Dark Dance

by Lee, Tanith

  Do as I tell you. Her mother’s voice, angry, at its wits’ end.

  Ruth finished her food and left the table. She went behind the screen and Rachaela heard the familiar rasp of pencil on paper.

  Rachaela got up and went to the edge of Ruth’s sanctum.

  ‘Ruth, if ever he catches you alone I want you to scream—scream as loudly as you can—and run away. Will you do that?’

  ‘Scream and run away,’ said Ruth. She gave Rachaela a cool and adult glance full of irony.

  ‘I mean it,’ said Rachaela.

  ‘There was a radio programme we heard at school,’ said Ruth. ‘This man said daughters take after their fathers. If I’m like my dad, I must be nasty too.’

  Rachaela stared at her.

  Why was she trying to protect this creature? Had she forgotten the way it was, the way it had grown? Now she was acting out the ill-fitting role of a protective mother, and protective of what? All about Ruth, in her grotto, hung weird pictures, bits of stained glass, bells and draperies. It was a crock of shadow and dull rich colour, and Ruth crouched there like a white spider in her web, her beautiful ugly little face pierced by the blackness of the Scarabae eyes.

  Rachaela swallowed.

  She wanted to say to Ruth, Do what you want. Talk to the man. Find out what you like.

  Ruth knew it all already in her eleven-year-old bones.

  ‘You’re not like your father. Your father doesn’t want you. The family is nosy and possessive. You don’t owe them anything. Do as I say.’

  ‘Yes, Mummy,’ said Ruth, and bowed her head to her drawing of a witch.

  Rachaela could only take Ruth to the school in the mornings; at least she saw her to the gates. In the afternoon she had to trust Ruth on the way home.

  Sometimes still Ruth was late.

  ‘Where have you been?’

  Ruth had been to the shops or round at the flat of some girl child never previously mentioned. Probably it was true, for Ruth did not lie, she only evaded.

  ‘Has that man been near you?’

  ‘I haven’t seen him.’

  Tell me if you do.’

  Rachaela tired of the stupid wardership to school. She sent Ruth off alone and followed her. No one other than herself pursued or accosted Ruth.

  A sense of apathy overcame Rachaela.

  The man would probably persist, he had done so before, but there were always people about. He could not abduct Ruth, even assuming he had instructions to do so, which seemed unlikely.

  Rachaela did not care. I do not care. It was up to Ruth. For Ruth was still a burden. She must still be fed and clothed, and soon a decision must be made about a secondary school, with its uniform and other details. Ruth would become more of a problem as she grew older. For how long would Rachaela have to go on sharing her life with this being? She had got used to Ruth, that was all. It was not satisfactory.

  On the street. Walk quietly and listen.

  Who was this coming from a doorway? Only an old man with a bag.

  Turning the corner, oversee each gap in the walls. Was anyone there?

  Upstairs, Ruth not home. Go to the window in the dark, and see.

  What was that?

  Only a man in an anorak.

  Where was Ruth? Round at this Ludle’s?

  There she was on the stairs now. Key in the door.

  Mrs Mantini said, ‘You do more looking out of that window than cleaning it.’

  Who was that standing across from the shop, black overcoat, perhaps a woollen hat.

  ‘This customer wants serving, Rachaela.’

  He had gone now.

  But he would not be following or watching her. This necklace is fifteen pounds.’

  There was a frost of green on the trees. Still some light in the sky.

  Ruth sat at the table eating bread and jam.

  ‘Why didn’t you wait? You’ll be having dinner in twenty minutes.’

  ‘I was hungry. Tea’s always late now.’

  ‘You’re usually late.’

  ‘I go to Lucile’s.’

  Rachaela faced Ruth. ‘Have you seen that man again?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I told you to tell me.’

  ‘He didn’t do anything. He didn’t speak to me.’

  ‘Where was he?’

  ‘Outside the gates.’

  ‘The school gates?’

  ‘Yes. He just stood there, and I came out and he didn’t move. Lucile thought he was funny.’

  ‘Don’t tell Lucile who he is.’

  ‘I didn’t tell Lucile anything. She said look at that funny old man.’

