The Body Lies Read online

  ALSO BY JO BAKER

  A Country Road, A Tree

  Longbourn

  The Undertow

  The Telling

  The Mermaid’s Child

  Offcomer

  THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK

  PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

  Copyright © 2019 by Jo Baker

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto. Simultaneously published in hardcover in Great Britain by Doubleday, an imprint of Transworld Publishers, a division of Penguin Random House Ltd., London.

  www.aaknopf.com

  Knopf, Borzoi Books and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Baker, Jo, author.

  Title: The body lies / by Jo Baker.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Alfred A. Knopf, [2019] | “This is a Borzoi book.”

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018050099 (print) | LCCN 2018052553 (ebook) | ISBN 9780525656128 (ebook) | ISBN 9780525656111 (hardcover)

  Subjects: LCSH: Psychological fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Suspense. | FICTION / Literary. | GSAFD: Suspense fiction.

  Classification: LCC PR6102.A57 (ebook) | LCC PR6102.A57 B63 2019 (print) |

  DDC 823/.92—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2018050099

  Ebook ISBN 9780525656128

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover photographs by Y Xuan Ling and MirageC, both Getty Images

  Cover design by Jenny Carrow

  v5.4

  ep

  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Jo Baker

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Three Years Later

  Michaelmas

  Lent

  Trinity

  Acknowledgements

  A Note About the Author

  The beck is frozen into silence. Snow falls. It muffles the roads, bundles up the houses, deepens the meadows, turns the river black by contrast. It settles along the grey-green twigs and branches of the beech wood, sifts like sugar to the hard earth below—and dusts the young woman curled there, her skin blue-white, dark hair tumbled over her face. She doesn’t say a word; she doesn’t even shiver now. Her breath comes thinly.

  A deer, scraping at the snow for roots, stops, and snuffs the air, and scents her, and turns to move silently from the place.

  Above the canopy, the sky is clear, the moon stands full. An owl scuds across the meadow, drops to kill a vole. In the shadow of the beech tree, there is stillness, not a breath. The body lies.

  It was on the busy, dirty Anerley Road in South London that the man hit me. It was the nineteenth of September, it was around quarter past seven in the evening, and I was walking downhill from the train station to our flat after a shift at the bookshop. The weather had been fine in the morning when I set out for work, but now it was raining, and I wasn’t dressed for it.

  I had just crossed the railway bridge when I noticed someone running up the hill towards me. He was wearing black trackies and a blue anorak; he had the hood up, toggle pulled tight against the rain, and was running easily, a steady lope. He said something as he went by. I didn’t quite catch it.

  If I had been at a distance, watching me, rather than being stuck inside my own head, I would have seen the man slow down, come to a halt, and turn, and stare. Then I would have seen him run back down the hill towards me. I’d have seen something like that, anyway.

  But as it was, I just saw the streaks of streetlamp on the pavement, and felt the hush of cars passing in the rain, and felt the cold damp seeping through my jacket; my hands, in my pockets, rested against the bulge of my belly. I was thinking that my back ached, and that I really needed new shoes and that tomorrow, on my day off, I’d finally screw up courage to phone Mum; if I left it any later it’d be a whole heap of new offence for her to take. I became aware of the sound of running footsteps behind me, and I moved aside, towards the dark trees, to let what I thought was another runner past.

  But it was the same guy. He ducked in front of me, smiling. He spoke again, and this time I caught what he was saying. He was telling me what he’d like to do to me.

  I went to dodge past him, but he sidestepped into my path. I backed away, but he came with me; every move was anticipated. And all the time he was talking, his breath on my face. The smell of him. He forced me further back, between the dark trees, up against the wire fence. Then his body was on mine; I could feel his hard-on pushing at my belly. I shoved at him, struggled, but was hamstrung by strangeness: I couldn’t process. I thought, I thought, This is really happening. I thought, I should be handling this better.

  “Get off me.” I pushed at him.

  A hand mauled at my breast.

  “Fuck’s sake, get off me.”

  And then a hand clamped over my mouth. He was telling me what he was going to do to my body, and I thought, There is nothing I can do to stop this. Cars streamed past behind him in the wet; someone walked by on the far side of the street, umbrella tilted in our direction. I was pinned. I couldn’t shout. I could hardly breathe. I twisted my head aside, desperate for breath. His hand slipped, and I got my teeth around it. I bit.

  He swore and jerked away. His weight was off me. He looked at me, shaking out his hand. I staggered to go around him, but he caught me by the shoulder and swung me back. I saw it coming; I just stood there. His fist slammed into my jaw. My head whipped back. My teeth clashed together. I fell back into the branches, the wire fence sinking beneath me.

  So this is what the world is like. I had no idea.

