Seven Days

by Alex Lake

  She handed a plate to Max.

  ‘Here you are,’ she said. ‘I’m not hungry at the moment.’

  He picked up a slice of pizza and lifted it to his mouth. Maggie went back and picked up the buckets.

  One of them was full of sand. In the other were two bottles, one of bleach and one of a blue liquid labelled ‘Toilet Holding Tank Deodorant.’

  It was Toilet Day.

  One of the things she had had to get used to early on was the toilet. It was a bucket with a hinged seat on top. Next to it was a second bucket full of sand, mixed with the blue liquid. You did your business – piss or shit – in the toilet-bucket and then scooped sand in on top.

  She lifted them up and carried them to the corner. She took off the hinged lid from the toilet and emptied it into the bucket without the sand in it. The man would come and take it away later. Then poured bleach into the toilet bucket, making sure it covered the sides, and put the bottle on the floor. She opened the bottle of blue liquid and started to add it to the sand. It worked well; whatever the blue stuff was, it masked the smell of the shit and piss in there.

  And, oddly enough, the smell always brought a smile to her face. It reminded her of a camping holiday in France when they had used a chemical toilet for two weeks. Although the blue liquid was pretty foul stuff it had a sweet, strangely alluring smell. It was like petrol: even though you knew it would be horrible to drink, it smelled irresistible.

  She had asked her dad why horrible things could smell good, and he had laughed. Because we’re not always attracted to what’s good for us, he said. That’s one of the things you have to learn to recognize when you get older. Things that look good but aren’t.

  How do you know them? she said.

  He shrugged. Ask me. I’ll tell you. I’ll make sure you’re safe.

  She’d believed him in the way that kids believed their dads, but he hadn’t, not in the end. She was sure that would be one of the things that tortured him most about her disappearance. As a parent she had learned that, although you wanted all kind of things for your children, what you wanted most of all was for them to be safe.

  And when they weren’t you couldn’t forgive yourself.

  She’d thought a lot about her parents recently. Were they still alive, even? She assumed they were, but she didn’t know. She didn’t know anything about anyone out there. They could be ill, dead, divorced. James could be a famous actor or footballer – well, maybe not, but something that made him happy. She liked to think – hope – that they were as happy as they could be, given what had happened.

  And she liked to think she would see them again, sometime. She dreamed about it often, and, when she woke, she wished she could go back into her dream. The only thing that made her open her eyes were her sons. They were here and real and in this world, not her dream world.

  She poured the blue liquid in and watched it seep into the sand. It vanished, leaving only a blue stain behind. When she had vanished, she hadn’t even left that. She had disappeared without a trace.

  The way it pooled for a moment then seeped away into the sand was mesmeric. Max would be interested to see it. She turned to the mattress to beckon him over.

  He wasn’t there.

  ‘Max?’ she said.

  She heard a noise behind her, then his voice.

  ‘I’m here. Is this juice?’

  He was sitting on the floor next to the bath, holding the bottle of bleach. He started to lift it to his lips and she realized two things.

  She had left the lid off the bleach.

  He was going to drink it.

  A different memory came to her. When she was seven or eight she had climbed up on the washing machine, opened the cupboard above it and taken out a large white plastic bottle. It was fascinating; the cap turned and turned but didn’t open. It clicked, but it stayed on.

  And then her mum had come in and gasped and snatched it from her.

  What are you doing?

  There was a tone in her voice that Maggie didn’t recognize, a mixture of anger and panic and fear that froze her.

  Nothing.

  That’s bleach, Maggie. You mustn’t play with it.

  Why?

  It can really hurt you. If you drink it – she shook her head – it could kill you.

  Maggie remembered simultaneously wondering why they had something so dangerous in the house and understanding why it was so hard to take the cap off.

  And now, just like she had, her own son was holding a bottle of bleach, except this time the cap was off.

  ‘Max!’ she shouted. ‘Put that down!’

  He frowned at her. She never shouted at him, and she never told him he couldn’t have something. She wasn’t spoiling him; they had so little she was hardly going to deny him what was available.

  This time she was. She lunged forward and grabbed the bottle from his hands. He frowned and reached for it, but she held it away. The cap was by the toilet. She screwed it on, then picked him up and hugged him. He was shaking, and he started to cry.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry for leaving that where you could get it. It’s Mummy’s fault. But everything’s OK. I promise.’

  He settled a little, keeping his face buried against her chest.

  ‘Shh. It’s OK. It was an accident. No harm done.’

  It had been close. The bottle had been inches from his lips when she grabbed it. She wondered what would have happened if he’d drunk the bleach? Vomiting, almost certainly. Fever? A prolonged sickness? Death?

  Had she nearly killed him?

  But he hadn’t drunk it. It was OK.

  Sweat prickled on her back and arms. What if he had drunk it when she wasn’t looking? No – it would have tasted horrible and he would have been spluttering as he tried to spit it out. He wouldn’t have been trying to drink more.

  She couldn’t be sure of that, though.

  ‘Max,’ she said. ‘Did you drink any of the stuff in the bottle?’

