I wanted to agree with him, though I had doubts. ‘Maybe she fudged the truth to avoid our judgement of her lifestyle. She’s the daughter of two recovering addicts. We’ve all made bad decisions when we were young and drunk. You and I should know.’
He put his arms around me, and I rested my head on his shoulder. Dearest Jack.
‘Well, what about Simon? We can’t let him get away with it,’ he said.
‘I’ll go see him,’ I said.
‘No chance. I will deal with Mr Perry,’ said Jack. ‘You’re not going anywhere near him.’ Jack wanted to protect me from a rapist.
60
The next day, a Monday, Lucy stayed in her bedroom again all day. I brought her trays of food which were barely touched. It was eerie how her actions mirrored mine in the days after the incident. Jack came back late from work. I had stayed home for Lucy.
‘How is she?’ he asked.
‘The same.’
‘I went to see Simon Perry today after leaving the Academy. I think he will be leaving ComStat and not coming back.’
‘What did you do? You confronted him? Did he admit it?’ I was flustered.
‘It’s okay. I dealt with him, like I said.’
‘What happened?’
‘I made a five o’clock appointment with him. He knew my face from TV, but he didn’t know I was Lucy’s dad. She mustn’t have told him.’ Was there slight disappointment in Jack’s voice? ‘I told him I wanted to invest with my shelf company, Orifin.’
‘Your what?’
‘I’m an actor, remember? And I needed him to take the meeting.’
‘In his office?’
‘A big meeting room overlooking the Arena. I had to ensure he got the message. He had a young guy bring us coffee while I played the part and then, when I heard all the doors closing and people outside saying goodbye for the night, I showed him thephotos of Lucy’s bruises. I told him who I was and that I knew exactly what he’d done. He said she was asking for it. I suggested that we call his wife to get confirmation that he liked rough sex.’ Jack’s hands were clenched into fists as he spoke.
‘Simon Perry was completely chilled out, the fucker. He threw some paper at me. “You need to read this. Lucy is obsessed with me.” He presented me with an email from Lucy to him, dated about two weeks ago. It was an apology for kissing him and in it she begged him not to fire her. She had put it all in writing.’
I was right. I felt nauseous.
Jack was keeping his voice even, but I could tell he was rattled. ‘Simon said that Lucy never objected. He accused me of trying to destroy his marriage over a one-night fling.’
Jack had shown him more of the photos. ‘I asked him how Lucy could have consented when she was unconscious. He said she wasn’t unconscious and that she had consented. I could tell he was lying. He thought I’d back off after I saw the email.’
‘Are you sure you don’t believe him?’ I asked Jack.
He looked at me incredulously. ‘Of course not. I lied to Simon that Lucy has made a full statement to our solicitor. I admitted that Lucy had had a crush on him but she never consented to being violently assaulted, because she was unconscious. I suggested he resign immediately or we would go to his wife and then to the guards. He stood up as if he was going to show me the door, so I kneed him in the balls to drive the message home. He could barely get off the floor. I said to him, “I thought you liked it rough.”’
As he was telling me this, Jack couldn’t keep the smirk off his face. ‘On rare occasions, it’s justified. I did it for Lucy.’
‘Absolutely,’ I said.
61
Lucy
After I left Simon’s apartment, I never saw him again. I couldn’t get past the fact that it was somehow my own fault. I’d made it crystal clear that I found him attractive. I didn’t remember saying no. I didn’t remember saying anything. I showered three times per day. Dad took me to our GP after a week, but I wouldn’t let him come into the office with me. When I sat in the chair facing her, and she asked me what was wrong, I started to cry and I could not stop. Dr Joyce asked me to take some deep breaths, but I had a full-blown panic attack right in front of her. I thought I was going to die. She helped me on to the reclining bed and checked my vitals and then gave me a glass of water and a yellow tablet, which I later discovered was Valium.
Finally, I could speak. She coaxed the words out of me bit by bit and pieced together what had happened on Friday night. She asked if I wanted to go to the rape crisis centre or the police. I told her no. I agreed to a physical examination. I told her I thought he’d used a bottle to penetrate me and she agreed that he probably did. There was some tearing and lacerations, but they had already begun to heal. She said she was very sorry to hear what had happened to me and wrote down the number for Women’s Aid. She also gave me the number for a trauma counsellor and asked if I lived alone. I was feeling a little better by then and told her I lived at home with my parents and my dad was inthe waiting room and that my parents knew. She told me to keep talking to them at the very least. She gave me a prescription for Xanax, to take when I felt panicked or overwhelmed, and she signed me off work for a month. She could not have been kinder.
