The Naked Room by Diana Hockley

there before they come in. I feel squashed. My arm hurts. What—there’s a big bruise on the inside of my elbow with a large puncture mark. What have they done? Is that how they drugged me? No, I’d know about it.
    I swing my legs awkwardly around to the floor. Uh, large, blackish-red spots on the floorboards. Blood? Has my nose bled again? It’s so bunged up, I can’t smell the dried blood on my top and skirt. Fear rises in my throat. I grope around the stretcher for my glasses, put them on to touch a splotch and hold my finger right against my nostril. Yes, it’s blood.
    I place my spectacles carefully against the wall, then sweep my hair back and start to plait it. My hands tremble, but I’m managing. Long strands fall and cling to the front of my clothes. A tug here and there and hanks come loose. A chunk of my hair has been cut just under the base of my skull.
    Now I understand why my arm is sore. A man—my father, whom I do not know—will get a hank of my bloodied hair and a demand for three million dollars.
    Terrific. He will be pleased.
    I want to rip their throats out. How dare they keep me shut up in here? How dare they ruin my career and threaten me?
    They’re coming up the stairs outside. I flatten myself against the wall next to the door, ready to attack and run. As it swings open, Scarpia stops in the entrance, just out of sight. I can’t get behind him.
    ‘Fucking hell—’ He lunges forward. I shove him, using every bit of my remaining strength, but it’s like trying to move a telephone pole. He whirls around and grabs me by the hair, almost wrenching it out of my head and then throws me onto the floor. The hard ridges of someone’s feet break my fall, biting into my back. My breath rasps as I try to suck air and roll to face them, but I am still anchored by my hair.
    A shadow looms over me. The Cow swings her arm back to strike me.
    The man stops her.
    His boot swings toward me…my head explodes. I wrench my hair away from his grasp and curl myself into a ball, trying to protect my face as kicks land indiscriminately. I don’t how long it is before I find myself alone again. Blackness envelops me. I can’t open my eyes. My face stings and there’s blood in my mouth. It hurts to breathe and my head is aching so badly I can’t think straight. I put my hand to my face. My lungs wheeze in the silence, every breath a painful though hazy reminder of the assault.
    Then it all comes back to me. I attacked him, he kept kicking me and she pulled him off. My hands. They’re okay, I think. I can feel my fingers, he didn’t cut them.
    Now I can see light, just a little out of my left eye.
    I’m so thirsty. I crawl to the wall and try to stand up.
    The stretcher. Get to it.
    It takes forever to drag the blanket around my body and over my head.
    I can’t stop shaking.
    Pretend, Ally. You’ve got to pretend you’re not terrified. Retreat into a place where they can’t touch you, where the pain can’t follow—the past.
    My first piano was given to me by the postman’s wife on Masters Island. No one else wanted it and I loved it. Mum bought me some easy correspondence lessons for my sixth birthday. Pretty soon it wasn’t enough, and she had to find someone to give me proper tuition.
    My time with my teacher, Mrs Minowski, feels as though it happened only yesterday. The first piece I played for her was Brahms Lullaby. ‘Ally Carpenter, you will take this slowly now. Brahms did not intend it should be galloped through. You understand?’
    ‘Yes, Mrs Minowski,’ I hear myself chant.
    Mrs Minowski is Polish, a dumpy, bespectacled little old woman, much given to wearing an assortment of bright clothes which smelt strongly of camphor. She sported an armful of bangles, which sent us into fits of giggles as they clattered on the ivory keys of the piano.
    An old-fashioned fox fur lived around her shoulders, it’s pathetic little feet clasped together with a hook made out of its own toenails. Beady