“Jesus,” Philip said, shaking his tethered hands against the pipe in frustration. “What’s the matter with him? Why is he doing this?”
“I don’t know,” Cindy said. “But that’s part of the problem. He doesn’t think he’s doing anything wrong.”
Philip stared at Cindy shackled to the bed. “Are we going to be okay?” he said.
She didn’t have an answer to that and so said nothing. A lie might have been better, but she saw no value in it. It was all too obvious that the boy’s curiosity would be satisfied soon enough.
* * *
Cindy had no way of knowing how long Frank had been gone, but in the time he had been away from the cottage weak sunlight had started to filter through the gap in the curtains and she could hear birds trading chorus beyond the lake.
The sound of the Volvo returning initially made her crane her neck in hope, but she quickly recognized the sound of the engine and her head dropped back onto the foul-smelling pillow Frank had provided, all hope of being discovered immediately dashed. She saw the same light die in Philip’s eyes as he wrenched himself hard against the pipe.
She heard Frank make several journeys to and from the car and then he was bounding up the stairs towards the bedroom.
“What’s this?” he said. “Still in bed? There’s no place for sleepyheads in this family! It’s half past ten. Let’s get going, Mr. Snooze!”
Cindy noticed that he had scrubbed the paint from his face, but his cheeks were red raw, as though he had been forced to take a pumice stone to them to remove the cosmetic smile. His stubble disguised some of it, but if he’d driven into town, he would definitely have been noticed and remembered.
“You ready for a day of action, kiddo?” he said to Philip. He moved towards the window and threw back the curtains. The view was spectacular. Dense pine trees coated with snow stood on either side of the lake. The sunlight hit the water and seemed to throw off sparks; the world had grown more extraordinary overnight.
Cindy glanced down and noticed that Frank was holding something vaguely familiar in his hand. She had been momentarily seduced by the view and the objects had almost gone unnoticed; when she finally recognized them, she felt a tightness in her throat, as though her body was anticipating its next humiliation, giving her a taste of what she was about to endure.
“How about a walk down by the lake?” Frank said. He leaned down towards Philip and attached a red dog collar and leather leash around the child’s throat. Only then did he undo the ropes securing him to the pipe.
Cindy looked on, horrified. The boy had tears in his eyes; he looked terrified. Frank pulled out his penknife and cut the cable ties binding Philip’s feet to enable him to walk. His hands, she noticed were still cuffed behind his back with the plastic cord.
“Jesus, Frank,” she said. “This is fucking insane.”
Frank looked across at her and smiled. “Don’t worry, Cind. Jake and I wouldn’t dream of leaving you behind, would we, Jakey? I’ll be back for you in a minute. Just be patient.”
She watched as Frank took hold of the leash and attempted to pull him from the room. Philip resisted but Frank was uncompromising. He yanked on the leash until the boy fell to his knees, spluttering and choking, the tears flowing freely now as he coughed and wept on the floor.
“I don’t want to go!” he screamed. “I want to stay here!” He turned his head towards Cindy. “Please,” he said. “Make him stop.”
Cindy struggled vainly against the ropes. She couldn’t take her eyes off the boy.
“Take off the collar, Frank. You’re hurting him. Can’t you see what you’re doing to your own fucking son?”
This time there was no response; not even a flicker of doubt behind the man’s eyes. He pulled on the leash and literally dragged the screaming child from the room.
Cindy lay there, staring at the open door. The wailing continued; then she heard a distant slap followed by silence. She closed her eyes and embraced the darkness slipping across her quickening heart.
* * *
After he was struck around the face, Philip Rymer got to his feet and decided it would be best to comply. His throat had been abraded by the collar and felt as though it had been scraped raw. His body was tender from being dragged half the length of the cottage.
Frank held the leash and stared into the boy’s eyes. “You want to sit by the water, Jake, and watch the birds?” He appeared detached, as though the previous few minutes’ disorder had never occurred. The only evidence that he had been involved in anything other than a perfectly acceptable moment of father/son bonding was the increased rate of his breathing.
Philip nodded and allowed himself to be led from the cottage into the watery sunlight outside. The fresh snow crumbled underfoot as he walked.
“We’ll sit on the jetty and have breakfast. We did that before. Remember?”
Frank pulled him onto the quay and drew him towards the rickety boards at the far end. The wooden slats were frilled with a covering of snow and both he and the boy stepped lightly to avoid slipping towards the lake. When they reached the extreme edge of the quay, Frank tied the boy’s leash securely to the rail.
“I’ll go and help your mother,” he said. “You know how clumsy she can be, Jakey. You stay here and watch the ducks, okay?”
He walked back along the newly-spoiled snow and disappeared into the cottage. As soon as he was gone, Jake tugged on the leash. There was no give in it at all. He leaned up against the railing and tried to blindly work his fingers into the knot. He thought he felt the leather concede some of its grip on the rail, but then it stopped and refused to move another inch. All he managed to do after that was burn his fingers numb.
Philip slumped to the wooden boards and parked himself in the snow, staring at the cottage. This was the first time he’d been left alone since he’d been abducted, and he was terrified because suddenly he had choices again. He was free to think and consider his options.
