The Doll's House

12

Ruby came to, scared and disoriented. She had been determined not to let her guard down, but had dozed off nevertheless. She scanned the room quickly, alive to the danger despite her continued grogginess and aching head, but there was none. She was still alone.

What time was it? Ruby had no watch and the clock on the wall was frozen at quarter past twelve. She could have slept for five minutes or five hours, she had no way of knowing, which unnerved her deeply. She was like Sleeping Beauty down here, trapped in a living death. Except this lonely girl had no one to rescue her.

Ruby shivered, her body numb with cold. It must be night-time by now, because the temperature in the room had dropped markedly. It was a horrible damp kind of cold that got into your lungs and head. Ruby knew already that she would become ill here. Or worse. And she’d spent the whole day asking herself why.

She had tried to place her captor. Tall, thin, with a curious manner, there was something familiar about him – was it his face? Or the smell he gave off? – and she had tortured herself trying to think where she had seen him before. If she could work out who he was, then she could work on him, persuade him to see the harm he was doing. But he eluded her and her attempts to identify him only served to crush her spirit further.

Why? Why? Why?

Why was she here? What had she done?

At first, she had assumed he was going to kill her. Or worse. But he had made no attempt to harm her. Then she’d assumed he wanted money. But he didn’t. He wanted her. This strange room with its pastiche of homeliness – the stopped clock, the empty shelves, the freshly laundered sheets – was designed to be a home, not a prison.

How did he know her so well? Had something she’d done prompted her abduction? Was she in some way responsible?

In the shivering darkness, this explanation had made the most sense. She had been a terrible daughter and a bad friend. Since Alison and Jonathan had adopted her, her life had been steady and productive. Unwanted at birth, Ruby could have gone badly wrong, but thanks to the kindness and charity of her adoptive parents she had had a decent start in life. And she had thrown it back in their faces. Her intentions had been good. The knowledge of her abandonment by her birth mother had never left her and she needed to meet her, to see if, years later, she cared for her child at all.

What had she found? A calculating, manipulative criminal, interested only in how her abandoned child could benefit her. Ruby cursed herself for her stupidity in ever having trusted her. Because she swallowed her lies, because she desperately wanted her attention, she had spurned the only people who had ever shown her any real love. And when they reacted badly to her craziness, she had rewarded them with vitriol and abuse. She had called them every name under the sun, spat at them, clawed at them. She was under the influence – in more ways than one – when she committed those crimes against her family, but that didn’t excuse her behaviour. She had been vile to those who least deserved it.

As Ruby lay on the bed, her surrender complete, she thought she understood. She had done terrible things. She was, and always would be, a terrible human being.

And now she was going to be punished for it.