The Venus Trap

by Voss, Louise

  I want my husband back. And I wanted it before I ended up as Claudio’s prisoner.

  I have to force myself to remember back to the date again, because the pain that sweeps over me at this realisation makes me truly believe I could die from grief.

  ‘Very well,’ said Claudio huffily. ‘You’ve made it perfectly clear. I don’t understand, though—we kissed! You seemed to enjoy that. And what about the swimming? We were going to go swimming with your daughter. What about that?’ This last was said almost triumphantly.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I repeated miserably. It was suddenly really difficult to formulate words. ‘Listen, I’d better be going. It’s quite a long drive home and to be honest I’m feeling really sick. Do I just press this button to raise the barrier again?’

  He nodded, once. ‘Bye, then.’ I reached forwards and tried to kiss him on the cheek but I felt so dizzy that I missed and kissed his neck. I ducked under the barrier and started walking towards my car.

  That was the last thing I remembered.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Day 3

  Claudio locks me back in my room while he goes to cook supper, ignoring my slightly tipsy suggestion of being his sous-chef. I don’t feel like watching TV or listening to the radio—I’m sick of listening to news bulletins that don’t mention that I’m missing—so I do what has become my default leisure activity. I read my diary. I’ve become addicted to it, not least because I worry that at any moment Claudio will burn it or make me eat it, or something.

  31st December 1986

  I remember glancing at the big clock on the wall of the Pembroke Arms function room and seeing that it was ten o’clock, every slow click of its hands ticking away the minutes until John would be kissing someone else at midnight. It felt unbearable.

  John and Gareth’s party was in full swing. There was this naff homemade screen at the DJ’s console, flashing red, green, and yellow like malfunctioning traffic lights in time with Booker T and the MGs, Green Onions, and a glitterball rotating above the dance floor. It kept getting stuck, then jerking round again.

  The crowd was mostly Young Conservatives, Young Farmers, and sixth formers. Everyone danced, which was good, but most of the dancing was crap. They even did that sitting-down rowing dance to Oops Upside Your Head. I hate that. Everyone was tipsy by 10 p.m., me included, because Donna got served at the bar! I couldn’t believe it. She bought me a rum and black, which was yummy. Had three that night.

  I was feeling totally out of place. Most of the girls were wearing ball dresses, but I’d borrowed Donna’s blue and white stripy shirt and navy ra-ra skirt. Donna was moaning about her dress. She kept hoiking up the front of it and adjusting the big silk bow at the back of the waist. The dress should have been tight across her chest, Flapper-girl style, but it gaped at the front and if she leaned over it exposed her little boobs to view. She blamed me for letting her go out in it, grumbling that she couldn’t sit down because of the bow, and people could see straight down it.

  I told her it looked gorgeous. ‘At least you’ve got a dress,’ I said. No-one else was just wearing a skirt and shirt. She grabbed my arm, the dress forgotten: ‘Ooh look, Gareth’s over there with John and their mates. Let’s go and talk to them—I bet you a pound I’ll get Gareth to snog me by midnight.’

  I bet she wouldn’t, and we shook hands on it. Then we headed over towards them, weaving across the dance floor, dodging flailing Sloanes as the music changed to Hi Ho Silver Lining. A ruddy-faced Young Farmer in a too-small dinner jacket grabbed me round the waist. ‘Wanna dance, sexy?’ he yelled in my ear.

  I ignored him. I could see John and Gareth sitting at a table with a few others and, joy of joys, Gill was just tottering off to the Ladies, so the coast was clear.

  There were three more boys at the table: Alastair Brown, Claudio Cavelli, and Gavin Pinkerton. They took no notice of Donna as she crouched down in the space between Gareth’s and John’s chairs, holding her top tight against her chest with her hand. But John looked up at me!

  ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Glad you could make it.’

  ‘Thanks for letting me come.’ Oh god, I said ‘come’, I thought. Thankfully no-one seemed to notice, and John just smiled at me, blowing cigarette smoke out of the corner of his mouth. I wanted to catch the smoke and swallow it, to appropriate something of his. He looked utterly gorgeous tonight, in his dinner suit and shiny black shoes. They matched his shiny black hair.

