I am Mark’s wife.
I am Daan’s wife.
I belong to them both.
They both belong to me.
If Mark is my abductor, Daan will already know I am missing as he was expecting to see me on Monday. If Daan is responsible, then because of the way I’ve constructed my life, Mark won’t know I’m missing until Thursday afternoon. But this is madness. They will have to let me go eventually. Exposed, humiliated, brought to my knees, lesson learned, but he—whichever he it is—has to let me go. Doesn’t he?
“Mark?” I call out. I scramble on all fours, as close to the door as the chain will allow and listen. I know someone is on the other side of the door. I can’t see or hear them, but I can tell there is someone there by the way the light falls. “Mark, is it you? I think it is. I understand. I’m sorry.” I start to cry. I don’t want to. I don’t want to appear weak, defeated or pathetic, but I am. I’m all three. “Think of the boys. I know, I know, you always do. I should have. That is what you are thinking right now, isn’t it? That I should have thought of them. I am so sorry. Don’t let this get out of hand, Mark. Please. If you let me go by Thursday, they will never need to know this has happened, we can carry on as normal.”
The words tumble out, without me really thinking about them. How can we carry on as normal? What is my normal? Two husbands. Mark is never going to agree to that. That isn’t even what I mean. Is it? Am I asking him to take me back? Am I saying I’ll give up Daan? I don’t know. I don’t know. I just need to get out of here.
The typewriter throws out a short, angry-sounding burst. I should wait to see what it says but I don’t. I talk over the clatter, desperate to get my point across. Desperate to convince. “Is that what’s happening here? Will I be given a choice? A chance? I’ll have been taught my lesson without the boys being affected. Mark, I know that matters to you. They, above everything, matter to you.”
The note slides under the door.
Wrong.
Reading the word. I clamber, scamper like an animal, back toward the radiator away from the door. As though the word has burned me. Shit. The room seems to tilt, I’m on a rolling ship in a storm. Wrong husband? Wrong that I’ll get a choice, a chance? Wrong that the boys matter above everything? Maybe not above anger, jealousy, fury. My heart is beating so fast now that I can feel it in my throat, in my gut.
“Daan?” I realize that calling both men’s names is likely to further infuriate whoever it is who is out there but I’m beyond being rational. I slam my hand into the floor. “Let me explain, let me out. Daan? Daan?” Nothing. I scream, “I hope to God it is you out there, Daan, because if I’ve driven Mark to this point of madness, the boys will lose both parents!”
The typewriter clatters. I scramble for the note.
Don’t pretend to care about the boys.
You only care about yourself.
I do care about the boys. I love them. It might not look that way right now, considering everything, but I do. I always have. That fact has never changed. It’s unalterable.
Suddenly, I feel a familiar but rare gurgling low in my gut. I can’t reach the bucket quickly enough; the waste starts to pour out of me before I can pull down my trousers and panties. Steaming shitty liquid runs down my legs. I look around me helplessly. I snatch up the sheets of paper and try as best as I can to use those to clean myself, but the waste keeps flowing from my body. I’ve barely eaten anything these past few days but anything I have eaten is now on my clothes, my legs, the floors, the bucket. It’s even on my hands—steaming, stinking, humiliating. The food must have been covered in a laxative.
I peel off my jeans and panties and throw them in a corner. I’ll put them on when they dry out. I can’t afford to use my drinking water on cleaning anything other than my hands and legs. I sit in the corner furthest from the door, back against the wall. Half-naked. Sullied. Degraded. My stomach screams with hunger, but I can’t risk eating anything else, my arsehole is raw.
I start to cry. To sob. My pity is mixed with fury.
“Thank you for lunch, fuckface.”
20
Mark
Friday 20th March
Mark doesn’t know where to start with telling the boys their mother is a bigamist. Whether it is even something he ought to do. Isn’t it bad enough that she’s missing? That she’s gone? Isn’t that enough for a child to process? Oli might know the word but Seb would probably sigh and ask, “Do I have to look it up?” Leigh makes the boys do that—look up in a dictionary words they don’t recognize or understand. She allows them to google only if there isn’t a dictionary close at hand. She says the process of researching etymology helps with remembering the meaning better than just being told. Yesterday, the government announced they are closing schools and canceling exams. Mark thinks his head is about to explode. How the fuck is he supposed to homeschool Seb on top of all of this? Leigh would have relished that task. She’d have immediately reached for pens, drawn up timetables, researched resources, downloaded the Duolingo app.
He’s furious with her. Loathes her. Feels betrayed in a way that makes him want to shed his own skin. Slither out of it like a snake. Cast aside who he is and start again. That particular thought winds him. Was that what she felt every time she left their house? Did she shed them?
Fiona is at the supermarket. Mark has noticed that when the three of them are alone together, the house descends into a fog of recriminations; spiky anger—or maybe fear—stains the atmosphere. Largely, they all hide out in separate rooms. So Mark is surprised when Oli strides into the kitchen, goes directly to the fridge, opens it, peruses the contents, takes out a plastic bottle of milk and starts to drink.
“Get a glass,” says his father. Oli tuts, rolls his eyes but does reach for a glass.
“I think Seb is crying,” says Oli. “He just can’t comprehend how Mum might leave him like this.”
“No.” Mark knows he needs to go and comfort his youngest. Try to stop the baffled, hurt tears, but he’s hesitant. What can he say? He heaves himself off the breakfast stool.
Oli looks pleased that his dad has broken through his inertia and is going to do some parenting. He wants to try to gee him up. He fishes his phone out of his back pocket. “Look at this meme, Dad.”
Mark almost bats away his son’s phone, he’s not interested—Leigh was always better at feigning attention to mindless memes—but he digs deep to find some level of patience. If it matters to Oli, he should try to pay attention.
Mark doesn’t understand what he’s looking at. There is a man walking around his house, muttering about being all prepped for lockdown. He has a six-pack of beers tucked under one arm, the remote control in his other hand. He opens cupboards and shows piles of loo rolls and packets of dried pasta, neatly stacked. He nods, approving of his own planning. Then he opens the door to his understairs cupboard, there is a full wine rack and his wife. She is bound and gagged. Struggling to escape. The man on the video says, “Yup, all ready for lockdown.” He nonchalantly selects a bottle of wine from the rack and closes the door on his wife, trapping her in the dark cupboard.