5th July: Me too, too, too

            I could do solo art today but Georgie is with me and as I’ll soon be the world’s most embarrassing mum I need to have a bonding day with her. Not a shopping extravaganza or an indulgent spa visit but instead I take her to Court.  Despite the unfortunate outcome she’d found the morning of the driving ban at the Magistrate’s Court last year interesting so I’m now stepping up her social education with a morning at Leicester’s Crown Court. Oh what jolly japes we have when other kids are bored out of their minds at Alton Towers. 

            The first case involves a father’s continued rape of his daughter from the age of nine. I wasn’t expecting this and I wasn’t expecting to have to explain buggery on a sunny morning in July.  I hope the next case will be cat-burglary or shoplifting.  It’s multiple rape, this time of a sister-in-law. The defendant pleads guilty to eight counts and not guilty to the ninth.  His barrister whispers in his ear and the not guilty becomes guilty. Well, that’s a relief; if there’s one thing I can’t abide its inconsistency.

            The next case involves the theft of ten pounds from a corner shop and the defendant is congratulated for being off heroine for ten months. He tells the judge, and us, that drugs were wasting his life.  The trainer footprints found at the site of the burglary don’t match his footwear and the case is dismissed. The final case involved a vicar repeatedly abusing a vulnerable girl.  

            That was a day’s entertainment I wasn’t expecting and I hope Georgie learnt a few life lessons especially that you need to produce a fuck of a lot of paperwork to be a barrister and it’s interesting what you can do to incorporate fashion personality into a black skirt and heels.

            Compared to what we heard about today the physical abuse that I’ve endured has been miniscule.  However, the fact that I can recall every detail, some twenty or thirty years after occurrence shows that each incident left its imprint. 

The first unwanted physical encounter of a ‘wish I had the strength to tell him to fuck off’ variety’ might be the reason it took me eight attempts to pass my driving test. It might not though.  The theatre director Jonathan Miller also took eight attempts and the writer C S Lewis top-trumped that with seventeen.  Maybe The Lion, The Witch and The Driving Test was a working title.  I was twenty-years-old and learning to drive in Market Harborough.  My young male driving instructor directed me up an unsurfaced lane, leading to open fields in the backwater of the town.  When teaching clutch control I gather that most instructors ask the driver to higher and lower their left leg in order to feel and hear the biting point on the clutch. My instructor knew better. He knew that moving his hand up and down my left thigh was more effective. Unfortunately, it wasn’t effective in helping me do a three-point turn afterwards as I was so flustered it ended up being at least a twelve-point turn. Back at home I went for a two-hour walk to try and shake off the impact of thigh-instruction. It didn’t work.

            The second encounter of the ‘I wish I had the strength to tell him to fuck off’ variety was on the Jubilee Line underground train between West Hampstead and Finchley Road. I was twenty-one, standing in a packed carriage when a man lifted my skirt and stuck his finger where he shouldn’t.  In retrospect I should have faced him and yelled for the whole carriage to hear ‘Would you kindly remove your finger from my arsehole, NOW!’ but being British I just stayed silent.  At least I didn’t apologise for my sphincter invading his personal space.

The third unwanted physical encounter was in the Odeon in Nottingham when I was in mid-twenties. It was about five o’clock and I needed some escapism.  I walked into screen one to watch ‘Ghost’ and noticed that there were only seven customers, all dispersed on single seats. I took one in the middle. A few minutes later another single person entered the auditorium. It was a man, about seventy, in a mac with two Co-Op carrier bags.  He looked around, shuffled along my row and sat next to me. Bless him, an elderly gentleman wanting a bit of company.  Yes, the name Pollyanna will be chiselled on my gravestone.  As the lights dimmed and the film began he rested his hand on the armrest between us.  About ten minutes later (just before Sam is attacked) I felt a couple of hairs on my arm tremble. My neighbour had accidentally brushed against me.  A few minutes later (when Sam meets Oda Mae Brown for the first time) it happened again, and then again (when Molly meets Oda Mae). The penny dropped. My sweet and lonely neighbour was very gently stroking my forearm. This was not enjoyable. I could no longer concentrate on what Molly, Sam and Oda Mae had to cope with. But maybe I was mistaken. Concentrate on the film Gen, this bit looks good, where Carl is trying to convince Molly that Oda Mae is a fraud. But then, after a further ten minutes of unreciprocated rhythmic foreplay I was brave. “Excuse me, would you mind stopping that please.”

“Sorry, sorry.” 

The elderly man gathered together his plastic carriers and left the auditorium. For the next twenty minutes silent tears slipped down my face. Whether this was due to his predatory behaviour, frustration at the time it had taken me to ask him to bugger off or simply watching the sad, sexy, clay-splattered, crisis that was unfolding on the screen I’m not sure.  At the end of the film I went up to one of the attendants.  “Could you tell me where the manager’s office is please?” I asked.

“Why’s that?”

“There was a man who sat next to me and touched me during the film.”

“Oh don’t worry about him. We call him the creeper and he moves from one screen to the next.”  Oh, that’s all fine then.  Onwards.