Jemima Shore at the Sunny Grave by Antonia Fraser

Author:Antonia Fraser [Fraser, Antonia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8041-5251-8
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2014-06-25T04:00:00+00:00

The moment the door was shut behind her, the man put the security chain across it. Then he ordered Jemima Shore to take her clothes off. All of her clothes.

“But you can leave your shoes on, if you like. They’re pretty.”

Jemima found that the sheer unreality of the situation prevented her from taking in what he was saying. She could hear the words all right, the man was standing right beside her, his breath on her cheek—although he was not in fact breathing particularly heavily. They were about the same height: his eyes, very widely set, the colour of glossy chestnuts, were level with hers.

The man’s hair was dark, very thick and quite long; they were so close that she could see one or two silver threads in the shaggy mass. He had a moustache, sideburns, and soft dark down on his cheeks; it was that which gave him a Mediterranean look. His accent, however, faint but discernible, she could not place. He wore a clean white T-shirt with some kind of logo on it, and jeans. The broad shoulders and the heavy arms revealed by the contours of the T-shirt gave an impression of considerable physical strength, in spite of his calm breathing. Jemima was aware that he was sweating slightly.

She was carrying a large green Chanel-type handbag of quilted leather slung over her shoulder by two gilt chains. The man took the bag from her and put it carefully on the king-sized bed which dominated the hotel room. The curtains were drawn and the lamp by the bed was lit, although it was in fact only eleven o’clock in the morning.

The man repeated his command. “Take off your clothes.” He added, “I want to get to know you.”

It was idiotic, thought Jemima: the previous television programme she had worked on had actually been about rape. During that period, she had spoken to at least a dozen victims—of widely differing ages—on the subject. The words she had heard most frequently went something like this: “You just don’t understand what it’s like … Helplessness … If it’s never happened to you … Until it’s happened to you …”

Naturally, she had never sought to argue the point. Her intention, as an investigative television reporter, had been to present her evidence as sympathetically but candidly as possible in order to illustrate just that gulf: between sufferers and the rest, however well intentioned. The programme about rape had been the last in a series of which the overall title had been “Twice Punished”: it had concentrated on the tragic social after-effects of certain crimes.

“Helplessness … You just don’t understand … Until it happens to you.” Now it seemed Jemima was going to find out for herself the truth of those sad, despairing cries. Rather too late for her programme. Ironically enough. And she had a feeling she was going to need all the sense of irony (or detachment) she could hang on to in the present situation. And then something more.

“Take off your clothes,” repeated the man for the third time.

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