Chapter 27 #2
She looks at Nick, realizes he genuinely has no idea of the ‘they’ she is talking about, the ones most women have to factor into their lives at every turn. But he looks like he’s listening, like he’s really trying to follow what she’s saying, and she loves him for it.
‘I went to go to the toilet. And I saw that the disabled loo was free, so I headed in there because yay, no queuing for the ladies’, and then very suddenly Stephen was there, pushing in the cubicle behind me, and it was like my brain couldn’t quite catch up with what was happening.
It felt like a sort of fever dream. I remember him shoving the handle up, like they ask you to do in disabled loos, and I thought, “Oh, that doesn’t feel so secure, maybe someone will burst in and explain to Stephen that he shouldn’t be here.
” As if it was all a big mistake, a misunderstanding, and someone would be along any moment to make it all better and usher him out.
I remember that the cubicle was filthy, the floor was wet, and I looked at my feet, I’d changed out of my heels into those bright red Converse I used to wear all the time, fucking hell I loved those, and I remember, as he pushed me against the wall, I felt really very worried about the disgustingness of the toilet and how that disgustingness was going to be transferred to my shoes, and could I perhaps put them in the washing machine or would that cause them to fall apart?
That was what was going through my brain.
And then I realized his tongue was in my mouth, and his hands were down my skirt, and suddenly I felt this overwhelming nausea shoot up from my stomach.
Like, one minute I was fine, the next I knew I absolutely wasn’t, and my body knew what it had to do even if my brain didn’t.
And I threw up in the toilet next to us and he started laughing, and he said, “One of the first things you need to learn in this business is how to hold your drink. The next is not to be a prick tease.” Then he left and went back out and somehow I got home to that fucking flat in High Barnet, you know the one?
’ She looks ahead at the door, is vaguely aware of him nodding next to her.
‘And the next day I don’t know how I went to work.
I don’t know how but I did, and when I got in there he came straight up to my desk with a cup of coffee, which he placed next to me.
Nice as pie, like absolutely nothing had happened.
And then he said, “No hard feelings, eh? I think that was a bit of a drunken misunderstanding, but I’m prepared to let it go if you are.
” He was prepared to let it go if I was!
Hahahaha!’ She laughs like a deranged woman, which she realizes she was, to have agreed to his terms so willingly.
‘And I just nodded, mutely. And then he said that my time on news was wrapping up, that I was needed on features, and thanks for everything but now was the moment for me to move on. So I nodded, and I picked up my coffee, and my bag, and I went to the features department, and the worst thing is that I actually felt relieved, because it meant that I wasn’t in trouble. ’
‘Trouble?’ Nick sits up straight. ‘Why would you be in trouble?’
‘Because I thought I might have led him on, Nick.’ She starts to cry.
‘I thought I might have inadvertently given him some sign that he’d misconstrued as an invitation into the toilet or something.
I didn’t know. He was senior to me, I’d seen him bawl out grown men twice my size, he was like a fucking monster.
It wasn’t as if I wanted to mess with him.
And I know it sounds utterly pathetic to say this now, in this post-Me Too world, but I was grateful that he had put it behind him and been professional about the whole thing, because I had basically vomited in his face. ’
‘That fucker is lucky that’s all you did, frankly.’ Nick clenches a chiselled jaw in anger. ‘It’s the least he deserved.’
‘Well yeah, but can you just for a moment appreciate how mortifying it was to have puked on my boss. And most importantly, I was so full of shame and fear that you might see it as cheating. I know, I know, that’s not what you are like, but I just felt like such a fucking hopeless tit, that I had nearly fucked up my whole life with that one night out.
As soon as he handed me that coffee and moved me to features, I made a decision to behave like him and just pretend that it hadn’t happened.
And maybe it hadn’t – I trusted myself so little that there was genuinely a part of me that questioned everything I perceived as fact.
Like: “Maybe you’re making this up, Olivia, to cover for the fact that you’re to blame for everything.
