Seven Days(6)

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Six days to go until his birthday. She watched him stack his Duplo blocks into a tower, then knock it down, giggle, and build it again. God, his world was so small.

A low ceiling, four carpeted walls – she hated that carpet, hated its dust and smell and drab brown colour, and she had vowed that when she was out of here she was going to have a house with clean, wooden floors in every room – the sink-bowl and toilet-bucket and barrel-bath and a door he had never been through.

That was it. That was Max’s world. He didn’t even understand what the door was for. As far as he knew, it was for the man to come in and out of. He had no idea he could use it, had no experience of all the things that were out there.

No experience of fields and ponds and schools and roads and houses and shops. All he had was what she had told him. She’d asked for books and photos but the man had told her there was no point. He was too young to understand.

And he’ll be gone when he’s three.

The man hadn’t said that, but he didn’t need to. It was implicit in his refusal. He rarely gave her anything. It was only after weeks of begging when Seb was born that he’d brought a box of Lego, the large ones for little kids. Duplo, they were called. There weren’t many, but Max – as Seb had – loved them. He played with them for hours, arranging them into towers and arches and walls. Once he had made a rectangle filled with odd-shaped objects and Maggie had asked him what it was.

Our house, he replied. Look. That’s the bath. That’s you and me. That’s the bed.

She had to bite back the tears. Other kids were building space rockets or gardens or trains. Max was building the only thing he knew.

This shitty prison.

And so she took him places in his imagination, described the blue of the sea by pointing to his blue socks, but told him the sea was a different blue, a brilliant blue, a beautiful shining blue, words that he didn’t understand but which reminded her of the world out there, of what she too was missing. She explained the coolness of the breeze by moistening his forehead and blowing on it, and the warmth of the sun by rubbing her hands until they were hot and placing them on his chest. All of it was a pale imitation of the real thing, but it was all she had.

She didn’t stop there; she told stories of magical palaces and boats and rivers where Max and she had wild adventures. Along the way they met heroic people with the names Grandpa Martin and Grandma Sandra and Uncle James and Aunty Anne and Chrissie and Fern. She told him how Chrissie was brave and loyal but could be grumpy and Fern was funny and clever but left things wherever she went. She told him how Uncle James was kind of grumpy but sweet and well-meaning, and how Aunty Anne was wise and Grandpa and Grandma were kind and loving, and how they loved him in particular. The stories ended with huge parties where there was every kind of food and all the toys a boy could wish for. She wondered what Max thought chocolate and jelly beans and burgers and milkshakes tasted like. She wondered whether he would ever find out.

She sat on the mattress and watched him play with the Duplo. Behind him, by the door, were two plates. Max had left half of the mashed potato and baked beans the man had brought; Maggie had barely touched hers.

‘OK, Max,’ she said. ‘Time for our exercises.’

She was worried he didn’t get enough activity – of course he didn’t, living in a cell – so for the last year or so she had been doing exercises with him. They began with jogging on the spot – he found that amusing – and then they dropped to the floor and did press-ups and sit-ups. Max’s press-ups mainly consisted of him raising his bottom in the air and then collapsing to the floor, but it was something. Maggie had found that, as the months went by, she could do more and more of them; now it was no trouble to do fifty at a stretch. She also did tricep dips and planks; she could hold the plank for over four minutes.

Maggie took off her T-shirt and shorts – it was always uncomfortably hot in the room, the air still and cloying; the only time there was any fresh air was when the man came and cooler air gusted in through the open door – and knelt on the floor. She dropped into the press-up position and did twenty press-ups, then held herself on her elbows.

‘OK, Max,’ she said. ‘Come and join me.’

Max toddled over. He was in a pair of dirty underpants – she tried to keep them clean, but it was hard with only soap and cold water – and lay on his belly next to her. On the back of the underpants was a Superman logo she’d drawn once, after telling him the story of how Superman had come from the planet Krypton to save people on Earth from their own folly. As she recounted the story she had been gripped by a powerful feeling that Superman would burst into the room and rescue them at any moment. He hadn’t, but for days she had been left with a vague sensation of hope.

Max levered himself up into the plank position. He was still some way off a four-minute plank. Once he had managed about twenty seconds, but this time it was closer to four seconds before his buttocks started to quiver with the effort. After a few more seconds his hips slowly lowered to the carpet.

‘Watch, Mummy,’ he said, looking up at her. ‘Watch what I can do.’

He started to wiggle his legs and arms and shake his head from side to side.