‘Okay.’
‘I’m going to untie you, and we’re going to spend the rest of the weekend decorating the nursery together.’
I stared at him. ‘Really?’
‘I thought about what you said. I want to have a relationship with you again. It’s going to be very hard for me to trust you, but we can start making some little steps.’
He undid my wrist and smiled at me. ‘Come on, then,’ he said, ‘let’s go.’
I followed him out of the bedroom and into the nursery next door, where he slept on a mattress on the floor. He had stopped sleeping with me once I became pregnant, saying that he didn’t want to stress me and the baby out. I wondered sometimes what he did for sex now, because I didn’t believe he could ever be content dealing with his needs himself. On a few occasions I had heard him go out somewhere in the middle of the night, and the fact that when he came home he always had a shower made me not want to wonder about it anymore, because I had a suspicion about what he was doing, and I didn’t really want to think about it.
I helped him carry his “bed” out of the room, and he put down a large pot of creamy white paint along with a couple of rollers.
‘We need to wash the walls first,’ I said, touching the existing grotty blue paintwork. ‘Like you did in the main bedroom.’
Jay scowled. I was the one who’d had to explain to him how to go about decorating the main bedroom, as he had no clue about any of it.
‘It’s fine,’ I said, ‘just go and get the sugar soap and some cloths. And sandpaper.’
I knew what the problem was. Those things were in a different room and he didn’t want to leave me unsupervised, yet he also didn’t want to go back on his promise to let me help him. In the end his caution won out and he put me back in the main bedroom and locked it from the outside, like he did when he was at work.
When he came back up I could see his mood was beginning to take a turn for the worse, but he let me out and we started work on the walls in the nursery.
‘I wish…’ he said, after a while, ‘I wish I could trust you.’
‘You can,’ I said.
‘I know what you’re doing,’ he said, ‘you’ll leave the second you get an opportunity. You’re just playing a long game and waiting until I give you enough freedom that you won’t have to fight me.’
‘We’re never going to have a relationship if you believe that,’ I said. I tried to keep my voice light, but inside I could have screamed. It was exactly what I was trying to do.
‘I guess we’ll never have a relationship, then,’ he said.
…
Despite what he said, he relaxed a little as the day went on. He still kept a close eye on me, but he stayed calm and even let me come downstairs for dinner, which to my surprise was pizza, although true to form he put a big bowl of salad down on the table to go with it. I helped myself to some while he sorted out drinks for us both, giving me a glass of apple juice and himself some mineral water from a bottle in the fridge.
‘Maybe you should think about trying to get a job working with food,’ I told him, ‘isn’t that what you wanted to do, when you were younger?’
He sat down at the table. ‘That was a long time ago,’ he said. ‘I thought I might try to get an HGV license.’
I put my slice of pizza down. ‘You want to be a lorry driver?’
Jay carried on eating, ignoring me for a while. ‘Jay?’ I said.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘maybe. I need to earn more money.’
‘Will you earn more money doing that?’
He shrugged.
‘Jay,’ I said slowly, ‘wouldn’t driving a lorry mean you had to go away overnight?’
‘Probably.’
‘Then, how will you look after me?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘I’d figure it out.’
I munched through my pizza quietly.
‘You know what I wanted to do, when I was younger?’ I said.
‘No,’ Jay replied, but he looked interested. ‘Didn’t you always want to make jewellery?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘not always. Before that I wanted to be a blacksmith.’
Jay frowned.
‘Yeah, exactly,’ I said, ‘that’s the response I got when I told the career advisor who came to the school once. Actually, I think she laughed. I mean, how many blacksmiths do you think there are nowadays?’
‘None?’ Jay suggested.
‘Well, there are some,’ I said, ‘but it was never very realistic.’
Jay considered what I’d said for a moment. ‘What’s your point?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘I don’t have a point. I’m just… talking.’
We fell into silence until we’d almost finished eating. ‘Fliss,’ Jay said finally, ‘The only reason I’m talking about changing job is so I can look after you and the baby better. That’s all I think about. You know that, don’t you? Since you got pregnant, it drew a line under everything that happened before. I’ve forgiven you for everything you did.’