  I have a clear image of him standing there, over me, in the light of the streetlamp and in the rain, his blue hood still pulled tight like some kind of hazard gear, like handling me was somehow contaminating but necessary; there was water beading on his face, and he was smiling like he was smiling for a photograph. And he was, I suppose. He must have known it would be indelible, that image; that I would be stuck with it forever. That I’d remember him forever, and I’d always be afraid.

  Because then he just turned and loped away. I watched till he was over the cusp of the hill, to be certain he had gone.

  My jaw hurt and when I reached up to touch it there was blood. I straightened out my jacket, smoothed it over my belly. I felt like I’d done something stupid. I made my way back towards the flat.

  Two huge men were sitting on the front steps of our building, eating fried chicken under the shelter of the doorway. They glanced up at me, then shunted aside to let me pass.

  * * *

  —

  I told Mark what had happened and he hugged me.

  “Oh my God,” he said.

  He let me go, held me at arm’s length and looked long at me. He went pink. “Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.”

  I nodded, eyes full.

  “What kind of an asshole would do a thing like that?”

  I didn’t have an answer. He touched my belly, looking me in the eyes.

  “I don’t think there’s anything wrong,” I said. “He only hit me in the face.”

  I went to the bathroom and washed my face and peered down my top at the red marks on my br
east. I stuck the split on my chin together with Steri-Strips. Mark brought in a cup of tea and winced again at the sight of my chin.

  “I mean, Jesus.” And he went silent and shook his head. “I’m going to call the police,” he said.

  I blew a breath, still staring at the mirror.

  He closed the bathroom door; I could hear him in the sitting room, phoning the local station.

  Mark held my hand. We sat side by side on the sofa. I told the officers what had happened and it felt like we were playing parts, like Mark and I were story of the week in some TV drama; that the police were the regular actors who were there for whole careers.

  The officers said they’d be in touch, and then they went away. Mark fetched me a blanket and lifted my feet up onto the sofa and brought me tea and toast, and then he rang our midwife. She called by late that evening, at the end of her rounds. She took a squint at my Steri-Strips and said I’d done a decent job of it. Then she had me lie down and bare my belly and the three of us listened to the baby’s squelch and squish heartbeat on her little monitor. She smiled at me over my bulge and I smiled unevenly back at her.

  “What about you, though, hon?” she asked. “How are you?”

  “So long as the baby’s okay,” I said, “I’m okay.”

  She said, “You know, women say that all the time. But I don’t always believe them.”

  * * *

  —

  I didn’t get around to calling Mum. Not that day, nor the next. Good news is one thing to spread around; bad news, though, I screw the lid down tight and nothing gets out.

  Mark was reluctant to go to work, but I said not to worry, I’d be fine. I’d have to be fine eventually and I might as well start now. He said he’d skip out directly after school, get someone else to cover Homework Club; he’d be home by five. It was my day off, which struck me as a bit of a waste, but at least I didn’t have to call Sinead and explain why I wasn’t coming in.

  I tried to fill the time. I tried to write but I couldn’t. I tried to read but I couldn’t. I wanted an apple, but there were no apples in the flat, so I went out to buy some. I got as far as the front door of the building. Someone skimmed past on a bike; cars hurtled by; a loud tangle of lads came jostling down the pavement. I closed the door and went back up the stairs to our flat and locked the door. I texted Mark.

  Mark came home just after five with a bag of Granny Smiths. He also brought a stack of work with him. He said he’d had to tell Amy what had happened; he hoped I didn’t mind. He couldn’t dump Homework Club on her without some kind of explanation. She sent her love, and hoped I was feeling better soon.

  “That’s nice,” I said. But I didn’t like that Amy knew.

  It hurt to eat apples: it made the cut on my chin weep.

  Over the coming days, the bruise faded, the cut healed, and I managed to leave the flat. I made it into work. I started getting the bus to and from the station, rather than walk.

  I was okay, I thought. I was getting over it. It could have been so much worse.

  I received a quiet kind letter from Victim Support. They offered emotional and practical help; all I had to do was make myself an appointment. I left the letter on the kitchen counter with the reminder for the gas bill, and the council tax statement, and the club card vouchers.

  I met up with Dad. He bought me lunch at Brown & Green. I didn’t have to tell him about the baby; I just waddled in and his eyes lit on my belly and then up to meet mine, and then just, whumpf, they filled up. He was on his feet and pushing past the table and hugged me. I’d waited till the bruise had faded; he didn’t notice the scar. It’s on the underside of my chin and you’d have to know it was there to see it. We talked and talked and he promised that he would talk to Mum too; he was sure that she’d come around. Two days later there was a card in the post—Congratulations!, a picture of a big-eyed teddy bear in dungarees holding a bunch of balloons—and a cheque for a hundred pounds. Buy yourself something nice, he wrote in the card; he’d signed it from Mum and Dad. So she hadn’t come around after all. I bought groceries.

