Lonely Girl

by Lynne Vincent McCarthy

  Her mind drifts to the basement. She can’t believe she went down there wearing nothing but a thin slip of fabric.

  She pushes back the sheet with her legs, her eyes drifting down her body, studying its shapes in a detailed, almost forensic way. It’s something she hasn’t taken much notice of in the past. Her body. Its significance, like the house and most of the things around her, more about function than form. She notices a bruise the shape of a finger on her forearm and places her own over it, pressing down. The pain is strangely reassuring, reminding her she is still here. There are more bruises, a whole bunch of them on her knees, her legs and ribs from where the cruel edges of the stairs bit into her. Apart from that, her body looks no different.

  It feels different though. Like she has been cracked open.

  Her mind finds the man downstairs, wondering if, like her, he’s just waking up and, like her, once again realising that this is real. To the rest of them, out there, he’s dropped off the edge of the world and the person he is now – the man trapped in a crazy woman’s basement – exists only to himself and to her.

  Ana knows that sensation well. Most of her life she’s struggled with it, the feeling that to the rest of the world she doesn’t really exist, at least not in any meaningful sense. She even convinced herself it was better that way. To keep to the edges, to remain invisible.

  Now she’s not so sure.

  In the last few days she’s gone places she would never have imagined, crossed lines she didn’t even know were there, felt more in the present, more alive, than she ever has. Despite the danger, despite her fear, she’s not ready to let go of it yet. This new feeling of being not only visible, but seen. It doesn’t matter too much that the person doing the seeing might be judging and condemning her, branding her something she’s not. She’s used to playing roles. What she’s not so familiar with is this state of constant wanting. She can’t seem to turn it off.

  But what exactly does she want from this man who has brought her out of hiding? She wants more, she knows that much, but more what?

  To fuck him?

  To love him?

  To kill him?

  To devour him whole?

  She can’t have any of it. She knows that. She can’t have him.

  But that doesn’t stop the wanting.

  *

  Ana winces as she tries to cover the bruise on her face with makeup. When she sees her efforts only make it look worse she cleans it off with a tissue and starts again. The second time is a bit better and if she brings one side of her hair forward and keeps her head down it’s not that noticeable.

  She wanders down the hall and into the kitchen, ignoring the mess, pretending it’s not there by holding a picture in her head that has everything in its right place. It’s a trick she developed as a child, imagining the perfect home, the home that everyone but she seemed to have. Even now, after years of learning that perfect doesn’t exist, she can almost convince herself.

  The empty fridge, however, is impossible to ignore. River’s food is almost gone too, most of that into the garbage, even the steak he used to drool over.

  The monitor sits on the bench. Turned off. She shifted it there after returning from the basement last night. Knowing she’d never sleep with it in her room but mostly wanting to make sure her nocturnal visitation was the last word of the night. This strong desire to better him, to stay one step ahead, disturbs her. As does the elation she feels whenever she manages to do so. She realises last night’s small victory was a happy accident. If he had been awake when she approached his bed the outcome might have been different. She also realises his lack of predictability is a large part of the attraction. Even unconscious he’s full of surprises.

  Ana turns the monitor back on now. Her finger lingers, poised over the talk-back button, toying with the idea of bringing it all out in the open, but she stops herself there. She still doesn’t know if he’s aware of the existence of the baby monitor, is still no closer to knowing if the words she heard in the night came from him or from that other man she invented in her head. Just in case he hasn’t found it yet, she doesn’t want to do anything to alert him to its presence.

  She puts the last of River’s food into his bowl and grabs an unopened tub of cheese spread from the fridge, along with a packet of Jatz crackers. He might refuse to eat again but it’s better there’s food to tempt him.

  Depriving yourself is always so much harder than being deprived.

  *

  Ana opens the basement door and steps inside. She hugs the wall, trying to keep her face at least beyond the reach of the globe. She’s grateful now for the empty space at the bottom of the stairs. It allows them both to take a step back but it feels strange knowing he can see her while he has the cover of the shadows.