He looked around at the landscape, everything softened by the white ambiguity of the snow. If he screamed, the noise would be carried clear across the lake. It would anger Frank, but the damage would already be done; his message would be out there.
He cast another doleful glance around the lake. It looked beautiful, but it also looked empty. If he screamed for help, who would be out there to hear him? He stared at the cottage door, expecting Frank and Cindy to emerge at any moment. He felt the seconds running away from him as he sat in the sunlit snow. The real issue, he realized, was not who might be out there to hear his call, but whether he had the nerve to fill the silence with his cry in the first place.
He looked at the leather leash attached to the red collar around his neck and wondered how much worse it could get. He opened his mouth, drew in a breath, and screamed.
* * *
When Frank returned to the room, Cindy saw he was alone. She had no idea what he had done with the boy, but she prayed that wherever Philip had been taken he was smart enough—and sufficiently defiant—to figure out a way of calling for help.
She looked at Frank and was unsurprised to see him carrying another dog collar. Yellow this time, with a silver choke chain attached.
“You try and put that around my throat, Frank, and I swear to God I’ll bite your fucking face off.”
He raised his other hand. He was holding a can of aerosol; Cindy thought it might have been hair spray.
“Jake’s waiting for us out on the jetty,” he said. “I thought we could have a spot of breakfast together, Cind.”
She stared up at him. “It’s not Jake, Frank. It’s a boy named Philip Rymer. You stole him. Now there’s another man out there just like you missing a son. Is that what you want?”
Frank appeared unfazed, as though the words weren’t even being processed; he undid the dog collar and edged closer to the bed.
“I bought some pastries,” he said, “and some of those homemade jams you like. I thought Jakey might like to try something continental for a
change.”
“I’m warning you, Frank. No collar. Please.”
“It’s cold outside,” he said, “but the sun’s trying hard to break through. It’ll be nice to eat on the jetty again, won’t it? The three of us. I don’t think the lake’s ever looked better.” He glanced down again at Cindy. “Will I be using this?” he said, showing her the aerosol.
She knew he would have no compunction about spraying her in the eyes if she failed to yield to his sickening demands. She was trussed up anyway; fighting the inevitable would serve little point beyond making life marginally more difficult for him. Better to conserve her energy—and her vision—and wait for a better opportunity to arise. One would declare itself soon enough, she had no doubt; Frank was so deep into his delusion it was only a matter of time before he became a victim of his own hollow destiny, one that was being played out exclusively inside his head.
“I’d rather you didn’t,” she said softly.
Frank nodded and placed the aerosol on the floor. He leaned forward and secured the yellow dog collar around Cindy’s throat. His face was so close she could smell his breath. She turned her head in disgust.
Frank untied her feet from the bedpost and yanked once on the choke chain. He slid Cindy’s body up against the headboard so that her hands were behind her back and untied the ropes. Another yank on the chain encouraged Cindy to clasp her hands together as he applied a fresh cable tie; it made a satisfying ripping sound as the plastic cord was looped around her wrists and firmly ratcheted in place. Her hands secured, he reached down with his penknife and cut the cable tie binding her feet.
“I’ll let you lead the way, Cind,” he said, retrieving the aerosol and pushing her forward. “I want you to be the first to see how beautiful everything is.”
Even through his delusion, Cindy thought, he was capable of logical thought. Frank had been burned once and had no intention of turning his back on her; not again. He would keep her in front of him at all times and use the choke chain to condition her response. Much of what he was doing was calculated; a little too much for Cindy’s liking. It suggested Frank was being held together by more than mere threads. If he was to come completely undone, she would need to pick away at that deeper level of vigilance that still existed somewhere beneath the surface, the impulse that still drove him to coordinated acts of self-defense.
Feeling like an animal, Cindy lowered her head and walked through the cottage to the front door. Frank followed closely behind, keeping a firm hold on the chain.
“You’re going to love this, Cind,” he said. “I promise.”
He reached over her shoulder to open the door just as Philip Rymer’s scream reverberated across the lake.
* * *
Both Frank and Cindy froze as the boy’s voice travelled across the empty landscape. It was the cry of a desperate, terrified child, and Cindy felt a powerful rush of shame to think that it had been her husband—the man with whom she had spent the best part of her adult life—who was responsible for it. She experienced a moment of disorienting guilt; whatever happened after this, she had no doubt that the boy would be traumatized forever. She would never forgive Frank for that, and suspected she would never be truly able to absolve herself, either.
Frank pushed her in the back from behind and shoved her through the door into the snow.
“Move!” he said. “I think Jake’s in pain.”
She glanced over her shoulder and peered into Frank’s eyes. He looked dazed and he was hyperventilating. He seemed to be operating in a different context, his perspective skewed by grief, his mind showing him a layer of reality below the one she and Philip were experiencing.
“He’s chasing the ball,” Frank said. “I can see him in the grass. He’s getting smaller and smaller as he runs.”
Cindy turned again, alarmed by how quickly Frank was regressing. He pushed her hard in the small of the back.
