by Jo Verity
Thoughts careered around in her head, leaving vapour trails of panic. As soon as she concentrated on one, another cannoned into it, knocking it aside. Who knew that she was missing? Was this a punishment for her behaviour with Bill? Did she want Prosser to come back or not? Her father must be going frantic. How long before the water ran out? At least she had a granddaughter. Is that what was meant by ‘life everlasting’? This would ruin Flora’s wedding plans. She didn’t want to die in this disgusting place. She wished she’d travelled more. Who would nip the side-shoots out of the tomatoes? What were the last words she’d said to Tom? Would she be brave? She did so want to be brave.
The hands on her watch edged forward but temperature, smell, sound, light levels – nothing else in the cellar varied. ‘Sensory deprivation, that’s what it is.’ Putting a name to what she was experiencing made her feel she a chance of dealing with it. It was critical to keep busy, not to start drifting. She picked up her earrings and hooked them over the lip of one of the glass jars. They dangled, colourful and frivolous, in the drabness.
Her joints, especially hips and ankles, were stiff after a night lying rigid and sleepless on the unforgiving cushions. Moving about helped the stiffness and kept her warm. She took off the cardigan and began some of the gentler exercises she’d learned in a long-ago keep-fit class. Jenny had persuaded her to sign up one January, after a particularly indulgent Christmas. They followed each session with coffee and cakes at the patisserie around the corner. Jenny used to be fun then. Sally must have been at work and Celia was never keen to do anything physical. Poor Celia. She wouldn’t last five minutes in Prosser’s cellar.
The previous day, during the worst moments, she’d struggled to control her bowels. Through the night things had improved but the exercises had re-activated the churning. It was something she had been dreading. Peeing was bad enough but… She had no choice but to use the bucket and she replaced the chintz cover, holding her breath. Demoralised and disgusted, she sat on her bed and sobbed, stopping only when the taste of salty tears alerted her to the waste of body fluids.
Her spirits rose then plummeted. One minute, confident that she would be rescued within hours, the next, convinced that Prosser would return to perform some unspeakable act.
She must formulate a plan. The only way out of the cellar was through the padlocked door. Unable to put much weight on her right foot, she dragged herself to the top of the steps, using the worn handrail. The door was hinged and locked on the kitchen side, giving her nothing to work on, even if she had some tools. For all she knew, Prosser might be on the other side of the wretched door, listening to her crying and talking to herself. ‘You bastard.’ she shouted. ‘You fucking pervert. You prick.’ It was exhilarating to curse him but disappointing that her vocabulary of swear words was so limited. Of course he wouldn’t be there. It was eleven o’clock on a Thursday morning and he would be stationed behind the Post Office counter, selling stamps and weighing parcels.
What would Tom do, if he were in her position? When she got out of here and could tell him about it, he’d say ‘Why on earth didn’t you…?’ and come out with a simple solution. Was she missing something obvious? She strained to hear his calm voice, giving her some hint, some clue, some comfort.
She’d eaten four biscuits and drunk about a litre of water. People in mortal danger would often recycle liquid. Hadn’t she read about miners surviving for weeks underground, drinking their own urine? Should she pee into the jars and use the bucket just for solids?
There were twenty-seven empty jars on the worm-eaten shelves. Some appeared to be old, with lettering and fancy patterns moulded in the glass. Trade names which she recalled from her grandmother’s larder. Someone (Prosser’s mother?) had brought them down these steps, in a ‘waste-not-want-not’ era, when everything was used and reused. How old was this house, anyway? The cement render made it difficult to date and could have been applied long after the house was built. The cellar was lined with bricks. When did bricks become readily available? There was so much that she didn’t know.
