Chapter Two

 

 

In fact she dozed off and woke up again more than once and was asleep for maybe as long as an hour and a half by the time she opened her eyes and saw daylight outside. She got up, sore, tired and unwell.

The snow had stopped, but it lay deep on the ground. The fence she’d observed in the night had almost disappeared; only tiny points were left showing at irregular intervals. But it wouldn’t be so deep on the road and if it was, she’d push her cycle onwards and do her best to forget this place existed. She was going and going now, without seeing anybody if she could. She looked around for the rest of her clothes.

They’d been folded up on a chair, but that had been knocked over in the invasion of her room and Lawrence had had to unearth the stuff he’d handed to her from among the bedclothes on the floor. Splash found her jeans and socks and a T-shirt she wore beneath the sweatshirt. Where were her boots? She’d left them standing together at the foot of the bed. Louise or Johnny must have kicked them aside, by chance or on purpose. Splash gathered up all the sheets and dumped them in a corner, to reveal anything they might have been covering; nothing there. She walked all around the room, looking for the familiar shapes, wrinkled black surfaces and unbuckled straps. She got down on her hands and knees and looked under the bed. She got up and walked around the room again, as if to check every inch of it before accepting the result of her search.

Her boots were missing. They were nowhere in the room.

For a long time Splash sat still on the bed, as if what had to be done next could be avoided by leaving it. It couldn’t. She washed, got dressed and, in stockinged feet, went downstairs.

The house might have been deserted; the air had a chill to it and there were no sounds of activity. She hadn’t been shown around and was in no mood to go exploring. She made for the kitchen by which she’d entered yesterday.

As she got there, she heard voices: Louise’s and Johnny’s. She summoned up her courage, and went in.

Louise was seated at the kitchen table. Her straight brown hair was held back from her forehead by an Alice band, she was dressed in a thick woollen sweater and tight black jeans and sat with her feet resting upon the seat of another chair. Her riding boots stood empty nearby. She was eating bread and butter while Johnny cooked something, on a kitchen range of black cast iron.

Johnny looked around from his cooking. Louise paused in the act of taking a bite. “Morning.”

“Louise, where are my boots?” said Splash.

“Which boots are those?”

“My bike boots. I’ve only got one pair. I left them by my bed last night and now they’re gone.”

“Are they? I wonder where they’ve got to?” said Louise.

“I think you know. I think you took them.”

Louise shook her head. “Your boots wouldn’t fit me, love.”

Johnny sniggered. Splash became more angry than afraid. “You two attacked me last night. You stole my boots while you were there. I wanna know where they are.”

“How should I know where your smelly old boots are? Lawrence was in your room last night, why don’t you ask him? He’s more interested in girls’ boots than I am.”

For a moment Splash thought Louise might be telling the truth and putting her on the right track; but in her mind’s eye she saw Lawrence slipping away while she stood ready to lock her door the moment it closed after him. He’d been holding his gloves and that outfit just didn’t have a hiding place for even size four biker boots. “Where is he?”

“Upstairs somewhere.”

“He’s a queer,” said Johnny.

“I like him better than some people I’ve met here,” said Splash. She turned away. The door that gave on to the courtyard was shut and bolted and she had to pull hard to draw the bolts back.

“Are you going outside in your socks?” said Louise. “The snow’s a foot deep. You’ll get frostbite and have to have your feet cut off.”

“You can keep my boots if I do.”

But as she made her way across the yard to the stables where she’d left her cycle, Splash was more than tempted to go back and look for some kind of footwear in the house. Louise had exaggerated about the snow’s depth, but not by much; with each step Splash had to lift her knees, behind her the footprints were pits in the smooth surface. Within a dozen steps, her socks were wet through. Her feet became so cold as to be painful, then went numb at the toes. She hurried her pace till she was running as best she could, with her arms tightly folded.

The stables were unoccupied except for Louise’s horse, Glory. It was a long one-storey building, you entered at one end to find a row of stable boxes; Glory was stabled in the fourth or fifth box up and Splash had left her bike standing in the passageway alongside, as she’d had to wait while Louise attended to him. She should have seen it there as soon as she went in.

She didn’t see it. All she saw was a long stretch of bare, dusty, horribly empty stone floor. The cycle was missing.

