‘OK,’ she said. ‘Thanks.’
He showed her to the bedroom, which was small, with one high window. The bed took up most of the floor space. A clothes rack was squashed into the corner, hung with an array of blue and white shirts. A pair of crumpled underpants lay on the floor. Jarvis kicked them aside.
‘Bit of a bachelor pad here, sorry!’
He bent down and opened a drawer under the bed, fishing out a pair of striped pyjamas.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘You can put these on. Bit more comfortable.’
She took them and waited for him to leave. Jarvis stayed put until it became obvious she wasn’t going to undress in front of him and then he smirked, his piggy eyes almost disappearing into the folds of his face, and went to put the kettle on.
She changed quickly into the pyjamas, which were several sizes too big, and folded back the duvet. It had been a long time since she’d been in a real bed. She lay down and was immediately worried about messing up the pillowcases with her matted hair. She arranged her limbs in a way that would take up the least possible amount of space. She heard the kettle whistle and click and then felt the weight of Jarvis sitting on the edge of the mattress.
‘Here you go,’ he said, offering her the mug. ‘I put milk and sugar in it.’
She took the tea and set it on the bedside table. The mug had ‘Better together’ written across it in blue block capitals. She remembered the phrase from somewhere. Jarvis looked at her expectantly.
‘Just waiting for it to cool,’ she said, but he seemed offended and so she took a sip and it burned her tongue.
‘Lovely,’ she said, although in truth it tasted odd. Perhaps the milk was off?
Fliss drank the mug down under Jarvis’s watchful eye. He seemed satisfied when she handed it back, empty.
‘Good girl,’ he said.
She was suddenly extremely tired. A wooziness settled in the pit of her stomach. She thought it must be the after-effects of the vodka. As she rested her head on the pillow, she remembered where she knew the phrase from. Better Together: it had been the Conservative Party’s general election campaign slogan.
She passed out.
When she came to, she didn’t know where she was. Her vision was filmy, her mouth dry. The buttons on the pyjama top had come undone. The mattress was moving and a grunting sound was coming from behind her. She tried to say something but found she couldn’t speak. Her tongue was swollen. A hand cupped her right breast, kneading it like dough, twisting her nipple. The fingers were chubby. A signet ring. In the fuzziness of her head, recognition came briskly into focus. She knew this hand. She remembered it holding an unlit cigar, opening the door to the taxi, pressing the button in the lift, handing her a mug of tea that had tasted odd.
Jarvis.
Why was he—
She arched her back, trying to wriggle away from him, but he held her down.
What was he—
He gripped her arm with great force. She could imagine it bruising, the blood vessels coalescing purple against her skin.
How could she—
She thrashed and twisted. But it was hopeless. She was too weak and he was bigger than her. Then her muscles went slack and she lay very still. She imagined disappearing.
‘Good girl,’ Jarvis said. His voice was muffled, the words reaching her from far away. He released his grip on her and she heard him spit into his palm. He spread her buttocks and jammed his fingers into her. She gasped. Her stomach cramped. She thought she might be sick again. She swallowed, trying to relieve the nausea. She knew, from a place deep within, that the only way to survive this was to allow it to happen. She was crying. She tried not to make a noise. Tears dampened the sheets. She tried not to be herself. She tried to leave her body, to hollow it out. She tried to become a void in which she ceased to exist; an emptiness where nothing could harm her because she was no longer there.
He pushed into her, then. The pain was celestial in its enormity. Fliss twisted her face into the pillow. She imagined her soul floating high up above, disconnected and free from the war being waged on her body. Jarvis slammed into her again, pushing himself in and out.
‘Stop,’ she croaked. ‘Please stop.’
He didn’t stop.
She willed the moments to pass. He thrust into her one final time. She gulped down her scream. He groaned then rolled to one side, releasing her. His sperm leaked down her thighs. His sweat coated her back.
Fliss trained her gaze on the patch of wrinkled sheet in front of her. She saw a single curled ginger hair. She thought of her grandfather, the monstrous weight of him. Bile rose in her gullet. She dashed out of the room and threw up in the kitchen sink.
It was here that Jarvis found her, minutes or perhaps hours later, hunched over, naked on the floor, curled up into a corner with her back against a cupboard door. She didn’t want to go back into the bedroom. But she couldn’t leave without her clothes. She cowered as she heard his footsteps, raising her arms reflexively to protect her head. She heard him come to a standstill, breathing heavily.
