Behind Closed Doors(47)
He took the book away with him when he brought me my breakfast this morning and I laughed to think of him scouring the pages in vain for anything untoward, a word or two scored through with my nail perhaps. It obviously annoyed him to find there was nothing because he spent most of the day in the basement, always a bad sign. And very boring for me. I prefer it when he moves around as it amuses me to chart his movements as he goes from one room to the next, trying to work out what he’s doing from the sounds that come to me from below.
I know he’s in the kitchen at the moment and that he’s just made himself a cup of tea because a few minutes ago I heard the sound of the kettle being filled with water, and the click when it switched itself off. I envy him. One of the many things I hate about being kept a prisoner is not being able to make myself a cup of tea whenever I want and I miss my kettle and the regular supply of teabags and milk I used to have. When I think about it now, Jack was a pretty generous jailer in the beginning.
From the way the sun is beginning to dip in the sky, I guess that it’s somewhere around six in the evening and, as we have to be at Esther’s for seven, Jack should be coming to let me into the bedroom next door, the one that used to be mine, so that I can get ready. Before long, I hear his footsteps on the stairs. A moment later, the key turns in the lock and the door swings open.
When I see him standing there, I feel as dismayed as I always do at how normal he looks, because surely there should be something—pointed ears or a pair of horns—to warn people of his evilness. He stands back to let me pass and I go eagerly into the room next door, glad to have the chance to dress up, to wear something other than black, something other than slippers on my feet. I slide open the wardrobe door and wait for Jack to tell me what to wear. When he doesn’t say anything, I know he is out to give me false hope by letting me believe I can wear what I want only to tell me to take it off again as soon as I’ve put it on. Maybe because I managed to see through his ruse with the book, I decide to gamble and choose a dress that I don’t want to wear at all, because it’s black. I take my pyjamas off. Uncomfortable though it is to have Jack looking on as I dress and undress, I can’t do anything about it as I lost my right to privacy long ago.
‘You’re beginning to look a bit scrawny,’ Jack remarks, as I put on my underwear.
‘Maybe you should bring me something to eat a little more often,’ I suggest.
‘Maybe I should,’ he agrees.
By the time I’ve got into the dress and am doing the zip up, I begin to think I’ve got it wrong.
‘Take it off,’ he says, as I smooth it down. ‘Wear the red one.’
I feign disappointment and take off the black dress, pleased that I’ve managed to outwit him, because the red is the one I would have chosen to wear. I slip it on and, maybe because of the colour, I feel more confident. I walk over to the dressing table, sit down in front of the mirror and look at myself for the first time in three weeks. The first thing I notice is that my eyebrows need plucking. Much as I hate having to do such rituals in front of Jack, I take my tweezers from the drawer and start perfecting my eyebrows. I had to negotiate the right to wax my legs, pointing out that I couldn’t look perfect if they were covered in hair, and, fortunately, he agreed to add a packet of wax strips to the minimal supply of toiletries he brings me each month.
When I’ve finished my eyebrows, I put on my make-up and, in honour of my dress, choose a brighter lipstick than usual. I stand up, walk over to the wardrobe and look through the shoeboxes, looking for my red-and-black high-heeled shoes. I slip them on my feet, take the matching bag off the shelf and hand it to him. He opens it and looks inside, checking that sometime over the past three weeks I haven’t managed to conjure up pen and paper out of thin air and transport a note through solid walls and into the bag. Passing it back to me, he looks me up and down and nods approvingly, which ironically I know is more than some women get from their husbands.
We go downstairs and in the hall, he takes my coat from the cupboard and holds it open while I slip my arms into it. In the drive outside, he holds the car door for me and waits until I’m in. As he closes it behind me, I can’t help thinking it’s a shame he’s such a sadistic bastard, because he has wonderful manners.
We arrive at Esther and Rufus’s house and, along with a huge bouquet of flowers and a bottle of champagne, Jack hands Esther back her book, which I presume he’s returned to its original state. She asks me what I thought of it and I tell her what I told Jack, that it took me a while to get through it because it wasn’t the sort of book I would normally read. She seems overly disappointed, which makes me wonder if it was her who highlighted the words after all and, hiding my panic, I look at her anxiously. But there’s nothing on her face to suggest I might have missed an opportunity, and my heartbeat slows back down.
We go through to where Diane and Adam are waiting, Jack’s arm around my waist. I don’t know if it’s because of all the little courtesies he’s accorded me or because I managed to wear the dress that I wanted, but, by the time we’ve finished our drinks and are heading for the table, I’m beginning to feel as if I’m a normal woman on a normal night out instead of a prisoner out with her jailer. Or maybe it’s just that I’ve had too much champagne to drink. As we wind our way through the delicious dinner that Esther has cooked for us, I’m aware of Jack watching me from across the table as I eat too much and talk a lot more than I usually do.