Eeny Meeny

53

Caroline clutched her knees to her chest to ward off the cold, but she couldn’t stop shivering. Was it the cold making her shake? Or fear? Caroline couldn’t tell any more. She had lost her grip on… everything. She had no idea if it was day or night. No real concept of how long they’d been incarcerated. She didn’t know what they’d done wrong or why they were here. She just knew that it was agony.

Her stomach ached for food, her throat was parched, her bones were chilled to their marrow. When she closed her eyes, strange shapes danced in the darkness – multi-coloured patterns that changed into butterflies, birds, rainbows even. She was starting to hallucinate. Was this her body shutting down? If she was lucky. Perhaps it was her mind unravelling, the beginning of a slow descent into paranoia and madness. Please, God, not that.

Initially they’d tried to keep their hunger at bay by eating ants. Caroline had had her period, her menstrual blood clotting on the floor in the far corner of the room. Its sticky sweetness had attracted insects and Martina and she had jostled with each other to hoover them up. A day or so back, she had bagged a cockroach, thrilling to its crunch as she crushed it in her mouth. But the food was gone now. All they were left with was the awful smell. The terrible cold. And the loneliness.

Was anybody looking for them? Nobody would miss a couple of escorts. Martina kept herself to herself and had few if any friends. Caroline had a flatmate – a girl called Sharon who came from Macclesfield – but she wouldn’t call her a friend. Would she have been savvy enough to call the police or would she just have put an advert out for a new roomie? The latter probably – Sharon didn’t approve of what Caroline did for money and would have been glad of the opportunity to get rid of her. She was probably clearing out her room now. Bitch.

Martina had a sister, but were they close? Caroline had no idea. For the first time in years, she found herself missing her family. She’d had good reason to run away from home – though no one ever acknowledged that – but she regretted it bitterly now. Her mum was ineffectual but not nasty and her dad – well he wasn’t cut out to be a dad or a husband really – but he wouldn’t have wished her harm. Why hadn’t she got back in touch? Their sixtieth birthdays had come and gone, Christmases, Easters, there were plenty of opportunities to bridge the gap and effect a reconciliation, but she’d never made the effort. Would they have asked her to explain her midnight flit? Would they have been disgusted by the way she lived her life now?

Anger surged in her heart and Caroline knew exactly why she’d never got back in touch. Because she did blame them. For not noticing. For not protecting her. She was still furious at their neglect and that was why she was alone in the world. That was why there was no one looking for her now. Did she or Martina have anything – or anyone – to live for? How close was Martina to her sister? She felt like asking her but what was the point. It wasn’t a competition.

Was it?