Ennja --
Thank you so much for your kind review, it put such a smile on my face! There should be lots more chapters coming, so sit tight! TAS x
*
One of them looked in on her every so often, but mostly they left Margaux to wander around the cottage as she pleased. She wasn't about to complain, but she was surprised... until she saw it.
Right there, in the corner of the tiny, cluttered room that housed a sofa and television, was a camera.
It sat directly on top of a fishing trophy -- a trout in a glass case -- so she hadn't seen it at first, but as boredom drew her eye across every inch of the room, she had found herself staring into that single, glossy black eye, and everything fell into place.
Of course Bill had known she was escaping -- they had been watching her the whole time.
*
"There's some Chinese. Want some?"
Margaux looked up from the spot she had been absently staring at on the bedroom wall. Bill was standing in the doorway, holding an open silver container and a fork.
"Chinese?"
"Yes. Chinese. I assume you've had it before?" He raised an eyebrow derisively.
"I didn't mean it like that."
"Do you want some food, or not?" She was about to say no, but her stomach gave an answering rumble. "I thought so. Come on."
Margaux's heart gave a little leap as she got up from the bed and followed Bill into the kitchen: all she had seen from the windows was an expanse of grass and heather, but if they'd bought a takeaway from somewhere, there must be a town nearby.
Robert was opening up the folded corners of the boxes on the table and discarding the paper lids. She had to admit, looking down at the thinly-sliced meat and vegetables, gleaming with dark sauce, that she was very, very hungry. They were approaching the evening of the second day, and she hadn't eaten since the morning she got on the Eurostar from Paris.
"There's kung po pork, or Szechuan duck. Take your pick."
Bill had evidently already made his choice. Strands of chow mein hung from his fork as he watched her. She wished he'd stop it.
"Um --" Margaux glanced at Robert. "I'll just have whatever's left."
"She's polite." Bill laughed and crossed to the fridge, briefly sticking his fork in the container so that he could take a can of Guinness from the shelf. "She can't be trusted, but at least she's polite."
"I told you I wasn't going to run again."
Margaux handed Robert a fork from the drawer and took the remaining rectangular box -- the pork.
"And I so want to believe you, Margaux, but you'll have to earn that trust back."
He gestured for her to follow him, and he led her into the little sitting room. Robert stayed in the kitchen, eating robotically as he stared at the laptop screen.
"I don't know what else I can do."
"Just keep doing what you're told. No, Margaux, on the sofa."
She frowned and stood from the armchair, moving across the room to sit at the furthest end of the sofa from Bill. Even so there was barely two feet between them.
"I thought perhaps a film."
Margaux shrugged, moving to curl her legs under her, and held her food on her lap, savouring the smell of it.
"You might have said, if you were hungry."
"I didn't want to impose," she responded dryly. Bill smirked and put his food down on the little table that stood against the wall.
"There are some VHS tapes. Nothing post nineteen ninety-eight but I'm sure you don't mind that."
He took a pile of the plastic cases from beneath the TV stand and put them on the seat between them. They were all fairly old Brit-flicks -- mostly from the seventies. Margaux made a show of surveying the faded covers, but more than anything she was trying to figure out Bill's game. Was this some kind of power play, or was he genuinely in Human Mode and giving her a choice? It didn't really matter, she supposed. He was better at this than she was -- she doubted she could pull one over on him.
"How about this one?" She pushed
The Man Who Fell to Earth slightly towards him. "I like David Bowie."
"As does anyone with any taste. Good choice." He opened the case with a casual air and held up the tape. "They didn't rewind. Fuckers."
Margaux laughed, then put her hand to her mouth. Would he think she was laughing at him? He looked at her and smiled. Actually
smiled. That was it, Margaux reflected, as Bill leaned over to put the tape into the VCR -- that was what was really frightening about him. Even in this moment, which felt strangely like normal social interaction, she couldn't relax: her still-throbbing lip was a reminder of his total unpredictability.
He set the tape rewinding and returned to the sofa, taking an ancient remote from the top of the set and handing it to her. It was grimy and smelled oddly of damp. That was probably a bad sign. She put the pile of tapes on the floor and set the remote gingerly on the seat between them as Bill went back to his food.
They sat for a few minutes, eating quietly while the machine whirred and groaned. She wondered when it had last been used.
"You're young to be divorced."
The statement came out of nowhere. Margaux finished her mouthful before she answered.
"It's not uncommon."
"Twenty-five is young, even today."
"I suppose."
She regarded the man next to her without looking at him directly. He wasn't looking at her. Thankfully. How old was he? He might have been anywhere between her age and forty.
"It must have been quite a settlement."
"I didn't take any of David's money."
"Even after the prostitute?"
She looked at him, and he looked back with the vaguest hint of a grin. He was trying to get to her.
"It wasn't the first time he did it, it was just the first time the press found out."
"And I suppose you had a guilty conscience."
"What?"
"You were having an affair with that actor, weren't you?" His tone was conversational, but he knew exactly what he was doing.
"Which one?" She tried to keep the snippiness from her voice, but it was difficult when he was deliberately touching a nerve.
"The leading man in your new film."
"He's married."
"I believe that's why they call it an affair."
"He loves his wife. We're friends."
"If you say so, Margaux." He picked up the remote and pressed play: it had reached the ads just before the film. He started to fast-forward. "This is the one thing I miss. You can't skip the ads on DVDs any more."
That was it, then. He'd finished baiting her for now.
"Shall I get the light?"
"Thanks."
Margaux tried to pay attention to the film, but she couldn't stop herself from continually glancing at his profile in the dark. He was handsome, she supposed -- probably the sort of man she'd find attractive under normal circumstances -- but all she saw when she looked at him was that expression of cold indifference as he aimed a gun at her face. It was hard to make an objective judgement about someone who frightened her so much.
When he finished his food, she held out her hand for the container without a word.
Margaux walked back through to the kitchen, dumping the silver boxes in the bin and the forks in the sink. Robert was still sitting at the table with the laptop.
"What are you doing that takes so long?"
"Nothing you need to know about."
He closed the screen as she went to look over his shoulder, and she frowned.
"You're not going to watch the movie, then?"
"No."
"Oh... Okay."
Margaux turned and walked back down the hall to the sitting room, but she couldn't stop herself from hesitating just before the door.
No, this was ridiculous. If she was much longer he would ask her what she'd been doing. She took a calming breath and went back in.
"I was beginning to wonder if you were coming back."
"I wasn't that long." She returned to her seat, hugging herself defensively.
"You were talking to Robert."
"No I wasn't."
"Don't lie to me, Margaux."
"...I just wanted to know what he was doing out there."
"What Robert is doing is none of your concern."
"That's what he said."
"...Good."
He moved to lean back, resting one foot on the opposite knee and laying his arm across the back of the sofa. Margaux wished that there was more space to edge away. His hand, lying behind her shoulder, was like a pale tarantula -- one that might decide to bite at any moment.
"Relax, Margaux, you're making me nervous."
He paused, then started laughing.
