Forward Slash (25 page)

‘This is for your own protection, you know, sweetheart. I won’t be long, I’m only going to the gym.’

‘What? Nathan! No, please, don’t, I can’t—’

All she heard were his footsteps retreating, and she was left in the pitch-darkness with all his suits still in their dry-cleaning wrappers. The soft clingy plastic attached itself to her head, suffocating her, and she batted it away in panic, her breath coming in harsh gulps of terror.

Amy remembered in a flash the first dinner she and Becky had had with him, when he’d asked about their worst fears.

She rattled at the wardrobe door, pounding on it with her fists and kicking with her heels, but it was more solid than it looked. Surely, he hadn’t actually gone? She hadn’t heard the front door close, but then she had been making a racket. The silence outside felt as though it was pressing in, seeping into the wardrobe like a poisonous gas. She was choking, fighting the darkness, all her senses on red alert. What if he’d lost the plot entirely, and was waiting outside with a sharp curved knife? What did she really know about him? He had sprung, fully formed, into her life, and rarely talked about his past. She was an idiot to have trusted him. Now she would have to move out, and see the pitying ‘I told you so’ expression in Becky’s eyes.

No. Becky must not know. This could not be the end of her beautiful relationship. Nathan only criticized her because he loved her! She would make it right, somehow. Force him to come to therapy with her. Change him.

She would change him.

She cried and wailed and screamed so much that her throat was raw and she had to make herself stop, in case she used up all the oxygen in the wardrobe.

When he eventually returned, he was actually whistling: ‘Father and Son’ by Cat Stevens. Amy heard him pottering around in the hallway, hanging up his keys, going to the kitchen and pouring himself a glass of water out of the jug.

‘Nathan!’ she screamed. ‘Let me out!’

He took his time, sauntering into the bedroom. She heard the key engage in the padlock, and her fingers were curling around the edge of the sliding door the moment she saw a chink of daylight, dragging it open. She fell out, gasping, exhausted from sobbing and hyperventilation, lying like a comma on the bedroom floor. Her nails were broken and bleeding from scratching at the door.

‘Oh, sweetheart!’ he said when he saw her, concern furrowing his brow. ‘What’s the matter? I wasn’t long!’

He reached over to try to pick her up to embrace her, but she rolled away from him. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirrored wardrobe door – tears and snot smeared all over her deathly white face, her hair standing in crazed spikes.

‘Get away from me!’

She staggered to her feet, and he looked hurt.

‘What’s wrong?’ he repeated.

‘What’s fucking
wrong
? Are you insane? You lock me in the fucking wardrobe when you know I’m claustrophobic, and then you ask what’s wrong?’

He sighed and ran a hand through his sweaty hair. ‘Amy, baby, I’m sorry – I didn’t know it would be so hard for you.’

Amy stared at him, uncomprehending.

‘Why did you do it? Are you punishing me for something? What did I do to upset you?’

He reached out for her again, and she flinched away.

‘Don’t be like that, Amy. It’s no big deal, honestly. I just thought you’d be safer in there while I was out. There have been all these dodgy guys getting into the building and trying to sell chamois leathers and shit door-to-door – didn’t you see the warning notice in the lobby? And then there’s the caretaker, I don’t trust him at all. Have you seen the way he looks at you? I just couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you, darling, I love you so much.’

He’s a psycho, she thought. He’s completely bonkers and I’m going to have to leave him. Her heart sank, and next time she looked at him, she saw only concern in his eyes, and the love that up until then she hadn’t seriously ever doubted.

Yes, he was sometimes moody and distant and jealous – but nothing like this had happened before.

She walked slowly forwards into his arms, inhaling his damp skin. Even after a workout, he smelled good. His arms tightened around her and gradually she lifted hers to wrap around his waist. Her hands were still shaking.

‘I don’t know what that was about, Nathan,’ she said slowly and distinctly, over his shoulder. ‘But it was too much. If you ever,
ever
do that to me again, we’re over. Do you understand?’

She felt him nod. He pressed himself closer to her and his cock stiffened against her belly.

‘Promise me.’

