The Cows Page 14

  ‘We’re here to take you down to the police station,’ he continues. ‘We just need to ask you a few questions about your little incident on the train last Friday night.’

  ‘Am I being arrested?’ I ask, realising I look ridiculous in sunglasses but also so pleased I am wearing them.

  ‘We just need to ask you some questions, Ms Thomas,’ says the skinny woman cop.

  ‘Can I just get my things?’ I ask, not knowing what the protocol with getting arrested is. Are they going to handcuff me? Put their hand on the top of my head as they push me into the car like they do in the movies?

  They wait for me on the doorstep while I get my keys, my phone and a coat. I don’t even put them in a bag. I’ve forgotten how to leave the house.

  In the back of the police car (they didn’t put their hand on my head to guide me in), I look at the back of their heads. They probably don’t think I can see, but they keep looking at each other and laughing. I’m pretty sure the woman keeps hitting the fat man’s leg, and I’m pretty sure it’s because he keeps making fun of me.

  I feel a bit like I’m in a taxi; the back seat is blocked off by a black plastic wall with a Perspex window separating our heads. As the crackle of the police radio fills the car I sit back and look out of the window. People on the street are looking in at me; one of my neighbours is peering out her window, trying to get a glimpse of the filthy criminal in the back of the cop car. What will they think when they see it’s me, have they seen the video? I realise how serious this is, and the situation I am in. Will I go to prison for masturbating in public? From underneath my sunglasses, bulbous tears roll down my cheeks. I feel sick with fear and regret. They came to my house. How did they know it was me? I won’t be able to hide now. Even when the press dies down, my name will have been dragged through the mud. Will I have a criminal record? Will I go to prison? Even that creep Shane Bower will laugh at me, and to think I believed I had the power over him. I look at my hands and they are shaking. I haven’t felt this level of fear in my entire life. Telling my dad I was pregnant was terrifying, but not like this. I wanted to keep Annie and that gave me strength to make it clear to him I was doing the right thing. But there is nothing I want about this. No good can come of it. I am just shamed, publicly, globally, and I am so, so frightened.

  I sit alone in the interrogation room waiting for whatever it is that is about to happen.

  The door opens. The fat man and the female officer come in. She takes a seat, he stands behind her. She starts to speak.

  ‘OK, Ms Thomas, I’m Officer Flower, and this is Officer Potts. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to a lawyer. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be provided for you. Do you understand the rights I have just read to you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, like a little girl in the headmistress’ office.

  ‘With these rights in mind, do you wish to speak to me?’

  I feel like I’m in a movie. How is this happening to me? I want to get out of here, I want this to go quickly. If they are going to arrest me, no lawyer can help. Exactly what I did is on video, it is what it is.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, trying to be a grown-up.

  ‘OK, good. Now, want to tell us about Friday?’ she says, her elbows on the table, fists together and her fingers interlaced.

  ‘I got filmed on a train when I thought I was alone,’ I say. That’s the truth.

  ‘And for the tapes, what were you doing on that train?’ Officer Flower says, probingly. The male officer makes a strange grunting noise and puts his hand to his mouth. He either stopped a sneeze or a laugh, I can’t be sure.

  ‘I was masturbating,’ I say, releasing myself into the pinnacle of humiliation as my shame floods the room and sweeps up my self-respect like a gigantic tidal wave.

  The fat man cop makes the noise again, this time letting out a little more than he intended to, clarifying that it is, indeed, a snigger.

  ‘That’s right,’ says Officer Flower. ‘And why did you do that?’

  Why did I do that? The very question I’ve been asking myself since this whole ordeal began.

  ‘I don’t really know. I just felt …’

  I look at Officer Potts. I contemplate holding back but considering where I am, I realise there is no point. ‘I just felt … horny.’

  This sends him over the edge. He lets out a full-scale guffaw and Officer Flower scrapes her chair back and turns to look at him scathingly. ‘Officer Potts!’ she says, like she’s his mum and he’s a little boy who just laughed at his sister’s boobs. ‘Martin, do you need to leave the room?’

  He pulls himself together with a medley of sniffs, posture readjustments and fake coughs. ‘No, no, absolutely not. All good.’

