Someone to Watch Over Me (24 page)

When Carrie woke the next day her first thought was of Charlie. It was perhaps the last vestiges of a dream lingering on, but as she lay there half asleep, she had a sudden strong sense that he was with her. It wasn't that she saw anything, it was more that there was a kind of vibration in the room; a disturbance of air, nothing more. She had heard other bereaved people describing moments when they had felt their loved ones around them, but she had never experienced it before. She stayed in bed for a while and thought of him. She had recently discovered that it hurt less if she let herself remember. Battling against the pain only made it more acute.

After a quick coffee she dressed in a pale pink silk shirt, a teal cardigan and black jeans. She twisted her hair into a knot and fastened it with a slide and put on crystal earrings and a thick silver cuff. As she put on her make-up with quick strokes, a swirl of peach blusher to combat her paleness and a smudge of dark grey on her lids, she noticed that her face had changed. She thought it was partly her recent illness that had hollowed out her cheekbones and altered their shape but there was also something new around her eyes, a tightness and wariness that she had not noticed before. She thought she looked older, or at least as if something she had seen or felt had left marks of damage on her.

She arrived at
Trove
at the same time as Jen who was wearing a leopard skin beret at a jaunty angle. Jen gave her friend a worried look.

‘Are you sure you feel up to being here?' she asked, bringing her face three inches from Carrie's and scrutinising it as if looking for evidence of wrong doing. ‘Blusher's all well and good, my girl, but it doesn't fool me.'

‘I'm fine,' said Carrie. ‘Honestly. I want to keep doing stuff, it stops me brooding and anyway, I can't leave you looking after the shop on your own forever.'

The truth was that being at the shop soothed her. When the rest of her life seemed so out of control, here at least she could take the measure of things. She could shape the shop according to her own ideas and desires. It restored in her the same sort of calm that she used to feel as a child when she played in the garden, placing leaves and flower heads and bits of bark on the rickety nature table she had made out of two planks of wood and some bricks.

The sale had left various areas of the shop depleted, and as her first job of the day Carrie set about moving all the reduced items to the back of the floor and ensuring that the non-sale merchandise was set out in enticing piles. She folded some soft, grey woollen blankets threaded through with thin purple stripes the colour of heather and stacked them onto the shelves of an old cupboard that Jen had found at a junk shop and revamped by papering the inside with antique maps. On the back of one of the open doors she hung a yellow leather satchel and a bright blue hat with a peacock feather. She enjoyed playing with colour and creating small displays, and
Trove
was laid out in a series of distinct areas, each with its own character. She was particularly pleased with the central table that showcased their latest range of body lotions and room fragrances all sold in old perfume bottles and glass medicine jars and stacked up in seductive profusion around an array of silver-backed hairbrushes and big floral jugs full of those old-fashioned, heavy headed chrysanthemums the colour of old gold.

The shop was unusually quiet and the morning passed without much incident. There were, of course, visits from the regulars; the man who walked around for some long-forgotten reason with a shepherd's crook. They had named him Little Bo Creep because of his somewhat disconcerting habit of stroking the merchandise, particularly the silkier items. Then they had the usual full weather report from HBC, so named because of her uncanny resemblance to Helena Bonham Carter, who let the cold air into the shop by standing with the door open and intoning the shipping forecast in doom-laden tones. The Wire Man never came in but passed by the shop at the same time every day on his constant and never ending quest for stray bits of wire. By lunchtime Carrie had sold two tea lights and Jen had stood precariously on a ladder and festooned the chandelier with green velvet bows and tiny glitter balls. She was still balanced at the top when the phone in the pocket of her enormous red sweater started to emit a just-about-recognisable
Carmen
. Carrie held her breath and ran for the bottom of the ladder as her friend attempted to answer and not fall off all at the same time. Carrie knew something was wrong immediately because of the way that Jen hunched her shoulders, as if preparing herself for a blow. She came down the ladder slowly, the phone clutched in her hand, the person at the other end still talking.