Dismay, alarm and rage churned together inside her. She ran up the passageway looking into each box, meeting with nothing but a glance of equine curiosity from Glory, fourth box along. At the top she ran around the corner and found herself in the dimly-lit, tunnel-like passage that led out of the house’s grounds. The double doors at the far end were shut. There was no sign of her bike.

There was one other inside door, a way through to somewhere else. It was locked. Splash beat her fist against the wood. “Hello! Is anyone there? I need to get some stuff from my bike. It’s in there, isn’t it? Hello!”

Complete silence.

Splash rested her head against the wall in despair. But no, fuck it, they had no right to be doing this to her. She left the stables.

Back in the kitchen, Johnny was alone at the range. “Where’s Louise?”

“Gone upstairs.” There was a pause, in which Splash saw that he had something more to say. “I was gonna come and untie you, if Lawrence hadn’t.”

I’m not grateful, thought Splash. “Sure. Did Louise make you help move my motorcycle?”

“Have you got a motorbike?”

“Sure I have. That’s how I’m here, I couldn’t ride it in the snow.”

“I haven’t seen it.”

“Oh, c’mon, Johnny,” said Splash pleasantly. “Louise has hidden it, like she’s hidden my boots and you’re in on the joke. Tell me where it is.”

“I like bikes,” said Johnny vacantly.

With an effort, Splash kept pleasant. “I’d show you mine if I knew where it was.”

Johnny shook his head and sighed with regret. “I’ve never had one my own, I just like seeing them.”

“Won’t you come help me look for mine?”

“I can’t, this isn’t done. It’ll be ready soon,” he called after Splash as she left the kitchen.

She was on the stairway up to the bedrooms when she met Louise on the way down. Louise smiled, a smile that was more like an imperfectly suppressed grin. Splash moved into her path. “Where’s my fucking cycle?”

“Which cycle is that?”

“If you wanna play stupid games, that’s your problem. I want my cycle.”

“You can’t ride it in all that snow,” said Louise amicably. “What are you getting worked up for?”

She moved to pass Splash and descend the stairs, but Splash, angry, indignant and not so scared of her now that she was alone, shifted to keep barring her way.

Something hard came into Louise’s smile. “Listen, sweetheart, I don’t need Johnny to knock you flying. If I have to do that, I’ll give you such a kicking when you’re down ...”

Splash backed a step and stood aside. As Louise disappeared down a corridor below, she went on up to her room.

She entered to find the bed made, the fire banked up and all traces of last night tidied away. It hadn’t occurred to Splash that Louise might have been there in her absence; she’d left nothing in the room, except -

There was an empty peg where her leather jacket had been hanging.

Splash sat down in the chair by the fire. She took off her socks and rubbed her wet, cold feet hard with a towel. This whole fucking stupid childish immature game had gone on long enough. With her feet towelled dry, and her socks more or less dried by the fire, she went down again to the kitchen.

Louise and Johnny met her with expectant eyes. “Johnny. where can I find Mr Lovedrool?”

“What do you want the boss for?” asked Louise.

“I’m gonna tell him everything that’s happened, unless you give back my property.”

“Oh,” said Louise casually.

“So where is he?”

“He’s in bed,” said Johnny.

“When does he get up?”

“Not till later. He takes sleeping pills and they don’t wear off till near dinner time.”

“Then I guess I’ve just gotta wait,” said Splash, in a resolute tone that failed to save her from a sense of having been defeated, for the fifth or sixth time in a row. She had an urge to get away from these people, to take refuge in her bedroom while she needed to remain in the house; she remembered that she had the key. But she was hungry. Without speaking again she hunted around the kitchen and found bread, cheese and some fruit and boiled water for coffee.

“Have some of this,” said Johnny. “It’s done.”

Splash ignored him.

She took the improvised breakfast up to her room. With a full stomach and such security as a locked door could provide, she became dog tired all of a sudden. She lay down on the bed and went to sleep.

 

*****

 

Someone was tapping politely at the door. “Splash? Are you still there?”

Splash raised herself on one elbow. “What is it, Lawrence?”

“My father wants to see you, if you’ll come down.”

“You bet I will.”

She found Lawrence in a fur hat and a long-sleeved green velvet dress, without padding. The skirt left an inch of pale, hairless calves showing above the tops of a pair of feminine lace-up boots, with low heels but pointed toes. “How are you now?”

“Pretty rough.” Splash didn’t believe he’d touched her stuff, but she couldn’t help asking. “I can’t find my boots. Do you know ...?”

