by Jane Brittan
Below us, on the motorway, there’s the low drone of traffic grinding the tarmac. And above us, beyond the ridge, fields, and sheep like little matchboxes. I push myself up on sods of wet earth, all the time watching Joe’s heels just ahead of me.
I can hear Andrija and Boris behind us and I make the stupid mistake of looking back to see how close they are. If I hadn’t done that, then everything might have been different but I do, and as I do, I lose my footing. I hit my head on something metal and sharp jutting out of the ground, and I close my eyes against the pain. I try to get up but the ground is holding on to me. Joe’s yelling my name but I just want to sleep. I’m drifting. I’m being dragged along the ground then lifted up.
Oblivion.
Rolling. Ground shifting under me. Swaying. I lean forward as much as I’m able and throw up. My head feels hot and tight like I’m wearing a close-fitting hat. It’s lighter here. There’s blood on my T-shirt. I remember banging my head. We’re moving but not moving and as I try to edge away from the reek of my own vomit, I hear a shrieking caw in the distance: a seagull. Seagulls. I’m back in the van but I think we’re on a boat.
I struggle to sit upright. My hands are tied to the bars on the sides. They’ve used plastic straps like you get on boxes – impossible to get loose without scissors and another person to do the cutting.
I call softly, ‘Joe? Joe?’
No answer. Just the urgent screaming of the gulls from way overhead. Louder this time: ‘Joe!’
Nothing. I lean back and close my eyes. Stay calm. You’re OK. My head’s throbbing and my throat’s dry, and I can feel tears of panic coming. I try to put together what happened: we got out of the van. We were being chased up the slope in the dark. I remember falling, hitting my head, Joe calling to me, and then nothing. He was ahead of me. He must have got away. And there in the back of a dirty removal van with blood on my face and sick in my hair, I sob out everything. The aloneness mostly – that aloneness I’ve always tried to convince myself was cool, was how I liked it: it meant I didn’t need anyone. I’d watch the way Lauren’s family were, hugging each other all the time, laughing and stuff, and I’d say: ‘It’s not for me – I’m not that insecure …’ Insecure? I wrote the fucking book. I’ve got nothing and no one, and even Joe who made it better for a while is gone.
I take a few deep breaths, swallow tears. I am in this on my own. So what’s new? I’ve always been on my own. I’m going to have to rely on myself to get out of it.
But the thought that I’ve been trying to bury since this all started comes bouncing right up: get out and go where, Sanda? Escape to what?
That makes me think about the cutting of Dad in my pocket: the group of men with their guns and camouflage, the different name. Dad in his pyjamas at three in the afternoon watching some crappy soap on the telly; Dad always rubbing at that scar on his neck; saying good night without looking at me. He never really looked at me. He always looked past me. What happened to make him that way?
It must have been something bad – someone or something that made him close up like that. Unless. Unless he’s the bad one? All that endless fighting with Mum, those anxious, whispered conversations in the kitchen. Which of them wanted to leave without me?
What were they mixed up in? And if they’re not who they say they are, then who am I? What kind of parents would just abandon their child? Like I’m nothing to them?
Maybe that’s exactly what I am. Maybe I’m not their child at all.
And then the next question is so obvious, I don’t want to ask it. I’m not going to ask it. Way in the back of my mind, I pull open a heavy wooden drawer, file it away for a later date, and slam it shut.
There’s a shout from outside.
A man’s voice calls, ‘Oi! Off the car deck please sir!’
Andrija’s voice in English – trying to be nice: ‘I’m sorry. I forgot my wallet. I’ll be quick.’
He’s opening the doors.
I call out, ‘Hey! Help me! HELP ME!’
In a second, he’s inside standing over me with balled fists. He says in Serbian: ‘Hey. Listen to me. You listening?’
I say nothing.
‘Let me explain to you,’ he hisses. ‘It’s easy. Why are you making it difficult? All you have to do is keep still and shut up.’
