Baildon Moor - Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Baildon Moor, October 1993

Sullivan and I laid out our sleeping bags in the freezing parlour – it was so cold my teeth were chattering before we’d finished unpacking. There was a tangle of chairs stacked in front of the gas fire at the far end of the room so Sullivan moved the furniture out of the way and I lit the fire with my Zippo. The room immediately filled with an almighty smell of burning dust but the reek was better than the prospect of hypothermia.  We got undressed, crawled into our sleeping bags and were asleep in moments.

I woke up around three o’clock, groggy and confused. The room was as hot as a sauna and I had a dry mouth and thumping headache from the heat and the whisky and cider. I turned off the fire and fanned myself. I needed some water, so I pulled on a T-shirt and tiptoed out of the room. The parlour door creaked and Sullivan – always a light sleeper - muttered something that I didn’t catch. Luckily the kitchen light was still on – I didn’t want try and find my way around the house in the dark.

I jumped: Rudy was still in the kitchen watching the TV with the sound turned down. I noticed he was watching a porn video and felt a flush of discomfiture – I was only wearing only a T-shirt and underwear.

 ‘Excuse me,’ I said.

Rudy said nothing and continued to stare at the television; the pungent smell of weed told me that he had smoked a few more joints after Sullivan and I had gone to bed.

I took a mug from the draining board and turned on the tap; the pipes thumped and banged like Vulcan’s forge.

I didn’t hear Rudy when he crept up behind me.

He slammed a sticky marshmallow paw on my right breast and his other hand was on my left thigh: sweaty stumpy fingers curled into my underwear. I smelled his foul animal scent and heard his ragged wet breathing barely an inch from my ear.

I tried to wriggle away and elbow him in the ribs but he held me even more tightly; the hand on my breast gripped and squeezed as he roughly jabbed his probing fingers inside me. I could feel his erection prodding the small of my back. Time solidified and I thought I was going to die. 

‘You know you want me,’ he panted. ‘That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’

He licked my cheek; his breath was hot and rank in my face.

I tried to scream but all that came out was a useless whimper. Terror turned to a blind red rage and I lashed out with my right foot and kicked him in the kneecap; there was a sickening wet crunch and Rudy howled like a wounded beast. His hand caught in the leg of my underwear and I staggered against the sink as he collapsed sideways, clutching his ruined knee. The mug crashed from my hand and smashed on the flagstoned floor. As Rudy fell he hit his head on the side of the great black Aga and slumped to the ground. His glasses spun off, broke and clattered under the table.

I burst into tears just as Sullivan appeared at the kitchen door.

‘What the fuck…?’ he said as he surveyed the scene of destruction.

‘He tried…oh God, Sullivan…he just attacked me,’ I sobbed. ‘Out of the blue – I’d come to get some water, it was so hot in there I needed a drink and he was watching the telly. I was at the sink and didn’t hear him. He was going to rape me and I hit him and now he’s….’ I gestured at Rudy lying on the floor. There was something wrong with him that my panicked brain couldn’t work out.

Sullivan nodded.

‘Are you alright?’

No, I’m not bloody well alright, I wanted to say. Your brother’s flatmate has just tried to rape me and you’re asking if I’m alright.

I gulp my tears back, take a deep breath. ‘Yeah, thanks. Think so.’

He gave me a brief hug and knelt at Rudy’s side. He felt for a pulse in his wrist and neck, and placed a hand on his chest. He frowned and moved his hand.

‘He’s dead, Julianne. You’ve fucking killed him.’ He sounded flat and dull as if something had just died inside him, too.

I screamed again except this time I did it properly – over and over again, until Sullivan wrapped his arms around me and buried my face in his chest.