Like Clockwork

by Margie Orford

  She remembered the key, fetched it and inserted it into the cheap padlock on the cupboard next to the television set. The door swung open. It contained seven video cassettes. ‘Alice in Wonderland’ was written on the first. The others were untitled. Each one had been packed into a red heart-shaped box – the kind often used for wedding videos. Each box swung from a chain attached to a small hook. There was a twist of hair in the small plastic holder where the bride’s name should have been inserted. At the end of the row of boxes was an empty hook. Theresa’s heart pounded. Her hook.

  The sharp crack of bolts being shot back startled Theresa. She closed the cupboard and sat down on the coil of ropes. The door opened and the man came in, bringing with him the dankness of the slipway and the muffled sounds beyond the boathouse walls. Theresa braced herself. She knew instinctively what was in those videos. There was going to be no rehearsal for her. She doubted that there had been one for any of the other girls. There would be just this one performance. Her life hung from the slender thread of her intelligence and luck.

  The man was wearing a heavy black overcoat. He placed the medical bag and the irises he was carrying on the table against the wall. This time he did not look at Theresa. He opened the bag and brought out a scalpel, holding it up. The blade gleamed in the dimness. The man licked his lips as he set it down precisely. He checked the camera.

  Only then did he look at Theresa. He was displeased. He turned around and picked up the scalpel again. He inserted his finger at the neck of her hoodie, his knuckle sharp under her throat. Then he yanked hard, slicing the blade through the material. Her top fell open, exposing her to the cold. Tears splashed down her cheeks, hot and uncontrollable. He smiled, pleased with her now. He pushed her down onto the stool, swinging her around so that she faced the television. He switched on the camera, focused it on her. Leaning forward, he lifted her hair from her face and adjusted the focus again.

  ‘I have such a show for you. You are a lucky girl.’

  ‘My name is Theresa,’ she said stubbornly. ‘Who is in these films?’

  His shoulders twitched. ‘You’ll see. You’ll see. You’ll like it, I know, because they all did. And then it will be your turn.’ He reached for the remote and switched on the television. Then he ducked behind his camera and started the tape rolling.

  ‘Why don’t you use your key?’ he asked, his voice seductive, soothing. He had pointed to the cupboard. ‘We’re going to make our own little wedding video.’ Theresa did not move. Her body prickled with cold sweat. ‘Open it,’ he snarled. ‘I know you’ve already looked in there.’

  ‘No,’ said Theresa. ‘I won’t watch.’

  He leaned close to her, his breath hot on her face. ‘Yes, you will. And it will be the last thing you see.’ His nose crinkled at the smell of her fear. ‘You choose the tape. That means you have a say in your own ending. Otherwise I choose it all for you.’

  Theresa felt time slipping away from her. The spark of hope she had coaxed into life died. She opened the cupboard and chose a tape. She ran her finger over the lock of hair fastened to the cover.

  ‘Who is this one about?’ she asked.

  ‘You’ll see now,’ he said. ‘Just give it to me.’

  ‘Tell me about her. I want to know who she is, what her name is. Tell me.’ Theresa demanded. ‘I want to know who it is. I want to know why you have me here. I want you to let me go home.’

  This enraged him. She wasn’t doing things properly. She wasn’t obedient like the other girls. She was making the sequence of the film in his head go awry. He grabbed the cassette from Theresa’s hand and shoved it into the video machine. Theresa scrambled backwards and wedged herself behind the pile of rope against the wall. The man had her cornered. He struck her twice across the face. Her head cracked into the wall behind her. He grabbed her arms and she bit him, her teeth breaking the skin. The taste of his blood made her gag as she spat it out.

  He laughed. ‘Just do as I say and you’ll be fine. Now you’re really going to look a mess for your star role.’ He dragged her up, grazing her skin on the ropes, and positioned her on the stool again. Theresa was limp with exhaustion. She had stopped resisting. But he held her by the hair and punched her in the stomach anyway. Theresa clenched her teeth so that she didn’t cry out. She did not want to provoke him into doing it again – did not want to give him the pleasure of hearing her moan. He stood in front of her, his face relaxed, now that she was under control. He shoved a knee between her thighs and splayed her legs. Then he wedged the irises under her arm, almost toppling her from the stool.

