Every Day Is Mother's Day

CHAPTER 4

Evelyn had to take her time now. Coming downstairs, with her bad knees, was more painful than going up. She kept her head down, bowed over her hand tight on the banister rail. I’ll just get a bit of breakfast, she thought, and then I’ll have to get to the shops. I’ll lock Muriel in the back room. She’s not to be trusted.

What a lucky thing, to have a solid old-fashioned house with locks on the inside doors.

She stopped on the second step from the bottom. Muriel was standing by the front door.

“Muriel?”

She raised her eyes to the dark shape that swung gently above Muriel’s head. Its folds were dense in the half-light. Clifford had come back, and hung his coat on the hallstand.

Isabel left the office in a hurry. She had been reading the file on Axon, Muriel Alexandra, when the Hollies Day Centre had called to say did she know anything about Anderson, Louisa Jane? Was she still staying with her daughter in Kidderminster, because it was her morning, and she hadn’t turned up. Miss Anderson was seventy-six, she lived alone, and the weather was cold. The temperature had dropped several degrees overnight. She had never missed a day before, the Centre said, she looked forward to the hot meal and the sociability. She was in good health but—“I have a file,” Isabel said. She rummaged in her desk drawer for the A–Z.

“All right, that will take me ten or fifteen minutes and I’ll call you. She’s not answering the phone? No, I see. Well, she won’t if she’s still in Kidderminster. If she’s okay I’ll drop her into you and if she’s not I’ll sort things out. Leave it with me.”

Miss Anderson was a vague lady. She had an application in for Sheltered Housing. She had two years to wait. Social Services had got her a telephone but she kept it off the hook, because she was harassed by obscene callers. This might be true or it might be a delusion. She had told the police, and they had made a note of her and taken her home in a car. She would not go to Kidderminster permanently because her daughter’s husband was a Communist. This might be true or it might be a delusion.

When Isabel reached her car she realised she had Muriel Axon’s file under her arm, gathered up with her street map and her note of Miss Anderson’s address. I shouldn’t keep reading it, she thought, it only scares me, it only makes me sick. I should go there, but I won’t. If anything went wrong at Buckingham Avenue someone would call for help. It was a responsible middle-class neighbourhood. The file shouldn’t go out of the office; but she didn’t want to delay herself by taking it back. She tossed it into the back seat.

Probably Miss Anderson was still away. But she hurried, in rising apprehension at what she might find. As a trainee she had visited a geriatric hospital, and it had shocked her profoundly. She blew her horn at a caped and dripping cyclist who meandered into her path, and swore at him under her breath.

“Whatever have you done to your face, Missus?”

“I had a fall,” Evelyn said. “On the stairs.”

“You want to watch yourself,” the meter man said. “Given it a fair old bash, eh? Whatever will your young man say?”

The gas meter was in the kitchen. It was a nuisance. She followed the man. “You don’t get any natural light coming in, with all that stained glass,” he said. “Like a bloody funeral parlour. Haven’t you got a light in this passage?”

“This hall,” Evelyn said. “The bulb has gone.”

“Well, you don’t want to go climbing up there. You could come a right cropper. You want to get your friend to do it.”

“Friend? What friend?”

She stood over the man, watching his bent back as he flashed his torch into the little dark cupboard. He twisted round, squatting, and looked up at her.

“Well, you’ve got somebody stopping with you, haven’t you?”

“What?”

“There’s somebody looking out of the bedroom window.”

Muriel? Muriel was locked in the back parlour.

“Are you all right, Missus? You’ve gone white.”

One of the less substantial tenants of the upper floor then, one of those who taunted and gibbered from behind the locked door of the spare room; one of the lepers, one of the grinders of dry bones.

“Have you got any brandy in the house? You want to have a drop, and then put your feet up. You can’t always tell with a crack on the head. You ought to go to evening surgery.”

“Do your job,” Evelyn said. “Read the meter and then get out.”

“All right, Missus, all right.”

The man turned away, flashed his torch again, made a note and straightened up. “Say no more,” he said. She followed him back down the hall. At the front door he turned back to her, relenting. “Look, Missus, if you’ve got a spare bulb I’ll put it in for you. It’s not right, living in the dark at your age.”

“I haven’t got one. I never keep them. I shall manage for myself. Good afternoon.”

“I’m sure,” said the man. “Get your fancy man to fix it for you, eh? Sorry I spoke.”

She stood in the doorway to watch him down the path, to make sure that he was really gone. Curiosity about her arrangements was something she could not stomach. The man disappeared behind the bushes of the Sidney house. She craned her neck. Suddenly she felt a terrific blow in the small of her back. She pitched forward, off the doorstep. One arm flailed in the air. With difficulty she regained her balance. She stood gasping, winded. The door clicked behind her. She was locked out.

It had taken Isabel two minutes to establish that Miss Anderson was not going to answer the door, and just another minute to raise her next-door neighbour.

“She’s stopping with her daughter,” the woman said. “She’ll be back on Thursday. Are you from that place she goes to?”

“Well, I’m from Social Services. The Day Centre asked me to call. When she didn’t turn up this morning they were a bit worried. In case she’d had a fall or anything, you know.”

The woman tutted. “She should have let you know. Fetching you out on a morning like this. Old people are inconsiderate, I think, don’t you?”

“It’s all right. I’m used to it. Going out, I mean.”

“Well, you needn’t bother again,” the woman said. “I keep an eye on her, you see. If she doesn’t take her milk in I go round. I’d get the doctor to her if there was any need.”

