Author's Note:
If you haven't heard Beethoven's
Piano Sonata no. 14 (Moonlight Sonata) it's well worth looking up on YouTube to get a better feel for this chapter. Also just because it's beautiful :) Happy reading x
*
"Don't you trust me, Margaux?" "Not even slightly." His hand moved up her side. She tried to move away, and he pinned her against the wall with the full length of his body. "That's a shame, Margaux." Suddenly, the room pitched onto its side and she found herself under him. "You want to get out of this alive, don't you?" She nodded hurriedly. He grasped her wrists and held them above her head. The fading paper of the sitting room wall had become the cold flagstones of the kitchen floor. "But not just alive. It's not enough just to live, is it?" It was raining. She knew she was dreaming, but she couldn't wake up. She couldn't wake up. "You know what you have to do, don't you Margaux?" Music was coming from somewhere. Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. Every chord wrenched at her heart. "No I don't -- I don't know!" His held her face in his hands. His eyes were burning through her. "Just give me what I want." The rain was falling on her skin. It felt warm and sticky, and as a drop landed on her lips she tasted iron. She looked down at his hands, and they were slick and red with it. "Give me what I want, and everything will be fine." He forced his knees between hers and wrenched her legs apart. "No! Stop it! Please--" "He's right. Just do what you're told." Robert was sitting at the kitchen table. She looked at him with pleading eyes. "Won't you help me? Please?" "I just work here, love." He laughed. "Besides, it's my turn after." Bill was pulling at her clothes, and they tore away as easily as tissue paper. "Please, anything but this -- please! I'll do anything! Stop!" "Hush, Margaux, hush." The music was getting louder; suddenly the kitchen table was a piano. Robert was playing it with a hole in his head. Margaux awoke in a cold sweat for the first time in her life.
Bill was standing in the doorway. Watching.
"You talk in your sleep."
"I'm sorry..." She pulled the blanket tight around her and edged back towards the wall. What had he heard?
"It's fine. I was up anyway." He threw her coat on the desk. "Get dressed. We're going on a walk."
*
Neither of them spoke for a long time. Every time she looked at Bill, Margaux imagined his face slick with blood, inches from her own. She wished that this morning of all mornings he had left her to pass the time on her own.
As they crossed a cattle grid, he stopped and looked up the path ahead of them.
"Hm. I was hoping we could avoid this."
She followed his gaze, and her heart almost stopped. There, on the crest of the hill but moving closer, were two figures, bundled up in heavy coats.
"If you try anything, I'll shoot them both. You don't want that, do you, Margaux?"
"N-no."
She looked at the two approaching figures, and the springer spaniel that bounded after them, and desperately wished they'd go another way.
He grabbed her hand as they got closer -- close enough to see their smiling faces in the early morning light,
oh God, dear God, they were an elderly couple -- and she tried not to flinch.
"Smile, Margaux."
The dog reached them first, running around them in a rough oval, sniffing at their shoes.
"Good morning!" It was the woman who spoke. She had a soft West Country accent. "We didn't expect to see anyone else so early!"
"Good morning." Bill had adopted a congenial tone. Margaux expected the couple to carry on past where they stood, but as they reached them they slowed and stopped.
"Are you on your holidays?"
Oh, go away, please go away... Margaux didn't dare to try and speak. She was afraid of what might escape her lips before she could stop it.
"Actually, we're on our honeymoon." Bill dropped her hand and put his arm around her, his hand resting possessively on her waist. His lips brushed her temple and she forced a smile.
"Oh, congratulations, dears. How nice." She elbowed her husband. "Aren't they a lovely couple, Charlie?"
"Yes, love, very." Margaux caught the man's eye and he smiled apologetically, as though his wife stopped and talked to strangers often. Margaux's mother was the same, although as far as she knew her mother had never unwittingly wandered into a hostage situation.
"We always come up here for our holidays. It's such a peaceful place."
"Yes, very." Bill was maintaining a polite facade, but his fingers kneading rhythmically at her waist warned Margaux of his growing annoyance. He moved to pet the spaniel as it jumped up and put its paws on Margaux's belly, and the dog growled.
"Oh dear, I'm sorry, he's usually such a good dog -- NO, Tibbs. NO."
"It's fine. No hard feelings."
He squeezed Margaux's side hard and she winced.
The man called the dog to heel.
"Have you been down to the pub at the crossroads yet?"
"No, no we haven't."
"Oh you really must, dear. They do such lovely food. Perhaps we could all make an evening of it?"
"Mm -- actually, we were planning on spending our honeymoon alone..."
"Oh, yes? Say no more. I was a young man once." The man -- Charlie, was it? -- laughed and elbowed Bill in the ribs. Bill's lips thinned into a line, as though he were fighting some violent urge, and Margaux felt a sense of mounting dread. "Come on, Lillibet, let's leave these lovebirds to it."
"Oh yes, yes, of course. Sorry to have kept you, dears."
They watched the elderly couple leave. It wasn't until they disappeared behind a hedge that Margaux could breath easily again.
"That was good. Well done." Bill tightened his grip around her waist. "But you could have played along more convincingly, don't you think?"
"I'm sorry, I wasn't exactly prepared." She pulled out of his grasp, having had quite enough of him touching her, and started down the path once more. He followed and grabbed her arm.
"I think we've been out long enough. Come on."