  ‘Don’t Cry For Me Argentina,’ said Alastair, a shifty-looking blond boy with narrow eyes and thin wrists. The others groaned.

  ‘That’s pathetically obvious, you moron,’ said Claudio. ‘But what can we expect from someone who thought the Falklands were off Scotland? My turn.’

  ‘What are you lot doing?’ Donna hauled herself up off her knees. Grabbing an empty chair from the next table, she squeezed it in next to Gareth, and gestured for me to share it with her.

  ‘Songs about the Falklands,’ Gareth said. ‘How about Ascencion Island Girl by Elton John?’

  Donna gazed up at Gareth. ‘That’s brilliant,’ she said, putting her hand on his knee. Then Gareth asked me if I had a song. ‘Rainy Night in South Georgia!’ I blurted triumphantly. It earned me a half-hearted round of applause and, far better, a look of respect from John. My feet tingled with delight, and in one split second I had manufactured a blissful daydream in which me and John were walking up the aisle, producing four gorgeous children, and going on lots of cruises in our retirement. ‘It was your ability to produce the best Falklands-related song title at my party in ’86 when I really fell for you—and I’ve never stopped loving you since,’ quavered John passionately, aged ninety.

  Gill came back from the toilet, lips coated with a fresh application of coral pink, and flung herself onto John’s lap with her arms around his neck. She pulled a cigarette from John’s packet and waited for him to light it.

  ‘Gareth, sweetie, you’ll never guess who’s just arrived!’ she said, inhaling as the match was obediently sparked in front of her. ‘My friend Alex, the one you met at the Hunt Ball. She’s dying to see you . . .’

  Poor Donna. Gareth ripped her hand off his leg like it was radioactive, and was already charging down the room towards the bar. Donna watched him go. ‘Mal Venus by Frankie Avalon,’ she suggested half-heartedly, swallowing the rest of her vodka and lime, and stretching out a hand for John’s cigarettes. ‘Can I have one of your fags, John?’

  ‘No, you bloody can’t,’ he said, snatching them back again. ‘You’re much too young and besides, the parents are here. They’d kill both of us.’

  Donna waited until John and Gill began to canoodle, and swiped a Benson & Hedges from the packet, now abandoned on the table. ‘Come with me to the loo so I can smoke it,’ she whispered.

  ‘Can’t we go outside?’ I was keen to get away from the sight of John with his tongue in Gill’s mouth.

  ‘No. It’s too cold and someone might see me and tell Mummy.’

  ‘Someone might see you in the loos, too.’

  ‘I’ll go into a cubicle if anyone comes in. Come on.’

  The Ladies was empty, and freezing cold owing to a high window having been left open. The muffled sound of Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer thumped through the walls from the disco. Donna examined her appearance in a speckled full-length mirror, shivered, and goose bumps sprang up on her bare arms.

  ‘Claudio fancies you. Did you see the way he was staring at you?’

  She pointed at her breasts, clearly outlined beneath the silk bodice of her dress. ‘Look, you can see my nipples.’

  Even though it was Donna, I still felt embarrassed and looked away. ‘He doesn’t. He never talks to me unless he’s taking the piss. He’s awful.’

  ‘That’s a sure sign. Bet he’ll try to snog you at midnight. Look at them—it’s obscene!’

  She retrieved the cigarette, already a litt
le soft and creased, and then extracted a family-sized box of Bryant & Mays from her seemingly bottomless handbag.

  ‘Blimey, Don, have you got enough matches there? You’re only lighting one fag, not starting a bonfire.’

  ‘I knew I’d need some, and they were all I could find in the kitchen.’ She lit up, took a feeble drag, and blew out smoke in a huge unstructured cloud that engulfed me.

  I flapped my arms and clutched my throat, coughing and pretending to choke.

  ‘For someone as healthy as you, I can’t believe you smoke. Doesn’t that stop you swimming as fast as you should?’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Donna, taking another minuscule puff, ‘I don’t smoke many a day. Only one or two a week, actually.’

  Then I noticed how ugly I look when I coughed, so I turned my back on my reflection. ‘Well, I don’t know why you bother, in that case. So, are you upset about Gareth and that girl?’

