Case Histories

The last time was just before her final exam. Mr. Jessop had suggested some extra tuition, and she didn't think anything of it because he'd offered it to some of the others. She was disappointed that Kim wasn't at home. Stan said, "Oh, she's taken Nina to her mother's," very offhand, as if he couldn't care less what his wife was doing. He had a pad of paper and a couple of textbooks out on the dining-room table, but she didn't even get to sit down before he started, coming at her from behind, arms round her waist, trying to kiss the back of her neck, and she could smell alcohol on his breath, which was absolutely disgusting. She was furious, how could he, it was so unethical. She jabbed him with her elbows and yelled at him to get off her, and he said, "Oh, come on, Laura, you've done it with half the boys in your class. It's time you had a real man, you know you want it." The bastard, the fucking bastard! She stamped hard on his foot, the way they taught you in self-defense, but it was difficult because he was still holding her really tightly round the waist and she started to get panicky when she realized she couldn't get away from him. He was twisting her round so that he could get his lips on hers and then he put his hand on her crotch, thank God she was wearing jeans, and it meant he had less of a grip on her and she managed to get far away enough from him to be able to jab a finger into one of his eyes. And then she ran.

She'd been revising with Josh in the churchyard of Little St. Mary's. It was hot and they'd started fooling around a bit, no one ever went in that place, but then there was a rustling of leaves as if an animal were making its way through the summer vegetation, and then a man's face suddenly popped up from behind a gravestone and she'd shrieked in a really girly way, and Josh had got all manly despite having his jeans round his ankles and shouted at the guy to fuck off and then they had collapsed with laughter. She thought the man looked vaguely familiar but it was only when he ordered half a lager shandy from her in the bar a couple weeks later that she realized he was the Jessops' lawn-mowing neighbor, but she couldn't remember his name. Luckily he didn't seem to recognize her at all.

By then everyone had gone: Christina had gone to teach in Tanzania for a year, Ayshea was spending the summer in France, Joanna was Euro-railing with Pansy, Emma was in Peru (Emma, for God's sake!), and Josh was a camp counselor in the middle of nowhere in Michigan. She felt like she'd been deserted. They all agreed to meet up in front of the Hobbs Pavilion on Parker's Piece in ten years' time, but how likely was that really? Mr. Jessop had tried to organize a "farewell get-together" for his class but everyone had been busy – not that she would have gone. She hadn't seen him since he'd tried it on with her. Dad, bless his heart, said, "Don't you want to go traveling then, Laura?" even though it would have been his idea of living hell for her to be abroad somewhere, somewhere he couldn't pick her up from in the car at the end of an evening.

Then she bumped into him coming out of Heffers Bookshop and she said, "Hello," in a neutral kind of way because it wasn't as if she was looking to get into a conversation with the guy or anything, and then the next day there was this teddy bear left on the doorstep, not that really she connected the two things, not consciously anyway, it was just this stupid-looking bear, an ugly, pink thing with eyes that were all wrong, not like the cute old-fashioned ones Laura had piled on her bed. The bear on the doorstep was the kind of thing that someone with no taste would buy if they thought you liked teddy bears.