His lips straightened and tensed. “No. I don’t pinch underwear, either.”

“Sorry. Let’s go and see your dad,” said Splash uncomfortably. “Do you wear girls’ clothes all the time?”

“I like wearing them.”

“I didn’t mean there was anything wrong in it. You’re not hurting anybody as far as I can see. Do you wish you’d been a girl instead of a boy?”

“Not really.”

“Do you like boys?” asked Splash curiously.

“I’m not a homosexual,” he replied, with the air of somebody making a proclamation. “As far as sex goes, I really like playing with myself. You’re taught to be ashamed of it, but I’m not.”

He made no comment on Splash’s going downstairs in her socks, but after Mr Lovedrool had greeted her with a genial smile his glance travelled down to her feet, and his expression changed into a look of surprise. “Uh - there are some things I’ve got to tell you about, sir ...”

“Please do. Thank you, Lawrence,” he said, dismissing him from the sitting-room, and he waved Splash towards a chair. “Now, please explain.”

Awkwardly - it was unpleasant to feel she was making trouble in the family, and the things that had been done to her were unpleasant to describe - Splash told him everything that had happened since the previous evening’s bedtime. As she spoke, Mr Lovedrool’s face became grim in a way that increased her discomfort. “Louise must be really jealous of Johnny. I guess it’s hard to meet guys living in a place like this, and she’s not really attractive. I mean, she’s got a lot of what guys go for, but ...”

“Quite,” said Mr Lovedrool with passing amusement. His face hardened again. “There is no excuse for her behaviour towards you, however. None whatsoever.”

“I just want my stuff back. Then I’ll hit the road with thanks for your hospitality.”

“Which has included being trussed up, beaten and robbed, by your account. I can hardly expect you to overlook those few things,” grunted Mr Lovedrool and pressed a bell. Within minutes Louise answered the summons. “Where are Miss Gilfillan’s boots, motorcycle and leather jacket?”

She gave Splash a sidelong look. “I haven’t touched her things. I made her bed after her. She left that room like a tip.”

“She is a guest in our house, Louise. How dare you assault her? You don’t deny that, I hope?”

“We were only messing,” said Louise with her head hung low.

“Very well!” said Mr Lovedrool angrily. He rose from his armchair and looked around the sitting-room in a way that puzzled Splash; he was looking for something, but what it was she couldn’t guess. “Give me your belt,” he snapped at Louise. “Bend over that table.”

He pointed to a low occasional table standing in the bay of the window. Louise obeyed, and as she bent over her large round bottom was raised into the air.

Splash stared on. “Uh - Mr Lovedrool, sir ...”

He turned to her and placed Louise’s belt in her hands. “Beat her.”

“What? I - I don’t wanna beat her, sir!”

“She beat you, Susan, and has refused to reveal what she’s done with your property. Beat the truth out of her.” As Splash sat paralysed with the belt, he turned back to Louise. “One more chance. Where have you hidden Miss Gilfillan’s boots, motorcycle and leather jacket?”

“I haven’t touched them.” said Louise without turning her head.

Mr Lovedrool gave a fierce grunt and made a gesture of disgust. His manner was so stern that there was nothing Splash could do but get up and approach Louise with the belt. “Louise, this is stupid. Tell me where my things are, for Christ’s sake.”

“Fuck off, blondie.”

“Beat her,” snapped Mr Lovedrool.

At last Splash raised her hand and let the belt swing down. It was two inches wide and made of a hard but flexible leather and could have been used to hurt someone. It landed with a mild slap on Louise’s backside.

“Ooh, the pain,” she said in a deadpan voice.

“You insolent young slut!” exclaimed Mr Lovedrool.

Splash found herself getting annoyed, too - not because of what Louise had done to her, which seemed hardly to relate to what was happening, but because of being forced to join in a scene which was getting ridiculous. “Mr Lovedrool - “

“Strike her again! Strike her again!”

Splash landed two more strokes. Louise didn’t even squirm.

“Where is Miss Gilfillan’s property?”

“I’ve never seen it.”

“You saw it yesterday,” said Splash. “Then you had to get paranoid about your fucking boyfriend.”

“Beat her until she tells the truth,” said Mr Lovedrool.