‘What's happened?' Carrie asked. Jen could hardly get the words out. ‘It's Tom, he's been in an accident. His bike …'

Carrie took the phone from her friend's unresisting hand and spoke into it. ‘I'm sorry, are you still there? … Yes, I am her friend. Of course … of course … I'll bring her.'

When they arrived at the hospital they were taken into a small room and offered tea by a nurse with her hair tied back so tightly it set Carrie's teeth on edge. She sat holding Jen's hand, only leaving her once to try and find out if anyone had any information yet about what was happening. After an hour that felt much longer, the door opened and admitted a shambolic figure who looked like Boris Johnson's less-groomed brother but who turned out to be the doctor. Carrie could feel the whole of Jen's body stiffen into dreadful attention. It was as if some invisible force was holding her upright against her chair. Her nails dug into Carrie's palm.

Boris had bad skin and a gentle voice. ‘I know it's not what you want to hear, but I can't tell you anything definite yet,' he said, looking straight at Jen as if taking the measure of her ability to endure this.

‘He is critically hurt and I'm afraid his head bore most of the impact when he was knocked off his bike.'

Jen stared at the doctor, aghast. ‘Wasn't he wearing a helmet?' she asked, through lips so pale they had disappeared into her face. ‘I don't think so,' Boris said. ‘At least he didn't have it on by the time he got here.'

‘It's because I told him he looked like a toadstool in it,' Jen said. ‘I laughed at him.' And she put her face in her hands and Carrie held her while she wept.

After a while they allowed Carrie and Jen to go into Tom's room. He was so still it seemed for a moment that he was play acting, as if he was holding his breath until the last moment when he would surely sit up shedding tubes and smiling. But the only sound came from the machines surrounding him and a hoover clattering against a wall in a nearby room. Jen approached his bed with what was almost a look of wonder on her face. She touched his hand on the place where the needle of the drip had pierced his skin.

‘Carrie, meet Tom,' she said. ‘He's the man I'm going to marry.' And she smoothed the wrinkles out of his sheet, making it lie straight over his legs. It was hard to see through all the bandages and the wires, but Carrie was pretty certain that Jen's Tom was the man she had seen outside the shop who had stared at Jen with such wonder. She suspected that even without the make-over, even in her unravelling leggings, Tom would have thought that Jen was the most beautiful woman in the world.

Molly was not sure how much time had passed. Despite her discomfort, she had tried to remain as quiet as possible. Max's even breathing from across the room indicated that he had fallen asleep at last and she wanted him to get as much rest as possible. She could no longer feel her arms because they were crushed beneath her, tied at an awkward angle over the back of the wooden chair in which she was lying. She had been trying to loosen the string that was bound around her ankles by rocking the chair slightly from side to side and she thought that the fastening was a little slacker than it had been before. She wished that Rupert had at least left the light on because she might then be able to see something that she could use to cut her way through the string round her wrists. She thought if she could perhaps get her feet free she would be able to roll herself upright and the rough edge of the radiator might be sharp enough to at least saw some of the way through.

After he had knocked her over, Rupert had snickered and said something about her being like a beetle on its back. His face was flushed, intent. He bent over her, and for a moment she thought he was going to hit her. She tried to stop herself flinching. She knew that if she showed her revulsion and fear it would only stimulate him into further cruelties. It seemed to her that her senses were more heightened than they had ever been before. She could smell his breath, which was hot and foul. She could see where his hair at the front was thinning, each follicle distinct, emerging slightly damp and erect from his scalp. He untied the strips of sheeting he had wrapped around her mouth and face, and slowly traced a finger round her mouth. He watched her closely as he pulled down her pyjama bottoms. She could feel him fumbling, pinching her hard and then thrusting his fingers into her, the effort making him grunt, his teeth pushed into his bottom lip which was purplish and slightly swollen as if he had been biting repeatedly on it. She was glad that the chair that Max was tied to was turned away and he couldn't see.

‘Why are you doing this, Rupert?' she said, keeping her voice as calm and even as possible. Trying not to make any sudden movements, as if she was in the presence of an animal that would not react well to being startled. He pushed his face even closer to hers.

‘You're making me,' he said.

