Ruby please come, the girls have some friends here for a sleepover, but I could lock them in their room with crisps and Grand Theft Auto and they wouldn’t even notice.
I didn’t reply. I drove to the Intercontinental Hotel and booked myself in for the night. The bellboy didn’t pay any heed to my casualwear. The more expensive the hotel, the fewer eyelids were batted in my experience, having stayed in luxury hotels with Jack when he was a film star. As soon as I had checked in, I went straight to my room. I opened the minibar to find the small fridge empty. The receptionist had said something about a QR code to get the room service menu. My frustration grew. Why couldn’t I have a damn paper menu? I called down to room service and ordered two bottles of expensive red.
I stared out of the window at the rain, impatiently tapping my fingers on the sill. It was dark outside. I could see my reflection in the glass. My face looked hard; I was grinding my teeth. JesusChrist, what was I doing? I used my phone to find the Twelve Steps. I knew them well, but Steps 8 and 9 stood out to me. I usually skipped over them.
Step 8: Make a list of all persons we have harmed and become willing to make amends to them all.
I had made the list long ago. Some of them were dead, some I didn’t even know. Milo, his mother (dead), his sister, my mother, my father (dead), Jack, Lucy, the therapists I had lied to over the years, all the alcoholics I had lied to in AA rooms, not to mention all the real rape victims I had betrayed.
Step 9: Make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
I read the last part of Step 9 again:except when to do so would injure them or others.
To tell the truth would almost certainly injure my family, my friendships, my career such as it was, and jeopardize Jack’s business, as well as his sobriety. I would go to prison. I had googled it over the years. The conviction rate in sexual abuse cases was less than 3 per cent. It came down to he said/she said in most cases. The burden of proof was on the victim. Women who went through the courts felt they had been put on trial. Eighty per cent of them regretted reporting their assaults. And then the stats on the other side: 60–80 per cent of female prisoners were survivors of sexual assault. Courts did not look favourably on women who made false claims. A UK study had found that 2.5 per cent of rape cases fell under the false accusation umbrella, but some of those were due to lack of evidence or because the victim withdrew from the case. I would not survive prison among justifiably angry women if they knew what I’d done.
My confession would hurt many people and, most of all, real rape victims. I had let the #MeToo and the #IBelieveHermovements pass me by. Jack couldn’t understand why I didn’t go on those marches. ‘The trauma,’ I’d said, and so he marched for me.
In AA, they said that if you could not make direct amends, you had to find a way to forgive yourself. This had proved impossible. There had been some days over the last twenty-six years when I hadn’t thought about Milo, but they were few and far between, usually when I was busy with Academy productions or when I had an acting job. I didn’t like being by myself, having too much time to think. I had a radio in every room in the house. I buried myself in many books to stop myself from thinking, mostly Victorian novels, where ‘incidents’ didn’t happen. My phone buzzed again.
‘Nasrin?’
‘Jack told me you’ve split up.’
Why did he tell her that? Did he mean it permanently? Surely my marriage wasn’t over?
‘Where are you?’ she said.
‘I’ve booked into the Intercontinental for tonight. I guess I’ll go to my mom’s tomorrow.’
‘Are you drinking?’
There was a knock on my bedroom door.
‘Hold on,’ I said as I went to the door and sent the boy and the alcohol away with a hefty tip. I felt momentary relief. I’d done the right thing.
‘Hi? No, I’m not drinking, but I drank last month, and again, last night.’
I heard her muffled voice. ‘Marcelo? Can you keep an eye on them? I have to go out … yes, she’s in trouble.’ And then her voice redirected to me. ‘Stay where you are. I’ll be there in twenty-five minutes.’
I thought about running away, going to a local bar, but I knew I needed Nasrin. I closed the curtains, disgusted by my ownreflection in the darkened window, and paced the room. Nasrin’s inner Google Maps was entirely accurate. Twenty-five minutes later, she knocked on my door.
‘I knew there was something up. You haven’t been in touch for weeks. What happened?’
I told her the whole sorry tale about Lucy. The evidence for and against her. Jack’s confrontation with Simon, Lucy’s infatuation with him, the initial lies about the circumstances, Simon’s denial. Nasrin asked plenty of questions. I laid out all the reasons I didn’t believe her. Nasrin was silent for a moment, her brows lowered, staring at me.
‘You don’t want it to be true that Lucy was raped, right?’
‘Of course not.’
‘You’d prefer to think of her as a deceitful liar who enjoys rough sex.’
‘No, it’s not –’
‘Which is it, Ruby? You know that women don’t lie about being raped. Why are you making a case for the patriarchy here?’
‘It’s not true.’
‘Why are you sure?’
