idea if it will be.
The back door opens. The weather comes in, whiplashing my back with wind and rain. I’ve been hunched up for so long my legs are stiff, cracking open as he pulls me out. He isn’t rough with me, not like you are when you’re impatient. I shield my face from the wind, pull up my collar as Ellie emerges after me like a crumpled moth, stretching, quivering, her brown coat flapping.
‘What about all the food we left in your car, Mum?’ she says against the wind. ‘It’ll go bad.’ Her white cheeks pink up as if she’s ashamed at remembering such a trivial thing.
We’d been to the deli in town, bought our favourites for dinner. It was just going to be Ellie and me tonight – a rare treat – because you were working late again, you’d said, even though I didn’t believe you. We’d bought crab pâté, hummus, stuffed vine leaves, and crusty bread to eat in front of the new film we’d picked up. A Saturday night treat. But now we were gone, with just the groceries and my unlocked, abandoned car leaving the trail of our day.
‘We’ll get more, love,’ I say quietly. I don’t want to anger Tom, hearing us talk like that, but I don’t want my daughter distraught either. Tom holds the knife in one hand, and fiddles with the lock on his old car with the other, barely giving us any attention. Ellie makes a throaty gasping sound, and I know what she’s thinking as she stares around the grassy, grey moor.
Look around us, Mum. You’re fast, I’m fast. Let’s make a dash for it! One of us might get away, can raise the alarm
.
But the ground is rough and I don’t know where we are. The weather is setting in, clamping down, the mist as thick as the fog in my mind. Slowly, imperceptibly, I shake my head, hoping she’ll notice. If she runs, I’ll have to follow her. We’d both get lost and die.
‘Follow me,’ Tom orders, twitching the knife. The light is failing fast, the mist hugging the dripping trees that sweep around the field. We walk along a barely visible track, cutting round a thick spinney. On the other side, there’s a house. A small, low, once-white cottage with three of its four front windows broken. Derelict and abandoned, it looks like a rotten tooth in the fuzzy-edged nowhere moorland.
‘Oh God, he’s going to kill us, Mum,’ Ellie wails, covering her face. Why am I so calm? Why aren’t I more scared? My heart bangs erratically, and my mouth is dry and salty, but you’ve conditioned me not to react. To take it on the chin. All those years haven’t been in vain, I think.
I put my arm around her. ‘It’s OK,’ I whisper, even though I can’t be certain it is.
Tom kicks open the door of the cottage. He’s not holding on to either of us, knowing escaping would be futile, especially with night coming. He knows we won’t make a break.
‘Go inside,’ he says, glancing around the moor before going in himself.
There are two rooms downstairs, one each side of the low front door. He takes us to the right, to the room with the window intact. It’s beamy and the ceiling is low. There’s an old sofa without legs, grimy and grey, and a wooden table piled with tins and packets of food. We’re going to be here a while then. Until he extracts as much as he can out of you, I think.
‘Sit down,’ he says quietly. He’s not violent, and immediately I’m reminded of the last time you touched me. Swift and bitter. The pain in my cheek burnt for days; the taste of blood returning every time I ate. The sex was good though, so you said. I wasn’t conscious to know.
‘I’ll get the fire lit.’ Tom’s voice is sombre, as if he’s already ashamed of what he’s done and wants to take care of us.
Ellie huddles close to me as we cautiously lower ourselves down onto the sofa. Dust and stink waft up around us. She whimpers, burying her head against my shoulder. I zip up her coat. Even at sixteen, I still want to take care of her, mother her. Make up for lost time.
Soon,
The back door opens. The weather comes in, whiplashing my back with wind and rain. I’ve been hunched up for so long my legs are stiff, cracking open as he pulls me out. He isn’t rough with me, not like you are when you’re impatient. I shield my face from the wind, pull up my collar as Ellie emerges after me like a crumpled moth, stretching, quivering, her brown coat flapping.
‘What about all the food we left in your car, Mum?’ she says against the wind. ‘It’ll go bad.’ Her white cheeks pink up as if she’s ashamed at remembering such a trivial thing.
We’d been to the deli in town, bought our favourites for dinner. It was just going to be Ellie and me tonight – a rare treat – because you were working late again, you’d said, even though I didn’t believe you. We’d bought crab pâté, hummus, stuffed vine leaves, and crusty bread to eat in front of the new film we’d picked up. A Saturday night treat. But now we were gone, with just the groceries and my unlocked, abandoned car leaving the trail of our day.
‘We’ll get more, love,’ I say quietly. I don’t want to anger Tom, hearing us talk like that, but I don’t want my daughter distraught either. Tom holds the knife in one hand, and fiddles with the lock on his old car with the other, barely giving us any attention. Ellie makes a throaty gasping sound, and I know what she’s thinking as she stares around the grassy, grey moor.
Look around us, Mum. You’re fast, I’m fast. Let’s make a dash for it! One of us might get away, can raise the alarm
.
But the ground is rough and I don’t know where we are. The weather is setting in, clamping down, the mist as thick as the fog in my mind. Slowly, imperceptibly, I shake my head, hoping she’ll notice. If she runs, I’ll have to follow her. We’d both get lost and die.
‘Follow me,’ Tom orders, twitching the knife. The light is failing fast, the mist hugging the dripping trees that sweep around the field. We walk along a barely visible track, cutting round a thick spinney. On the other side, there’s a house. A small, low, once-white cottage with three of its four front windows broken. Derelict and abandoned, it looks like a rotten tooth in the fuzzy-edged nowhere moorland.
‘Oh God, he’s going to kill us, Mum,’ Ellie wails, covering her face. Why am I so calm? Why aren’t I more scared? My heart bangs erratically, and my mouth is dry and salty, but you’ve conditioned me not to react. To take it on the chin. All those years haven’t been in vain, I think.
I put my arm around her. ‘It’s OK,’ I whisper, even though I can’t be certain it is.
Tom kicks open the door of the cottage. He’s not holding on to either of us, knowing escaping would be futile, especially with night coming. He knows we won’t make a break.
‘Go inside,’ he says, glancing around the moor before going in himself.
There are two rooms downstairs, one each side of the low front door. He takes us to the right, to the room with the window intact. It’s beamy and the ceiling is low. There’s an old sofa without legs, grimy and grey, and a wooden table piled with tins and packets of food. We’re going to be here a while then. Until he extracts as much as he can out of you, I think.
‘Sit down,’ he says quietly. He’s not violent, and immediately I’m reminded of the last time you touched me. Swift and bitter. The pain in my cheek burnt for days; the taste of blood returning every time I ate. The sex was good though, so you said. I wasn’t conscious to know.
‘I’ll get the fire lit.’ Tom’s voice is sombre, as if he’s already ashamed of what he’s done and wants to take care of us.
Ellie huddles close to me as we cautiously lower ourselves down onto the sofa. Dust and stink waft up around us. She whimpers, burying her head against my shoulder. I zip up her coat. Even at sixteen, I still want to take care of her, mother her. Make up for lost time.
Soon,
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