Take It Back

‘What happened next?’ asked Mia.

Jodie hesitated. ‘Amir asked me what I was doing there alone. I said I needed a break.’ She paused. ‘He told me that Nina had left the party and that he could take me to her so I followed him.’

Zara looked up in surprise. This wasn’t the story she had told before. What had happened to Amir’s overtures? ‘Whenever I see you, I wonder what it would be like to kiss you.’

Jodie gazed at a burl in the wooden tabletop, not daring to look up at Zara. ‘Amir said that they were having an after-party. He said I wouldn’t normally be allowed to go but since I came with Nina, he’d take me there.’

Zara searched her face for a trace of the lie but she noted nothing.

‘Can you take me through what happened next?’ asked Mia. ‘Take your time and be as detailed as you can.’

Jodie was still for a moment. Her eyes grew narrow and her features creased as if in the midst of a major decision. She took a breath, trembling and thin, and said, ‘He took me to an empty building.’

Jodie’s account segued smoothly to her original. She spoke with a tight discipline but her voice broke in the grooves of the taunts – I ain’t gonna touch ’em if they’re ugly like the rest of you – and she finished in a curtain of tears.

Zara felt a swelling pity. She could see that Jodie was in pain, but also that she was trying so extraordinarily hard to cling onto composure. Perhaps it was no easier for a sixteen-year-old to cry like a child with abandon than it was for someone older.

Mia reached forward and squeezed Jodie’s arm. ‘You’ve been very brave.’

Zara watched the simple act and felt an inexplicable frisson of annoyance.

Mia flipped through her notebook. ‘Jodie, you said the accused were boys from your school. Would you say that you were friends?’

Jodie clutched the cuff of her sleeve. ‘No.’

‘Have you ever been romantically involved with any of them?’

She grimaced. ‘No. Never.’

Mia flipped a page. ‘You said you had one glass of punch with alcohol that night. Had you taken any drugs?’

Jodie shrank into herself, as if she were being blamed. ‘No.’

Mia made a note. ‘Were there drugs at the party?’

‘I think so but I’m not sure.’

‘That’s fine. It’s always right to say you don’t know if you’re unsure.’ Mia continued to flesh out the night in question and then explained what the police would do next: contact witnesses, interview the suspects, visit the scene of the assault, review CCTV footage and examine any DNA. ‘If we can gather enough evidence, we will formally charge the suspects,’ she finished.

The whites of Jodie’s eyes were wide: fear laced perhaps with shock that this was really happening. ‘How long will it take?’ she asked, the words low and timorous.

‘The suspects will be arrested for questioning immediately. After that, we usually work to charge them within three weeks.’

Jodie flinched. ‘Three weeks? But what if I see them in the area?’

‘They won’t be allowed to talk to you,’ assured Mia. ‘They can’t approach you or communicate with you in any way.’ She smiled gently. ‘I know this process is scary but we will be with you every step of the way.’ She nodded at Zara. ‘You will hear from me or your caseworker when we have an update.’

‘Thank you.’ Jodie stood unsteadily and said goodbye after final formalities.

Outside, Zara led Jodie to her car. Then, in a tone that was perfectly neutral, said, ‘Jodie, I noticed a small anomaly in the interview. Can we talk about it?’

The girl frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘When you spoke to me initially, you said you went with Amir because he wanted to kiss you. In the interview just now, you said it was because he was going to take you to Nina. Were you confused?’ Zara watched her weigh her options, a lightning-quick process of elimination.

Jodie slumped in her seat. ‘I couldn’t tell them what he said. How would they believe that Amir said that? Or that I believed him?’

Zara blinked in surprise. ‘Jodie, you must tell the truth, no matter how unsavoury. Your statement will be examined by the prosecution. If they find a single hole, they will grab it and tear it as large as they can. We need to tell Mia the truth before it gets any further.’

Jodie shook her head. ‘Please, Zara. I can’t stand up and tell the world that I wanted him to kiss me. I can’t. How would that ever be the reason I went with him?’ She pressed the dashboard to emphasise her plea and left small and sweaty fingerprints on the textured grey surface. ‘Please don’t make me do this.’

Zara held up a hand. ‘Look, I can’t make you go in and tell her but I strongly advise that you do.’

