Free Loss of Separation by Conrad Williams

switches on a radio that plays calm music - classical or jazz - for one hour before he brushes her teeth, changes her nappy and turns out the light.
     
    I can't look at him. Once was enough. My eyes slid away from him like they could not bear the sight. Like bad dog. One look, maybe a second of him, and it's like he branded me. He is big. Bulky. He reminds me of being kid, a tomboy playing in the street with Yakiv, dressing up in old coat, pillows tied to our waists, pretending to be Mr Shevchuk at the café in Odessa, fat on his galushki and his nalystniki . His face. Face of fish. An orange mask (but sometimes I wonder... sometimes I wonder if this might be his real face). He wears big coat with long hood so I can't see back of head or hair. He's keeping his face secret. That's good. That's a good thing, isn't it? That's tick in box. A happy face. Because why would he hide himself if he wasn't going to let me go?
     
    Identifying marks, then. Suck him in. Detail. Anything you can. Wait for the moment he takes off his gloves. Coughs. Try to smell him. Aftershave? Body odours? Cooking aromas? Like grandmother smelling of fried beef and spices after a morning cooking smazhenyna . Wiping her hands, like old pieces of blond wood, on her pinafore, over and over, as if she wouldn't be satisfied they were dry until her skin came off. Grandmother with her large black plastic spectacles and the lenses that magnified her eyes. It always used to bother her a little, seeing her babushka take those glasses off. Scared her, even, when she was very little. Her eyes would never be as big as she'd expect, and it was like looking at a different person, for a while, until she spoke, until she put her glasses back on.
     
    I can't see his shoes. It's too dark down there, and anyway, he wears long, large jeans and I can't lift my neck up off the bed enough to see. But I can hear him. Hear his shoes catching on the dirt of that floor. He shuffles little bit. Maybe his shoes too big. Maybe he has them by side of door, puts them on, like pair of old gardening boots you never bother to tie up. Something to slip on while you empty bins, or throw ball back over wall to next door kids. A glass of wine in garden with Paul would be nice now. Him with his Cabso, as he calls it. Me with some cold Chardonnay, or cava. The bubbles up the nose make me laugh. Paul stares at me, at my mouth, when I laugh. Like little boy watching magic trick. He likes my laugh. He says it just like bubbles.
     
    Beat the panic. Think of something. Think of anything. Your yoga classes with Miss Regan. It's all so formal and British. Nobody calls each other by their first names. She has no clue what her name is. What could it be? What does she look like? Miss Regan reminds her of a Larysa, but of course, she wouldn't be that. Not here in England. A Penelope, then? A Martha? Mary? Elizabeth? The stretching, the reaching. Sometimes she was so relaxed, so utterly comfortable in her surroundings, in her own skin, that she thought she could stretch beyond what was normal and perhaps open her eyes to find herself in an impossible place, the others staring at her, not knowing whether to try to unknot her or call an ambulance.
     
    The smell of peppermint tea and freshly laundered clothes drying on radiator. Drops of tea tree oil in bowls of hot water. Nicer smells than here. I can't think what it is making them. Rotting fish? Stale earth? Raw sewage? After while, it's like my nose has gone numb. I can't smell anything but stink of whatever it is, and soon, even that is in background. It's not important. What is important is keeping hold of who I am. Track the days. Time is my friend now.
     
    She has been here long enough to not even register the pungent smells that assaulted her so violently on that first day, when she thought she must be sick. The Man had left her immediately, having fastened her hands with a chain to a bolt buried deep into the wall. The bindings around her wrists