The Good Mother. A. L. Bird
one and with both me and Paul outside we could raise much more money.
A thought strikes me.
Would Paul be willing to pay for Cara? Considering?
But yes. He must be. He can’t negotiate over her. He can’t say ‘Nah, one million pounds? You don’t know who you’re talking to, mate. I’ll just take the one. Five hundred thousand plus another twenty for your trouble.’ Because he must know that if he gets me back, but not her, he won’t have me at all.
Why isn’t it light yet? Where is the sun when you need it?
The police might tell him not to pay of course. Friends and remaining family might benevolently but wrongly advise that I would not want all our hard-won money given up without a fight. But what’s money? I would live in a caravan, overlooking the ocean. All I need is family and freedom.
So pay it, Paul. Release what equity we have. Scrabble round beneath proverbial sofas to find the funds. Call in old favours. Phone your sister. Crowd-fund. Or find us, and shoot the place out (not us) with the police.
Find us.
I get out of bed, clasping the duvet to me, and go over to the wall. Cara’s wall. I nestle down there, close to her. The separation of the wall is not enough to break the bond. I tap-tap my goodnight kiss onto the wall. The tap-tap comes back. I can breathe again.
My baby so close I can almost hear her breathe. Almost. Not quite.
I awake to beams of sunlight coming through the window.
Morning.
The window.
I jump up.
There’s the chair, waiting for me. I clamber onto it, peering over the ledge. It looks so beautiful outside, so crisp. Unlike the air in here, already turning stale. Fully oxygenated out there – look at all those trees!
And not many people to clutter the atmosphere up with exhaled carbon dioxide, unfortunately.
I can see just one person. A girl. About eight. Scrawny, her brown hair in uneven bunches. Takes me back to when Cara was little. Except Cara’s hair was always blonde. And her bunches were never uneven. The girl is skipping. Quite well. She must be concentrating hard, no risk of tripping on the rope. No risk of her seeing me, the Captor must think. I wave. I wave again. I try banging on the glass. Nothing. Just one-two-three-jump-two-three and the bunches bobbing up and down.
See me! I will her. See me, understand me, and run back to your parents’ house – whether that’s the other side of those trees or just round the corner, slightly outside my view – and bring them, so they can rescue Cara and me.
But she moves on to a more complicated skip, turning herself and the rope round in a circle while she jumps. I never taught Cara that one. Would never want Cara to have her back to her mother. Like the girl now has her back to me.
I come down from the window and slump in the chair. The window is not a solution yet. But I can make it one. If I just had a pen and paper, I could write up a big sign. ‘Mother and daughter kidnapped – rescue us!’ Or just ‘Trapped – help!’ Although whoever saw that would probably just think it was the wry joke of an angsty teenager, smile slightly and walk on by. If anyone were to see it. If the girl is observant when the rope is down. If anyone comes through the trees.
And if I had a pen and paper, I could do something else too – I could write to Cara! I go back over to the grate and examine it. Yes, a letter would go through there, easily! I want to call through my plan, but I daren’t, after last night. He will separate us, I know he will, or punish us. Punish her. Which I can’t allow. And, anyway, I can call out to him, tell him I want paper. Cara will hear, and she’ll know I have some kind of plan. She’ll be on the lookout for something new, something different, and she’ll see it through the grate.
He told me, didn’t he, that I was to call if I wanted anything? Well, I’ll tell him I want to write a diary. That he’ll be torturing me if he doesn’t let me. That I’ll scream again (although I won’t).
So I bang on the door of my new prison.
‘Hey!’ I shout.
Silence.
‘You!’ I shout. ‘Come here!’
Still silence. What’s this? Is he sleeping? Has he topped himself? Will Cara and I starve? Has he left us alone?
Is he out collecting the ransom?
Is he just torturing me with denial?
Why doesn’t he understand I must have my paper!
I search the room. I need the paper and pen now, now I have thought of it, this plan. I need to communicate with my Cara. I need to put up a sign to the outside world. I need the pen and paper.
I open the drawers. Nothing. No drawer-liner that I could write on with potpourri. What kind of uncivilised place is this? I open the wardrobe, hoping for those tissue paper covers the dry cleaner puts on coat hangers. No. None. No clothes either. Just a lavender clothes freshener. What does this guy have against natural smells? Am I in some kind of abattoir? Is this the killing room, recently cleansed?
And the walls, of course, are paint, not wallpaper. So I can’t rip them down, write on them with the scent of flowers. No.
Somewhere outside the room there is a sound of slamming.
‘Hello!’ I shout again. ‘Are you there?’
Footsteps now. He is coming. The key in the lock.
He is wearing a coat. So. I was right. He has been out. If I had a watch, some way of telling the time, I could record whether it’s a habitual outing. Whether it gives me time to speak to Cara. Whether we can use it to break the doors down. Or if it’s just a one-off, to collect ransom money. But perhaps he would have come back in something nicer than an anorak if he’d just got one million pounds.
I want to say a bitchy ‘Nice day out?’ but I don’t. Better to pretend I haven’t noticed the coat. In case I need to exploit it later.
Instead, I say, ‘You told me to ask you if I wanted something.’
His eyes become more alive. ‘Well?’
‘I’d like a pen and some paper, please. To write a diary.’
‘A diary?’ His tone is curious.
‘Of my captivity. Not,’ I add, ‘that I expect it to go on for long.’
He nods his head. He seems to approve of my request. I don’t want your approval, I want to scream, I want you to let me and my daughter out.
But. short of that, give me a fucking pen and paper.
‘Anything else?’ he asks. There seems to be hope in his voice, encouragement. Like I’m suddenly going to ask for him, himself.
Something to keep in mind for an escape.
But I’m not ready to go down that route yet.
For now, I just want to communicate with Cara, and the girl outside.
I shake my head. ‘Just the pen and paper.’
The door closes, the lock turns. A few minutes later, he comes back with a notebook and a couple of pencils. The pencils are blunt, I notice. Maybe he thinks I would stab him with a sharp one. Maybe I would. But these will at least do for my first letter to Cara. I wait until he is out of the door again and the lock seals me in. Then I begin to write.
The other side of the door
Well, you have to give them what they want, don’t you? Builds up trust, for when you need it. Means they no longer want to escape. Bit of tit for tat – I give you a pencil, you give me … Well. What I want. But slowly does it.