I found suddenly that I couldn’t swallow, as I remembered how angry he’d been that I was going to run away with Mark. I’d thought he would never stop punishing me for it.
‘Jay, can I ask you something?’ I said.
‘Of course you can.’
‘When he… when he saw you again… his reaction was strange. Mark, I mean.’
‘We don’t mention that man’s name in this house,’ Jay said flatly.
‘I know, but… Jay…he seemed… it was like he seemed pleased in a way, to see you.’
Jay shrugged. ‘He’s a weirdo,’ he said.
‘Yeah, but—’
‘Let’s not talk about it anymore.’
After dinner we did a little more painting, and instead of Jay washing me in the bath like he usually did I had a shower on my own while he hovered on the landing outside. We curled up in bed together and watched a bit of TV, then Jay attached me to the headboard again for the night.
‘I’ll see you in the morning,’ he said.
‘Jay,’ I said.
‘Yeah?’
‘Why don’t you stay in here tonight and sleep with me?’
Jay thought about it for a long time. ‘I’m not sure it’s a good idea,’ he said.
‘You could just sleep here, couldn’t you?’ I asked. ‘I mean, no sex, we could just be in here together.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’d like to try it. And besides, the nursery smells of paint, you can’t sleep in there.’
Jay stood up.
‘Jay, please,’ I said. ‘Can’t we try?’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘that’s what I’m doing.’
‘Why are you going then?’
‘Fliss,’ he said, ‘calm down. I’m coming back. Just let me brush my teeth.’
41
I lay awake half the night by Jay’s side, but the problem was he did too. I knew he was scared that if he fell asleep I’d find some way to attack him, although how he thought I’d detach myself from the bed I had no idea. I knew full well he wouldn’t be stupid enough to have the handcuff keys with him in bed or even in the room, and if I knew how else to release myself I’d have done it a long time ago. In the early days I’d spent hours trying to think of ways to get out of the handcuff, chain, headboard arrangement, but it had proved futile. Jay had even attached the legs of the bed to the wall with heavy metal fixings, so I couldn’t move or drag it across the floor. I’d tried calling out when I heard the postman come to the door, but as far as I could tell he never heard me, and we didn’t get much in the way of post anyway. I understood from rare occasions when I had looked out of windows that the house was deep in the countryside. There were no neighbouring houses, and on one side we were hidden by woods, while to the other were rolling fields. There were a couple of buildings dotting these fields in the distance, but they were too far away to be of any use to me.
We carried on with the nursery the next day, and h
ad almost finished painting by mid-afternoon. Jay brought mugs of tea upstairs and we sat on the floor with them, talking about our progress on the room, and what we’d do next. Then I decided that after the failure of him sleeping in the same bed with me that I’d try something more radical.
‘I want to have sex with you,’ I said bluntly.
Jay smiled. ‘No, you don’t,’ he said.
‘I do. It’s been months, Jay. I still have feelings.’
Jay slammed his mug of tea down on the floor and glared at me. ‘You really think I don’t understand what you’re trying to do,’ he said.
‘I’m trying to have sex with my boyfriend.’
Jay stood up and picked up the paintbrush he was using for the fiddly bits around the door frame.
‘If you need sex, Felicity, you’re more than welcome to go in the bedroom and take care of it on your own. Or do it right in here in front of me if you want. But don’t treat me like an idiot.’
He started painting the thin strip of wall between the door frame and the ceiling, and I stood up.
‘How are you ever going to know if you can trust me if you never let me show you how I feel?’ I said. ‘Isn’t it possible that I might want you? Have you ever even thought about that?’
He watched me for a long time. Then his face changed. He threw his paintbrush down, making a spatter of white droplets across the floor. ‘You want me to have sex with you, do you?’ he said.
‘Yes.’
He took hold of my arm and dragged me into the bedroom, where he pushed me onto the bed and laid down next to me. He kissed me briefly, so hard it was almost painful, then he leant down to my ear. ‘Have you heard me go out at night, Fliss?’ he asked me.
