“Don’t shut.”
Of course not, I thought. That door would never shut again.
The door opened into a narrow passageway that descended down several cement steps. I resisted the urge to place my hand on the cement wall of the passageway to steady myself in the dark. I had to be careful not to contaminate any evidence. At the bottom of the steps was a second door. This one hung open, leaving the doorway exposed like a missing tooth, obviously vacated in a hurry. It was when I reached this door that the foul stench hit my nostrils.
Aiden hit a switch but nothing happened. He groped around the hallway before lifting something from a hook. I heard the clunk of a switch and a bright light flickered on. I winced at the sudden brightness. Aiden walked into the room and pressed on a lantern. He moved around the room turning on several small lanterns, the torchlight bobbing around as he made his way around the place. With more light I could see my surroundings. I was in a small room—about the size of a large living room—that had been partitioned into two areas. One of those areas was sectioned off with what looked like a heavy metal barred fence that had been welded in place. Someone had cut into the bars to create a door that was hanging open. On the ground near to the open door was a heavy chain and a padlock. Inside the cage was a small mattress with a crumpled duvet on top, a pile of books, a small desk with a plastic chair next to it, a sink, a tiny fridge, and a toilet. They were the kind of sinks and toilets you would find in a caravan, with pumps instead of regular taps.
“This is where I sleep,” Aiden said, pointing to the bed.
Every hair on my arms and scalp prickled. I had thought I couldn’t get any colder, but I was wrong. Looking at this room, and hearing my son say those words, brought the severity of his ordeal home, and I wondered whether I would ever be warm again. Would a hot bath or shower ever take away the chilling sensation of knowing and understanding exactly how cruel a human being could be? I’d pictured something like this in my mind. I’d actually pictured worse. I’d had nightmares about cages and chains and stained mattresses, but somehow, the reality of seeing my son’s cage was worse than anything I had imagined.
I couldn’t move my body, but I forced myself to look around the room. My eyes trailed the length of the place as Aiden’s torch roamed from corner to corner. I watched as the torch moved from the barred area, to the things that were around the rest of the room. I followed the beam of like as it moved towards the misshapen lump in the corner, and then quickly looked away. I didn’t want to see that yet, not properly, and instead took in the fan, the ventilation grates on the ceiling, the leaking freezer, the small armchair, the shabby toys, the dirty clothes, the unplugged heater, the wall of crayon drawings that I never got to receive from my own child. Of all the disgusting facts I knew about what had happened to my son, the part that disturbed me more than anything was that this had been a home. This was where my son had grown up. My knees weakened, but I forced myself to stay upright.
“This is Beaver the Bear. I got too old for him though. I drew that picture. It’s the Great Wall of China. I had my picnic there. This one is a mountain, see? That’s the heater. I’m allowed it on for thirty minutes in the morning and thirty minutes at night. I can’t use it more or the generator will run out.”
No one knew. Ten years and no one knew this place existed. I never knew.
How did he do it?
My eyes moved across the room to the lump in the corner. “Aiden, who is that?”
But Aiden was distracted by trying to pull one of the pictures off the wall. “This one is you. I drew a lot of you at the start. You don’t look the same now.”
“Aiden, who is it? Who brought you here?”
The walls were too close. I couldn’t breathe. Every part of my body felt heavy with the knowledge that I knew who it was, and I should have guessed earlier. I’d been so stupid. Why hadn’t I figured it out?
“Oh, yeah, him.” Aiden sounded sad. “I watched his thoughts go. Didn’t want to, but I wanted to leave.”
My voice shook as I asked the question. “What’s his name, sweetheart?”
But Aiden looked down at my feet instead. “Did you wee, Mummy?”
I’d barely noticed the warm water spread over my jeans and down my legs. Now that I glanced down I saw that my waters had broken all over my shoes, leaving a puddle of murky fluid spreading across the floor.