‘I promise,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, Amy, I don’t know what came over me. I know it was wrong. It’s because I love you so much, I suddenly got in a panic about someone coming to the door and raping you, and me not being there. I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you.’

‘That’s not a normal reaction, you know that.’

He shrugged. ‘We’re not a normal couple,’ he said. He released his grip and took her hand. ‘Come on, I need a bath. Can we have one together?’

As the bath ran, they undressed one another. Panicked images of her captivity kept flashing through her head, but Amy forced herself to concentrate on the man she loved, the texture of his skin, the flecks of gold in his sorrowful eyes. Once they were completely naked and the bath was full, he climbed in first and lay down, his erection sticking comically out of the bubbles. Amy got in too and lowered herself down on top of him, the adrenaline in her system transferring itself into sheer animal lust. She closed her eyes and forced herself to forget the past two hours.

At some stage, they rolled over and Amy found herself underneath, the hot water tickling the sides of her face and occasionally sloshing over her as Nathan pounded into her.

‘
Slut
,’ he hissed into her ear, but her ear had water in it and she wasn’t sure she had heard correctly.

She started, and tried to push him off her, but all his weight was on her, pressing her down. ‘What did you say?’

‘I said, you’re a slut, Amy Coltman. A stupid slut. I lock you in a cupboard all afternoon and you still want to shag me? What’s wrong with you?’

Amy put her hands against his shoulders to try to push him harder, tears springing back to her eyes. ‘Five minutes ago, you said you’d never do it again. Five minutes! Don’t you want to be with me? Is this your way of saying we’re finished? Well, that’s fine with me. I’m leaving. I never want to see you again!’

Nathan climbed out of the bath and stood over her, dripping and furious, an expression of pure hatred on his face. A clump of bubbles slid slowly down his right arm – then flew off and dissipated in the air as he raised his hand and slapped her face, hard.

‘You,’ he said, almost calmly, ‘are going
nowhere
. You’re mine, and I’m going to make sure you never fucking forget it.’

He took one of the towels off the rail and wrapped it around his waist. Then he flicked the other one over his shoulder, switched off the light in the windowless room, took the key out of the door and left the room. The sudden silence of the extractor fan meant that Amy, her cheek stinging and aching, clearly heard the sound of the key being turned in the lock.

‘Oh, no. Not again. No no no no no,’ she muttered, staggering to her feet and climbing out of the bath into the damp darkness. Instinctively, she felt around for a towel, then remembered he’d taken both of them. No towel. No light. Her heart began to pound, and she rattled the door handle. The door didn’t budge.

‘Nathan!’ she wailed, unsure if the darkness she saw in front of her eyes was because she was blacking out. She hit the light switch – but nothing happened. The bastard must have turned the lights off at the fuse box. ‘Let me out!’

Silence. She knew there was no point in banging and shouting – and, anyway, all the strength to do so had vanished from her, dripping off her like the cooling water on her body. Gooseflesh broke out all over her wet skin.

Wearily, she climbed back into the bath and lay down so the warmth enveloped her. But how long would it stay warm for?

Another twenty minutes, was the answer.

When the water chilled to tepid, Amy sat up and twisted the hot tap – but only cold water came out. The hot-water tank was empty.

This couldn’t be happening.

She lay down again, shivering uncontrollably, but by now the water was cold enough to be of no further comfort. They had no plans for that night, so nobody would miss her. She wished fervently that she’d taken Becky up on her invitation to the movies, but she’d declined. She’d have to go straight to Becky’s when he finally let her out … Amy made a brief inventory of what she needed to take with her: a few changes of clothes in that overnight bag on top of the wardrobe; toiletries – well, most of them were in here with her, so she could at least pack her contraceptive pills and cosmetics. That might pass a bit of time, especially trying to do so in the dark. Then she made another, longer, inventory, of what she was losing: the three kids they’d planned – kids with Nathan’s black hair and lithe bodies – Olly, Molly and Polly. The fourth, if they had one, was going to be Solly – the Jewish one. Their little joke. No more little jokes. No more home, no more leisurely Sunday walks and pub lunches, no more holidays – oh, no, the holiday! They had already made half the down payment on a holiday to Sardinia next summer.

