat down on the edge of the bed.

She had seen him standing there, looking at her through the panel of frosted glass. She willed him to go away. She did not want anyone to look at her. She only wanted to be clean, but the water could not remove the feeling of that man's hands on her body, groping her. She could not rid herself of the feel of his thrusting inside her. The pain had been a searing white heat - like the loss of her virginity magnified a thousand times: the same clumsiness but for different reasons. She did not know if she would ever be clean.

Eventually she emerged from the bathroom. She stood in the doorway, looking at him as he sat on the bed's edge. Her face was impassive, the bruising down the left lending a distorted shading, like an abstract painting. He cleared his throat and sought for words in his numbed brain.

"Is that better now?"

She did not reply but moved into the room. She had a strange rigid stillness about her, like a tower of wooden building blocks. She began to dress. He watched her. Apart from the injuries to her face, he could see no other mark on her body to suggest that anything had happened. Somehow this confused and enraged him. He felt like he wanted to hit her. It didn't seem right this apparent lack of reaction. He wanted her to cry so that he could hold her and tell her it was okay, he was there. He wanted her to know that he was there. Somehow she was making him feel that he wasn't.

She could feel him watching her. She could feel the tension in him. She knew that he wanted to hit her, that he was struggling to understand. She paused in her dressing, still with her back to him, and picked up the scissors that were on the chest of drawers. She took hold of a handful of her hair and bluntly cut it off. Behind her, he had become very still; she could tell that he was barely breathing. She took hold of another handful of hair and cut that off too. Systematically she sheared herself of this symbol of her femininity. The hair lay on the floor around her feet, thick and lustrous. She put the scissors back on top of the chest of drawers and stepped out of the pile of hair. She took some clothes from the closet and went back into the bathroom to finish dressing.

After she had closed the door, he continued to sit staring at the pile of hair, his hands square on his knees. His mind could not even begin to understand what it was about. It had seemed almost ceremonial, as he watched it happen; now it just seemed surreal. He got up, then picked up as much of the carpet of hair as he could and put it into the waste bin next to the dressing table. It almost filled it, so long and thick had her hair been. He stood looking down at it for quite a long time, until he heard her come back into the bedroom.

Slowly he turned to face her. They stood looking at each other in silence. He took his eyes from hers and looked at her hair. She put up a hand to touch it, then let it drop like a dead weight back to her side. Although her face was set, cold and hard, she looked small and vulnerable; he wanted very much to step over to her and hold her safely in his arms, protect her, though he was not sure from what, and yet he could not even lift a hand to reach out to her.

She could see him struggling but she was helpless to help him. Watching him she could only feel a despising sickness at how weak he was. It was as though a barrier had appeared between them which he was incapable of climbing over. Eventually she decided to break the silence.

"What's the time?"

He looked down at his watch.

"5.30" He paused, then looked up at her. "I should go back to the office for a few hours."

She could not be bothered to reply.

"Will you be all right on your own, if I do?"

She wanted to scream. Instead she nodded. He edged past her, trying not to touch her, and she heard him go downstairs, leave the house and drive away. Only when she was sure he was gone did she allow herself to crumple to the floor and cry.

When he returned from work late that night, she was in bed asleep, or pretending to be asleep. He undressed as quietly as he could and got into bed beside her. She was curled away from him. He lay on his back for a while, staring at the ceiling. He could not hear her breathing so he guessed she was still awake. Tentatively he spoke.

"Honey? Are you awake?"

She did not reply.

"Sweetheart. I just don't get this one thing. I mean, what were you doing down town? Why were you on that street?"

She sighed. "Does it matter?"

"No, I guess not. I just can't get it out of my head. I can't figure out why you were down there."

"I'd gone to see a client."

"What, was he renting space down there? Were you setting up a lease? Only you haven't mentioned anything like that when we've talked about work."

"It just came up. I was free. I went to the meeting. It was down town." Her voice was dull, flat.

"I'm sorry sweetie. It just seems weird."

