Too embarrassed to protest

As an awkward 17-year-old, Esther Freud felt unable to say no to an acquaintance's sexual advances. After writing about a similar incident in her new novel, she has come to realise how common this experience is Esther Freud Wednesday May 30, 2007 Guardian I see them every day - the teenage girls at the gates of the sixth-form college, at bus stops, walking home in pairs. They look so confident in their low-cut jeans and grungy T-shirts, their flat shoes - Converse or Vans - chatting into their mobile phones. But are they more confident than we were? Those of us who grew up in the late 1970s and were caught between punk and stilettos, without even an answering machine, let alone a mobile, to keep track of our movements. When I was 17, and for some years before and after, I was far from confident. In fact, I was in a permanent state of indecision and embarrassment. I was embarrassed by my lack of knowledge, experience, beauty and talent. I was embarrassed by my spots, my clothes, my dreams. I was proud, too, and that was a disastrous combination. It meant I couldn't tell anyone I was embarrassed, or ask for any help, so I drifted around with a worldly wise expression on my face, getting myself into awkward and sometimes dangerous situations and hoping, more than anything, that no one would notice, or ever know. It was around this time that I fell in love, not for the first time, but maybe for the first time with someone who also seemed to like me, and this only made things worse. My greatest fear was that anyone would know how I felt, especially the person I was in love with, and so I blundered on, sinking into a secret mine-filled world of my own making. I had met this boy, Tom, on holiday and, unclear when he would be back in London, I had spent day after day sitting by the phone, hoping that he would call. Finally, he did. We arranged to meet up that night in a pub. I was feverish with excitement. I imagined it would be just us - we would sit holding hands in a corner, talking through every moment of the time that had elapsed before taking a night bus home to where I lived, and spending the night in each other's arms. In fact, there were four or five other people at the pub too, all a little older than us, drinking, smoking and talking about things I didn't really understand. I hadn't seen Tom for two weeks and in that time there were jokes I had missed, people who had become his new best friends, new drinks and drugs he'd tested. I grinned and attempted to join in, sipping at my Pernod and black, wondering whether our affair stood any chance. Finally, last orders were rung. "Where to now?" We stood about, and, not daring to suggest we leave the others and head to where I lived on the other side of London, I waited to see what would happen. There was one man, Derrick, who seemed to be in charge. He was a grown-up. Twenty-five at least, with a marriage and two children already behind him. "This way." He ushered us through dark streets, across busy roads, through closed-off squares until eventually - the others having disappeared - he invited me and Tom through the front door of a tall, dark house. We trudged upstairs and into a flat, where a girl, half asleep, appeared with smudged makeup and a T-shirt showing one plump shoulder. When she saw us, she retreated into her room. "Tamara, wait." Derrick took Tom's arm and he pushed my boyfriend into her room. He pulled me after him into another room which turned out to be his. "You can sleep in here." I stood there frowning. A hundred options flitted through my head, but not one of them seemed viable. And surely, anyway, after a few minutes, Tom would realise the mistake and come and find me. But Tom didn't appear. I listened, but I heard nothing from the next room. Maybe he had just fallen asleep. He was drunk - we all were - but as I lay down on the very edge of Derrick's bed, I felt horribly sober, afraid of what would happen next. I have written about a similar scenario in my new book, Love Falls, with more devastating consequences than those I suffered, and I've had two very different reactions. The first, mostly from men, is frustration, anger: "Why didn't she do something?" The second, from women: "That chapter, that was just so very familiar." These reactions have inevitably led to a discussion about the embarrassment of being a teenage girl. How hard it is to call out, to make a scene, to risk looking ridiculous, even if you are being abused. I have one friend who was assaulted in a toilet when she was 15. She was at a party, when, to the envy of her friends, an older boy picked her out and, without a word spoken, led her into the toilet and pushed her up against the wall. She was a virgin. And someone was banging on the door, but even so he wouldn't let her go, kissing her hard on the mouth when she tried to call out. "Although I didn't call out much," she admits. "I was too shocked. And too embarrassed." Afterwards her friends looked at her with admiration, and, instead of disillusioning them, she closed herself off from them and her family. She put on weight and developed a rash of cold sores around her mouth. It was only years later that she understood it had been rape, and also, where she had caught the cold sores. At the time she just blamed herself for being, well, 15. Another friend got into a row with an older man she'd been seeing for six weeks. She stood up to him, asked him to take back something offensive he had said. After he had, he turned to her and smashed his fists down on her ribs. She crawled out of the bed, dressed and went home, but although it was Christmas and everyone she knew and loved best was all in one room, nothing in the world would have made her tell them what had happened. She felt too ashamed, and when, even after two weeks, her ribs were still hurting, she didn't admit to it and see a doctor. In a recent NSPCC survey of girls in their mid-teens, it turned out that 45% had had unwanted sexual experiences, and at least half of these were made to feel guilty for saying no. Fifty-six per cent of these experiences happened before the girls were 14. One in three kept quiet. I didn't mention to anyone what happened that night with Derrick. I was too embarrassed to protest when he stripped down to his underpants and got into bed beside me. My heart was thumping. "What should I do? What was Tom doing? Did he want to spend the night with that other girl, Tamara, and, if not, then why didn't he come and find me?" Derrick was restless. He kept brushing his leg against mine. I turned away and then his hands were on my shoulders. "Relax," he urged. "At least take off your skirt." When I did, under the covers, wrapping the sheet tight round me, he suggested I was tense and offered to give me a massage. "No, I don't want a massage," I protested and he put his finger to his lips and told me to shush. "If you let me give you a massage I'll leave you alone, I promise." So I lay there with his hands on my back, and then later I had to listen to him laugh, when he said he had had his fingers crossed all along. And that was how the night went on. Hour after hour, an awkward, clumsy battle, his hands groping me, mine forcefully, politely, pushing him away, until the light started to show in the sky and eventually he gave up and went to sleep. I didn't want to tell anyone what had happened because they would think I was a fool. Why didn't I shout? Get up and leave? Find a phone box and call home? I didn't even say anything to Tom when we were finally reunited the next morning. Maybe he was embarrassed, too, because he didn't say anything either. And in case he had enjoyed the experience, had planned it, God knows, had wanted it, I kept quiet. Years later, in my mid-20s, I bumped into Derrick. I was with a friend who stopped to talk to him. I hoped he wouldn't recognise me, but after a moment he turned to me. "Why so quiet, stranger?" And, to my amazement, my embarrassment finally gone, I told him: "That night, you trapped me in that room!" I felt my face grow red. Maybe he wouldn't even remember. But he did. "It was only meant as a joke," he said, and for the first time I was able to look at him. "It wasn't funny," I told him, and, as I walked away he called: "I'm sorry. I was a mess back then." I turned and, in spite of myself, I smiled. I felt oddly lighthearted. So it wasn't my fault. Was that it? And I realised that for all those years the worst thing about that night was that I had blamed myself for being too embarrassed to protest. · Esther Freud's Love Falls is published by Bloomsbury at £12.99. To order a copy for £11.99 with free UK p&p go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop or call 0870 836 0875.