  I made an appointment with the dentist: while I was pregnant treatment was free. I told her I’d chipped my tooth falling off my bike. She wanted to know what I was doing, riding a bike in London, in my condition? Or indeed at all, ever? And more importantly did I carry an organ donor card? Because anything else was a waste of good fresh kidneys. She peered into my mouth and decided there wasn’t any point trying to repair the tooth. I’d stop noticing it, she said, in time.

  * * *

  —

  I said to Mark one evening, “I wonder what is going on in someone’s life, that they feel the need to do a thing like that.”

  He looked up from his book. “Is this about that guy?”

  “I mean, maybe if I hadn’t bitten him. Violence begets violence, doesn’t it. Maybe he wouldn’t have punched me.”

  “Don’t do that, don’t blame yourself. Jesus.”

  “I’m just trying to understand.”

  He hesitated, then he said, “You need to let it go, love.”

  I chewed my lip.

  “It’s not doing you any good, brooding on it like this.” He leaned over to stroke my arm. “You have to let it go. You can’t let it change your life.”

  The following day, I saw Blue Anorak Man in the street. He shot past on a bike while I was waiting for the bus. I think it was him. I managed to get on board and sit down. I couldn’t stop shaking. The bus pulled away. We ground our way uphill, in the opposite direction, and I realised that whilst he was fixed like a photograph in my mind, he might not even recognise me.

  A few weeks after that, the bus didn’t come, and didn’t come and I had to walk. Heading downhill towards Thicket Road, someone came running up behind me. I froze, waiting for the crash of him back into me. But nothing happened. A woman ran past in black-and-pink leggings and pink vest top. She jogged on down the street, bouncing ponytail, swinging elbows. I felt a rush of love for her, for her just running by without a backwards glance. But I was still shaking when I got back to the flat.

  And then the baby was born. My little boy. Samuel. Sammy. Sam. He was squashed and purple and skinny and his two-weeks-overdue arrival nearly did for both of us. After a shaky start, he just got on with the business of being a baby and became more beautiful and funny every day.

  THREE YEARS LATER

  The job interview was in August and the university was golden. The bus swept me up past pools and woods and lawns towards the white-walled, terracotta-roofed campus. From the stop in a dank underpass, I climbed with a handful of other passengers up concrete steps into the low late-summer sun of the central square. The clean northern air already had a hint of autumn in it; I took in the terraced stone, the dim glass, the stirring trees, the tubs and baskets spilling out flowers. This was the cool still heart of the place. It felt good, and civilized, and necessary; it felt safe.

  * * *

  —

  On the train back afterwards, I chewed my nails and muttered to myself. I felt that I’d frowned and nodded and equivocated and backtracked, and not been myself or actually said what I thought at all.

  Sammy was in the bath when I got back to the flat. Mark called to me from the bathroom. I leaned in to blow a raspberry on Sam’s cheek; he touched my cheek with his wet little hand.

  “How did it go?” Mark asked.

  “I have no idea.”

  I sat down on the edge of the bath. I rippled the water with my fingertips. Mark didn’t ask anything else, and I didn’t volunteer anything else; this was the impasse at which we had arrived: we were broke, the three of us were crammed into a one-bedroom flat, I couldn’t go back to my job at the bookshop since it paid only one pound fifty an hour more than childcare, and I simply did not feel safe round there. I’d stopped talking about it, but the fear hadn’t gone away. So I’d applied ov
er the last year or so for any job that looked remotely like me, anywhere but here.

  There weren’t many. I’d had three interviews. I’d blown two already.

  * * *

  —

  The following day, Mark had to go in for a subject meeting at school, so I was on my own with Sammy when the call came. It was Professor Scaife, Head of Department. He was offering me, in one long digressive sentence, the lectureship. He drew breath, and I accepted. I thanked him, thanked him again. He seemed a tad taken aback; maybe for form’s sake I should have asked for some time to think about it.

  I danced Sammy round the tiny living room till we were giddy, then flumped down on the sofa. He lay on top of me, head up, laughing till he dribbled.

  * * *

  —

  When Mark got home, I was waiting with Rightmove open on my mobile phone. “Look, look, a house, three bedrooms, and a garden! And look at the rent! You couldn’t get a broom-cupboard for that round here. Cos look we can probably even afford to buy up there. I’m serious. Look, this one has a tree house. A fucking tree house.” I turned my phone to look at the picture. “D’you know what, I think that tree house is bigger than our flat.”

  “You got the job.”

  Big grin. “Yup.” Then off his careful expression, my smile fading: “Aren’t you pleased?”

  Kiss on cheek. “Congratulations, love; well done.”

  He went through to the kitchen. I followed. He filled the kettle.

  “There are some great schools up there,” I said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah, there’s a half-dozen state schools in the town itself, two of them are grammars so yeah they’re out, and fair enough, I’m not suggesting you compromise on that; but the rest are non-selective, and there are more rural schools in the surrounding area, so there will be plenty of jobs coming up. More, if you’re prepared to commute.”