EXTRACT:

FROM A DARK CELL

FIVE DARK DAYS

•••

The floor is filthy with coal dust, a tacky grime running across one corner: just all hard concrete and cold. When there is light, it’s a sharp glare from a single, bare bulb that casts harsh shadows of my body onto the dirt encrusted walls. There is nothing in the room other than a galvanised bucket, with a handle that clanks in loud echoes when I move it and a crude wooden lid over it that does little to stop the foul smell of excrement.

Little sound penetrates this space, just eight paces by five, with one locked door and a metal hatch in the ceiling, far out of reach, even when I tried standing on the upturned bucket. That was where coal or coke used to be delivered, I would guess. And where a faint glimmer comes in the day, through a thin gap where two, time-buckled flaps of the hatch are bolted across. If only I could reach those bolts, so tantalisingly too high.

I’ve lost count of the days I’ve been incarcerated. I can only remember waking up here and with my mind dull and confused as to how and why I have arrived in this unforgiving black hole. I’ve had meals brought to me, the only time the light is switched on, all too briefly, but I can’t remember how many. Or what they were. Was it some Dickensian gruel? It tasted foul enough and if I am being drugged – as I am beginning to suspect – I can’t taste with what, as I reluctantly spoon gagging mouthfuls. Disgusting as it is, I have to get back my strength, that much I know, otherwise I would tip it all away. Or throw it in my black hooded captor’s face.

And there’s the other problem. Who is my captor? I sense a familiarity and the navy-blue boilersuit clad figure holds just enough curve to mark her as woman. An aggressive woman who never speaks, just gestures me to keep away, in a far corner, waving a heavy metal pipe she carries in one hand. She then places a plastic bottle of drink and a large plastic mug of liquidised mush on the floor, just inside the door.

My head throbs, hunger twists my gut. A name hovers in my mind, but I can’t grasp it or bring a face to the fore.

A woman. A man. Someone I know, but from where? Or is it someone I’ve just heard of but never met? Someone I’m still to meet. Just glimpses of memory, a mere glimmer of something before the darkness of now. Surely there must have been a before much different to this. When will I awake to it? When will it all come flooding back? Or will it stay lost forever? My brain aches with trying, as I pace like a caged tiger, but with no bars to see out onto whatever world I came from.

An unwelcome tiredness overtakes me as I slump in a corner and swig from my one luxury, the daily two-litre bottle of highly diluted fruit squash – peach tasting today, though barely so – not even sure who I really am. Or was.

DAY 6

•••

I’ve been asleep. I’ve no clue to what the time is, but it’s not day. Darkness is complete. I’m trying to remember how long I’ve been here. At least four or five days. I can’t be sure. I sense more than recount the meals and drinks I’ve been given, but not how many times there’s been light creeping from the hatch. But that comes and goes even in short spells, disappearing when rain drums heavily on it before brightening again. But I have become more aware that that my present has a past. Hopefully a future, too.

My whole body aches from lying on cold concrete, sitting against damp chilled solid walls, forever circling these confines in slow steps. Slow steps. Slow steps. That triggers a memory. I used to run. I’m sure of it. And swim. But where? And with someone. That elusive name again, knocking on my temples. I have to focus. Patrick? Patricia? Am I being overtaken by insanity? Man or woman? Partner or friend? Brother or sister? My head screams.

Focus. If I ran, I must have done exercises. That’s what I need to do now. That’s what I can do now. Stretches, press-ups, squats and jump squats, plank, side plank, speed skaters, bird dogs, long jumps and more. They’re crashing my memory with possibilities that don’t need a gym. That won’t make me giddy running around in circles. Fitness could help bring more memory back. It’s coming to me. That’s why I ran. To take away the tension of worries. To think problems through. Not as a competitive sport.

Fitness and purpose. Exercising will break up my day, give me a reason to keep going, despite this hell hole keeping me in the dark. I don’t need light to get stronger. And strength will give me a greater chance of overpowering my captor. Strength and surprise. She’ll think me too weak on her vile gruel and rationed drink. And I’m beginning to recall my old regime. Though I’ll have to skip anything with weights. I daren’t use the bucket for fear of spills. That doesn’t bare thinking about.

But I need to remember more. If only my name. If only where I came from and especially who brought me here.

Slowly, a glimmer of light comes from overhead, through the narrow gape in the hatch. It’s the morning of another squalid day, stuck in near total darkness with only the company of that foul smelling bucket.

Then there’s the chink of metal as the key goes into the lock. Maybe a padlock, it seems to bounce and it’s a different click when the door is shut again, I remember. The door opens warily outwards, as always, a hand and a steel pipe appearing slightly in front of the figure silhouetted by low daylight behind it. The back away gesture of her other hand is given, and I weakly comply. For now, anyway. A small metal tray with food and drink gives a low screech, as it’s edged forward with her foot, across the concrete. Hidden eyes under a hoodie, that I guess never leave me. She half turns and in the dim light that comes through the doorway, I see her reach down for a plastic carrier which she throws towards me. For the first time I hear her voice. Barely more than a harsh whisper, so I have little chance of recognising it.

‘Change your clothes. Dirty ones in the bag, back by the door. You have five minutes of light.’

She backs out, closes the door and the light comes on. My eyes sting with the sudden glare and keeping them half closed I rummage in the bag to find old but clean jeans, pants, but no bra and a scratchy wool top in old lady beige. But anything’s better than the filthy, smelly, garments I’m wearing, so I hastily change, the light going out with the jeans half on.

The door opens.

‘Bag.’

I throw it at the shadowy figure, it glances of her arm and lands on the tray, knocking over the drink, but just missing the gruel. She reaches down and pulls it though the doorway and I hear the click of the padlock. Yes, I’m sure it is a padlock, locking me in. So, I have a mushy soup, but no drink to sustain me until she collects the tray in some hours’ time and replaces my empty bottle of squash with a fresh one.

But that voice stirred a memory. A voice of authority. A voice of aggression. A familiarity I can’t quite place. Someone I know. Someone who hates me. Always has.

The story continues with a surprising twist as part one of a trilogy of novellas.