  Officer Flower turns back to me. ‘Ms Thomas, you were on a train. You do realise that this could come under the category of indecent exposure, don’t you?’

  ‘I do now, yes. But I thought I was alone. When I saw that kid filming me I felt completely violated. I wasn’t trying to be seen. I can’t believe that out of me and him, I am the one being questioned.’

  ‘That’s right, blame the guy,’ Officer Potts says, like a ventriloquist, as he rolls his eyes and lets his gaze settle on the wall to his right. Both Officer Flower and I shoot a look at him, in a strong but unspoken moment of female solidarity.

  ‘Look, I’m just saying that if she was a man this would be a clean case. Indecent exposure, public indecency, lewdness, there’s no getting away from it,’ the fat twat says.

  He’s right, I suppose. There probably shouldn’t be different rules for men and women. But I really hope that there is.

  ‘Ms Thomas,’ Officer Flower continues. ‘Did you do what you did with the intentions of being seen?’

  ‘No, I really didn’t.’

  ‘Did you know the young man who filmed you was on the carriage?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. I still don’t know where he came from. I swear he wasn’t there when I got on the train.’

  ‘Have you ever done anything like this before?’

  ‘No, never.’ That’s a lie. I had sex with a guy on a train once. I also gave the same guy a blow job on the back of a bus. But that is very, very different, it was years ago, and mentioning that would not help. I say no again, just to reiterate.

  ‘Right, well then, I am happy to put this down to a moment of personal misconduct. We all have them. The fact is, there were not more than two other people present. You clearly were not trying to receive attention and your regret seems palpable. Ms Thomas, can you assure me that we will not receive any more footage of you doing anything like this on public transport again?’

  ‘Yes. I won’t. I really, really won’t. I have a daughter,’ I say gently. ‘I just want to protect her.’

  ‘I’m sure you do. OK, then I think we can leave this here.’ Officer Flower gets up.

  ‘Wait, that’s it?’ Officer Potts splutters.

  ‘Yup, that’s it. You can leave us now, Martin. Come this way, Ms Thomas.’

  As we walk down the corridor, she speaks quietly to me. ‘He’s new, tact isn’t his strong point.’

  ‘I suppose me being here means the press can identify me?’ I say, having a little experience in the relationship between the police and the press because of my job.

  ‘I’m afraid it probably does, yes.’

  ‘Why is this happening to me?’ I say, pathetically, feeling oddly safe in this cold, bright corridor. Officer Flower stands in front of me and puts her hands on my elbows.

  ‘Listen to me,’ she says, looking into my eyes. ‘This will pass. You did something very questionable; people are going to roll with this until the snowball is pretty big. But it will pass, everything always does. I see people come in here who have done much worse things and they serve their time and then they live their lives.’

  ‘“Serve their time”? Am I going to prison?’ I feel a ball of vomit shoot up my throat, but
swallow it back down.

  ‘No, but it might feel a bit like that for a while. Your time will be played out publicly but I’m going to give you some advice. Do what is right for you, respond in a way that makes you feel comfortable. You can take control of this and you can come out the other side. Do what is right for you, and your daughter. And Ms Thomas, can I say something, woman to woman?’ I nod. I like Officer Flower. I want her advice. Any small crumb of comfort would be welcome right now. ‘Take a shower, OK? You smell of cheese.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Sorry.’

  ‘It’s OK, I’ve smelt worse. Now, I can get someone to drive you to wherever you need to go. Is there anywhere you can go where you won’t be on your own?’

  I tell her my mum’s address.

  In the back of the police car, I ask if it’s OK for me to look at my phone, and the cop driving me says yes. He looks young and new, still at the stage of being polite because he’s nervous. A ridiculous character trait for a police officer.

  I’m so happy when I see I have another email from Cam Stacey. I’ve been thinking about her a lot.

  Tara, you can’t control what other people do, but you can control how you deal with it. This will get better, I promise. Cam x

  ‘Mummy!’ shouts Annie running to greet me as soon as I walk in the door. She flops into my arms and it feels so, so good. The smell of her head, her warm body, that cuddle that means nothing but love. I hold onto her like we are about to say goodbye, not like we are saying hello. We’ve never spent so long apart. I know instantly that it can’t happen again.