“That’s extremely kind of you. Look, here’s a card with the number of the Social Services Department, if you ever need it. You can give us a ring.”

“Okay,” the woman said. “My name’s Mrs. Johnson. Would you like a cup of tea, love?”

Isabel would: but I’d better be off, she thought.

“Wouldn’t be surprised if we have fog coming down.”

“Goodbye, Mrs. Johnson, and thank you very much.”

As she drove downhill towards the city centre, the promised fog began to gather. The traffic slowed to a crawl. I wish I had taken five minutes for that cup of tea, she thought. But she was impatient of lonely women. There must be something wrong with the heater. Her feet were frozen, and the Axons were still on her mind. And what in God’s name was that? A shape loomed across the windscreen, the same bloody cyclist, she could swear…she stabbed at the brake and heard a sickening crunch from behind her. Her seat belt bounced her back unhurt, her pulse racing. She closed her eyes. She was not at all surprised. She sat still, trying to calm herself, until a face appeared at the window mouthing was she all right Miss? The cyclist was unhurt. It was not a day for drama. Isabel and the man who had run into the back of her stood on the pavement and exchanged names and addresses. She inspected the damage, running her hand tenderly over the fractured paintwork. Considering the low speed of the other vehicle, it was a surprising mess. Her head ached insistently and she felt guilty. Earlier in the day, at least, her driving had been careless and impatient; her mind had been wandering, and most accidents, she told herself, are not entirely accidental. My humour drew the cyclist on; on a good day, I would have been elsewhere.

She drove very slowly and carefully to a public callbox, and rang the office. Someone has run into the back of me, I shall put the car into the garage now and come back by bus.

The garage couldn’t see their way to tackling it much before the weekend. But it’s only Monday, she said helpfully. Very true, the man said, but it was more than Monday, wasn’t it, it was the time of year. But it’s not a big job, she said, surely you can fit it in. Miss, said the man, wasn’t she aware that this was the holiday season? What holiday? You don’t mean that people have started their Christmas holidays already? She must understand, said the man, that this was a notoriously tricky few weeks, she would probably not credit, even if he were to tell her, the difficulties the festive season could cause. She could if she liked try Thatcher’s Motors at the top of the hill by the lights, but he personally was willing to bet any money that she would be wasting her time. Far be it from him to do Thatcher’s out of trade, and if she wanted to waste her time he supposed she was entitled, it being a free country, but he could assure her that they would quote her ten days, and would they say the same about the time of year? They most certainly would. Could he solve her problem, solve it he would. She could then again go to some cowboy who would do a botched job. Of course she could if she liked, he supposed it was her money, and that it was a free country. Cowboys were not subject to festive difficulties but what would you get? A botched job. He personally had seen some right messes. Still, it was her choice, entirely. If she wanted to leave it with him, he would see what he could do, and could he say fairer than that? Now, he would tell her what, if it had been a windscreen, he could probably, making no promises but probably, have let her have it by Thursday. It’s not, she said, so what’s the point? She had it there, he said. She had put her finger on it. He was taking it as what he supposed she might care to call a sort of illustration. The fact was, it was not a windscreen. It was Bodywork.

At the end of this conversation the feeling of heavy unreality inside her skull was much increased. She waited a long time for a bus, and as it crept along in the still thickening fog her mind emptied of her problems and professional duties and became blank and grey. When she arrived at the office she found she couldn’t get warm. People said she Might Have ’Flu Coming On. She put her head in her hands and rubbed her eyes. Her friend Jane said that they should go to the pub and get her a double Scotch and some cottage pie. All that, the Senior said glibly, the common cold, ’flu, hay-fever, it’s a form of suppressed weeping, you know. It was only when she got back from lunch, and felt no better, that she remembered that she had left Muriel Axon’s file on the back seat of the car. She telephoned the garage, but of course there was no answer.

I’ve driven up out of it, Colin thought, turning into Florence’s drive. The first part of the journey had been nerve-wracking. The dismal city centre jangled with noise, lights flickered in strange places, distances were unjudgeable. Faces distorted with apprehension flashed momentary and half-lit behind glass, locked into their metal shells, alien machines with mad demands.

“I can hardly believe it,” Colin said. “It’s clear up here and it’s not even raining. You should see it down the hill. It’s a nightmare. The hospitals will be full before tonight’s out.” He struggled out of his jacket and Florence took it from him. “Hot,” he explained. “Tension. They won’t slow down. How they can do it beats me.”

“Is that all you wear? Haven’t you a decent overcoat?”

“Yes. I forget it. I always wear my pullover.”

“You must take care of yourself,” Florence said. “I heard about the fog. It says on the wireless it’s all along the motorway as well. I just phoned Sylvia, to make sure the children had got home from school all right. I thought you’d want to know.”

“Bless you, Florence. That was thoughtful.”

“I’ve made some tea. It’s all ready for you.”

A sense of déjà vu took hold of him as he stood in the hall, and would not let him go. Perhaps it was the dislocation of the fog, and his confused state of mind. It could have been his mother waiting, himself a boy in a cap and blazer, algebra homework lying heavy on his stomach. In the hallway Florence had changed nothing, nothing had ever been changed as long as he could remember; the dust was moved, that was all, and came floating back, speckled, settling, spinning in the spring sunlight and drifting on the smoke of autumn garden fires. But the past had not been like that. It was negligence, not sentiment, that kept things in their place year after year. This was the paradox and danger of time-travel, altering the past to suit. His mother had never met him in the hall and settled him with something to eat. She would be lying on her bed with pins in her hair, or still doing the morning’s jobs (like cleaning the toilet), or reading a novel in which a governess was abducted into a harem. And Florence was older at forty than his mother would ever have chosen to be, solid and set in her barren maternity.

