Overlapping Lives Read online

  It turned out that Alan was an established author. He saw the presence of women murderers in a Buckinghamshire backwater as a scoop but explained that if they were to go ahead they must do so with care. The women had not been forgotten as they assumed. Even the most simple computer search brought up pages of headlines dating from the weeks after their sentencing. They had no idea about their lingering notoriety; they did not possess a computer. There was a risk that should the plan become public it would attract unwonted publicity. Anonymity would be essential. But he assured them the story was compelling and would almost certainly become a bestseller, particularly if they were willing for the story to be related graphically, both emotionally and physically. They all agreed to think about it. Alan needed their implicit trust or the project would not happen.

  Secret meetings were arranged for the women to meet Alan’s agent. The veracity of the stories had to be confirmed. Being a historian, Alan had some knowledge of life writing. He needed the women to relate their lives from their earliest memories. His interest lay in what had made them susceptible to their assailants. Had there been any hint of abuse during their childhoods? Julie’s childhood had been benignly suburban but her depressive illness at university was a critical factor. Morag had been a wild child. She had been sent to a primitive girls’ boarding school in Ireland when she was twelve years old, where she had been subjected to a cruel and sadistic form of corporal punishment. The girls were caned systematically, at which the headmistress excelled, in a sadistic ritual. Morag related the details to Julie and Alan:

  ‘The school was very austere, like a prison. Only bad girls got sent there, which really meant that their families couldn’t cope with them. We were confined to the place until the end of term and no personal possessions were allowed. Everyone wore the same uniform: short-sleeved white shirts, blue skirts with elasticated waists, white socks, white pants, black canvas shoes, blue shorts and a pair of white plimsolls for the gym. We had to wear a blue jumper during the winter and spring terms, shirts only in the summer. We slept in white nightshirts in dormitories of forty girls with a very strict matron, who was kind to us when she wasn’t being strict. We all showered together in the morning using soap which smelled of antiseptic. Once a week we were issued a sachet of something like washing-up liquid which was shampoo. Cosmetics were banned and there was a permanent smell of sweat, particularly in the dormitory.

  ‘Discipline was imposed by fear. There was only one form of punishment and that was beating. All the girls over ten years old were beaten regularly. Each week five girls were “chosen” to take the beatings on behalf of the class, one every day; it didn’t matter who had actually done something wrong, one of the “chosen” got beaten. There were twenty girls in the class so we could be certain that we would be thrashed once every month. Our class teacher made out that the “chosen” five were to be treated as martyrs. It was supposed to be a privilege to be punished for everyone else’s sins. The class was meant to feel a constant mortification for being the cause of someone else’s pain. Every day the teacher found an excuse to send one of the five at random to the punishment room where the headmistress did the caning. Always six whacks as hard as she could. The system created a sadistic tyranny throughout the school.

  ‘The first time it happened I was terrified. The punishment room was like a cell next to the headmistress’ office. There was nothing in it apart from a small rectangular table. At the first beating the school secretary instructed us as to what to do. It was called “making yourself ready”. We were told to take off our skirt, lean over the table and rest our heads on our folded arms, face down, and stay still. You couldn’t see what was going on, only hear the headmistress coming in when she was ready. Then she would wait for what seemed like ages before starting her savagery. It hurt like hell. Then we had to stand up, say “Thank you, ma’am”, get dressed and go back to the classroom. When I was fourteen I decided to let the head know that she was a sadist. I had been sent to the punishment room to atone for someone else’s sin and knew I had to “make myself ready”. So I took off my skirt and my pants as well. I thought my bare bum would be like a challenge to her, a sort of reproach, but she came in and caned me just the same. It was agonising. I stood up afterwards, naked from the waist down and said, “Thank you” as I was supposed to. I had to wipe the tears out of my eyes and then said, “Please, ma’am, would you like to beat me again?” Her face reddened and I thought she would flay me, but she just said, “Cover yourself up and go back to your class.” She really knew how to humiliate girls. By the time I got to the class I could feel my pants sticking to my bum because I was bleeding. It was too painful to sit down. The teacher became impatient and I got upset and started to cry, so she sent me to the dormitory. The matron found me weeping on the bed. She seemed to know what had happened and told me to put on the nightshirt and lie on my front. Then she came and sat on the bed, pulled up the shirt and gently rubbed my bum with some kind of cream. It was blissful and the kindest thing that happened to me in that place. The matron said to stay in bed until she said I could return to the class. I was there for the rest of the week and all weekend. She brought me meals in bed.

  ‘On the next Monday she said I could go back to the class. I was terrified again; it would only be a matter of time before I was sent for another whipping. The teacher announced to the class that my conduct had been shameful and I was in disgrace. Then she made me kneel in the corner of the class, facing the wall, until lunchtime. They really knew a thing or two about cruelty. Then she added, “In future, when Morag is among the chosen, she will receive nine strokes of the cane: six for the misdemeanours of the class and three for insolence.”

