The Good Mother (18 page)

She puts a hand gently on my arm. Speaks, quietly. ‘I know where the bathroom is, love.’

I nod. Pass a hand over my brow. Feigning forgetfulness in the awfulness that she is still trying, but failing, to imagine (but secretly thinks she can). She gives me an ‘understanding’ smile.

Well then. We’ll have to chance it. Off she goes. Along the corridor. Watch her back. Gun slightly out of pocket. She rounds the corner. I can’t see her any more. Strain to listen. A door opens. Good, not a locked one then. What’s in the bathroom? What will she see? There’s nothing to incriminate me now, is there? Think, think. Chew the lip, it helps the brain. I think I’m OK.

Toilet flushing. Right. Come back in an orderly fashion, then, please, Marge. No wandering off the route. Footsteps coming towards me. Slide the gun back in. Sorry, fella, false alarm.

Here she is, back into view.

What’s that she’s carrying? A towel, but – why?

‘I didn’t know which was the guest towel, love. Seemed to be so many of them. All a bit damp.’

Freeze in putting the gun away. Fucking Miss Marple. Brought down by the towels? When I’m this close? No. No. No. Should I … The power of the gun … Not yet. Wait. Just downplay it. Try a little laugh.

‘Yeah, sorry, washing isn’t exactly top of my priorities right now.’

A blush. Finally, a blush.

‘Of course. Sorry, love. Look, let me help.’ She bustles off back to the bathroom.

Returns with the towels. ‘Let me put these in the washing machine.’ And she barges over there, into the kitchen, the kitchen with the trays, the washing machine with the—Oh Christ! The clothes! The clothes with the blood!

‘Look, just leave it. Just leave it OK? I’m doing fine. I can manage. Just … you shouldn’t have come.’

And I feel the anger. I feel the frustration, the anguish, the stress of what I have in this house. How near success and failure. And I feel the gun. Oh God, I feel it. My hand on my thigh. Ready. Steady.

She stands in the middle of the kitchen. Hands droop with the towels. Lips quiver. Doesn’t know what to do.

I should maybe defuse. Hug. Apologise. For what? Not shooting off her nosy little head?

I take a step forward. She takes a step back. Is there something in my eyes maybe? Something that suggests—

The doorbell. Again. Why so popular today?

She opens her mouth. Speaks, in a wavering voice. ‘You’d better get that.’

I nod. Sure thing. Why not. What harm could it possibly do? NB Sarcasm.

Can’t look through the viewfinder. Can’t show I’m hiding from the world. Must just open the door the door brazenly. To find …

Oh Lord. Him.

‘Hello,’ he says.

And she hears his voice. Recognises the threat in it. She must do. Because she’s dropped the towels.

Chapter 46

The doorbell again!

The police. I know this time. I can see them. Right in front of me. As though it were me opening the door. ‘We’re here about Cara,’ they’re saying. I’m sure they are. I can hear them. At last, at last.

But then why am I so terrified? Why do I see myself sinking down onto a carpet, one of them trying to catch me. Why am I crying? Wipe away the tears – with a hand that’s shaking. Why shaking? Stop it, Susan. Stop it. You’re about to be rescued. This is it!

I rush to the door of the room and press my ear against it.

Listen.

A man and the woman.

But wait.

Surely not.

Is it … ?

No. It can’t be, can it? Yes, it is. It’s him. And, my God, that’s her, isn’t it! They’ve found us! They’ve come with the police to save us!

I shout as loudly as I can. ‘Hello! Hello! I’m here! It’s Susan! I’m here! Help!’

The voices stop. Where’ve they gone? Don’t leave. I need you to help me.

‘Cara, shout too! This is it, they’ve come to save us!’

Cara hears me – she must, because she shouts too. We both shout and scream at the top of our lungs. But still no one comes to beat the door down.

‘Please!’

Still there are no footsteps.

‘In here! Get us out!’

Still no sirens.

‘Keep shouting, Cara!’

And we do, we do. Because, please God, let us out of here! This horrible, horrible place where we’re stuck, trapped, deserted, so apart from the outside world, from light, from love, from happiness. Please get us out. Please let me and Cara and Paul be together again!