  Donna continued to pout at herself, trying and failing dismally to blow a smoke ring. ‘Nah, not really—though can we extend the bet till the end of January, just in case? Even if they get off with each other tonight, it won’t last. That Alex looks like a horse—long face, all gums and big teeth, you know? And she’s got an enormous bum.’

  She stubbed out the only quarter-smoked cigarette in the sink and dropped it into the bin. ‘Mm, I needed that,’ she said, unconvincingly. ‘So who are you after tonight, then? Claudio? You do know you’ve got no chance with John, don’t you? And anyway, Gill’s actually quite sweet, when you get to know her. They’re mad about each other.’

  Each word plunged like a dagger into my heart, but I couldn’t tell her. I pretended I was over him. ‘He’s not the one for me. And nor is Claudio—he gives me the creeps.’

  I felt like there was a marble in my throat. Why did I lie to Donna? I worship every hair on John’s head, every atom of him, and I will do until the day I die. To say ‘he’s not the one for me’ is sacrilege! He is the only one for me. I wanted to poke Gill’s eyes out, seal up her mouth with parcel tape so she couldn’t kiss him. It wasn’t fair.

  ‘I think you should find out who rescued you, and go out with him.’

  ‘That’s the most pathetic thing I’ve ever heard! What if I’d been rescued by a tramp, or a . . . a . . . I dunno, a . . . punk—would you suggest I went out with him? Anyway, I don’t want to talk about that.’

  The door opened and Donna’s mum sailed in, wearing a diaphanous chiffon tent affair of many layers, like expensive pastel rags. Mine and Donna’s eyes darted to the bin containing the recently extinguished cigarette, as if it might suddenly re-light itself and jump back into Donna’s mouth.

  ‘Having a nice time, girls?’ she said. ‘I say, it’s terribly parky in here, isn’t it? I’m not sure if I dare bare all to spend a penny—if I’m not out in ten minutes, will you come in and chip me off the lavatory seat?’ I love the way she talks; it makes me laugh.

  She sniffed at Donna’s head suspiciously. ‘Your hair smells jolly smoky.’

  ‘Oh, I know. Dreadful, isn’t it? Jo and I were just saying how being around all these smokers really makes your clothes and hair stink, weren’t we, Jo?’

  I nodded obediently. Mrs B-B squeezed herself into a cubicle and shot the bolt locked. ‘Ooh, what a relief,’ she called gaily over the door, peeing enthusiastically. ‘Before you go, Donna, can I just ask you to keep an eye on your brother? He and Gill have had a frightful ding-dong out there. You know what he’s like—I don’t want him getting into a tremendous sulk and drinking himself silly.’

  ‘What do you mean? They were fine a minute ago.’

  I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, smiling. For a split second I thought, Actually, I’m quite pretty sometimes.

  ‘Well, you’ve missed all the drama, then, darling. She slapped his face and left with her gummy friend Alex. Heaven knows what he said to her—he’s so tactless sometimes . . .’

  Donna and I gave each other an enthusiastic thumbs-up and, for once, both scrambled for a last-minute appearance check in the mirror. I wiped a small lipstick stain off one of my teeth, and Donna huffed into her hand to check her breath, and we headed back into battle, leaving Mrs B-B talking to herself in the toilet cubicle.

  Midnight came, heralded by a spittly countdown from the DJ. This was followed, in the usual fashion, by a lusty rendition of Auld Lang Syne, party poppers, whoops, and random snogging.

  I got separated from Donna as everyone tried to drunkenly organise themselves into a circle of pumping crossed arms and eventually spotted her standing on tiptoe, her head tipped back at a ninety-degree angle so she could reach Gareth’s black hole of a mouth. He appeared to be swallowing her whole. An image of a boa constrictor eating a piglet sprang to mind as I watched her fondling Gareth’s cauliflower ear. Damn, that was a quid I’d lost, then.

  I turned away, a low heavy feeling of misery beginning to collect in the pit of my stomach. What a great start to a New Year—no boyfriend, no Donna to celebrate with, no-one even to talk to. Only about ten million extra calories assimilating into my fat cells from all the crisps and the sticky rum and blacks I’d downed. I wished I hadn’t come after all. Poor Mum was at home on her own on New Year’s Eve, too. I was an unfit daughter as well as an ugly misfit.

