by Daniel Hurst
The fact I told her the money was for my writing went down about as well as expected.
‘Amanda, I’m so sorry I’m late.’
I hear the distressed voice of the old man just over my shoulder and turn around to see my date smiling down at me. ‘Charles, lovely to see you!’ I say as I get up out of my seat and go to give him a hug.
I am not usually so affectionate with clients, but this one is different from all the others. Charles is much older than the rest of them, for a start. He’s seventy-one, with wisps of grey hair on his head and a posture that tells me he is weary from a lifetime of working hard. He’s also the only client I have who isn’t single because of divorce. Charles is a widow. His wife, Mary, passed away five years ago, and after one too many lonely nights at home, he has entered the world of escorting to give himself a little company in his twilight years.
I’ve never felt emotionally attached to any of the men I have shared a meal or a bottle of wine with over the last six months, except this man standing in front of me right now with his diminutive frame drowning in an oversized suit. He looks so cute, and it breaks my heart to think that he is dressing up to impress me now because he is no longer able to do it for the woman he truly loved.
I shed several tears on our previous dates when he recalled his last few days with his wife before she died, and I also felt the fear of the future gripping me when he talked about what it is like to be alone at his age with no one to even talk to. All he wants is some company to share his many stories with, and ever since we met, I have been more than happy to provide it for him.
I have been on several dates with Charles over the last few months, most of them in this bar right here, but a couple at the theatre just around the corner. Charles loves the performing arts and used to watch several plays a month with his wife before she passed. While I could never come close to replacing her, I was more than happy to take her place and sit beside him in those dark rooms while we watched the actors entertain us on the stage. But it was only after a couple of these dates when Charles confessed to being more than a fan of the theatre, telling me that he actually used to work in it.
His eyes came alive as he recalled his varied career as a director for several productions in the West End, and I was thrilled to hear all about his time spent working with some of the most famous actors and actresses in the country. But it was only when I got home and put his name into Google that I actually saw how famous he was in his own right. Far from being just a pleasant man, Charles was also one of the most successful theatre directors this country has ever produced.
But putting his impressive and illustrious career aside, I’m going to miss this man after tonight simply because he makes me feel good. He is full of warmth, humour, and good grace, as well as possessing some of the finest manners I have ever seen a man display—it’s not an exaggeration to say that he has restored my faith in the male population.
If only he were thirty years younger.
But the thought of saying goodbye to Charles makes me anxious because I know he won’t be expecting it. I still need to break the news to him that I won’t be able to go on any more dates after this one tonight, and that will be difficult. The sight of the colourful flowers in his hand only makes it even more so.
‘I got these for you,’ Charles says, holding out the bouquet of purple lilies towards me. ‘It’s why I was so late. I was trying to find a good bunch.’
‘You didn’t have to do that!’ I say, accepting the flowers. ‘They’re beautiful!’
I mean it. They really are. I can’t believe he remembered what my favourite flowers are. I only mentioned it in passing, and it must have been several weeks ago when I did.
‘Beautiful flowers for a beautiful lady,’ Charles says, and then he proceeds to pull out my chair a little more from the table. ‘Please, after you.’
I graciously accept the offer of a seat as Charles slowly removes his smart dinner jacket and goes to hang it on the back of his chair.
The waiter who served me my water is quickly on hand to ask if Charles would like to put his jacket in the cloakroom, but I already know what the response will be. Charles will say no because he had an experience where his coat went missing once, and he was rather upset about that because his wife had bought it for him.
‘No, thank you,’ Charles tells the waiter politely but firmly. ‘But could we have some water for the flowers, please?’
‘Of course, sir.’
The waiter scurries away as Charles eases himself into his seat, and I smile at this pleasant man as I hold onto the flowers while awaiting the water.
‘So how have you been, my dear?’ he asks me, his left hand trembling slightly as he fiddles with the button on his shirtsleeve.
‘I’ve been very well, thank you,’ I reply, noticing his struggle with the button but making sure not to let him see that I have. He is a very proud man, and I know he likes to think of himself as still being younger than his years give away.
During our dates, I have noticed that he seems to go through spells where he is surprisingly spritely but then fairly frail. I feel as if being around him is witnessing the body’s constant battle with itself as it descends into old age and can no longer do the things that used to come so easily to it. It’s sad to see, but it will happen to us all, I suppose.
Not for the first time since being around Charles, I think about my own mortality and what it will be like to grow old alone. While Charles had his love life cut tragically short by his wife’s passing, I have no such excuse. The only dates I have been on recently have been the professional kind where I am getting paid for it. Maybe it’s time for me to do something about that. Charles has already told me that it’s a shame for a pretty woman like me to be going to bed alone every night, and I understand what he means, even if I was a little surprised to hear him say it. He was letting me know that I deserve company, and to fall asleep beside the person I love before waking up in their arms and looking forward to a new day with them. I know that I do want that too, even after I have been hurt so many times, and even after what my last boyfriend did to me. But for now, I am focused on myself and my career. I am going to be a writer. That is the goal. But being with Charles reminds me that there is more to life than just personal ambitions.
