Free Damage by Josephine Hart

in the boy’s car outside our house. Unexpectedly, he kissed me. Then he tried awkwardly to touch my breasts. I was not unduly alarmed. In fact, pleasure was my main emotion. As I turned to get out, I saw Aston. He was gazing down at us from an upstairs window. I have never forgotten the look on his face, and yet even after all these years I have not found the words to describe it. Perhaps there are human expressions which only the artist can catch.
    He followed me into my bedroom.
    ‘Next time he will go further,’ he said. ‘The time after that, even further. Until one night he will fuck you. That’s the perfect description of what will happen to you.’
    ‘Oh, darling Aston, please, please don’t.’ I was crying now. They seemed such terrible words, ‘he will fuck you’. Aston looked almost ugly as he said them.
    He left the room. I locked the door. I don’t know why I did that. But it was very deliberate. I heard him shortly afterwards rattle the handle of the door. He whispered to me and the words were muffled as though he was sobbing.
    ‘Anna, Anna, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, Anna. You’ve locked yourself away from me. I can’t bear it. Oh, it will get worse. I know it. It will. It must get worse. I’m doomed. There’s no hope for me.’
    I did not open the door. I lay there trying to calm myself, to work out what was happening. Then I fell asleep.
    I was awakened by a most awful sound. It was not a scream exactly. It was as though a desperate cry for help was being choked off, and then being released again. It was an animal sound. I fell out of bed and raced towards the door. My room was opposite Aston’s and as if in a dream I saw my father trying to pull my mother from Aston’s bathroom. My father was struggling so much with his burden as he tried to move towards the bedroom door that he seemed to be inching his way across Aston’s room.
    ‘Don’t go in there, Anna! Don’t move any further.’
    But I ran past him to the bathroom door. Aston was lying in the overflowing bath. His wrists were cut, and his neck was slashed, and the bloodied water splashed my feet. He looked like some pale doll creature, who was not dead, but who had never been alive. I pulled a little bathroom stool to the side of the bath and sat there cradling his head. My father came back with the doctor.
    My father looked at us, and whispered, ‘Impossible, it’s impossible that what I see is true. Impossible. Possible.’
    The doctor took my hands away from Aston’s head. ‘Now, Anna, come with me. Come with me, come downstairs, there’s a good girl. Sit with your mother. My wife is on her way, and Captain Darcy and your father’s assistant will be here soon. I’m going to give you a sedative which will calm you.’
    Soon it seemed an army of people, quiet, competent, calm, were packing bags and moving through the house and night. It was as though they had learned some technique for dealing with terror. The technique was denial, discipline, and silence.
    My mother and I were spirited from our house to that of my young friend. He stood shocked and frightened in the doorway. The girl, from whose white dress he had only hours before tried to prise the unfamiliar treasure of her breasts, now trembled before him, an old raincoat thrown over her bloody nightdress. Then the silent army took over again and guided us inside.
    ‘Take Anna to Henrietta’s room, Peter.’ Someone handed Peter a bag. My mother started to become hysterical again. All attention turned to her.
    Peter led me upstairs and into Henrietta’s room. The room was pink, with pink ruffles everywhere, and dolls dressed in pink were neatly arranged on the bed. A giant pink giraffe stood in a corner. A long mirror faced me. I walked towards the door, and turned the key in the lock. In the mirror, I watched my figure flit back across the room holding the boy’s hand. I turned and faced him and heard my voice whisper, ‘Fuck me.’
    He was only eighteen at