She transferred the jars to the corner near the bucket, keeping back the one with the earrings and two more, for drinking and washing. Gathering the few items that lay on the shelves, she examined each one, desperate to find something useful. There was a metal clamp-like thing that might be a mole trap; several dozen white ceramic tiles, half of them chipped; a paper bag of assorted nails and screws; a small brush, the sort that accompanies a dustpan, bristles sparse and clogged with cobwebs; and a metal container, empty, with a handle and a screw cap, which might have held motor oil or paraffin. She removed the cap and sniffed the tin, instantly transported to her father’s shed, where a tiny paraffin heater kept them warm on frosty days. Nothing amongst this rusting collection offered a solution and, disappointed, she lay down on the bed.
This was undoubtedly the most dangerous situation she had ever been in, but she was finding it incredibly difficult to believe it was happening. Ironic, considering how much of her life she spent dreaming up things to worry about. Admittedly she was experiencing anxiety symptoms – raised heart rate, churning stomach, spells of uncontrollable shaking – but these symptoms were detached from the specific situation. She wasn’t scared that she might die, she was just scared.
People who spent long periods in solitary confinement often professed to being blessed with deeper self-awareness. (Assuming they survived, of course). Given that she must be rescued today, or at the very latest tomorrow, when could she expect this blinding revelation? She lay on her back, eyes closed, blanket over her face, trying to address the issues that really mattered. After fifty-one years on the earth she had two healthy daughters and one beautiful granddaughter. Married to a wonderful man for twenty-eight years. A comfortable home. Some good friends. A productive garden. A collection of lovely pots.
It was no more than a smug, self-congratulatory list and she had another stab at it.
Jobs that she hadn’t taken because Tom didn’t want to move. Travelling that she’d longed to do but couldn’t, because of family responsibilities. The balancing acts. The compromises. The battles with, and about, Madeleine. A more honest list, but she was no nearer enlightenment.
Try again. How had she made her major life-choices? A poem snatched at the hem of her memory. By an American writer. Something about two paths leading through a wood. Out of curiosity or cussedness, the poet had taken the overgrown path, whereas she’d plodded along the highway, taking the easiest way, the softest option, never brave enough to explore the byways. Well, she was definitely off the beaten track at the moment. She must search out the poem on her next visit to the library.
Standing on a crate, she squinted out through a ventilation brick and saw that it was a beautiful day, out there in the wonderful world. Nothing that she had come across in her inventory would pass through the tiny holes in the brick, but perhaps sound waves might and she held the oil-can near the vent, pounding it with a wine bottle. The noise was deafening inside the confined space and she had no idea whether it was carrying beyond the wall. Random tapping might easily be confused with someone hammering nails, so she beat out the universal Morse code signal. Dot-dot-dot, dash-dash-dash, dot-dot-dot. Every now and again she shrieked ‘Help’. After a while her throat became sore, so she sucked a Softmint and rationed the SOS activity to five minutes every half-hour or so.
During the afternoon she urinated into one of the jars and proudly placed it on the shelf.
The tapping and shouting provided a structure to the afternoon. Between bouts of tapping, she exercised but, without pencil and paper to note down her schedule, it was easy to lose track of what to do and when to do it. For some reason, none of the things seemed to have any worth when performed randomly and sporadically. During one of the stretching exercises, she felt something in her back trouser pocket. It was an empty seed packet, bearing the exotic name ‘Offenham Flower of Spring 2’. A perfect cabbage was pictured on the front, deep green with white veins
spreading across the outer leaves, making them look like green elephant ears. Sometimes, when they had a glut of a particular vegetable, she would cook a whole panful and they would devour it with thick wedges of bread and butter. Only yesterday she had scattered these seeds along the shallow drill. They would be lying there now, beneath the soil, waiting for a warm shower to trigger them into life.
She flattened the crumpled envelope and placed it inside the earring jar, pushing it against the glass to display it, like a masterpiece in a curved frame.
By evening, she was feeling sick. During the day she’d eaten six more biscuits, a few mints and drunk another litre or so of water. If Prosser intended to come, it would have to be soon. She’d rehearsed what she would say to him, speaking the words aloud to check their coherence. Her aim was to engage him in conversation, hoping to get an idea of what he planned to do with her and then persuade him to bring more food and water. Above all, she was determined to remain calm and dignified.