"Can we go to sleep? I don't really want to talk about it."

"Sorry. Of course. Sorry. Good night, hon'."

In the morning he left her sleeping. He ate breakfast silently, staring out of the kitchen window at the damp garden. His mind kept trying to consider what had happened yesterday, but recoiled every time it came close. What she was doing in that part of town still puzzled him. Her firm did not deal in property in that area - its clients would not choose to locate there. There was something not quite right in what she had said had happened.

She was still sleeping when he went back upstairs to say goodbye. He kissed her gently. She stirred but did not wake up.

He took her car keys, leaving her his car in case she decided to go to the doctor's. He walked to the station and caught a train into town. He got off near where she worked and walked the short distance to her firm's building.

The receptionist looked up as he entered.

"Mr Bruce. How is Caroline?"

"She's not too bad. I left her sleeping. I just called in to collect her car. I take it she caught a bus to her meeting yesterday?"

"Actually I think she walked there. Her car should be in her usual parking space. Do you know the way?"

"Yes, thanks. Erm - I wonder - do you mind if I just pop up to her section? I'd like to speak with her boss."

"Of course. I'll buzz you through."

She released the electronic door mechanism and he made his way up to his wife's office. He was not sure why he was doing this, other than he felt a need to know exactly where she had been going yesterday.

She continued to lie in bed for a few minutes after he had gone, then got up. She looked at herself in the mirror, at her hair. She tried to brush it. She ran her fingers through it. She picked up the telephone and called her hairdresser. He said that he could not fit her in for a week. She hung up without making an appointment. She picked up the scissors and tried to neaten up what she had done the previous day. Once she had finished, it did not look too bad - a little spiky perhaps, but a bit less like a hatchet job.

She telephoned the doctor's surgery. Again she could not get an appointment until the following week. She tried to talk the receptionist into giving her an emergency appointment, but it was clear that if she was unprepared to divulge why she considered herself to be an emergency, she could not be an emergency. It was also after 10 a.m. and therefore she was too late for the doctor to make a house call. She was exhausted when she hung up, and sat on the bed to recover. She needed to get her head together. She needed to get away.

He came away from her office no wiser about who she had been going to meet or why. She had written the time of the appointment on her desk-top planner, but no other details, and she had given minimal information to her colleagues. Someone had even said that they thought she had gone out of the office on flexi-time. It all implied that she had gone to a private meeting, and yet she had said that she had gone to meet a client. Still puzzling over this, he collected her car from the car park and drove across town to his own office.

In spite of his efforts to immerse himself in work, he could not shake off the questions he had in his mind. He was beginning to think that she was lying somehow. But why would she lie, and why would she say that she had been raped? He put his hand out towards the telephone, thinking about calling the detective who had questioned his wife, but he stopped himself. After all, what could he say? He thought that his wife was lying? Perhaps in a few days, as she began to get over it, she would talk more about it. Perhaps he should take her away for a few days.

His wife sat in the silent house, thinking about how sick she was of it all. She felt flat and stale. For at least six months she had felt as though she were treading water, going through the motions. It was as though her life had become stuck, like a record. The fire in her had gone out.

Nothing that she had tried made her feel any better. She had joined a gym, but the monotony of running on a treadmill or doing bench presses had been a sad irony. She had gone to evening classes but come away uninspired. She hardly saw her old girl friends. She worked a 50 or 60 hour week more often than not. They no longer went to the cinema or the theatre together. They did not even go for walks in the park or the country any more. She was beginning to feel trapped.

They had begun to dine out with a couple that her husband knew through work. Mark was a colleague of her husband's and was married to Alison. She could never remember what Alison did. They would meet up in town after work and usually conversation would be about work or politics or Noam Chomsky's latest pearl of wisdom. It was relentless and she longed for the days of parties and irresponsible behaviour, of wanting to change the world rather than discuss empty philosophies about it. Mark, Alison and Philip all seemed so settled and complacent about their existences. She felt as though she were expected to conform; or rather that they believed that she had conformed, like they had. It made her want to scream.