  He didn’t answer. He turned away from her. It was the first time she had ever been mean to him.

  ‘You’re not in trouble. Mummy needs to know. That’s all.’

  He stiffened. He turned his head so his face was totally hidden.

  ‘Max, please. Tell me if you drank it.’

  Did the fact he wasn’t answering mean he had? Was he feeling guilty and didn’t want to admit it? Shit, shit, shit. What had she done? Her son was in the safest place possible – she would have preferred him to be exposed to all the dangers of the outside world, of course she would, but the fact was the room was safe – and still she had been so fucking negligent that he had been hurt by the one danger there was.

  She prised him away from her and looked at him. He turned away again.

  ‘Max. Look at me. I need to know if you drank anything. That stuff is bad for you.’

  He blinked, tears in his eyes.

  ‘No, Mummy,’ he said. ‘I didn’t.’

  Of course, if he had done it, he would say that because he didn’t want to get into trouble. On top of leaving the bleach cap off, she had created a stressful situation which meant she couldn’t rely on what Max told her.

  She took a deep breath.

  ‘Are you sure? It’s OK if you did. I’m not upset. I just need to know.’

  ‘I didn’t, Mummy.’

  She stared at him. He looked serious. Honest. And he wasn’t showing any signs of having drunk bleach. Even though it was early, she thought that some of the symptoms might start quickly – stomach pains, for example.

  She smelled his breath. It was sweet, exactly like she expected. She opened the bleach and smelled it. It was harsh and unpleasant, nothing like his breath.

  Still, she had to assume he had drunk it. She picked up the bottle and read the label.

  There was a warning symbol. A skull. She felt faint.

  DANGER! POISON! CORROSIVE!

  She read the label. There were instructions about what to do if it got in your eyes or on
your skin. And what to do if your toddler drank it.

  If swallowed, seek medical help immediately. Present this label.

  That was it. No suggestions of what to do.

  Only the instruction: seek medical help.

  Which was impossible for her. She looked at Max. He seemed OK.

  But all she could do – as always – was wait.

  2

  An hour later Max was asleep. He was lying on her, his chest moving up and down. He seemed normal, but she didn’t know how long bleach took to have an effect.

  She thought it would be pretty quick, though. Quicker than this.

  She slid Max on to her bed and picked up the bleach. She read the label, then took off the cap and smelled it again. It really was vile stuff. Enough of it would kill you, or do you serious harm.

  She paused. If Max had drunk it, she would drink it too. She wouldn’t want to live with the guilt of having done that to him.

  Maybe after Saturday she wouldn’t want to live at all. The bleach might come in handy then. It would be a way for her to kill herself if the man took Max. She no longer doubted that was what she would do.

  The problem was, the man wouldn’t leave it with her and she had nothing to store it in. Even if she did have a storage container the man would see it and wonder what it was.

  There was a faint rustle behind her. She turned round. Max’s ball of tinfoil had fallen off the bed, rolling out of his hand as he slept.

  She could put some bleach in that. Fold the tinfoil into a bowl then pinch the top shut. She considered hiding it between her mattress and the wall, but that wouldn’t work. It would be too soft. If she rolled on it in the night it would disintegrate. She needed somewhere solid.

  She looked around the room. At the toilet and the bucket. At the water jug. At the plastic basin. At the pile of Duplo Lego bricks. At the walk-in barrel bath and the pipe that drained out of the bottom and ran out of the room.

  The pipe that was lower than the floor of the bath.

  There was a hollow space between the base of the bath and the carpet where the drain and the pipes went. If she could prise up the base of the bath, she could store the bleach in there. It would break the seal which would mean the bath would leak and the man would know, but that didn’t matter. Bath day wasn’t until next Tuesday, by which time she wouldn’t care.

  Either she’d have found a way out, or Max would be gone and she’d have drunk the bleach …

  She walked over to the bath and looked down. The base was lined with plastic. At the sides was a line of white rubber. It was caulk – she’d helped her dad install their bath and recognized it from that. It was easy to apply and easy to remove.

  She picked at it until she had a piece she could pull on. It came away quickly, and, when it was all up, she banged on the base. It came loose and she lifted it up. She looked at the pipes beneath.

  Plastic. Not much use as a weapon.

  But still, she smiled. Something, finally, had gone right.

  She unwrapped the tinfoil, took the cap off the bleach and began to pour.

  3

  She took her pencil and the calendar. It was no longer necessary to mark the days, the calendar was all she could think of, but she did it anyway. It was a ritual, and rituals have power.

  S

  Su

  M

  Tu

  W

  Th

  F

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  The door opened and she glanced up. Max was still sleeping. She was glad when she saw the man.

  He was wearing his blue bathrobe. He stared at her, then picked up the tray – her food still uneaten – the bottles of blue liquid and bleach, and turned to the door.

  For a moment she thought he was going to leave, but then he put the bottles and tray outside, closed the door, and walked into the middle of the room.

  ‘Put him on the floor,’ he said.

  Maggie didn’t move.

  ‘On the floor,’ the man said, a flicker of irritation in his expression. ‘Now.’

