talking, avoid having an argument that would happen as soon as you unclenched your hand from the cloth and your teeth from your jaw. There’s that restrained anger in every movement. All I can do is stand there silently, hoping his hand will not come back to my neck.
‘Back to your room,’ he says. Like I am some kind of naughty child. Like I can somehow make my own way back. But, of course, that is not allowed. I am led, naked, down the corridor. Past Cara’s room. I pray she is not looking under the door, cannot see my humiliation. We arrive at the threshold of my room. It’s like a strange date, the Captor escorting me home. Except this is not my home. And he is the one with the key.
He opens up the door and pushes me into the room. Then he closes it behind me, separating the two of us. I am left alone. Naked.
Chapter 14
I should knock on the door again, shouldn’t I? Demand some clothing. Say it’s against the Geneva Convention, the Human Rights Act, basic dignity, to keep a captive with no clothes on. But then, I suppose, none of them apply if you’re doing something illegal in the first place. If your prisoner isn’t a prisoner of state, or of law. Just a kidnappee. Alone, isolated, and now clotheless.
Maybe now it’s just a waiting game until he comes and defiles me.
Or maybe it’s another game. Like the bathroom game. To break me down. Maybe I’m meant to have my spirit destroyed. Maybe I’m meant to hammer on the door, demand some clothes from him. Cry, wail, plead, beg. So he can come back and ‘comfort’ me. Or laugh at me.
Well, I won’t. I won’t give him that satisfaction. I’ll just stay here, horribly, horribly alone and naked in a room in a house I know not where with my husband apart from me and my daughter separated from me – but there, thankfully still there – when what I should be doing is deciding whether Cynthia and Harriet and their hen party would prefer a Strawberry Frost or an Oreo Wonder as the centrepiece for their cookery class. I should be buying eggs, cleaning whisks, chiding Cara for stealing spoonfuls of icing sugar. Sitting daydreaming at the counter, wishing I could afford a separate studio rather than pretending that my kitchen is that studio. I should be wondering if I have time to go to the loo before the clients arrive, whether I should cook steak fajitas for Paul and Cara later or whether I should just have a glass of wine after the clients go, and schedule in staring mournfully into the bottom of the glass, wondering how I can appear on the lists of those free magazines, so that everyone in London will read about my business and want to order from me, so that I can start doing corporate events and set up shop in Soho. And then I should look up to see a picture of me, Cara and Paul together and realise that this is all that matters, and then hear the doorbell, heralding the arrival of my hen group clients, and snap out of my reverie and carry on, business as usual, happy happy happy, like we’re all meant to be.
I should be living my normal life.
I should not be standing shivering in the centre of this room. I should grab a sheet and wrap it round myself. I should definitely not be sinking to the ground, crying and crying and crying like that’s what I’ve been designed to do. It won’t help me. It won’t help Cara.
Pull yourself together. Don’t cry. The baby isn’t crying, is she?
I should supress the sobs, in case Cara hears me, and stops writing to me, because who would want to write to a sad old mum who bursts into tears simply because she has nothing to wear?
And yet here I am.
And here I still am.
Still.
Cara, Cara, Cara. I’m letting you down. I’m sorry. Forgive me. Pity me. Please send me another letter. Don’t make me just rely on those knocks. Beautiful, sweet and dangerous as they are. I want your words. I want your voice. Write to me, if you can bear to.
I don’t hear the door lock turn. I just see him there. Standing, in
‘Back to your room,’ he says. Like I am some kind of naughty child. Like I can somehow make my own way back. But, of course, that is not allowed. I am led, naked, down the corridor. Past Cara’s room. I pray she is not looking under the door, cannot see my humiliation. We arrive at the threshold of my room. It’s like a strange date, the Captor escorting me home. Except this is not my home. And he is the one with the key.
He opens up the door and pushes me into the room. Then he closes it behind me, separating the two of us. I am left alone. Naked.
Chapter 14
I should knock on the door again, shouldn’t I? Demand some clothing. Say it’s against the Geneva Convention, the Human Rights Act, basic dignity, to keep a captive with no clothes on. But then, I suppose, none of them apply if you’re doing something illegal in the first place. If your prisoner isn’t a prisoner of state, or of law. Just a kidnappee. Alone, isolated, and now clotheless.
Maybe now it’s just a waiting game until he comes and defiles me.
Or maybe it’s another game. Like the bathroom game. To break me down. Maybe I’m meant to have my spirit destroyed. Maybe I’m meant to hammer on the door, demand some clothes from him. Cry, wail, plead, beg. So he can come back and ‘comfort’ me. Or laugh at me.
Well, I won’t. I won’t give him that satisfaction. I’ll just stay here, horribly, horribly alone and naked in a room in a house I know not where with my husband apart from me and my daughter separated from me – but there, thankfully still there – when what I should be doing is deciding whether Cynthia and Harriet and their hen party would prefer a Strawberry Frost or an Oreo Wonder as the centrepiece for their cookery class. I should be buying eggs, cleaning whisks, chiding Cara for stealing spoonfuls of icing sugar. Sitting daydreaming at the counter, wishing I could afford a separate studio rather than pretending that my kitchen is that studio. I should be wondering if I have time to go to the loo before the clients arrive, whether I should cook steak fajitas for Paul and Cara later or whether I should just have a glass of wine after the clients go, and schedule in staring mournfully into the bottom of the glass, wondering how I can appear on the lists of those free magazines, so that everyone in London will read about my business and want to order from me, so that I can start doing corporate events and set up shop in Soho. And then I should look up to see a picture of me, Cara and Paul together and realise that this is all that matters, and then hear the doorbell, heralding the arrival of my hen group clients, and snap out of my reverie and carry on, business as usual, happy happy happy, like we’re all meant to be.
I should be living my normal life.
I should not be standing shivering in the centre of this room. I should grab a sheet and wrap it round myself. I should definitely not be sinking to the ground, crying and crying and crying like that’s what I’ve been designed to do. It won’t help me. It won’t help Cara.
Pull yourself together. Don’t cry. The baby isn’t crying, is she?
I should supress the sobs, in case Cara hears me, and stops writing to me, because who would want to write to a sad old mum who bursts into tears simply because she has nothing to wear?
And yet here I am.
And here I still am.
Still.
Cara, Cara, Cara. I’m letting you down. I’m sorry. Forgive me. Pity me. Please send me another letter. Don’t make me just rely on those knocks. Beautiful, sweet and dangerous as they are. I want your words. I want your voice. Write to me, if you can bear to.
I don’t hear the door lock turn. I just see him there. Standing, in
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