After Rupert left them Molly had felt her way along the damp walls of their prison, but found no way out other than the door which Rupert had locked behind him. She tried pushing against it, even throwing her whole body weight behind the endeavour, but the wood barely registered the impact. She and Max had spent the rest of the night huddled together with their backs against the driest bit of wall. She had watched the light gather in the one small, barred window set high up, almost at the roof. It cast some dim light across the room, enabling them to at least see in more detail where they had been imprisoned. Even in the dark, she had recognised the building when they had first arrived as being the derelict pumping station that they had stumbled upon all that time ago. On that occasion they had not gone inside, but had walked a little way beyond it and sat on the ground and eaten the lunch they had brought with them. It had been one of the good days with Rupert. He had left her to sketch the building while he had taken Max exploring in the nearby wood. The room they were locked up in was very tall and rather narrow. The place smelt dank and mouldy and there were a series of green marks of varying depths along the walls that indicated that the place had been flooded several times. There was some old farming paraphernalia in one corner, and three large metal drums or boilers of some sort set up on their sides with hinged lids that opened at the front with a grinding noise.
Molly was concerned about Max. His breathing was ragged and he had developed the cough that he sometimes got when his asthma was taking a turn for the worse. He looked pale and despite the fact that she had given him her sweater, he was still shivering uncontrollably.
‘How long are we going to be here?’ asked Max.
‘I don’t know, darling,’ said Molly. ‘Come and cuddle up to me. We’ll keep each other warm.’
‘What’s Daddy going to do to us?’ asked Max, his eyes wide and afraid.
‘I’m sure he won’t hurt you, Max,’ said Molly with as much certainty as she could muster, although she was far from feeling certain. It seemed to her that Rupert had lost control completely. She no longer knew what he might be capable of.
‘I’m hungry,’ said Max wretchedly.
‘I know darling. Be brave. I’m sure Daddy will come back with some food.’
‘I don’t want him to come back,’ said Max.
‘Shall I tell you a story?’ asked Molly.
‘Tell me about when I was born,’ said Max, settling against her. She felt his bony little shoulder pressing into her side and she put her arm around him to hold him as close as she could.
‘Once upon a time,’ she said, ‘there was a mummy who longed and longed for a boy of her very own. But she didn’t want any old boy.’
‘Oh boy no,’ muttered Max, already soothed by the sound of his mother’s voice telling him this familiar tale in this familiar way.
‘Oh boy no,’ echoed Molly, who was trying to be as calm as she had the strength to be. ‘This mummy wanted a very special boy. A boy who was clever and kind and very, very handsome and who knew the words to all the best songs. This mummy knew that in order to get the very top-notch boy that she wanted she would have to do something brave and good to earn him. But she wasn’t afraid. She was ready to fight crocodiles and fire and floods and even eat worms to get her heart’s desire.’
Molly told the story until she could feel her son’s shoulder relax against hers and she knew that he had fallen asleep. She sat as still as she could and watched the light at the window and waited for what might come next.