‘Ye…yes,’ I said.
‘Do you know where I go?’
‘I don’t want… I don’t need to know.’
His hand moved to the top of my jeans and no matter how hard I tried to stop it, my body stiffened.
‘You don’t want me,’ he said.
‘I do! I’m nervous, that’s all—’
‘I pay for it,’ Jay hissed in my ear, ‘that’s where I go.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said, ‘I don’t mind—’
Jay thrust his hand down my jeans and my body betrayed me again, reacting so strongly to the touch of his fingers that a kind of convulsion of horror went through my waist and my hips and Jay took his hand away.
‘Don’t treat me like this,’ Jay said, ‘don’t fucking lie to me, you stupid, little, bitch!’
He was kneeling next to me on the bed now, shouting down into my face, and I couldn’t help but start to cry.
‘How gullible do you think I am?’ he said, ‘do you think I’m stupid?’
‘No,’ I moaned.
‘You think I don’t know that you’re trying to run away with the baby, with my baby—’
‘I’m not,’ I said, ‘I’m not, I swear—’
‘You’re lying!’ he said. ‘Admit it. Admit it to me.’
He slapped me. ‘Admit it,’ he said. He slapped me again, and again, and again, until finally I snapped.
‘Fine!’ I cried. ‘I was trying to leave! But what choice do I have? What are you offering our baby? I am scared, Jay! What’s going to happen if I go into labour and you’re not here? What’s going to happen when the baby’s born and I can’t even get out the house if I need to take it to the doctor? Women die giving birth, Jay, and babies can die, and I’ve never even seen a doctor or a midwife, let alone had a scan, and I don’t want to live trapped in a room for the rest of my life with a child who’s never even been outside! What happens when it’s supposed to go to school and we’ve never registered the birth? What happens when it starts asking why mummy is locked up like a prisoner, and where daddy goes in the middle of the night? Do you want your child to realise one day what you did, that you locked me up in the house, forced me to have a baby and then got your kicks by going out to have sex with prostitutes?’
Jay stared down at me, then he grabbed my wrist and wrenched it back towards the headboard, cuffing me straight to it rather than using the chain that allowed me greater movement.
‘How dare you talk to me like that?’ he said, ‘when I do everything for you—’
‘Well I don’t want you to!’ I screamed. ‘I hate you! I hate it here, and I don’t want my baby anywhere near you. You’re a pathetic, weak, sick man—’
‘Sick?’ Jay said, ‘how am I sick? When I care for you, and cook for you, and fucking wash you—’
‘Because you keep me here like a prisoner!’ I shouted, ‘and… and do you know what else? I know what you have inside that shoebox!’
Jay’s face went white.
‘What?’ he whispered.
‘I know that Sammie is missing,’ I said, ‘and I know that you hurt her, and I know that she was pregnant!’
He was still staring at me in disbelief. ‘Mark told me some of it,’ I said, ‘and I discovered the rest myself. The newspaper article, and those pictures. Of Sammie.’
I could see the shock on his face. ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘I found them, and I looked at them. It’s disgusting Jay. You’re disgusting. That what keeps you warm at night, is it? Does it make you feel like a man, looking at pictures of an underage teenage girl—’
Jay hit me again, but this time everything went black.
42
For the next couple of weeks or so Jay and I reached an unstable truce. He stayed suspicious of me, unsurprisingly since I’d made it crystal clear how little I wanted to be with him, and he punished me in small ways; taking my books and magazines away or hiding the remote control so I couldn’t watch my little TV, or not giving me enough food, so that when he got home I was starving and he could make me beg for something to eat. For four days in a row he didn’t bathe me or let me change my clothes, until I think I began to look and smell bad enough that he was forced to act. If I irritated or provoked him in even the smallest most unintentional way he’d slap me, and sometimes he’d put my dinner on the floor, so I had to eat it like a dog.
