The Claw

Thirty-five

To begin with, Anna didn't mean to run away. It was only that she couldn't stay in the house while mummy was being so horrible. Mummy was making the house feel nasty, a small dark grubby place that hated Anna, that wanted to lock her in. As soon as mummy went to phone Jane, Anna crept to the back door, tiptoeing all the way in case mummy might hear her and drag her back.

She closed the door as if it might shatter and stood outside the house. The pillbox was too bright to look at, the grass was as faded as daddy's books in the post office window. The air was rippling with heat above the goats, as if they were cooking. She was still in the small dark place. It wasn't the house after all, it was her feelings – her feeling that mummy hated her more than she would have believed anyone could.

She wanted to cry, but it was too horrible for crying. Mummy wasn't mummy any more. She couldn't be mistaken; other people were noticing- too. Sometimes children were taken away from their homes when their parents hurt them, they were put in a kind of prison so that they'd be safe. Anna didn't want that, she didn't want to be taken away, she didn't know what she wanted. Yes, she did: she wanted daddy to come home. If they were all together again, perhaps everything could be the same as it used to be.

She didn't believe that, she wasn't sure why not. She had no time to think. The feeling of darkness and danger was stronger out here, as if something was near her, watching and waiting. Was it the man she could never quite see, the man she thought was too red to be a person? She hadn't told mummy that, mummy would never believe her, she'd only lose her temper; and besides, Anna couldn't say that she'd ever seen him, not seen him exactly. She wanted to go back in the house, but she was afraid that mummy would hurt her again for no reason. Before she knew where she was going, she'd wandered to the road.

The road was striped with water, as though the verges were leaking. She walked toward the thin streams and tried to guess when they would disappear. She could see flowers reflected in the nearest strip; it looked so real that for a moment she thought it was, and then, as she took one more step, it vanished. It had never been there. There it was again, or one like it, a hundred yards further on. She wasn't particularly enjoying her game, but at least it was something to do. At least it took her away from the house and the feeling of danger.

When she reached the turn-off to the village, she looked back at the house. Her heart jumped. Mummy was in the back garden, staring toward the edge of the cliff. Anna wavered; she couldn't go on, she had nowhere to go, she didn't dare go to The Stone Shop without permission. She ought to go back. Mummy wouldn't hit her for just going for a little walk. She'd just taken one hesitant step toward home when mummy turned and saw her.

''Anna, come back here to me at once!'

It didn't sound at all like mummy. It wasn't a shout so much as a scream. Anna couldn't make out mummy's face, but she knew what it must look like: a mask as cruel and threatening as the voice, as unlike mummy. She faltered – she didn't dare to go back while mummy was like that, but if she didn't, mummy would be worse – and then she ran.

She'd passed the turn-off to the village before she could think where to go. She was running, that was all – running as if she could run away from all the horrible things that had happened. Why had mummy and daddy ever come here, away from all Anna's friends? There was nobody to play with here, nobody to tell about the things that were happening, nothing but the dried-up fields and the dust in the air and the sunlight that hurt her eyes. There wasn't even mummy any more, and that was worst of all.

She ran past Seaview, the road that was falling off the cliff, and then she started to wonder where she was going. Could she hide along there, in the long grass that overhung both sides of the disused road and was beginning to tear the road apart? She thought of hiding for a while and then going home in the hope that mummy would be herself again, but then she heard the rattle of the garage door. Mummy was going to come after her in the car.

Anna fled toward the edge of the cliff. Her thoughts were so jumbled that they could only drive her onward. The longer she stayed out of mummy's reach, the worse mummy would be when she caught her, but Anna couldn't bear the idea of being caught even now. She remembered how daddy had chased her toward the hotel, and had the horrible thought that whatever had made daddy like that had got into mummy too. That made her run with no idea at all where she was heading.

Eventually she reached a path along the edge of the cliff, where mounds overgrown with sandy blackberries hid her from the road. As she stumbled along the path, she began to sob. She might just as well go back to the road; mummy would find her sooner or later. She heard the car stop on the road, the slam of the car door and mummy shouting her name in a voice she might have used to call a bad dog, then the engine snarling as mummy drove on. She could hear how much mummy would hurt her when she caught her. She stumbled onward, hardly, seeing.

