Seven Days

by Alex Lake

  The man hadn’t said that, but he didn’t need to. It was implicit in his refusal. He rarely gave her anything. It was only after weeks of begging when Seb was born that he’d brought a box of Lego, the large ones for little kids. Duplo, they were called. There weren’t many, but Max – as Seb had – loved them. He played with them for hours, arranging them into towers and arches and walls. Once he had made a rectangle filled with odd-shaped objects and Maggie had asked him what it was.

  Our house, he replied. Look. That’s the bath. That’s you and me. That’s the bed.

  She had to bite back the tears. Other kids were building space rockets or gardens or trains. Max was building the only thing he knew.

  This shitty prison.

  And so she took him places in his imagination, described the blue of the sea by pointing to his blue socks, but told him the sea was a different blue, a brilliant blue, a beautiful shining blue, words that he didn’t understand but which reminded her of the world out there, of what she too was missing. She explained the coolness of the breeze by moistening his forehead and blowing on it, and the warmth of the sun by rubbing her hands until they were hot and placing them on his chest. All of it was a pale imitation of the real thing, but it was all she had.

  She didn’t stop there; she told stories of magical palaces and boats and rivers where Max and she had wild adventures. Along the way they met heroic people with the names Grandpa Martin and Grandma Sandra and Uncle James and Aunty Anne and Chrissie and Fern. She told him how Chrissie was brave and loyal but could be grumpy and Fern was funny and clever but left things wherever she went. She told him how Uncle James was kind of grumpy but sweet and well-meaning, and how Aunty Anne was wise and Grandpa and Grandma were kind and loving, and how they loved him in particular. The stories ended with huge parties where there was every kind of food and all the toys a boy could wish for. She wondered what Max thought chocolate and jelly beans and burgers and milkshakes tasted like. She wondered whether he would ever find out.

  She sat on the mattress and watched him play with the Duplo. Behind him, by the door, were two plates. Max had left half of the mashed potato and baked beans the man had brought; Maggie had barely touched hers.

  ‘OK, Max,’ she said. ‘Time for our exercises.’

  She was worried he didn’t get enough activity – of course he didn’t, living in a cell – so for the last year or so she had been doing exercises with him. They began with jogging on the spot – he found that amusing – and then they dropped to the floor and did press-ups and sit-ups. Max’s press-ups mainly consisted of him raising his bottom in the air and then collapsing to the floor, but it was something. Maggie had found that, as the months went by, she could do more and more of them; now it was no trouble to do fifty at a stretch. She also did tricep dips and planks; she could hold the plank for over four minutes.

  Maggie took off her T-shirt and shorts – it was always uncomfortably hot in the room, the air still and cloying; the only time there was any fresh air was when the man came and cooler air gusted in through the open door – and knelt on the floor. She dropped into the press-up position and did twenty press-ups, then held herself on her elbows.

  ‘OK, Max,’ she said. ‘Come and join me.’

  Max toddled over. He was in a pair of dirty underpants – she tried to keep them clean, but it was hard with only soap and cold water – and lay on his belly next to her. On the back of the underpants was a Superman logo she’d drawn once, after telling him the story of how Superman had come from the planet Krypton to save people on Earth from their own folly. As she recounted the story she had been gripped by a powerful feeling that Superman would burst into the room and rescue them at any moment. He hadn’t, but for days she had been left with a vague sensation of hope.

  Max levered himself up into the plank position. He was still some way off a four-minute plank. Once he had managed about twenty seconds, but this time it was closer to four seconds before his buttocks started to quiver with the effort. After a few more seconds his hips slowly lowered to the carpet.

  ‘Watch, Mummy,’ he said, looking up at her. ‘Watch what I can do.’

  He started to wiggle his legs and arms and shake his head from side to side.

  ‘Wow,’ she said. She paused while she searched for an appropriate description of his gyrations. ‘You’re break-dancing!’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m being a snake. A snake doing yoga.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Of course.’ For a while they’d done some stretches she remembered from PE and she’d told him they were doing yoga, and it had obviously stuck with him.

