‘And you don’t keep up with current affairs? Have you seen what’s been going on recently?’
Again, Evelyn shook her head. She found the news depressing and so she just watched old videos and DVDs of programmes that she enjoyed: cosy Agatha Christie mysteries and the like. And she had given up reading newspapers when they began piling up around the house. Her world was very contained, and she had seen no reason to contaminate it with things from the outside.
‘Treating you like that was an abuse of power,’ Pip continued. ‘Plain and simple. It might have been just the way things were back then, but it’s not any more. Hundreds of women have spoken out against their abusers, thousands maybe, and in all walks of life. Men have gone to prison. Famous men, high-profile ones, household names even, for things they did to women in the seventies and eighties.’
‘But that can’t be right,’ objected Evelyn. ‘It was just how things were back then. Some men were just like that. Touching your bottom when you walked past, stroking your breast in a crowded lift, having sex with women young enough to be their daughters. We all knew what was going on, of course we did, and we didn’t like it, but there wasn’t anything you could do about it. It was simply a fact of life for women, so we learned to avoid the worst offenders and keep our mouths shut.’
‘But those men, men who behaved like that, were committing an offence,’ Pip said. ‘They can be prosecuted, punished.’
‘Well, that hardly seems fair,’ said Evelyn. ‘They were just doing what everyone else did. I’m not sure many of them thought it was wrong. They imagined we’d be flattered by being wolf-whistled. Well, to be honest, we were. Who doesn’t like to be appreciated?’
Pip shook her head. ‘How can you defend them, Evelyn?’ she said, exasperation clear in her tone.
‘I’m not defending them exactly. It’s just when I was your age, that kind of thing was an accepted social norm, so it doesn’t seem right to punish them all this time later for something that was so common.’
‘But just because it was common doesn’t make it right,’ Pip replied emphatically. She looked quite angry now so it was hard for Evelyn to keep in mind that it wasn’t her Pip was cross with. ‘What that man, Rory MacMillan, did to you, was sexual harassment at best. You can report him to the police, bring a claim against him. I bet you’re not the only one. Men like him are sexual predators who deserve to be exposed. We could go to the police here in town. I can help you if you like. I could represent you, even.’
It was difficult to take in everything Pip was saying, but one thing was clear in Evelyn’s bombarded mind.
‘I shan’t be bringing any claim against anyone,’ she said firmly.
‘But . . .’ began Pip.
‘It was all a very long time ago, a different world. Life danced to a different tune. And what possible purpose could it serve, raking it all up now?’
‘He abused his position, he made you pregnant so that you lost your job, he took advantage of you when the balance of power was skewed.’
‘But I could have left,’ replied Evelyn. ‘At any point I could have picked up my things and gone.’
‘But you didn’t, because you wanted what he was holding over you like a carrot. You wanted the part.’
‘I did. But who’s to say I wouldn’t have got it anyway? We will never know.’
Pip was getting more and more agitated. ‘But can’t you see that . . .’
‘No,’ said Evelyn decisively. ‘What I see is that from some random encounter in a hotel I was given the most wonderful, most beautiful, most precious gift of my life. And that is all that matters.’
Finally, Pip seemed to accept her point of view, and snapped her mouth closed before anything else could leak out. ‘Okay,’ she said quietly.
Evelyn was right about this, no matter what Pip said. It was in the past and best left well alone.
But later that evening, after Pip had helped her fill a few more bin liners and then said goodbye and gone home, Evelyn had searched the internet. Pip was right. Stories highlighting the abuse of young impressionable women by men in positions of authority were everywhere. Men had been prosecuted, men that she could hardly believe would be capable of such horrifying acts. Men who had been part of the fabric of society, who you thought you knew simply by virtue of the fact they were on your television set in the corner of your lounge. How wrong everyone had been.
And perhaps people thought the same about Rory MacMillan. He was personable and fun. She had enjoyed talking to him at the New Year’s Eve party, had been flattered he had chosen to shine his attention down on her rather than anyone else. Even after the incident, she still couldn’t bring herself to use the words that Pip had used; she hadn’t blamed him, not entirely.