His hand was shaking as he held the glass, his face was a terrible colour, that ugly blue-grey, rather frighteningly patched with a dusky red. He fumbled almost surreptitiously in the breast pocket of his pyjamas, shook a small pill into his hand and swallowed it.
She sobbed and shivered and at last burst out with it all. ‘Oh, Daddy! It was Simon.’
‘Simon?’ he said; stupefied at the sound of that name.
‘On that bench by the river, Daddy. You know, the bench in front of Mardon’s Hotel—’
‘Mardon’s?’ he said. ‘That’s not on your way home.’
‘No, but he—he wanted to go there. So we went and then we stopped and sat on the bench and we were just looking at the river and talking—at least I was just talking; and then…’ She buried her face against his shoulder. ‘Don’t make me tell!’
‘Oh, my God, Daffy!’ he said; and you could sense reaction to her plea, humble and gentle: it’s her mother she needs, not me. He left her again for a moment and went out into the hall, calling more urgently up from the foot of the stairs. ‘Hester! Wake up, come down! Hester, it’s Daphne: come down.’
And she came, hurry-scurrying, anxious, trembling, her dressing-gown clutched with a shaking hand tight up against her throat as though to shut out some bitter cold wind in that well-warmed house.
‘What is it, my darling, what’s happened? Oh, God, darling!—your face, all those marks—your hands, your hair.’ And she cried out, as the father had cried out, voicing the nameless fear never far from their hearts: ‘You haven’t…? They haven’t…?’
‘It was Simon,’ she said dully.
‘Simon? What Simon? Which Simon? You can’t mean your cousin, Simon, Daffy?’
‘Mummy, I tried not to let him.’
The mother could not—would not—take it in. ‘Simon? He’s only a boy, he’s only seventeen.’
‘Boys of seventeen nowadays…’ said her husband.
‘But Simon?—he’s her own cousin, he’s like her brother.’
‘No, Mum,’ said Daphne. ‘He isn’t. He’s never been.’ But how would she, innocent blossom, have recognised that? ‘I mean, he was always sort of—sloppy, sort of lovey-dovey, you know.’ And she searched in her keen little mind for a phrase from her mother’s own courting days. ‘I mean he’s always sort of carried the torch for me.’
‘But, Daffy, what happened?’
What had happened? He hadn’t taken her to that place, no; for any investigation might produce someone who had observed her going off outside, so flirtatious and willing, with the sailor, Butch. But Simon would soon admit that they had been there: would confess to having taken her there—to having given way to her entreaties and taken her there. And to having smoked that wicked pot and so been unable to control her when she had insisted upon leaving him. Simon in his silly innocence would give it all away. Well, then, Simon must be discredited in advance. ‘He was stoned, Daddy. He didn’t know what he was doing. He was stoned out of his mind.’
They picked up these dreadful expressions from the television. ‘You mean he’d been drinking?’
‘He was on hash. On hashish. Of course, I didn’t know. I couldn’t understand him. He kept talking about some awful place, some sort of dance place, you know, where sailors went with women, awful women, and everyone was on hash or something, even on the hard stuff; Simon told me that, he said lots of them were “on the hard stuff”. He said he’d take me there, he wanted to take me there. I believe in the end,’ said Daffy carefully, ‘he almost thought he had taken me there, he was in a sort of dream, a sort of nightmare, he thought he was there, he thought I was one of those—those women…’ She broke off, shuddering and whimpering; looking into their white, stricken faces, searching for any sign of doubt. But there was none. Simon could protest and deny but would be obliged to admit that he had been under the influence of an unfamiliar drug—he was far too stupid and honest not to tell the truth; and might, in the end, even be brought to half believe her story himself. No one in that place was likely to have taken any notice of them; let alone to admit to having stood by and watched her, so young and obviously unaccustomed, being taken out to be raped and beaten up by the man even they called The Butcher.
‘We were going to the folk-singing café—you know, you all sit round and have coffee and listen to the singing. Well, we did go and we were sitting at the back of the cafe, away from the stage, and suddenly the man next to Simon passed him a cigarette and Simon said “Thank you” and smoked it and then he said had the man got any more that he wouldn’t mind selling him, because he’d run out; and the man said, “It’ll cost you bread, man,” but, of course, that can mean only “you’ll have to pay for them”. At least, that’s what I thought; but anyway, he sold Simon a few loose ones and Simon was smoking away and he seemed to go a bit dreamy, not to say zombie, but of course I thought it was only the music. But on the way home, we went and sat on the bench like I told you, Daddy…’