DOG POUND

It’s been a year exactly since I was sexually assaulted by my neighbour, in my bed while I was sleeping. He had broken into my house twice in the night — once without me waking, and the second time waking me up by touching me. I know he entered the house twice because the police tracked his phone and saw it go from his house, to mine, to his, to mine, to his again. I kept it a secret when the police car pulled up and the tape flitted in the wind outside my house the next day, so that the locals wouldn’t come up with cover stories for themselves, their sons, their husbands.

‘What’s this about you and the police then?’ they asked me at the cafe.

‘I was burgled’, I lied. Everyone at the pub that night was excited. There was a flurry of questions.

Then, a couple of days later, the police arrested him.

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Between the months of the blue tape in the wind and the court hearing, I kept myself small and shadowed. There was a rumour that I had been taken to an asylum, to rehabilitate and gather myself from the dangerous images my own mind had created. In reality, I had been accepted onto a writing programme with support from Faber, Substack, Michael Sheen and Audible through New Writing North, and was trying to maintain momentum in my career while also committing to the advice of the police officers; that it would be best for my case, not to write publicly.

A condition of the support I received through Substack was that I would write and nurture this space on Substack, build an audience and hone my craft. But I wrote nothing, and waded through those months until the court trial, which eventually came, and he went to prison.

The locals were not happy. One contacted a core figure of my career to convince them of my inauthenticity as a victim and a writer. Contacted an ex-boyfriend of mine too, and told him about my assault, simultaneously undermining that it had happened while also erasing any control I had over my own narrative. When my friends went to the village I used to live (and had quickly left after the assault) for a coffee or a pizza in the months that now follow that verdict, the servers refuse to look at them, no longer smile or make conversation with them — as though trusting the evidence that had been confirmed unanimously by a jury of twelve people, a police officer, one highly trained judge, another highly trained lawyer and six witnesses in court — showed an unforgivable betrayal or uninformed alliance on my friends part and not, simply, a capacity to understand that sometimes, people are not who we think they are and that they are capable of terrible things.

I have been visiting that seaside village since I was born. There are photos of my Mum pregnant, on that beach. I worked in that village every summer, and swam in that sea every evening. This is not a story of ‘us’ vs. ‘them’. It doesn’t need to be, at least. It never needed to be. Because I am them. We all are. And they are us. We share the same post office and the same roads. We are you. I am you. I could have been your daughter. What then? Would things have been different?

I know your favourite ice cream flavour and your most popular pizza special. I know where the telephone box is and how to read the tide. You know what I looked like at 16. Acted in school plays with your son and daughter. My flat hair and childish ambition. You carried my birthday cake to the table and sung next to my parents. You danced and joked with my sister after rugby practice. You were there for so much of it.

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I wish I could sit here and say that I’m met with an expected wave of pride for getting through it all, after a year. But the feeling that weighs me down like a sand dune collapsing on top of me is this one; shame. Don’t get me wrong - I’m not ashamed of calling the police, or going through the investigation, or the court trial. In fact, I am incredibly proud of that part — because I went through with it even though I could feel a gulf form between myself and a community I thought would stand beside me. I’m proud of what I stand for to that community. What I represent to them. That I am a reminder of the power a voice has. That I remind them that men can’t get away with whatever they want just because they’re loved by their friends and family.

But I am ashamed of how quiet I’ve been since. How easy I have made it for you to blame victims and victims’ allies. I dread to think of the harm your future and current families feel from your knotted perpetuation of misogyny. I shudder at the thought of what happens under your roofs, now that you’ve made yourselves very clear in condoning what happened under mine.

I wanted to be a ‘good victim’. I wanted to do what they tell us to do at school. To speak up when something bad happens, to protect others. I tried so that I couldn’t be blamed for calling the police and telling the truth. Even though the truth was this: that it was dark and I didn’t see his face, and that they found out it was him, not me, and that I was just as disappointed to see that the evidence was pointing, with unwavering certainty, towards him. But I realise now, a year on, that there is no such thing as a ‘good victim’ because, in the eyes of a society that shuns women and welcomes men with open arms, no matter what they’ve done or who they’ve hit or where they’ve touched your neighbour — I was never going to be welcomed back into your village. Because I remind you of something you don’t want to confront; that men can do things you don’t like. And instead of thinking about your friend who broke into my house, crept into my room and assaulted me in my bed — you look at me and see the person who called the police and made them question your husbands, your sons and your brothers. Made you uncomfortable.

I’m not going to apologise for that.

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A few months ago I wrote about what happened. I called it my ‘dog bite’ after months of being prodded and poked like this animal I’d seen by a fountain in Madrid. A dog that was prodded and poked until it bit back in anger.

What I didn’t think about then, and what I know now, is that at best, dogs are put in pounds or sent away when they bite back.

So, I’ve spent my time in the pound. And in there, I’ve been writing l, because I’m allowed to now. And I have a lot to say. My book, DOG BITE, has just reached completion and I am about to begin the wielding process of editing it; this story bends ideas of the manipulative female narrator, of rumour, patriarchy and generational inherited ideas of womanhood, of traditional values and talking seas. Of eyes watching eyes watching you.

I look forward to sharing it one day soon, and am right now, seeking agent representation.

Until then, either a) thank you for your support or

b) fuck you