Jodie’s voice was unsteady. ‘I’m sorry I lied but it’s such a small thing. It doesn’t change anything else.’

Zara grimaced. ‘That’s the thing, Jodie. It could change something. You’ve got to get your story straight in your head. Those who tell the truth don’t need to rely on memory.’

‘That’s the only thing, I swear,’ she promised.

‘I hope so, Jodie. I really do.’ Zara started the car, the soft thrum sounding her surrender.

They wove through roads lined with building works, past shiny promotional boards touting luxury two-and three-bedroom apartments the locals couldn’t afford. You could tell which streets were really gentrified: they had a flank of Boris bikes standing sentry on the pavement. Of course, there was no such offering on the Wentworth Estate where row after row of four-storey buildings stood a nose width away from each other. Communal balconies ran the length of the dark-brick buildings, peppered with soggy clothes and the rusting sequins of satellite dishes.

Zara felt a pang of guilt as she parked her Audi on the concourse. ‘I’d like to talk to your mother,’ she told Jodie.

‘I—’ Jodie hesitated. ‘My mother isn’t really in a condition to talk about this right now.’ Her tone was neutral but Zara caught the tremor beneath.

‘That’s why it’s important for me to talk to her. You’re sixteen and your mum needs to understand what’s happening so that she can provide the support you need.’

Jodie shook her head. ‘I’m just so tired. Please, another day.’

Zara studied her for a moment. ‘Okay, fine,’ she said slowly, confused by Jodie’s reticence. ‘But call me if you need anything.’ She unlocked the doors and watched Jodie shuffle across the concourse. She appeared on the first-floor balcony and after a brief pause, opened a door and went inside.

Zara switched on the air conditioning and dabbed at her brow, careful not to smudge her makeup. She felt a wiry sense of unease and instinctively reached for her bag, a tan Céline tote preserved from her days in chambers. She glanced up at Jodie’s flat, then took out a brown glass bottle. She shook it once to gauge the number of pills inside. Satisfied with the dull clink of a healthy supply, she lay it on her lap for later. Calmed by the soft weight resting against her legs, she put the car in gear and moved smoothly off.

Jodie closed the door, lifting the handle as she pushed it back. She hated the long whine of the hinge for the way it announced that she was home; the way it would draw her mother to the corridor, can in hand and scowl fixed on.

Sure enough, Christine Wolfe shuffled from the living room, white-blonde hair in a mane of tangles. She regarded Jodie for a moment. ‘Where’ve you been?’ she asked, her tone already angry.

Jodie felt her nerve desert her. She had hoped to do this on her own terms: in the living room by the TV with a fresh can of Scrumpy and a cushion on the table for her mother’s feet – the happiest Christine Wolfe would ever be. Instead, Jodie stood between the chipped grey walls, caught like a deer in the headlights.

‘Well?’ Her mother stepped forward, the low light casting shadows on her face.

Jodie swallowed. ‘Police station.’ She said it blankly, without emotion as if it were a fact that could not have been changed.

Her mother jolted in shock. ‘You went to the police with your story?’ The bluish whites of her eyes grew wide.

Jodie felt the sting of her mother’s doubt. ‘Mum, it’s not a story.’

Christine smacked her palm against the wall. ‘Like you ain’t punished me enough?’ Her raspy voice struggled to climb. ‘What’d I do to deserve you?’

Jodie flinched. The snarl still hurt after years of wear. She knew what was coming next.

‘I was happy,’ said Christine. ‘And then you came along. Your father took one look at you and fucked off out the door – and I let him go ’cause of you.’

Jodie remained calm, knowing that her features in anguish would anger her mother further. ‘Mum, please. It’s the truth.’

‘I can’t fucking believe this. You’re telling me the police will be here asking questions?’

Jodie recognised the stirrings of a storm. The best thing to do was retreat but her mother stood between her and her room, simmering now in fury. Tears would provoke her further so Jodie stood still and listened.