  I decided to go and phone Mum up to wish her a Happy New Year. I found a ten-pence piece in my bag, picked up my coat from underneath seven others on the same peg, and left the function room for the short walk across to the hotel reception, where I knew there was a phone.

  I paused at the entrance to the hotel. Hello Dad, I thought, gazing into the clear sky. Are you up there? I’m just going to ring and check Mum’s OK. Can you hear me?

  ‘Can you hear me?’ I tried it out loud, just in case.

  ‘Yes. Can you hear me?’ The voice came from behind me.

  I nearly jumped out of my skin. I wheeled round, heart pounding, waiting for the guy in the balaclava to spring out from behind a tree at me. I could feel his hands heavy on my shoulders again. ‘Who is it?’ I said, already blind with fear and crying.

  ‘Hey, Jo, it’s only me.’

  John—John!!—appeared from round the back of the function room. He looked dishevelled and tired and was holding a glass of champagne in one hand and an unlit cigarette in the other. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. Are you all right?’

  He walked up to me and wiped a tear off my face with his thumb, putting down his glass so he could hold my cold hand in his warm one. It was the first time he’d ever touched me. My knees were shaking, from shock and anticipation, and I was aware of being mortified that he’d seen me crying. I tried to collect myself.

  ‘I’m fine. You gave me a fright, that’s all. I was just going to go into the hotel and ring my mum.’

  ‘Well, as long as you’re OK. Hey, fancy having a drink with me in the hotel bar when you’ve finished? I’m a bit sick of the party now.’

  ‘Where’s Gill?’ My fear was forgotten. I could hardly breathe with excitement.

  ‘Oh, she went home ages ago; stormed out. We’re finished.’

  My voice was a squeak. ‘Really?’ I tried not to sound so elated, and went for the mature, understanding approach. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  John nudged me, a little shove with his elbow in the direction of the hotel. ‘Yeah. Well, maybe. Let’s have a drink, anyway. Go on, make your phone call. I’ll meet you in the bar.’

  I think that ended up being the best night of my whole life.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Day 3

  The spirit of entente continues for a while over dinner. I ask Claudio about his friendship with John when we are once more sitting at the kitchen table and he has untied my hands. Is it my imagination or does he gently brush the tender skin of my wrists with his finger? I dismiss the thought, and greedily gulp in the brick wall view through the kitche
n window with its sliver of blue evening sky above. My thoughts are still with my diary, with the look on John’s face when he invited me for a drink.

  I have to try hard not to let the knowledge that John and Claudio were friends sully my own memories of John.

  ‘We were at primary school together—not in the same class, but we made friends in about the Third Year, I think. He stood up for me when some bigger kids were chucking stones at a window and blamed me. He told the head it wasn’t me. After that we started hanging around together.’

  Claudio has such an affectionate expression on his face that for a tiny moment I thaw and think better of him for having loved John too.

  ‘And you stayed friends once you went up to St Edmunds?’

  He nods, and busies himself getting plastic plates down. There’s no music tonight, no sign of the iPad. Damn. My only hope of contact with anyone. Although he’s so careful, I doubt he’d leave me on my own with it for a second, even if he got caught short and had to rush to the loo. Wishful thinking.

  He serves up a pasta dish, something with bacon and, bizarrely, carrots in it. I suppose it’s meant to be a sort of carbonara. I try a bit on the end of my fork and it’s completely tasteless. Perhaps he couldn’t be arsed to make it taste nice after last night’s dinner went so badly.

  I have a small internal argument with myself: would it be better to try to seduce him, to get him to let his guard down, or to attack him? The pasta is steaming hot. I could rub it into his face like a clown throwing a custard pie, but that would hardly incapacitate him long enough for me to extract the keys, unlock all the doors, and run out.

  At least I get to drink some wine. I down the first glass and ask for more.

  ‘What would your colleagues think, Claudio,’ I say as he turns the little tap on top of the wine box and refills my glass, ‘if they knew that you had imprisoned me like this?’