The sting of salt on my cheeks. His breath filling up the space between us. He brings a handkerchief from his pocket and crouches down. I think he’s going to wipe my face but instead he pushes the cloth over my nose and mouth and holds it there. There’s something on the cloth, something sweet-smelling but overpowering. And this time I don’t fight it. I breathe it. I pull whatever it is into myself, under my skin, and it burns and snatches at my throat and my chest but in the end there’s nothingness and that’s just the way I want it. I want to go to sleep. I don’t ever want to wake up.
The last thing I see is Andrija’s face and it merges in my head with my father’s and with the picture in the cutting.
7
Someone’s shaking me awake. The van’s not moving.
‘Sanda?’
‘Joe?’
I open my eyes. The light’s dim and I feel him before I see him. He’s got scissors and he’s bending over to untie me. And I feel his hand. Soft and rough, it folds mine inside it.
‘I thought you’d got away,’ I say, ‘I thought you’d …’
‘No. They … they got me. I wouldn’t have gone without …’
‘But where were you? I called you.’
He hesitates. He looks really shaken. There’s sweat on his neck. He sees me looking and rubs his throat.
‘They … they beat me up. I’ve been on the floor in the cab under the seats with a gun to my head most of the time.’
‘Oh my God, Joe.’
There’s another wait and it’s like he’s thinking about telling me something but then he stops himself and says simply, ‘Don’t want to talk about it. OK?’
‘OK.’
‘They let me up on the boat to … to wash and stuff. They said if I made a move, they’d kill you.’
‘Oh Joe. I’m sorry.’
I feel his hand tighten around mine. ‘Are you OK?’ he says. I get a sense he’s recoiling ever so slightly. I guess I smell pretty bad.
‘Um, yeah. I think so. I may need a bath in the near future.’
‘You never looked better.’ It’s good to see him smile. ‘Listen, they’ve stopped at a service station. We’re in Belgium I think. I don’t know where we’re going. They won’t tell me, but they’ve said you can get washed and get some clothes and food and stuff. They’ve got showers here. Can you walk?’
He helps me to my feet, grabs a blanket from a pile on a cupboard and wraps it around me. He gives me a plastic carrier bag. ‘They got you some clothes and a towel.’
‘OK.’
He helps me down from the van and I make my way across the short stretch of concrete towards the welcoming entrance to the service station.
‘Where are they?’ I say.
‘Watching.’ He leads me to the showers and gives me a few coins. ‘Another thing …’
‘What?’
‘Do you … do you know someone called Branko?’
‘No. Why?’
‘Nor me. But they think I’m working for him.’
‘I’ve never heard the name before. Maybe it isn’t a name. Maybe it’s a company or something?’
‘Maybe. I don’t know.’ He gestures to the showers. ‘I’ll let you go. Knock yourself out.’ He laughs weakly and stands back.
The tiles are cracked and greasy and the plughole is full of hairs but at least I’m a bolted door away from them. I look at myself in the mirror and take stock. Blood, tears, vomit. My left eye is swollen, and the cut from my fall shows purple and blue. I’m a mess. Carefully I pull out the newspaper cutting and the photograph from my pocket. I throw away my old clothes, but somehow it’s really important that I keep these pictures. They’re a kind of talisman, connecting
me to something. A kind of answer – although what the question is I have no idea.
The hot water feels good and I emerge from the shower block in my new clothes, the cutting and the picture now safe in the pocket of a candy pink track suit that’s far too small for me. Joe’s face tells me all I need to know about how I look. Boris is with him and hustles us towards the van where Andrija is waiting.
He looks at me approvingly. ‘Good, good.’
I say in Serbian, ‘Andrija. Please?’
He looks at me with his head tilted sideways like a fat bird, ‘Hmm?’
‘Please, let my friend go. You don’t need him any more. Take me to my parents. He can go.’
