The Red Riding Hood
From the top of the steps which marked the place at which the stage-like drama of the courtroom gave way to the bustle of everyday life on a city street, Martha stood. She could feel the hand of the lawyer lightly on her right elbow. She listened for the lawyer’s signal that would tell her it was time for her to speak. Martha could sense the crowd in front of her. The lawyer had said there would be journalists waiting whatever the verdict. She had not anticipated the numbers that she could feel were present; it seemed that today’s verdict was important to others as well to herself. Of course, thought Martha, by now these journalists would know the verdict. Their sole purpose in being here still was to hear what she had to say.
On the morning of the first of October, a Saturday, there had been a chill autumn wind in the air and so Martha had put on her long red cloak with its big hood that kept the wind from her face when she pulled it close. Mother and Martha called this her red riding hood cloak, after the fairy story Mother had read to her when she was small. Of course, being red, it was frowned upon by some older people in the village, although Martha’s cousin from the city said that the old associations of red with promiscuity were considered very outdated. All kinds of women and girls wore red in the city, she said.
Martha didn’t really know too much about the colour red, or indeed about any other colour, she couldn’t see any of them. Today she chose to wear her red riding hood cloak because it suited the weather and because it felt warm, familiar and comforting for her first walk alone through the forest. She picked up the basket of cakes that she and Mother had made for Grandma. She kissed her mother and walked confidently down the garden path, down the short lane and into the woods. The route to Grandma’s house was not overlong, she had walked it many times, although never yet alone. She knew the feel of each tree along the way. She knew Mother would worry and would phone Grandma to check on her arrival but she also knew that, at 17 years of age, she needed to take opportunities to become independent.
When she reached the forest path Martha felt her shoulders sag a little, felt her pace slow from the confident walk down the garden path that she had wanted her mother to see. She felt anxiously for the first tree. Moving her hand slowly and gently over its bark she could tell which tree it was. She moved forwards slowly, touching in turn each familiar tree; just as she did when she walked this way with Mother. She felt her confidence flowing back into her with each tree she recognised. She straightened her shoulders, moved less cautiously, knowing that she really could do this alone.
Later, in the courtroom they would ask the question, why did she walk alone in the woods? And she would answer, ‘Why should I not walk alone in the woods?’ and they would move on from that question.
Martha felt the last familiar tree. She counted 23 steps and reached out to touch the gate post of Grandma’s garden gate. It was there, just exactly where she expected it to be. Martha laughed, she threw off the hood from her red cloak. She had done it, she had walked alone from her home to Grandma’s home. She shifted the basket onto her left arm and reached for the latch on the front door with her right hand; calling to Grandma as she opened the door wide, letting the autumn sun into the house. Martha didn’t know that the house was in unusual darkness, the curtains closed in the kitchen and the bedroom next door, but she felt that things were not quite as they should be. She stopped in the kitchen, putting the basket carefully on the table, calling again for Grandma. Listening, listening, for a reply. It came faintly from the bedroom, sounding gruff. Grandma must have a bad cold to sound like that, thought Martha, she must be too ill to get out of bed.
Later, in the courtroom, they would ask the question, why did she go into the bedroom when she suspected that all was not as it should be and Martha would reply, ‘Why would I not go to try and help my Grandma?’ and they would move on from that question.
Martha opened the door to the bedroom. Standing at the side of Grandma’s bed she heard heavy breathing coming from the bed and thought that it sounded as if poor Grandma had a very bad cold. She reached out and touched Grandma’s head, Grandma’s hair felt rough to her touch. Perhaps poor Grandma had been sick for a couple of days and had not had the energy to brush her hair with the same care as usual. It was Grandma who had taught Martha to care for her own hair and so persuaded Martha’s mother that it would be fine for Martha to keep her hair long; even though Martha couldn’t see how beautiful it looked.
‘Oh Grandma’, said Martha, ‘your hair needs brushing to make it lovely and soft again’. Grandma did not speak. Martha moved her hand to stroke Grandma’s face. Grandma’s face felt rough and there was no smell of the soft, rose scented cream that she used each day.
‘Oh Grandma’, said Martha using the words that Grandma had so often used to her when she had been ill, ‘in a moment I will wash your face to make you cool and comfortable, then you will feel much better.’
