Say You're Sorry(23)

Normally he comes every few days. I’m down to my last can of food: baked beans and cheese. Ugh! When Tash was here we’d have these “would you rather” discussions. Most people have choices like tongue-kissing your granddad or eating a bucket of snot. But we had to decide between dying of cold or starving to death.

I remember the first time we were in the basement when George came. We heard something heavy being moved above the trapdoor. Then his voice: “Are you decent?”

He laughed; his little joke.

The trapdoor opened.

“Mind yourselves,” he said. A rope snaked down and slapped against the concrete floor.

Tash tied the end of the rope to the gas bottle and he pulled it up, before lowering down a full one. Then came a basket of food: cans of tuna, baked beans, rice and pasta.

He called for Tash. Told her to climb the ladder. She told him to fuck off. We stared into the blackness of the hole. Waiting. A nozzle appeared. A hose. He released the valve and hosed us down. Water like ice, stinging our backs and legs. We curled up in the corner, hugging each other, trying to escape the spray.

He wet our beds and all our clothes, before he turned off the lights and left us in the dark.

We hung the blankets from the ladder, trying to get them dry. Then we turned on the gas ring and took turns drying our underwear and T-shirts. I thought I was going to die that night.

Two days later he came back. He dropped the rope. Emptied the bedpan. He asked for Tash. This time she went.

Because the ladder doesn’t reach all the way to the trapdoor, she had to stand on the top rung and raise her arms. He reached down and grabbed her by her wrists, hoisting her upwards. The trapdoor closed.

It seemed like she was gone for a long time. Longer than a day on Venus, my dad would say, or longer than a month of wet Sundays. I thought of all the things that might happen to her, which only frightened me, so I stopped trying to think.

When the trapdoor opened, I wanted to scream I was so happy.

He lowered Tash down. She wore different clothes—a pretty dress, with clean underwear. She had shampooed her hair. She smelled clean. Fresh.

“What happened?”

She didn’t answer.

“Are you all right?”

She crawled onto her bunk and rolled over, facing the wall.

The next morning, she didn’t get out of bed. She lay in her pretty dress, not talking.

“Please tell me what happened.”

“Nothing.”

“Did he do something to you?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

I stroked her hair. We lay there for a long time. She was feverish and then shivering with cold.

“We’re not getting out of here, are we?” I said.

She shook her head.

Normally she was the one who cheered me up. She was always coming up with elaborate escape plans that needed things that we didn’t have—like shovels, or explosives, or guns.

A week later the same thing happened. George opened the trapdoor. Called her name. Tash climbed the ladder.

Again I worried that she might not come back. I didn’t want to be alone.

This time she returned with treats—chocolate and soap and magazines. A part of me was jealous. Her hair was shiny and clean. Her legs were shaved… and under her arms. She smelled like a Body Shop and she wasn’t hungry. We were always hungry.

I lay on the bunk that night and watched the shadows move across the wall beneath the window. Jealous. She was his favorite. He gave her nice things.

“What happens up there?” I asked her.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Do you know where we are?”

“No.”

“What did you see?”

“Nothing.”

Then she curled up and went to sleep. She didn’t have nightmares, not like me. Sometimes she slept so quietly I got frightened that she was dead and would tiptoe over to her bunk and put my face close to her face, listening; or I’d blow gently in her ear until she snuffled and rolled over.

Then I’d be sure.





9




The hospital cafeteria is an echoing space full of scraping chairs and easy-wipe tables. It’s mid-afternoon and already dark outside. The lunchtime meals are warmed over in the trays: lasagna and baked vegetables and dried-out roast.

John Leece slumps in a chair, staring at the window as though looking at something that he can’t quite bring into focus.

“I’ve never really understood what people see in alcohol, but sometimes I wish I was a drinker,” he says. “It seems to bring people comfort. My father wouldn’t touch the stuff, but my mother has the occasional sherry or lager shandy.”

“What did you see in there?”

“I can’t comment until I talk to the police.”

“OK, we won’t talk about the post-mortem. I’ll ask you general questions.”