  If she was with Lucile, he would not approach her—was that it? Perhaps the liaison with Lucile was a good thing.

  Rachaela, at the window, scanned the street. He was there. Across the road, beneath a lamp just now turning candy red. There to be seen, showing himself. ‘Stay here,’ she said to Ruth.

  She ran down through the house and dashed out into the street. The Scarabae agent was gone.

  Above, Ruth’s white face looked down on her from the window. Impartially.

  Mrs Mantini picked nail varnish off her nails. ‘I’ve been meaning to speak to you, Rachaela,’ she said, ‘about the way you keep being late. You were late by half an hour this afternoon. It puts me all at sixes and sevens.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Rachaela.

  ‘I must ask you not to let it happen again.’

  Rachaela reduced the fifteen-pound necklace to the prescribed fourteen pounds and carefully replaced it with the price tag face down.

  Mrs Mantini ran her finger over the dustless surface of a Victorian overmantel. This mirror could do with a clean.’

  Presently Mrs Mantini went out, to be gone for her usual two hours before closing-time.

  A Japanese man came in and asked about the china ducks. When he had left, Rachaela cleaned the mirror with the glass spray which left smears, then returned to re-pricing the case of jewellery.

  At a quarter to four Mrs Mantini unexpectedly reappeared.

  ‘You’ll have to close up, Rachaela. I have to drive to Brighton.’

  After Mrs Mantini had gone again, the late afternoon trade began to come in, and at four-thirty, an hour early, Rachaela shut the shop in the faces of two eager customers.

  Rachaela felt a sense of freedom as she walked home. She imagined Mrs Mantini in heavy traffic on the motorway. It was as if a cloud had lifted. She had given up concerning herself with the agent of the Scarabae. He could do nothing, and neither could she.

  She reached the house and went up the three flights. It was an overcast day, the dark was coming.

  She opened the door.

  There was a strange noise. It sounded like a child crying. She knew at once it could not be Ruth.

  She went around the lobby formed by the bathroom and stared at the dusk flat. Then she turned and looked into Ruth’s area.

  Ruth, who was kneeling on the floor, turned also to look at her. Her eyes were black as voids, heightened by the black eyeshadow and mascara with which she had augmented them. She was draped in a kind of Greek fashion by two of her coloured shawls and she wore round her neck Rachaela’s green glass beads. Her mouth was dark red with lipstick, and smudged. It looked at first as if she had been drinking blood.

  On Ruth’s bed lay a brown-haired whimpering female child, also draped in a shawl and with dabs of make-up less hectically or successfully applied to its face.

  On the neck of this child was a terrific black bruise.

  The child sat up.

  ‘Ooh, Mrs Day,’ said the child, crying and snotty now, ‘she was biting my neck.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake what have you been doing?’

  Rachaela seized Ruth and pulled her upright.

  ‘Nothing. We were dressing up.’

  ‘What were you doing to her?’

  ‘She was biting me,’ said the other child, hysterical, and began to scream.

  Rachaela dropped Ruth. She grabbe
d the other child to shake her. The child flung herself at Rachaela, burying her snot and make-up smeared face in Rachaela’s jumper.

  ‘It was a game,’ said Ruth, reasonably.

  ‘Did you make this mark on her neck?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘I told her to stop,’ squealed the other child, who was probably the mysterious Lucile. ‘She wouldn’t. She kept on and on. Am I bleeding?’

  ‘No, you’re all right. You’re all right. Come over to the lamp and let me see.’

  She dragged the howling Lucile towards the lamp, and lit it.

  The mark was a bruise, purple and ripe, like a lover’s kiss but worse. It looked awful.

  ‘Nothing to worry about,’ said Rachaela. ‘I’ll get some TCP and a plaster.’

  ‘My mummy won’t let me play with her again,’ said Lucile, a note of righteousness creeping into her terror.

  ‘I think that would be very wise.’

  Surprised, perhaps, Lucile’s torrent weakened to a snivel. She allowed Rachaela to dab her with antiseptic and to apply the plaster.

  With luck ‘Mummy’ might disbelieve the dire tale, especially if the bruise went down a little before she saw it. One could not tell the child to lie to its mother. Lucile was obviously bursting to reveal all.

