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Turning on my heel, I storm back towards the kitchen, bored to tears of his pathetic excuses. “Amina was right,” I say under my breath. “You are a bloody wanker.”
In a drunken rage, Jack springs up from his chair and roughly grabs my arm. “What did you just fucking call me? Did you call me a wanker? Take it back! I said take it back!”
“Oi, get off her, you little toerag!” Brian shouts, pole vaulting over the counter to intervene. “Stop harassing my staff. Right, that’s it, I want all of you boys out now! You’ve been nothing but trouble since you arrived, and we don’t give service to troublemakers.”
“Make me, fat boy,” one of the men spits. “If we choose not to go, what are you going to do about it?”
“Fine, then I’ll have to call the police,” Brian snaps. “Now get out, while I’m still asking you nicely. And don’t think I don’t know who you all are. I’ve seen you boys around town and know who some of your parents are. Trust me, they’ll be hearing from me.”
For a few minutes, the gang continue to laugh and jeer but eventually begin to make their way out the diner. With reluctance, Jack finally releases my arm and shoots me a death stare as he retreats.
“Hurry up, get a move on!” Brian barks, clapping his hands. “And if you behave like this again the next time you come around, you’re barred from here for life. Got that?”
“All right, all right, Frank Butcher, keep your hair on.”
“Don’t worry, we won’t be coming back to this dump.”
Katie rushes over to give me a hug. “Oh, Jessica, are you okay? Those guys were so awful! Do you know them?”
“Sadly, I do,” I reply, my voice trembling. “They went to my school. Complete twats the lot of them. Hopefully we won’t be seeing them again.”
The hour before closing time crawls along at a snail’s pace and after my unpleasant encounter with Jack, I can’t wait to get out of here and go home. It doesn’t help that Katie won’t stop talking about it and asking questions. What were they like at school? Why was Jack such an idiot? Do I think they’ll come back to start more trouble? I mean, how the hell should I know? This latest debacle combined with the unsettling meeting with Mrs Kingwood earlier make me just want to forget this horrible day ever happened.
At last, at just gone eleven, Brian pulls the shutters down on the restaurant and says goodnight to us. As the three of us part ways on the street corner, he asks me if I’m okay to walk home alone, and I tell him yeah, it’s cool, I only live fifteen minutes away and should be back before I know it. Famous last words…
The sky is black as a raven’s wing as I stroll along the busy high street in the direction of my flats, grateful there are still quite a few people about despite it being so late. No matter what time it is, Clapham is always buzzing it seems. I pass a couple of takeaways, a cut-price shoe shop and then as I reach the zebra crossing, I hear somebody say loudly: “Hey, isn’t that the bitch who got us turfed out of Sloppy Joe’s?”
Turning, I see Jack and his mates loitering at a bus stop holding cans of cheap lager, looking the worse for wear. As soon as they see me, some of them whoop and catcall, and a lascivious grin creeps across Jack’s face that I don’t like one bit. When he’s smashed, gone is the softly spoken charmer to be replaced by an abrasive dick that I suspect is probably him showing his true colours. It’s almost as if he has become a different person and as his gaze travels lustfully over my body, there’s an expression in his eyes that scares the shit out of me.
Time to get out of here.
Quickening my pace, I walk hurriedly up the street towards Fenchurch Avenue, a shortcut that will take me back to my estate in half the time. Unfortunately, my unwanted admirer is now tailing me, his friends following a short distance behind, laughing and egging him on.
“Hey Jessica, stop!” Jack shouts. “Don’t walk so fast. I want to talk to you.”
“Leave me alone,” I cry. “Just go away!”
“Ha! You’re scaring her off, bruv,” chuckles one of his mates. “I told you she’s not into you.”
“Bitch is blanking you hard, man.”
“Maybe it’s his breath.”
Now at almost a run, I pass through a large swathe of people dressed up like they’re going clubbing, and, hoping to lose my pursuers, use the brief diversion to shoot down a dark alley. I sprint a couple of steps and then, reaching a brick wall, I stop and look behind me to see if I’ve lost them.
Nope.
Jack and his four mates are standing at the entrance to the alley forming a human blockade. The laughter and jeers are getting louder, and my body is near paralysed with fear. Now they all have the same crazed look in their eyes as Jack, a look that tells me unless there is some kind of a miracle, I am in deep, deep trouble…
Slowly, Jack strides towards me, the cocky grin on his face getting wider and wider with every step. Desperately, I glance behind me at the wall to see if there’s anywhere to escape to, but sadly there isn’t. I’m like a fly trapped in a spider’s web with no way out.
“Stay back!” I yell. “Don’t come any closer. I’m warning you!”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Jack says through clenched teeth. “You keep shouting like that and I’ll knock your fucking teeth out. Now get on your knees, you stupid little bitch, and give me a blowjob.”
The others shriek with laughter. I begin to feel sick. I need to get out of here, but how? What happens next feels like an out-of-body experience. I don’t see Jack’s blow coming, but I definitely feel it. A hard, stinging slap across the face that makes my eyes water. My handbag drops to the ground, scattering the contents everywhere.
And then I’m on the ground with him on top of me, trying to tear off my tights and hitch up my skirt. I scream and scream till my throat is hoarse, but nobody comes to my rescue, nobody cares. I might as well just be invisible to the passers-by on Clapham High Street who appear to show no interest in the sounds of a woman in distress. That I’m about to be raped just a few minutes’ walk from a busy main road is utterly inconceivable, and yet here it is happening.