  ‘Mummy, are you better?’ she asks me, her big brown eyes looking so worried. ‘You don’t smell right.’

  ‘I’m so much better,’ I tell her. How would I even begin to tell a child the truth? One day I’ll have to. I hold her hand as I stand up. ‘Come on, let’s go and find Nan.’

  ‘You’re here,’ says Mum, walking towards me from the kitchen. Her arms reach out for me, but the expression on her face changes as she looks at me and realises the mess I am in. I look into her eyes and those boulder tears start falling again. ‘Mum,’ I mouth, trying to hold it together so Annie doesn’t notice.

  ‘Let me take Annie upstairs,’ she says, jumping into action like mums so naturally do. I go and sit in the kitchen while she takes my daughter to her bedroom. After a few minutes, she startles me by speaking from the doorway.

  ‘So what is it? Breast, bowel?’

  ‘What?’ I ask, wondering why she’s listing body parts.

  ‘What cancer do you have? It’s cancer, isn’t it? That’s what’s wrong?’

  ‘God, no, Mum! I don’t have cancer.’ I realise she’s crying. I must have terrified her. Why do I suddenly feel like I’m about to tell her something worse than me having cancer when of course it’s bloody not?

  ‘Oh thank God,’ she says. ‘No one survives cancer, no matter how much they try to tell you they do. So what is it, darling? What have you—’ She stops speaking as she has a lightbulb moment. Her face turns from concerned to annoyed. ‘You’ve done it again, haven’t you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re bloody pregnant again, aren’t you?’

  ‘No, Mum. I’m not pregnant. Please stop guessing. Mum, I’ve been caught doing something really bad.’

  ‘Oh God, you’ve shoplifted? What did you take? Was it clothes? Cosmetics? A television?’

  ‘Mum, no, I haven’t stolen anything please, will you stop guessing.’

  She sits down next to me. She’s managing to stay quiet, but I can tell her mind is running through possibilities like a random results generator.

  ‘Mum, I’ve been filmed doing something and it means I’m going to be in the papers.’ I’ve said the first bit, I’m nearly there. I can do this.

  ‘Filmed doing what? Did you hurt someone?’

  ‘No, Mum, I didn’t hurt anyone. I got filmed doing something sexual, and it’s gone viral.’

  ‘Gone viral? Well what is it? AIDS?’

  ‘For God’s sake Mum I don’t have AIDS. It’s gone viral, as in it has spread across the Internet. As in, millions of people have seen it.’

  ‘Oh,’ she says, having no grasp of the Internet and what any of that means.

  ‘Mum, on Friday night I met a guy. A really great, brilliant guy and we got on so so well. At the end of the night we were going to go home together but I said no. I wanted to wait, play it right. But …’

  ‘Well, that’s good. I told you you shouldn’t sleep with them all.’

  ‘Yes, Mum, I know you did. But I liked him. A lot. Physically. You know? I really fancied him. And when I got on the train I … Mum, I’d had a few drinks and I didn’t think anyone else was there so I …’

  ‘It’s OK love, you can tell me anything, you know that,’ she says, leaning in then leaning out when she gets a whiff of me.

  ‘I masturbated on the train and a stranger filmed me doing it.’

  If there was a dictionary with pictures my mother’s face would be the image used to describe HORROR. Her skin goes from plump and pink to pale and sullen, the blood draining at lightning speed to her hands, which are suddenly engorged and veiny as she throws them to her cheeks and opens her mouth. I give her a moment to adjust. But she doesn’t, she remains deadly still, looking like the ‘Face Screaming with Fear’ emoji.

  ‘Mum, you have to say something.’

  A long, high-pitched squeak comes out of her. I can’t be sure from where.

  ‘Your father …’ she finally says.

  ‘I know, he won’t like it. But Mum, I have so much more to worry about than Dad. The police—’

  ‘The police?’

  ‘Yes, the police. They came and took me to the station this morning. It’s OK, they are not pressing charges. But the media might not be so lenient. I’ve been trending on Twitter since Monday …’

  ‘Trending, what’s trendy about masturbating?’