“What is it?” Florence said. She poured the tea and pushed a plate towards him.

“Ah, I was just thinking of Mum.”

“Mum? You never called her that. We never called her Mum.”

“No. It’s just a funny feeling, to come home, home from school, come in here. Being a man…in your own house…such incessant demands. I don’t feel always that I can meet them, nowadays.”

“We all get these fits of inadequacy,” Florence said.

“Is that what they are?”

“You feel you’re not doing what you should be doing.” She spooned some sugar into her tea. “You feel, surely there’s more to life than this. But there isn’t, and it passes off. It passes off.”

“That’s disappointment. That’s different.”

“Not really. Milk? Because you feel, if you measured up, if you measured up at all to any kind of standard, then you would have something more in your life. You’d have made something more.”

“Yes. You usually know what I’m thinking, Florence. You usually have a good idea of what’s on my mind.”

“Do I?” She bit into a sandwich and put it back on her plate. “It seems strange though to hear you talk about Mother like that. I never thought of her as—well, as a great comfort. Nor as a source of security. Perhaps because you were the son it was different for you. You know, when she became ill I felt so guilty. I didn’t like her much, I felt I ought to have done more.”

“No one could have done more,” Colin said firmly. “You had her at home for as long as anyone possibly could.”

“She wasn’t really a lot of trouble.”

“She was terrifying, Florence.”

“Yes.”

“You couldn’t be expected to sacrifice your life to that.”

“No?” she said ruefully. She glanced away. “I can’t think what else I was expected to do.”

“You have no cause to feel guilty, none at all.”

“It was funny—” she paused with the tea-strainer in her hand. “I could manage her better when she was ill. It wasn’t really—I suppose it wasn’t like dealing with a person at all. It was before that she used to annoy me, her legs being so thin, and that lipstick she used to put on, all her silly little coquettish ways. She seemed to stick, somehow, she wouldn’t get old decently…and then look what happened. Will you have some of these meat paste?”

“We talk about her as if she were dead.”

“I sometimes wish she were. I often wish it. I think and think…that morning when I went over to Cousin Eileen’s, and I came back, she’d been out, there was her bag in the hall, four months after Father’s death—whatever happened, Colin? She was normal in the morning.”

“They said her brain was damaged. You know that.”

“But why?” she persisted. “Why should it be damaged? She didn’t go anywhere. She didn’t bang her head.”

“I don’t think they meant…I think they meant, some sort of seizure…I don’t know. I never got to the bottom of it. You know what doctors are.”

“Anyway, I feel she is dead really. Can I fill your cup up? I hate going to see her. We’ll have to go, I suppose, Christmas. It’s a pointless business, isn’t it? She doesn’t know who we are. She doesn’t know whether it’s Christmas or not.”

They paused, considering in separate minds the same picture: their first visit, when they had noticed that the dark rinse she used on her hair was growing out, and a thin seam of tallow showed at the roots. And the bored medical voice: “I want you to put right out of your mind any fantasies you may have concerning straitjackets and padded cells. Happily we have available to us nowadays some excellent tranquillising drugs which are just as effective, but far more pleasant.”

“Pleasant?” Colin had said. “Pleasant? You mean pleasant for you? Look, what you mean is, you can keep her quiet but you can’t cure her?”

The doctor had smiled patiently. “We would hope to see some improvement.”

“But what’s she got? What disease is it?”

The doctor became even more bored. “As far as we can ascertain, your mother has what we call delusions of nihilism. She believes that she no longer exists.”

It was too much to take in. Now her hair had grown out a soiled yellow-white. It was combed carefully by a nurse over the tiny skull, and secured by a great black hairgrip. Florence was shocked by it every time. She would whisper to Colin in indignation, as they left the ward, “She would never have been seen with her hair like that.”

“You can’t know,” Colin said finally. “You can’t imagine it. Let’s face it, even with normal people…I say you know what’s going on in my mind, but that’s not really true, you can’t. They say only connect but how can you? They say no man is an island but—”

“Be more cheerful, Colin,” his sister said. “Have some date and walnut cake.”

“I can’t. I’m in trouble.”

Less than islands, he thought, jagged bits of rock without names, and an ocean of lies and deceit and egotism.

“What sort of trouble?”

“Oh, nothing…a personal thing.” He stood condemned out of his own mouth. How could he ask Florence to concern herself? He’d told her to let alone the problems of her neighbours. To live her own life. How was he any different?

“Colin,” she said deliberately. “I looked after Mother. I was prepared to go on doing it. I chose to be depended upon, not to depend.”

“And circumstances came and kicked even that from under you.”

“I only mean that I will do what I can for you. Is it Sylvia?”

“What else could it be? It’s Sylvia.”

“Are you very unhappy?”

“I have been thinking about leaving her.”

“Well…” Florence said. She put her cup down. “The children, Colin.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Well, you would have to think it out very carefully.”

“I don’t think I should have bothered you about this. The thing is that I thought I had my mind in order, but I see that I haven’t. I’m not ready to talk about it yet.”

“It would be a terrible mistake to act in haste.”

“Of course.” Colin stood up. “I’ll be off, Florence.”

