∞ 22 ∞
QUICKSAND
As soon as the couple left Valentina sat back on a chair. Her chest was hurting very badly. She just needed to sit still for a little bit to catch her breath and focus. She got up and trying not to breathe too deeply or make any movements that weren't absolutely necessary, took some pills and looked for a bucket she used for the animals. She was sure she left it near the door. She couldn't find it. Why was everything so difficult? She used a nice mixing bowl from the kitchen instead, making the special food as best as she could and took it to poor Lysander, who had been by himself since the day before, but thank goodness! still had some food and water. He looked a little brighter, so she was hopeful. She gave him his injection, put out more water and some food for the others as quickly as she could and staggered inside.
«Merde!» She forgot she didn't have anything to eat! There were Jerremee's crisp breads, his bran cereal with raisins, dried spaghetti, a nearly empty bag of whole coffee beans, chutney, Dijon mustard and many bottles of all Valentina's jams and cordials – a veritable feast for Jerremee. She'd have to go for real food tomorrow. Now, she needed to sleep. She chose the half full box of bran cereal and filled an empty, plastic water bottle from the tap, taking the improvised dinner with her. It hurt carrying them. She looped her handbag around her neck, which hurt too and went into the stairless hallway off the kitchen that led up to her bedroom. How was she going to get up there with slipped ribs and two ripped shoulders? She actually chuckled a little at how ridiculously pathetic her situation was. It even hurt to chuckle! She had messed herself up properly! She tried for an hour and couldn't get up. She was in tears and it felt like her ribs would just rip open by the time she finished.
She had to get up there. She couldn't risk him coming back and getting in the house while she was down there. She didn't feel strong enough to cope with him driving her crazy with his "Alice in Wonderland" contraryspeak: trying to convince her what was, 'was not' and what was not, 'was'; that she was imagining he was trying to mentally destabilise her and that he hadn't successfully financially entrapped her, but had in fact enriched her life... or any of the other weirdness or crap he would come out with, which would probably be worse than usual seeing that she was weakened and had no choice but to listen. Not tonight!
Without realising, her mind instantly jerked back to the loop of all the accusations and broken promises, the mental, sexual and financial abuse, the constant lies and arguments and wild personality changes and his obsessive clinginess and passive control. She sneered bitterly in the knowledge that while she was a broken wreck, for all his hysteric declarations that he was burning in torment from unbearable heartache she was putting him through, he had gone off to start again and would soon be absolutely fine, if he was not already... But she thought about all this FAR TOO MUCH. And once she started, it was like a continuous, unstoppable, stream of putrid VOMIT coming out of her mind. She didn't know why, perhaps it was because she had nothing left, but her own sense of self and her own decency and he had hijacked them both. Infected them. Tainted them (or was trying to). She was fighting for her dignity! She knew going over everything that had happened again and again in her mind wasn't helping her (and really he definitely, definitely was not worth it) but for some inexplicable reason, it was impossibly difficult to stop.
'ENOUGH!'
She had to stop going over this useless nonsense! But it was easier said than done. It was as if there was some poison that she needed to get come out. She knew logically that trying to make sense of the madness this person was and had brought into her life, wasn't doing her any good. There was, no sense to be made of it... Some people are just born bad. That is all.
'ENOUGH! Please Valentina, now that's enough,' said the voice of reason inside her head.
She had to think of what was important NOW.
What would she do when she needed to pee? What would she do when she needed to get down?! The duvet was there. She decided she would have to sleep in the kitchen. She went around checking all the bolts on all the windows, which she had already checked dozens of times. She bolted the door and put a chair in front of it, re-bolted the basement door and put a chair in front of that. Afterwards, she realised the bolt to the narrow little window in the bathroom had been screwed off!
So, she hadn't forgotten to bolt the door the last time! Now she had no choice. She would have to get up that ladder one way or another. It was precarious climbing up and down it at the best of times – for her anyway. Jerremee seemed to be able to get up a ladder the same height and half as high again, with it teetering on one leg AND while carrying a tray full of tea without any problem. It was something he often did when he was trying to get in from the outside. For some reason, in his crooked mind, he thought this was another meaningful, romantic gesture and that he was just 'helping' her by gently, calmly, innocently FORCING!! his way in!! when she had locked her room door, for the very good reason of keeping him out! It never occurred to him that love was not making cups of tea (when one said "no thank you") after continual deceit, and mental, emotional and sexual abuse, mixed with financial entrapment (and that it in fact totally freaked her out when he scaled the side of the house after she had already locked him out via the door!)
'Enough Valentina. RIGHT NOW! ENOUGH!'
She found the bucket in the bathroom at least. It was ridiculously painful, but she got up, taking the bucket, water, cereal, medicine and the important things from her purse in it, tied with some orange baling twine around her waist. She couldn't pull the ladder up like she usually did (he just got another ladder when he was ready to try and get in there anyway). She locked the door and laying on her back on the floor, pushed the dresser in front of the door with her feet. She looped another piece of frayed parachute cord around the busted window lock to the heavy –also busted– radiator and thought about pushing the armoire in front of the window, but couldn't manage it. She had some more painkillers and finally, fell asleep.
... It was about two in the morning when she heard the handle turning at the door of her bedroom. She was wide awake almost instantly. Her heart leapt to her throat and started pounding in the darkness. Her stomach followed.