44
AIDEN
He should be here by now. I check the clock. It’s 9pm. He said 7pm. Wednesday, champ. Seven on the dot. You can cope ’til then. You’ve got food in your fridge. The generator is all charged up. It’s only three days, mate, okay? You’ve managed that long before.
It’s worse when he doesn’t come. Then he comes and it’s worse again. But when I’m alone for days I’m scared. When I was little I just felt cold and lonely. I thought of Mum and Dad and Nana and all the kids in my class. Even annoying little Rosie, the one who used to steal my red crayon. I wished they were all here.
Then I got older and I started thinking other thoughts. What if the generator broke? What if the electricity goes out and I’m stuck in the dark? What if the ventilator clogs up and I suffocate to death? But the worst that had happened so far was the toilet flush breaking or the time I got a stomach bug. Both those times he threw the cleaning products into the cage and watched me clean up from the other side of the bunker, holding a scarf over his mouth and nose.
At least it gave me something to do. There’s never anything to do and that makes me crazy. Sometimes he brings me books. I ask for pens and pencils but one time I jabbed the pencil in my arm and he only brought me crayons after that. I draw pictures with them but I want to learn to get better. I can’t do that with wax crayons.
Sometimes he cuts my hair. Sometimes he brings down a tub and pours hot water into it so I can have a bath. He tells me he loves me and sometimes I believe it.
But I don’t want to stay here and I never have. That’s why he makes sure I’m locked in the cage every night. Then he locks me in from the main door. I hear him walk up the steps before there’s a clunk. I think there are two doors.
I’ll spend hours wondering where I am. I draw pictures of what I think it looks like. When he comes into the room, I see the mud on his boots and so I know we’re outside somewhere. Maybe it’s a field. Maybe I’m on a farm. I don’t remember much about the day I was taken. One minute I was looking at the river, the next I woke up on a bed surrounded by metal bars.
I didn’t understand anything.
I cried and cried for Mum but she never came. I guess she doesn’t know where I am because I think she’d come if she did.
I asked for a map once, but he didn’t bring it. I guess he forgot. I wanted him to show me where we were on the map. Mum used to show me maps all the time. She’d show me pictures on the computer of different places in the world and I always said that I wanted to go there.
I used to try and think of ways to get out. He used to let me out of the cage sometimes, but he was big and strong and if I tried anything I got a smack round the mouth. I’ve been trying stuff a lot recently. I dunno why. I’m changing, I guess. I’m getting bigger and I don’t like it down here anymore. I’m sick of it. I’m sick of him.
He keeps the keys in his pocket. Two weeks ago I tried to hit him with a plate, but he saw what I was going to do and pulled the plate from my hands. After that he gave me paper plates. I’m not allowed knives or anything sharp. I’m not allowed shoes with shoelaces. I have to eat cereal and bread and fruit all the time, nothing that needs knives and forks. Unless I’m supervised by him.
He’s changed too. He looks at me differently. He doesn’t do the stuff he used to. He says I’m getting big and that I look all wrong. He mumbles to himself about being tired when he thinks I’m not listening. He looks tired. I don’t think he likes keeping me a secret anymore. Sometimes I wonder if he’ll just never come back. Then I’ll run out of food, water, electricity, water… I’ll die.
There
were times when I thought it might be nice to die. At least then I might get to go somewhere else. But I don’t know for sure, so I decided not to. I might one day get out of my cage, but I might not go anywhere when I die, so it seemed too risky.
It’s 9:15. This is it. He’s never coming back. I’ve almost run out of food and I’m cold. My shirts and jumpers are all too small for me. The nights are colder lately. Maybe that means winter. I remember winter outside the bunker. I remember making a snowman and throwing snowballs. Sometimes he shows me movies on his phone. I like the Christmas movies the best. I like watching the happy families making snowmen and snow angels. But they make me cold so I only watch them when it’s warm in the bunker.
I walk back and forth in my cage trying to keep warm. I press the button on my LED light. On. Off. On. Off.
Thu-thunk.
The first door.
A scrape.
The key.
The door opens.