“Can’t you tell me what’s bothering you?”

“I’d like to. Sometime. Not just yet.” She watched his face as he heaved his jacket on. “By the way, I saw your neighbour, Mrs. Axon. She was in the garden. She waved to me.”

“In the garden? She’ll catch her death. I never see the daughter these days. What was she doing?”

“Doing? Well, maybe—I don’t know, but she looked all right. Look, Florence, I’ll see you over the weekend, if that’s okay.”

She followed him to the door. “Colin, if you left her, I suppose you’d come back to me?”

He turned his head away, unable to answer. “Sometime Saturday then,” he said. As he drove around the corner he saw that Mrs. Axon was still in her garden. Silly old bat, he thought. His stomach felt like lead. Next week was the last week of term, and he had no plans at all.

Evelyn rapped sharply on the door, two or three times. Of course, it was useless. She rubbed her back where the blow had caught her, and began to walk around the house.

The door of the lean-to was bolted. She could break the glass and put her hand through; at least it would give her some shelter. She could get into the kitchen if the door was not locked. She tried to remember. Then, peering in, she noticed that Muriel had been moving some of the boxes and had piled them up behind the lean-to door. She doubted if she could budge them.

She went to the window of the back sitting-room. It was too high to look into but perhaps she could find something to stand on and signal to Muriel what had happened. What was this? The curtains were drawn. She banged furiously on the glass. There was no response. Muriel was in there, she knew, because she herself had turned the key on her. And here she had the key in the pocket of her cardigan. Break the glass, put the key through to Muriel; no, attract Muriel’s attention, and get her to open the window, and then…but she could never climb through. Not unless Muriel exerted herself to help her, and she had never been known to do that. Then, attract Muriel’s attention, get her to open the window, pass her the key, tell her to release herself and go down the hall and open the front door. Simple.

Could they have done Muriel some damage? If they could hit her in the back and push her out of the house, there was no saying what they might have planned. Surely they had not come for the child already. She thought bitterly, they have only to wait.

Turning away, she shambled to the front of the house again. No doubt Muriel had simply drawn the curtains and fallen asleep. She was prone to do that. Florence Sidney’s brother was driving past. He waved to her. She raised a hand, the smile painful on her face.

Colin had not seen Isabel for a week. When he telephoned her home, her father answered.

“Are you one of Bella’s friends?” he asked.

He said that she was in bed with ’flu. Colin saw his chance to break the deadlock.

“May I call?” he asked. “To cheer her up?”

“Oh, no,” Mr. Field said. “I believe it could be infectious, you know. No, I don’t think that would be advisable, not at all.”

A few days later Colin spoke to her. He had to leave the house to make these calls. She sounded strained and weak; her throat was still sore, she explained.

“But I can meet you if you can pick me up. My car—no, you didn’t know, did you? I had a bit of an accident, that day it was foggy. Somebody ran into the back of me. I haven’t collected it from the garage yet.”

“You were all right, weren’t you?”

“Yes, fine, it was only a brush, but that’s the day I started this cold.”

“Listen, Isabel, I can’t meet you. I could maybe get over during the day but I can’t take you out.”

“Oh—why is that?” Her voice cracked.

“Because it’s the holidays. Can’t you see? Didn’t you think about it? I haven’t got any excuses.”

“You could have warned me.”

“I thought you would realise. I’m so sorry. I do want to see you very much. The only thing I could do would be to come during the day.”

“No, Colin, you’re not to come here.”

“Well, that’s that then. Can I phone you? That’s all right, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but look, when will I see you?”

“When term starts.”

“But I can’t go through to January without seeing you.”

“You’ll have to. You must.”

“When will it be?”

“January twelfth, but it will take me a few days—”

She began to cry. “Listen, Colin, haven’t you got any friends you could pretend to go and see? Anybody you usually see at Christmas?”

“I can’t think of anyone. I have no friends of my own, you see, I have only places where Sylvia goes with me.”

“But there must be something you do on your own.”

“Only evening classes. But they’re over now.”

“Yes. Well…Colin, please.”

“Look, I’ll try, I’ll really try, but I can’t think how I’m going to manage it.”

“Well, try, see if you can—I really want to see you. We’re going to have to discuss things, we’ll have to decide.”

For the first time he heard the note of pressure in her voice. It was a tone he had heard before. Where? He thought with surprise, in my own mouth.

“Yes, we must. Though I don’t know…I honestly don’t know what we’re going to do. Look, Isabel, I’ll have to go, the children are waiting for me.”

“You’ve got them with you?”

“Yes, they’re outside the phone box. I brought them out to buy them some sweets. I’ll have to go.”

She laughed shakily. “What we are reduced to,” she said. “Goodbye.”

He heard the line buzz. She’s upset, he thought. It’s her illness. ’Flu leaves you like that. He stepped out of the kiosk and took a gulp of air. He felt desperately harassed.

“Who were you phoning, Dad?” Alistair asked. His mouth was sticky with sweets.

“Just a man.”

“What was his name, Dad?”

“Frank.”

“That’s not a name.”

“Yes, it is, Alistair,” Suzanne said remotely. She took her brother’s hand. He immediately suspected her of an ulterior motive.

“Well what was his other name, Dad?”

“Frank O’Dwyer.”

“Who’s he, Dad?”

“Just a man, Alistair, somebody at work.”

“You don’t go to work. You go to school.” A pause. “Why didn’t you phone him when you were at home, Dad?”

