Chapter 58 Ruby
Ruby
In early August, Lucy came home early one Saturday morning in a state of hysteria. Crying uncontrollably, breathing erratically.
She had always been fiercely independent.
She had desperately wanted to move out of home, but the internship in her company was only covering her day-to-day expenses.
The housing crisis meant that she could be living with us for another ten years.
At least we had plenty of room. When she was in college, she regularly had friends stay over, sometimes for weeks at a time, essentially because they couldn’t find anywhere to live.
Jack loved having a house full of people.
I was okay with it for a while, but on days when I couldn’t find a mug because they were in seven different rooms around the house, it became a hassle.
I dared not say anything, though. Jack would take Lucy’s side.
She communicated with us via WhatsApp. Woe betide us if we called her.
She had made it clear that she no longer needed me and that I was not welcome to come into her bedroom without an invitation.
She usually cooked her own food and ate in the garden room.
She joined us for Sunday lunch every week as if she was visiting.
That suited me, though Jack missed her a lot.
And yet, here she was, choking with tears and clinging to Jack in a way that she hadn’t done since she was a toddler.
Jack tried to calm her. I was alarmed. ‘What’s happened? What’s wrong? Has somebody died? Did somebody hurt you?’ I said. She shook her head and took several deep breaths before the story emerged in bits and pieces.
She told us that on Thursday, her manager, Simon, had asked her and a male colleague, Daniel, out for a drink after work on Friday.
Lucy was nineteen years old. Simon was in his mid-thirties and close to the top in this Irish branch of a multinational company, ComStat Holdings.
She had often mentioned Simon, how he praised her work, how kind he was, how he did charity work in Eritrea every year.
When Daniel left to go to a gay bar, she said yes when Simon asked her out to dinner.
They had more wine with dinner. Lucy, as far as we knew, did not drink much.
We weren’t sure because we never had alcohol at home.
She said he was good fun and that he told stories about his wife and kids.
She didn’t think he was seducing her. She could hardly remember anything after the main course was served but woke up naked on the floor of his bedroom in his apartment nearby the office this morning, not his family home. She didn’t remember getting there.
‘He raped me.’
‘What?’ I clamped my hands over my ears. My heart felt like it had been weighted with lead. Jack swept her up into his arms. Was this my fault? Was this karma?
Jack wanted to call the police. I pulled the phone out of his hand. ‘You can’t,’ I said, ‘once the police are involved, we lose control of the whole situation.’
‘What are you talking about? That bastard raped our child, just like –’
‘Jack!’ We had never told Lucy about the incident.
I had barely talked about it in fifteen years, and the version I did tell, I almost believed to be true.
But I knew. I hadn’t been raped. I had framed Milo Kelly.
I had planted DNA evidence. I didn’t want to have to tell all the lies to my own child.
‘Please, Jack, let me,’ I said. ‘I know what the police will ask.’
Lucy looked from Jack to me, the tears spilling down her face, bewildered.
‘Darling, was this what you were wearing?’ The blouse was high-necked and sleeveless, the jacket was tight, the skirt was short, the sandals were high and her legs were long and bare.
‘Jesus, Ruby, I can’t believe you of all people are asking this question.’ Jack was annoyed.
‘Just shut up, Jack, I’m protecting her.’
‘Mum, why does it matter what I was wearing?’
I made her take off the jacket. Lucy had a beautiful shape, curvy in all the right places, like Erin had been at that age. Men would notice her. But there were bruises on her wrists, her upper arms and one shoulder. Her knees were bruised. I felt faint. I had to keep it together.
‘Is that what you normally wear to the office?’ I asked. Jack groaned and sighed heavily at me.
‘No, but I knew I was going out after work.’
‘Tell me about that again. Who arranged it?’
A blush passed her face. ‘Daniel asked me on Thursday if I wanted to go for a drink with him last night.’
I hadn’t met Daniel before, but I’d heard all about him.
‘I thought you said Simon had asked you and Daniel on Thursday?’
‘Well, he heard Daniel and me talking about it, and then he invited himself along.’
‘When you said in the beginning that Simon invited you and Daniel for an afterwork drink on Friday, that wasn’t true. Do you see what I mean, Lucy? If we get the police involved, they will grill you like this – you must be sure of everything.’
‘Mum, don’t you believe me?’
If she was lying, then she wasn’t raped, and it wasn’t my fault. I prayed that she was lying.
‘Of course I do. How much did you drink? In the pub? Before dinner?’