  She looks at the tray she left down there and notices the fruit and the packet of crisps are gone now. The sandwiches are still there though. He wasn’t prepared to take a chance on them.

  ‘I have to go out and get some supplies,’ she calls down. ‘Food. Do you want anything in particular? I can make whatever you like.’

  His disembodied voice comes back immediately but not with an answer to her question.

  ‘How long do you think you can keep this up?’

  ‘I don’t know. That’s up to you.’

  It’s true, she has no idea how long it might be before he’s once again unconscious and safe to move.

  She thinks that’s going to be it from him but then he surprises her.

  ‘Something that doesn’t come out of a can or a packet would be good. You might be able to survive on the shit you serve me but I have basic nourishment requirements. Besides, when all this finally blows up in your face you’ll want to be able to say you at least treated me decently.’

  His words are a slap, which she’s sure is what he intended.

  It doesn’t help that she’s holding crackers and processed cheese in her hands, but she’s pleased he’s no longer refusing to eat. Probably doesn’t have it in him to do without.

  ‘What would you like?’ she asks, imagining she’s simply a waitress in a café taking a customer’s order.

  ‘What I would like is the basic human right to be treated as innocent before I’m proven guilty but in the absence of that I’d settle for a steak. Medium rare, if you can manage it, boiled baby potatoes and some sort of green vegetable. Spinach … no, broccoli or beans, steamed not boiled. If you give me any sauce or butter I won’t eat it so don’t bother.’

  ‘How about pizza?’

  That brings him out where she can see him. Ana tries not to smile.

  ‘You have no idea what the fuck you’re doing here, do you?’

  He talks to her, looks at her, like she’s an idiot. ‘You should probably prepare better for the next time you turn psycho vigilante or whatever the fuck it is you’re doing here. Get yourself to a bookshop and ask for a copy of the kidnapper’s handbook. Maybe even put in some plumbing. It was considerate of you to put a toilet seat on the bucket but once that door is shut it still stinks like shit and piss down here. The least you can do is clean it out every day.’

  Ana’s face burns as she descends the rest of the way, her aching legs screaming, threatening to collapse on her with every step. Without even a glance in his direction she deposits the crackers and tub of cheese inside the chalk line and then skirts her way along the line, keeping out of his reach as she picks up the toilet bucket.

  He’s right. It stinks. She gets it to the stairs and then has to put it down.

  He’ll be out of here soon. You don’t have to engage.

  But there’s still so much she doesn’t know. Still so much she wants to know. Wants him to know.

  ‘I saw you. With Rebecca. The day she was killed,’ she says, her words clear and strong.

  Luke shakes his head and is about to say something when Ana explodes.

  ‘Don’t tell me again that you don’t know her. That I must have been mistaken. That I’m a crazy person. You
r face is all over the news.’

  She sees his body tense. His eyes drill straight back into hers.

  ‘That was you? Watching us?’

  So he remembers that now? What else does he remember? Ana can see the shift in him as his eyes rake over her, constantly assessing, re-evaluating her and what he thinks he’s dealing with.

  ‘That the sort of thing you get off on, is it?’

  ‘They’re out there looking for you right now. Probably would have found you already if not for me.’

  Luke’s angry but trying not to show it.

  ‘Okay, so now you’ve convinced yourself I’m guilty. What are you going to do?’

  The temptation to push things a bit further is too hard for Ana resist.

  ‘I haven’t decided yet. If you won’t go to the police maybe I’ll bring them to you.’

  ‘Do you really want to risk that? If I’m all over the news then you will be too. Do you want the world to know what you’ve done here?’

  ‘I haven’t done anything. That was all you,’ she says, as calmly as she can manage. ‘You probably don’t remember, but I recall it all quite vividly.’

  Ana transforms in front of Luke’s eyes, her body, her face, taking on the demeanour of a much younger girl.