‘I don't understand,' she said trying not to plead, but knowing that her voice had risen, despite her attempts to control the pitch. ‘What have I done?'

‘You. Brought. This. On. Yourself,' he said, punctuating each word with a twist of his fingers inside her and although the pain was sharp she tried not to cry out.

‘I need to go to the toilet. I need you to untie me.'

He pulled his fingers out of her, stood up and rubbed his hand with an exaggerated movement down his leg, his face registering disgust.

‘Piss yourself for all I care,' he said and then he went over to the door, unlocking it with a key from his pocket.

‘Rupert … could you just let Max go? Just Max. Take him to Kate's. Please. Please.' She couldn't stop herself from begging but he had ignored her. He flicked the light switch off and walked out, locking the door behind him. She had heard the front door opening and closing, then the sound of the car starting up in the garage and reversing down the path, and then there was a silence so deep and so profound that she felt suffocated by it.

She thought he had now been away for about four hours, but she wasn't sure. She had no watch and this room didn't have a clock and because the window had been boarded up she couldn't even see how light it was outside. She wondered how long it would be before anyone came looking for them. She thought that Kate would probably come round to the house if she hadn't seen them by the end of the day, and the thought consoled her. Max shifted in his chair and made a gentle moaning noise. She knew he still had the gag across his mouth and was trying to say something to her.

‘I'm here, darling,' she said to him. ‘You've been asleep.'

Max shifted his chair from side to side causing the legs to scrape against the floor. She could feel his agitation and fear.

‘Don't worry. We'll get out of here. Your father has gone. I don't think he's coming back and I'm sure Kate will come soon, or the police.'

Molly wondered why the police hadn't already been since they must be aware by now that the phone line had been cut. That in itself should surely have triggered some sort of an alarm.

‘I've loosened the string around my legs a bit. If I can just get it a bit looser I might be able to slip it off the chair leg.'

For another hour Molly continued to pull her legs up and away from the chair until she thought she was too exhausted to move any more. The muscles in her stomach were straining. The string had rubbed her flesh raw and she could feel her ankles burning. Max had been crying on and off into his gag and as she rocked and wriggled she had done her best to console him. She had run through her repertoire of stories and poems and had even resorted to a selection of feeble knock knock jokes. Just when she had decided that she would never get free she managed to slide one of the bindings off the leg of the chair. Heartened by her progress she worked away at the other until at last, both legs were free. She rolled over onto her side and then over again until she was lying against the wall. She used the wall to lift herself up, pushing against it until she was standing upright still attached by her arms to the chair. Because she had been lying for so long at a strange angle the pain in her legs was excruciating. She leant against the wall for a while, feeling the blood starting to circulate around them again, the stinging sensation of pins and needles receding.

Bracing the side of her body against the wall, she moved along slowly until she hit what she recognised as the edge of the radiator. She bent herself to the right height and scraped the chair and her wrists against the edge. Through the noise of the chair banging against metal she could hear Max whimpering and rocking from side to side. At last she felt the string give and with one wrist free was able to work away at the other one until it too came loose.

She went over to Max, put her arms around him and then pulled his gag off. He spat out the lump of sodden cotton wool and took a deep, gasping breath.

‘I wet myself,' he said piteously. ‘I couldn't hold it in any more.'

‘It doesn't matter, Max. I'll get you free and there's a change of clothes in the chest of drawers.'

She turned the light on, both of them blinking in the sudden brightness, and went over to the chest of drawers that was stocked as the police had recommended with some basic supplies; a change of clothes for Max and herself, some biscuits, a torch, a couple of bottles of water, some antiseptic cream, some bandages and a small pair of scissors. She was very glad that she had taken their advice since at the time she had felt vaguely ludicrous taking what seemed to be a wildly unnecessary precaution. She quickly cut through Max's bindings and got him carefully to his feet. As she pulled off his wet trousers she could feel his body trembling. She dressed him quickly in the dry clothes and sat him on the sofa with a biscuit and a bottle of water while she rubbed cream into the sore places on his ankles and wrists where the string had made angry raw patches.