‘We had two or three with Daniel –’
‘Was it two or three, Lucy? These things matter.’
Jack slammed his fist on the table. ‘For God’s sake, Ruby, all that matters is whether she consented.’
I ignored him. ‘In the pub, was it two or three drinks?’
She looked up at me and I could almost see the cogs in her brain turning. She opted for the truth. ‘It might have been four.’ I looked at Jack. He closed his eyes, appalled by the irrelevance of the question. Or was he appalled by her lie? I couldn’t tell.
‘And Daniel was there all the time, for these four drinks? Was it beer, wine, spirits? What did you drink?’
‘Gin and tonics. Simon said they were proper summer drinks.’ She hadn’t answered the first part of the question.
‘And Daniel?’
I could see the blush rising to her cheek. ‘He left after two.’
‘You arrange to go out with Daniel on Friday, and you dressed like that for your gay friend, and then he left after two drinks?’
Jack interrupted. ‘Did you consent to sex with Simon?’
‘No.’ She shouted the word and burst into tears.
‘That’s all we need to know,’ said Jack in a weirdly triumphant way.
‘He spiked my drink, he must have.’
‘Lucy, I believe you were raped, I do, but there cannot be any doubt.’ I lied about believing her. If it was true, that would be my punishment, and I could not accept that.
‘I don’t want to go to the guards anyway,’ she said.
‘Why not?’ said Jack, taken aback.
‘Because they’ll never believe me. It will be my word against his. They always get away with it.’
I relaxed a little. I didn’t want her to go through that either. ‘Lucy, I don’t want to upset you, but I must ask this. Did you ever sleep with Simon before, consensually?’
‘No.’
‘Okay. Were you ever in that apartment before?’
She whispered. ‘Yes.’
Jack released her hands and stood up. ‘When were you there before? Why? How many of you?’ he asked.
‘Two weeks ago, we’d been out at the Billie Eilish concert, a gang of us, and we couldn’t get a taxi, on the street or on our apps. Simon said I could come back to his place and wait there.’
I jumped in. ‘Just you, not the others who were also trying to get taxis?’
‘Just me. But, Mum, I swear to you. We had a glass of wine, and I left when the taxi came.’
‘Did anything happen between you? Did you kiss, Lucy? That time, when you were alone with him in his apartment?’
A fresh outburst of tears confirmed my suspicions.
‘Oh God,’ said Jack.
‘I was drunk. I didn’t know what I was doing. I apologized to him afterwards. And the taxi came that night. It was one stupid kiss.’
My voice hardened. ‘Why did you apologize for kissing him? You initiated it?’
‘Yes, but I thought he liked me.’ Fresh sobbing.
Jack had been silent and was holding on to the kitchen counter with his back to us.
I said, ‘You had four gin and tonics and then shared at least one bottle of wine with dinner. Is it possible that he didn’t put something in your drink? Isn’t it possible that you blacked out?’
‘I don’t know. I’m not used to so much drink.’
‘You weren’t roofied, then?’ I said.
‘Jesus Christ, Ruby, would you go easy on her?’ Jack was exasperated with me.
She shouted, ‘You don’t believe me. Why don’t you believe me? He raped me last night. I did not consent to sex. Whether he drugged me or I blacked out, what’s the difference? I wasn’t conscious.’
‘I believe you,’ said Jack.
‘I believe you,’ I said, but I didn’t, I couldn’t. ‘If you kissed him, you were letting him know that you liked him,’ I went on. ‘Help me understand. Did you want to sleep with him?’
‘Maybe. I thought that one day in the future he might leave his wife, and we could be together, but I wanted it to happen slowly. I know it was stupid, I know it probably would never have happened. It was a silly crush.’ She was too young to be out in the world.
Now I understood why Jack had objected to her skipping a year in school and had really wanted her to take a gap year before she went to college.
She was academically brilliant but hopelessly naive.
‘But I woke up this morning on the floor of his bedroom, not even near the bed, and I’m covered in bruises and bite marks.
I don’t remember anything. He was in bed snoring away like nothing happened.
There was a used condom on the floor too.
And a wine bottle. I think he may have used the wine bottle to … I ran out the door and came home.’
‘Darling,’ said Jack and went to hug her again. ‘We’ll go to the police if you want, Lucy. Any way you want to handle this, we will support you.’ He looked to me for reassurance. I shook my head at him. Lucy wasn’t looking at me.