I stare with my mouth gaping and wonder whether she really doesn’t know the answer to her question, or indeed if she expects me to answer it. Clearly a response is not required as she continues speaking.
“I am sure you’ve seen the travesty unfolding around poor Conrad, a better man and doctor you could never wish to meet. He has certainly never given me anything other than medical care of an exemplary standard.”
I am fuming at her gushing about Conrad Mathers and her omission of anything relating to Raymond leaves me unable to stop the fury overflowing from my mouth.
“An exemplary standard? You are kidding me? You have to be.” I release a deep breath I’ve been holding in for too long judging by my sense of breathlessness. “Did he make you strip for every appointment? Did he insist on strapping your legs in stirrups? Did he ensure that his examinations of you were invasive, painful and degrading and did he fuck you while your stepfather not only watched but gave him pointers and fucking encouragement?” I am shouting and crying.
She glares at me with only contempt on her face. Yes, she wanted my assurance of a commendation for the good doctor.
“He assaulted me for the best part of three years, and his parting gift was to rape me, so if that is exemplary medical care you can stick it up your arse mother, which incidentally is what your husband did with his dick on more than one occasion.”
My mother hates being called mother and she hates bad language, she sees no need for profanity which is why she disliked my father’s sister, Pauline. Auntie Pauline, who I loved, partly because of her mouth like a docker, but moreover because she was funny, kind and loving, until my dad left and he took her with him, her and my grandparents, a whole side of my family.
Suddenly I am lost in thoughts of Auntie Pauline and wonder if she is the same woman I remember, and if my father’s daughter, my sister person, Anita, is benefiting from having her in her life. Bitterness begins to wash over me atmy lot,but it gives way to a searing pain travelling up my face, from my jaw, along my cheek, finally finishing at my eye.
“Fuck!” I cry. My mother has just landed the bitch of all slaps to the side of my face.
I am still thinking that her strike is going to mark me when I realise that she is lunging for me again, but it’s my hair this time. She has a huge handful of my dark hair that I get from her and is using it to drag me closer to her, enabling her to slap my face on the other side and then she unleashes her mouth once I am deposited on the floor, at her feet.
“Now you listen to me, you little bitch.” She hisses, dropping to her haunches to address me eye to eye, eyes that I lower to avoid antagonising her further and also because I don’t recognise anything of the woman before me. She is cold, hard, and using rude words.
What has happened to her? Raymond, I reply to myself sadly. After all the things he did and allowed to be done to me he can’t have been a doting husband, can he? Or maybe she did believe me and somehow has turned her guilt into hatred that’s directed at me.
“When the boys in blue come calling you are going to tell them that Conrad was professional, caring and beyond reproach, and if they should mention us, your home life you make sure you remember what a difficult teenager you were, how rebellious. Tell them exactly how you would disappear into the village to meet those boys and then when you were at risk of discovery you told lies to Scott. Horrible, wicked lies when you had only ever been loved.”
“And if I don’t?” I ask with bravado I don’t feel.
“Then the floodgates open and we all go down Olivia, all of us, me, Scott, everybody, even you and your conscience. It won’t stop at Raymond and Conrad, you have to know that, you can’t be that naïve,” she almost accuses.
“Scott, where does Scott fit in?”
“John, chapter five, verse nineteen.”
“What?” My tone is beyond curt and for that I’m rewarded with another slap before she explains herself. I hear her words about the son doing nothing of his own accord and whatever the father does the son does too but can barely comprehend what I think she is saying. “You mean that he, Scott,” I gasp, unable to finish the sentence.
“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” she snaps. “He works with Raymond, at the church.” I know, we both know that she has chanced upon, I have offered her my Achilles’ heel, Scott.
I am sobbing now, but my own physical pain is forgotten as I realise what she’s saying to me,I tell the truth about Raymond or Conrad and the authorities will keep digging until they unearth my brother, but surely it can’t be true. She must be lying and yet I am unsure if I can take that risk.
“Think about it, Olivia, and maybe consider how easy it was for me to find you. I would hate for Raymond to decide to convince you to do the right thing,” she says, threatens and makes for the front door. “You were special, chosen.” She turns to face me with a little sadness, briefly. “You could have had it all.”
I dread to think whatit allwould have involved but before I even consider whether to respond she is speaking again.
“Timothy chapter two, verse…eleven, or twelve, but you get the point?” she says and waits for me to recall it and I recall it well as it was always one of Raymond’s favourites to quote post punishment. I recite the words in my head about women learning quietly with submissiveness. The fact that a woman has no right to teach or exercise authority over a man, that she should remain quiet which basically means shut the fuck up Olivia and do as you’re told. I hate that they do this to me, all of them it seems, that they transfer guilt onto me so
that now if I do the right thing other people get drawn in and have their lives ruined, like Scott.
I still can’t quite believe he would ever become what my mother inferred, not after the way he reacted when I told him what Raymond did to me and yet I know she would sacrifice him to make me suffer, that her threat is anything but idle.
Somehow, I miss my mother leaving, meaning I am startled to hear a key turning in the lock as only Sarah has a key besides me.
“Baby, Olivia,” Mase calls revealing that he has a key too which is news to me, but welcome news as relief soars through my veins. I am safe, Mase is here and will keep me safe. “What the fuck?” he asks as he drops to his knees beside me. “What’s wrong?”
He thinks I’m sad, possibly unwell but I know that as soon as I lift my eyes to his he will see whatever marks are on my face courtesy of my mother and by the feel of it there are several. Mase doesn’t wait for me to look up, his fingers are already cupping my chin and lifting my face to his.
“You need to tell me what the hell has happened to you before I assume your random break-in has reoccurred and you’ve been assaulted, again.”
“You must have seen her,” I stammer. “She left and then you were here.”
