Tubing Read online

  After her bath she changed into a pair of clean pyjamas and went to bed. She desperately wanted sleep, but it wouldn’t come. For the first time her safety mechanism failed her. Her body felt agitated and fidgety. Even the muscles around her eyes wouldn’t relax. They kept flickering, making it impossible to keep her lids closed. She considered getting up, but there was nowhere to go in Oliver’s small one-bedroom flat.

  Just after midnight, Oliver came to bed. She always went to bed before he did. Usually he’d snuggle up to her back when he got in. It always made her feel safe just as she was drifting off to sleep. But he didn’t tonight. She could just about make him out in the dark. He lay facing the wall at the edge of the bed. It wasn’t long before his loud, squeaky nostrils started up. Usually his snoring irritated her, but tonight she used the sound to try to pretend it was just like any other night.

  Eventually sleep came, but only for a few hours. Before she knew it, she was awake again. Her throat felt dry, and her nose was blocked from crying so much earlier. She lay there for a while, but with each breath her throat felt more and more raw. She reached out for her glass of water on the bedside table, but there was no glass. She remembered her argument with Oliver and how she’d stormed out – she hadn’t brought a drink to bed.

  As much as she didn’t want to, she had to get up. She pulled back the duvet and tried to push herself up into a sitting position. But her body wouldn’t work; her muscles felt like dead weights. Even her eyelids, which had insisted on continuously flickering earlier, refused to budge. She was starting to panic, getting thirstier and thirstier. With all her strength she pushed herself up and flopped her feet to the floor. She hoped they would miraculously spring to life and carry her into the kitchen, but they didn’t. She ended up sprawled in a heap next to the bed. She lay there for a while, commanding her eyes to open, but they wouldn’t budge. Soon she gave up and propped herself on all fours and crawled blindly to the bedroom door. It was cold and gritty on the wooden floorboards. She navigated her way to the door. Once there, she lifted herself up to reach the handle. As she moved her arms upwards, they brushed against the smooth skin of her breasts. Her eyes snapped open and she looked down. She was naked.

  ‘Why am I naked?’ she said aloud. Her voice sounded bassless and sinister in the dark, as if it hadn’t come from her …

  Suddenly, she was awake. She could feel the warmth and softness of the duvet around her. She shuddered, shaking off the dream she’d just had. She was thirsty. She reached out to the bedside table for her glass of water. It wasn’t there, of course.

  She felt so tired and could barely open her eyes. She used her fingers to pry one open, but her eyeball remained rolled back in her head, refusing to focus. With a huge amount of effort she pushed herself up and dropped her feet to the floor. Her legs held her this time, but they felt so weak that she decided to let herself slowly go down on to her knees then forward until she was on all fours. She started crawling around the bed to the door. In her dream, she’d neglected to include the chest of drawers by the wall, parallel to the end of the bed. She smacked head-first into it. Cursing, she reversed out and went around. Once at the door, she reached up to click the handle open and crawled into the hallway.

  It was freezing by the front door. A draught was coming from the gap underneath. She shivered in the cold and rubbed each arm in turn. She was relieved to find that she was fully clothed in her pyjamas. She gave a snort of laughter. As she crawled into the lounge, she noticed a dim light coming from the kitchen. She knew immediately that the cooker hood light was on. Then she heard the tap running. Someone was in there. She quickly hauled herself up on to her feet, using the doorframe.

  ‘Oliver?’ Her voice sounded very small.

  No answer. She ran her hand along the lounge wall until she reached the archway into the kitchen. He was standing with his back to her by the sink in his boxer shorts. She stood in the opening.

  ‘What are you doing up?’ she asked.

  He paid her no attention. She watched as he knocked his head back, draining a glass of water.

  ‘Oliver?’

  Nothing.

  ‘Oliver, are you ignoring me?’

  No answer. He didn’t even move; there wasn’t even the slightest flicker or tension in his body to show that he knew she was there.

  ‘Is it because of earlier? Is that why you’re not talking to me?’

  Still nothing.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry I lost it. It was just a really shitty day.’

  She walked over to him and slipped her arms around his waist from behind. He felt warm, and she shivered against him. She held him tight, burying her face into his back. He didn’t respond. She could smell something familiar on him, an aftershave, but it wasn’t the one he usually wore. In fact he didn’t really feel like Oliver at all. His body was harder and less rounded, and his back felt hairy and greasy. She started to pull away.

  Suddenly he turned and grabbed her by the arm.

  ‘Don’t look at me,’ he spat.

  It was the stranger from the train earlier.

  She gasped, lurching up in bed, her eyes wide open this time. She could hear Oliver inhaling and exhaling loudly next to her. She was freezing – cold sweat ran down the side of her face and neck. She took a couple of deep breaths then lay back down. The bed sheets felt damp and her pyjamas were saturated. She lay in her cold discomfort, desperate to get up and change, but completely unable to move.

  Eleven

  After her nightmare Polly barely slept. She couldn’t quite believe what she’d got involved in. She spent the rest of the night staring at the ceiling, waiting for Oliver to wake up.