Gradually, I began to realise that this room I had spent all these long months in really would be where I gave birth, and where I started caring for my baby. Why we’d even bothered painting and furnishing a nursery, I could only guess. It was just a stupid dream; some idea of Jay’s that everything would be okay. I could see that in reality I’d be locked in the bedroom indefinitely, with the baby in its cot by my side, and these four walls would be my whole world.
As the days went on I kept trying to think of ways to save myself. I knew my best option was not so much escape, which was difficult and dangerous, but instead to call for help.
As far as I knew there were two devices I potentially had access to that I could use to contact the outside world – Jay’s laptop and Jay’s phone. The phone he took with him whenever he left the house and the laptop he hid somewhere. When he spent time with me upstairs his phone was generally not in his pocket – where presumably he thought I might steal it – instead he left it downstairs, knowing perhaps that my chances of getting free from my handcuffs, running downstairs, and calling somebody before he stopped me were basically zero. He’d also told me on several occasions that there was no phone signal inside the house, and sure enough he had gone outside to make calls on several occasions, though whether this was really to get signal or to avoid being overheard I couldn’t be sure. Inside the house, his phone or laptop would automatically connect to the internet assuming the router was on, and Jay regularly used the internet, albeit not usually in my presence. Events like looking for clothes and baby things online together were few and far between, and he never took his eyes off me for a second when they did happen.
I was trying to imagine what sort of scenario I could create that would involve me either stealing one of these devices or him accidently leaving them in the room with me, when fate intervened and delivered an opportunity, so unexpectedly I almost didn’t see it before it was too late.
It was one night that I had been sleeping badly. The baby was restless, I felt hot and panicky and uncomfortable, and the anxieties I already had about the birth made me start imagining things were wrong. I called out to Jay, and he came and sat with me, holding my hand and trying to soothe me.
‘You’re okay, Fliss,’ he said, ‘you’re okay.’
He used his phone to check on my symptoms, asking me questions and reassuring me when the website gave him answers. I fell into an exhausted sleep near dawn, and soon after he went to have a shower before work, and though he left the room, his phone didn’t. It was still on the bedside table, and I woke up because it made the little chiming sound that alerted him he had an email.
I very nearly went straight back to sleep. I was exhausted and I didn’t immediately grasp the significance of the sound, but something in my mind made the connection and I sat bolt upright, looking around the room until my eyes suddenly came to rest on the bedside table, and when I saw the phone really was there my breath caught in my throat. I had to blink several times to reassure myself I wasn’t seeing things.
It was easy to reach across and grab it. It felt bizarre in my hands; the first time I’d held a phone since he brought me to the house. I felt absurdly guilty, and my cheeks began to grow hot. Now I had it, I didn’t know what to do with it. I sat stupidly, gripping the thing in my hand, my mind completely blank. I could hear the shower, but it wasn’t a loud shower and there was no extractor fan in the bathroom that would obscure any sounds I made. If I phoned somebody and started talking, there was every chance he would hear me, and in any case I saw he had been telling the truth. The phone had no signal. My only hope was to get in touch with someone online.
My hands were shaking as I logged in to my email account and I could immediately see Mark had contacted me, and contacted me a lot. There were hundreds of messages from him, far too many to read. In the bathroom, the sound of the shower stopped. I had five minutes, tops, before Jay came in to get dressed, perhaps far less. I tried to think. This was my only chance, but the pressure meant I couldn’t gather my thoughts. What the hell should I say? I took a slow, deep breath. I had no time to write an elaborate message, I just needed Mark to know where I was. I opened up a map online, my heart in my throat as I waited for it to load. Every second I thought I’d hear Jay’s footsteps, but then I could make out the sound of the bathroom tap, so he must still be in there doing something. The map finished loading, and to my relief I didn’t even need to do anything to trigger it to tell me where I was, it was showing my location automatically, and there on the map was a big, round marker. I didn’t have time to investigate more fully. The area around us was pretty blank, I could see that much; few roads, no close towns. That was about what I had worked out myself about our location, and from that point of view at least the map looked accurate.
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