by Graham Joyce
Sam was white with fear. His face was contorted in a scream he was too afraid to release. Liz pulled him to her and he hugged her, burying his head in the folds of her old skirts, setting up a wail and crying hysterically now.
"Hush then. Hush then. Now you knows. Now you knows what's in Liz's pantry." She brushed his hair gently. "And now we knows, don't we. We knows this little one is overlooked, don't we? But we won't say anything, will we? 'Cos she's got enough to be reckoning, your mother, now ain't she? Hush up now."
Sam pointed at the smashed jars of jam and fruit on the stone floor. "I didn't do it," he blubbered, "I didn't."
"We knows. We knows who did it. Hush up afore your mammy comes in."
Liz looked behind her and saw Amy staring at them. She was holding the bottle of sherry she'd fetched from the car.
"You saw?" said Liz.
Amy nodded.
"Well, you saw it done. Now you keep it hid, little miss. Keep it here," Liz tapped the side of her nose, "and not here," she said, tapping her lips.
Amy nodded again.
"And when the time comes, you just remember Old Liz, see?"
Maggie returned to find them standing over the mess in the pantry. "What's been going on here?"
"Nothing to worry on. We've had a little accident."
"Oh, Sam! Let me clear it up, Liz. For God's sake, Sam."
"Don't blame the lad. There's a rat in there as scared him."
She turned Maggie back with her hand. Maggie made to insist, but the astonishing strength of Liz's grip prevented her. "Any clearing up and I'll do it. You leave that alone."
Liz sat back in her chair under the clock, and Maggie was surprised to see how Sam was clinging to her. Within moments he'd fallen asleep in her arms and Amy was settled at her feet. Maggie had the feeling that events beyond the breaking of a few jars had happened, but she couldn't tell what.
"Where were we? I knows. We were talking about Ash," Liz said in a low voice. "And about the lead in his pencil."
"Yes," said Maggie.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Alex collected Sam from De Sang's clinic one afternoon, to be presented with an envelope which, De Sang assured him, contained his final report on the boy. Sam was sitting in the consulting room, drawing with wax crayons.
"Final?" said Alex.
"Sam doesn't need to spend any more time here. You'd only be wasting your money."
"But I thought his behaviour had been improving lately."
De Sang looked sceptical. "Read the report. At this stage, a good childminder will work out a lot cheaper."
"But what are we supposed to do?"
"It's all in the report." Alex made to tear open the brown envelope. "I prefer you to discuss it with your wife," De Sang told him. "Then if nothing's clear, come back to me and I'll go through it with you. But you won't need to."
Alex was taken aback by the abruptness of it all. He didn't know what to say. De Sang called Sam over. "Captain Hook!" he said, and Sam happily waddled off to get his coat. "Of course," De Sang went on, "if you're keen to spend your money, we'll happily keep Sam—at the usual rates."
"No, no," said Alex, and within a few minutes he was walking away from the clinic with Sam trotting happily at his side, wondering whether De Sang had just abused him or done him a favour. When he got home, he opened the envelope and pulled out the typed report. It said:
REPORT ON SAMUEL SANDERS PREPARED BY Dr James De Sang
Playing games.
After observing Sam on a number of occasions I have arrived at the following understanding of his behaviour.
Sam is a healthy little boy, who like all children enjoys playing games. Games are very important. For children they are the means by which they come to understand social behaviour. Sam has reached the stage of development at which these social games come into being.
In this sense Sam is learning the rules that govern life. These rules and morality are actually the same thing. It's all about behaviour which is acceptable, and behaviour which is not. Morality is a game. It's distinct from play, but it's still a game.
Up until about the age of three children do not adhere to the rules. After this time, they might imitate rules without understanding them, and will often change them to suit their own interpretation of the game. By the time the child is seven, it will usually begin rigidly to adhere to the rules in a genuine social manner.
Sad, isn't it? Sad, I mean, that we lose this capacity simultaneously to interpret whatever's going on in a number of different ways.
But that's life. Sam, however, shows no sign of imitating the rules (the second stage I mentioned above). This is what his parents tell me.
Now, I find that when Sam is in my clinic, he is very happy to imitate the rules. Not only that, I find him a very bright, creative little boy willing to invent rules to be shared. These perfectly healthy signs lead me to conclude that his environment may not be providing him with the best model for behaviour. Here in the clinic we PLAY THE GAME. We try to say what we mean and mean what we say to Sam. We find he responds well.
His unwillingness at home to imitate the rules and instead to display defiance, aggression, violence, and hysteria (again as his parents tell me) indicates to me that his model at home is of someone NOT PLAYING THE GAME.
Since it is important for Sam to at least imitate the rules, I suggest that his behaviour at home would be improved if all were to PLAY THE GAME.
Hard, isn't it? But again, that's life.
I'm being as direct as I can here, because I know I'm addressing intelligent people. To do otherwise would, after all, be playing quite a different game.
De Sang had signed his name at the foot of the report. Also enclosed was an invoice.
Alex dropped the report on the table and ran a hand through his hair. He picked up the telephone and dialled. A strange voice came on the line, and he asked for Maggie to be fetched from her room. "Can you get over here?" he asked her.
