Something inside me is about to break. I can’t argue any more. There’s no point: in his mind, he has already won every possible argument we might have.
‘Let’s get it over with, for both our sakes,’ he says, picking up the syringe.
I walk towards the massage table.
‘Wait,’ he says. ‘Not the table this time. I’ve been looking on the Internet. There are better positions for conception than flat on your back. Look.’ On the carpet in front of me, he gets down on his hands and knees, holding the syringe between his teeth while his palms are flat on the floor. ‘Do that,’ he says, standing up. ‘Right. Good.’
I stare at the stripy carpet, list the colours in my head: grey, green, rust, gold, orange. Grey, green, rust, gold, orange. Nothing happens. I don’t feel his hands lifting the bottom of the dressing gown he made me put on after my clothes became too much of an inconvenience to him. Why is he taking so long?
For a beautiful moment I imagine he has died, that if I turned I would see him upright, grey and cold, eyes staring emptily.
‘That doesn’t look right,’ he says, sounding irritated. ‘I know, let’s improvise a bit. Go as if to fold your arms, resting your forearms flat on the carpet. No, not… yes, that’s it. Excellent. And then-final stage-shuffle forward on your forearms so that your body sort of stretches, so that your bottom’s higher in the air than the rest of you. That’s it. Stop. Perfect.’
Grey, green, rust, gold, orange. Grey, green, rust, gold, orange.
Darkness falls down on me. I twist my head to look up, see a layer of fabric. Not the ceiling. I feel air on my legs and back. He has pulled up the dressing gown, thrown it over my head. I begin to weep. ‘Wait! Look up male fertility on the Internet,’ I plead with him, but the words come out thick and indistinct. Only I know what I’m trying to say. ‘Four times a day is less likely to succeed than every two days. I’m not lying!’
He doesn’t answer.
I feel something brush against me. Not the syringe: something softer. Material. ‘Please stop,’ I beg. ‘There’s no point, not so soon after last time. It won’t work! Are you listening to me? I swear, I’m not lying!’
Thick, heavy breaths come from behind me. I close my eyes, steeling myself for the syringe, pressing my face into my arms. Seconds pass-I don’t know how many. I have forgotten how to count the speed at which my life is rolling away from me. Nothing happens.
Eventually, when I can’t bear it any more, I raise my head and turn. He’s holding the gun in the air. The bottom of his shirt has blood on it. ‘What…?’ I start to say.
He flies across the room at me. ‘You bitch!’ he screams. ‘Evil bitch!’ I don’t have time to move. I see the gun above my head, his hand coming down fast. Then a terrible crack, a burst of pain that wipes everything away.
When I come round, my arms and legs are twitching. That’s the first thing I’m aware of. I raise my hands to pat my face and head. Something around my eyes is the wrong shape. I find a lump above my right eyebrow, hard and huge, as if someone’s sliced open my skull and pushed a cricket ball under the skin at the top of my face.
My fingers are wet. I open my eyes: blood. That’s right: he hit me with the gun. I look around. Tears of gratitude prick my eyes when I see he’s not there. I don’t mind being in this room as long as he’s somewhere else.
Blood on his shirt. But that was before he hit me. Did he injure himself? How? Slowly, I rise to my feet. On the stripy carpet where I was lying, there is more blood. Nowhere near where my head was. I can’t bear to check in the most obvious way, not after what he’s done to me. I hobble over to my bag, pull out my diary and find the last page that I’ve marked with an asterisk. Then I count the days since then: twenty-nine. Oh, my God.
Knowing why he hit me frightens me as much as the click of the gun did. He can’t wait. That’s how mad he is. At some point in his life, he has lived with a woman and had a child; he must know exactly what the blood means.
He can’t even bear to wait five or six days.
Has he given up on me and gone to find another woman?
I try the door handle. Locked. I swear at myself, knowing how ridiculous it is to be crying with disappointment. For a moment I allowed myself to hope that he had left the house in a blind fury, forgetting to take his usual precautions.
I know he has gone out. I’m sure of it. He can’t stand to be around me, not now that I’ve let him down. I have to do something. I can’t wait for the milkman tomorrow morning. I must do something now.
Why do people say, ‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way’? Most of them will never end up in a situation like mine, forced to remember the number of times they’ve trotted out that idiotic platitude.
I have never said it because I’ve never believed it, but now I have to. I have to make it true.
Breaking down the door would be impossible. It’s a thick one with metal inside, a fire door. It swings shut heavily unless someone-the man, William Markes-holds it open. That leaves the window. Double-glazed. I’ve looked at it hundreds of times and decided there’s no way I could smash it.
I have to try. I run from the opposite side of the room, throw my body at the glass six, seven times. It doesn’t move. I do it until my shoulders and arms feel as if they’re about to break. I slam my fists against the window and scream, hating it for its strength.
There is clouding on one pane. It’s been there since I got here, blocking a small patch of what is already a limited view. It never clears; funny, I haven’t noticed before. Moisture, trapped between the two panes of glass. Which means that, somewhere, the seal is broken.
Climbing up on to the massage table, I unscrew the white plastic light fitting above the bulb and release the cranberry glass shade. Then I swing my arm back and hurl it at the window as hard as I can. It smashes. I leap down from the table, run to the pile of glass and choose a shard with a thin, sharp edge. I think about using it to kill myself and immediately reject the idea; if I’d wanted to die I could have lied and let William Markes shoot me-it would have been easier.
Using the pink glass triangle’s sharpest point, I start to slice gently at the grey rubber seal at the top of the window. The soles of my feet sting. I stop to examine them and see that they are bleeding: small chunks of lampshade have embedded themselves in the skin. I ignore the pain and carry on cutting at the thin rubber strip. I don’t care how long it takes. I will never stop. I will spend the rest of my life gouging out the corner of this window.
After what feels like hours, a curl of rubber springs towards me-I have prised it free with my makeshift spade. Yes. I drop the slice of lampshade on the carpet, grab the rubber and yank it as hard as I can. The strip peels away, and the glass in the window shifts slightly. I’ve pulled out the seal.
My body feels too battered to break anything. I push the massage table on to its side and start to unscrew the central metal leg, twisting it clockwise. It is stiff, and takes a while. I sing under my breath, ‘Annie Apple, she says “Aah”, she says “Aah”, she says “Aah”.’ Zoe’s Letterland song-she learned it at nursery. By the time I get to Z I’ll have done it, I tell myself. I’ll be free. ‘Annie Apple, she says “Aah”, she belongs to Mr A. Bouncy Ben says “Buh” in words, Bouncy Ben says “Buh” in words, Bouncy Ben says “Buh” in words, and then he bounces home. Clever cat…’
I’ve done it. I’m holding the sturdy metal leg. It’s hollow, but still heavy enough. It should do the trick.
Running from the opposite wall, I aim the end of it at the middle of the window. The glass smashes. It cracks, then crumples and falls like hard, opaque confetti.
I sling my bag over my shoulder and move towards the open air.
Police Exhibit Ref: VN8723