‘That first letter you wrote, when you told me the things you remembered, meant so much to me,’ says Mum. ‘Knowing you had still retained little snippets of your time here was like music to my ears. You hadn’t totally forgotten us. It gave me such comfort.’
Alice glances over at me and I detect a fleeting sense of unease. Perhaps it’s getting a bit too much for her, but she turns to Mum and smiles warmly. ‘And they meant so much to me too.’
Whether Alice is telling her the truth or not, I don’t know and, to be honest, I don’t really care. All I care about is the sense of relief it is bringing Mum. I know how she has tortured herself over the years about Alice.
‘Your stepmother, what was she like?’ asks Mum, her voice gentle.
Alice gives a shrug. ‘Roma? She was okay, I guess.’ Alice looks down at her hands and I sense another shift in her body language.
‘Only okay?’ asks Mum. Alice shrugs again. ‘You can tell us, Alice. Please don’t feel you can’t. We want to know, don’t we, Clare?’
‘Well, yeah. If Alice feels she can.’ I throw Mum a do you think this is a good idea? look. One that Mum either fails to interpret or ignores.
‘Tell us, Alice. Please.’
‘Okay … Roma was with my father just for the money. I knew that from a very young age. She would be all nice to me in front of him, but when we were alone, she was horrid. We had our meals before Daddy got home from work. She would serve her son, Nathaniel, a huge, massive portion and, yet, me, I’d get a tiny amount, just enough to feed a sparrow. I didn’t get dessert either. Nathaniel did.’
Mum’s hand flies to her mouth, a look of horror on her face. ‘Oh, Alice, I had no idea.’
‘When Daddy wasn’t around, she used to beat me with the sole of her sneaker and lock me in my room for hours on end.’
‘Didn’t you tell your dad?’ I ask, aware that I don’t acknowledge his paternal relationship to me.
‘I did once, but never again,’ says Alice. ‘He asked Roma and, of course, she denied it. Then the next day, when he went to work, I got the biggest beating I’d ever received.’
‘Oh, my God,’ cries Mum. ‘Oh, Alice.’
‘Didn’t your dad see the bruises?’ I ask, shocked at this awful revelation.
‘She was clever,’ says Alice, her face contorts into a sneer. ‘She never beat me so bad that I had big bruises or anywhere that couldn’t be hidden by clothing.’
‘Jesus,’ is all I manage to say. We all take a simultaneous moment to let this disclosure sink in. I take a gulp of wine and replace my glass on the table. ‘How long did all this go on for?’
‘Right up until I was sixteen.’ Alice once again hangs her head, her hands are clasped together in her lap and she nervously twiddles her fingers.
Maybe it’s the solicitor in me, but I have to ask. ‘What happened at sixteen to make it stop?’
Alice doesn’t answer straight away. ‘I … sorry, I don’t know if I can say.’
‘It’s okay, Alice, you can tell us. We’re family,’ says Mum. ‘I’m your mother, you can tell me anything.’
Alice takes a deep breath and raises her head. Her eyes look over at the sideboard and graze the photographs. She nods to herself and then seems to summon up some inner strength as she takes another breath and sits upright.
I can’t help thinking her actions are rather staged and have an air of Hollywood about them.
‘Nathaniel was two years older than me. One night he had been to a party and came home drunk. Daddy and Roma were out having dinner, so it was just me alone at home.’ She looks from Mum to me. I already know I’m not going to like where I think this story is heading, but I brace myself in the way I do with clients, when they tell me about truly terrible events that have happened to them. ‘Without going into detail, he basically … well, you know … took advantage of me. He was bigger and stronger. I couldn’t fight him off. He was so drunk, I didn’t stand a chance.’
I move to perch on the edge of the coffee table in front of Alice. I take her hands in mine. ‘He raped you?’ I ask softly. ‘Your stepbrother raped you?’ I hear a sharp intake of air from Mum, but I keep my eyes locked on Alice. I want her to know that it’s okay, that she can tell us the truth. That we won’t judge her. She doesn’t break eye contact, but nods.
‘A bit. He was too drunk.’
‘A bit. Whether it’s a bit or a lot, it’s still rape,’ I say, keeping my voice low. ‘Did you tell anyone?’
‘Roma and Daddy came home. Daddy was putting the car away and Roma came into the house first. She must have heard me crying. I had given up struggling at this point. Anyway, the next thing I knew, she was pulling Nathaniel off me and bundling him into his room. She came back and told me that I was never to speak a word about it. That if I did, I would get more than just a beating.’
‘Oh my darling. Oh, that is awful.’ Mum’s tears begin again. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘The next day I told Roma that if she or her son ever laid another finger on me, then I would file a police report.’
‘Did you go to the doctor? Did you have evidence?’ I don’t want to ask Alice in front of Mum if she kept her underwear or bed sheet for DNA from Nathaniel. Alice, however, seems to have no qualms.
‘I figured if Monica Lewinsky could keep Bill Clinton’s sp …, well, you know …’ She screws up her nose and scrunches her shoulders, not needing to elaborate further. ‘Anyway, if she can keep Clinton’s stuff all those years, then I sure as hell could keep Nathaniel’s. In theory, anyway. You should have seen the look on Roma’s face when I told her that.’
‘Did you have your underwear?’ I ask.
‘Oh, Clare, you are such a lawyer,’ Alice says and grins at me. ‘No, but I wasn’t gonna let her know that. Anyway, it worked, as neither of them laid a finger on me again. And when Daddy died, she gave me your address. Said she found it in his things, but I think she had kept it all that time and only gave it to me once she realised she wasn’t getting her hands on the rest of Daddy’s money.’
‘You’ve been through so much. You’re so brave. Are you okay? I mean, really okay?’ asks Mum.
‘Sure. I mean, nothing that a bit of therapy won’t sort out. Well, that’s what I’ve been told but, if you wanna know the truth, I think you and Clare and Clare’s family are the only therapy I need. Your love is enough to heal all the wounds.’
It’s uncharitable of me to think this sounds a bit OTT and clichéd, but then I remind myself that, to all intents and purposes, Alice is American and therapy is far more widely spoken about and accepted over there.
‘Anyway, enough of all that,’ says Alice. ‘It’s in the past. This is a new beginning for me. For all of us.’ She gives Mum’s hand a squeeze and looks at me with a smile, which I return.
I have to admit to being impressed by her resilience. Her ability to push the negativity away so easily is quite outstanding. I’ve seen it with some clients who have sat in my office or in a police rape suite and had to recount an awful attack they’ve been subjected to and sometimes there can be a certain amount of detachment. However, I’ve never seen detachment quite like this. It’s almost as if Alice is talking about something much more trivial. I can’t help but think if she was one of my clients and this was a courtroom, I would be urging her to show more emotion.