‘Are you sure?’
Telling Minnie meant admitting to something. Letting it out, whatever it was, knowing that once it had been released, it would mean relinquishing control. Then again, maybe she never had any in the first place. Maybe that was the problem.
‘I can’t remember what happened.’
‘When you spent the night together?’
Rose turned to face Minnie, feeling the colour drain from her body. ‘What?’
‘Oh, come on, darling. It’s obvious from the way your face turns into a raspberry every time someone mentions his name. A very sweet raspberry, might I add.’
‘We … We had sex. Once.’
‘Okay.’
Rose found herself tumbling into a diatribe against Milo. She told Minnie how he’d been the one to invite her to the afterparty. How he’d asked her to go to his house. How his house was strange and student-like. How ever since then, he’d treated her like a stranger. Or worse, a fan.
‘I don’t even like his music,’ said Rose.
‘So what’s the part you don’t remember?’ Minnie asked.
‘After he dropped me home.’
‘Do you know if he came into the house with you?’
‘I think he did. But …’ She stopped, feeling her breath escape her. Rose kept her gaze fixed on the pavement and tried to think of something totally inane before she said the next bit so that she wouldn’t cry. She pictured a hamburger.
‘When I woke up, there was blood.’
‘Right,’ Minnie sighed. ‘And did you report it?’
‘Report what?’
‘The rape, Rose. Did you report the rape?’
‘Sorry? I never said …’
Rose had stopped walking, her limbs glued to the spot where she’d paused. There was a bench just ahead of them – Minnie took her hand and guided her to it.
‘I’m sorry,’ Minnie said, sitting down beside her. ‘I don’t want to use labels you don’t feel comfortable using.’
‘We had sex. Consensual sex.’
‘Are you sure, Rose? Because there are things—’
‘Look, I’m not even sure if there was a second time. Maybe the blood was from the first time. I just – I just can’t remember. I was drunk. Very drunk.’
Minnie stayed silent.
‘We had fun,’ continued Rose, holding her head in her hands. ‘I really like him. And I know everyone says that because he’s Milo fucking Jax but—’
‘Can I tell you a story?’ asked Minnie, interrupting.
‘Please.’
‘When I was fifteen there was a guy at school I was obsessed with.’
Minnie had been married to Kyra for ten years.
‘I didn’t know you …’ Rose began.
‘Oh, this was before I came to my senses and realised I liked women,’ Minnie said, anticipating what she was about to say. ‘Anyway, he was a few years above me. One of the white boys. Gorgeous blond curly hair. There was a party one night at one of his friends’ houses. My friends and I decided to crash it. But by the time we arrived, everyone was already hammered. So we played catch up, and drank as many shots of vodka as quickly as we could in the loo. To this day a bottle of Smirnoff makes me wince.’ She shuddered.
‘So this boy was there. Hugh. That was his name. Hugh Parks. I spent the entire evening trying to get his attention. I was relentlessly following him around. Dancing in front of him. You know how it is. Anyway he eventually did notice me, and somehow we ended up in a bedroom, sitting side by side on the bed, taking turns to drink from a bottle of something that tasted like petrol. But I pretended to like it. Out of nowhere, he starts kissing me. I was thrilled at first. But his hands started moving on to my thighs and up my skirt. He called me his “jungle queen”, his “chocolate angel”.’
‘Jesus.’
‘I’d never been with anyone before. In my family, sex wasn’t talked about. We spoke about it at school. But I’d always found it all completely terrifying because it was all so … I don’t know. Unknown, I suppose. My point is that I didn’t stop him. I couldn’t. I wanted to, and my God, the pain was excruciating. But the second his hand went onto my thigh, I froze. It was like something happened to my body and brain that just switched off. And do you want to know the strangest thing? The next morning, I couldn’t remember any of it. It was like my brain had wiped the memory. Like it had never happened.’
‘How did it come back to you?’
‘Because these things never go away, Rose,’ she said. ‘It’s like someone puts a plaster on them. And it’s a heavy duty plaster, let me tell you. It’s thick and tough and at some point you’ll forget it’s even there. It gets absorbed into your body and becomes a part of you. But the wound underneath, that part lingers. Even when you think it’s gone. Even when you think everything is back to the way it was. It’s still there, hiding under that plaster. Like a fucking parasite.’
Rose didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t imagine Minnie as a vulnerable teenager. To her, she was one of those women who’d always been strong. A leader. Someone nobody would dare take advantage of.
‘Come on, let’s head back for the meeting,’ said Minnie. ‘I don’t know exactly what happened with Milo. And you don’t have to tell me. But I do know that whatever it was, it has left a mark. And when the memory of how that mark happened comes back to you, I want you to call me. Okay?’
Rose nodded. ‘I did try and ask him,’ she said.
