There’s more shuffling, and she’s heading out the door. The hinges creak.
‘Wait!’ I cry.
The girl halts. Slowly, she turns her thin form and waits as I’ve instructed. OK, if she’s being dutiful to me, maybe I can find out some information.
‘What does Alexander want with me?’
There’s a pause. Then the girl hitches a shoulder and intones in a flat voice, ‘I don’t know.’
I try again.
‘Are there more women like you here?’
She nods once.
‘How many are there?’
‘Many.’
‘Like ten or twenty?’
She hitches a shoulder. ‘Many.’
OK, I’m not getting too far with that line of questioning.
I hold up my iron-shackled wrist. ‘Can you get a key to unlock this?’
‘No, I only do my master’s bidding,’ she intones lifelessly.
I run my eyes over her skimpy French maid’s outfit. I can imagine what he bids her to do in that. The fucker. I mean, I know I’m in thrall to Sadie, but at least she doesn’t make me dress up like a male stripper. She’s sensible with her demands.
The young woman (I’m starting to think of her as Agnes for some reason) lifts a bony finger and points at the wooden tray, which has a white bowl of brown lumpy soup and some hard-looking sourdough bread sitting alongside. No butter. ‘He says eat ... Please.’ I’m not sure if that last word is solely hers or Alexander’s attempt at conveying some manners.
Agnes shuffles out the door, and it clangs shut and locks.
I sigh and drag the tray closer, dip in the bread, and take a bite. It’s canned stew. Barely warm and not great. Sadie would be disgusted. I get a clear image of her rolling her eyes in mock disdain and saying, ‘Quelle horreur, Elliott. What izzz that sheet?’
I grin. We’ve certainly come a long way from those early days when she made me peanut butter sandwiches and Iflung them against her bedroom wall. I can still see the look on Sadie’s face as a sandwich stuck to the pink paint, then fell off, leaving a poo-like stain. It was very satisfying at the time. Of course, I wouldn’t do anything like that now. But it’s a funny memory, and I laugh to myself as I eat. It makes me feel better—like she’s here with me.
Chapter 15
Elliott | Edinburgh, 1983
Sadie waltzes into the bedroom, her arms laden with clothes. She dumps a bundle of T-shirts and jeans on the end of the bed. There are jumpers and a coat too.
‘Don’t say I don’t do anything for you. Check out this haul,’ she says, looking pleased with herself.
Dutifully, I peer at the pile of items. I’m sitting cross-legged, propped against the headboard, reading aSmash Hitsmagazine I found on Sadie’s bedside table. There’s an article about Duran Duran, which initially gave me heart palpitations. The Sing Blue Silver Tour continued without me! Everyone obviously bought the story about the genital herpes. But somehow, I can’t summon any effort to care. That’s my old life, and this is now my reality.
‘What’s all this for?’
‘You! It’s your new wardrobe. You can’t keep wearing the same T-shirt and jeans. And besides’—Sadie wrinkles her nose—‘they’re startingto smell.’
I reach over and pick up a light-blue T-shirt and finger the alligator logo. It looks expensive and brand new. ‘Did you go shopping for me?’
I find that hard to believe. I haven’t seen or heard any of the women who live in this flat go outside. Unless they do when I’m asleep. Anything’s possible. They seem to like staying up late. Sadie herself keeps very strange hours. I’ve never seen her sleep. She seems to have given up her bed to me.
I’ve been keeping my eyes and ears open ever since the conversation in the lounge about how they needed blood. That freaked the hell out of me, and they saw that it had and didn’t say anything more. So I still don’t know what they’re planning to do with me. I’m starting to think all of them have escaped from a mental hospital. The police and the prison psychiatrists will be very interested, I’m sure. So I’m taking a lot of mental notes when I’m not sleeping or complaining. The other day, I asked for a notepad and pen, saying I wanted to jot down some song ideas. But Sadie gave me a funny look, and after that, I forgot that I’d asked for it in the first place.