“Because the phone wasn’t working at home.”

“It was,” Suzanne said. Colin took her hand and halted her at the kerb. She removed her hand from his.

“I can walk by myself, thank you very much,” she said.

“Do your road drill,” Colin said wearily.

“What?”

“Look right, look left, look right again, if the road is clear begin to cross. Don’t you know that? Haven’t they told you at school? Alistair, look, don’t run, come here. Haven’t you been told not to run across the road?”

“What would it matter, if there’s nothing coming?” Suzanne said. “And if there was, you’d be better running, then it wouldn’t have time to hit you.”

“Suzanne, don’t argue.”

“The phone was working. Mummy phoned up Aunty Peggy.”

There was a time, he thought, when I had comparative peace of mind. I was dull, yes, but I didn’t spend all my days in frantic plotting and my nights lying awake worrying about when the plots would come home to roost; there was a time when I didn’t have to use my children as an excuse and get tied up in knots like this.

“I’ve finished my sweeties,” Alistair said. “Can I have some more?”

“You’ll be sick,” Suzanne warned him.

“I hope you saved some for Karen.”

“What?”

“Have you eaten Karen’s? Oh, blast.”

“She’ll cry,” Suzanne said.

“Come on then, we’ll go back and get her some. Come on.”

“You greedy pig,” Suzanne said to her brother.

“I’ll kick you,” he said.

“See if you can.”

“Will you stop this?” Colin hauled his son away. “Come on now. Hurry up.”

He swept them along the pavement, clutching one by either hand, quelling their struggles. One day, he thought, when it has all come out about Isabel, and it is over, and they are grown up, they will look back and remember that day I took them out to buy sweets, remember my uncharacteristic good nature; and how I went into a callbox, and how I lied to them; and they will begin to piece it all together and make sense out of it. Oh yes, they will say, he was phoning her, he must have been. He was using us to get out of the house—he was never so nice at other times—and didn’t he tell clumsy lies? How disgusting it all is.

When they got home, Suzanne said, “Is the phone working, Mum?”

“Yes, why?”

“Dad said it wasn’t.”

“Look, Suzanne,” Colin said, “anybody can make a mistake.”

“What mistake?” Sylvia said.

“He went into a phone box and phoned somebody. Just now, when we were out.”

Sylvia looked at him questioningly.

“I rang Frank O’Dwyer, it was just something I had on my mind, about plans for next term. I thought it might go out of my head if I didn’t do it right away.”

“Oh,” Sylvia said. She wasn’t greatly interested; to Colin it sounded extremely feeble, but it was the best he could do on the spur of the moment.

“Why did you say the phone was out of order?” Suzanne asked. “You told a fib.”

“Get off my back, Suzanne,” Colin said. “You’re getting very cheeky.” He picked up the newspaper.

“Did you get those Swiss rolls?” Sylvia asked him.

“Sorry. Forgot.”

“I asked you, Colin,” she said mildly.

“Then I’ll go back.” He put the paper down.

“He wants to phone again,” Suzanne said. “I’ll go with him, shall I, and see if he does?”

Oh God, he thought, is it worth it? This is only the Christmas holidays. It is only two weeks and a half. What will happen when the summer comes?

Evelyn had made herself a cup of tea. It had been an ordeal. When she had found that the front door was open after all, she had stood hesitating on the step. Once, she would not have been able to nerve herself to go in.

“I’m tired of your tricks,” she said out loud, and pushed the door open carefully. The hall was empty.

Muriel got up sleepily at the sound of the key turning in her prison door. She rubbed her eyes. Evelyn could see the dent in the cushion where her head had rested. She went over to the window and pulled back the curtains, but night was coming down and she saw that there was no point in it.

“I was locked out,” she said to Muriel. “Didn’t you hear me knocking on the window?” She sighed and went into the kitchen.

Muriel followed her. Evelyn talked, to keep the silence away. Muriel had an elaborate air of not listening: humming to herself, twiddling her fingers in front of her eyes.

Now, that overcoat, Evelyn said. Nothing was made nowadays as well as it used to be, neither coats nor mothballs. Of course, she had put it carefully in the wardrobe, not knowing when it might be needed. After all, it had been practically new. At some time she must have transferred it to the old chest in the lean-to. And over the years she had forgotten it. Who would have thought it would have kept so nice? Seeing it hanging up had given her such a turn.

Evelyn’s tone was easy, conversational. She was anxious to make it clear that she did not hold the business against her daughter. In matters of this kind, Muriel was as innocent as the day is long.

Evelyn put a cup of tea down before Muriel. Muriel began to devote all her attention to it, gazing into its depths avidly.

How long now? Evelyn thought. She had made no preparations, as yet. Clearly, she would have to take responsibility. She would have to do it all. She tried to remember Muriel’s birth, whether there had been difficulties, whether it had been painful. It was all so long ago now.

In the days after their marriage, the house had been very tidy. She had polished and swept all day. Clifford came and went. He went out to business. He was a handsome, taciturn man, a fastidious eater, a vegetarian. He shaved twice a day. She did not really know him well, not well at all.

She had made an appointment with the doctor, an elderly and sallow man.

“Well, I suppose you know your condition,” he had said. “It is sufficiently evident.”

She had gathered her courage, clearing her throat softly. “How does this come about?” she asked.

The doctor had looked up at her. “My dear lady.” He chuckled without a semblance of humour. “My dear lady.”

