As Darkness Falls

3

Sara went back into the lounge. Zoe had switched the TV screen off, and was fast forwarding again.

“I don’t want to see any more,” Sara said.

Zoe didn’t say anything, but she started pushing buttons, getting the disc ready to play.

“Zo,” Sara said. “I really don’t.”

“Please?” Zoe said.

Sara stood there for a moment, unsure. Then she decided she had to. If this was what Zoe wanted, how Zoe wanted to explain her past, then Sara had to let her. Sara didn’t really have a choice.

“Okay,” Sara said. “But, just, as little as you can? Please?”

Zoe nodded.

Sara went and sat down on the couch, and waited. She wanted to hug herself too. Her mouth tasted awful, stale and sickly, and her hands seemed to be shaking slightly, although she didn’t quite know why. Anger, probably, she thought, but she wasn’t completely sure.

She tried to calm herself down. She would deal her with own feelings later. She was fairly sure these movies were going to give her nightmares. Nightmares or something, she wasn’t quite sure of that either. Knowing this happened to children was bad enough. Seeing it, knowing it had happened to someone she loved, that was going to fuck her up for a while.

This wasn’t the time for Sara to worry about herself, though. She made herself stay calm. She sat there and waited for Zoe to be ready.

Zoe turned the TV back on and stood to the side. Sara looked at the screen. It was Zoe and the man again, and this time Zoe was a little older, fourteen or fifteen, with shorter hair and too much make-up. It was the same man as before, Sara noticed, and then tried not to see any more detail than that.

“Okay,” Sara said after a moment. “I’ve seen it.”

Zoe stood there.

“Zo, please…”

Zoe held up her hand, “Wait,” she said.

Sara bit her lip, and waited. She looked at the screen. On the TV, the man got off Zoe. Then he held out his hand and helped her up. He seemed to be being thoughtful, almost gentle.

For a rapist.

“That’s my father,” Zoe said, and ejected the disc. “He’s saying he loves me there.”

Sara didn’t move.

Zoe put the disc back in the box, and took another one out.

“No more, okay,” Sara said.

“One more.”

“Fuck, Zo…”

“One more,” Zoe said, her voice brittle. “Please.”

Sara wanted to insist they stop, but she didn’t. She couldn’t. It wasn’t for her to decide when this was over. Watching was terrible, but having it done to her would be far, far worse. Having it done, and then having the shame and memories and fear of it, all the rest of her life. It was terrible, what had happened to Zoe, and so wasn’t for Sara to decide when to stop this. If Zoe wanted her to watch, she would watch. If this was how Zoe had decided to cope, if this was what Zoe wanted her to do, then Sara’s discomfort was a small thing compared to Zoe’s need.

Zoe put in another disc, and didn’t switch the TV off this time. She just pushed fast forward, watching the screen as she did. This movie was different to the others. It seemed more like a proper home movie. There were people in a back garden, at what seemed to be a birthday party. There was a cake, and people wearing hats. The movie was old, and quite blurry, and the same middle-aged man, Zoe’s father, was in the picture now and then. It was odd what she noticed, Sara thought. She noticed that man, and she noticed there were other adults around too, and she was actually strangely relieved by that because for that one moment, at least, long-ago younger Zoe had been safe.

Right then, the younger Zoe suddenly appeared on the screen, as if Sara thinking about her had made her turn up. She was laughing, and holding up a toy to the camera. She was moving too fast, flickering because the real Zoe was still fast-forwarding, so it took Sara a moment to realize that they were watching the movies out of order. Zoe was only aged eleven or twelve again.

The real Zoe fast-forwarded, and Sara watched, and could feel herself getting tense, waiting for something awful to happen. She was nervous enough that she had to swallow to make herself not vomit again. She hated to think what was coming.

“That’s my eleventh birthday, I think,” Zoe said, and kept fast forwarding. Through a school sports day, and people at a beach, to a family picnic in a park. Then, she slowed the movie down and let it play, and suddenly there was sound. People were playing cricket, Sara saw. Zoe had the bat. Someone was bowling for her, bowling slowly on purpose, like adults did for children. Zoe hit the ball, and people off-camera clapped and cheered, and on the TV, Zoe smiled.

Zoe smiled, but her smile didn’t last. Her father appeared in the picture and patted her head. Suddenly, on the screen, Zoe went still. On-screen Zoe stood there, and kept hold of the bat, but she put her arms around herself, and went utterly still. Slowly, almost uncertainly, her smile disappeared.

Sara wanted to cry, and be sick again, and to hurt someone, too. She didn’t know what to feel. She almost got up and hugged Zoe, just to hold onto her, so Zoe knew she was there. She almost did, but she wasn’t sure whether Zoe was ready for that yet. Zoe was standing across the room on purpose, Sara assumed. She was standing over there for a reason, since she could have just sat beside Sara and used the remote.

She didn’t want to be touched right now, not even by Sara, and Sara couldn’t begin to work out how that made her feel.

“It wasn’t always terrible,” Zoe said, and stopped the movie.

Sara looked at Zoe. The real Zoe. She didn’t understand.

“That was what the last one was for,” Zoe said. “You looked worried when I put it in. But it was nothing, just family stuff. Just to show you it wasn’t always terrible. That some of the time it was completely normal. You should know that part of it too.”

“It’s always terrible,” Sara said. “Even if nothing was being done to you right then.”

Zoe looked at her for a moment.

“It was,” Sara said. “Always.”

“Yeah,” Zoe said, a little flatly.

“What?” Sara said.

Zoe shrugged. “Nothing,” she said. “Just, that’s what the other police said too. Back then.”

She turned the TV off, and took the disc out the player, and put it away in her wooden box. Then she put the box in the back of a cupboard in the lounge, behind her old CDs, which explained why Sara had never noticed it before.

Then she came over and sat on the couch.