Savage Atonement

She managed to shake her head, her whole body burning with the shame of what was happening to her. How could they understand? How could they know how she felt; how guilty and tainted; how much she hated her body?

‘Matron will have to examine you, Laurel,’ Rachel, the social worker, was saying in a soothing voice. ‘Nothing to be afraid of. If you’ll just go with her now.…’

Like a limp rag doll, Laurel went with her. The examination was painful and to Laurel humiliating, although she knew that Matron was deliberately trying not to hurt her, but afterwards she was sick, and she was still shivering when she was taken back to the headmistress’s study.

‘Matron tells us that you’re still a virgin, Laurel,’ Rachel announced, ‘But I don’t believe that you were a willing participant in whatever happened to you. We want to help you, dear. Why don’t you tell us about it?’

She wanted to, but Bill had warned her that if she told anyone they wouldn’t believe her.

As though she knew what she was thinking Rachel said softly, ‘You have a stepfather, Laurel—was it him?’

She started to cry then and Rachel had comforted her, gently drawing the whole story out of her.

‘Now listen to me, Laurel,’ she said when she had finished. ‘You are in no way to blame, in no way at all. You mustn’t think that.’ Over Laurel’s head her eyes met Miss Kellaway’s. ‘Men like him ought to be shot,’ she said bitterly. ‘When I think of the damage he might have done.…!

‘Now, Laurel,’ she said quietly, ‘for your own sake it might be better if you lived away from home for a while. Not for punishment,’ she added quickly, ‘but to protect you.’

‘My mother.…’

‘Don’t worry, we’ll explain everything to her.’

Laurel hadn’t argued, thankfully believing that her ordeal was over, but it was only just beginning.

CHAPTER THREE (#u7ce7c419-dc21-54da-80a5-334d2a66d319)

THE Social Services Department installed Laurel with foster-parents; the start of the summer holidays meant that she didn’t have to endure the curious questions of her classmates, and Miss Kellaway visited her regularly.

The only person who didn’t visit her was her mother, and when Laurel asked repeatedly why, Rachel explained that she wasn’t well.

‘Try to understand, Laurel,’ she explained. ‘Your mother feels unbearably guilty because she exposed you to Bill Trenchard, and because she can’t face up to that guilt she had shifted it on to you. In her eyes you’re the guilty one, even though in her heart she knows that isn’t true.’

‘You mean she doesn’t want to see me?’

Rachel sighed. This was one of the most heartbreaking cases she had had to deal with, and she longed to be able to do something concrete to help Laurel. The poor child’s life lay in ruins around her, while the man responsible.… Her mouth tightened and she took hold of Laurel firmly, noticing as she did so how the thin shoulders flinched. Later on Laurel might benefit from talking to their child psychiatrist, but for the moment the scars were too new, too raw.

‘Try to understand, Laurel, your mother has always been weak, has always needed someone to lean on.’

It was true, Laurel acknowledged, but she needed someone to lean on too. It came to her then that the only person anyone could safely rely on was themselves; that it was foolish to place any trust or reliance in another human being.

‘We intend to prosecute Bill Trenchard,’ Rachel informed her. ‘He’s guilty of sexually molesting a minor, and he must be punished for that, Laurel. You understand that, don’t you?’ Because if you don’t help us some other girl will suffer—perhaps worse.’

Rachel meant that she still had her virginity, but her entire body and soul felt scorched, all emotion and feeling burned out of them.

‘Would I have to tell people what happened?’

‘Yes, but it will be worth it, Laurel, I promise you that.’ And because she liked and respected Rachel Laurel believed her; believed that for the sake of some unknown girl Bill had yet to meet she had to see that justice was done. In those days she had still been naïve enough to believe that the truth must always be believed and respected, and even though her soul cringed from the thought of having to tell anyone about what had happened, because she knew not to do so was taking the cowardly way out, Laurel agreed.

It got into the papers—how, she didn’t know, and although her foster-parents wanted to keep the articles away from her Rachel and the lawyer she brought to see her insisted that she must read them.

‘Your stepfather obviously intends to claim that you led him on,’ the lawyer explained to her, ‘and I have to ask you, Laurel, did you?’

The look of sick revulsion in her eyes convinced him.

‘I hate these cases,’ he told Rachel later. ‘And I’ve heard the stepfather intends to use Rowland Blandish. He’s red-hot on defences for this type of case. I doubt if he’ll get him off, but he’ll really put her through it. I’ll try to prepare her as much as I can.…’

‘But he’s guilty,’ Rachel protested, ‘and he might have destroyed her as a woman for ever. If you could have seen the look on her face when the school inspector touched her!’

