Chapter 10 #2
Obi put his head in his hands. ‘Early on, not long after we all met, probably the first week of school actually, I found Victoria crying in the library one day. So, anyway, I gave her a hug and asked her what was wrong, and at first she didn’t want to tell me, but then, I don’t know, something must’ve broken inside her and she told me about this guy, this piece of work.
’ Obi paused. ‘Remember she was in that BBC period drama, what was it, Sense and Sensibility, when she was like sixteen?’
I nodded.
‘Well, one of the casting assistants, one of the guys who auditioned her, he asked her out to dinner after the audition and she said yes. They had dinner and it was all fine, but then the guy said he’d drive her home.
Anyway, her dad was over. She said she didn’t want him knowing she’d been out with an older man, so she told him to drop her at the end of her road.
But then the guy, he just kept driving, said his place wasn’t far and they should get a nightcap, and, well . . .’
Realization dawned on me. ‘He raped her.’
Obi nodded. ‘Yes.’ He stared at the wall above my head.
‘But she got the role. So she never felt certain about what had happened, never felt like she could report it or anything, or whether maybe it was her fault. The guy’s worked his way up since then.
He’s pretty powerful now. I auditioned for him like a year ago.
I didn’t get the part. I couldn’t look him in the eye.
I was so angry.’ He sighed. ‘Anyway, in the end she decided it wasn’t worth it, that she should just carry on and pretend it had never happened.
You know V. She thought she could just laugh it off, that one day it might soften into some dumb anecdote.
’ Obi stared at the table. ‘But then, that first week at school, he was in the building giving a talk to the third-years, and she saw him and she just froze, she didn’t know what to do.
’ Obi shook his head. ‘That’s when I found her in the library.
’ He paused, a look of abject sorrow on his face.
‘Shannon, you’ve never seen anything like it – she was trembling like an animal, like she’d been attacked.
I never saw her like that again. She was shaking, sobbing. It was bad, really bad.’
‘What happened then?’
Obi’s eyes drifted towards the ceiling. ‘Well, we didn’t really talk about it for a while.
But then, I don’t know, I guess she felt closer to me or something, like I could see her.
I think she trusted me. And we started, I don’t know if you’d call it dating.
I never touched her beyond kisses and stuff.
I didn’t want to. I told her I was a Christian, and she seemed fine with that and so we were close, but not close if you know what I mean.
She didn’t want to go anywhere near sex either, I think.
And I was OK with that.’ He paused. ‘It worked for a while.’
I thought back to Rome, to that night at Godwin and her frenzied desire.
‘But she slept with . . .’ I paused, choosing my words carefully. ‘Loads of guys. What about that party, at her dad’s house in Hampstead, with the Heathcliff guy?’
Obi’s face darkened. ‘That bastard.’
‘It was you who found her in the garden giving the guy head.’
His eyebrows shot up. ‘Who told you that?’
I thought for a second. ‘I don’t know, maybe Stefano—’
‘Stefano’s a creep, thinks all women are sluts. Guy lives in a fantasy land, thinks he’s some sort of Don Juan.’ Obi shook his head, disgusted.
I was suddenly overcome with the memory of Stefano’s body pressing down on me, the slap of his belt on the floor, his hot breath in my ear.
‘What Stefano said? That never happened,’ Obi continued.
‘He’s a liar. I found Victoria out in the garden, yes.
But she was drunk, she’d taken something, she was off her face, and the Heathcliff guy, he was on top of her.
She was totally out of it. She didn’t know what was happening.
Anyway, I dealt with him, then got her inside and put her to bed. ’
I closed my eyes. It didn’t make sense to me. None of this was making any sense to me. ‘Why didn’t she tell me?’ I asked. ‘She always insisted on knowing everything about me.’ And then I remembered that night, alone in her room, the words she couldn’t quite bring herself to share.
‘Don’t beat yourself up. Victoria was private in her own way.’ He paused. ‘We’d pray together sometimes.’
‘You’d pray together?’
‘She thought it was weird at first. But Victoria had her demons. She told me one time that she felt like she had this shadow, this evil thing following her around, a second self, this darkness that lived inside her, that would kill her one day. Maybe she was just being dramatic, but I don’t know.
When she died, I figured this bad thing, this thing she’d been running from all her life, finally caught up with her.
She was scared a lot of the time, really scared.
So, when I didn’t know what to suggest, how to help her, we’d pray and that brought her some peace, maybe.
I don’t know. I think you could spend a lifetime studying Victoria and never really get the full picture, you know? ’
I nodded. I knew.