time – I seem to have slept for hours. There is a morbid, grey light seeping through the window and I think it must be dawn, so that would make it about 7.30 or 8am I suppose. This time yesterday, I was waking up with an excited feeling in my stomach, like a little girl going to a party. My first trip into town for months, and I was going to buy Nat something nice for being so fantastic. Now he will be half out of his mind with worry, and I doubt he will have slept even as well as I did. He probably spent half the night at the police station hassling them to get a move on and find me, but they haven’t, not yet.
So what do I make of this? Does it mean that Greg has been arrested but won’t say where I am? That is scary, as if he never tells anyone, I suppose I will die of starvation, eventually. There is enough food to last for a couple of months, especially if I ration it, and running water, so it would take a long time to die, but it is possible. A slow and horrible death.
Then there is the possibility that he did not return home after bringing me here. I still don’t remember a thing about it as I must have been heavily sedated after the initial attack, but he could be somewhere in this building, biding his time, or somewhere else where nobody knows him and the police will never find him. Then, providing he is careful, he will be able to come to me whenever he wants, and I will be at his mercy. Would that be a fate worse than death? I don’t know.
And I must consider the possibility that it was never Greg at all, not since Richie died, anyway. Could it really be that the police were right and Nat was wrong all that time? Could it be some random stranger? If that is the case, I have no idea what I could be facing, and that prospect is worse than the other two. I have to stop thinking about that, so I think about the good things that may be about to happen. Any minute now, I may hear the sound of footsteps on the stairs, or a door somewhere below being forced open with a crash, and then they will be here. Greg will have told the police where to find me, or they will have found out somehow, and I will be free. Nat will be here too, and I will throw myself into his arms and he will look after me.
How strange it is, to sit here and compare these possibilities. If my life was a book, and somebody was reading about me, they would say, oh, that wouldn’t happen! She wouldn’t be sitting calmly on the bed working out the relative merits of dying of starvation or being attacked by different men. She would be screaming and crying at the door, throwing things at the windows, anything to get out. But they would not know how strangely normal it feels to be here. I have been a prisoner in my own home for so long, have spent so many hours in minute examination of any number of awful futures, that this is not as strange as it should be. I hate myself for my passivity, but a lot of my fire has been stolen, slowly, imperceptibly over the past two years, and now, when I really need it, it is hard to summon it up.
One thing is certain, I won’t be in any fit state to fight or even to resist if I don’t eat, so I force myself to choose a breakfast. There is a box of granola – a brand I have enjoyed at home – and even frozen mushrooms, but there is a toaster on top of the freezer so I defrost a couple of slices of bread and nibble away at toast and marmalade. There is no pleasure in this, and I am feeling full and queasy before I have finished, so I push it away and lie back on the bed, waiting for the nausea to pass. For a second, I look around for my laptop, as if I were at home and lying on my own bed. This is what I would do, sometimes for hours, when I lacked energy or when the weight of it all stopped me doing anything else. My laptop was my solace, although, as it turns out, it may have been my downfall too, although I could not have guessed that then.
***
I may have been careful about what I posted for a day or two,
So what do I make of this? Does it mean that Greg has been arrested but won’t say where I am? That is scary, as if he never tells anyone, I suppose I will die of starvation, eventually. There is enough food to last for a couple of months, especially if I ration it, and running water, so it would take a long time to die, but it is possible. A slow and horrible death.
Then there is the possibility that he did not return home after bringing me here. I still don’t remember a thing about it as I must have been heavily sedated after the initial attack, but he could be somewhere in this building, biding his time, or somewhere else where nobody knows him and the police will never find him. Then, providing he is careful, he will be able to come to me whenever he wants, and I will be at his mercy. Would that be a fate worse than death? I don’t know.
And I must consider the possibility that it was never Greg at all, not since Richie died, anyway. Could it really be that the police were right and Nat was wrong all that time? Could it be some random stranger? If that is the case, I have no idea what I could be facing, and that prospect is worse than the other two. I have to stop thinking about that, so I think about the good things that may be about to happen. Any minute now, I may hear the sound of footsteps on the stairs, or a door somewhere below being forced open with a crash, and then they will be here. Greg will have told the police where to find me, or they will have found out somehow, and I will be free. Nat will be here too, and I will throw myself into his arms and he will look after me.
How strange it is, to sit here and compare these possibilities. If my life was a book, and somebody was reading about me, they would say, oh, that wouldn’t happen! She wouldn’t be sitting calmly on the bed working out the relative merits of dying of starvation or being attacked by different men. She would be screaming and crying at the door, throwing things at the windows, anything to get out. But they would not know how strangely normal it feels to be here. I have been a prisoner in my own home for so long, have spent so many hours in minute examination of any number of awful futures, that this is not as strange as it should be. I hate myself for my passivity, but a lot of my fire has been stolen, slowly, imperceptibly over the past two years, and now, when I really need it, it is hard to summon it up.
One thing is certain, I won’t be in any fit state to fight or even to resist if I don’t eat, so I force myself to choose a breakfast. There is a box of granola – a brand I have enjoyed at home – and even frozen mushrooms, but there is a toaster on top of the freezer so I defrost a couple of slices of bread and nibble away at toast and marmalade. There is no pleasure in this, and I am feeling full and queasy before I have finished, so I push it away and lie back on the bed, waiting for the nausea to pass. For a second, I look around for my laptop, as if I were at home and lying on my own bed. This is what I would do, sometimes for hours, when I lacked energy or when the weight of it all stopped me doing anything else. My laptop was my solace, although, as it turns out, it may have been my downfall too, although I could not have guessed that then.
***
I may have been careful about what I posted for a day or two,
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