Strange Sally Diamond(24)

She was speaking so fast, her words tumbled on top of each other. She stood up and I saw that one of her ankles was chained to a bolt in the wall. She could get to the toilet and kitchen area, but she couldn’t reach me. Her arms and legs were thin but her belly was large and she dropped her arms to place her two hands underneath it. She wore a shirt that was too big for her, and a skirt that lifted up at the front. She wore a pair of woollen socks on her feet.

‘What date is it?’

I didn’t want to speak to her. I quickly ran to the toilet and turned the light on and left the door open and weed into the toilet bowl. When I came out, she was within reaching distance of me. She held out her hand to me. ‘I wanted to call you Sam after my dad, but he said it had to be Peter. I gave birth to you, right here in this room.’

I pushed her hand away roughly. Dad said I could kick her. I lashed out with my right foot and hit her on the shin.

‘Owww,’ she said, but she didn’t cry.

‘Open the curtains,’ I said.

She looked at me with big eyes. ‘There aren’t any. There isn’t a window.’

I smacked her across the face like Dad did.

‘Please don’t hit me,’ she said. ‘Did he not teach you that it’s bad to hit people?’

‘Dad said I could hit you. Why isn’t there a window? I have a window in my room.’

‘He likes to keep me in the dark. There was a window the day I came but he boarded it up from the outside.’ I knew where on the outside the window was boarded up, but I couldn’t make sense of it now in the gloom. The only light came from the toilet and my bedside lamp.

‘Why did he do that?’

‘As punishment.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I can’t remember.’

‘It must have been bad.’

‘I tried to escape and he caught me so I bit him!’

‘Oh.’ I ran back to my side of the room.

‘I’d never bite you. I love you.’

I didn’t reply.

‘It’s so nice and warm here now. I’m glad he didn’t bring you in the winter. It’s summer now, right?’

I bit back the answer. It was September.

‘You don’t remember me at all? Do you know what year this is? Or what month?’

‘Yes.’

‘Will you tell me?’

‘No.’

‘Please. It’s important. I’ve been here since June of 1966. I was eleven. I think you were born a year later, but I don’t know how long ago that was.’

‘Dad told me not to tell you anything.’

‘What age are you?’

‘Where were you before?’

‘I had a family and school and friends and my own bedroom and windows. He says it’s my imagination, but I remember.’

‘Who says?’

‘The man.’

‘My dad?’

She nodded.

‘What’s his name?’ she asked.

I knew it was Conor Geary but I wasn’t going to tell her.

‘I don’t know.’

‘You can call me mummy. I’d love to hug you, you know, to hold your hand? You were only learning to talk when he took you away. You had a few words: Mama, bed, biscuit and milk. That’s when he took you. Don’t you remember?’

I had a shadow of a memory. I used to sleep beside her on that mattress.

‘Shut up.’

She was quiet for a while but she stared at me through the gloom.

‘Could you bring that lamp a little closer? So that I can see you properly?’

‘No.’

‘I want to show you something.’ She took a teddy bear from a shelf behind her. ‘Do you remember Toby?’ He was a cute bear with a red bow around his neck. ‘He was mine,’ she said, ‘and then when you were born, he was yours. Would you like to have him back?’

I remembered Toby more than I remembered her. He was dirty now, and one eye was missing. It disturbed me to look at him. I desperately wanted to hold him, but it meant getting closer to her.

‘No, thank you.’

‘I thought I’d never see you again.’

‘Why is your belly so big?’

‘I guess I’m having another baby. You were in my belly once, the same as this one. You’re going to have a little brother or sister.’

‘How did the baby get in there?’

‘He put it there.’

‘How?’

She said nothing for a while.

‘Dad locks me in my bedroom during the day on weekdays.’

‘So, is it the weekend now?’

‘It’s Friday.’ And then I clamped my hand over my mouth because I had broken Dad’s rule by answering a question.

‘Or it could be Tuesday,’ I said.

‘It doesn’t matter. I’d never tell him anything you told me. I hope he never punishes you. I’m sorry that he locks you up too.’

I needed to be the boss like Dad said. ‘He doesn’t lock me in a place like this. I have a huge window and I can see the garden and I have books and toys.’

‘Are we near the sea? Sometimes, I think I can hear it?’

Not answering all these questions was hard. I realized that you couldn’t hear the sea from this room. There was lots of torn cardboard nailed to the walls.