‘You’re telling me I have to talk to the pigs? I ain’t tellin’ them nothin’.’ She threw up a hand in disgust. ‘Why does every fuckin’ thing always come down to me? This is your story, Jodie. This is your mess. Jesus Christ. I clothe you and feed you and take you to all your fuckin’ appointments. Do you know how much them bus fares cost?’ Christine smacked the wall again. ‘I do everything round here and you’re gonna stand there and tell me I have to do this too? I ain’t talkin’ to no pigs. They can fuck off. You hear me? They can fuck right off.’ She scowled. ‘Why couldn’t you just talk to your teachers like any other normal girl? Why’d you have to go to the pigs like some kind of idiot?’

Christine Wolfe was angry at Jodie, but angrier still at life, using the first to rail against the second. The indignity of it was too much. Unemployment. Alcoholism. Poverty. The stench of failure and being unable to climb out from under it. It was all too much. The only thing you could do was surrender and Jodie’s resoluteness made her livid. You couldn’t stand up to life. It would always beat you down. She shouted this at Jodie, hopelessly angry at her ugly, stolid face, needing something or someone to blame.

When the wind finally blew from her rage, she jabbed a finger at Jodie. ‘I ain’t havin’ no part in this,’ she warned. ‘You’re on your own, you hear me?’ Can in hand, she shuffled to the living room. ‘You’re on your fuckin’ own,’ she called back as she sank to her spot by the TV and propped her feet up on the table.

Jodie felt the adrenaline drain, leaving her hot and empty. She was motionless for a moment to make sure the rage had calmed. Then, she leaned against a wall and placed two hands over her head, not quite touching the scalp, the way she used to as a child pretending to wear a knight’s mail armour. The tiny rings of metal were extraordinary in deflecting pain. These were, after all, just words. She stood like that for a long while, working through the words, letting them bounce off her. Only a few remained by the time she reached her room: you’re on your own, they said. You are on your own.

Zara leaned on the kitchen counter, still drowsy from the Diazepam. Some days, the pills brought her peace, on others, only senseless fog. Often, she craved something stronger but was too wedded to her past and the sensible, overachieving version of herself to screw up her life that badly. The first time she tried cocaine, in an illicit huddle at a Bar Council conference, it was like pulling back the curtain on the Wizard of Oz. All the myth and notoriety, the unfettered hyperbole, crumbled in the face of reality. Instead of the giddy, addictive rush of lore, she just felt alert and happy. It was almost anodyne in effect. And so she tried it again, this time with a peer at a party, and came to appreciate the sense of wellbeing. And so she tried it again – and that’s when she understood how addiction took hold. It wasn’t a bolt of lightning that fused you to your poison but a mellow descent into its seductive grip. That was the last time she touched it. East London didn’t need yet another junkie.

She poured herself a glass of water and drank it without pausing. The doorbell rang and she remembered that Luka said he would visit. She placed the glass down next to the Diazepam and let him in with a smile.

He kissed her lips, noting the lazy curve of her mouth. He raised the bottle in his hands. ‘Colorado’s finest Syrah,’ he said with a grin, knowing that Zara liked it despite what she said about American wine. He walked to the kitchen and placed it on a counter, his gaze catching on the bottle of pills. He exhaled slowly. ‘I thought you were going to stop.’

She blinked. ‘I am. When I’m ready.’

He turned to her with a sigh. His right index finger tapped against his leg the way it did when he was lost in thought: two quavers with a rest in between. ‘Zara, it’s not even seven. You’re taking pills in the afternoon now?’

‘So? I have a stressful job.’ Her voice took on a steely edge. ‘You don’t need to worry about it.’

‘But I do worry about it.’ He threw up two hands. ‘Seriously, this makes me so uncomfortable.’

She scoffed. ‘It’s not my job to make you comfortable, Luka.’

‘You could give it a try once in a while.’ He picked up the bottle and tossed it in the bin. ‘Zara, seriously, you’ve got to stop.’

She bristled. ‘Listen to me, Luka. There’s only one man who could tell me what to do and he’s dead.’

Temper sparked in his eyes. ‘Yes, and even he couldn’t stand you by the end.’

The words struck her like a fist in the gut. In a moment shorn of reason, she reached out and slapped him.

He jolted back in surprise. A muscle in his cheek flexed beneath the rising colour and his hands clenched in fists by his side. He took a few short breaths to calm himself. His shoulders rose and dipped with the effort, then slowly came to rest. He spoke to her in a low voice: ‘Zara, look at you. Look at that rage burning inside. Would you really be so angry if you didn’t think it were true?’ He waited. ‘You think you can bury your feelings in a bottle? You think striking me will wipe your past clean?’