She had told Clifford the same night. He was not pleased. But he said that no doubt the child could be trained to be not much inconvenience. After all, he had never imagined that he would be a dog-owner, but the Airedale was very well-behaved.

Unfortunately, soon after Muriel was born, the Airedale chewed up a rug and Clifford took it away to the vet’s. Muriel lay quietly in her cot. Clifford’s temper was short, but she gave no cause for complaint.

A brief sharp pain interrupted Evelyn’s thoughts; now she remembered. She had been left alone to scream, on a high white bed. The landscape of her pain had been her high, knotted, purple stomach. The parasite was straining to be away. A woman with a clamped mouth had stuck her head around the door, and asked her to please have some consideration.

And dangling from the doctor’s hands, upside down and blood-smeared, like someone horribly executed: Muriel Alexandra, a lovely daughter.

She looked at Muriel in pity, turning at once to exasperation.

“Now what is that you have there?”

She pulled the bit of card out of Muriel’s hand. It was tatty, crumpled, thumbed; a reminder from the Welfare. Dates and times. The Day Centre. Miss Field has called.

“How long have you had this?”

No answer.

Evelyn ripped it through once. I’ll burn it, she said. If you have any more, give them to me at once and I’ll burn them all.

Muriel raised her head and gave her a direct look, engaging her eyes. It was something she did so seldom that Evelyn was shot through with alarm. She understood that she was being threatened.

“Why should they bother about you?” she said. “Why should they come looking for you? What are you worth, to anybody?”

Muriel subsided. She tapped her fingernail rhythmically against the side of her cup. Strange, Evelyn thought, but it was some time now since she had wondered how her daughter had come by the baby.

“You can drive nature out with a pitchfork,” she said, “but she gets back in.”

Muriel got up and opened the cutlery drawer, jerking it as she always did, as she always did to irritate her mother. She took out a fork and fingered it speculatively.

“Put it down,” Evelyn said. “You’ll prick yourself. Don’t go touching my things.”

Muriel threw down the fork with a clatter, and slammed shut the drawer. She seized the dishcloth and wrung it between her hands, dripping greasy water onto her feet. She flung it at the table and moved across the room, tapping the chairbacks with her knuckles and slapping the palm of her hand against the cupboard doors.

“Stop it, stop it.” Evelyn got up, pushing her chair back, convulsed with anger. “Everything in this house is mine.”

She doubled her fist and struck out at Muriel, pounding at her shoulders and arms and ribs. Muriel stood, stoic. The blows bounced back from her plump solid body. Evelyn whined and gasped. Weariness stopped her. She stood glaring at her daughter, her arms limp by her sides. Suddenly, Muriel smiled. The grin split her face and lit up her eyes. She was delighted, she said softly. Delighted to be here. Welcoming you all. A short programme of song and laughter. For your entertainment. Tonight.

Three days before Christmas, Colin said to Sylvia, “Frank O’Dwyer phoned up.”

“Oh yes?”

“I thought I might just run over there. There are a few things he wants to get straightened out, about next term.”

Sylvia gave him an odd look, he thought. “Can’t it wait till after Christmas?”

“Well, yes, but you know how it is. The holidays are over before you know where you are.” He paused, watching the effect of this; none discernible. Sylvia was peeling potatoes. “I think he might want a bit of company as well. Poor old Frank,” he added sentimentally.

Sylvia filleted out an eye with the sharp end of the peeler. “All right,” she said.

“Only you wouldn’t want to come. It would mean getting somebody in to babysit, and we’d only be talking shop.”

“I’ve a lot to do,” Sylvia said, and added warningly, “Christmas is no holiday for me, you know.”

The following night Colin sat with Isabel in a chilly country pub twelve miles out of town. It was one of the unregenerated kind, with stone floors and a picturesque but quite inadequate open fire. A limp paperchain or two hung over the bar as a nod to festivity, but the customers were quiet and the landlord surly. Isabel looked up and watched Colin as he walked across the room with her tepid gin and his own pint of flat warm beer. Frankly he wondered how he was going to be able to manage these expeditions; the money for drinks, and the extra petrol. He always had an overdraft by the end of January. Every year.

“No ice,” he said jerking his head back towards the bar.

“It’s all right here,” Isabel said. “It’s quiet.”

“I could hardly believe Sylvia didn’t know I was up to something.”

“Up to something? You make me sound like a practical joke.” She lit a cigarette. “Colin, I wanted to see you because I’ve got some decisions to make. I’m thinking of leaving my job.”

“Well…I didn’t think you were happy.”

“Happiness seems a bit ambitious. I’m not sure I can see my way to that.”

“You’re not thinking of going away, are you?”

She watched his face, for the dawn of any hope. How have I come to trust him so little, she wonders, how has all my life become so soured?

“I’ve been offered a post in a new set-up—a therapeutic community, we call it. Must I blush for my jargon? It’s only a few miles away. But they’d like me to live in.”

“And you don’t want to leave your father?”

“I don’t feel that I can.”

“It’s bad luck on you to have no brothers and sisters, and a father who’s so elderly. I suppose he can’t get about as he used to.”

Isabel opened her bag and took out her handkerchief. Inside the bag were her father’s spectacles. He could not manage without them. After some thought, she had hit on this method of confining him to the house. “This place,” she said, “it’s a new approach, small numbers, a good staffing ratio. It’s for children who are mentally ill.”

Colin noticed the blue circles under her eyes, the tightness around her mouth. “I should think that would be intensely depressing. What have children got to make them mentally ill? Are they born that way?”

