Free 1982 Janine by Alasdair Gray Page B

wanted to start slowly and gently again she drew away and wept and told me she was in love with whatsisname. A boy in the drama club. They had made love for the first time that night and he wanted to marry her. I stayed silent. She said, “You hate me, I suppose.”
    I felt stunned and stupid but I certainly did not hate her. There was no evil in Helen. There is evil in me, which is why I deserve whatever pain I get. She said, “I can’t promise not to see him again. If you try to stop me I’ll have to leave at once.”
    I said in a tired voice, “Take your pleasure wherever you can find it, Helen,” and reached to embrace her, but she switched the light on, dried her eyes and said, “I’m sorry but we mustn’t do that again. I’m going to sleep in the spare room.”
    I should have offered to go there myself but could not move. When she left the bed it felt like the loneliest place in the world. I had not realised how much I had been nourished by the mere warmth of her body. I’ve been insomniac ever since. 
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    Did Sontag ever rape me? Only intellectually. “This combination of brothel and police station which you have devised is not, I hope you realise, a fantasy. A form of it exists in all nations except perhaps Scandinavia and the Netherlands.”
    â€œNonsense, Sontag!”
    â€œAre you aware that the Parisian police commissioner has publicly advised raped women not to take their complaintunaccompanied to a police station, since they are in danger of being raped again? Are you aware that in Germany –”
    51 REAL WOMEN PRISONERS
    â€œDon’t talk about the concentration camps!” I commanded, my fingers above my ears.
    â€œI will not, but you have read of the death by hanging of the Meinhof girl in that strangely insecure German maximum-security prison. Did you know that the official investigators found dry semen between her thighs? Did the warders fuck her then hang her, or hang her then fuck the corpse?”
    â€œThe official investigators decided that she hanged herself.”
    â€œThey had no explanation for the semen. They did not deny the medical evidence, or explain it, they ignored it, and the television reports ignored it too. Beria, the head of the Russian secret police, had women who attracted him arrested and taken to jails where he abused them as he pleased. Then they were executed for treason. There are equally selfish men with far too much power in America. Of course the system they manipulate is a different one, but this forensic research club you have invented almost certainly exists, though it is probably more frequent in South America than the North.”
    â€œThere is nothing like it in Scotland,” I said desperately,
    â€œnothing like it in Britain.”
    â€œIn Ulster–”
    â€œDon’t talk to me about Ulster!” I shouted, my hands over my ears again.
    â€œVery well, I am perfectly aware that recently on the main British island only men have been kicked to death in police stations. However, a girl I know was arrested on suspicion of being friendly with a terrorist – on suspicion, mind you, for she was not. They locked her naked in a London prison cell, a very cold one, and kept her under surveillance by male warders for three whole days.”
    â€œI find that hard to believe.”
    â€œYou sound like a Conservative sometimes.”
    I nearly smiled. 
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    Sontag thought I was some kind of socialist because she knew my father had been in a trade union. She did not know that in Britain almost everyone of my income group is Conservative, especially if their fathers were trade unionists.Not that I have totally rejected the old man’s Marxist ideas. The notion that all politics is class warfare is clearly correct. Every intelligent Tory knows that politics is a matter of people with a lot of money combining to manage people with very little, though