  He wiggled around for a while, a look of triumph on his face, then stood up and ran to Maggie. He jumped on her back and pressed his cheek to her skin.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Ride the horsey!’

  Maggie twisted and bucked in an attempt to throw him off. It was a game they had played since he was very small. She had done it with Seb and Leo, but they had not enjoyed it nearly as much as Max. He shrieked with pleasure, laughing uncontrollably. It was a strange thing; despite the circumstances, he was a very happy child. Of course, he had no sense that he was missing out on anything, because he knew no different. In some ways it was the perfect set-up for a toddler: unfettered access to his mum and a guarantee of her undivided attention. Nonetheless, Seb and Leo had not been as happy as Max was. Seb was quiet, and prone to outbursts of crying. He’d been like that ever since he was born, sleeping fitfully and whimpering in his crib during the day. Leo was more like Max, but had a wild temper. From time to time, and without apparent reason, he would have screaming fits during which he was totally unreachable. He would hit her, and, if she tried to hold him, claw at her cheeks.

  She had put it down to living in a tiny room, but then Max came along, and she wondered whether it was simply the way Seb and Leo were. Nature, not nurture. After all, if it was all down to circumstances, they should all have been the same – this was the perfect way to test. In normal life there were other things that could influence a child’s development, but not here. This was like a cruel experiment designed to examine how three children in the exact same environment turned out differently.

  And Max, unlike the brothers he would never meet, was as happy as they came. Perhaps Seb and Leo got it from their dad – she hated even thinking of him as their father, but it was true, at least biologically – and Max took after someone else. He certainly had a look of her brother, the same fair hair and innocent, questioning blue eyes, the same goofy smile and easy laugh.

  That was one of the things she regretted most, when she looked at her third son: that he would never meet his uncle, and that her brother, who had been a constant, daily irritation through her unfairly truncated teenage years, would never get to be the mentor to his nephew that he would, in her imagination, have become.

  James would have loved him. He would have loved all three of her sons, with the same fierce, painful love that she did.

  But Max was the only one she had left. He was the only one James would ever be able to love, and all she wanted in the entire universe was to save him so he could meet his uncle and have the life he deserved.

  And she was going to.

  Somehow.

  2

  When she had successfully bucked him off her back enough times to satisfy him, Maggie sat cross-legged on the floor. Max was on her lap, his legs around her waist. She had her hands on his hips; he was holding her forearms, running his fingers over the soft, fair hairs that grew there. They were new sometime in the last ten years; she didn’t know when they had started to grow, but she had not had them when she was fifteen.

  A lot else had changed, too. Some of it – the hair on her forearms, the ache in her knees – were the result of time passing. Other stuff – the sallow skin, persistent cough, acne on her forehead – were from the lack of light and movement and good food. Others still – the heavier breasts, wider hips – were from the pregnancies.

  It was one of the
strangest features of her imprisonment. Around her, nothing had changed. Her life was frozen. She had not finished school – not even got her GCSEs – not gone to university, not got a job and a house and a car and a husband. All those things were impossibly distant for her, the achievements and waypoints of the life she had been denied.

  And yet she was getting older. She had grown up, become a woman, both mentally and physically. Her life was moving along, slipping away. Ten years from now her metabolism would be slowing down; ten years later she’d be going through menopause.

  And the man was getting older, too. He was – what, fifty-five? – when he took her, so he was in his late sixties now. He seemed healthy enough, but in another decade or two? He could become ill, or slip and fall, and then what? By the time they got to her and Max they might have starved.

  If Max was still here then. It might be another two-year-old, unknowingly awaiting removal as soon as his third birthday arrived.