He’s here.
“Hiya, mate. Sorry I’m late.”
He’s always friendly like that. I don’t talk back.
“I brought you a treat. Pizza.” He grins at me.
I don’t want it to, but my mouth waters. I’m so hungry my tummy hurts.
“It’s a bit cold. It’s a walk from the car to get to here. Should’ve built this place closer.”
He always complains. Especially when he has to fill up the water tank.
“How you doing, mate? You look cold. You should wrap up in the duvet when you’re cold.”
There’s something wrong. He’s avoiding my eye and I don’t know why. He’s never brought pizza to the cage before. Why is he doing this? I stare hungrily at the pizza. I cross my arms and try to figure out why something feels wrong.
“Want to come out here and eat?” he asks.
I nod.
He puts the pizza box on the table and reaches into his pocket for the key. His fingers are shaking. Why is he trembling like he’s scared? He never has been before. Not even right at the beginning. It always frightens me that he’s so calm and in control. I never liked that. It used to make me think about what else he could do. What was he capable of? I decided he was capable of anything very early on and that was why I did everything he told me to do, no matter what.
It takes him a few attempts to unlock the cage door. He’s fumbling with his keys. He keeps his head angled away from me. I stand away like I always do. I’m not allowed near the door to my cage. I have to keep my hands out in front of me where he can see them, otherwise he’s forced to hurt me like he did the time he stamped on my ankle. Or he tells me he’ll put me back in the shackles like at the beginning.
“Stay there, Aiden,” he says in a croaky voice. “Wait at the back for a moment.”
It doesn’t feel right. He’s different today. I’ve been wondering for a while whether he’s trying to figure something out, like he’s been struggling to make a decision. Now, watching him, it seems to me that he’s made a decision and it isn’t a good one. It isn’t a decision like whether to eat pizza or Chinese takeaway, it’s something horrible. I can feel it. My insides are all squirmy, like they’re moving. I’m not hungry anymore. I just want to throw up.
The door swings open and he stands there looking at me. There are tears in his eyes.
“You’re a good boy, Aiden. You’ve always been a good boy. We’ve loved each other, haven’t we? You’ve loved me? I love you?”
I don’t answer. I’m not sure I know what love is anymore. I don’t think it’s this, though. I don’t think love should make you feel dirty like I do now.
He takes a step back, with his eyes all shiny and wet. He’s looking at me now. He won’t stop looking at me. His arm reaches back behind him and his fingers fumble with the pizza box.
I don’t think there’s pizza in there.
The lid flips open and he grabs the wooden bat inside, like the kind I used to play sports with. Rounders. That’s what it was called. We ran to bases after hitting the ball with the bat. I was always good, I got picked first. I cower away from him. That squirming feeling in my tummy is gone, instead I feel like a large, cold hand is gripping my stomach, squeezing tighter and tighter.
“I’m sorry, mate,” he says. “But I have to finish it. I can’t go on like this anymore. You’re too old now. It’s time to stop. I want to let you go, but I can’t. I just can’t, I’m sorry. I wanted to get a gun, you know, to make it quicker, but I don’t know how to shoot one. I tried to learn about pills and poisons but they can go so wrong and I didn’t want to do that to you, mate. So I’m going to do it like this. One quick blow. I can do this. I can end it this way. I know you want to die. You tried that time with the pencil. You could’ve hurt me but you did it to yourself instead. This way we both get what we want. Don’t we?”
I lift my hands to my face and realise that I’m crying. My throat is raw.
“You don’t really want me to die,” I say.
He shakes his head. “No, I don’t. But this is the way it has to end.”
“I still miss the times before. I miss the camping holiday.”
He lets out a sob. “I know you do, but I don’t. This has been everything… You’ve made it so I could live.”
“You took my life,” I reply. “I don’t love you.”