Soon after they had formed their little dining club, Mark began to call her at work. At first it was on work related pretexts, but gradually it became personal. She enjoyed hearing his voice and missed him if he did not call. Eventually they began to meet up, sometimes for lunch, sometimes on evenings between their regular nights out as a foursome. It reminded her of when she and Phil were first married and could not get through the day without speaking on the phone or meeting up for lunch. Although she and Mark reassured each other that their friendship was perfectly innocent, neither of them mentioned it to their respective spouses, nor was it alluded to when they were all out together.

He had phoned her yesterday morning and told her that he needed to see her. He wanted to talk. He gave her the address of a building down town that he was completing a survey on. She left work and walked across town to meet him.

She did not know how long she had been sitting there remembering. The second post had been delivered, mostly junk mail. She sorted through it, splitting it into piles. There was only one letter, for her husband, the envelope handwritten and bearing a central postmark. She did not recognise the handwriting. She ripped through the junk mail addressed to her and put it into the bin. She put her husband's pile of mail on top of the work unit in the kitchen, with the letter on top. She stood looking at it for a few minutes. She became filled with an icy calm as she stood there. It was almost a detachment. She saw her hand reach out for the pile of mail and take it up again, then she watched herself rip through each thing and throw it all into the bin. She could not have explained why if anyone had been there to ask. Then she pulled the half-filled liner from the bin, tied it closed and took it outside to the dustbin.

Phil had just returned from lunch. He had met up with Mark. Mark had not heard about what had happened yesterday, and had been shocked and concerned. He understood when he told him that they would have to postpone their dinner date for the next few weeks. He asked that his best wishes be passed on to Caroline. When Phil got back to the office, he wondered whether he should have talked his concerns over with Mark. Perhaps he could have reassured him that he was blowing things out of proportion.

After she had put the rubbish out, she went back into the house and found her bag. Pulling her address book out of it, she picked up the phone and dialled a Chicago number. A female voice answered.

"Hello? Suzie? Hi, it's Caroline..... Oh I'm fine really. Listen, I need to get away for a while. I wondered whether I could come and stay with you for a bit? ..... No, nothing serious - I'm not in trouble, no! Hmm? I just need a bit of space to get my head together..... When? As soon as I can get a flight, if that's all right with you..... Yes, that quickly! I'll phone you later when I know how soon I can get out there. Thanks, Suze, you don't know how much this means to me. I'll speak to you soon, yeah? Bye!"

She opened the telephone directory and found the number for the main flight operator to Chicago. She pulled her credit card wallet from her coat pocket and took out the mastercard. Then she dialled the number and booked a seat for the next available flight to Chicago.

She and Suzie had met at university. Suzie had spent an exchange year at the university and they had been in halls together. They had kept in touch over the ensuing years and were quite close, considering the geographical distance that lay between them. She dialled her number again and, as they spoke, filled Suzie in on what had been happening and why she needed to get away. She hung up feeling more invigorated than she had for a while.

She was watching t.v. when her husband came home. He kissed the top of her head over the back of the sofa.

"You've tidied your hair up."

"Yes."

"Did you go to the doctor's?"

"Couldn't get in for a week."

"Wouldn't they give you an emergency appointment?"

"They wanted me to tell them why I considered it to be an emergency and I couldn't be bothered telling them."

"Oh. I saw Mark at work today."

"Oh, how is he?"

"Fine. I told him about what happened. He sends his best wishes."

"Mmm."

"Have you eaten?"

"Not hungry."

He went into the kitchen. She had not looked away from the t.v. once the whole time he had been talking with her. He looked in the fridge and poked about among the stuff that was in there. He called through to the living room.

"How about I go and get Chinese?"

She did not reply. He walked over to the door and stood looking at her. She did not look up. The light from the t.v. flickered on her face.

"I said - "

"I heard you. I'm not hungry. You have it if you want."