  ‘No, Mum, trending on Twitter means … you know what, it doesn’t matter. But everyone is talking about it, and now it will probably go into the actual paper, and they have my name, so it might also be on the news. And your friends might see it. And Dad’s friends. And everyone we know, and somehow we are going to have to cope with that.’

  Her hands come down from her face. ‘Where is the video now?’

  ‘It’s online.’

  ‘Can I see it?’

  ‘Mum, I don’t think that’s a good—’

  ‘If the entire world is going to see the video, Tara, I think I need to see it myself, don’t you?’

  ‘Mum, you heard what I said, didn’t you? I’m masturbating on a train. It’s not fake, I am really doing it. Are you sure you want to watch that?’

  She insists. As much as the idea of this is torturous, a part of me wants to get as much over and done with as possible. If she doesn’t watch it now, I’ll just be dreading the moment that she does. Fuck it. I get her laptop and search for the video. WALTHAMSTOW WANK WOMAN. It comes up right away.

  ‘Are you sure?’ I ask her, one final time as my finger hovers over the touch pad.

  ‘Oh Tara, just press play on the sodding video, will you?’

  So I do.

  5

  Cam

  ‘Come on, Cammie, it will be fun,’ says Tanya on the phone. ‘We haven’t done anything just the four of us in ages.’

  ‘I hate spas,’ Cam says, rejecting the idea of a bonding exercise with her sisters, and hating the cliché of ladies getting their nails done together. ‘Can’t we just have a day at Mum and Dad’s? I’ll get a takeaway for everyone or something?’

  ‘No, Cammie, the whole point is that we want to get away from the kids. Come on, if Mel doesn’t get a full body massage her veins will explode and wipe out the human race. She’s a fucking mess, do it for her. Do it for Mel’s veins.’

  ‘OK, OK, stop, they make me gag. I’ll do it. I’ll spend an afternoon in a posh spa with my mean sisters, I can’t wait.’

  ‘We love yo
u really … little Cammie, all grumpy and alone, loves her sisters when they phone …’

  ‘That’s a rubbish poem,’ Cam says, smiling. ‘I will join you for an afternoon in the spa because if I don’t, you’ll talk about me all day and make things up about me.’

  ‘Yup, we probably will. OK, I’ll book it. And hey, you OK to pay for it? I know you’re raking it in?’

  ‘Of course. I’ll pay for everyone if you promise to be nice?’ Cam loves being asked to pay. Her finances are an undisputable triumph.

  ‘Oh but Cammie, you’re such fodder for us tired old mums. OK, I’ll text you later when I’ve booked somewhere, love you.’

  ‘Love you too, bye.’

  Cam hangs up, and goes straight to her Twitter feed. There are countless messages of support after her performance on BBC Radio London.

  @CamStacey HERO.

  @CamStacey Finally someone exposed that frumpy old bat, Janis, for being such a grumpy old twat. #TwatBat

  @CamStacey MY VAGINA IS A ONE WAY STREET. The only way is UP #withyousister #babiessuck

  @CamStacey Saw you on TV once. Great tits. You’ll hang on to those if you don’t have a kid. My wife’s are a mess. Dave x

  Camilla should be happy, but she’s not, she’s irritated. Philippa was this great girl with a head full of strong opinions, but too spineless to act on them. That shit drives Cam crazy. If women are reading her work and still not being confident enough to take command of their own lives, then she isn’t being direct enough. She needs to write a blog that will get women, like Philippa, itching to go to work to tell their boss, and society, to go fuck itself. She gets to work.

  www.HowItIs.com – A Call to Action

  I think women need to stop talking about how hard being a woman is and live by the example they want to set. Every time I look on Instagram or Twitter there is another post about how hard it is being a working mum, how hard it is being a woman who works in the city, how hard it is being a woman and having to be beautiful. It just goes on and on and on. What’s more, most of these posts are written by successful or famous women right at the top of their game. Their beauty made them rich but they don’t want to be objectified for it, they earn more than most men but still go on about how hard their industry is, they have all the childcare they want, but they can’t juggle family and work.