” Because I’d grown up in a house where black was white and white was black and if you dared say otherwise you were treated like a lunatic.
I can see that now, but I couldn’t back then.
Plus, it came so soon after that evening we’d had, where I’d bunked off the next day, and I was scared I was going to get found out, and I suppose I had conflated one thing with another, but that’s where my brain was back then.
It’s where my brain’s been until recently, I guess.
In this sort of defensive crouch, terrified of upsetting the apple cart in any way whatsoever.
And so, so fucking hard on myself. Like way harder, ironically, than anyone else could ever have been.
I was always so scared of people being cross with me, but all along I was brutal to myself.
I was giving myself this daily dressing-down, an almost constant monstering.
Nobody could have been any harsher to me than I was to myself.
But I needed that job to feel like a worthy human being.
Because the uni newspaper editor had told me I was really good at journalism and good was the only thing that mattered to me as a 23-year-old.
If everyone else thought I was good, then I was good, right?
So I saw it as another reason to do whatever he said – it was like, the least I can give this man, this company, is my loyalty.
And you know, maybe that shame might have continued to have been buried deep inside me if I hadn’t ended up on that night out with Rose.
It seems bonkers to say now, but she really showed me how small I’d been making myself, how narrow the margins I’ve been living between have been.
And I told her about that moment with Stephen.
I told her because it turns out her own mother had had a run-in with him too, a different kind of run-in that you can’t even call a run-in because he was basically stalking her in the name of investigative reporting, and the story he did on her led to her actually taking her own life.
And now I just feel fucking stupid, like fuck, had I spoken out back then, maybe this guy completely devoid of any morals wouldn’t be in charge of The Morning. ’
‘Don’t put that on yourself.’ Nick is quiet, to the point. ‘You are not responsible for the behaviour of that prick, Olivia.’
‘Yeah, but I am responsible for my own behaviour. I need to be properly honest, for the first time in my life. I’ve always tried to be nice and sweet and caring, but actually there’s nothing nice or sweet or caring about silencing yourself so that a load of wankers think you’re likeable and easy.
Do you know where being likeable and easy led me to?
That night out with Rose, and the verge of a bloody breakdown, that’s where.
I need to be able to deal with the fact that sometimes, not everything is perfect.
Not everything is ideal. More often than not, it’s the opposite of ideal, and do you know what?
That’s OK. So this is me, standing before you, or sitting before you, on a creaky bed in a bright orange room named after a reality TV star from the noughties, hoping you might understand why I’ve been so vague and distant these last few …
’ She puts her hands up in surrender. ‘Years? Decades? I’m trying to explain how my search for perfection has ironically led to me being a miserable old cow with all the wrong priorities and …
oh god, I hate that I just called myself a miserable old cow!
I’m done with being beastly to myself. Done with it!
And I want you to know that I can deal with the consequences of my dishonesty.
Whatever you decide going forward with our marriage, I will be able to cope with it.
’ Olivia stops, as Nick grabs hold of her hand in his. ‘Aren’t you angry?’
‘Why would I be?’ Nick looks at his wife, his eyebrows knitting into a concerned crease. ‘You’ve just told me about something really shit that happened to you. Did you expect me to get up and walk out? Because if you did, then you must think pretty badly of me.’
‘It’s not you I think badly of, Nick, it’s myself.’
‘Yeah, well you should have a bit more belief in yourself because from where I’m sitting, the only person that story reflects badly on is Stephen. I wish you had told me before. We could have done something.’
‘Like what?’ Olivia looks out the window as she hears the sound of a drill strike up.
‘We could have reported him!’
‘Come on, you know that if I had raised a complaint, everybody would have questioned how I got myself into the situation with him, instead of looking at how he behaved. Even I was ashamed about it until Rose knocked some sense into me.’
‘But you could have told me, Olivia.’ He drops her hand and she momentarily worries that she has lost him … before realizing that he is only doing it so he can put his arm around her. ‘I hate that you didn’t think you could tell me.’