Grasshoppers leapt out of her way, seagulls screamed above her as if they were trying to guide mummy to where she was. The sandy twisting path and the gathering heat were slowing her down until she felt there was no point in going on, and then, as the path turned outward toward the edge of the cliff, she saw the disused windmill. From where she was standing, it looked the size of a bollard, a blinding white bollard with tattered toy vanes stuck onto one side. The sight of it made her begin to run in earnest, not to reach it but to get to the house beside it, Jane's house.

The slam of the car door sounded as if it was just the other side of the blackberry mounds. 'Anna!' mummy shouted, so close that Anna had to hold her mouth shut with her fingers so that she didn't cry out. She stood still, though trembling, until the car moved off, and then she fled toward Jane's. Surely everything would be all right once she got there: mummy had said she wanted to see Jane, and Anna could look after baby Georgie while the grown-ups talked.

She was hundreds of yards from the cottage when she ducked down, panting. The path turned here, toward the edge of the cliff, and the blackberry mounds gave way to a field of long grass that surrounded Jane's hedgeless garden and the windmill. The grass was dry and thick; she'd never be able to run through it without making a lot of noise. Mummy would hear her long before she got to Jane's. She wished she could scream for Jane, but she couldn't do that to mummy, even mummy as she was now. As she kept her head down and peered between the blades of grass, she felt as if she were trapped in a tunnel too low for her to stand up – the small dark grubby place again.

Mummy's car was still moving, though it had reached Jane's cottage now. It hesitated a few moments while mummy craned out, then it went on. Anna dashed into the field at once, desperate to reach the cottage before mummy stopped the car again and was able to hear. Grass-blades clashed around her, a bird of some kind clattered up. She tried to bend as low as she could while she ran, and for most of the way she could see only grass – grass that slashed at her arms and legs. She felt she was bleeding all over, but she hadn't time to look.

When she broke out of the field she found that she had only a few scratches, hardly big enough to see. She was still running, because she couldn't hear the car. Had it stopped, or was it too far away to be heard? Perhaps she couldn't hear it because of baby Georgie, who was scream- ing upstairs – screaming as if he'd never stop. Maybe she could help Jane look after him. Jane didn't seem to be very good at calming him down.

She ran across the lawn, past the unkempt rock-garden that looked like mouldy bread and rotting wood. The thirsty fields quivered in the heat, the vanes of the windmill looked as if they were straining to turn. She was heading for the back door of the cottage, so that mummy couldn't see her from the road. She wanted to get to Jane as quickly as she could, not only because of mummy – she wanted to stop Georgie screaming. She'd never heard him cry like that before.

The cottage blocked out the sunlight, seeming to fall over her like a pale shadow. The windmill loomed at the edge of her eye and made her feel nervous, as if something else were near. She was straining to hear the car, but all she could hear was Georgie. Now she saw that the back door was shut. She'd have to make herself heard over Georgie's screaming, and mummy might hear her too.

She was almost at the back door when several things happened, all of them in Georgie's room. She heard a thump like a ball thrown against a wall, or perhaps it was more like a fruit. Georgie stopped screaming. She was glancing up at the window of his room – the sudden silence frightened her, she didn't know why – when someone looked out at her.

The silence seemed to swell in her ears. She could hear nothing but her own gasp of horror. The figure at the window was the man she could never quite see, the man who was too red. She could see him now, grinning down at her with his sticky crimson teeth. She could see now that he wasn't a person after all, not with that face as long as an animal's, not with those eyes and teeth.

She had no idea how long he stood there before moving away. She stood trembling, staring at the blank window, feeling smaller than a baby. She wanted to run home, away from her terror, away from the thought of him up there with Georgie, Georgie who had stopped screaming, too suddenly. She wanted to scream until mummy heard her and went in to find out what was wrong. She wanted to find mummy before mummy went in there, wanted to scream at her not to go in. She didn't know what she wanted, and so she couldn't move, not even her mouth.

She was staring up at the empty silent window when mummy came round the house and dragged her roughly away to the car.