  The tape wasn’t rolling yet. Theresa had clawed several minutes of her life back from him. She wanted more.

  ‘Let’s make love first,’ she whispered through her cracked lips. ‘Let’s make love and then watch your film.’

  ‘You little piece of filth. I have you to do with as I please. You watch this now. You’ll see quite soon enough that you will have all the time in the world to indulge every little fantasy you’ve ever had.’ He flicked ‘play’ and the screen flickered to life, bringing its ghostly violence into the room.

  Theresa could see that the film had been through post-production. Someone had watched it before her, had seen whatever she was going to see, had edited and tweaked it. Theresa wouldn’t be here if this person had said something, done something. The thought sent a surge of rage through her pain-racked body.

  The camera was fixed on a girl huddled in the centre of a room. She was alone, her arms wound tight around her knees. Her bone-thin shoulders shook occasionally. Theresa could see that the hand she cradled protectively had bled, staining the skin on her knee. The images sucked the sound from the room, and soon the girl’s ragged breathing filled the dank boathouse. Theresa looked over at the man. The wet, pink tip of his tongue had crept out of his parted lips. She watched in revulsion as it glistened its way from one corner of his mouth to the other, knowing, anticipating what was coming on the screen.

  The sudden click of a door opening jolted Theresa’s attention back to the television. The girl’s head had shot up at the same sound. Her large black eyes were glazed over in horror at what she could see off-camera. The camera moved in close until her eyes filled the screen. Theresa heard the faintest click and looked over to the source of the sound. The man had trained the camera directly onto her face. She knew instantly that he would have her in the same terrible close-up as the girl cowering on the screen. Then he panned to include Theresa, as well as the film she was watching.

  She saw the four men prowl around the cowering girl like hyenas. The girl lifted her head. Her earrings – delicate crucifixes – flashed in the light. The men conferred briefly, then decided who was going to get the first, the freshest meat. Then the first one fell upon her. The others helped – subduing a leg here, there an arm. That was only necessary at first. It did not take very long for her frail, bloodied body to go limp and then jerk unsatisfyingly. A rag doll broken by the sea of rage that battered her. By now, the men were bored. It was over. They straightened themselves up, wiped themselves clean. One lit a cigarette, flipping the match onto the girl, where it died on her skin. Theresa’s flesh crawled when she saw the man kneel over the girl, unzip his pants, and place his penis in her unresisting mouth. His movements were rhythmic, swift, and then he stepped back, satisfied. The girl twitched onto her side and did not choke. Then the screen went black. The first part was over.

  The tape whirred on, but Theresa could not bear to watch more.

  ‘You’re a powerful director.’ Her voice clattered into the silence, startling him, breaking the spell. He pressed ‘pause’: her comment had interrupted his mad flow. The image that hung on the screen looked familiar. She saw the time code on his camera flash rhythmically – she had as much time as was left on the tape: ninety minutes. She would not accept, though, that she had as little power as the girl she had just watched being brutalised. Theresa would fight. But her only weapon was to be quicker than the man on the other s
ide of the camera.

  ‘We could work well together,’ she said. There was no mercy in him, she knew, but perhaps if she was useful she might survive a little longer. She summoned the actress in herself and imagined herself walking on stage, the audience obscured by the lights shining in her eyes. Theresa imagined her mother out there. The thought calmed her. It gave her the strength to improvise.

  ‘We could try something new.’ She prayed that he wouldn’t hit her again.

  ‘How old are you?’ the man asked.

  ‘I’m sixteen.’ replied Theresa Angelo. ‘I’m old enough.’

  ‘Perfect,’ he said. ‘Perfect. It’s time to get you ready, then.’

  ‘Do you want to make love to me?’ Theresa asked again, with a forced note of invitation.

  ‘Oh, I will, my dear. I will. But not in the vulgar way you are offering in order to save your worthless little skin,’ he spat at her. ‘Now let’s get you ready for your final act.’ He had a hairbrush in his hand. ‘Make yourself look decent,’ he ordered.

  Theresa took the brush and pulled it through her hair, trying to avoid the parts that were caked with dried blood. She made herself talk to him. It delayed him, broke into his fantasy. He had to start again after each answer.