“Are you asking me for information?” she said. “Or is it a debating point?”

“For information. You’d be surprised what I don’t know. Explain to me.”

“Some babies don’t eat, they don’t cry. Nobody knows why.”

“It can hardly be society. It must be their genes. Genes are not much in fashion, I think. It must be their mothers.”

“Some of the mothers don’t seem to make relationships with the children. They don’t treat them as people, just as objects. They let them lie for hours and don’t react when they cry. The children feel that nothing they do can influence the world. They can’t control it. And they give up trying.”

“Like me,” Colin said. “I can’t control the world. I’m like that. I have it.”

“It’s not a disease, it’s a state of being. The constant frustration of one’s efforts to adapt the world, and the resignation of the attempt.”

“It’s common.” He sighed. “Look at the Labour Party.”

“Oh, Colin, it isn’t a bit the same. The frustrations we meet every day are of a different order. Sometimes the mothers are quite normal, and then we can’t account for it. When they get a bit older the children just sit, or they lie, and they gaze into the distance, you know, or just play with their fingers. They seem not to want to live. They seem afraid of it. Afraid of everything.”

“Nobody can do anything about anything,” Colin said. “They are right, the rest of us are wrong. Deluded. Why should we victimise them? Poor little sods.”

“But it’s a practical problem. They have to be fed. Kept alive. The whole world seems to them completely destructive.” She paused. “Maybe it is. I see your point. They have the nuclear weapons inside their heads. The megadeath.”

“Why don’t they give up then? Just give up and die?”

“Some do.”

“And the others?”

“We presume that they once felt some security or goodness. At the breast. They are fighting to get back to it.”

“But you can’t get everything from the breast.”

“No. You can’t get very much at all.” She looked up at him. “Could we possibly, do you think, be more cheerful?”

“It is Christmas,” he said automatically. “Look, Isabel, I don’t think you should rush into a decision. On the one hand, would you be any more satisfied with that sort of work? On the other hand, perhaps your father should stand on his own feet. Plenty of people that age manage for themselves. He might live another twenty years, and then what? You’d be a prisoner.”

Isabel put her bag down at her feet, and edged it under the table.

“Don’t put it down there, love, you might forget it.”

“Women never forget their handbags. They’re womb symbols. You wouldn’t forget your womb, would you? I bet Sylvia never does.”

“You’ve not been well, you know. You look very run down. Put everything off for a month or two.”

“Well, I can’t seem to cope, that’s true enough. I do some stupid things. I lost a file. At least, I put it in the back of my car, and then it went into the garage, and when it came back the file wasn’t there.”

“Nobody would want it, would they?”

“It would be of no use or interest to anyone. That’s why it’s so annoying.”

“Have you told them, at the office?”

“Not yet. I shouldn’t have taken it out. I only did it by accident. We did lose a few things when we moved from Wilberforce House, but I think they turned up. I don’t know what the procedure is.”

“Well, there must be some way round it. Have you phoned the garage?”

“Oh yes,” she said tiredly. “But they’re all really stupid people. I never did come to grips with that case, somehow. I could almost think I lost the file on purpose.”

“I think you make too much of people’s subconscious motivations, Isabel. You’re always looking to complicate things.”

“I dare say you’re right. I dare say this particular case hasn’t half the complications I’ve seen in it. Somebody else would handle it more rationally.”

“Has it upset you? Do you want to talk about it?”

“I shouldn’t talk about my clients. No, it’s not an upsetting case, compared to some. It’s just been very trying and distasteful. The file can never be put together again. It goes back too many years, too many people have been involved.”

“They’ll have to make a fresh start.”

“I don’t think anyone’s ever made a fresh start. Except Lazarus.”

Colin went to the bar. She sat with her eyes downcast as he carried their glasses back again. She was pale, and she had a cough; she seemed to have lost more weight. She was nervous, less competent.

“Is all this…quite what you wanted to ask me about?” Colin said as he sat down. “You sounded so urgent on the phone.”

“No, of course it wasn’t. I wanted to talk about us. I think it’s time we made some decisions, Colin.”

“We’ve had this conversation before.”

“I want to live with you.”

And now it is she who pleads. The passing weeks have worked a little miracle. She didn’t touch the glass he had put in front of her.

“So you are asking me,” he spoke very deliberately, “to break with Sylvia in the near future?”

“What’s the far future? Do you want to wait until Karen is twenty-one?”

“You know there’s nothing left between me and Sylvia. It’s the children. That’s all.”

“You still sleep with her, I’m sure.”

“Yes. Well, I do.”

“So there is something there.”

“Something.” But no one who has been married, he thought, would presume it to be affection. “The point is, I have to think very carefully. Their whole future hangs on this. I have to make the proper arrangements.”

“But deep down, Colin, you don’t think any arrangements are proper.”

“I’m not saying that. I’m not saying I won’t leave her.” He struggled for a judicious tone, something measured. “But can’t you see, Isabel? I feel torn.”

She reached for her coat from the chair beside her, reached for her bag under the table. “Ah, this tired old scene,” she said. “I should have known. How is it possible to be of moderate intelligence and reasonable education, and not know? I’ve read the Problem Pages. I ought to know. Come on, Colin, let’s be going. I can’t sit here and run through the lines that society has written for me. They’ve outlawed wire nooses and gin traps, but they can’t legislate against this.”

They sat in silence; then, leaving their drinks half-finished, got up and walked stiffly out to the car.