  Max leaned forward, resting his face against her chest. He had always loved the feel of bare skin; often in the morning he would lie awake on top of her, his torso pressed to hers. She wondered why it felt so good to him. Perhaps he was listening to the sounds of her body, sounds he remembered in some dim way from his time in her womb.

  ‘Mummy,’ he said. ‘Can I have a story?’

  Maggie kissed his head. The soft curls of his hair brushed her cheek.

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘About Superman? Since you’re wearing your Superman undies?’

  He shook his head. His eyes were closing. ‘About the light beam,’ he said.

  ‘Ah,’ Maggie replied. ‘The beam of light. Our magical beam of light. Our beautiful beam of light. Is that the story you want?’

  Max nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you can have it.’ She paused, wondering where to start. A few months back she had started telling him a story about a beam of light that had a special property: you could ride on it and it could take you, in an instant, to places far, far away. They had ridden it to visit kangaroos in the Australian outback and beaches on the Australian coast, to experience snow-capped mountains and winter storms in Antarctica, to shop in frantic markets in Thailand where you could buy anything you wanted, to marvel at giant skyscrapers in America and to stare in awe at ancient civilizations hidden in deep jungles. They had gone to meet Harry Potter at Hogwarts, and to stroke Aslan in Narnia and to ride with the hobbits and elves of Middle Earth. Maggie saw no reason to exclude those places – some of the most magical of her childhood – from the adventures.

  Today, she decided, they were going into the cosmos.

  ‘So,’ she said. ‘The beam of light—’

  ‘Mummy,’ he said, suddenly. ‘Am I a beautiful boy?’

  ‘Yes,’ Maggie replied. ‘Of course. That’s why I tell you so often.’

  ‘You’re a beautiful mummy,’ he said.

  Maggie blinked, tears springing to her eyes. All parents probably marvelled at the things their children picked up, the words they came back from nursery or kindergarten or school with, the games they learned from their friends, the interests they developed out in the world. Max did not have any of those things, but even he made connections on his own. She had never asked him to call her beautiful, never explained why that would be a nice thing to do, but, somehow, his infant brain had understood that this person who loved him and who he loved used a word to describe him and so it would be nice to use it about them.

  It showed that all her stories were working.

  ‘Close your eyes,’ she murmured, holding him against her and speaking into his hair. ‘Here comes the beam of light.’

  He snuggled closer to her. ‘I don’t see it,’ he said.

  ‘That’s because it’s invisible,’ she replied. ‘But it’s here.’ She made a small jumping motion. ‘We’re on board,’ she said. ‘Hold on tight!’

  She pursed her lips and made the noise of rushing air.

  ‘Oh my,’ she said. ‘We’re going very high. I can see the clouds already. Everything’s so small down below.’ She paused. ‘I think, Max – I think we’re going into space.’

  His eyes blinked open. ‘Space?’ he said. ‘Is space scary?’

  ‘No,’ Maggie replied. ‘It’s beautiful. And so quiet. Look – there’s the Earth, below us. You can see the oceans and the continents. You remember Australia – there it is. And over there’ – she pointed to the door, watching as Max’s gaze followed her finger – ‘there’s the moon.’

  It was incredible to see how easily he slipped into make-believe. In his mind, the room really was transformed into space, although exactly what he thought space was she had no idea. She remembered doing the same in her own childhood. She had gone through a spell when she was obsessed with some He-Man and She-Ra dolls her dad had bought for her. She had played with them for hours, inventing all kinds of scenarios and stories in which they were rescued from danger or won battles or made and broke friendships. She had really believed in them.

  And for Max the moon and stars and Narnia were just as real as anything else. As far as he was concerned, Warrington Town Centre was as remote and exotic as the moon. They both existed only in his mind.

  ‘Look,’ she said. ‘There’s the man in the moon.’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘He lives on the moon. You can see his face on a dark night.’

  Max looked at her. ‘Can I see it tonight?’

  Maggie tried to smile. ‘You have to be outside.’

  ‘Oh,’ Max said. ‘Outside.’

