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‘So, how did you manage the turnaround in your finances? I mean, a year and a half ago I was having to do all our food shopping because you were penniless. And now look at you! And the car! Wow!’
‘Oh, so, I sorted the shit out with the lost shipment. It was found. Thank God. So yeah, all back up and running.’ He eyed her sheepishly, curiously. ‘Is this – are you here to discuss divorce?’
‘No. No, I’m not. I told you, I just wanted to see this house. Ella told me you were here. I was coming anyway. Just being nosey.’
‘But do you actually want a divorce?’
‘I don’t know. Do you?’
‘No. I mean, I hadn’t really thought about it. I guess so? But I kind of liked being married to you, Rachel.’
He looked at her, flirtatiously, affectionately, as if all that lay between them were a failed romance, not rape, not blackmail, not the risotto crawling down the kitchen wall.
‘Michael. You raped me.’
‘Oh, come on, Rach.Hardly.’
‘I was asleep. You put your hand over my mouth. Around my throat. You fucking raped me.’
‘Rachel. Come on. You and I both know that you’d been waiting for me to take control. To dominate you. It was what you wanted. You know it was.’
Rachel pulled in her breath against the wave of pure rage that was throbbing around her rib cage. ‘Do you understand, Michael, the subtlety, the nuance of BDSM? Soft BDSM in particular? It’s a game between two people who both understand the rules. And you, Michael, did not understand the rules, and what you did to me was not a game. It was violent and it was misogynistic and brutal and animal. It was all about you, Michael, and nothing to do with me, and if you enjoyed what you did to me that night then you are not just a rapist, Michael – you are a fucking monster.’
He smiled at her then. It was his good-old-boy smile, the one he used to pull people into his orbit, that made them feel safe and golden. ‘Whatever you say, Rachel. Whatever you say. We both know the truth about that night.’
‘It’s called gaslighting, you know? What you’re doing? It’s a classic abuser technique.’
Michael snorted. ‘Abuser? Fuck’s sake, Rachel. I put you on a fucking pedestal. I worshipped you. I would have given you everything, if you’d let me. But no, one thing doesn’t go your way andboom, you were out of there. Like the princess I always secretly knew you were.’
‘You were lucky, Michael, that I didn’t go to the police.’
‘Yeah, Rachel, whydidn’tyou go to the police? If you were so sure you’d been “abused”.’ He made quote marks in the air.
‘Raped, Michael. Not abused. Fuckingraped. And I did not go to the police because for so long I wanted to pretend it hadn’t happened, because if it had happened then that meant that I wasn’t me any more, and more than anything I needed to be me. But now I know that the two things can both be true; it can be true that Imarried a man who violently raped me, and it can also be true that I am strong and special. Just like it was for Lucy.’
‘Lucy?’ Finally she saw the smug smile fall from his face.
‘Yes. I met Lucy. A few months ago. She told me that you abused her too. Yet, wow, she is some woman. Isn’t she? Just beautiful. And holding it all together single-handedly with two kids.’
‘Two kids?’
‘Yeah. Her life didn’t stop after you. And neither will mine. Anyway, it’s been lovely seeing you, Michael. I just really, really wanted to see this house. I always thought you and I would spend time here together, but then it turned out you were a crook and liar and a total fucking loser. So yeah. Never mind.’
Rachel got to her feet and pulled her rucksack on to her shoulder. ‘Bye, Michael. Have a good summer. And good luck with the novel. Don’t forget to put the bit about raping women in it, will you? Your readers will be fascinated by that.’
She put her head around the corner at the back of the kitchen and called out to Joy: ‘Thanks so much, Joy, lovely to meet you!’ and then she left Michael’s house, slamming the door behind her, her feet hitting the sun-baked cobbles with a satisfying thud.