  ‘You’re all right now, and I think you’d better go home,’ said Rachaela. ‘Do you know your way?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Day.’

  ‘Go and wash your face first.’

  Lucile went docile to the bathroom.

  Ruth said over the splash of water: ‘I didn’t really bite her. I could have. I didn’t.’

  ‘You’re mad.’ Rachaela’s mother had said this to Rachaela over more trivial offences. ‘What possessed you?’ A foolish question. Obvious what had possessed her.

  ‘It was a game,’ said Ruth again.

  ‘No it wasn’t,’ said Rachaela, ‘I know what it was.’

  Ruth looked at her, every inch a small vampire with her white face, reddened lips, black eyes and streaming hair. She did not look alarmed or bewildered or even scared. She looked—complacent.

  Lucile emerged from the bathroom. She tore off Ruth’s shawl and flung it on the bed.

  ‘My mummy will be angry.’

  ‘I expect she will. Well, go home now.’

  The Lucile child left, blotchy and aggrieved. Rachaela had not behaved the way Mummys behaved. Another failure.

  The windows were blue against the lamp’s gold. Was he out there, on the street?

  Ruth sat on her bed and drew towards her the unfinished drawing of lions apparently devouring people—Christians probably, from the school’s Religious Knowledge.

  Rachaela felt the violent urge to laugh. It was her own hysteria.

  ‘Put that down.’ Ruth released the picture. ‘You’ve done something incredibly stupid, Ruth. You’ve behaved in a way that will cause a lot of trouble. You expect me to protect you. Why should I?’

  Ruth looked at the windows, the coming night. She did not seem at a loss, only waiting for some boring and pointless noise to end.

  Rachaela felt fury then.

  It was a fearful rage, in which everything became abruptly mixed, the aversions and angers of twelve years.

  ‘What are you, you horrible little beast?’ Rachaela shouted.

  Ruth looked at her after all.

  The white, black, red face was surprised, just for a moment, then it settled into a closed mask. Rachaela remembered this from long ago. She had seen this expression, this lack of expression, this closing in and down, on the face of the demon baby Ruth had once been.

  ‘It wasn’t a game,’ said Rachaela. ‘It was something disgusting that came out of your foul head.’

  ‘Lucile will be all right,’ said Ruth, flatly.

  ‘I don’t care about Lucile, that revolting little fool. I don’t care about you, either. If you want to act out this sickness you’ve got then I suppose you must. But why bring it here? Why involve me in it, you bloody filthy little beast!’

  Ruth wriggled, like a child embarrassed in class. Then she was entirely still, passive again, almost inanimate.

  ‘Look at me,’ said Rachaela.

  And Ruth fixed her eyes on her mother.

  For a second there was a peculiar juxtaposition. It seemed Ruth’s eyes were scarlet and her mouth black.

  ‘Have your bath and go to bed,’ Rachaela said. ‘If you’re hungry you can make yourself a sandwich. I don’t want anything to do with you. I don’t want to see you.’

  ‘Yes, Mummy,’ said Ruth.

  And picking up her nightshirt from under the pillow, she went into the bathroom.

  In the morning Rachaela left Ruth to get her own breakfast. Ruth poured cornflakes and milk, and ate them sitting at the table where Rachaela drank her coffee.

  Ruth did not attempt to speak to Rachaela.

  She took up her satchel and went without a word.

  Getting to her feet, Rachaela saw her from the window, dawdling off along the road towards school.

  At twenty past nine the telephone rang. Usually there were no calls save the occasional wrong number.

  This was not a wrong number.

  ‘I’m Mrs Keating, Lucile’s mother.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I suppose you know why I’m phoning.’ Rachaela did not reply. She heard Mrs Keating bridle at the other end of the line. ‘Your child attacked Lucile yesterday. I wondered what you had to say about it.’

  ‘Nothing, really. Lucile wasn’t hurt.’

  ‘If you call that awful black bruise on her neck not being hurt—what is your child, some sort of monster?’

  Yes, how clever of you, Rachaela thought.

  She said nothing.