So I shout and I shout and I shout. And I shout so loudly that I can’t even hear Cara any more, can’t hear if the voices are responding, can only hear my screams. The whole world is my voice pleading for escape. I can see in my head a huge great big roof of my mouth, all the pinky-red grooves and ridges raised, and at the back the black hole with engorged tonsils and uvula, tongue flat, just screaming, screaming, screaming.

But not so loud to stop me hearing the gun shot.

Suddenly, I am quiet again.

All is quiet.

It’s his gun, is it? Or someone else’s? The police’s? Are they armed? No, not in this country. Unless they sent the snipers. His, I bet it’s his.

Has he … ? Surely, no, please, not!

All quiet except the Captor talking.

So he can’t have killed them. Not if he is talking to them.

Unless he is only talking to one of them.

I can’t hear what he’s saying. I press my ear so hard to the door that you’d think it would melt through to the other side. Mumble, mumble, mumble. Speak up! I grab the cup. The lovely ceramic death cup. And I put it against the door, like they do with glasses in the movies, to try to help me hear. Still it’s not clear. Still just indistinct words that I don’t understand. And only two voices, those two voices that I know. The police don’t seem to be saying anything at all.

Maybe Cara can hear? She is closer.

I scribble a quick note asking her and feed it through the grate.

No response. She doesn’t know, you see, who those voices are. Well, she knows one of them. But she doesn’t even know the other one exists in relation to her. So how can she worry? That’s good. She’ll feel safe. Be safe.

Even though I can’t hear the words, I keep my ear against the door.

And then there they are – the others again. The Captor hasn’t killed them. Thank God. Or thank the Captor. Maybe he is merciful after all.

More talking. More useless words. I daren’t shout again. Bullets sound when I shout.

But oh – no, please! Oh, maybe I should have shouted once more. Because that’s the sound of the door, isn’t it? The front door. Slamming shut.

‘Help! Help! Hello! Help us!’

But there’s nothing. There’s silence. They’ve gone. They’ve somehow gone. Why? How? How can they do that when they know, they know that we’re here! And what kind of police work is that? How could they not check every room, every crevice, for Cara? And why only call about Cara, not about me? I slam my hands off the walls. Bastards. Bastards, bastards, bastards. I don’t care if it’s not their fault. I don’t care about the gun. They should have found a way.

I close my eyes. I take a deep breath. I try to force down the sickening failure of hope that I can feel like acid rising in my throat. Swallow down the despair. Make a meal of the regurgitated sadness and disappointment. Breathe. Just breathe.

Open my eyes.

So.

I’m still here.

We’re still here.

It seems, perhaps, that we’re doomed still to be here.

I shut my eyes again. It doesn’t help.

What will help?

I tear another sheet of paper from the diary.

‘I love you Cara,’ I write. Because that’s the only hope-giver, isn’t it? In all of this. Life with Cara. I love my little girl.

And I cry. I cry and I cry and I cry.

Yet part of me smiles.

A dark, wrong part. The recalcitrant rainbow, sun through the rain. The part that is glad it wasn’t the Captor who was shot. The part that is looking forward to seeing him in here again. Because I know. I know, I know, I know. That he is someone. Not someone whose identity I actually, currently, know. But still, a person, known – formerly – by me. Once. And that something inside me is rediscovering him. And that something – well perhaps, perversely, it might quite … not hate him. Completely.

Chapter 47

The other side of the door

I knew the gun would help me again.

That it would help them understand. Buy me time. Let them have a space to think rather than just react.

When I heard the shouting from along the corridor, I thought that was it. Done for. I was ready to point it at their heads, bang, bang, then at mine, bang, finito.

But the gun, the gun shone through. Some force within it compelled me to raise it immediately. Like it could sense my need. No hesitation, it came bursting with a life surge out of my pocket.

‘Listen!’ it said. I was its ventriloquist’s dummy. My lips moved while the gun made me talk, kept them silent.

‘Listen!’ And because the gun was there, they did listen. They listened with wide, wild eyes. ‘Don’t second-guess me. Don’t question me. What I’m doing here is completely necessary. It’s none of your fucking business, OK? So you think now you’re going to be on some rescue mission? Well, hear this: you’re not. You understand nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing.’

They didn’t speak at first. The gun helped me check their hearing. Yes, they heard it click, as I took off its safety catch.