It isn’t much of a life without love.
As the waiter returns to our table with a vase of water for my flowers, I feel bad that I’m going to be putting a stop to these dates with Charles after this evening. I will have to break the news gently, but I will tell him the truth. He knows that this is just a job for me, and he knows about my big plans, so I doubt he will begrudge me pursuing them. But I expect he will be a little sad to no longer have our dates to look forward to, and I will be too. He has told me that it took him a long time to pluck up the courage to even try escorting and that he wouldn’t want to do it if I stopped. Sadly, that is what I am going to do.
But we can enjoy a few glasses of wine before I tell him that.
25
AMANDA
The sound of the can being cracked open behind me snaps me out of my daydream, and I turn around to see a guy two rows behind me sipping a cheap lager. While I’m not a fan of his drink of choice, I don’t begrudge him a drink on his way home this evening. I went through a little spell where I used to have a can of gin and tonic on my way home every night, but I put a stop to it when one can turned into two and it became the only highlight of my day.
‘Thirsty?’
I turn back around and look at the man at my table.
‘No,’ I reply.
‘I am,’ he tells me. ‘I’m looking forward to a beer when all of this is over. Which reminds me, you’ve only got fifteen minutes left before time is up and Louise pays for your stubbornness.’
He taps his watch again, but it’s his phone I am looking at.
I am praying he lets go of it again.
‘If I’m honest, I’m surprised you have lasted this long,’ he says to me,
sitting forward again. ‘I think most mums would have just given up the code the second they found out their child was in danger.’
‘Why should I give in so easily?’ I fire back, and the man shrugs.
‘I don’t know. Maybe because my partner is going to gut your daughter like a fish if you don’t.’
I know it’s a risky strategy, but I decide to try it. I’m going to call his bluff. At least if I can distract him, he might forget about his phone for a minute.
‘I don’t think he has it in him,’ I say, doing my best to stay calm as I speak. ‘I think the pair of you are all talk.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. I think you believed that me and my daughter would be easy marks and just roll over and give you what you wanted. But we aren’t like that. We’re fighters. We’ve never had anything given to us. We’ve had to scrap for everything we have. Our home. Our money. Our lives.’
‘Please,’ he says, waving his hand in the air dismissively. ‘If you’re going to try to convince me that you two are anything more than just a couple of average women living in an average town, then you can forget about it.’
I’m so angry, and I wish I could let him know who I really was and what I have done. Maybe then he would think twice about what he is doing. But I can’t. It would be too dangerous to do that. But then again, he’s going to find out anyway if I don’t do something soon.
‘I want you to listen to me now,’ I say, sitting forward in my seat. ‘I want you to realise that you are getting yourself involved in something much bigger than you realise. This isn’t just about money. It’s more than that.’
‘And I want you to realise that I don’t care,’ he replies with a shrug.
‘You will do. Trust me. If you open that safe, you will be making a big mistake.’
‘Why is that?’
‘I’ve already proven to you that there are some things about me that you didn’t know.’
‘And?’
‘So what else is there that I might be hiding? What else have you missed in all the time you were watching me?’
I let him dwell on that for a moment until he ultimately gives up.
‘What?’ he asks, clearly frustrated.
But this is what I want. I need him to lose his air of calm because if I can get him on edge, he is more likely to make a mistake that gives me a chance to get out of this.
‘That’s my point,’ I say. ‘You have no idea. You can’t possibly fathom what I have done in my past to get to this point, nor can you fathom what I am willing to do to protect what I have. So with that in mind, why don’t you just walk away? Before it’s too late.’
He holds eye contact with me as he processes what I have just said, and I imagine he is trying to see if I will break first, but I don’t. I stare right back and let him know that I’m not afraid of him. Rather, he should be the one who is afraid of me.
It’s a pleasant surprise when he is the one who looks away, and he does so to check his watch again. Then he unlocks his phone again.
‘What are you doing?’ I ask.
‘You’ll see,’ he says, putting his mobile to his ear.
I look out of the window at the green fields rushing by as the train continues hurtling towards the coast. We’re not that far away now, and I usually feel optimistic when we reach this point because the end of my day is almost in sight.
But not today.
‘James, we’re going to have to speed things up a little here,’ he says into his phone. ‘Take off one of her toes.’
He didn’t really say that, did he?
‘No!’ I cry, lunging across the table towards him. But he ducks out of the way and manages to keep the phone to his ear.
‘Don’t hurt her! Please!’ I beg, terrified now that I have played this all wrong, and my daughter is going to pay for it.
‘What’s the code?’ he asks me again as I continue to try to grab his mobile but to no avail.
