Alex Lake - Seven Days

She pursed her lips and made the noise of rushing air.

‘Oh my,’ she said. ‘We’re going very high. I can see the clouds already. Everything’s so small down below.’ She paused. ‘I think, Max – I think we’re going into space.’

His eyes blinked open. ‘Space?’ he said. ‘Is space scary?’

‘No,’ Maggie replied. ‘It’s beautiful. And so quiet. Look – there’s the Earth, below us. You can see the oceans and the continents. You remember Australia – there it is. And over there’ – she pointed to the door, watching as Max’s gaze followed her finger – ‘there’s the moon.’

It was incredible to see how easily he slipped into make-believe. In his mind, the room really was transformed into space, although exactly what he thought space was she had no idea. She remembered doing the same in her own childhood. She had gone through a spell when she was obsessed with some He-Man and She-Ra dolls her dad had bought for her. She had played with them for hours, inventing all kinds of scenarios and stories in which they were rescued from danger or won battles or made and broke friendships. She had really believed in them.

And for Max the moon and stars and Narnia were just as real as anything else. As far as he was concerned, Warrington Town Centre was as remote and exotic as the moon. They both existed only in his mind.

‘Look,’ she said. ‘There’s the man in the moon.’

‘Who’s he?’

‘He lives on the moon. You can see his face on a dark night.’

Max looked at her. ‘Can I see it tonight?’

Maggie tried to smile. ‘You have to be outside.’

‘Oh,’ Max said. ‘Outside.’

Outside was a place Max had heard of, but never been. For him it was a bit like space, or Hogwarts, or Narnia.

‘We can see him in our imagination, though,’ Maggie said. ‘There he is!’

‘What’s he doing?’ Max asked.

‘He’s digging up some moon rocks to eat,’ Maggie said.

‘He eats rocks?’

‘The moon is made of green cheese. That’s what he eats.’

‘Where’s his mummy?’ Max asked.

Maggie’s answer caught in her throat. He hadn’t asked where are his friends or where is his brother , but where’s his mummy . It was an unwelcome reminder of the smallness of his life.

‘She’s at his moon house,’ Maggie said. ‘She loves him very much.’

‘I love you very much,’ Max said, his eyes nearly closed. ‘And I want to go back to the moon.’

He was starting to fall asleep, his body relaxing. Maggie kissed him on the forehead as his breathing deepened.

‘I love you too,’ she whispered. ‘More than you will ever know.’

Maggie was nearly asleep when she heard him coming. She always knew he was on his way; there was a kind of scraping noise, like rock or steel grinding, which she assumed was a door of some kind hiding the entrance to the stairs that led to the room.

She had imagined it many times since the first time she had heard it. Was it a manhole cover in the corner of his garage? Or a heavy stone in his garden? Or a thick wooden cover hidden at the back of a wardrobe? She had no idea; all she knew was that, twenty or so seconds after she heard the noise it made when he moved it, the door to the room would open, and he would be there.

He came every morning, with breakfast, and every afternoon with dinner. It was how she knew the days were passing for her calendar.

And sometimes he came at night. It was when he brought things she needed. Fresh clothes. Cleaning supplies. A new toothbrush.

And when he wore the blue bathrobe. He never took it off. He just undid the belt and let it fall apart and then made her lie face down while he did what he did.

After he’d raped her he would often stare at her, silent and impassive. She had the impression he was waiting for her to say something, but she never had anything to say. All she wanted was for him to leave her alone.

Now, though, three or four days could go by without him showing up at night. She suspected that, as he grew older, he was losing interest in sex.

It was, other than Max, the only bright spot in her dismal world.

He was coming tonight, though.

The door handle turned and, with a click of the lock, it opened. He stepped inside, his bare shins sticking out from under the bathrobe, the ankles mottled and dark.

He locked the door, the key – as always – suspended on a chain around his wrist.

He was tall, certainly taller than her father, who was six foot one, which put him at what – six three? Six four? – and he wore thick-rimmed, old-fashioned glasses. The lenses were always perfectly polished, and she had a recurring image of him sitting in a floral-patterned armchair, news on the radio, his glasses in one hand and a cloth in the other. When he wasn’t in his bathrobe, he dressed in shapeless grey trousers and white or blue short-sleeved shirts, which, although clean, were faded and shabby, and carried a musty odour, as though they had been left in the wardrobe too long.

He looked at her, his gaze resting on her face, before moving down over her breasts and then legs. It was an appraising look, like the look a farmer might give a cow.

He nodded at the mattress where Max was sleeping. ‘Move the child.’

She picked up Max and laid him on the carpet next to the barrel-bath. She put a pillow under his head and stood up.

The man put his hands on her shoulders and turned her away from him, then pushed her face down on to the mattress. He tugged at her shorts and underwear, then waited as she pulled them down. She heard the noise of tearing as he opened a condom packet – he always used one when the boys were alive, only getting rid of them when she was childless, for reasons she had never understood – and then she felt his weight on her back.

She closed her eyes and thought of the light beam. Of the Man in the Moon. Of Australian beaches she had only seen on soap operas.

There had been a time, early on, when he had tried to kiss her before he raped her. He’d had a strange look on his face, a kind of nervous yearning, which had hardened into his usual scowl when she turned her head away.

He had not tried again.

It had confused her, at first, but afterwards she had understood what had happened. He wanted a relationship. He wanted her to enjoy it, as though they were girlfriend and boyfriend. Wife and husband.

The idea sickened her. The idea terrified her. It showed her just how delusional he was.

When it was over, he stood up. She turned to look at him. He gestured to the plates, and she scrambled to pick them up. She walked to him and put them in his outstretched hands. Up close his skin was sallow, his face badly shaved. His eyes were sunken and red-rimmed and he looked tired.

He looked ill.

Maggie had a sudden sense that things had changed, that she – and Max – were becoming a burden to him. Maybe he no longer wanted her there. Maybe he would welcome the chance to be rid of them. After all, he was getting older, and he must be wondering what to do with them.

Hope surged in her. There was – perhaps – a crack in the wall. She could offer him a way out. Make it easy for him.

This was it. This was her chance.

‘Can I ask you something?’ she said.

The man looked at her. After a few moments he nodded.

‘Why don’t—’ now she was saying it, it seemed absurd, the right words hard to find – ‘would you consider – is there any chance – would you – would you let us go?’

There was a long silence. The man blinked, almost as if he had not understood the question. Maggie carried on.

‘I wouldn’t say anything,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t tell a soul, I promise. You could drop us off hundreds of miles from here and I’d tell people I didn’t know where we’d been. I’d say I had no memory, and Max is too young to say anything. I don’t want to get you in trouble. I don’t hate you. I just want us to be free. It would work, it really would.’