Sasha, on the other hand, was all for moving down here to take care of me, but I managed to convince her that her husband and daughter needed her in London and to just stay with me for a little while.
Marshall takes my hand and helps me out of his car. ‘Are you sure about this?’ he asks. Since I came out of hospital and I forced Sasha to leave, he has been taking care of me and our entanglement has become more intense. We spend time together, listen to music and talk and laugh. We laugh so much I’ve almost forgotten what life was like without so much laughter. Occasionally we even have sex and make love. He knows everything about me, because it was all detailed there in the papers. I was grateful to them. After all those years of running from the limelight, of hiding my face and hiding my truth, I don’t mind the press attention now. The papers say what I struggle to say, they help to find more people whose lives were shaped by the man who taught me ballet, they tell Marshall what happened so I don’t need to. He knows almost everything about me now and he doesn’t treat me any differently, he still wants to spend most of his free time with me.
‘Am I sure about this? Yes. No. But I have to do it.’
I can walk, I am fine, I am healed but it hurts. I think I know how to stop it hurting so much.
Eliza is gone. Her flat sold, her belongings packed up and disappeared from the building almost overnight. She’s gone into rehab, allegedly, but I think Marshall tells himself that to make himself feel better for calling her parents and telling them everything. She confessed to calling Judge about me to protect Marshall. She was horrified that it’d almost got me killed, but it was the straw that broke the camel’s back, apparently. Marshall’s rock bottom; the moment when he became all about the tough love.
Slowly, slowly I ease myself down on to the top of the stone steps outside this building in Hove, not far from Brighton. I don’t need to move so gingerly, but like I said, it hurts. It truly hurts. This road is quiet and tranquil, this house seems beautiful and calm. The blue door is shut so I sit on the top step, and wait.
‘Call me when you’re ready to go,’ Marshall says. He presses his lips on to mine, closes his eyes, rests his forehead on mine for a moment. When he pulls away, he stares into my eyes and grins at me, another way of him telling me how much he adores me. ‘I … well, you know.’
He’s been trying to say it to me for a while but he knows I’m not ready to hear it out loud. I’m certainly not ready to say it out loud. But I do, and he does, and we both know it.
I smile at him, hope my adoration of him is clear. ‘Me, too.’
Eventually there is the creaking of the front door opening, and the footsteps of a person leaving. I haven’t seen her in seven months. I couldn’t. She tried to come to the hospital, she tried to come to my flat, she called and called me. And I couldn’t. I simply couldn’t engage with her.
Six … seven … eight and she is lowering herself to sit beside me.
‘How long have you been waiting out here?’ she asks.
‘Long enough. I don’t exactly have anywhere to be right now.’
‘I thought I’d never see you again,’ she says.
‘And yet, you moved all the way to Hove to make sure of that,’ I reply.
‘It’s not all about you, you know. I like it here, I feel like I fit in. And it’s silent here. I’ve finally been able to get a glimpse at God’s plan for me and this is part of it. This is where the silence is. And I’ve got a great job, working at a homeless shelter, and I’ve got a sort-of boyfriend in London. I also get to see more of my brothers because now I’m here with my dad and not my mum, they come to visit regularly.’
I close my eyes. Think of all the things I want to say to her. I would have understood if she had told me that Mr Daneaux didn’t touch her again. It was bad enough it happened to me, I’d never have wanted her to go through it as well. She didn’t need to lie.
‘What is the one song that you’re most embarrassed about listening to over and over and over?’ I ask her.
‘Urgh, I don’t even have to think about it: Toto’s “Africa”. Stupid song, which makes it sound like Africa is a country. And then they manage to crowbar “Serengeti” into it. But I love it and I could listen to it again and again.’
I smile to myself.
‘I’m sorry, Nika,’ she states.
‘You must never lie to me again,’ I say to her.
‘I won’t. I absolutely won’t. And I am so, so sorry.’
‘I know.’
‘No, no,’ she says. ‘Nika, look at me, please.’
Easing myself so as not to jar the centre of my pain, I turn towards her. She stares at me, her blue eyes are clear, open and unburdened. She seems freer. She says she has found her silence. I did not know that was what she was chasing, but she has found it and her burdens are falling away.
That part of my journey is just beginning, but I have people who unconditionally believe me. The police officer dealing with the Daneaux investigation is like a rabid dog – she is constantly on the phone, updating me, reassuring me that she will do everything she can to have him locked up. I have been referred for specialist counselling so I can start processing what I’ve been through. I am nowhere near where Roni is, but I’ll get there.
I did not break when I was forced, every week for over eight years, to be with the man who groomed me to adore him then abused me. I did not crack when I lived with a nightmare of a boyfriend who tried to make me his dress-up sex doll. I did not shatter when I spent more than ten years without a home. I did not end when I lay in an alleyway slowly bleeding to death. I am here at the start of my recovery, and I will get there. I know I will.
Gently and carefully, as though terrified I will come apart if she presses too hard, Roni puts her hand on my face. ‘I am sorry,’ she states.
As carefully as she touched me, I take her hand from my face, slip my fingers between hers and hold her hand, like she’s always wanted me to.
‘Trust me,’ I say gently, ‘I know.’
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Epub ISBN: 9781473507302
Version 1.0
Published by Century 2016
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Copyright © Dorothy Koomson 2016
Dorothy Koomson has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Century
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ISBN 9781780893365 (Hardback)
ISBN 9781780893372 (Trade paperback)
Dorothy Koomson, When I Was Invisible
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