Like a hospital patient preparing for visitors, she tidied her bed. Her hair was matted and she re-plaited it, using her splayed fingers as a comb. Would the way she had reorganised the contents of the cellar annoy him? Urine had become crucial to her plan and she pushed the filled jars behind the empty ones. He was vindictive enough to tip it down the drain. She moved the oil can into the shadows and camouflaged the beating-bottle amongst the others.
At ten o’clock she gave up listening for his tread on the floor above, peed into a jar and crawled under the blanket.
The last proper meal she’d eaten was lunch, thirty-six hours ago. They’d eaten cheese and pickle in wholemeal rolls followed by leftovers of an apple pie. Food fantasies came crowding in. If she closed her eyes, plates piled with fish and chips, a thick fillet steak, Christmas dinner with all the trimmings, hovered mirage-like in front of her. She ate four biscuits, one after the other.
When the children had found it hard to sleep, she would encourage them to ‘think about your day and all the lovely things you’ve done.’ Her day in the cellar was not a sleep-inducing meditation and, instead, she thought back to her school days, moving from desk to desk, row to row. Gail Lloyd – long plaits falling below her waist. Alan Brace – good at sport. Angela Something, whose sister had died in a car crash. John Christie – wore wellington boots whatever the weather. Their form teacher, a joyless, bitter man, thin, with nicotine-stained fingers. Jenkins. That was it.
College next and Duncan. Her beautiful Duncan. Her first lover. One day they’d fallen out of love and cried together, as if someone had died. They hadn’t kept in touch, although they’d promised they would. She’d seen an article about him a few years ago in one of the Sundays. Now a well-respected painter, the picture showed him, a thin, bald stranger, standing in front of some dingy abstracts.
She was unable to keep them out of her thoughts any longer. Flora. Self-possessed and undemanding, so like Tom in looks and temperament. A child who only demanded that things be fair and just. When she was seven or eight she’d asked, ‘Is there really a Father Christmas? Promise you’ll tell me the truth.’ With Christmas a good six months away, Anna had decided that it was the right time. ‘No. But don’t tell Maddy. She’s only a little girl.’ Flora had burst into tears, sobbing for hours, not because it spoiled Christmas, but because she felt silly for ever having believed the fairy story.
And beautiful, difficult, unpredictable Madeleine who had caused them so much anxiety over the years, with her wild streak and her refusal to compromise. This daughter had set out on the less trodden path but would she be able to stick to it, with a daughter of her own to rear?
Then there he was, her Tom, calm and constant, smelling of wood smoke and soap. His broad hands with their cared-for nails, competent yet capable of such tenderness. Her best friend in the whole world, he might be undressing now, pulling his shirt over his head as he had done every night of their married life. She would never again complain about those unbuttoned shirts.
29
She curled into a ball in an attempt to ease her cramping stomach. After a wakeful hour, she gave up. There were nine biscuits left. The damp had crept inside the wrapper and softened them but they tasted wonderful. She ate two, hoping that by giving her digestive system something to work on, she might get back to sleep.
Moving about used precious energy and she returned to bed, lying on her front to protect her eyes from the light and comfort her stomach. The sweet aftertaste of biscuits filled her mouth and made her thirsty again.
Would they be asleep now? Tom might. He was hopeless if he got less than his eight hours. And how were they managing for food? Of course everyone would rally round and sort out the practicalities. People love to have something to do in an emergency. It would be best if Maddy and Seren remained in Bath with her father, away from the unpleasantness, because even tiny babies pick up on tension.
It must be the most exciting thing that had ever happened in Cwm Bont and the village would be buzzing with it. Len would be having the time of his life, disseminating gossip straight from the epicentre. In the Post Office, Prosser would be selling newspapers and tins of baked beans, as usual, confident that neither his wife, nor anyone else for that matter, would come to this house. Surely Mrs. Prosser must have an inkling that her husband was up to something. From the number of items in the drawer, it seemed that Prosser had been ‘collecting’ for a while. She’d know if Tom were stealing underwear. Wouldn’t she?