‘You wouldn’t dare,’ he mumbled.

But oh, the gun showed them. That shot. It was beautiful. I loved the way it ricocheted round the room. How it made them duck for cover. Quiver and shake. Good work. Because they understood a little bit then, even with their lack of empathy.

And, when I explained further, told them everything, made them promise on pain of death – not just their own – that they would not summon the police, that they would walk out of here and leave us alone, they listened. They properly listened. It was my words that soaked into them then. The gun gave me the time, the opportunity, of course. Without it, I would be spread-eagled on the floor with the cops on top of me and my capture long gone. They wouldn’t have bothered listening otherwise, without the gun; just have said what I was doing was wrong, have rushed past me along the corridor. But when I told them everything, explained it all, they began nodding. Agreeing. Marge’s eyes even misting. Of course, she would always side with me in the end. Once she’d been given permission not to react conventionally.

He was more difficult, of course. He thought he could bargain.

And, in fact, it turns out he was right.

The gun may be good. Great, even. Such a crutch to a man who’s frankly had enough of all this … shit. But you can’t replace logic. Logic knew that if he walked out of this house without the things he wanted, he would still go on wanting them. Logic also knew that if I let the gun have its wicked way with him – boom! Everything would suddenly become a whole lot more complicated. And when already you’re struggling to sleep, not knowing whether the next day will be the one when it comes right, to add to that the worry whether that day will be the one you are arrested for murder as well as everything else – I could do without it.

So we made a bargain. And may I rot in hell for it. Because it’s against all my judgement, all my internal protestations, all my red lines. But I made it.

Suze for Cara.

Or rather Cara for Suze.

I gave him Cara.

On the basis that I can keep Suze.

Because what choice do we have? It’s Suze that I need. Suze who needs me.

As we stood outside Cara’s room, I felt the gun had somehow turned traitor. Like it was there, pointing at my head, making me do this unthinkable thing. I unlocked the door. I let her out. The light in his eyes sickened me. And then he took her. I just let him take her. No shouts. No screams. He’s driving away now, the car full of Cara.

The house has never felt so empty. It’s just me and Suze now. And the gun, of course. I haven’t forgotten about the gun. And I doubt Suze has either. I’m assuming I’m still here anyway. Still a person. Still human, still morally functioning. Because you wonder, sometimes, don’t you? Or at least I do.

Me, sitting on the sofa. So far as I can tell.

Suze, sitting, standing, who knows what-ing—I should have installed a webcam—in that room.

Empty.

Except not. Everything is so full. My mind. This house. Of thoughts. Of expectations. I’m so close now. I can feel it. Very soon, she’ll know. And then we’ll be together again. Not this separate life, in separate rooms, in separate beds. I’ll have my Suze. And then I’ll be able to retire the gun. But not till then.

Chapter 48

The doorbell keeps me awake for hours. Ringing, ringing, ringing. When I try to sleep, it rings again. The police are there. So real I could reach out and touch them. I shut my eyes, put my hands over my ears, but they’re still there. It’s like tinnitus but with blue flashing lights attached. And each time I see them, I want to stop them speaking and I want to collapse. The fear is so great that I’m almost physically sick.

What is it? What is my subconscious doing? Why am I so frightened of being found that I imagine these saviours as enemies? And why didn’t they look round properly earlier? How is this captor so convincing that he can turn the police away? Do I want to find out who he is so much that I would rather the police go away?

There they are again. Ringing and ringing and ringing the bell. I put my pillow over my head to stop them. Then I hear is the rustle of Cara’s letters inside the pillowcase. As comforting as a lullaby. If only I could be through the wall with her singing her to sleep. Sing myself to sleep.

Sleeping, waking, sleeping, waking, dreaming, tossing, turning.

Man in supermarket.

Chestnut hair, lovely smiling eyes, dimples. Morphs – fewer dimples, hair darker now. But still smiling, still happy.

Waking, now. Dreaming? Yes, go back there, mind, please! So nice, so clear.

Man in street, outside.

Man inside.

Waking, waking – no, not yet, not yet, stay …

Fight back – the man, the man, the lovely man. I saw his face so clearly, the Captor’s face, of course, but I knew his face, I understood his face, I knew who he was to me.