"No, it's all right. I'll have soup or something. I just thought it would be nice. We haven't had Chinese for ages."

"Mmm."

He went back into the kitchen and stood in front of the fridge again. He wanted to cry. He felt incredibly alone. He did not know what to do. He knew that it was important to be patient, to give her time, but he was scared that this might go on for longer than he could bear. He took a carton of fresh soup from the fridge and began to prepare his meal.

He sensed rather than heard her come into the kitchen behind him. He continued eating without turning around, but could see her reflected in the window he was facing. She stood looking at him, her face expressionless. He raised his head slightly and made eye contact with her through their reflections.

"I'm going to bed. I'm really tired."

"Okay."

He turned round to face her. "I think you should try to get an emergency appointment tomorrow. Lie if you have to."

"Maybe. I'll see. Goodnight, then."

"I'll see you in a bit, sweetheart. I'm going to watch Newsnight. I'll try not to disturb you if you're asleep when I come up."

He listened to her go upstairs and move between bathroom and bedroom as she got ready for bed. After a while there was silence. He finished his soup and went into the living room. He flicked between channels, yawning, until Newsnight came on. He watched most of it with rolling eyes, and gradually drifted into sleep.

It was 2.15 when he woke up with a stiff neck and aching shoulders. He shuffled upstairs and undressed in the bathroom. His wife did not stir as he climbed into bed beside her.

She was already up and in the kitchen when he woke the next morning. He showered and dressed, heartened somehow by the fact that they could start the day together. A mug of coffee was waiting for him when he went into the kitchen.

"Good morning. You look a little better today."

He sat at the table and helped himself to cereal. She was eating a piece of toast and gazing out of the window.

"Did you sleep well?"

She came back into focus and looked at him.

"What?"

"Did you sleep well?"

"Oh. Yes. I think I needed it. I do feel better today."

"I was thinking yesterday - how about if we go away somewhere for a little break?"

"When?"

"Well, as soon as we can both get leave and I can book something, I suppose. A long weekend next week perhaps?"

He reached over to her and put his hand on hers. She smiled weakly.

"Okay. Whatever."

"Well, we don't have to. I just thought it would do us both good. We haven't really spent much time on our own together recently, have we?"

"I suppose not."

He continued to eat his cereal, his earlier good mood beginning to ebb away in the face of her unenthusiastic response.

She felt him deflate. It irritated her. She got up from the table and put her plate and mug into the dishwasher.

"Shall I phone a few places today, then?"

"If you like."

"And you'll call work to find out what leave you can take?"

"Mmm."

He sighed and got up himself. He drained his mug of coffee and put it with his cereal bowl into the dishwasher. He kissed her on the cheek and took his jacket from the back of the chair where he had left it the previous night.

"I'm off to work, then. Ring the doctor today, yes?"

He looked at her from the doorway. She nodded.

"I'll see you later. Let me know about the leave thing if you can."

"Okay. See you later."

He picked up his car keys from the side table in the hall and noticed her credit card tucked in next to the phone. He frowned then shook his head and left.

His absence galvanised her. She went to the phone and saw her credit card herself. She picked it up and took it and the phone through to the living room. She dialled her work number as she put the credit card back into her card wallet. Her secretary answered.

"Belinda? Hi, it's Caroline..... Oh. I'm okay - getting there, you know. Look, I need to book some leave. How many days do I have left?"

She waited as her secretary checked her leave chart.

"15 days? Right. Can I book them all starting from today? Yes, all of them. I know but I'd feel happier taking leave than sick. I'm going away for a week or so. Thanks Belinda. I'll see you when I come back."

