The loft cage

The loft cage is the physical centre of Felicity Wanless’s captivity: a padlocked enclosure in a converted roof space where ropes hold her wrists and ankles and the man who abducted her regulates when she may leave it. Its force comes not only from the bars and lock, but from the routine surrounding them. Felicity can be taken out briefly, yet ropes, locked doors and the captor’s instructions carry the confinement with her.

Setting and Construction

The cage stands in the loft, reached through a hatch in the floor and an extending ladder. When the man comes up, the hatch opens with a grating, clanking sound; the bare bulb he switches on floods the roof space with light. Its walls and ceiling are covered with material that looks like egg boxes, and vinyl flooring covers the area around the enclosure. The setting is plainly arranged for captivity, though the evidence does not specify how or when the cage was installed.

The cage’s door is secured with a padlock. Ropes tied to its sides fasten a captive’s wrists apart, while another rope binds the ankles and connects them to the cage door. In Felicity’s first view of the other woman inside, the restraints hold her arms out to either side in a pose Felicity likens to a crucifixion. The image makes the cage’s purpose unmistakable: it fixes the captive’s body in place and exposes her helplessness. The captor can unfasten the ropes and unlock the door, but release depends on his decision and remains under his control.

How Confinement Works

Felicity’s movement is controlled beyond the cage itself. When the man takes her down to use the bathroom, he ties a rope around her waist and follows her on the ladder, allowing only as much slack as she needs to descend. At the bathroom, he passes the rope under the door through a notch and ties it to the outside handle before locking her in. The room is not an alternative route to freedom: its window is nailed shut and painted over, and Felicity has only a short interval before the man returns. The rope links the temporary release from the cage to another locked space.

The bathroom interval also shows how confinement governs time. Felicity estimates that she has less than ten minutes, but minutes in the loft seem to stretch while the time outside the cage seems to vanish. She uses the toilet and washes at a small basin, then waits by the warm radiator because she knows she will soon be taken back upstairs. The adult nappy she removes is another practical detail of life under restraint: even bodily needs are managed within a schedule and conditions imposed by the captor.

Back in the loft, food and water are placed on top of the cage. After Felicity eats, the man orders her inside, then tells her to put her hands against the sides so he can tie her wrists again. The cycle of release, controlled movement, food and return to the enclosure turns the cage into the anchor of a wider system of coercion. Felicity is hungry, sore and physically stiff; the ropes have rubbed her wrists raw, and her limbs do not readily move when she climbs down. The enclosure’s control therefore extends beyond the moments when its door is locked, shaping her body and the small choices available to her.

Felicity and Louise Usher

Felicity first sees the woman already in the cage only after the man has brought her into the loft. The woman calls Felicity over and offers instructions for surviving captivity. Her advice treats endurance as deliberate work: Felicity must stay alive, preserve hope and remember who she is, even when the man reduces his victims to the status of slaves or dolls. She also warns Felicity to concentrate on breathing during sexual abuse and not to choke or vomit, because he will beat her. The advice is starkly practical, born of knowledge of the captor’s violence and the conditions inside the cage.

The narrative identifies this experienced captive as Louise Usher through the survival advice Felicity later recalls. Louise’s knowledge gives the enclosure a human history: Felicity is not the first woman forced to learn how to live within its routine. When she is given a sandwich after a period without food, Louise’s warning returns to her. Felicity makes herself eat slowly rather than rush the food, applying the survival instruction while still under the captor’s control. In that moment, the cage is not only the place where one woman is restrained; it is also the setting in which knowledge passes from one captive to another.

Repetition and the Attempt to Escape

The routine continues on later visits. One evening, Felicity hears the front door bang and the heating come on before the hatch opens and the ladder clanks down. The man unties her wrists and ankles, opens the cage and takes her downstairs; after the bathroom interval, he returns her to the loft. These repeated sounds and actions make the cage part of a predictable pattern, although predictability does not make the pattern safe. Felicity knows that the bathroom visit is the calm before the next assault.

She prepares to resist during one such interval. Having practised a plan in her mind and loosened her stiff limbs with stretches, she attempts a kick when the man returns. She strikes his shoulder rather than his head, but the impact sends him against the opposite wall, where he hits his head and falls. Felicity grabs the rope he has dropped and runs downstairs, hoping to reach the kitchen and the back door. The door is locked; unable to find a key, she raises a pan to break the window, but hears him following before she can do so. That evening, the familiar sequence resumes: he comes to the loft, releases her from the cage and takes her downstairs again. The escape attempt changes what Felicity is willing to do, but the supplied events show the cage still functioning as the point to which the captor returns her.

As an object, the loft cage concentrates the story’s conflict over bodily autonomy into a visible enclosure. Yet its locked door is only one part of the captor’s control: ropes extend that control into the ladder, the bathroom and the intervals in which Felicity is allowed to move. The cage’s repeated opening and closing gives the captivity a grim rhythm, while Louise’s counsel and Felicity’s attempted escape show that the women’s resistance persists within it.