Abi wants to clap but no one else does so she keeps quiet as the woman stands down. Lotte is next, smiling, Vita behind her in the queue. Abi feels every one of her cells shrink back as Lotte, eyes cast down, takes the mic lovingly, like a jazz singer, and bringing it towards her lips says, ‘My friends and I are very concerned for the well-being of the woman, of the “sex worker”.’ Lotte enunciates the quotation marks. ‘We feel it’s only in hearing her side that we can be reassured that she was, as Mr Kent
Abi reels. The woman next to her mutters something, but she doesn’t hear, she’s too adrenalized. Abi thinks about how her mum called her a whore before making Abi and Lily homeless, and she thinks about a brothel owner who said if she offered him ‘freebies’, Abi would get more work.
Lotte steps down, allowing Vita to step forward. They whisper something briefly to each other before Vita nods and moves to stand behind the mic.
‘That’s one side of our concerns.’ Vita looks out at her audience before starting to talk more quickly, not knowing how long it’ll be before she’s shut down. ‘The other is that this woman came to Waverly with the express intention of blackmailing Sebastian Kent for his shitty betrayal, but she lost all her bargaining power when Anna went public, telling everyone that twice he’d hired a woman for sex, so …’
‘Stop at once!’ Harriet grabs the other microphone, but it’s not working and, besides, no one else wants Vita to stop. A few phones are waved, high in the air.
‘… enraged, it was her, the prostitute who put those fireworks through Eva Kent’s letterbox. Think about it, it makes sense, we’re not only looking for a prostitute but also for an arsonist!’
Harriet’s apoplectic now and a couple of teachers are bustling up the pavilion, trying to get to Vita. Everyone is talking at once, everyone enthralled by Vita’s audacity, high on their own shock. Vita’s microphone has been turned off and she hands it to a red-faced teacher before taking a step back, chin lifted high. Harriet, now with a working microphone in her hand, tells them all that she’ll end the meeting if there are any further – she turns dagger eyes towards Vita – unwelcome disturbances. It’s amid this chaos that Abi sees her mum’s expressionless face the last time she saw her, and hears the security guard sneer, ‘Fucking whore,’ as he shoved her out of the hotel. She sees the faces of the men who spat at her, and her friend’s brother who almost raped her. Where once she felt the throbbing ache of powerlessness, now a great calm rises in Abi. She can end this. She’s the only one who can actually end this. She starts pushing herself forward; she’s almost at the front of the queue now and she has no idea what she’s going to say, but now the only person she can see is Lily and it’s like Lily is leading her, showing her the way.
Chatter still ripples around the room as the man in front of Abi hands the microphone to her without saying a word. It’s heavy, shaking in her hand. She thinks again of Lily. How Lily refused to be ashamed. ‘I don’t know any of you or this town or Mr Kent well …’
‘Get on with it!’ A loud shout comes from the floor. Vita’s outburst has energized the crowd. But the man shouting at her has turned an engine on inside Abi. She feels herself vibrate with heat, like she’s about to burst open.
Her voice is calm but stronger than she’s ever heard it as she addresses the man. ‘I know you,’ she says. ‘You’re the man who thinks he can talk for me, about me, instead of me.’ She turns back to address the whole room as she says, ‘You all do, don’t you? You’ve been doing it for centuries, people like you talking about whores like me.’
She looks at them, all their little faces turned towards her – did she just say what they think she said? Eyes clicking from ambivalence to interest, some lift their phones slowly into the air again. Even Harriet has frozen on her way to grab the microphone from Abi.
‘Look at you – you’re like children, asking to be told what to think, how to feel, listening to any idiot who talks loudest. Well, at least now, for the first time, I’m the one with the mic. It’s your turn to listen. I do not want to tell you my story and I certainly don’t want your pity or need your help. All I’ve ever wanted, all I ever hoped for when I moved my family here, was the basic dignity of making changes in my life – in my own time, on my own terms. That’s it. That’s all.’
She feels like she’s staring into each and every one of them individually as she talks directly from her guts.