  ‘What kind of directing have you done?’ she asked. ‘Where did you learn?’

  ‘I did some work for the Isis Club. Adult movies.’ He turned back to the rope he was plaiting and twisting.

  ‘That market is so saturated, isn’t it?’ said Theresa, chattily. ‘I’ve done voice-overs for a few. Tell me about your market. These films you make here. Do you sell them? On the Internet? Mail order? That first one we saw was a good simulation. That girl was good.’

  He looked at her, flustered. ‘That was not a simulation. You’ll see. These are the real thing.’

  Theresa kept her attention on him. Hope flared in her again: she heard a sound – a single sound that stood out from the boom of the surf on the walls and the bleak moan of the foghorn at Green Point. She held her breath, but he seemed not to have heard it.

  ‘Snuff movies?’ Her voice was cheerful. She could have been asking for apple juice.

  He laughed. ‘You could call them that, I suppose. You could call them educational films. They teach a lesson.’

  ‘Alice? Was she filth?’ His hand froze. ‘Your wife? A girlfriend? Your mother?’

  ‘Why are you so interested in Alice?’ He walked very slowly towards her. He had picked up a whip, was flicking it rhythmically across his left palm.

  ‘That was the name on the first tape. I imagine they go in order? I thought that if I knew her I could get into character better.’ The sound again. Closer this time. Louder. ‘Tell me about her, the first one. Was she your mother?’ The whip licked painfully at her ankle. Theresa had touched a raw spot.

  ‘No, she wasn’t my mother. That bitch died, as she should have, when I was very young.’

  ‘So, who was she? A girlfriend? Someone who let you down?’ The whip flicked again, ripping through the fabric of Theresa’s blouse, leaving a red welt on her exposed belly.

  ‘Alice was my big sister. Did she do her duty?’ He pushed his face, purpled with congested blood, into hers. His breath was hot, rank on her face.

  ‘What did she do to you? It must have been terrible.’ Theresa’s voice was cajoling, enticing.

  ‘She was a slut, like you. Like all of you. Liked to know, liked to watch. Pretending to be so innocent, so “I couldn’t help it” – when you know very well it’s you yourself who is the cause.’ He twisted her nipple viciously, pinching it, savouring the pain he saw in her eyes. Her fresh flow of involuntary tears seemed to calm him again, and he recovered himself. He turned and switched on the camera. Theresa hoped fervently that she had not been imagining the sounds beyond the room, beyond its darkness.

  ‘Tell me about the others. What did they do for you?’ The questions were a mistake. She would have given anything to snatch her words back: she had reminded the man of his purpose.

  ‘They were a lot more docile than you. Better behaved. Just did what they were told, stupid little bitches. They thought, I suppose, that if they made me happy it would be easier for them. Like you think that if you distract me it will be easier for you.’ He came towards her with the rope. ‘It won’t. You are going to watch them all now. You’ll see what happened to them. Before and after. So you turn that slutty little mind of yours to your performance. Give me your hand,’ he ordered.

  He made two swift, deep cuts on the palm – across the lifeline, through the heartline. He picked up the key and folded her bleeding hand around it. Then he began to intricately bind her hand. She watched in fascinated horror as her hand – so familiar, the nails bitten down slightly – was transformed into a bound obscenity.

  He knelt in front of her and smiled. ‘What lovely eyes, my lamb. I’m afraid they will be next. As soon as I’ve fixed your feet.’

  It had been a while since she’d heard the sounds that had sustained her. She felt the fierce resilience of her body – blindly wanting to keep itself alive – ebb away. The fog of terror almost overwhelmed her. She put her free hand down to steady herself, unexpectedly feeling the smooth touch of the stone she’d tripped over earlier. There the sound was again. This time, though, he heard it too. He looked up, alert, listening. But he returned to his task: as soon as he’d bound her feet, it would be over.

  Theresa lifted the stone as high as she could and smashed it down on his skull. He pitched forward with a moan of rage. She hit him again, marvelling at the smoothness of the object in her hands. He lay still at her feet, blood oozing from the back of his head. And once again, Theresa lifted the stone high, at the ready, but this time she did not hit him.