All of a sudden Splash wondered, is he getting off on this? She turned to look at him, and in particular to check his crotch; but his dressing-gown hung loosely and voluminously around his waist and even as she turned her eyes met his, stern and intense beneath frowning white brows. She lifted the belt again and beat Louise, landing blows harder and faster. But Louise kept still under the blows and stayed silent. The more Splash exerted herself, the more she was assailed by a sense of being a participant in a grotesque tableau vivant. At one end of the stage there was Louise, who from where Splash stood was just a pair of buttocks in tight black pants and legs in riding boots; at the other was Mr Lovedrool glaring down, the picture of law and order outraged; with her in the middle, playing the role of a torturess to no apparent effect. She hit even harder, as if that could get her back to reality. The leather swished and cracked and Louise was moving now, from side to side, convulsively, making faint sounds which seemed to be escaping through clenched teeth.

Splash stopped. “Say where the stuff is, can’t you?”

“No way,” said Louise defiantly.

“You admit to knowing where it is, then?” said Mr Lovedrool.

She didn’t answer. Splash put down the belt. “Mr Lovedrool, why don’t I go look for my things? Lawrence could help me.”

“In a house of this size? You might spend a week in the search.”

“Well, there can’t be many places even in a big house where you can hide a motorcycle long,” argued Splash. “Are the boots and jacket with my bike, Louise?”

Again, she didn’t answer. “Come with me, both of you,” said Mr Lovedrool.

Louise straightened up, and gave Splash a faintly derisive smile as she followed him out of the sitting-room. Splash trailed after them.

Mr Lovedrool led the way upstairs, past the bedrooms, up to the top floor of the house, which Splash hadn’t seen before. Indeed, if the lower floors were on the bare side, the uppermost quarters were positively derelict: cold, grimy, cobwebbed. They arrived at a small room, located at the far end of a passage. Inside, all the room contained for furniture was an upright chair and an old chest, the lid of which was down but held open by a brimful collection of books, a tin tray, a tangle of rope, and other miscellaneous trash.

Splash’s feet were cold, climbing all those stairs had been a heaving drag, and she didn’t know why they were here. She looked out of the room’s one small window. It was high up and she could see a long way, but the view was all white and grey and struck her as unbearably empty.

“Miss Gilfillan? Susan?”

She turned, and stared. If Mr Lovedrool had spoken to Louise, Splash hadn’t been listening, now she gave them her attention she found that Louise had sat down in the chair and he had tied her hands behind her with rope taken from the chest. He was using another length to bind her arms to the chair back. “Could you secure her ankles, please? Use some of that rope.”

Splash picked up a rope and Louise clapped her boots together in readiness. “Bind her ankles first, then tie them to the cross-member - that piece of the chair. That’s right. Make several good knots.”

“Why are we tying her up, sir?” Splash managed to ask.

“After she’s spent ninety minutes or two hours tied and gagged she may be less obdurate. If not, her release can wait.” There was a thick, hairy, unclean woollen scarf in the chest and he tied it between Louise’s jaws. It made a distasteful gag, but she took it, as she’d taken the bonds, with perfect calm. Her little brown eyes looked into the middle distance with an air of meditation.

“I didn’t know you were gonna do anything like this when I told you what happened, sir ...”

“Is it unjust? You were bound and were treated far more roughly, were you not?”

“Yeah, I was, but - “

Mr Lovedrool led Splash out of the room. “Bondage is a fair punishment for her misbehaviour and it’s a most effective one in any case. Every human society has punished offenders by depriving them of their liberty.”

“I guess so,” admitted Splash.

“I would contend that to physically bind a person breaks the spirit in a way that mere imprisonment in a cage or cell does not. It’s not only the cramp and pain of being held immobile, enforced silence, restricted breathing and so on; there’s an element of subjugation to the person who performs the task of binding. It’s an intimate lesson in fear and helplessness and humiliation, that persists in one’s relationship with that person thereafter. I can tell that you felt something of the kind towards Louise.”

Splash couldn’t help seeing what he meant.

“In my opinion society should harness the principle in the sanctions of its laws. Don’t lock criminals up in jails, where they waste public money and can compensate themselves for the hardships of the regime by oppressing weaker prisoners. Let them remain in the community, but be compelled to spend a set number of hours in each day lying on the floor of a police cell, manacled, gagged and blindfolded.”

He spoke with a ring of deep conviction. Splash felt obliged to say something. “So - uh, you reckon Louise’ll talk, sir?”