‘She’s a sensitive child, which will make it ten times worse for her, and I agree with you, he’s got to be brought to justice, but it’s the mother I’m worried about. I tried to see her, but apparently she’s confined to bed with a heart condition.’

‘She refuses to see or communicate with Laurel, but then that’s quite usual. In these cases the mother normally knows quite well what’s going on and chooses to ignore it, but of course we aren’t talking about incest here, we’re talking about attempted rape.’

‘Far harder to prove,’ he warned her. ‘And the courts and the public are hardening their hearts more and more against the victims; there’s been too much press coverage on the subject; too many “claims” that have proved to be lies.’

‘But in Laurel’s case.…’

‘Rowland Blandish will try to persuade the jury that Laurel led Trenchard on. She’s a very attractive girl, Rachel, and whether we like it or not there are men who are always eager to convince themselves that teenage girls are eager for sex. You know that.’

‘Yes,’ Rachel agreed soberly, ‘but Laurel isn’t like that. I’m frightened for her.’

Mercifully Laurel knew none of this. She had withdrawn completely into her shell, unbearably hurt by her mother’s defection and plagued by self-hatred. Had she in some way encouraged her stepfather? If she had she didn’t know about it, but she had developed a fierce dislike of her body, to the extent that she would only wash in a darkened room. Despite the heat of summer she refused to dress in anything but thick sweatshirts and baggy jeans.

Mrs Lee, her foster-mother, reported this to the social services. A psychiatrist came to talk to Laurel, but she refused to respond.

The day of the court hearing arrived. The court was packed with reporters, and as her lawyer had predicted, the defence counsel tore her to shreds. Several times she broke down in tears, muddling her story, looking helplessly at Rachel, who could only listen with black murder in her heart, as she witnessed what was happening.

On the second day of the trial Rowland Blandish insisted that Laurel was to be dressed in teenage fashion clothes rather than her enveloping jeans and sweatshirt. He even produced an outfit for her. She put it on as the judge had instructed in a small room at the rear of the court.

It was a pink and white striped mini-skirt and a matching tee-shirt. The tee-shirt pulled tautly against the thrust of her breasts, the skirt showing off her long legs. Rachel bit her lip when she saw her. The judge had also instructed that she was to wear her hair down, and this she did. A glance in the mirror before she was escorted from the room showed her a stranger; a tall, slender girl with a mass of dark red-brown hair and a curvaceous figure.

She disliked the defence counsel’s smile as she re-took the stand. ‘Look at her,’ he instructed the jury. ‘Add make-up and the provocative manner of teenagers the world over and can any man be blamed for losing his temper a little, which is what happened to my client. As he is not her natural father isn’t it also only natural that mingled with his anger should be desire? A desire any man might naturally feel.…’

And so it went on, question upon question, innuendo upon innuendo, until Laurel was ready to believe herself that she had encouraged him; that she was to blame.

The jury gave a verdict of guilty but with provocation, and Laurel left the court feeling besmirched and tainted.

The papers were flooded with articles on raising or lowering the age of consent for sexual relations; on the provocation of teenage girls in general, on rape and its side effects on the victims, and through it all Laurel remained silent and withdrawn.

The court had ordered that for own sake she was to be taken into care, which had resulted in her being sent to a home several miles away.

All through the court hearing she had heard nothing from her mother, and one afternoon when she could endure it no longer she left the school grounds and caught a bus for Hampstead.

She found her mother alone, lying in bed, looking tireder and older. Her face paled when she saw Laurel and she turned away.

‘How could you come back here after what you’ve done?’ she gasped. ‘Shaming me, telling all those lies!’

‘But Mother,’ Laurel’s mouth was dry. Her mother had seen with her own eyes, ‘you saw.…’

‘Your stepfather is right,’ her mother said weakly. ‘You’re a wanton, Laurel. It’s your father’s blood coming out in you. No decent girl would dream of doing a thing like that! From now on you aren’t my daughter.’ She moved the bedclothes and Laurel saw the newspaper cuttings. Sickness welled up inside her. Her mother was right: she wasn’t fit to live. She ran out of the house, not seeing the car parked by the kerb, nor the man lounging against it, and ran full tilt into the road, oblivious to the blare of the horn of the oncoming car.