  Frustrated Mrs Keating resumed: ‘I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s hard to believe another child could do such a thing. I think you should take her to see a doctor. A psychiatrist probably.’ Still Rachaela did not respond to Mrs Keating’s red rag. Mrs Keating shouted, ‘I think you’d better know, I intend to write to the school about this.’

  ‘If you like.’

  ‘Like? You’ve got a funny way of going on, I must say. Just you get your horrible child seen to, Mrs Day, that’s the only advice I can give you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Rachaela.

  Mrs Keating swore at her and hung up.

  Rachaela switched on the radio. She did not want to think any more about Ruth. She would not need to see her until tonight.

  A Rachmaninov piano concerto swept through the flat, making the problem of Ruth trivial and vague.

  At one o’clock Rachaela ate lunch, and at five past two, half an hour too late, she got up and left for the antiques shop.

  Mrs Mantini did not upbraid her, but she pursed her tangerine lips and made a great thing of getting ready to go out in a hurry.

  The afternoon was not eventful. A girl came in and tried to haggle over a nineteenth-century vase, but Rachaela told her Mrs Mantini fixed the prices fairly and never reduced items. A handsome young man and a rather glamorous middle-aged woman, perhaps his mother, looked round the shop and finally bought a small brass rocking horse.

  At a quarter to five Mrs Mantini came back.

  ‘Oh Rachaela. I hoped you’d have unloaded that crate.’

  The crate was full of heavy objects that really needed the attention of a strong man. Rachaela had ignored it.

  ‘We’ll do it now,’ said Mrs Mantini with much irritation.

  They began to unload the crate, Mrs Mantini puffing and blowing. At five-thirty they were still engaged on the crate. Mrs Mantini shut the shop. She said to Rachaela, ‘You can stay and help with this. It will make up for the thirty-five minutes you were late.’

  Rachaela did not argue, and they went on unpacking the crate until a quarter past six.

  Mrs Mantini straightened up and puffed out a last breath of her garlic-and-onion lunch. ‘Actually, Rachaela, I want a word with you about this lateness.’ Rachaela was pu
tting on her coat. Mrs Mantini stood hard-yellow amid brazen fire irons and fire screens. ‘I spoke to you yesterday about it, but you don’t seem to have heard me. I don’t pay you to be late, I pay you to be on time.’

  ‘But you don’t pay very much, do you?’ said Rachaela.

  ‘If you don’t like the wages, miss, you can go elsewhere.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Rachaela. She buttoned her coat. ‘Give me what you owe me up until today.’

  Mrs Mantini glowered, her eyes roasting.

  ‘I certainly won’t. You can come in on Saturday and I’ll give it you then.’

  ‘No,’ said Rachaela. ‘I’d like it now.’

  She stood and looked at Mrs Mantini, and gradually Mrs Mantini broke down like an overheated fire. Cursing Rachaela as Mrs Keating had done, but in more vivid words, Mrs Mantini opened the till and counted out the abbreviated wage. She flung it on the counter before Rachaela. ‘Now get out, you little bitch.’

  Rachaela walked out on to the street. Her legs were trembling. She felt a wave of uncertainty and relief.

  This did not matter. It was Ruth’s fault anyway.

  And at the flat, there would be Ruth to see. To go on with the utter silence or to break the silence, pretending nothing had happened. What did silence count for, in any case? When did they speak? Only when there was trouble.

  The sky was soft and muddy, losing the light. Stars faded against the waking red eyes of the streetlamps.

  Rachaela felt footloose, nearly rattling. No job. She would have to look around. That would take up her time, make her forget Ruth.

  When she reached her front door, inside the house, she felt Ruth’s absence, and going in, the flat was empty.

  Rachaela took off her coat. She made herself coffee and switched on the lamps. She washed up the lunch things and looked into the fridge. Ruth was due to have chicken tonight. She might as well have it. Rachaela put the portions into a dish and upended a can of Heinz tomato soup over them to make a casserole. She set the chicken in the oven.

  The radio offered opera or politics. She turned it off and put on a tape of Stravinsky.

  The sky changed to the orange-black of city night. People came and went along the street.

  At eight-thirty Ruth had not come back.

  Rachaela turned the chicken on to a very low light.

  At nine-thirty the soup had all evaporated. Rachaela turned the chicken out.