“Rest assured, it’s a proven means of discipline.”

Side by side they descended the stairs, back down to the inhabited regions of the house. “Mr Lovedrool, you know Louise a lot better than I do, but if she does tell us where my stuff is after she’s been up there a coupla hours, that still leaves me hanging around all that time. I - “ Splash was about to say “I wanna get away from here”. After a pause, she continued: “I don’t wanna wait so long if I can help it. Maybe Lawrence and I could look meanwhile?”

“Why should you?” grunted Mr Lovedrool. “Why should you be put to the work? There are a hundred hiding places in this house and Louise knows almost everyone.”

There was a silence, in which Mr Lovedrool’s slippers and Splash’s socks padded on down. “So I’ve just gotta wait?”

“Be patient,” said Mr Lovedrool gently. “All the resources of my house are at your disposal while you wait, though I’m afraid they amount to little enough. Come and sit in the television room.”

The ‘television room’ was furnished with four armchairs and a sofa, arranged in a semicircle before a big TV set. There was also a full-length mirror hanging on the wall. Lawrence stood in front of it, admiring himself. His hands were clasped together behind his neck and he swivelled his body this way and that, as if trying to judge which was his best side. Pauline sat on the sofa, blind and dumb in her mask, but her head turned at the sound of newcomers. “It’s father and the American woman,” said Lawrence without looking away from the mirror.

“Call her Susan, or Splash, Lawrence,” said Mr Lovedrool reproachfully. “She’ll be with us for a while longer yet.”

“I’ll be on my way around mid-afternoon,” put in Splash.

“I have some work to do in the library and I’d be obliged to have your assistance - that is, if you’re not too busy,” he added with polite sarcasm.

Lawrence unclasped his hands, turned and folded his arms. “Oh, all right. What do you want?”

“I want you to come with me to the library,” snapped Mr Lovedrool. He smiled at Splash, as if to apologise and solicit her sympathy. “Susan, we’ll go together presently and see how Louise is faring. Until then, you might like to stay with Pauline. You could describe the television pictures for her. That would be a kindness.”

The mask deprived Pauline of all ability to react with her face and her posture stayed the same. She sat upright with a straight back, but there was something about the hang of her shoulders and the position of her hands, crossed idly on her lap, that suggested a struggle with weariness. “Couldn’t she see for herself if she had that thing off?” Splash ventured to say.

Mr Lovedrool gave her an indulgent smile. Lawrence scowled. “We’ll see you later. Come, Lawrence.”

They went, leaving Splash alone with Pauline. She sat on the sofa, her head turned towards the door, evidently straining her ears to catch any sounds in the room. Her hair would have tumbled around her shoulders, but the fastenings of the mask held it back. There were gold studs in her ears and a gold chain around her neck. “It’s okay, Pauline,” said Splash. “I’m here. I’m gonna sit next to you.”

The mask seemed more perverse than ever when seen at close quarters. Pauline faced Splash as she sat down, but there was no face, only leather, seams and studs, with a small nose in the midst of it all. Splash looked away, and found an old Hollywood movie on the TV. “Do you know what this picture is ...?” she began. “But if you do you can’t tell me.

She turned back and forced herself to look into the place where Pauline’s eyes were. She found Pauline’s hands and took hold of them gently. She was about to say “were you watching the movie?” but checked herself. “Can we talk?” she said. “I mean - “

But Pauline nodded.

“Okay, that’s good. Well ... I’ve only been here a little while, Pauline, but I’ve seen some weird things. Can I ask you a few questions?”

Pauline nodded.

“You can’t see or talk with that thing on, right?”

Pauline shook her head.

“Do you like wearing it?”

She shook her head emphatically. “You hate wearing it?” asked Splash, making a sudden guess, and getting a nod in reply. “Somebody makes you wear it?”

Nod.

“Who does that? Lawrence?” Shake. “Mr Lovedrool?”

Nod.

Splash had guessed it already, but she was still conscious of getting a shock. “Why? Have you ... done something he didn’t like?”

Another nod, a slow, reflective one.

The next question was obvious; but how to ask it, when the only answers she could give were yes or no, and Splash was quite unable to help by offering a guess? “Do you know where we can find stuff to write with?”