Martha tried to make her words sound calm and reassuring but inside her there were strange panicky feelings that refused to go away. Perhaps, she thought, poor Grandma had died. Quickly she dismissed that idea, remembering that she had heard Grandma call from the bedroom when she first opened the cottage door. Unless Grandma had died since she came into the cottage? Martha felt a wave of panic pass through her. She reached along Grandma’s arm towards her wrist. She would check for a pulse. But as her hand passed along Grandma’s arm she knew, without a doubt, that something was very wrong.
‘Grandma, Grandma what’s wrong? Your arm should not be hairy like this, only men like the wolf man who lives over the hill have such hairy arms.’
Later, in the courtroom, they would ask the question, ‘Why did you stay when you knew for certain that something was wrong?’ and Martha would reply, ‘Why would I not stay to try and help my grandma?’ It took them a long time to move on from that question, they kept coming back to it until Martha replied, ‘I did nothing wrong’.
The hairy arms of the man known locally as the wolf man, for it was indeed he who occupied Grandma’s bed, reached out and dragged Martha into the bed. He was strong, much stronger than Martha had known a person could be. Martha struggled against him and found that she too was much stronger than she had known she could be. Her strength made him angry, he had expected an easy victory. He cursed her loudly, calling her names she had never heard before but which were meant to demean, humiliate, dehumanise.
He pulled and pulled at the red cloak shouting, ‘Look, look, you wear the uniform of the prostitute, come here’, and Martha had answered, ‘No, no I do not wear the uniform of the prostitute, no I will not come to you’.
Later, in the courtroom, when Martha recounted these words they would ask, ‘Please, explain why you wore the red cloak for your walk in the woods, did you not believe that it might send out the wrong message to men who saw you? After all yours is a very rural community, is it not?’ and Martha would reply, ‘No, by choosing to wear my red cloak I committed no crime.’ That was another question they came back to many times, and each time Martha gave the same answer. ‘It was not I who committed a crime’. Then they would say, in that courtroom, ‘Is it possible that the accused could have misunderstood your reluctance, could he have thought you meant yes?’
The wolf man had reached and grabbed for her again and again, calling first threateningly, then cajolingly, then again threateningly, viciously, violently, ‘Come here, come here.’ He caught her and could not be made to let go until the time when he was ready to do so. Then he left her with threats that he would spread the word of her promiscuity in all the villages of the valley if she did not keep their ‘little meeting’ secret from the world.
Mother had found Martha. Worried by Martha’s long absence once news had reached her that Grandma had, that morning, been taken to hospital. Mother had arrived in time to see the wolf man running swiftly through the woods, back to his home.
Once more Martha found that she was stronger than she had ever imagined she could be. Many had tried to persuade her to forget, to carry on with life, to stay home and keep safe, to not upset the quiet of the village life. Surely, they said, everyone knew that the wolf man should be avoided. Why, they asked, did she go near him? Why did she not leave as soon as she knew all was not as it should be, then there would have been no rape? But Martha knew that she could only protect others by speaking out herself.
Martha felt a gentle squeeze on her elbow, ‘Would you like to speak now?’ asked her lawyer quietly.
Martha chose her words carefully, they would reach many people. ‘Many false ideas have been laid to rest during this trial. In the course of that laying to rest of false ideas I have been falsely accused of a liability for the crimes committed by another. I have been asked, why did I walk alone in the woods? Why did I go on when I suspected something was wrong? Why did I stay and try to help my grandma. Why did I wear my red cloak to walk through the woods? I have been asked, was it possible that the wolf man mistook my no for a yes? And I have answered, I have committed no crime. There is no crime committed in going about my legitimate business, there is no crime in trying to help another when it seems as if they are in trouble. There is no crime in choosing to wear a red cloak. This now is my only message to everyone, to those who try to find the courage to challenge their attackers, and those who stand up for them, and to those who are attackers, or think that they could be. Listen well. However I dress, wherever I go, yes means yes, and no means no.’
Tricia Pillay lives in the Forest of Dean. She has previously had short stories published in Mahogany Magazine, and is currently working slowly towards completion of her first novel.
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