Page 61 of Strap In
So Jean explains in fits and starts; how she and Bridget lost their parents the summer Bridget had turned eighteen. Saddled with a clingy eight-year-old sister and a whole host of adult responsibilities, Bridget gave up her place studying fashion and textiles to work in Woolworths. Even then Jean had felt guilty in ways she couldn’t explain. Bridget’s only comfort had been the church, where sacrifice and self-denial were venerated as the one true path to salvation. And though Jean doesn’t believe, doesn’t keep to the church’s teaching, she still feels it lying dormant inside herself.
Jean describes how the Almighty’s authority had lent weight to the moral judgements of a teenager, and her own fixation with rules had emerged from the constant struggle of puzzling out what might please God the Father – or Bridget the sister. How Bridget had pinned all her hopes on Jean, pushing her to study hard and apply to Balliol College, then resenting her still more for living the life she herself could not.
‘Oxford was an education on two fronts. I studied through my lessons and reading. But I also paid attention to what people wore, how they spoke, how they carried themselves. And through borrowing here and there I become someone else, someone more than just an orphaned outsider.’ Jean sniffs. ‘That makes me sound like Tom Ripley. But it worked. You actually believed I grew up having piano lessons. And the firm – Decker and Dennings as it was then – hired me right after graduation.’
‘Not Ripley – it isn’t like you killed anyone.’
‘Only Marianne’s career. But I’m getting ahead of myself.’
Ava dips Jean’s sponge in the water and slathers it with her Chanel bodywash, soaping Jean’s arms and back as she talks.
‘Marianne had the same goal. We were the only women taken on as interns. The first day we met she saw right through me, and I saw right through her. We agreed then and there that the energy we’d spend fighting one another would be better spent on getting ahead. If we couldn’t join the old boys’ network, we’d make our own.’
Henry had tried to excavate the truth many a time, but Jean always clammed up at his probing. Ava cups water in her hands to dampen Jean’s hair and massages shampoo into the roots, letting Jean take her time. And so, with words she tries to capture Mari’s magnetism, her warmth. The rare and unexpected gift of being understood. Waking up in their little flat for the first time only to discover herself wrapped in the sense of belonging that Jean had been so sure died with her parents, potent as Christmas morning. But Ava’s face remains carefully neutral, and Jean is certain the ugliness of Kate’s words over lunch have eclipsed the beauty of Marianne in her eyes. And Jean doesn’t know how else to show it, this yearning she’s spent half a lifetime concealing. ‘Sorry. I’m not explaining this very well at all.’
‘You’re doing fine.’ Ever so careful not to get suds in her eyes, Ava rinses Jean’s hair. Massages conditioner evenly through her tresses. ‘I’ve got you.’
Ava’s persistent certainty that none of Jean’s ghosts have the power to drive her away grows unbearable. Jean lies back, sliding under the water to rinse off her hair. It’s tempting to linger beneath the surface, every sound muted, but Ava’s still on high alert since their standoff over the taps.
So, Jean clasps the rim of the tub and pulls herself upright, water dripping down her shoulders. There can be no further delay. In short, halting sentences she tells Ava the rest. How Peter, senior associate at the time, had listened to their ideas and rewarded them with opportunity instead of stealing credit. He had praised them to Will.
Bitterness twists Jean’s lips. ‘At first I was so absurdly grateful that Will Decker noticed me. Saw me the way I wanted to be seen. He built that company from the ground up. All of it – and all of us – lived and died by his say so. He had the final word on all promotions. And if you left the firm, a good reference from Will could get you past Saint Peter himself. But if you were in his bad books, you’d be lucky to end up writing wills in Skegness.
‘With Will in our corner, there was no way for management to keep freezing us out. I got promoted to associate first. And he called me into his office the evening before I was due to start, for a briefing. We were sitting on the couch in his office. And he leaned in to kiss me.’