Pauline shook her head. Splash looked about the room, but there was no sign of any writing implement, nor even any object which could conceivably be pressed into service as one. There must be pens and paper somewhere in the house, but Splash knew she hadn’t seen them anywhere she’d been. There was her diary in her bag; but her bag was with her cycle and God knew where that was. A sense of utter helplessness came over her; this house was a trap, what was the matter with the people in it ...?

Her eyes had turned to the windows and the white lands outside. There was a thought: the snow was deep enough to write in, with a stick - easy to find, if she got Pauline outside. But she’d just had a better idea. She got up from the sofa.

She held her mouth open, brought it close to a window pane and breathed out washes of warm air, huhhhuhh, huhhhuhh. A field of grey swept over the glass. Splash had never seen a clouded window-pane in Alameda, California; the English weather had gotten her into this, now it was making up for it a little. “Pauline, can you come over here? I’m at the window.”

Pauline rose, rather uncertainly and joined her. “Gimme your hand. If I ask you a question, can you write the answer with your finger? Will you try?”

Doubtful, but a nod.

“What did you do, that you’ve gotta wear the mask for?”

Pauline had long fingernails. The nail of her forefinger made a thin track in the mist as she wrote, slowly, in uneven, oddly spaced letters: I LOVE LAWRENCE.

“Why didn’t Lawrence’s dad like that?” Splash said at last.

I WAS MEANT FOR HIM.

Splash was lost to know what to ask next. This looked like a long story, whatever way you had of telling it. “You mean like an arranged marriage?”

NOT MARRIAGE. SEX.

Pauline breathed heavily behind the mask. “Are you alright? I’m sorry if this is upsetting you. Are you okay wearing that?” asked Splash anxiously. “You’ve got something in your mouth, right?”

A WEDGE. IT MAKES MY CHIN ACHE.

Splash stroked her hand, gently, kindly she hoped. “How long have you had it on? I mean since he said you had to wear it?”

WEEKS.

“All the time?”

NEARLY ALL.

Splash paused. “Maybe this isn’t any of my business ...”

Pauline’s finger moved to write, but the mist of Splash’s breath was evaporating again, leaving the glass clear. “Hold on.” Splash leaned towards the window to exhale some more. But as she did so, the door opened and Lawrence came back in.

Both the girls had been alarmed by the interruption but Splash, at least, could see who it was. He was carrying a pair of DM boots and a fur coat, and to her surprise he held them out to her. “Put these on.”

“They’re not mine,” said Splash blankly.

“They’re mine, actually. But you’d better put them on and get going. If you don’t leave here now you won’t be able to leave at all.”

“I won’t? Why the fuck not?”

“There really isn’t time to go into our domestic circumstances.”

“Pauline’s told me a little about them,” retorted Splash. “Do you like seeing her in that thing?”

“Mind your own business!” snapped Lawrence. “If you don’t leave this house now you won’t be allowed to leave. My father has sent Johnny upstairs to untie Louise. If I’m not back in the library soon he’ll be wondering where I am. You’ve got to go now.” He put a fierce emphasis on the final word.

Splash took the boots and coat. “What about my stuff?” she said as she sat down to put the boots on.

“If you stay you won’t ride your motorbike again.”

She wrapped the coat around her shoulders. “You’re scaring me.”

Lawrence gave a shrug. He unfastened the window and threw it open, letting a blast of cold air into the room. “I shan’t be long,” he said to Pauline. “Just sit on the sofa and wait for me.” With a youthful agility unimpaired by skirts, he jumped lightly on to the window sill and jumped out, kicking away lumps of snow with the toes of his boots. Splash followed him, and landed with a flat, squashed crunch in calf-deep virgin snow.

“We’ll climb over the fence at the back of the house and circle around to the main road. You’ll have a long walk to get to town - and in this. Can’t be helped.”

“Lawrence,” said Splash, “why don’t you and Pauline get away from here?”

“It’s where we live.”

“She told me she loves you.”

“Did she?”

“Don’t you feel anything for her?”

Lawrence didn’t answer. Splash soon found that she needed all her own breath for the labour of getting through the snow, which rose in drifts almost to chest height as they approached the fence. Somehow they forced a way through. He gave her a lift up to grasp the tops of the pilings, which were taller than Splash had imagined when seeing them from upstairs and a push from behind to help her over.

She sank into a deep drift on the other side and for a few seconds clawed and struggled. Then she was out of it, covered in loose snowflakes which were already melting in her body heat. “Sorry,” said Lawrence as he dropped into the cavity made by her fall. “Are you okay?”