Fuck the holiday. He’d probably have drowned her in the swimming pool if they had taken that villa.

Do not panic
, she urged herself. It’s not like the wardrobe, it’s not a small space. Look – plenty of room to move around. She forced herself to climb out of the bath again, but she was shivering so much that she slipped and fell, banging her knee hard on the lino.

The only thing in the room that could possibly keep her warm was the bathmat, which she put around her shoulders, and a dry flannel she found on the floor, which she draped over the tops of her feet and tucked in.

She sat in that position on the cold, wet lino for hours, all her muscles and sinews and bones cramping into lock-down until it felt as though even the blood in her veins was slowly freezing from the edges in, like a fast-moving stream stilled into winter immobility. Her thoughts kept drifting to Nathan’s razor on the basin … would it hurt, to slash her wrists? She could do it then get back into the cold bath. No, sod it, she’d bleed all over the lino, let him deal with
that
. Why should she make it easy for him?

Whenever something like this had happened before, she’d forced herself to think positive, think of all Nathan’s good points, the beauty of his eyes, the good, kind side of him; thought becoming reality, forcing him to be his higher self, not the lower, baser, jealous one.

Not any more.

Eventually, the blood must have drained from her head because a huge dizziness overcame her, and the darkness was briefly punctuated with tiny dancing stars. Like a fallen statue, she toppled slowly over onto her side, her blue skin taut and marbled over her aching frame.

She had no idea what time it was when Nathan finally opened the door, but light streamed in, so it must have been the next day. He came over to her and wordlessly tried to help her up. She was so cold and stiff that she couldn’t object as he carried her into the bedroom and laid her under the duvet with a hot-water bottle.

When she thawed out enough to move, she waited until Nathan left the room to go to the bathroom and then to make tea, slipped out of bed, hastily dressed and shoved a few things into a bag, her muscles creaking and straining under protest, and pins and needles stabbing her hands and feet. Then she hid behind the open bedroom door, her heart rate accelerating until she was sure he’d hear her breathing. He walked down the hallway carrying two steaming cups of tea – she could see him through the thin gap between the door and the frame – and, as his foot crossed the threshold into the bedroom, she slammed the door in his face as hard as she could. He screamed and collapsed to his knees, swearing at her, as boiling tea erupted over him, like lava, and blood spewed from his nose.

Amy looked down at him writhing at her feet, picked up her bag, stepped over him swiftly before he could grab her ankle, and left the flat for the last time.

Underneath the feelings of hollow chill and terror, another burgeoning emotion emerged, growing with every new step away from him:

Relief.

Gary pulled Amy back into the building, the heavy door thudding shut behind her. She twisted in his grip, pressing herself against the door, her breath misting the glass as she panted with terror. Where was everybody? Where was that bloody nosy neighbour when she needed him? She banged on the door anyway, shouted, ‘Help!’ Gary was saying her name over and over, gripping the tops of her arms, trying to turn her around to face him. Her bag was at her feet, half its contents spilling out, not a single thing she could use as a weapon … she almost always had knitting needles in her bag but, sod’s law, not today.

‘Amy …’

He made another effort to spin her around, but she gripped the door handle and kicked backwards, the steel toecap of her motorcycle boot connecting with his knee.

‘Fuck!’ He let go and she turned to find him bent over, clutching his kneecap. She shoved him with every ounce of strength she possessed and, off balance, he toppled over, landing on his side.

She grabbed her phone and fumbled with it, pressing ‘Emergency call’ and managing ‘9’ before Gary jumped up. She held the phone up but he pulled her arm down sharply, pulling a muscle in her shoulder. She yelled with pain, trying to hit him with the phone.

‘Get away from me!’ she screamed, and the volume made him back away, holding his palms up, breathing as heavily as she was.

‘You’ve got it … all wrong,’ he said.

‘What have you done with Becky? Where is she?’

He moved towards her and she backed away, grabbing the door handle again, holding the phone out with her thumb hovering over the ‘9’.

‘You’ve killed her, haven’t you?’