The Trap Read Free

anymore. I’d like to watch a film, but I don’t dare switch on the TV. I simply don’t dare.
    When I hear footsteps, I jump. Billie’s stopped singing. At some point I must have silenced her sad voice with one of my many remote controls. Who’s there? It’s the middle of the night. Why doesn’t the dog bark? I want to drag myself out of bed, grab something I can use to defend myself with, hide, do something, but I lie there, my breathing shallow, my eyes wide open. Somebody knocks. I say nothing.
    ‘Hello!’ a voice calls out. I don’t recognise it.
    And then again. ‘Hello! Are you in there?’
    The door opens. I whimper—my feeble version of a scream. It’s Charlotte, my assistant. Of course I recognise her voice. It was my fear that made it sound so strangely distorted. Charlotte comes twice a week to do my shopping, take my letters to the post office, do anything that needs doing. My paid link to the outside world.
    Now she’s standing in the door, wavering. ‘Is everything all right?’
    My thoughts rearrange themselves. It can’t be night if Charlotte’s here. I must have been lying in bed for a very long time.
    ‘Sorry to burst in like that, but when I rang the bell and you didn’t answer I got worried and let myself in.’
    The bell? I remember a ringing working its way into one of my dreams. I’m dreaming again after all these years!
    ‘I feel a bit poorly,’ I say. ‘I was fast asleep and didn’t hear you. I’m sorry.’
    I’m ashamed of myself; I can’t even manage to sit up. Charlotte seems worried, although she’s not one to be easily flustered. That’s precisely why I chose her. Charlotte is younger than me, late twenties maybe. She has a lot of jobs—waitressing in several cafés, selling tickets at a cinema in town. Things like that. And twice a week she comes to me. I like Charlotte—her short hair that she dyes a bluish black, her sturdy figure, her flamboyant tattoos, her dirty sense of humour, the stories about her little boy. The ‘cheeky devil’, she calls him.
    If Charlotte seems nervous, I must look terrible.
    ‘Do you need anything? From the chemist or anywhere?’
    ‘No thanks, I’ve got everything I need in the house,’ I say.
    I sound funny—like a robot. I can hear it, but I can’t do anything about it.
    ‘I don’t need you today, Charlotte. I should have let you know. I’m sorry.’
    ‘Not to worry. The shopping’s in the fridge. Shall I take the dog out, before I leave?’
    Oh God, the dog. How long have I been lying here?
    ‘That would be great,’ I say. ‘Give him something to eat too, would you?’
    ‘Sure.’
    I pull the duvet up to my nose to signal that the conversation is over.
    Charlotte hovers a little longer in the doorway, presumably uncertain about whether she can leave me alone. Then she makes up her mind and goes. I hear the sounds she makes in the kitchen as she feeds Bukowski. I usually love it when there are sounds in the house, but today it means nothing to me. I let the pillows and duvet and darkness engulf me, but I can’t get to sleep.

4
    I lie in the dark, thinking about the blackest day of my life. I remember that I couldn’t grieve when my sister was carried to her grave—not straight away. My head and body were bursting with one thought. Why? There was only room for one question: Why did she have to die?
    I had the feeling that my parents were asking me this question—my parents, the other mourners, Anna’s friends and colleagues, practically everyone—because, after all, I’d been there; I must have seen something. What, for heaven’s sake, happened? Why did Anna have to die?
    I remember the mourners crying, throwing flowers on the coffin, leaning on each other, blowing their noses. It all felt so unreal to me, so strangely warped—the sounds, the colours, even the feelings. A vicar who spoke in a strangely drawling voice. People moving in slow motion. Flower arrangements with roses and lilies—all