  ‘I lasted another year in that hateful place. At the end of the summer term I told my parents that I wasn’t going back. My parents hated me and my Dad started to knock me about. Then he told me to pack my things, drove me to the ferry at Dun Laoghaire and said I was going to London to find my cousin, Jack. He gave me fifty euros and drove off. My cousin, Jack, who I always got on with, lived in a small flat in East London. He had work and money and he took me in, found me some lousy job so I could pay him rent and topped up the rent in kind. When he didn’t have a girl round he made me have sex with him. I knew it was wrong but I liked him and, in fact, he looked after me. Then a job in a bank turned up and in time they trained me up on the trading floor and I got rich.’ Morag smiled. Julie came to her side and hugged her.

  ‘You poor love,’ Julie whispered. She knew the story well. ‘I guess that explains why anyone who hurt you again was going to get killed.’

  Dragging up memories of the events which had driven them to murder their abusers was painful; both had accepted the scars in their psychological identities, but relating what had actually happened to them at the hands of their rapists had been traumatic. Alan had insisted that graphic descriptions of these events were not only important as a documentary record but would also sell the eventual story. They had some difficulty trying to make the experience of prison interesting. The overriding recollection was of boredom, but the relationship, which had been the adhesive in their lives, was unique, moving and emotional. Every week, Alan produced pages of carefully prepared manuscript for the women to correct or embellish. It took a year to complete the story to where they were now. Their identity was carefully disguised and the story was set in the North of England; the blurb would relate the truth which underlay the story and the need for anonymity. Julie and Morag still had years on parole to serve and were conscious of being constantly under surveillance by the probation service. They refused to be connected to the internet or own mobile phones. The television held no interest for them but they liked the radio, particularly in the kitchen when they cooked congenially in the evenings. Alan persuaded them to install a landline so he could contact them without having to visit; they had no one to call and no one called them.

  The plot, which the women’s story followed, of th
e rape of innocent young women, murder, incarceration and the love which blossomed between the women during their long imprisonment, created a heady mixture which had great appeal for the prurient public imagination. The book was published initially in hardback with a lurid, glossy dust jacket. It was extravagantly publicised and sold in high street bookshops, airports and online. Soon after it became a commercial success the paperback version appeared. It had been published anonymously which added to the curiosity of the story. The women were paid a small regular income from royalties, which helped.

  When the book first appeared Julie and Morag had taken a copy to Ben’s house. Catherine had become their weekend confidante and close friend. All three were aware that it was more than just neighbourliness which brought them regularly together. Catherine had been secretly recruited to act as a censor and mentor from the outset of the project. To explain the time she spent at the bungalow, and the eventual presence of the book in Ben’s house, Catherine said she would have to share the secret with him but promised that no one else would come to know.

  In the village the nature of the relationship between Morag and Julie remained an enigma. When they appeared in the pub or shop they were articulate and funny. Even as middle age crept up, they were conspicuously attractive women. Catherine understood that their love for each other was enough to sustain them; the warmth of their empathy, which allowed them constantly to know exactly what the other felt, was visible to anyone in their presence. There was no need to label them. In particular, they were very good company for whoever was with them. The village community absorbed them, nurtured them and in time no one cared about what kept them together as long as they stayed a part of the village fabric. By their mid-fifties the women had finally served their years on parole and were free. They continued to live in the Buckinghamshire bungalow in relative obscurity, deeply entangled in each other’s lives and increasingly in the life of the village.

  Decades later they died within a week of each other. Morag was eighty-nine and Julie ninety. The book and their lives had long been forgotten. They had become the old ladies who lived in the bungalow, revered by the villagers. Rumours of their notoriety lingered in the village gossip but no one really knew. Sally and Melanie had visited them at intervals over the years, just as they had done while Julie and Morag were imprisoned. Sally was the only person who really knew the story because she had been there when Julie killed Trevor.

  Morag

  Morag arrived in London on her sixteenth birthday. Her father had taken her to Dun Laoghaire, bought her a one-way ticket to Holyhead, thrust fifty euros at her, got back in his car and driven away unceremoniously. She had no idea where Holyhead was when she arrived there and had to ask at the ferry office how to get to London. A man in a uniform directed her to the coach station.

  At the end of the school summer term Morag had resolved never to return to that hateful place. She had been brutalised by the tyrannical discipline of the school for too long. Her announcement to her parents on Saturday morning was met with more humiliation.

  ‘You’ll do what you’re told,’ said her father uncompromisingly. ‘Now go to your room.’ She went upstairs to avoid the inevitable blow which would follow. After an hour wondering if she should run away her father appeared in her room.

  ‘Pack your things. I won’t have you in the house. I’ve spoken to your cousin in London. He’ll give you a room in his flat. When you get to London get yourself to Mile End. He’ll meet you there.’

  Morag had been a wild girl, truanting from school, staying out late, rarely doing anything she was told. She had ceased to fear the consequences of her errant behaviour and had no respect for authority. Her father had resented her for as long as she could remember and hit her when he became frustrated by her behaviour. Neither parent had been able to cope with her; home had become an uneasy place where there was no love. The solution had been to send Morag to a disciplinarian school at the age of twelve where everyone was systematically beaten. It was more penitentiary than school.