Joe, who’s looking from Andrija to me, says, ‘Sanda, I know what you’re on about and no, I’m not leaving you. Not until you’re with your folks,’ and to Andrija, ‘I’m not leaving her.’
Andrija shakes his head and says to me in Serbian, ‘You think you can decide what happens? Your type doesn’t give orders to me.’
‘What?’ I say.
He thrusts his face in mine and I can see close up his furred teeth, pitted flesh, and smell the sweat on him.
‘You’ll know soon enough what you are. And this man,’ he looks at Joe, says in English, ‘I know who this man is. I know who’s paying you.’
Joe raises his hands in exasperation and says, ‘I don’t know what you’re on about.’
‘Mmm,’ Andrija grins, and turns back to me. I try to step away but his hand is clamped on my shoulder. He whispers in English, ‘Why you think your parents left you?’
A great pit opens up and I’m on the edge looking down into a black nothing.
‘I … I …’
‘Mmm? Why do parent leave child?’ He tightens his grip on me and I feel his fingernails burrow into my skin. He leans forward, lowers his voice and it’s poison: ‘Because they don’t want you.’
I can feel Joe’s sympathy or something like it and I don’t want it. I want to fall into that pit and have the earth close up over me. Andrija shoves me against the side of the van and hisses in my ear: ‘You want to know where am I taking you?’ Then in Serbian he says, ‘Back to where you belong.’
He pats me on the cheek and motions for both of us to get back in the van. Before he closes the door on us, he says with a glassy smile, ‘Time to eat. We’ll be there soon.’ We are each given a large baguette with limp lettuce escaping from either end.
I haven’t realised how hungry I am. Suddenly nothing else matters.
Later on I’m feeling a bit better: we’ve got the torch they left in the van. I’m clean and fed and listening to the hum of heavy traffic on either side of us. I sneak a look at Joe. And because nothing outside of here makes sense any more, that’s all the world is about: him and me, and his brown eyes in the torchlight. And because I’m feeling reckless or stupid or because nothing really matters any more, I say:
‘Joe?’
Straight away he says, ‘Don’t say sorry.’
I laugh, ‘I’m not going to.’
I was. I was going to start with that.
‘What then?’
It comes out then: ‘You know Camille?’
There’s a long pause then he says, ‘I … we’re not together any more. I mean, I don’t know if you knew, we used to go out.’
I reckon along with everyone in the school, there’s probably a family of moles living under the football pitch that knows Joe and Camille were going out.
‘I … saw you with her. And Zoe. They seemed … you seemed …’
‘When?’
‘At school,’ I say miserably.
‘Oh. Yeah. That. Listen I can’t help it if she comes over and acts like that.’ He pauses and pushes his hair off his face.
‘I was just wondering … why did you and Camille finish? I mean … you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I’m … shit … I’m sorry.’
‘No. It’s OK. I finished with her because I found out she was seeing James behind my back. I walked in on them and you know … I … She was all over me: ‘I’m sorry, it was James, he wouldn’t leave me alone, it doesn’t mean anything…’ and you know what, I was thinking I should hit him, but watching her there in front of the two of us, trying to get out of it, I could see he was gutted. She’d obviously lied to him as well – told him he was the one – the same old crap.’
‘I had no idea.’
‘That’s OK. I’m over it.’
‘She’s … she’s really beautiful.’
He stares at me for the longest time, then looks away. ‘Yeah. Yeah, maybe. I used to think so. But I can’t see it any more. I guess it’s because I know how much she knows it. How much she uses it.’
‘Is … um … are you … is Zoe …?’
‘What about Zoe?’
‘Um …’
We run over a bump in the road and a pair of table legs bound with duct tape falls onto the floor beside me.
‘I don’t even like Zoe,’ he says, then, ‘so what about you and boys? I never knew – were you going out with anyone?’
I splutter. ‘Boys? No. Not. Boys. I don’t really have that many friends. Well … I have one friend – Lauren,’ I trail off into a mumble.
