Saturday morning came bringing with it a painful, overarching emptiness. Weekends were the worst.
The wife was at home, the children were at home, all the neighbours were at home. A million eyes watching each other make the slightest move.
He liked weekdays, when, he could sneak at home for a few hours in the middle of the day through the deserted street, by empty houses and still gardens.
He sat still, hugging his pillow, trying not to move excessively and wake Her. The Wife, the Mother of his children, the Woman worth anything, the One. He needed to ensure she did not wake to make any demands on him.
The though that he could sneak into the basement for a few minutes, before the house woke up, started to rise into his mind like a tiny climbing plant, but he squashed it like you would an annoying fly, with disgust and disdain.
He needs to be above this human nature crap, if he wants to continue living his life the way he wants to, he must not take any risks or any chances. No, he will not go into the basement and risk anyone finding his wonderful, beautiful secret. She is his and will always be. Nobody will take her away from him!
If they did, that would be the end of him.
He gets out of the bed slowly sliding from under the duvet, almost falling on the floor, but supporting himself up at the last minute.
He will not use the en-suite, but he walks slowly on the landing to the family bathroom. He knows which boards squeak and which not, so he noiselessly goes in and closes the door behind him.
While he brushes his teeth he cannot help himself from thinking about her, all safe there where he locked her up. He had built a little box room, in a hidden side of the basement where most likely in the old days they would have kept their valuables. He smiled at himself in the mirror. He was in keeping with tradition. He was keeping his most valuable possession there.
His face looked tired and as always when he saw himself he was unhappy with his appearance. Until recently he had been just ugly, but now he was getting old and ugly. From bad to worse. He puffed at himself and left the bathroom. At least he had her. His solace, his joy, hidden in the folds of reality under the floor boards of appearance.
It was too early for any of his family to be up. He went down to the kitchen and put the coffee on. Through the large window he could see the dawn spreading its wings over the garden. Last weekend he had cleaned it top to bottom, but now, in the dim light it looked dirty again.
7 am. Too early to clean it now. He will have to wait.
He drinks his coffee in silence. At some point he thinks he hears a faint noise coming from the basement and is almost ready to go down, but he stops himself. He knows what is happening. He finds excuses just to go there, but no, that would be a mistake. He is smarter than that. What if one of the boys came down looking for him? No, he cannot risk that.
Time crawls by. Weekends are the worst.
After coffee he cleans up the kitchen making sure he does not make any sound. He makes Her coffee and takes it upstairs leaving it on the landing on a little table.
What he does not know is that both his wife and children are awake, and similar to him they are waiting. Only they are waiting for him to go out in the garden, so their weekend life can begin. Relaxing, playing, watching tv, all without the pressure of an overbearing parent or partner.
At 9 am he is out in the garden getting ready. The dirt on the walls is inexplicable. The powerwasher connected at 9:19 am he gets going. So much to do! The garden walls, the patio, the walls of the house. How can things get so dirty so fast?
As the milky white of the render sparkles in front of his eyes he starts to feel better. All that was needed was a good powerwash!
He is so enthralled that, it does not even cross his mind, that the racket he is making is the perfect cover for his prisoner to escape. The young woman runs out of the basement, exits through the entrance door running to the neighbours.
He does not hear the guards or the ambulance, he is brought back as if from a trance by somebody turning off the water. They arrest him and the young woman is saved.
Nobody can really wrap their minds around the horror happening in their neighbourhood.
‘He seemed like such a normal person …’
‘Yeah … maybe except for the incessant powerwashing …’
‘Oh true, there was that …’
‘The sidewalk is still too white next to his house, did you see?’
‘Yeah … we should have known then something was wrong …’
‘Indeed! Thank God the girl is safe!’
The woman makes the cross sign expertly with the tip of her fingers, barely touching her body, then goes back to feeding the birds.
That went in an interesting direction, Alina.