Zara held his gaze. ‘Leave,’ she said. Luka’s words smarted like wounds. Even he couldn’t stand you by the end.

‘No,’ said Luka. ‘You can’t drug yourself free of your father’s shadow. It’s everywhere you go. You say you quit your job to do some good, as if walking out didn’t sabotage everything you worked so hard for. You remind me all the time that we’re just having “fun” – but this isn’t fun anymore, Zara. Drugging yourself to oblivion isn’t “fun”; it’s cowardice.’

Zara squared her shoulders. ‘Just go,’ she said coldly. The sting of his words mixed now with a feverish self-loathing. He was the first person she’d ever struck.

Luka’s lips tensed over gritted teeth. ‘Zara, don’t do this. Don’t just shut down.’

She said nothing, as much as to hide her shame as to control her anger.

‘Stop acting like a child.’ Luka’s patience waned in the silence. ‘You’re impossible, you know that? Fucking impossible.’ He waited for a beat. ‘Call me when you grow the fuck up.’ He stalked out of the flat, slamming the door behind him.

His ugly words rang in her ears. They felt hot and prickly like blisters on skin. Even he couldn’t stand you by the end. The sheer ease with which he’d said them, the unthinking indifference, hurt more than a physical blow. Luka knew what her father had meant to her. That he would use him now to carve a malicious taunt stung like betrayal.

Even he couldn’t stand you by the end.

Denial flooded her veins. I was the one who stayed away. I was the one who refused to be to be seen. Deep down, however, she knew the quiet truth. She knew that even though he had tried, towards the end her father couldn’t bear to hear her name let alone see her face.

It was the summer of 2016 that she said yes to an arranged marriage. The grass outside was a burnt brown and the windows were open as far as they would go. Her father was on his second hospital stay of the year so while she can’t say she was forced or coerced, the situation was prime for emotional blackmail. ‘You’re his only burden,’ her mother would say with only the lightest touch of accusation. ‘He worries about you’ – as if marriage had solved all her siblings’ problems.

She sat there in the sweltering heat draped in her impossibly heavy silk sari, all blazing orange and gold-embroidered trim. She was told the colour would look amazing against her long dark hair – an irrelevant point of persuasion since it was now gathered in a bun, modestly tucked beneath the head of her sari. Her face was a mask of makeup, her foundation a touch too light, the sort that cast an ashy pallor if shown beneath the wrong light. Her eyes were lined with kohl and mascara in the heavy, dramatic strokes that made brunettes look sexy but blondes look trashy. Her lips were painted nude to downplay their obvious appeal, far too seductive for a demure little housewife. And jewellery everywhere. Her ears, freshly pierced after she let the last holes close, shone with Indian gold. Her neck was wrapped in elaborate jewels that would look at home on an Egyptian queen. There she sat, elegant, poised, perfected and neutered. She saw herself through a prism; not as a university graduate, not an ambitious lawyer, not a smart and successful woman but something else altogether, something shapeless and tasteless, a malleable being that had lost its way. There she sat and waited.

Kasim Ali was the fifteenth suitor presented to her that year. She had worn out her rightful refusals about five suitors back and patience was wearing thin. He was big and broad with thinning hair atop milky white skin. His shiny suit was just a tad too tight and his navy tie made his neck fat crease. He was neither attractive nor ugly, just unremarkable.

To his merit, he was well-spoken and seemed to have a sense of humour – more than she could say of his predecessors. The conversation was brief and shallow: job, hobbies, favourite books; the sort of thing you might ask a fellow dinner guest, not the person you would shortly marry. It was that day, sitting mute in six yards of silk, that she made the biggest mistake of her life. It was that day she caved into pressure and said yes to a marriage she did not want. After all, she was her sick father’s only fucking burden.

The engagement came and went and the ball of anxiety grew and grew, contracting in her stomach like some sort of pestilence. Friends greeted the news with disbelief. She, Zara the Brave, was succumbing to tradition. She, with her iron will and unyielding ambition, was bowing to pressure? How could this be?