She hung up and sat for a few minutes, deciding what to do next. Suddenly that last scene with Mark in the deserted office building flashed into her mind. How he had tried to kiss her and she had walked away. How he had told her that she was wasted on her husband. How he said that he believed he could make her much happier. How he had stood close behind her, removing her coat and kissing the back of her neck through her hair. How she had begun to yield and had turned her head so that their mouths met. How in the depth of that kiss she had begun to feel how wrong it was, how sordid to be in such a place. How she began to pull away from him only for him to grip her arms in his hands like a vice and kiss her with greater ferocity. How she had begun to struggle and, when he did not release her, finally to panic, causing him to strike her across the face and call her bitch. How he had torn at her blouse. How she had begun to cry and he had unzipped his flies and roughly pulled up her skirt. How she had pleaded with him to stop, please stop. How he had partly pulled partly ripped her pants down and entered her. How it had seemed to go on for eternity and she could do nothing but endure it. How he had stepped away from her when he had finished, adjusted himself, and left.

It had taken a few minutes to work out what to do next. She knew that she could not tell the truth. She would be held to blame. Phil could not possibly understand. She had emptied her purse of money and credit cards, putting these into her coat pockets, and then left the building by the emergency staircase, emerging into an alleyway. She flung her purse over the high wall at the end of the alley, then staggered out onto the street. A passer-by had come to her assistance and she had fabricated some story about having been assaulted. The lie of the past couple of days had grown from there.

She shuddered at the memory of him touching her. She knew that she had been na‹ve. She forced herself to become numb again to the memory. She got up from the sofa and walked purposefully up the stairs to the bedroom. She switched on the stereo and filled the room with music as she began to pack. She filled three suitcases with clothes, shoes and toiletries, and another travel bag with favourite books and cds. She knew that this was no holiday she was about to take. Somehow, living in this house, being in this marriage, she had lost sight of who she was. She had tried to be somebody different, and had watched her husband slide into being bland and successful.

She picked up the phone and called a cab to take her to the airport. She lugged her heavy cases and bag downstairs. She thought about leaving a note but she did not know what she could say. She did not want to leave him feeling that he could try to persuade her back. If she tried to explain how she felt he might feel compelled to do something. She was not sure what. Make promises he could not keep, say he would try to change, things that she did not want. She only wanted to be free, to discover who she was again.

The cab driver loaded her luggage into the boot of his taxi. As he took the last case from her hand and she began to shut the front door, the phone began to ring.

"Aren't you going to get that love?"

She carried on pulling the door towards her, listening to the ring as though from a great distance.

"No, it won't be anything important."

It was still ringing as she got into the taxi. She looked at the house for the last time as the cab pulled away.

Her husband put his phone down. She must have gone to the doctor's. He wondered whether to go ahead with booking the weekend cottage. He thought he should check with her first. They could discuss it when he got home tonight.

aaaaaaaaa

I did not see her for another two years after she left. She came back briefly to sign the divorce papers. It was as though we had never known each other.

She found work as a writer on a local newspaper in Chicago with her friend Suzie's help, and eventually obtained her green card. It was almost a year before I was sure where she was. She didn't write or phone. When I saw Suzie's number on our phone bill, of course I rang, but she would not come to the phone and Suzie wouldn't say very much.

The police never caught anybody in connection with the rape. They found her purse. It was empty except for her house keys and some odd bits of paper. The police said her attackers probably cleaned it out of money and threw it away. The only fingerprints on it were hers.

I never found out who she had gone to see that morning - whether it was a client or someone she had been seeing. Someone at her office suggested that she had been seeing someone for a while but didn't know who or whether it was him she met that day. I think that it probably was, and they had some sort of argument and rather than admit that, she had made up the story about being assaulted and raped. Perhaps he assaulted her. I don't know. I probably never will, either.

It has been a year since we were divorced. Like I said, I still miss her. I wonder if there were signs that she was unhappy and I just missed them. It never once crossed my mind that she might be unhappy.

I'm trying to get back out there but it isn't easy. Mark and Alison have been true friends, really supportive. Mark told me the other day that he'd had an affair once, but he'd quickly realised that Alison is the one for him. I'd thought that Caroline was the one for me. Still, they both seem to think that I'll meet someone else and be happy again. I'll just have to wait and see.

© April 2000 J R Hargreaves