8
Leigh
Tuesday 17th March
I’m parched. My wrist aches. My head too. I massage my wrist to get the blood to flow back into it. The pain in my head is unbearable but of course I do bear it, because what choice have I? I touch my skull tentatively, wondering if there might be a sticky gash. There isn’t one but there is a tender bump at the back. Was I struck from behind? Or was I drugged? I think that’s most likely. I don’t know. I feel drugged, dense and opaque, yet at the same time my heart is hammering at a speed that will split me open from inside. Thinking is terrifying, horrifying. More painful than any physical discomfort. Thoughts of what might come next assault me. Dark and dreadful thoughts but I can’t push them away.
Am I going to survive this?
What is going to happen to me?
I do not know what to do. I am without choices and that is alien to me. I always have choices. I am always able to act. But now, at least for the time being, I have to submit. I am locked up by a madman. Of course it is a madman because what sane person locks up another human being? But how mad? What is he going to do to me? My body quivers with shock and fear. I move my left arm and the chain fastening me to the radiator rattles again. I can’t get used to the sound. I’m powerless.
‘What do you want with me? Why have you brought me here?’ My shaky voice sails out into nothing. Into the space which is at once endless and yet claustrophobic. No response. I’m pretty sure he is just on the other side of the door. I can feel him, sense his menace. He hasn’t said a word to me yet. His silence scares me. The light around the boarded window is fading. Can I have been here a full day? My fear is overpowering and debilitating. I crawl into a ball and cry.
I must fall to sleep and only realise as much when I wake with a jolt. I guess my body shut down as a defence mechanism but I’m furious at myself for losing any sense of time. Sleeping is careless. I should stay alert. I have to. I notice a bottle of sparkling water had been rolled into the room. Unsteadily I crawl towards it, snatch it up and glug too much of it down, too quickly. I don’t know when more might next be delivered, I should ration myself. So I stop drinking. Or at least try to but as there is nothing else to do in this room, I find I keep taking sips. I can’t stop myself. It seems like some level of control – doing something – even though it is probably the opposite thing to what I should be doing. Self-sabotage. My head is light and I can’t think clearly.
Something switches from flight to fight. Whatever it is seems to be out of my control. I’m nothing more than a quivering bag of fear and adrenalin. ‘I need some food!’ I yell, suddenly furious. Furious more than afraid. ‘I’m no fucking use to you dead!’ I kick the wall I can reach. I immediately regret my outburst. My foot aches. I’m an idiot to injure myself. I need to stay fit, in case an opportunity to escape presents itself. Besides, how do I know I am no use to him dead? I don’t know what this sick creep wants. Maybe starving me to death is his plan. I should be conciliatory. I should be trying to find a connection, that’s what happens on dramas on TV. That’s what locked-up women do. They try to talk to their captors, find something human and empathetic about him.
It’s such bullshit.
Be nice. Be good. Even when you have been abducted and chained. Especially then. I am sore and thirsty and afraid. Mostly that. So fucking afraid. I’m not able to behave as they do on TV. I yank at my chains again. Hard, so I hurt my shoulder. They clank and clash but don’t give at all. ‘Let me out, let me out!’ Silence. I feel like a toddler that has thrown his biggest tantrum and the parent looks on unmoved, but simply – silently – points to the naughty step. I slump. The fight gone almost as fast as it arrived. ‘Someone will come for me. They will be looking for me,’ I insist.
Then I hear the typewriter again. Rat-tat-tat. The rustling. Paper under the door.
Who will come for you? Your husband?
I read the note and freeze. It doesn’t feel like a question. It feels like a taunt.
9
Kai
Sunday 15th March
‘How’s your mum?’
‘The same.’
‘Is she responding to the antibiotics?’
‘It’s too early to tell.’ I try not to go into too much detail. Talking about illness – imminent death – is sad, everyone knows that. It is also boring; people don’t admit that.
‘Try and not worry, hey, darling? You know that Alzheimer’s sufferers get a lot of UTIs. She’s had them before and pulled through.’ I know what that sentence has just cost my husband. This world I have brought to his door is alien to him, a little frightening if the truth be told. He doesn’t want to think about my mother’s wee. Of course not. I don’t want to either. ‘You know the delirium is a result of the infection. Her seeming agitated and restless is just a symptom.’ He repeats back some of the information I have already given him in the past.
