This Is All (83 page)

He leers and says, ‘You’ve nothing I haven’t seen before.’

‘Maybe,’ I say. ‘But I didn’t know you were a Peeping Tom. I didn’t know you were a
pervert
.’

The leer vanishes. He glares at me. For a second I fear I’ve hit the wrong note. But then he breaks into a wide grin, walks upstream a few metres, paying out the rope, stops by a tree, ties the rope to the trunk, says, ‘Get on with it,’ turns his back and leans against the tree.

But wait. You know what I must do now. Hardly any point in describing it:

Take off my bra. Find the soap in the plastic bag. Wash my face and my armpits and my breasts. Especially my breasts after his mouth has sullied them. Dry myself vigorously with the towel – which smells of him and itself needs a wash, so what am I gaining? (Time, that’s what!) Then take off my briefs after checking he isn’t looking, which he isn’t and which surprises me as much as it reassures me. Wash my briefs.

I’m shivering now, goose-pimple cold, red-raw cold.

Wash between my legs. The cuts on my thigh sting. Then climb out of the water and sit on a boulder while I dry my legs and feet. Try to wring out my briefs and dab them as dry as I can in folds of the towel, before putting them on again. They feel like they’re made of ice. I’m teeth-clenching frigid, and longing to be warm and safe and home. I’ve never longed for home so much before.

When I put my trainers on they feel dirty and gritty and alien.

I want to delay going inside but will freeze to death if I hang about here any longer. And it’s getting dark.

I call to Cal that I’m ready, he unties the rope, and I lead him back through the nettles into the barn.

But this is only my outer life in these few minutes. What I realise while I’m washing is much more important to what happens next
.

It came to me as Cal tied the rope to the tree. Why, I wondered again, is he tying me up like this? Surely he can see I wouldn’t have a chance if I tried to get away? And it’s then I remember a tv programme I watched only a few nights before. It was about jealousy, which is why I watched it. I wanted to see if I’d learn anything about myself and the jealousy I’d felt for Will. One of the people in the programme was a young woman who was so jealous of her boyfriend that she wouldn’t even allow him to watch programmes that showed women in bathing costumes, because she said he was fancying them instead of her. When they went to the pub, she watched every move he made, even following him to the loo and standing outside the door to make sure no woman went in while he was inside. They called her behaviour ‘mate-guarding’. They said you could observe this same behaviour in animals and birds. The bull in a field patrolling his cows to keep other bulls from them and them from other bulls, for example. It had nothing to do with the females wanting the bull or not. He’d taken possession of them and would guard them with his life – and of course mate with them – till another male challenged him and won.

It struck me how Cal’s behaviour was like that. He wanted me for himself, whether I wanted him or not. He’d stalked me, taken possession of me, and now was guarding me so that I couldn’t escape or anyone else take me from him – unless they fought him and won.

As I dry myself I think of the animal documentaries I’ve
seen. Dad says they’re only ever about feeding, fighting and fucking, with a birth and a death thrown in now and then to complete the cycle. And I think of the episodes in which the dominant male wanted to mate with one of his females; he always wooed her, quite harshly sometimes – chasing and biting her and knocking her down – but he never mated till she was ready and presented herself and accepted him.

Is Cal like that? Or is he determined to have me whether I want him or not? Is he just an animal or is he that human evil, a rapist?

My instinct tells me to play the animal game for as long as I can, but that in the end he’ll have me, whether I want him or not. The only questions are, how long have I got, and can I escape before he turns nasty?

As soon as we’re inside, I rush to the bed and wrap myself in the duvet. Not only to get warm, but also to hide myself, hide my body from his eyes. That the duvet is smelly and grubby no longer matters. He’s behaving like an animal and he’s forcing me to behave like one as well.