  ‘He broke into my house, made me shelter him. I was terrified but he said if I didn’t do what he wanted he’d hurt me.’ She brings a hand to the bruise on her face, her voice barely a whisper now, twisted with fear and awkwardness. ‘Sometimes he kept me with him, chained up in my own basement like an animal … He made me do things to him. Horrible things. He said he wouldn’t kill me as long as I did everything he asked.’

  Ana’s eyes are shining as she stares directly into Luke’s upturned face.

  ‘You tell me, who is going to believe the word of a man wanted for murder?’

  Luke is silenced for now. The playing field levelled.

  Now leave, while you’re still ahead.

  ‘What’s your dog’s name?’

  Ana is taken aback.

  ‘You’d be surprised what I can hear through that ceiling.’

  Ana looks up to the ceiling but gives him nothing.

  *

  Ana empties the bucket into the toilet and flushes it away. She places it in the bath and pours half a bottle of disinfectant in and adds hot water, scrubbing furiously with the toilet brush while trying not to breathe in.

  So much for a connection. She really is crazy, or at the very least he’s making her crazy. He’s horrible, treating her like a servant. And she’s playing right into it. Doing his bidding. She should have kicked the bloody thing over and left him in a puddle of his own muck. It only makes her furious and more confused about whether or not he was speaking to her through the monitor overnight. She stops suddenly and turns the hot water off, sure she heard something. She waits but there’s nothing now.

  She fills the bottom of the bucket with more disinfectant and then stalks back down the hallway to return it but stops when she spots River sitting in front of the monitor. She can see he’s listening but there’s no sound coming from below. It’s spooky, like there’s some secret relationship River has with Luke that she doesn’t know about. She sees his ears twitch and knows he’s aware of her standing behind him but he doesn’t even look in her direction.

  Disconcerted Ana returns to the basement with the bucket, dropping it within reach at the bottom of the stairs.

  His last words to her are still echoing in her ears but Luke is back in his cave.

  He doesn’t acknowledge her, not even a thank you.

  *

  Back upstairs, Ana grabs her coat and bag and tries to get River to follow her out but he just looks at her and won’t budge.

  ‘In your bed.’

  She has to repeat herself before he obeys. Even then, his eyes find the monitor again and lock onto it.

  Ana moves across the room to turn it off but changes her mind, edging the volume up instead. Whatever he’s up to with River, she wants to know about it.

  She stalks to the front door but she doesn’t leave. Instead, she opens and closes it with a bang. It’s not long before she hears Luke on the move, followed by the sound of River returning to his vigil by the monitor. It’s that scraping sound again. She imagines the shiv taking shape in his hands, his fingers testing the now razor-sharp edge.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Ana hurries through the aisles of the local supermarket, trying not to look suspicious but so self-conscious she probably does. She would have gone to a bigger, more anonymous store further from home but doesn’t want to leave River alone with Luke any longer than she has to.

  She can’t remember the last time she fed herself and is so hungry she has to open a packet of corn chips. Once she gets a taste for the salty flavour she can’t stop. She is literally stuffing chips into her mouth when she looks up to see Kristy standing in the open doorway of one of the fridges watching her, whilst somehow still managing to feign disinterest. Not for the first time Ana wonders how she does that. It’s quite a skill. She also wonders how long it will take Kristy to formulate some snide remark. As usual, not long, exactly the amount of time it takes her to grab a tub of yoghurt.

  ‘Okay, this is getting a bit creepy now. Are you stalking me?’

  Ana has an overpowering urge to wedge Kristy’s head in the door of the fridge and shut it repeatedly, crushing the smugness out of her pert little face.