She nodded. It was a relief to find that the going was easier now: they were on open land, where the snow had formed mounds in places, but where the worst depths could be mostly avoided. In some places it was no more than ankle deep. Lawrence led her in a wide circle around the perimeter of the house, back to the main road she’d travelled the day before; a long time ago, it seemed. “That’s the way I came,” she said, pointing up the hill.

“I don’t know where that leads to. Keep going the other way and you’ll get to town sooner or later.”

“You know, Lawrence, I’m always gonna wonder what’s gone on here ...”

“That’s better than staying to find out, believe me. Let’s say simply that my father had plans for you.”

“He seemed so angry when I told him what Louise had done.”

“I imagine he was watching it. There’s a spy-hole in that room.”

“What?” exclaimed Splash. “You mean, when I got undressed and everything - “

Lawrence laughed. “I don’t know about that. But I bet he was there when you were hanging by your wrists. You’d better go. I’ll get in and change.” He wore no coat and his green velvet dress was wet through. “I’ll say I felt like wearing something else and that made me feel like having a toss. I do, actually,” he said. He grinned, as if enjoying Splash’s confusion and shock even while he gave her help.

She might have said goodbye, but didn’t. She started up the road, stamping footprints four and five inches deep into the snow with Lawrence’s boots, which were loose on her feet and laced tightly around her calves, crunching her way alone now. But in between her steps there were other, similar sounds, faster in tempo, echoing, somewhere in the distance behind. She turned to look back. “Lawrence!”

He was already looking, as Louise and Johnny came racing up in their tracks, having evidently just come out of the gates in a hurry; and as Splash saw that both were carrying lengths of rope, it rushed into her mind that she was in danger and that the danger was almost on top of her.

She ran, but she kept looking back and saw Lawrence step into the path of her pursuers, as if to turn them back. Louise was the first to reach him and without breaking her stride, in a single, swift, vicious movement, her shiny black boot leapt up from the snow and landed a kick in his crotch. Splash was some distance away, but she could see Lawrence curl up and bend over, disabled instantly.

“Hit him, Johnny!” Johnny was on the spot now, and a blow from one of his huge fists sent Lawrence sprawling on the ground. Louise paused to kick him again as he lay; but she remembered Splash, and came on faster than before.

No longer daring to lose time in looking back, Splash ran. But Louise was catching up on her and suddenly she felt a sharp pain on the right side of her neck and face, as she was caught with a whipping blow landed with the coils of a thick, rough, heavy rope. The rope struck her again and then Louise grabbed her shoulder and flung her down.

It was a hopeless fight. Louise fell upon Splash with her full weight, pushing her down-turned face deeper into the snow, smothering her. One, two, three brutal thumps between Splash’s shoulder blades completed her defeat. She went limp and lay still. Louise tied one end of the rope around her right wrist, dragged both wrists together behind her, and bound them. “Gotcha. Get up.”

Dragged back to her feet, Splash’s attention was filled now by her physical sensations: the painful beating of her heart; her breath, gasping in and out; the ache where Louise’s fist had landed and the bite of the rope around her wrists; the dampness of melted snow and sweat on her face and clothing and wet blonde hair falling in her eyes; Louise’s hand on her arm, leading her back to the house. She let herself be led. Louise’s hold was secure but not gratuitously rough. Just past the walls of the house Lawrence lay still on the ground. His hands were tied behind him, too and Johnny stood over him with a simian grin on his face; Splash realised that he’d taken full advantage of Louise’s command to ‘hit him’. “Get up, queer.”

“Come on, Lawrence,” said Louise. “You’ve asked for this and you know it. Don’t be a whinger.”

Lawrence struggled to his feet, nearly slipping as he tried to stand in a spot where the snow had been trodden down. “Where’s my hat?” His fur hat had been knocked off in the struggle; without releasing Splash, Louise stooped, picked it up and replaced it neatly on his head. “Now let’s go in and see the boss.”

“Move it, queer,” said Johnny and gave Lawrence a push in the direction of the gates, but Louise prevented him from giving another. The four of them trailed in through the gates and up the driveway. Splash didn’t speak; her mind was a blank, it seemed. She was a prisoner, being taken back into the house of mysteries and abuses, with no idea of what was going to become of her, helpless in the hands of people who were capable of savage violence; but for the time being she’d given up trying to understand why this was happening.