  Outside was a place Max had heard of, but never been. For him it was a bit like space, or Hogwarts, or Narnia.

  ‘We can see him in our imagination, though,’ Maggie said. ‘There he is!’

  ‘What’s he doing?’ Max asked.

  ‘He’s digging up some moon rocks to eat,’ Maggie said.

  ‘He eats rocks?’

  ‘The moon is made of green cheese. That’s what he eats.’

  ‘Where’s his mummy?’ Max asked.

  Maggie’s answer caught in her throat. He hadn’t asked where are his friends or where is his brother, but where’s his mummy. It was an unwelcome reminder of the smallness of his life.

  ‘She’s at his moon house,’ Maggie said. ‘She loves him very much.’

  ‘I love you very much,’ Max said, his eyes nearly closed. ‘And I want to go back to the moon.’

  He was starting to fall asleep, his body relaxing. Maggie kissed him on the forehead as his breathing deepened.

  ‘I love you too,’ she whispered. ‘More than you will ever know.’

  3

  Maggie was nearly asleep when she heard him coming. She always knew he was on his way; there was a kind of scraping noise, like rock or steel grinding, which she assumed was a door of some kind hiding the entrance to the stairs that led to the room.

  She had imagined it many times since the first time she had heard it. Was it a manhole cover in the corner of his garage? Or a heavy stone in his garden? Or a thick wooden cover hidden at the back of a wardrobe? She had no idea; all she knew was that, twenty or so seconds after she heard the noise it made when he moved it, the door to the room would open, and he would be there.

  He came every morning, with breakfast, and every afternoon with dinner. It was how she knew the days were passing for her calendar.

  And sometimes he came at night. It was when he brought things she needed. Fresh clothes. Cleaning supplies. A new toothbrush.

  And when he wore the blue bathrobe. He never took it off. He just undid the belt and let it fall apart and then made her lie face down while he did what he did.

  After he’d raped her he would often stare at her, silent and impassive. She had the impression he was waiting for her to say something, but she never had anything to say. All she wanted was for him to leave her alone.

  Now, though, three or four days could go by without him showing up at night. She suspected that, as he grew older, he was losing interest in sex.<
br />
  It was, other than Max, the only bright spot in her dismal world.

  He was coming tonight, though.

  The door handle turned and, with a click of the lock, it opened. He stepped inside, his bare shins sticking out from under the bathrobe, the ankles mottled and dark.

  He locked the door, the key – as always – suspended on a chain around his wrist.

  He was tall, certainly taller than her father, who was six foot one, which put him at what – six three? Six four? – and he wore thick-rimmed, old-fashioned glasses. The lenses were always perfectly polished, and she had a recurring image of him sitting in a floral-patterned armchair, news on the radio, his glasses in one hand and a cloth in the other. When he wasn’t in his bathrobe, he dressed in shapeless grey trousers and white or blue short-sleeved shirts, which, although clean, were faded and shabby, and carried a musty odour, as though they had been left in the wardrobe too long.

  He looked at her, his gaze resting on her face, before moving down over her breasts and then legs. It was an appraising look, like the look a farmer might give a cow.

  He nodded at the mattress where Max was sleeping. ‘Move the child.’

  She picked up Max and laid him on the carpet next to the barrel-bath. She put a pillow under his head and stood up.

  The man put his hands on her shoulders and turned her away from him, then pushed her face down on to the mattress. He tugged at her shorts and underwear, then waited as she pulled them down. She heard the noise of tearing as he opened a condom packet – he always used one when the boys were alive, only getting rid of them when she was childless, for reasons she had never understood – and then she felt his weight on her back.

  She closed her eyes and thought of the light beam. Of the Man in the Moon. Of Australian beaches she had only seen on soap operas.

  There had been a time, early on, when he had tried to kiss her before he raped her. He’d had a strange look on his face, a kind of nervous yearning, which had hardened into his usual scowl when she turned her head away.