Ava’s expression doesn’t betray so much as a flicker of shock – Jean’s sordid little workplace #MeToo tale must seem like small potatoes after years spent absorbing the suffering of her clients. And this certainty gives Jean the strength to continue.
‘He’d touched me before. A kiss on the cheek, a hand on my knee – small things I’d have looked crazy challenging. But I never saw that kiss coming. And I was too shocked to move.’ Even now Jean can feel it; the graze of stubble against her cheek, that tongue pushing into her mouth, slimy and boneless as the liver Bridget used to fry. ‘Until he unbuttoned his trousers, pulled down his fly. And I… knelt. You’re probably wondering why I didn’t fight or run or scream.’
‘I wasn’t thinking any of those things.’ Ava brushes back the curtain of cooling hair surrounding Jean’s face and wraps it in a towel. ‘Actually, I was thinking that Will Decker sounds like a textbook abuser. He knew how isolated you were with your colleagues, and what it would cost you to say no. And he used all of that to coerce you.’
‘You sound like the therapist I saw.’
‘She sounds like a smart woman,’ Ava counters.
‘She is.’ Jean breathes deep, the steam easing her congestion. ‘I know you’ve wondered, why I never questioned not feeling anything with men. Dr Byrne said that after Will it was perfectly normal – but I couldn’t tell her that I didn’t feel anything, not before and not after learning to live with it. That’s why I stopped seeing her, in the end.’
Ava’s quiet for a long moment, though her hand never leaves Jean’s shoulder, thumb resting in the dip of Jean’s clavicle. ‘Did she help you?’ The sound Jean makes lives on the border between laughter and sobbing. ‘As much as I could be helped. You see, I thought that at least if Will was doing it to me, he wouldn’t bother Marianne. But then I found her crying in the stationery cupboard, the knees of her tights ripped, and I knew in an instant.’
The rest of it comes pouring out, a tide Jean couldn’t stem even if she’d wanted to. Marianne had been sure that if the two of them came forward, Will would be made to pay. She’d lodged a complaint with HR, giving both their names even though Jean had begged her not to. And Jean had denied everything thrice – in writing, sitting across the table from HR, to an ashen-faced Peter – weak as the disgraced disciple.
Marianne had quit, utterly discredited. And Will had carried on finding moments to fondle Jean with impunity. ‘It was only when I brought Henry along to the Christmas party that it completely stopped. I liked Henry. He was smart, funny, and no matter how busy he was, he always had time to give me advice.’ Jean sniffs. ‘I brought him along as a way of saying thank you. He read more into it, and I tried to let him down gently. But then a month passed without Will trying to get me alone, and another. When I realised that Will would respect another man’s claim, I agreed to become Henry’s girlfriend.’
‘Ah, Jean.’
‘NO! Don’t you look at me that way, like you’re sorry for what happened. I was mercenary with Henry and Marianne. That is who I am. So why the hell aren’t you blaming me?’
‘Because.’ Ava tilts Jean’s chin up to look at her. ‘It’s not your fault.’
That absolute certainty leaves her dazed. Jean is silent while Ava drains the tub. Silent while Ava rubs her dry with the fluffiest bath towel. Silent while Ava makes a valiant stab at her usual skincare routine, massaging lotion ordinarily reserved for Jean’s face into her body. Silent even while Ava dresses her in soft flannel pyjamas – a gift from Bridget stuffed in the bottom of her drawer, utterly at odds with Jean’s wardrobe and the curated elegance of her home.
Only when Ava’s tucking her into bed like a child, pulling down the blinds to block out the lightning, does Jean recover her voice. ‘You’re still here.’
Ava’s smile is tired but genuine. ‘Of course.’
There’s noof courseabout it. Her continued presence is nothing short of a miracle, so vast that none of Jean’s words come close to capturing it.
Unperturbed by her silence, Ava tucks the duvet around Jean’s legs. ‘I’ll stay with you all night. It’s up to you where I go. I can take the chair or the guest room if you need some space – and it’s totally fine if you do.’