‘Leave her alone! Please!’
He shakes his head. ‘He’s just gone getting a knife from your kitchen,’ he tells me with an evil grin on his face.
‘No. Please!’ I beg, but I think I’m too late when he puts his phone on speaker and tells me to listen to what’s happening back at my flat.
That’s when I hear Louise’s screams from the other end of the line.
26
LOUISE
‘No! Please!’ I cry as James holds his mobile out towards me with one hand while moving the knife in his other hand in the direction of my feet. ‘Stop it! Please, I’m begging you!’
I wriggle on the bed and do my best to keep my feet away from the edge of the blade, but there’s only so much I can do with my hands tied above my head.
‘Help me! Help!’
James puts the phone down on the bed as he grabs my left foot and brings the knife nearer, and I realise I’m not going to be able to prevent this. The fact he has put this whole awful ordeal on speakerphone so my mum can presumably listen in makes it even worse.
‘You’re sick!’ I hiss at the man at the bottom of the bed as he puts the knife to my skin, but it’s going to happen now whatever I do, so I close my eyes and wait for the pain to come. Hopefully, it won’t be as bad as I imagine it to be. But he’s going to cut one of my toes off.
How can it not be bad?
I grit my teeth and keep my eyes clamped shut to avoid the sight of the blood spurting across the bottom of the bed, but then nothing happens.
There’s no pain. There’s no blood. When I open my eyes, I see that there’s not even a knife by my feet anymore. Instead, James is smiling at me.
‘Don’t worry. You can keep your toes for now. We’re just scaring your mum. I’m pretty sure that will have done the trick.’
I feel my chest rising and falling fast, and my heart rate must be off the charts as I try to come to terms with what almost happened to me. But my fear is quickly replaced by something else.
Anger.
Without warning, I slam my foot straight into James’s face, sending him sprawling backwards on to the carpet from where he was crouching at the bottom of the bed.
He lets out a howl of pain, and it feels good for a split second. It feels even better when I see him get to his feet and catch sight of the amount of blood pouring from his nose.
‘You stupid bitch!’ he cries, and for a second it looks like I am going to seriously pay for my one brief moment of revenge. There is still a knife in here somewhere, after all, and I’m still tied up.
But then he rushes from the room, and I hear him go into the bathroom, so I can at least relax for a moment. He is probably checking his damaged nose in the mirror.
If only I could get out of these restraints before he comes back.
I wriggle my wrists again, and the cable tie digs into my skin, causing me to grimace in pain. It’s not quite as bad as having a toe cut off, but it’s still not great.
‘Come on!’ I cry in frustration as I shake my wrists and do my best to stretch my restraints away from the bedpost. This bedframe might look sturdy, but I know it isn’t as strong as it appears because I almost broke it once by jumping on it. It was only the fact that Mum dragged me off it that stopped me from causing any real damage, but I remember how she told me how fragile it actually was and that she couldn’t afford to buy a new one if it broke.
But unlike then, I have to put my own selfish needs above money, so I keep pulling and wriggling my arms, putting as much force against the bedpost as I can. If I almost broke this bed once, then surely I can break it now.
Then I hear a crack.
I’m just about to pull again when I hear James walk back into the room, and I stop, desperate not to give away the fact that I was potentially only a few seconds from escape.
I can feel the slack in my restraints from the damaged bedpost and know that I could have snapped it off completely if I had kept going. But I don’t want James to see. I’ll do it when he isn’t looking. But right now, he is star
ing at me with a bloody face.
‘You’d better pray your mum gives us that code, or I swear to God I’m going to enjoy killing you,’ he says as he holds a tissue over his nose to stem the bleeding.
‘Just let me go!’ I try again even though I know it won’t do me any good.
James says nothing as he continues to treat his injury, and I’m hoping he just goes back into the bathroom, but he remains standing by the bottom of the bed for the moment, which means my chances at making a run for it are reduced. I’ll never get past him if I try now. But if he’s in the bathroom, I could make it to the door before him. I’m just praying I get that chance. That’s because I’ve realised it is my only chance now.
My mum has made it pretty clear that she isn’t willing to give up her money to save my life. If she wanted to do it, then all of this could have been over with by now. She could have given up the code, allowed James to open the safe, and now he would have left, leaving me safe instead of still in a perilous position. But if she hasn’t done it yet, I doubt she ever will. How much more persuading does she need? I almost lost a body part, and I might lose a lot more than that if the look on James’s face is anything to go by.
I can’t believe Mum is allowing this to happen.
I always thought she hated me.
But I didn’t realise she hated me this much.
27
AMANDA
I have my head in my hands and tears in my eyes, and I can’t bring myself to look at the man sitting opposite me. He has just allowed me to listen to my daughter being attacked by his partner at the flat, and I’ll never get the sounds of her desperate cries for help out of my head now.