What if Prosser never came back, or came back but didn’t visit the cellar? The door could remain shut forever, or at least until someone else moved into the house. He could carry on with his normal day-to-day routine and, in two or three weeks, she would be dead. Alive she was a liability, dead, no problem at all. Obviously the police would question everyone in Cwm Bont but would they suspect him? Was there anything to connect him with her? If he had a criminal record, or had done something unsavoury in the past, wouldn’t they have heard about it?
The unwavering light from the sixty-watt bulb gave no indication of passing time. Her watch was her only point of reference and she took it off, placing it carefully on the shelf near her bed. Some stretches of the day dragged and it required enormous self-discipline not to watch the second hand, jerking through the minutes.
Today was Friday the 15th August. She knew the kitchen calendar didn’t have it highlighted as an important day, but it might possibly turn out to be the day on which she died. Her death day. Everyone had a death day which they negotiated each year except their last. The family would always think of her on her death day, assuming, of course, that they knew when it was.
Determined to record the passing days, she experimented. Using the longest nail from the paper bag, it was easy to make marks on the wooden shelves but more satisfactory results came from scratching the oil-can. The can was already covered with indentations on the broader sides, where she had been striking it with the bottle, but the narrow sides were perfect for her rudimentary calendar. With the initial letters of the weekdays inscribed, top to bottom, she could make a down-stroke against each at noon every day. It was logical to start with a W for Wednesday, her first day in captivity. The nail slipped across the frictionless surface but she persevered, tracing the strokes over and over, until they combined to form one bold mark. When she’d finished, she held the can at arm’s length, twisting it from side to side, the light picking out the W, T and F.
The family would survive without her. They would be distraught for – how long? A year? Six months? Sad too, of course, and it would spoil their lives for a while. They always say that a missing person is more difficult to deal with than a dead one and people might cross the street to avoid them, stuck for appropriate words. Eventually, they would accept that she was gone and ‘move on’ as the jargon went, slipping naturally into the past tense when they spoke about her. ‘Mum was this… Mum used to do that…’
After seven years she could be ‘presumed dead’. Tom would be getting on for sixty then. Funn
ily enough, Jenny had been telling her some tale, only last week, about a woman whose missing husband had returned after sixteen years, only to find that she’d married his best friend. Tom would never marry Sally but what sort of a woman might he choose? A tidy, housewifely one, organised and reliable, who would replace the cap on the toothpaste and fold the newspaper properly. He rarely criticised her but more than once she had caught him watching her, as though observing an alien life form. Then she remembered that her father had chosen Dorothy for his second wife and there was no satisfactory explanation for that.
Flora would marry Luke and lead a worthy, uneventful life. If Sally spent her days wandering round the world and Bill didn’t have the nerve to return, Tom would be delighted to overcompensate for a shortfall of grandparents, when babies came along.
Madeleine would, no doubt, continue to get it wrong. But at least she would experience great passion in her roller-coaster life, always drawn to the Brendans of this world while, try as they might, the Taliesins failed to win her.
And they would all make these mistakes whether she were there or not. If truth were told, and for all her efforts, she had exercised little influence on their lives for years. This realisation lifted a great burden from her and she felt giddy with relief.
Her stomach rumbled most of the time, breaking the silence with aquatic gurgles. Occasionally it griped so badly that it took her breath away. A small quantity of water remained but five jars of urine, in varying shades of amber, stood on the shelf. Her ankle was extremely swollen, the skin around the wound red and hot. Even if she could spare some water, the gash needed more than a dab with a grubby cloth. Urine might possibly be a natural antiseptic but, then again, it might not. She trawled her memory for the answer but all she came up with was the image of an enthusiastic young television presenter, collecting droplets of water from a cut he’d made in the trunk of a silver birch. The memory of the clear liquid dripping into the fragile cup, fashioned from the bark of the tree, was too much and she wept into the musty blanket draped around her shoulders.