  As soon as she heard him stirring she sat up and leant over so she could watch for when his eyes opened. She startled him, looming over him – not the best start.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he asked.

  ‘Waiting.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For you to wake up so I can tell you I’m sorry.’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ he said, turning away from her.

  ‘Please don’t be cross with me. I was a total bitch, I know.’

  She forced herself on to him, clambering over his body so they were facing one another, then ducking under his arms so that he was cuddling her even if he didn’t want to. After a couple of seconds he gave in and squeezed her tight. It felt like the safest place on earth.

  In the hours she had been lying awake she’d decided that her flirtation with excitement or intrigue or whatever it had been was over. She had no intention of telling anyone what had been going on; she could barely get her own head around it, let alone try to explain it to someone else.

  The next message arrived the following evening.

  Her phone was in her handbag in the hall. It was set to silent. She didn’t hear the gentle drum as her phone vibrated against the hallway floor, and she didn’t see the glow from the open mouth of her handbag as the brightly lit display flashed on and then off again. At the moment the message arrived, Polly was cuddled up to Oliver on the sofa while he watched the cricket. She hated cricket, but after everything that had happened she just wanted to stay close to him. He was surprised by her interest, but took great delight in explaining the action to her. The message sat there for the rest of the night, innocuously waiting for her to find it.

  She finally saw it on her way to work in the midst of negotiating a busy pavement and thinking about dinner. She had decided to make Oliver a fancy meal that evening, maybe lamb or something with sea bass. She wasn’t much of a cook, but she was sure she could figure something out. There was a nice little deli not far from work on Conduit Street; she’d get most of the ingredients there during her lunch break. Anything else she needed, she could pick up from the supermarket on her way home.

  But her plans were quickly forgotten when she looked at her phone to check the time. She stopped dead.

  fancy doing it again? tomorrow 19.15, leicester square, piccadilly line, train heading to ham
mersmith. c u at last double doors

  People started pushing past her angrily, trying to get round the pile-up she’d caused behind her. It took her ages to realise. When she finally did, she moved out of the way to an empty doorway and just stood there staring at the message. She didn’t know what to do. Her thumb hovered over the Delete button for a while, then she moved it away to see what time it had arrived. It had been sent Sunday at 9.57 p.m. She checked the number it had come from. It was different from the last one.

  She read the message over and over. What the hell was she involved in? Had her number been randomly given out to anyone who wanted it? Was she being rented out as some kind of slut for men to fuck on trains? Maybe that had been the point of the first guy, like a pimp testing her out. The thought filled her with horror. She wanted to throw the phone to the ground and smash it to pieces.

  By the time she got to work, she was raging. She stormed up to her desk and threw herself down in the chair. The more she thought about it, the angrier she got. She couldn’t believe she’d been blindly dragged into some kind of prostitution ring.

  She got very little work done that morning, despite having a deadline to meet for James. She couldn’t focus. Her work phone rang several times, but she didn’t want to speak to anyone, so she just let it ring. Eventually, Lionel shouted through his office door, ‘Will somebody answer that bloody phone!’ and she was forced to pick it up. It was her dad. She’d known giving him her work number was a mistake.

  ‘Hi, Dad,’ she said, after he’d bumbled through his introduction without realising it was her on the end of the line.

  ‘Polly? Is that you?’ he said when he finally realised.

  ‘Yes, it’s me.’

  ‘They’ve given you your own phone?’

  ‘Yes, I have my own phone at work.’

  ‘Well, that’s grand.’ He sounded genuinely proud of her.

  Silence. She didn’t say anything. There was no reason to ask why he was calling; she often received a follow-up call when her mother had had one of her turns. She slumped down in her chair and dropped her head forward until it was almost touching the desk.

  After about five seconds, he said, ‘I just wanted to let you know that your mother’s much better now.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘She’s a lot more comfortable.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Polly couldn’t keep the contempt out of her voice.

  Pause.

  ‘I thought we’d have heard from you before now, love, you know, about coming back for a visit. You said you’d think about it.’

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ she said, ‘I’ve been meaning to call, but I’ve been busy with work and … ’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you have, love. I know you, you work so hard – too hard sometimes,’ he said. ‘But it’s important. I think it would really cheer her up. She gets very depressed, especially now she’s in the chair.’

  Polly shuddered. In the past few years her mother had started using a wheelchair. On her last visit home, Polly had twice caught her out of it. The first time had been when she was bringing her a cup of tea (her dad had asked her to). As she’d pushed open the lounge door her mother had seemed to slump and her chair had started wheeling backwards, as if she’d sat back down too hard. On the second occasion, Polly had found her in the garden lying on the patio with her chair tipped up on its side opposite her. Polly couldn’t fathom how she could have fallen out on a completely flat surface with her going one way and the chair the other.

  She picked up her pen and started clicking it furiously. It was all she could do to keep herself in check.

  ‘It’d do you good, be a nice wee break for you away from London. Why don’t you bring Oliver with you too? We’d love to meet him.’

