“Where is he?”
“Um … At work. He’s got an important job to do. He’ll be home soon and he said I should take you straight to his house.”
Trudy woke with a start and realized she had drowsed off in front of the computer. Damn, she thought, I must concentrate or no one will ever know what happened to me, then she re-read the start of the letter to her mother.
“MUM. ROGER …ME.”
I know, she thought, and painstakingly inserted the words “lied to.”
“There,” she said contentedly, “that’s right.”
Now the little screen read, “MUM. ROGER LIED TO ME,” and she wrote the rest in a frenzy.
“ROGER LIED. I DON’T KNOW WHY I BELIEVED HIM. YOU SAID MEN WERE LIARS. DAD LIED. HE SAID HE WOULDNT LEAVE ME. WHY DID HE LEAVE? I DIDNT WANT HIM TO GO. IT WERENT MY FAULT MUM, HONEST, IT WERENT MY FAULT. PLEASE DONT BE CROSS WITH ME. PLEASE DONT LEAVE ME AS WELL, DONT LEAVE ME HERE.”
Gasping, breathless again, she fought desperately for air. Confused and disorientated by the lack of oxygen in her brain, she willed her fingers to keep in touch with her mother, almost believing her mother was linked to her by the Internet. And a hazy reflection of her own face in the computer screen momentarily deceived her, “MUM—I CAN SEE YOU,” she typed furiously, then stared intently, shaping her mother’s features out of nothing, with the certainty of a believer chancing on an image of the Virgin Mary or Mother Theresa in a dusty window.
“MUM,” she typed, “I DONT WANT TO DIE,” THEN PAUSED, TAKING SIX OR SEVEN SHARP BREATHS, before adding. “I MUST GET AIR. WHERE IS ROGER?”
Roger was about thirty miles from the nearest land, alone and dejected. Although now mid-afternoon, fourteen hours after his disappearance, no search had commenced and he was still not officially missing; nevertheless his situation appeared to be brightening. Globs of black cloud still hung out of the sky, but the rain was infrequent, and the wind no longer tore the tops off the waves. The waterlogged clothing next to his skin had picked up some body heat and was acting as a wetsuit, insulating him against the cold seawater. He sat up from time to time, gazing around the horizon for signs of rescue, but had seen no ships all day. Some he missed while asleep, some were concealed by the steep waves and most were simply too distant.
Trudy was still uppermost in his mind and he kept thinking to himself: Why did I do it? But he knew why. Deep down he knew the simple inescapable truth, knew he loved her, would have done anything for her. Yet everything had gone wrong the day he met her. The railway station refreshment room had been almost empty when he arrived at five o’clock. He knew he was two hours early but, after four months of dreaming, what was a couple of hours? He had no photograph, only her description and his own imagination and, when Trudy arrived a little after six, he dismissed her as too early, too short, and not slim enough to fit the verbal portrait she had painted of herself.
By ten minutes to seven his nervous anxiety was at fever pitch. He could actually feel the blood pumping through his veins and hear his heart beating, fast and hard. The blood vessels in his cheeks were on fire and his whole body tingled with anticipation. He looked again at the neat little head of the girl in front of him almost wishing she were Trudy.
As seven o’clock approached, with no sign of Trudy, anxiety finally overcame reticence and he decided to approach the girl, but then she turned with disgust on her face and venom in her voice and his world crashed—it is Trudy!
As Roger’s front door loomed, a small voice warned her that something was amiss, but the lure of the real Roger drew her on until she found herself pinioned against the faded yellow woodwork by his huge belly. Reaching over, Roger’s pudgy hand inserted the key, and his bulk propelled her forward into the dismal hallway.
The light faded as the door slammed behind them and the nightmare began. “I’m Roger,” he pronounced, without explanation, apology, or opportunity for her to get used to the idea.
She screamed.
“Stop,” he cried in panic.
She screamed louder.
“Please stop,” he implored, at a loss.
She kept screaming.
“Stop,” he ordered.
She didn’t stop; one high pitched, hair-raising scream after another. He clasped his hand over her mouth—she bit deeply. He cried out in pain and the screaming started again. He clasped his hand tighter. Screaming through his fingers, biting and kicking, she jerked her head free and smashed a fist into his podgy face. But he held on, squeezing harder and harder—and she was still screaming. A fistful of fat fingers wound tightly around her throat and she let go. Sagging to her knees she went limp, fooled him into loosening his grip, then turned, slamming a knee into his groin, and started screaming again. He grabbed her, more roughly now, forcing her face against his huge belly, holding tightly, his puffy palms covering her ears. She couldn’t breathe; couldn’t hear. Suffocating in a soft pillow of flesh, she lost consciousness.
“Oh my God! She’s dead,” he breathed, his voice echoing hollowly in the empty hallway, and he buried his face in his hands and burst into tears. Everything he had ever loved—dead. His pet rabbit had died, only a few weeks old. His favourite uncle had died—even the pallbearer carrying him had dropped dead with a heart attack. Mrs. Merryweather’s Alsatian had died, and he was only teasing it. And now Trudy. Sliding apart his fingers he peeked at the crumpled figure in disbelief, willing the clock to turn back just two minutes, hoping the dishevelled pile of laundry would simply rise up and walk back out of the door.
Anguish, distress, grief, and utter misery coalesced into a single emotion and was replaced within seconds by sheer terror. What would his mother do if she found out? He couldn’t let her find out. She didn’t know about Trudy or the house, and certainly didn’t know about the secret room: his room; his secret.
His tears dripped onto Trudy’s limp body as he bore her to his secret room, then he tenderly placed her on his bed and knelt on the floor, praying by her side as she slowly came to, hearing him saying, “Please God help me. I didn’t mean to …” then he stopped, transfixed. “You’re alive,” he breathed, and she coughed and spluttered as her asphyxiated windpipe fought to recover.
“I love you Trudy,” he wept, squeezing her hand and stroking her face. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, honestly.”
A laser beam of sunlight, the first and only that day, sought out the life raft and startled Roger from his daydream. It flashed on and off as quickly as a lightning streak as it skipped over his face and, by the time he had opened his eyes, it was gone. The laceration in the cloud had patched itself and Roger had no idea what had disturbed him. Struggling to heave his body higher in the raft, he quickly explored the horizon, but couldn’t keep his stinging eyes focussed, so he slid back down and re-lived happier times—the discovery of his house and the secret room of which he was so proud.
It was early one Friday evening. The spring sunshine had heated the interior of his car, which he had left all day in Junction Road to save fighting for a space in the station car park. He was just opening the window to let out the baked-plastic smell when someone tapped.
“Excuse me mate,” said the young man, more a boy really, his spotty fresh face peering down into the car, “do you live here?”
“No,” he replied. “But can I help?”
“Well,” continued the youth, “I need someone to …” His words faded as he re-evaluated his idea. “No. It’s O.K. mate.” But then he started again. “I just thought … if you lived here …” He stopped, another sentence unfinished.
Roger eased his bulk back out of the car, grateful for an opportunity to talk to someone—anyone. “What do you need?” he offered helpfully.
“It’s just that I have to put up this sign and I want someone