Maggie read the report for a second time before folding it and handing it back to Alex. He snatched it from her and slung it across the room. "The man's a fucking lunatic! He's the one who should be certified! Running around with his trousers down for three months to come up with that! And do you see what he wants to charge? We're not paying, that's for sure."
"No," said Maggie, "we must pay."
"You're joking! He won't get a brass ring out of me. Who does the charlatan think he's trying to kid? He can whistle for it!"
"It's as clear as a bell. And of course we have to pay him."
"Clear? What's clear? What do you mean clear?"
"The report is precise. De Sang knows what he's talking about."
"I don't believe I'm hearing this. The man is just taking the piss! He's laughing in his sleeve!"
Maggie looked into the fire. "The man is speaking clearly and accurately from the heart," she said calmly. "He's telling us there's nothing wrong with Sam. He's saying you and I are the ones who have to grow up."
"Where are you going?"
"To the pub," said Maggie
TWENTY-NINE
"I don't know what's wrong," said Alex. He buried his head in the pillow. Things weren't going well for him. He was under pressure.
Firstly there was the constant stress of having to get Amy ready for school and Sam to his full-time childminder, plus keeping them fed, clean, clothed, and living in a house fit for human habitation. The expense of paying childminders to look after Sam and to collect Amy from school was starting to make work look like a waste of effort. And work itself wasn't without its share of problems.
The archaeological dig at the castle had resumed in January. Alex needed to produce results from his original dig if he wanted the project to be extended. Funds were tight, as always, and he had to fight for resources merely to erect a rain cover over the diversionary Maggie dig. That small site had filled up with water over the Christmas period and had to be drained before work continued.
Maggie herself was
still refusing to come home. The court hearing would be upon them in a few weeks, and that would incur heavy legal fees. His financial worries alone were enough to drive him to distraction. He was beginning to wonder if he were the one who needed a psychologist. Except that psychologists had already demonstrated their dubious abilities in the form of James De Sang. Alex was still fuming over that report, and the accompanying bill. He was going to have to find a way to pay it. He wondered if he could arrange some paid overtime at work.
But that raised the problem of looking after Amy and Sam. And as for extra time, he could hardly claim it when here he was taking extended lunch breaks for the occasional secret rendezvous between the sheets.
Anita gave up stroking Alex's flaccid cock. For her, too, it had been a disappointing session. She felt she was losing him somewhere. Lately he seemed less inclined to make the effort to see her. "Don't worry about it. Being anxious about it will only make it worse."
"Telling someone not to be anxious is guaranteed to make them anxious."
Anita was nettled. "Sorry, I'm sure."
Alex softened. "I didn't mean to take it out on you."
"Do you think she knows about us?"
"Who? Maggie?"
"Yes, Maggie."
"No, I don't think she knows about us."
Why did he lie to Anita? Was he afraid she might want to stop seeing him? Or was he just trying to keep his two worlds apart, so he could be a more accomplished liar should he have to face Maggie's accusations again?
Alex thought hard about it. He'd been careful not to do anything to arouse Maggie's suspicions, yet she'd confronted him forcefully, directly, on the night she'd ravished him. Ravished him? She'd comprehensively fucked him, before demanding to know what he was up to. He was still slightly dazed. Never had he been so completely overwhelmed. He couldn't have stopped it if he'd wanted to, no more than he could resist a hurricane. The force of it had utterly subdued him. It was like being staked out and flayed.
He didn't know that night whether something primal had been given to or taken away from him. Perhaps, he reasoned, that's why the affair with Anita had begun, because Maggie had in some mysterious way unmanned him. Though there was, he admitted to himself, a disgraceful immaturity in the notion that he'd done all this to reassert himself.
Rationalizing, he thought; it's all rationalizing after the event! Just like Maggie's suspicions, powered by jealousy or maybe by intuition, it was all unfathomable, emotionally based, unknowable. She didn't know, she couldn't know. That's why he'd denied it, and went on denying it. And now here he was rationalizing away his adulterous relationship with Anita, when the thing had happened simply because she was there.
She'd always been there. He'd always been deeply aware of her. He scented her whenever she came into a room. It's simple. You observe the contract to pretend it doesn't exist and then bang! one day you're forced to admit it. It was a universal contract, in operation every day between women and men, a Devil's Contract, damned if you break it, damned if you don't. For there she was, coming round to his house smelling like a lynx, and always at the times when Maggie seemed most distant. Anita, shaking her platinum-and-golden hair; Anita, crossing and recrossing her long legs so that her nylons hissed, until his head was full of thoughts of her wearing nothing but her animal perfume.
And always between them this astonishing, fragile tension when they were alone for a few moments: the drying of the mouth, the involuntary stiffening of muscles. Like a spring coiling and tightening. So strong, this, and so dangerous to the two of them that it had to remain unspoken. Until finally it had to give. Only one act could break it.