  The idea of living with her cousin, Jack, in London thrilled Morag. Jack was three years older than Morag and had a similar temperament. He had been banished by his family, found his way to London where he trained as a car mechanic, found a steady job and could afford a small flat in East London.

  At seven in the evening the coach deposited Morag at Victoria; bewildered by the hordes of people, she felt lost. She did not possess a phone and hoped that Jack would somehow know when she was going to arrive. The crowd swallowed Morag and led her involuntarily to Victoria Station. She was tall for her age, thin, dressed in a tee-shirt and skinny jeans. From a distance she was indistinguishable from the dozens of teenagers all busily going somewhere on Saturday evening. Close up, Morag had large brown eyes, a straight nose and a small mouth. Her pale brown hair came to her shoulders and would never go quite straight. The backpack containing her worldly possessions was slung on her shoulder. A man in the ticket office directed her to the currency exchange in the mainline station when she tried to buy a tube ticket with the euros. Then she needed to find out how to get to Mile End.

  ‘Stay on the District line, love. That’s the green one on the tube map. Make sure it says Upminster on the front of the train.’ It was easy when you knew how. By the time Morag surfaced at Mile End it was eight o’clock. The evening was warm; Mile End was wide and noisy. She looked around to see if Jack was in sight. Miraculously, he appeared in the distance walking along the pavement. He had a lot of untidy dark hair, twinkling blue eyes and smiled happily as he saw Morag. His usual outfit was jeans and a hoody; he looked fit and confident as if he spent the day doing heavy physical work, which he did.

  ‘You’re looking great. Didn’t think you’d make it this early. Let’s have a drink to celebrate. How old are you now, Morag? Will they let you in the pub?’

  ‘Sixteen,’ replied Morag. Then added, ‘Today.’

  ‘That’s great. Happy birthday. We’ll definitely celebrate. They like asking for ID in the pubs to prove your age. So the drinks’ll be on me ’til they get to know you.’ It was the happiest evening Morag could remember. She was not used to alcohol and quickly became slightly drunk. Jack seemed to know everyone in the pub and introduced Morag to a great many people of whose names she had no recollection the following morning. They got to Jack’s flat at midnight, far from sober.

  She had found a job on the minimum wage at a supermarket doing tedious work in the aisles. Money, a bank account and a credit card were a novelty. Freedom from the misery of her family and the persecution of the school years constantly exhilarated her. Happiness had not been among Morag’s youthful experiences. Life had begun at sixteen. Jack was her best friend and looked after her carefully, knowing that despite her wildness, which had resulted in her being sent to the abominable school, Morag was not worldly and lacked the experience she needed to be safe in the city. She was a quick learner and grew fond of her guardian cousin; being looked after, being the recipient of kindness, were new sensations and made her realise how lousy her life had been until now.

  Life continued congenially. Jack had a series of girlfriends who he entertained in his bedroom in the small flat, their noisy sex plainly audible. It did not escape her that Jack found her attractive and one night, after the pub, when the girl of the moment had not wanted to come back with him, Jack merrily invited Morag to join him in his bedroom. Morag was already in bed.

  ‘Jack, you know it’s not right. We’re cousins.’ Morag was coy but knew the idea was tempting. She felt she had been a virgin long enough. Jack would be gentle with her.

  ‘Morag, you’re a very lovely girl. As the old adage goes, incest is best.’ He pulled off her duvet, took her hand and led her naked to his own bedroom. Jack was seriously fond of Morag and would not do anything to which she objected. But she did not object. He gently claimed her virginity. At first it hurt, then hurt some more but not enough to stop
. It did not become a regular thing. From time to time Jack would entice her to his bed, between girlfriends. The affectionate bond between them was enough to make it easy once Morag had learnt to relax. It was a sympathetic way for Morag to learn about sex. Jack accompanied their time in bed with blandishments about Morag’s long, sexy body, like a lyrical background theme. It aroused a sense of self-esteem in Morag. Her life until now had denied her experience of men other than her abusive father. She started to look on the world with renewed confidence, understanding her desirability.

  A more worthwhile job in a bank presented itself. If nothing else, Morag’s schooling had made her numerate and, combined with an eagerness to please, she soon made herself valued. She asked to be trained as a trader and by the time she was twenty she sat in front of an array of computer screens, making money for the bank and her bonus. Jack acquired a steady girlfriend and the flat became overcrowded. Morag could easily afford to pay rent and found herself a flat in Clapham. She moved out, bidding Jack an affectionate farewell, and promised to see him at least once a week.

  The after-work drinking and flirtation took Morag to a pub in the city on most evenings. She enjoyed the ribald male company and they treated her as a novelty; there were few women traders. Some of her drinking companions were more empathetic than others and from time to time she would allow herself to be seduced into the bed of a colleague. She liked sex but felt no need of a steady boyfriend. One evening she was in a pub on the edge of the city where she was bought a drink by a man she did not know. He was large and muscular. His face was square-jawed and handsome, his hair cropped short. He wore white jeans, a singlet and a loose hoody. Morag wanted to know about him, but he was reticent on the subject of his work. He did something in the city and had to travel regularly. He said his name was Paul.