‘So you see people outside of school?’
‘No,’ I say.
I swallow.
He looks down and plays with the buttons on the torch. The heavy stench of diesel is filling my lungs like wet wool.
He says, ‘Why?’
‘Why what?’
‘Why no friends?’
I take a deep breath: ‘Because I’m just one of those people who don’t. I’m not … popular. I don’t know how to be. I can never seem to think of what to say, you know? I can’t be funny or clever. I’m shy. I’m really, really shy. I mean, I don’t make it easy for people.’
‘Is that what you think?’
‘I know it. You’re lucky.’
‘Why d’you say that?’
‘Well. It’s obvious. I mean everyone likes you. You’re … you know …’
‘What?’
‘Well, you’re … I don’t know, you’re in a band, girls like you …’
He’s watching me, an odd expression on his face. Then he says, ‘Bullshit. Being in a band doesn’t mean I’m popular. I just like playing music. Any fans we have – and we don’t have that many – all like the lead singer. And, yeah, I’ve been out with girls: two girls, two relationships, and they both cheated on me. So who’s popular now?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘What’s not to understand? Being shy isn’t an incurable disease. You can get over it. Maybe I hang out with more people than you do, but I’m shy too. If it comes to that I reckon most people are. Some of us just work at it a bit harder.’
‘I guess.’
He hesitates. I sense his eyes on me. He says, ‘Have you ever had a boyfriend?’
I feel the blood rush to the surface of my skin and I’m glad we’re sitting in semi darkness. I wait a while before answering.
‘No. That’s why I didn’t believe you when …’ I look at him. A quick glance and away again, but he catches it.
He sits up against the side of the van.
‘Look. I asked you out because I like you. Because I wanted to get to know you better. It’s not that complicated. I mean, it happens all the time.’
‘Not to me it doesn’t.’
‘That’s because you don’t look like you want it to. The thing is – you think you’re shy but really you always look like you’ve got better things to be doing – like you’re really independent.’
I’m dumbfounded. Independent? ‘But I’m a loser, Joe – I’m shy, I’m clumsy – people laugh at me. I don’t understand.’
He’s smiling. ‘Sanda, you’re not a loser. You might think you are – that’s not what other people think.’
‘Other people? Other people don’t notice me.’
‘Other people notice you – take it from me.’
‘In a good way?’
‘In a good way.’
I roll over on the blanket. I need to think. He says nothing but sits and fiddles with the torch, switching it on and off like some weird signal. And I see myself like I’m looking through two different lenses: the me lens where I’m a nobody, and the other lens where I’m not: where I’m independent, confident, with – what had he said? – better things to do. Come to think of it, Lauren had said it too. And no matter how I try, I can’t get the lenses to close together to become one. It makes me think about my life with my parents and how seeming and being can be two completely different things.
Joe breaks the silence. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Yeah,’ I breathe.
I decide that I’ll keep this conversation and look at it later. I turn to the matter in hand: the small matter of being kidnapped.
8
We lie in silence for a while and I can hear him breathing softly. My mind’s whirring. I raise myself up onto my elbow and turn to him.
‘Did you get an idea of where we might be going? Did they say anything?’
He’s kind enough to play along. ‘Plenty. But all in their language. Sanda, I have no idea. I mean we’re going east but you figured that anyway.’
‘Yeah. Yeah. But …’ I can still see Andrija’s face in mine: sour breath and purple flesh.
‘But what?’
‘I don’t know. Just something he said, about where we were going …’
‘Go on.’
‘“Back to where you belong” – that’s what he said.’
He breathes out and it’s almost a whistle, and somehow the air thickens and curdles. I know he’s thinking what I’m thinking: about what it might mean.
After a minute, he says, ‘But your parents?’
‘What about them? He’s right. They didn’t want me. They don’t want me.’
‘Don’t talk like that. Maybe they had to go because they owed money or something? The mortgage?’