‘You may go and change your sweater, but I want you to come straight back. Your constant shifting is distracting in the group.’
Jack glared and mouthed the word ‘liar’ at me, again. I was on his radar. He’d been watching me.
I stayed put then to annoy Owen and everybody in the group. The shakes were getting worse. After that session, another bell rang. Martin was wrong: they were all still strangers as far as I was concerned. I ran back to my room and got under the duvet fully clothed. How was I going to do this? Stay here for ten days with all these mad people? My head was aching. There was a knock on the door. ‘Go away,’ I yelled. Sheila walked in uninvited. ‘Am I not entitled to some privacy?’ I was angry. She sat on the end of the bed and smiled at me. ‘Get out,’ I screamed at her. She sat there saying nothing, smiling benignly, like a simpleton. Obviously, I was not going to be able to get to sleep while she was sitting on the end of my bed. ‘What do you want?’ I shouted.
‘What you’re experiencing are withdrawal symptoms, but that does not exclude you from any part of the programme. Please get up and come to your one-to-one with Dr Hardwicke. She is Longhurst’s psychiatrist. You have an hour’s appointment and you’re already late.’
I burrowed further into the bed. Sheila pulled the duvet off me and stood at the door. ‘I’m waiting.’ She was calm. The anger consumed me. I wanted to lash out, but she looked braced for that, her feet planted firmly on the ground, her arms by her sides, fists clenched. She spoke calmly, but I knew that if this got physical, she could put me back in the hospital.
11
Erin
By 2004, my life was going smoothly. I was in my final year at Harvard doing my BA in English and History, pinning all my hopes on getting a good degree. I had decided to stay on and continue into the MA programme. I was going to do a two-year MA on women writers of science fiction. They were few and far between, but I adored their stories. Ursula K. Le Guin was my favourite, but I also loved Octavia Butler and Margaret Atwood and, the grandma of them all, Mary Shelley.
I had a boyfriend who I liked. Charlie was from Worcester, where Dad grew up. Dad knew his parents; he approved. Charlie was a nice guy, and I finally gave up my virginity to him, aged twenty-three. I still attended Dad’s church, though less frequently. I would turn up once a month to keep him happy. I wanted to have sex with my boyfriend like every other adult. I didn’t see why God would have a problem with that. I did not say this to Dad. The sex was pleasurable, sure, but I couldn’t help comparing how good Milo had made me feel with just his hands, compared to how I felt with Charlie’s whole body.
After five months with Charlie, though, I was bored. Charlie took me out to dinner and bought me endless gifts, jewellery and pretty dresses. I was grateful for his generosity, but I only wore dresses to church. I was a sweater and jeans girl most of the time. He always wanted me to dress up when we wentout and would only barely try to hide his disappointment if I didn’t appear like a 1950s model with coiffed hair and shiny red lips. ‘You’re beautiful,’ he would say, ‘don’t you want people to notice?’
He was angry when I broke up with him. He told me I was making a big mistake and that I’d live to regret it. He was hard to shake off, regularly showing up at my door, pleading with me to let him in and declaring his undying love. In the beginning I tried to let him down gently, telling him that I didn’t think I was the right person for him. He knew I’d been a virgin when I met him, and he seemed to feel like that entitled him to ownership over me. When he turned creepy, I had to get Dad involved. Dad liked Charlie and couldn’t understand why I couldn’t stay with him.
‘I thought he was husband material. A good family, and the boy has prospects too.’
‘Dad, he’s my first boyfriend since …’ I couldn’t say it. ‘And he’s being weird,’ I said instead, exasperated. ‘Please help me to get rid of him.’
Dad called Charlie’s parents and apologetically explained that I was not in the right frame of mind for a partner, and would they mind asking Charlie to leave me alone. I never heard from him again. I bumped into him twice in subsequent years at events around the city and, both times, he ignored me.
I returned to my celibate state. It was much safer.
College life was fun, but hard work. Other students had part-time jobs. I knew I was lucky that Dad had money so I could devote the time to study, and I rewarded him by acing my exams, but this thesis was a whole new challenge. Academic writing was not my strong point, but if I could write about the struggles it took for women to be published, maybe it would work in my favour when I wanted to get a job as an editor. I was already making enquiries with New York publishing houses for editorialassistant roles. I must have sent a hundred emails and resumés. It seemed like every publisher had fifty different imprints. I started with the ones who had published my favourite science fiction writers but quickly realized that almost all science fiction editors were men. Two of them wanted me to send a photo, which was an immediate red flag. My qualifications spoke for themselves.
There were other unwelcome and more sinister challenges. Anonymous letters continued to arrive. They were all typed on an old-fashioned typewriter on plain white paper, sent to my dorm or, in the summer, to my home. Sometimes, the letters would demand to know where Ruby was hiding. Neither of us had a MySpace page like most people our age. She had adopted the stage name of Ruby Bean. I don’t know whether that was a deliberate attempt to escape from the girl who had been raped but it was a good move.
Where is she? She needs to pay for what she’s done.
A couple of months later:
You are one nasty bitch. You know he didn’t do it. Why are you protecting her?
I didn’t think Ben would be the type to name call. It was Margie, I was sure of it. I didn’t tell Dad about the letters, because I knew he would act and I felt that Margie had been through enough. It wasn’t her fault that her brother was a rapist, and her mother had taken her own life. I’d been fooled too. I called Margie.
‘Margie? It’s Erin. You have to stop with these letters –’
‘What the hell are you doing calling this house?’
‘Margie, he did it, he raped Ruby –’
She hung up on me.
About five months later, another letter arrived. It was just one unrepeatable word. That shook me – the level of hatred and anger made me afraid. What if I was to bump into her? Would she hurt me? I knew there was no point in going to the police. It was hate mail but there was no threat implicit. Until the next one arrived.
I’m going to make YOU pay for what she did, bitch.
And then, a few weeks later, I received another one.
You’re all going to pay until you tell the truth.
I was tempted to go to the cops then. But this was Milo’s fault. He was making Margie crazy too.