  Kristy raises her eyebrows and half smiles as if she knows exactly what Ana is thinking and is daring her to try. Rather than being shocked by the force of her murderous urge Ana finds herself smiling back. It confuses Kristy so much that for once she’s the first to look away. Ana simply continues on with her shopping, liking this new feeling of disregard for a girl who has for so long made a point of passively ridiculing her. She’s always wondered why Kristy stuck around, why she never left the island. Now she knows why – she likes being a big fish in a small pond. Out there, there’s too much competition for her.

  Ana is at the counter waiting while the shopkeeper takes her time ringing up her purchases when Kristy steps in behind her for round two. She knows it’s her without having to turn around. It’s the cheap perfume that gives her away. It’s always made Ana wonder what smell she’s trying to hide. Her pretty face won’t last forever but her bad taste probably will.

  Ana notices the shopkeeper glancing at her face, having noticed the poorly concealed bruise. An uncomfortable silence falls which the shopkeeper breaks.

  ‘When’s the party?’

  Ana gives her an unsure smile, then glances over her purchases. It’s a lot more food than she usually buys and a lot more treats. Also unlike her. River is usually the only one that gets treats.

  ‘Someone eating for two?’ Kristy pipes up from behind her.

  Ana almost laughs out loud when she sees the self-satisfied smile plastered across her face. That friend of Kristy’s at Bunnings must have been more aware than she appeared. Ana is almost chuffed, having always assumed her virginity was a sadly obvious fact to everyone.

  ‘It was for River,’ Ana says and angles herself away from Kristy, directing the rest to the shopkeeper. ‘My dog’s been sick so I bought a baby monitor.’ She realises, as she says it, how weird that sounds. ‘So I can hear him in the night.’

  The shopkeeper smiles politely. She might have been curious a moment ago but she doesn’t really care. It’s all just a part of her standard customer service.

  *

  Ana heads for home, groceries piled on the passenger seat. She’s still so amused by Kristy’s assumption that she doesn’t register that she’s passing Rocky’s until she’s left it behind. What does grab her attention is something lying on the edge of the road ahead. Something that looks disturbingly like a person.

  She slows to a stop.

  The air leaves her body as she comes abreast of it. It’s the mannequin she saw outside of Rocky’s the other night. The female.

  Ana gets out
of the car. She looks around as she draws closer but her male counterpart is nowhere in sight. The mannequin’s torso is completely crushed but her face remains untouched, gazing vacantly up at Ana, blessedly unaffected by the fact that she’s been run over and left lying like roadkill by the side of the road. The poor thing survived a beating from Mike Marsden, only to end up here. Or maybe this was his way of finishing his cheating wife off.

  Ana has a sudden urge to slip her into the back seat, to take her home to bury her. She stops herself acting on it. That would most definitely be crazy behaviour. Instead she shifts her out of harm’s way and leaves her to rest, hidden amongst the tree ferns at the side of the road. It doesn’t feel like enough but it’s something.

  Ana stays with her resting spot via the side mirror as she drives on. When she loses sight of it she finds herself overcome with emotion. She hasn’t cried for Rebecca – didn’t even cry when her mother or grandmother died – but she’s crying now for a dummy. She would laugh if she could stop herself crying. Her whole body is wracked, huge sobs tearing through her. A frozen body with a blank smiling face somehow managing to knock the lid off the deep well of grief in Ana when nothing else has.

  She’s so thrown she doesn’t realise she’s drifting into the middle of the road until the police car coming towards her is right in her face, swerving out of its path just as the driver blares his horn. She only gets a quick glimpse of him, but it’s enough.

  In the rearview mirror Ana sees his brake lights flash as he slows. He idles there for a moment but then does a U-turn and starts to follow closely behind. She can feel her foot wanting to accelerate but keeps a steady pace as she struggles to regain control of herself.

  He shadows her all the way home, slowing down with her as she pulls into the driveway. She stops well before she reaches the garage, but thankfully he’s pulled up on the road. Ana keeps an eye on him in the side mirror while she wipes her face with the hem of her shirt and takes a few deep calming breaths, cursing herself for letting her emotions get so close to the surface.