Earlier that day, Florence Sidney had taken a conspicuous initiative. Her morning had begun badly. She had telephoned Sylvia to discuss arrangements, only to be told curtly that everything was under control and that she had nothing to do about Christmas dinner except turn up and eat it. Sylvia contrived to make her feel a fumbling amateur at family festivity, a selfish, disorganised, childless woman. Whereas the truth was, Florence thought bitterly…she looked down at her small, cool, pastry-making hands, and went into the kitchen to make two dozen mince pies.

At eleven thirty she stood at the Axons’ front door with a plateful of the pies in her hand, warm and fragrant. From the hall she heard Evelyn Axon’s voice raised in apparent anger; but she had already knocked. There was a sort of scuffling, a few seconds silence, and then the door opened on Evelyn’s strained face.

“Yes? What is it you want?”

Florence stepped backwards. Evelyn’s tone was coldly hostile. Without a word, Florence smiled miserably, and lifted the napkin to show the pies.

“I see,” Evelyn said, sneering.

“I thought—Merry Christmas.” Florence held out the plate; then suddenly, determination seized her. She stepped forward briskly, up the step and over the threshold, and Evelyn dropped back before her, caught off guard.

“May I come in?”

“You’re in already, aren’t you?”

“I hoped I could wish Muriel a Merry Christmas.”

“I dare say.”

“Is Muriel ill? It seems quite a time since I saw her out and about.”

Evelyn looked at Florence and saw nothing yielding about her; heard nothing apologetic, just the hard note of the professional enquirer. She heard a rustling from above, from the top of the stairs. Was Muriel preparing to come down? If this woman cast half an eye—

“You had better come in and sit down. This way.”

The front room was the safest, she thought, the least informative about their life and possessions. She rested her hand on the doorknob, and turned back to see Florence looking about her. “How is your mother, Miss Sidney?” she said. Florence jumped and followed her.

The door was stuck. Evelyn gasped. Someone was at the other side of it. She heard a clunk, a scraping—the wood of the door knocked against something hard and resistant. Quickly, she turned with her back to the door.

“Is it stuck? Here, let me.”

“No. Get away.” She pushed Florence hard in the ribs. Florence dropped back, and two of the pies shot off her plate and plopped moistly onto the hall floor.

“Well, really. I was only trying to help.”

“You will hardly help yourself by going in there,” Evelyn said.

“I wasn’t trying to help myself,” Florence said. “It is of no interest to me. I was trying to help you.”

Evelyn’s eyes narrowed. “Have you any notion of what you may be doing, trying to force your way into locked rooms?”

“But it isn’t locked. What are you talking about?”

“You have no idea what may be behind that door,” Evelyn said. “Neither, for that matter, have I. Something is holding it shut, and it is certainly not damp.”

“This is absolutely ridiculous,” Florence said with passion.

“Ridiculous? I am glad you can take so light a view of it. Go into the back room.”

“Now look, Mrs. Axon, I simply came to bring you some mince pies. I have no particular desire to go into your front room. Or your back room. I think possibly the best thing I can do is just give you the pies and go.”

“No,” Evelyn said. She pointed to the door of the back room. “We are going to celebrate Christmas.”

Florence walked in ahead of her.

“I am going to give you a drink,” Evelyn said from the hall. “Sit down and stay where you are.”

Florence looked around her. She had never been in the Axons’ house. Her mother, she knew, had sometimes visited. The most remarkable thing was the quality of furniture, each heavy and unpolished piece pushed up against the next, jostling for space on a mud-coloured carpet; surely, Florence thought, carpets are not woven in any such shade. The upholstery of the suite was greasy and worn, the wallpaper yellow with age. What a way to live, Florence thought; creating a slum, here in this neighbourhood. What was the need for it? She tried to place the smell. Cats? No. Well, perhaps she was too fastidious. Not everyone had the same tastes in decor. And there was nothing too frightful, just some pervading air—Florence bit her lip.

Evelyn returned carrying a small tumbler of something pale. She stood opposite Florence, holding the glass. Florence noted with distaste that it was greasy.

“Aren’t you joining me?”

“No.”

Florence reached out for the glass and swallowed it quickly, anxious to have it over with.

“Merry Christmas,” Evelyn said. “At the same time, I must tell you that I regard you as an odious and interfering woman.”

Florence spluttered. “I am sorry,” she said. “I can’t drink whisky. I didn’t realise that it was neat whisky.”

“How unfortunate,” Evelyn said. “I went to a great deal of trouble to find it for you. It is some years since anyone wanted it.”

Florence stood up. “I am sorry to have put you to so much inconvenience. Perhaps you will give Muriel my best wishes for Christmas and the New Year.”

“Certainly,” Evelyn said. “This way.”

“Yes, I know the way,” Florence said faintly. She gestured down at the plate containing the ten remaining pies, which she had placed on the arm of her chair.

“Not really,” Evelyn said.

Florence picked the plate up and walked out into the hall. “You seem to think I have intruded on your privacy. I sincerely apologise.”

“One lives and learns,” Evelyn said blandly. “Muriel is putting on weight, you know.”

“About that door. Obviously something is wrong with the frame. You ought to get a man in.”

Evelyn sniggered. “Oh, we have that. We have had a man in.” She watched Florence down the path.

Thoroughly unnerved, Florence walked into her own tidy kitchen and filled the kettle. She stared for a moment at the mince pies on their plate, then with an abrupt movement picked it up and slid them into the wastebin.