  A bunch of keys lay on the table. She fumbled for a moment and fitted a large one snugly in the lock, barely aware of the rust inside the mechanism as she turned it. Then she pulled the door open and hurtled through, slamming it behind her. She stood still in the dank tunnel, trying to orientate herself in the dim light filtering from the stone chamber behind her. From her left, she could hear someone calling. She turned towards the voice and made her way as fast as she could, feeling her way down the dark tunnel. The voice was getting louder. Theresa paused to listen. It was a woman, calling her name.

  ‘I’m here,’ she meant to shout, but her voice was just above a whisper. She felt her way along the tunnel. The walls were rough and covered with slime. In places, the stone gave way and Theresa could feel a cold rush of air that seemed to indicate a smaller, subsidiary passageway. She kept her mind on the voice calling from up ahead, and felt rather than saw the bend in the tunnel wall. But as she rounded it, her heart leapt.

  A woman holding a torch was running towards her. Theresa collapsed into Clare Hart’s arms.

  ‘Please, please take these off.’ She was scrabbling pointlessly at the tight boots. Clare had a knife in her other hand.

  ‘Hold still,’ she said, inserting it into the top of one boot, and then the other. She made deft incisions, slicing through the suede, nicking Theresa only once. ‘Where is he?’

  Theresa pointed to the door. ‘In there. I hit him.’ Her voice was very faint. The adrenaline that had kept her going had ebbed away. She was on the verge of collapse. Clare called Riedwaan.

  ‘Where the fuck are you?’ he shouted into the phone.

  ‘I’ve got her, Riedwaan, Theresa Angelo. She’s safe. We need an ambulance.’ Her words came out in a rush.

  ‘Where are you, Clare? How can I send anything if I don’t know where you are?’

  ‘I’m in the storm-water drains. There’s a tunnel behind the boathouse at Three Anchor Bay – the one on the far side of the slipway, where the elephant seal is. We need an ambulance for this girl. And I think one for Tohar. She’s wounded him.’

  ‘I’m at your flat. I’ll be with you in a minute. Just get out of there. Get yourselves above ground.’ Panic pulsed through Riedwaan’s voice, galvanising Clare.


  ‘Up you get, Theresa.’ She gripped her arm firmly and pulled her up. The girl winced as Clare’s fingers dug into the bruises on her arms. But she managed to get to her feet, leaning heavily on Clare’s shoulder.

  ‘We must lock him in. He won’t let me go if he comes after us,’ Theresa pleaded. Clare hesitated, the urgency of getting Theresa out and onto the promenade impelling her forward. ‘Please,’ said Theresa. ‘We must.’

  ‘Okay.’ Clare capitulated. She turned back into the darkness, holding Theresa’s hand to steady her. The door that Theresa had appeared from was slightly ajar. Clare pushed it open and looked inside. She took in the coil of rope, the table, the television, the camera. There was an overturned chair and a blood smear. But he was gone. Tohar was nowhere to be seen in the claustrophobic space. Her stomach lurched in horror. She turned towards Theresa, who was leaning against the tunnel wall where Clare had left her.

  ‘Come, Theresa.’ She grabbed hold of her hand, panic clutching at her throat as she pulled her in the direction of the boathouse. ‘Come now.’

  Theresa did not need to ask why. Fury welled up in her throat. Fury at herself for not striking that final blow. She should have known: third time lucky. She followed Clare. Her ears strained for sounds beyond the clatter of their feet – but she could make nothing out. She imagined the holes in the wall, the dark places where he might be hiding, waiting for her.

  Clare had come in from the storm-water drain on the other side of the lighthouse, making her way through the subterranean passages. Clare gripped Theresa’s hand painfully tight – as much to keep herself together as to keep Theresa with her. Her foot caught painfully on a rock and Clare dropped her torch, the sharp crack instantly snuffing its comforting light. Theresa’s heart felt as if it would burst as the darkness enveloped her, sharpening her terrible sense that they were not alone in those tunnels.

  Clare pushed herself back onto her feet and pulled Theresa up with her. She waited a moment for her eyes to adjust, and then headed towards the gleam of light coming from where she hoped the boathouses were. Twenty paces brought them up against a heavy door. Clare pushed hard, and it swung reluctantly inwards, every joint and bolt groaning. She stumbled through, with Theresa right behind her. Tohar’s car gleamed in the faint light.