When, one lunch break, he'd almost collided with her in the street, it seemed natural that they should decide to go to eat together. Anita was magnificent, he decided. She was one of those women who wear little or nothing in the way of rings, necklaces and accessories, yet who light up like a jeweller's window. Alex had long nursed an archaeologist's fantasy of gently uncovering fascinating layers of her perfumed clothing, ultimately to reveal the golden trove, which he would kiss. That day she was wearing a black, tight-fitting dress, black nylons and black heels. The sheen of her natural complexion and the precious-metal highlights of her hair contrasted provocatively with her carefully constructed lipstick pout. He wanted to eat her.
So when a decent table couldn't be found anywhere, at any price, it also seemed natural to go back to Anita's house for coffee and a sandwich. And when Anita's back was turned in brewing the coffee, Alex noticed her hands were trembling as much as his, so to stop his own hands from shaking he took a deep breath and put his arms around her from behind, letting his hands rest on her belly. Anita set down the jug she was holding and went very still. Neither of them spoke. Then she let her head tilt back on to his shoulder, and when he saw that her eyes had closed, he let his fingers splay across her thighs. He reached his hands under her dress. She moved to stop him, but ritually and without conviction. His cock was straining through his clothes, stabbing at her bottom. He felt her underarms perspiring heavily. She reached behind and pinched him savagely and he returned by probing inside her panties with his fingers, sliding a finger into her up to the second knuckle. Inside she was scalding. Then she grabbed his hand away and lifted it to her mouth, sucking the finger that had been inside her. She turned round, clasping her arms around his shoulders, locking her mouth against his and somehow climbed onto his hips, fastening her thighs around him.
She kissed him ferociously. He struggled to carry her that way—still kissing—through to the lounge, where he tipped her into an armchair and ripped away her shoes, her tights, and her panties. There was no archaeologist's fantasy of hidden treasure, it was too urgent, too hot. He pulled her dress up around her waist to reveal her soft, tanned belly, and when she loosed his trousers for him, his cock sprang out angry and engorged, swollen like a bee-stung thing.
He put his tongue inside her cunt until he was dizzy with the smell of her. She grabbed a fistful of his hair, drawing his head back, locking mouths with him again, as if wanting to taste herself on his mouth.
She spoke through the kiss. "Come into me."
That was the first time. It had all happened the day before Maggie had made her accusation. After that he'd met Anita for long, searching lunchtime sessions almost every second or third day. God, the potency of those afternoons, thought Alex wistfully.
Where had it gone?
He stroked Anita's hair. "No," he lied again. "Maggie hasn't got it in her to suspect."
"I'm not so sure about that." Alex looked at her. "Bill's got the ... problem you have."
"What problem? Can't get it up, you mean?" He snorted. "What's that got to do with anything?"
"I wonder if it's Maggie's doing."
"What?"
"Something she's doing to me, I mean. Something she's working. She knows about us. She hates me."
Alex jumped out of bed and buttoned on his shirt. "Hocus. I've seen what she does. Herb tea and a couple of joss sticks." He thought about Maggie's "dig here" prediction. He kissed Anita. "I've got to go back to work."
That afternoon Maggie was at Omega, unpacking new merchandise she'd ordered for the shop. Here she had a collection of talisman jewellery—metal discs on thin chains, the discs engraved with obscure glyphs and symbols. The silver bell rang behind her, and she was surprised to see Anita, dressed, as usual, as if she was looking for a seat at the opera. "Heard I'd find you here," she said brightly.
"Anita!"
"Haven't seen you in ages. Thought you might like some company."
Maggie flashed back on her flying vision, saw Anita's pink rump thrust in the air. "You've taken me by surprise." She found herself offering Anita a chair and a cup of tea, much against her instincts.
"I've been worried about you, Maggie."
"Why should you be worried?" Maggie went back to unpacking her boxes.
"Not just you. Both of you. I saw Alex the other day and he doesn't look well. Y
ou don't look well either."
"Really? I feel great."
"I know he wants you back. And he's been seeing rather a lot of that student from his dig, the one who—"
"Tania? Nice girl. Looks after the kids sometimes."
"You should go back to Alex^ You two were made for each other."
"To be honest, I'm enjoying the space. I'm not sure I want to go back."
"But you miss the children terribly."
Maggie bit her lip and opened another box of talismans. Anita, at least, knew when to change the subject. "They look interesting. What are they?"
"Talismans."
"Protective powers?"
"No, you're thinking of an amulet. Here, this is an amulet. But these are talismans. They're like batteries. You wear a talisman to increase your powers; an amulet to ward off powers."
"You're really into this, aren't you. What's this one mean?"
"It doesn't 'mean' anything. It's a love talisman. It's made of copper because that's the metal of Venus. This is the symbol of the planet, and this one is of its guardian spirit."
"Charming. Can I buy one?"
Maggie hadn't yet priced the stock. She'd thought of selling them at around ten pounds. "Handmade. Thirty pounds, seeing as I know you."
Anita took out her cheque book. "Not cheap, are they?"
Over the site of the Maggie dig, Alex had finally managed to erect a rickety shelter to keep off the rain, and to arrange for a ditch to be dug, to drain the water from the new hole. Tania had been put in charge of the Maggie dig. He didn't actually say it was a reward for occasionally babysitting his children.
