Woman Last Seen(70)

31


Kylie


Saturday 21st March

I need food and drink. Especially drink, a body can survive weeks without food but only a matter of days without drink. Light is sliding under the board on the window, another day. Saturday? Time has dictated everything I’ve ever done. For so long I’ve lived with strict timetables, appointments and commitments; not having it as a frame pushes me closer into free fall. I have to fight against that feeling. I have almost become used to the stench of the bucket. Proof of my filth and frailty. It frightens me, what I’m able to become used to.

I wish everything could have stayed as it was, in the weird false state of suspension that I had created. I know I was living in a place on Earth that did not follow the laws of the land but after all, laws are simply things written by someone or other—often a very long time ago—and handed down, demanding obedience. Who is to say a woman can love only one man at a time?

A man, probably.

Sometimes it felt as though I was defying not only the law of the land but also laws of physics too. My life somehow defied gravity. I was floating. I refused to acknowledge that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. But there is. For every moment of bliss I’ve had, I have to pay. I paw helplessly over the discarded food tray, the plastic bottle has some water left in the bottom, there is half a browned banana remaining. As I pick it up, I unsettle a fly. It buzzes away and I vaguely wonder how it got into the room. I don’t care that I once read that almost every fly that lands on food vomits on it too. I’m too hungry to care about anything. I eat it slowly, carefully chewing each mouthful. I listen for the sound of footsteps or the typewriter. Nothing.

The day crawls. He doesn’t bring any more food or water. My mouth is so dry, my lips are cracking. The typewriter stays inactive. I find myself longing for it to start up again. I am reminded of all the times I swapped illicit WhatsApp messages with whichever husband I was not with. If I was with Daan and saw Mark was “typing...” my stomach would squeeze with love and anxiety. I always anticipated a message detailing some sort of problem: a sick child, lost homework, a fracas with a teacher. When I was with Mark and saw that Daan was “typing...” my stomach would slosh and slide with love and a delicious anticipation. I long for the typewriter to clatter. Like a lab rat I’ve been trained to respond to the sound of its keys and I find I want to be challenged. I want to be held to account. It would almost be a relief.

Frustrated, I kick the wall opposite the door. It’s a hell of a kick. The pain of it shoots up my leg, into my hip and I instantly regret it. The last thing I need right now is more pain and further injury. But then I notice it, a dent in the wall. I have made a dent in the wall! I stare at it in surprise. After days of being so weak and powerless I feel a surge of invigoration carouse through my body. I made a dent in the plasterboard. I made a difference! I kick the wall again and again, with my toe and then I turn and kick with my heel. Then I lie on my back and stamp both my feet into the wall, because that seems more powerful still. After half a dozen blows, I hear the plaster crack. The wall starts to sort of crumble and cave in front of me. I laugh, surprised at how lightweight and fragile plasterboard is. I start to claw and grab at the pieces, tearing the wall away. There’s a cavity and then more plasterboard. I punch through that relatively easily and I find I can get my hands through to a new space. I start to pull at the board, bringing bigger pieces down until I have made a hole in the wall that is big enough so that I can easily see into the next room.

It’s a larger room than the one I’m in. I’d guess its original purpose is another bedroom. But, like the room I’m being kept in, while the walls are plastered and painted, the floor is concrete, and there is no furniture. A work in progress. Still, it is space, it is air that is less putrid than that which I’ve been breathing. I move as close to the new room as the chain will allow and breathe deeply. I sob with relief and delight, but I’m too dehydrated for there to be any actual tears. My chest lurches up and down, dry heaving. I am so relieved to have this progress. I can’t go anywhere, even if I make the hole bigger—I am still chained so can’t crawl through it—but it feels like I’ve done something, changed something. I feel some control and maybe even hope.

That feeling increases as I see past the hole I have made there is a small window and it is wide open. I stare at it amazed. I take a moment, a beat. Compute everything this means. I stand up and move about as much as I can. I see that I am high up.

Oh God.

I can see a river, houses, some blocks of flats. It’s dark in both the room I’m in and the one I’m looking through and I’m at a distance from the window but even so, I think I know where I am. I recognize the view. I may not be as high up, but I think I am in my own apartment building. I am almost certain.

Daan.

My head is fuzzy now. Memories, thoughts, reasons are loose, scattered. I’m losing my grip.

I freeze for a moment. Not sure if I am devastated or relieved. There couldn’t have been good news. Whichever one I discovered was responsible for this would have broken my heart. At least this way the boys are safe; their father is not a madman. Daan, of course. I understand. More than anyone probably.

I needed something of my own. I wanted someone to love me more than anyone else. It’s not an excuse, but it is my explanation. My mother loved my father most. When he left, she seemed to step out of the world. Or at least step away from me. My father loved his new wife and new sons more than he loved me. He didn’t even love me enough to disguise the fact. Mark loves his children most. My children love their dead mother. That is the hardest—dead people are easy to love and impossible to compete with.