“Move faster, Cind! We have to stop him.”
Another shove, and this time Cindy skidded on the snow. She fell forward and landed awkwardly on her shoulder, emitting a scream of her own as a sharp pain lanced through her arm. She tried to roll over to alleviate the discomfort, but with her arms pinned behind her back she had no flexibility. She swivelled onto her front and felt the cold urgency of the snow against her face; it was shocking enough to momentarily distract her from the burning sensation in her arm.
Frank hauled on the choke chain and dragged her to her knees. He thrust his face towards Cindy’s, his eyes wide, his body wracked with emotion.
“He needs us!” he said. “He needs us right now!”
Cindy looked over at Philip, screaming himself to exhaustion on the snow-covered jetty, and could almost imagine that she was looking at Jake. Frank’s torment was so harrowing and so convincing, she found herself thinking back to that day she had locked away for so long, as Jake ran towards the deflated red ball on the hill. She could remember him squealing with delight as he gave chase, before she lost sight of him and Frank went off in pursuit.
She found herself shivering at the memory, borne back by the chilling touch of the snow. Frank had almost dragged her into the past with him. It would be so easy, she thought, and so gratifying to be transported the rest of the way.
She felt the dull ache in her arm and clung to it.
“It isn’t him, Frank. Jake’s gone. You have to remember that. This is something else. Something much worse.”
“Can’t you hear him screaming?” Frank said. “Can’t you hear it?”
She closed her eyes, feeling hot tears mixing with the snow on her cheek. She could hear him, her Jakey, screaming his lungs raw; he was out there on his own, without his mommy and daddy, unable to understand why his entire world had disappeared during the course of a single day.
She felt Frank give another pull on the chain and managed to stumble to her feet, breathless and distressed. The muscles in her throat felt like they were being squeezed in a vice, and her arm was growing numb from the shoulder down.
“We have to go to him,” Frank said. It was almost a whisper and the syllables were soon lost in the deadening blanket of snow.
She wanted to reach out to him, then; felt such sorrow and pity for the man she had once adored that it physically hurt her to have to block it out. For a moment—a drawn-out second or two when her blood ran like sludge in her veins—she could see what he was seeing; felt a connection between the two of them as they felt the slender vibration of the past. From this vantage point, it was all too easy to understand why Frank had lost his footing and tumbled into a world where the last ten months had never occurred.
By this time, Philip had noticed the two of them heading his way, and was yelling with renewed vigor while he still had the chance. It briefly occurred to Cindy that if there had been anyone out there to hear him, they would have made themselves known long before now, but she admired the boy’s courage nonetheless.
Behind her, Frank had delayed long enough. Cindy had fast become an inconvenience and her disability was obstructing his progress. He dropped the choke chain into the snow, cutting Cindy loose, and scrambled across the jetty towards Jake.
As Frank approached, the boy shrank back, instinctively turning his face.
“Don’t hurt him, Frank! Please. He’s just a kid.”
Frank showed no sign of having heard her; instead he stood looking down at the boy and said something she was unable to hear. Philip had stopped screaming by now and the sudden silence was almost as disarming as the panic that had preceded it.
Cindy staggered to her feet and looked around, her unexpected release causing her to flit between possibilities, unable to decide what to do for the best. She turned to look again at Frank and the boy. When Frank raised the aerosol, she noticed the look of surprise and confusion on Philip’s face. She wanted to warn him, but there seemed little of practical value he could do. He was trussed up and tied to the wooden rail of the quay. How could he protect himself like that?
; Frank depressed the nozzle; in the crisp air she heard the hiss as the atomized spray left the can. After that there were fresh screams as the boy squeezed shut his eyes and began frantically shaking his head; even from a distance, Cindy could see that the boy’s eyes had turned red and were swelling up as the stinging mist began to take effect.
She labored through the snow and eased along the quay, listening to Philip’s diminishing shrieks. She reached the end of the jetty and saw that Frank was kneeling in the snow, holding the boy in his arms. He was rocking him gently back and forth.
“It’s okay, Jakey,” he said. “Daddy’s here. No one can hurt you now. You’re safe. Just like always.”
He stared up at Cindy and smiled.
“Look,” he said. “I found him for you. I think we can be happy again.”
* * *
There was a haunting silence as Frank hugged the child he thought was his own son and Cindy stared at them, carefully considering her next move. Philip still had his eyes closed, figuring it to be the only way to prevent the hair spray from further impairing his vision. Frank had his arms wrapped around his shoulders and was whispering to him, regaling him with distorted narratives of the past that Cindy had no desire to hear. They were both shivering and looked awkwardly arranged in the snow. Behind them, the lake fanned out, reflecting the winter sun. A raft of birds swept discreetly across the sky.
She stood on the quay, sensing an opportunity, her brain powering through the options. Was this her moment? This strange, aborted breakfast overlooking the lake? Was this her chance to break free of Frank’s influence and restore order to an otherwise fractured reality—one perpetuated by Frank’s grim fascination with the boy? She had the advantage of being unguarded and was in a position of strength; when might such a favorable development present itself again?
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