>>
Pretending
>>

Piano

The first time I saw a piano, Dad tells me, I wanted to play it. Apparently, I used to bang on the keys as soon as I could reach them. Doris started teaching me even before I could read. Later, they tried me on other instruments, but I took to none of them. When I tried a cello, I couldn’t press the strings hard enough and the sound I produced was like a succession of very dry farts. My attempt at the violin simulated the screams of a demented hyena and sent everyone fleeing from the room. As far as I was concerned the clarinet was a tube full of dangerous holes. As for drums, playing them is a version of warfare and I’m a conscientious objector. Perhaps everyone has one instrument that’s right for them and mine
is the piano. As soon as my fingers touch the keys I feel at home. Just like I feel at home as soon as I open a book.

I love the piano because it’s an orchestra in itself. No other instrument can do on its own anything like the piano in range and complexity and variety of tones and sounds. Well, all right, I’m biased. But to me it’s true that the piano is the supreme instrument, requiring the greatest skill and talent, the greatest discipline and devotion if it is to be played really well (and I mean an acoustic piano, not one of those electronic keyboards, however much they are dressed up to look like a proper piano).

Poetry

Poetry is the music of the mind.

For some reason I do not understand, poetry is my only vocation.

I wish I could write it well.

But I’m comforted by the words of Mr G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936): If a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing badly.

Pretending

‘Better?’ Cal asks. He’s watching me from the middle of the room like a dog that wants to play.

I’m not, but mustn’t say that. Mustn’t admit I’m cold and frightened and confused.

‘A bit,’ I say, attempting a smile that feels like a wound.

How to keep him busy, thinking of something other than getting into bed with me?

I’m not hungry, but I am hungry. Eating as comfort. Eating as escape. Eating as a way of keeping him from me.

Does mate-guarding include mate-feeding? Or does the mate feed the guard? The status of who feeds whom
.

‘Aren’t you hungry?’ I ask.

‘Nar,’ he says, meaning, I can see in his eyes, yes but not for food.

‘Well, I am. I’ve had nothing since breakfast.’

‘Yes you have. You had something when you stopped and something after you’d climbed the tree.’

O, god!

‘Yes, I did. I’m so hungry I forgot. How d’you know?’

As if I can’t guess
.

‘Watching, wasn’t I. With my binnies.’

‘Your binnies?’

‘Yeah.’ He leers. ‘Bird watching.’

‘All the time?’

‘Days.’

‘
Days?
’

‘For a chance.’

‘A chance for what?’

‘Be with you. By ourselves.’

Panic in my stomach.

Pretend. I’ve got to pretend
.

‘They were just snacks,’ I say. ‘To keep me going. But now I’m really hungry. I mean
really really
hungry. Honest, Cal, if I don’t have a proper meal soon, I’ll be no use for anything. I’ll faint or something. I’m not strong like you. I have to eat often. Regularly.’

He chews it over in his mind.

‘I’ll cook,’ I say a touch too eagerly. ‘I’ll get dressed and make us a nice meal. I’m good at cooking.’

‘Yeah, I know. Only, you can’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘Nothing here.’

O, god, please please help me!

‘So how do you? I mean, on your own?’

‘Chippy. Macs. Pizza. Whatever.’

A possibility. He’ll have to go. A chance
.

‘That’ll do. That’ll be fine. I’ll pay. There’s some money in my bag. Shall I get it?’ (And my mobile.)

‘Nar. My treat. I’m looking after you this time.’

He comes to me, coiling the rope.

He kisses me like a husband off on an errand. I want to wipe him from my lips, but make myself smile again.

But instead of turning away, he ties the rope round me again and again, till I’m trussed up like a mummy, swaddled in the duvet, chest to feet, finally lashing the end of the rope to a ring that’s bolted into the wall above the bed so that I can’t even roll off onto the floor.

He stands back to view his handiwork.

‘What d’you want?’ he says. ‘Macs is the nearest.’

I can’t speak.

‘Double big Mac with double fries and a large Coke?’

I can’t even nod my head. The thought of it makes me want to vomit but I can’t because I’m rigid with panic.