It was clear that Zara was struggling but her mother did not ask about the circles beneath her eyes or the weight that drained from her frame, for she knew they had reached a delicate détente. Granted the smallest concession, Zara would surely bolt, and so she was held to her decision with a cold, unremitting expediency. It was five months after the engagement that she took the decision to get out. Of course, by then the wedding had passed and her marital bed had long been soiled.

When Kasim secretly searched through her phone and found her message to Safran expressing her mortal doubts, his family rounded on her like wolves on cattle. Neither time nor history had thread trust into their relationship and so her husband showed her no empathy or discretion. Perhaps she could have stemmed the crisis before it reached their ears. She could have sweetened him with loving words, secured his silence with a warm tongue, but subconsciously she welcomed the fallout. She couldn’t be his wife. She couldn’t be a woman who wore elaborate saris and expensive rings; who made fifteen cups of tea every day; who was indefatigably sweet and loving and innocent. She couldn’t be that woman. And so she let them round on her and take away her phone and grab at her throat and call her a whore. For four hours she sat, waiting for her family to come. When it was clear that they would not, she gathered her belongings and marched out the door. She fled from the house and went back to a home that welcomed her no more.

Despite the trauma, that night was not the worst one. That privilege was reserved for the one that followed. The memory of it was oddly monochrome in her mind, darkly black and blinding white, film-noirish in its detail. She had recounted it all to Luka. One night, surprisingly sober, she lay in his arms and unlocked the floodgates for no reason at all. It all bled out: the bitter-centred anger and gut-wrenching pain.

Luka held her as the tears from her eyes stained kohl on his skin. He didn’t say the words but it was the night he fell in love with her. She knew from the pain he tried to hide from his eyes. Until that moment, all he had known was Zara the Brave. That night, he saw her weak and vulnerable. He touched the sorest part of her and he couldn’t let go.

She wondered how he could use it now to hurt her. But then, isn’t that what people did when you laid yourself bare? Luka would be lucky to ever have her in that position again.

Najim Rashid scanned the hall and spotted the four boys in a corner, huddled over a foosball table. Hassan Tanweer, the smallest of the four, danced restlessly around one edge, spewing a stream of obscenities. The others seemed amused, laughing as his wiry limbs flew from one handle to another. Amir broke the string of expletives with one or two of his own.

Fuck yes, son! No, no, no, you wank stain!

Across from them, another group of boys had set up a game of cards. In the middle of the table was a large pile of chips. Nah, sir, they had cried last week. We don’t play for money. That’s haram, the last word loaded with scorn. Najim had moved on without mentioning the pictures of naked women he had seen them sharing earlier. I suppose that’s halal, is it? he’d wanted to ask, but the Dali Centre was a place of acceptance. Supported by government funding, the community centre was set up soon after the 7/7 London bombings to engage disadvantaged youths in the borough. It attracted a ragtag group of kids, mainly boys, mainly brown, who came to be free of judgment. Here, there were no prayer rooms to prompt them to be pious, no parents with lofty immigrant dreams. There were no pushy preachers or angry teachers, no masters they had to please. Here, the boys could be themselves and as long as they weren’t breaking the law, Najim let them be. Of course, it was hard not to dispense advice or push college brochures into the hands of his charges. Every year, he lay out a stack of ‘Informed Choices’ from the Russell Group universities. Every year, they remained untouched but it was not his role to push the boys in the right direction, only to pull them from the wrong one. Of course, sometimes, trouble came knocking regardless.

Najim leaned over the table to interrupt the game. Hassan stepped back from the haze of competition, his face flushed red and pools of sweat dampening his T-shirt.

‘Sorry to disturb you boys, but you’re needed in my office.’

Amir playfully jabbed Najim in the rib. ‘“Office?” Since when do you have an office? Do we have to call you sahib now?’

Najim smiled good-naturedly while the boys laughed at the jibe. ‘Come on. You have some visitors.’ He gestured to the door, praying it was nothing serious. ‘Bring your things.’

He led them through the main hall, across a small pitch with forlorn goalposts at either end, and into the northern edge of the complex. Outside his cramped office stood a slim woman with shiny blonde hair scraped into a bun. Next to her was a much older man, dressed all in grey. He had hair that verged on ginger and a face like crumpled paper, his features focused in the middle as if someone had scrunched up his face then smoothed it out again. Behind the pair stood two uniformed police officers.