‘I know darling, I know.’ Mum can’t control her tears either and she cries with me. Her hand moves towards mine but I snatch it away before she can make contact.
‘It’s not fair,’ I shout. ‘Why couldn’t he have waited until I came home and told me?’
‘I know how close you two are. I think he might have found it too difficult.’
‘I want to go and live with him.’ I want to hurt her like she’s hurting me. It works, because her eyes flicker as if she wasn’t expecting to hear that.
‘I’m sure you’ll be able to stay with him during school holidays, once he’s settled.’
She has already set the kitchen table for tea and it’s only for two places. The anger inside me boils over and I sweep the cutlery and crockery off it with my arm and it clatters and smashes across the floor tiles. Now Mum looks scared, almost terrified, and I clamber to my feet. ‘I hate you!’ I yell, but I don’t mean it. ‘You shouldn’t have let him go. This isyourfault.’
I run from the room and I hear Mum following me, but I’m too quick and I’m up the stairs and inside my bedroom before I slam the door shut. Then I lie on my bed, my face buried in the pillow, sobbing my heart out.
She leaves me alone for an hour or so and when she finally comes upstairs, she knocks before she enters. I turn away, ignoring her and the smell of chicken pie and gravy she carries with her. I watch her reflection in the mirror as she places a tray of food and a drink on my desk and turns to leave without saying anything.
‘Why?’ I ask again. ‘You never argue, you’re always doing stuff together, you seem really happy.’
‘When you get older you’ll understand that sometimes appearances can be deceptive,’ she replies. ‘You can never really know a person, no matter how much you love them.’
I feel like there’s something she’s not telling me because it still doesn’t make any sense. ‘Why didn’t you try harder? For my sake.’
‘You still have me and we still have our home and everything else is going to carry on the same as it’s always been.’
‘But it’s not, is it? Without Dad it’s never going to be the same again.’
Mum opens her mouth but I’m done with listening to her. I close my eyes until she leaves. Then I grab my notebook from my desk and write Dad a letter, demanding that he comes home or at least calls me. He will listen to me, I know it. I’m his ‘only girl’. He’s called me it for as long as I can remember. He won’t leave his ‘only girl’ here without him.
Later, Mum puts his address down on an envelope, sticks a first-class stamp on the front and promises me that she’ll post my letter in the morning on her way to work. If Dad hasn’t called by tomorrow, then I’m going to write to him again telling him it’s not too late to change his mind and that he can come home. I bet Mum would take him back in a heartbeat.
When it’s time for bed, Mum comes in and lies next to me with her arms wrapped around me and we quietly cry together. The last thing I remember before I fall asleep is her kissing the top of my head and telling me how sorry she is. ‘Please don’t hate me for being the one who stayed,’ she whispers.
‘I won’t,’ I reply, and I mean it. No matter what I said to her earlier, I could never hate her. She’s my mum.
CHAPTER 7
MAGGIE
I don’t know what time I awaken, as Nina removed my watch and the clock from my bedroom months ago. The clock was a gold carriage timepiece that once belonged to my mother. I ended up with it after she died, and my sister Jennifer took the china figurines. I kept it on the chest of drawers in here. Then one evening when I’d returned from my bath, it had disappeared without explanation.
I’m not yet ready to leave my bed. Last night was a restless one. There was nothing restful about reading, as I had to hold my book with one hand and use the other to keep my glasses with the broken arm perched on my nose. The spring I’d picked out of the mattress had vanished from my bedside table and I told myself off for not having hidden it better. I assumed Nina was punishing me by making reading – my one pleasure – more difficult.
Even my sleeping tablets weren’t fit for their purpose. They used to knock me out within minutes of my head hitting the pillow, but I’ve built up a tolerance to them over the years and now, most nights my sleep is fitful. I’ll also wake up at least twice a night to urinate in the bucket in the corner of the room and only if I’m lucky will I manage to get off to sleep again quickly.
As I move myself up into a sitting position, the chain attached to my ankle rattles against the floorboards. The cuff strikes my other shin and I curse. That’ll add to the colourful tapestry of other bruises I’ve given myself with this damn restraint. You might think I’d be used to it by now and for much of the time I am. But sometimes I forget.
Rubbing my shin, I slowly swing both legs over the side of the bed and my toes feel the cool wood of the floorboards. I shuffle towards the window and begin my first watch of the day. I’d rather be up here in the crow’s nest and with a bird’s-eye view than living down in the basement like a worm underground.
The day I woke up in here, Nina informed me that the glass was shatterproof and soundproof, not that I’d be able to reach it anyway through the dense shutter slats. Neither the chair leg nor lamp I smashed against them even scuffed their surface.
I rise to get ready for the day. I clean my face with a damp sheet from a half-full packet of wet wipes, then use three more to clean my body. The orange scent from last night’s bath lingers on my skin and while I don’t welcome it – I hate citrus smells – I suppose it’s better than not smelling of anything. I change out of my nightie and choose a pink and red floral dress from the wardrobe. I don’t wear knickers any more because I can’t get them over the chain or ankle cuff. Likewise tights or trousers. Everything I slip on must be something I can pull over my head or wrap around my waist.
The wardrobe is still full of my clothes, but they’re of more use to the moths than to me. I’m sure Nina has left them as a reminder of what I once had; along with heels, scarfs, gloves and coats, they’re no longer fit for purpose. There are just seven ensembles I rely on, one for each day of the week. Every Friday, I leave a neat pile of my dirty washing outside my door and the following day, it’s been cleaned and pressed and returned to me. It’s like room service at a hotel I can’t check out of.
On the wall and an inch or so below the ceiling is a photograph of my husband Alistair that has been glued to the wallpaper. He’s smiling at the camera. When I first ended up in here, it was as if his eyes were following me around the room. I couldn’t escape him. I hated it and I hated him. But the length of my chain makes it too far out of my reach to tear it down. I threw a glass of orange juice at it once, but all that did was give the photo a sepia effect, like it had been taken a hundred years ago. In fairness, that’s how long ago our marriage feels.
I cover my bucket with a towel to contain the odour of last night’s expulsions. Nina only empties it once every two days but I’ve got used to the smell. Soon after this all began, I lost my temper and tried to throw the contents over her. But because I hadn’t got used to the restriction of the chain, I tripped over it, lost my balance and covered the floor with my own waste instead. Nina laughed until the tears fell from her eyes and refused to bring me anything to clean it up with until the next day.
She also used to leave me a can of air freshener until I tried to spray it into her eyes and blind her. She dodged the stream just in time and I never saw another can again. Instead, she leaves me car air fresheners to hang around the room, making it smell like a showroom. And they’re citrusy, of course.