  The thought of taking Oliver home to meet her parents made Polly feel physically sick. She came from a picturesque village in Dorset, but the bungalow her parents lived in had been moulded from concrete in the 1970s. It came complete with a car port and dining hatch. Oliver knew the village well – he had gone to a public school a few miles away in Somerset. He thought she’d grown up in one of the large stone-clad cottages with beautiful low beams and a pretty walled garden. It was his assumption – she hadn’t bothered to correct him.

  ‘Well, think about it, love,’ her father said when she didn’t reply.

  She felt bad: she knew it was her dad who wanted to see her, not her mother. She hadn’t seen him for a couple of months now. The last time had been when he’d come to London to visit, something he did from time to time. She much preferred it that way. ‘You got any free time to come and see me?’ she asked hopefully. ‘We could go to that steakhouse you like.’

  ‘I’d love to, darling,’ he replied, ‘but I’m not sure your mother will be able to make it. She’d find the journey too difficult.’

  Polly crossed her fingers. Here’s hoping, she thought.

  ‘Well, why don’t you just come?’

  After a short pause he said, ‘OK, that would be grand.’

  They made arrangements to meet for lunch on Thursday the week after next, then said their goodbyes.

  Polly was left feeling lousy. She was pleased to be seeing her dad, but with him came her mother and all her baggage, even when she wasn’t around. Just hearing about it made her feel bad.

  She looked at the time – 11.48 – not even lunchtime yet.

  ‘Fucking crap-hole morning,’ she muttered to herself.

  She contemplated putting her head through her computer screen or making a chain of paperclips to hang herself with.

  Just then her mobile sprang to life, juddering across the table. She picked it up. It was a message from her phone provider announcing a new method of pissing money away with them. She pressed down on the Delete button angrily and made a mental note to call them later and tell them to fuck off. Once that message was cleared, the list of other messages appeared. She clicked on the one she’d received last night. She read through the details of the meeting again. Who the fuck did he think he was, treating her like some kind of whore?

  It was then that she decided – she would go to the meeting tonight and tell whoever it was exactly what she thought of them.

  Twelve

  The last set of double doors on the tube train opened and there he was, leaning against the metal handrail, waiting for her. It was him – the guy who’d started it all off that first night. There were no games this time, no hiding among the crowds or appearing as if from nowhere. The carriage was almost empty – there were no places to hide. He smiled coolly and moved forward to greet her as if they were old friends.

  Her day hadn’t improved much during the afternoon; she was livid by the time she saw him. She walked straight up to him and slapped him hard across the face. He put his hand to his cheek, taken aback. Polly was as shocked as he was; she had had no idea she had been going to hit him. She stepped back, not knowing what to do with herself.

  His surprise didn’t last long. He grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her arm up behind her back, twisting her round in the process. It happened in a blur; all that registered was the pain. She held her breath, scared that the slightest movement would make her arm twist up higher.

  He pushed her towards the train doors ready to march her off. A guy sitting close to them looked up at them from behind his paper, shock written across his face when he realised what was happening. He hesitated for a moment, then stood up. ‘Hey, what are you doing, mate?’

  ‘Sit down,’ he replied firmly. He used his free hand to throw his fist out towards the other guy’s face. It made him jump and flop back down into his seat. Other passengers in the carriage looked over. The train doors started beeping ready to close. Still holding on to Polly’s arm, he pushed her forward and out the door before it slammed shut.

  Out on the empty platform, he kept hold of her. He hustled her through the corridor towards the exit. Just before they reached the opening to the escalators, he ducked them into a small side corridor. He loosened his gr
ip, allowing her to untwist her arm, and then moved in front of her and grabbed her hand as if he were pulling her along by a lead. She scuttled behind him until she lost her footing and fell to the floor. He didn’t let go of her; she ended up being dragged along until they reached the dead end.

  There were no strip lights this far down in the narrow corridor. The area wasn’t meant for the public, so it only had a dull emergency light next to a chute cut into the wall. It gave out a sickly yellow glow. From the smell, she guessed it was a rubbish store. She saw black bags piled up next to the chute. She scrambled up to her feet.

  The second she was up, he grabbed her by the neck and slammed her against the wall. She was up on her tiptoes instantly, trying to relieve the pressure on the front of her throat.

  ‘Why the fuck did you do that?’ he said, his face only inches from hers. The puff of each word made her jump.

  She stood there silently, her entire body trembling in tight little movements.

  When she didn’t answer he let go and turned his back on her. He put his palms on the opposite wall and leant into it as if he were holding it up.

  Polly slid down until her feet were flat on the floor again.

  The two of them stayed like that for what seemed like an eternity, the air between them brooding. Polly didn’t know what to do. She should leave, but she didn’t.

  When he finally turned round to face her again, he was much calmer.

  ‘Why did you slap me?’

  ‘I … er … don’t … I was angry.’ Her voice came out shrill and erratic. She couldn’t think clearly enough to make a full sentence. She could just about make out his eyes staring at her in the dim light.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because of what happened the other day on the train.’

  ‘But I wasn’t even there.’

  ‘I know,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Oh, I get it. Did you think you were meeting me?’

  She didn’t answer.

  ‘Tubing is a game,’ he said moving in closer and placing his hands either side of her head so she was boxed in. ‘It’s uncomplicated, no-strings-attached sex.’