Girl A(86)

I spent many days contemplating the practicalities of this purchase. Father, in the aisle of a hardware shop – B&Q, perhaps – selecting the right tools for the job. Did he have a shopping trolley, or a basket? Did he make small talk with the teenager at the checkout? Did he ask for a carrier bag?

The handcuffs were purchased separately, online.

The chains were absolute. There were no evening congregations in the Territory, or readings of the Greek myths in the night. There was no Mystery Soup. There was no option to wriggle free and use the toilet, or the pot in our room. The first time I wet myself, I called for Mother for two or three hours, as the distraction became pain, then agony. The promise of relief, just behind it. Noah had whined through the day. I hadn’t heard Father’s footsteps since the early morning. ‘Where are they?’ I said, to Evie. My stomach was hot, distended; I didn’t want to move. I squeezed my knees to my belly.

‘It’ll be OK, Lex. Hold on.’

I was starting to cry; I couldn’t seem to help that, either.

‘It won’t be, though.’

The sensation of it came back to me in a taxi in Jakarta, with Devlin, on the way to the airport. One of our first business trips together. It was raining, the roads bulging with water and traffic. A closed rank of cars on each side. We were static for over an hour. ‘How long?’ Devlin asked, and the driver laughed.

Devlin looked at her watch. ‘We’re going to miss this flight,’ she said.

‘No – there must be something—’

‘Lex,’ she said, and threw up one arm, presenting four walls of vehicles. ‘Come on.’

‘Can we call the airline?’

‘They don’t hold planes,’ Devlin said. ‘Even for me.’

It was the helplessness of it: back to the bedroom at Moor Woods Road and the warmth of urine spreading beneath me. I thought of our plane, reversing from its stand.

‘We can pay,’ I said, to the driver. I gathered my bag from the seat and combed for my wallet. He laughed again, harder this time.

‘Keep your money,’ he said. ‘It’s no good here.’

‘Lex,’ Evie said.

Some time in the night. I had been asleep, oblivious, and for a moment I couldn’t speak. I was too angry with her.

‘Lex?’

‘What?’

‘Daniel doesn’t cry any more.’

‘What?’

‘Not for three days.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Didn’t you notice? The quiet. It’s new.’

‘He’s getting older.’

‘But isn’t it weird?’

‘He’s just growing up.’

‘He’s still tiny, though.’

‘What are you trying to say?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Then go back to sleep.’

‘It’s strange, though. Isn’t it?’

‘It’s OK, Evie.’

‘Promise?’

‘Promise.’

The silence lasted so long that I thought she was asleep. Then, after half an hour – longer: ‘But why isn’t he crying?’

I closed my eyes. I summoned Daniel, small and warm in my parents’ bed. Growing older, beginning to sleep through the night.

Evie’s eyes, possum-wide in the darkness.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I don’t know.’

After the council, the house. We bought coffee and tiffin, and walked in quiet to the car. Sun seeped through the clouds, and the moors glinted bronze where it hit them. Bill had parked outside the pub, and I looked up to the window of my room, hoping for some sign of Evie. The window was closed, and nobody was in it.

‘You were wonderful,’ Bill said. ‘Truly. I didn’t have to say a word.’

‘Were you expecting to?’

‘I didn’t mean it like that. Just – you were very impressive. That’s all.’

‘Thank you.’

An intimidation of men passed, bare-chested, and looked at me curiously. Not Girl A; just a stranger in a suit, on one of the hottest days of the year. I took my sunglasses from my bag. I didn’t belong here now, any more than we had done then.

‘They shouldn’t make us wait more than a few days,’ Bill said. ‘A week, maybe. Ready to roll?’

When he had pulled out, and he no longer had to look at me, he said: ‘Your mother would be very proud of you.’

I didn’t respond. His words sat with us in the car, a sour passenger.

The house had made its own strange headlines. When Mother was imprisoned, she asked for it to be sold. Kyley Estates, based in one of the other -field towns, presented the listing: 11 Moor Woods Road was a detached, four-bedroom family home with exceptional views and easy access to Hollowfield’s high street. It had a modest garden, ripe for landscaping. It might benefit from some updating. For weeks, there was no reference to the events which had taken place there, and very few enquiries. The slideshow pictured grubby carpets; chipped paint; the moor encroaching the garden. A local journalist eventually exposed the story. House of Horrors to be sold as family home. After that, Kyley Estates was inundated with interest. People requested tours at dusk; they brought cameras; they were found trying to detach sections of the wallpaper to take home with them. The listing was removed, and the house started to rot.