"Oh! Ohhh! My sweetheart! Oh my love!! They called me from the hospital!" he announced theatrically. The door knob jiggled.
Valentina didn't answer. Her heart was racing.
"I came straight away. My girlfriend is more important than whatever I have to do... Everything is going to be just fine now that I'm here my sweetheart. We can talk about our getting back together later. I just want to be sure I can help you now." The door knob jiggled again.
Valentina's heart quaked, but she didn't make a sound.
"I just want to check if you're okay." He said in a very syrupy sounding voice. The lock kept jiggling and the knob kept turning. He must have had a bit of wire and started to try to pick the lock.
She walked to the door in the dark and commanded as loudly as she thought was feasible with her hurt chest: "Get away! UHaH-Hu-huh," she shuddered from the pain of raising her voice.
"I just want to check if you're okay." He said sounding completely reasonable. The door jiggled and the handle continued to turn back and forth. It never occurred to him that someone who was so utterly disturbed by his presence, was not going to be made 'okay' by him forcibly seeing them (no matter how much calm and normalcy he disguised it in) especially not when they were broken and ill and most especially not when it was two in the morning.
"I just want to check if you're ok my sweetheart." He was still trying to pick the lock on the door.
Valentina was frozen still. Suddenly the old fashioned key in the lock dropped out, bounced off of Valentina's bare foot and fell with a thud on the wood floor. She grabbed it and shoved it back into the lock, turned it and held it there. Her heart was pounding so fast she couldn't think straight; even most of the pain was numbed. "Go away!! (uh-huh!)" she shuddered a little. "Go – away! Go away!!! GO AWAY! If you don't go, I'll call the police!"
"I just want to check if you're okay."
"Can you not hear I AM NOT OKAY? Can you not figure it out? It's you! I don't want you near. Leave me alone! Go back to London! Or – where--wherever you were. You aren't supposed to be here. GO AWAY! I DON'T WANT YOU HERE. All I want is you to GO AWAY!!"
"There's some tea at the door my love. I know you can't leave, but don't worry, I'll be back," he said in an eerie, patient sounding tone and went to the floor below (or she hoped he had).
«MERDE!» Why did they call him?! Her medical records still must have had him as next of kin. He would be up at the crack of dawn, getting on her nerves. For now, she needed to sleep, but she couldn't with him there. She wanted the cup of tea badly but didn't want to risk opening the door. She double checked the window and worried that it wasn't safe enough. Once the adrenaline in her system dropped, it felt like someone had a hot iron poker trying to prise her ribs up after her screaming.
It was a rough night.
∞
Early the next morning Valentina was in even worse pain. She could barely breathe without being in agony. She needed to feed and water the animals and give Lysander his injection. If she even managed to get down without killing herself, she didn't know how she would get back up again. She lay there for ten minutes... then twelve... then fifteen. In addition to her chest, the pain in her shoulders that had felt like someone was shoving a needle into her joints, every time she moved her arms, had graduated to feeling like they were using the hot poker iron that was being used on her ribs. She had to get up. She concentrated for a moment and used her stomach muscles to swing her legs off the bed. Again using her stomach muscles and her legs as counter balances, she sat up, trying not to shudder too much, because it made the pain worse. She sat there with her eyes closed taking quick, shallow breaths. Wasn't she supposed to feel at least a little better? How could it possibly hurt THIS much just from her oesophagus moving around? She took some pain tablets and waited for them to take effect.
Valentina was trying to make the decision of whether she would have to ask Jerremee to do the animals for her (the only other thing she could think of was to try and find a number for a local animal shelter and see if anyone there would come out – but she didn't have enough credit on her mobile phone and doubted she would be able to successfully explain her odd circumstances, or find anyone on such short notice willing to help her)... She wished more than ever that she had made friends there. She thought she could ask Jacques the postman, but realised it was Sunday and she didn't have any way of contacting him either. Just as she was trying to estimate how long the animals could wait and how much pain killer was safe to take before it was really too much, her mobile made the little sound to say that there was a message. It was Jerremee:
Valentina was never so relieved and thankful to have Jerremee there. She reflected that he sometimes could be helpful, to be fair. It had just been so long, since he had been, she had forgotten that there was any good quality about him. After making him swear on his life he had done it and then giving him instructions on giving Lysander his injection; making him stand in the garden and hold up the bottle of antibiotic, so she could see from the window he had the right one and watch him the draw the injection; bringing the syringe up and leaving it in a dish on the floor in front of her door and going back downstairs and standing in the garden, so she could risk opening up to check the quantity; coming back up and taking it away; and then again swearing on his life he would certainly give Lysander the injection: 'Oh course he would give it! Of course he most definitely would, Sweetheart!' (and acknowledging it was all a serious matter and that he understood Lysander might die); Valentina breathed a short sigh of relief and crept back to bed.
Later in the day, Valentina had woken up and was weeing in her bucket when she heard something at the window. She went over cautiously and looked down, to see the top of Jerremee's head! She jumped and then winced, holding her chest and shoulder from the pain. He was on a ladder and had a huge tray, full of delicious looking breakfast food: warm croissants and pastries, hot scrambled eggs, yoghurt, fruit salad, tea and coffee. His tongue was stuck out to the side in concentration and he had a strange look on his face (which might have been... happiness). He deftly balanced the heavy tray in one hand, while the ladder he had quietly scaled up to the high window, rocked just slightly. Valentina couldn't help thinking that anyone else would have probably broken their neck.