Snot trickles out of his nose. “Don’t say that, mate.” His head lowers and he pushes his blond hair away from his eyes. He wipes his nose with the back of his hand. He’s in his smart clothes today. A soft maroon jumper and trousers with the crease down the middle. He looks like someone from the telly. Someone who belongs inside the movies on his tiny phone screen. A person with their life all sorted. Doctors. Lawyers. Businessmen. He’s one of those. Outside here, he probably looks like everyone else. He’s normal.
“I still hate you, Hugh,” I say. “I always have.”
He begins singing that song, the one he sang to me when I stayed over at his house. The one he sings to me at night when he’s telling me about Josie and Mum and Dad. Dad’s in the army now. He’s a soldier. Sometimes I think about how he could shoot Hugh down with his machine gun.
He grips the bat with both hands, widens his legs and squares his shoulders. I take another step back. My legs feel like jelly and I’m either going to be sick or wee my pants. I don’t want to die, I don’t want to. But he’s bigger than me. If I fight him, would I win? I have to try. I have to.
“You should hate me, Aiden,” he says. “I thought I wanted to kill you. I was so sure.” He lowers his head and pauses. It feels like the moment is all stretched out, like it’ll go on forever. But then he says, “It has to end all the same.”
He lifts the bat like he’s going to hit me, but just as I’m bracing myself to fly towards him, to hit him first, he swings the bat upwards. He screams loudly as he hits himself in the face, smashing his nose. I scream with him, afraid of the blood spurting from his nose. Afraid of him swinging the bat again, hitting himself in the head.
Hugh falls down. He drops the bat on the ground. I run over to him and bend down.
“F-f-in-ish-it.” Bloody spit dribbles from his mouth.
I shake my head.
Hugh reaches out and pushes the bat towards me. “H-it-m-me.”
There are tears running down my face. Snot comes out of my nose. I’m scared. I don’t know what to do. I almost trip over the bat as I step away. Hugh lies there with his face all broken and bruised, with his eye all swollen. If I took the keys and left, he’d lie there in pain for hours and hours. I don’t know how hurt he is. He could die on his own. Or I could go and get help. My mind feels all weird, like it can’t cope, like it doesn’t want to make the choice.
I don’t want to make the choice.
I want it to all go away.
I bend down and pick up the bat.
I lift it over my head.
When it’s done, Hugh twitches two or three times and then he goes still. His eyes aren’t the same as they were before. They don’t glitte
r or sparkle like eyes should.
And then I think about how lucky he is because he doesn’t have to remember anymore. All his thoughts are gone and he doesn’t have to think about the cage anymore.
There’s some blood on my shirt too. I take it off and mop up the blood on the floor. I pull Hugh into a corner and put my t-shirt over him because I don’t want to see his face anymore. I pull the keys from his pocket and unlock the door. I switch off the light and hurry out of the door up the steps. The further up the steps I go, the more afraid I feel. I drop the keys before I reach the top. The air is fresh and I take two big gulps of it, but I feel shaky.
It’s dark and I don’t know where I’m going but I keep walking. There are leaves on the ground and lots of trees. It’s raining. I fall over twice.
I sing Hugh’s song.
Then I decide that I don’t want to remember anymore. Someone finds me. I know who I am, but I don’t want to tell them. I don’t want to talk to anyone, and I don’t want to remember. I want all my thoughts to go away like Hugh’s thoughts all went away.
I don’t want to remember.
45
I called her Gina after my mother. She had my eyes and Jake’s mouth, but we won’t talk about how she looks like Jake. The nurse brought Aiden in to see me and his new sister after the labour was over. I took my small, squirming little baby, swaddled in a soft blanket, and I gave her to my son to hold. The son who had frightened me, and who I’d thought was dangerous. The son the media called ‘feral’ and insinuated was uncivilised after his incarceration away from society. Aiden cradled her gently in his arms as though she was precious, delicate cargo. And she was. She was as perfect as Aiden had been when he was born. She was a fighter. We both were. We’d been through hell together and now we were both rewarded by her being here. She was alive and perfect and I was glad I’d fought for our future.
Silent Child Page 27