  ‘There might be a problem,’ Maggie said. ‘With Max.’ When the man didn’t reply she carried on. ‘He may have drunk some bleach. It’s bad for him.’

  ‘I imagine it is,’ the man said. ‘How much?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe none. I left the cap off the bottle. He says he didn’t, but I can’t be sure.’

  ‘Is he OK?’

  Maggie nodded.

  ‘Then there’s no problem.’

  ‘There might be.’

  The man shrugged. ‘There’s nothing I can do.’

  ‘You could take him to a doctor.’

  The man gave a wry smile. ‘Yes. I could. But that would make all this’ – he gestured to the room – ‘pointless. How would I explain his sudden arrival?’

  ‘He could be ill,’ Maggie said. ‘You can’t ignore that.’

  ‘He could be.’ The man shook his head. ‘But I can ignore it.’ He pointed at the bed. ‘Lie down please.’

  ‘Not today,’ Maggie said. ‘I – I don’t feel well.’

  ‘Did you drink bleach too?’ His tone was mocking. ‘No. I thought not. Now lie down. On your front.’

  Maggie lifted Max from the bed and placed him on a pillow. She turned him so he was facing away from her bed, then lay down.

  She looked at the bath. At the place the bleach was hidden. The bleach which was her way out of here. It might not take her home, but at least she would be free from this.

  She felt the man’s hand on her back, and she closed her eyes.

  Eight Years Earlier: Friday, 18 June 2010

  1

  James swigged the tea, then took a drag on his cigarette. Even though he was sweating in the hot summer sun the tea was refreshing, which was weird. It was also a good thing, given how much tea he, Pablo, and Ricky drank each day. A levels done, it was the first week he’d been working with them – landscaping, they called it, but it was mainly mowing lawns, trimming hedges and laying the odd patio – and they had probably already had twenty or more mugs of tea.

  Pablo swirled the last of the brown liquid around his mug, then tipped it on the ground. He always emptied his cup like that – Give something back, he’d said, don’t be greedy – before lighting another filterless cigarette.

  ‘Gimme the mugs,’ he said. ‘I’ll take them back to the kitchen. Give them to Angie.’ Angie was the woman whose garden they were working in. When they’d arrived, Pablo had said Hello, Mrs Turner, but she had shaken her head. Call me Angie.

  ‘Give something else to Angie,’ Ricky said. ‘That’s what you’re thinking. You’ve got no chance, mate.’

  Pablo shrugged. ‘Never know, Ricky. You never know. She might fancy a bit of rough.’

  ‘Does that ever happen?’ James said.

  ‘Fuck yeah,’ Pablo replied. ‘All the time. Women that age are desperate. Forty, fifty. Not getting any from her old man. You’d be surprised. And you know what they say about the older ones?’

  ‘What?’ James asked, painfully aware of his naivety.

  ‘Don’t smell, don’t tell, grateful as hell.’ Pablo grinned. ‘True, too.’

  ‘Has it happened to you?’

  Pablo nodded. ‘Loads, mate. Fuckin’ loads.’ He held out his hands for the mugs. ‘See you in a minute. Or maybe not. Don’t wait for me. Get back to work.’

  When he was gone, James looked at Ricky. ‘You think he’s got a chance?’


  Ricky guffawed. ‘None,’ he said. ‘And he’s pulling your leg. He’s never shagged a customer, other than in his dreams. He’ll be in there now all polite. Yes, Mrs Turner, thank you, Mrs Turner, delicious tea, Mrs Turner, we’ll be out of your hair soon. Give it twenty seconds and he’ll be on his way back here.’

  Ricky was right. It wasn’t quite twenty seconds – maybe forty – but the back door opened and Pablo – whose real name was Paul – came out. He walked over and picked up his shovel.

  ‘That was quick,’ Ricky said. ‘Even for you, Two Stroke.’

  ‘She didn’t fall for my charm,’ Pablo said. ‘I think she prefers the younger ones. Like Jimmy here.’ He nodded towards the house. ‘You have a go. Ask to use the loo. Leave the door unlocked and she’ll be in there after you. She’s a proper horny housewife.’

  ‘You watch too much porn,’ Ricky said.

  ‘You can’t watch too much porn,’ Pablo replied. ‘Gotta keep the pipes clean. So, you going to have a go or not, Jimmy lad?’

  James felt his cheeks flush. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘She’s a bit, I dunno, a bit old for me.’

  Ricky laughed. ‘I remember when I could afford to be choosy. You got a girlfriend? That bird you were talking to last night in the pub?’

  James shook his head. ‘That was a friend. My ex, actually.’

  ‘She was all right, mate,’ Pablo said. ‘You dump her or did she give you the elbow?’

  She was Louise, and she had given him the elbow the summer before. Looking back, he could see she’d been right to. They’d been together a while and he’d become obsessed with her. He thought about her all the time. Every morning he called her before school; after school he made sure they met so he could walk her home. He started to hate it if she went out without him; he couldn’t stop himself calling and texting to see how she was.

  Mainly to see where she was, if he was honest. Who she was with.

  Whether she was with another guy.

  And when he saw her again he would interrogate her.