‘We’ll have the nosh, and then a nice long fuck,’ he says as if talking of a quiet evening at home. ‘You’ll feel great then. I know I’m not clever like you, but I’m a really good fuck. That I do know. You’ll not be disappointed. You just lie there and get yourself in the mood.’

By now there’s only the faintest gloom coming through the high window.

‘Can you put a light on?’ I ask.

‘Why, what d’you want to look at?’

‘Just for some light. It’ll be dark soon. While you’re out.’

‘There isn’t any. Got a torch in the car. Bring it in when I get back.’

He picks the gag off the floor, stuffs it into my mouth, and fastens it behind my head. It’s covered in dust and grit and dries my mouth instantly. Ashes of fear.

During the time Cal is away I plunge into the deepest despair I’ve felt in my life so far. I wish I could die, I wish I could kill myself before he returns, bearing his gifts of junk food and poisoned love. I wish I could kill him.

>>
Quandary
>>

Quandary

I don’t know how long Cal is gone. Too long, because I fear he might never come back and I’ll be left here for days and never found till I die of cold and starvation. Too short, because I fear what he’ll do when we’ve eaten.

It’s dark now. Thick darkness.

I know I should think, I should plan, but my mind is in turmoil. How can you think straight when your feelings are tortured?

Lying bound and gagged in the dark I hear rustlings on the floor. Rats? Mice? Will they get on the bed? I picture them gnawing my face. I wriggle and thrash about, to try and scare them away. When I lie still there’s silence, but after a while the skittering begins again. More wriggling and thrashing.

Instead of shivering from the cold, now I’m sweating from the heat my fear has stoked inside the duvet.

Then a miracle happens. And it does seem like a miracle. The moon appears, framed in the high window, veiled at first by thinning cloud, brightening as the cloud vanishes, its aqua light livening the barn.

The rustling stops.

Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams;

I thank thee, Moon, for shining now so bright
.

My fears cool, as if a friend is stroking my face.

I lie still and relax. Will comes to mind. I think of the times we’ve slept together outside, wrapped round each other, under the moon. I remember Izumi, and her love of the moon and the Japanese poems about the moon she knew by heart and recited to me. I remember this one by our favourite poet, Izumi Shikibu:

On such a night

when the moon

shines brightly like this

the unspoken thoughts

of even the most secret heart can be seen.

And the last poem Izumi Shikibu wrote on her deathbed, which makes more sense to me at this moment than before:

The way I must enter

leads through darkness to darkness –

watchful moon above the mountain top,

please shine a little further

on my path.

Encouraged, I compose a mope of my own, dedicating it to Will:

While I snatch the dark

moon breasts

the falling sky

under which you

sleep unaware.

The saving power of poetry. I feel calmer now, feel also I’ve come to a decision, but don’t know what it is, only that deep inside me there is a core, a calm centre unaffected by my troubles, which has decided what I must do, but will only tell me what when the time comes.

As I realise this, the beams of Cal’s headlights bob and slash in the window, cutting through the moonlight, as his van bounces along the rutted lane.

Cal comes in, carrying in one hand a halogen camper’s lamp that sears the barn with acid light, and the food in a bag in the other, sickening the air with a greasy smell. The light hurts my eyes, the stench turns my stomach.

He puts the bag down on the table, hooks the lamp to a chain hanging from a beam in the middle of the barn, comes
to me, and removes the gag. I drag air in through my mouth like a swimmer coming to the surface and swallow hard, but too much, too hard, which makes me cough and splutter and my eyes water. He unties the rope from the ring on the wall and unbinds me. It’s such a relief to be free that I immediately sit up and perch on the edge of the bed, breathing deeply, but cloak the duvet round me to shield my body.

Cal returns to the table and unpacks the food. I know I won’t be able to eat anything; I’ll vomit if I try.

He comes to me again, offering a carton of burger and fries. The stench is an assault. I shake my head and can’t help cringing away.