'Once upon a time there were goats who lived in a feild by the sea, a Billy goat and a nanny goat and their kids Mitten and Hitten, they all lived happily in a feild by the sea except Mitten and Hitten who wanted to sale on a ship to a far away land…'
She chewed her pencil, which tasted a bit like a stick of liquorice, and tried to think what came next. How did daddy always know? He must do, to be able to write so much.
She stared out of her playroom and tried to think. Out on the road a car sped by, looking like one of the paintings she'd done when she was little and couldn't keep the paint inside the drawing. Rain wriggled on the window. If she stared at it long enough she felt she was underwater, especially when she let her eyes go out of focus. Or perhaps it looked more like transparent spaghetti. She shook herself impatiently – daddy wouldn't be wasting his time like this, he would be getting on with his writing. She decided to give the nanny goat a capital N. That didn't look right either, none of it did. She wished she could ask daddy to help.
Why couldn't she? She knew she mustn't interrupt him when he was working, but surely this was special? This was for him. Besides, he'd once told her that she'd helped him with a story before she could even talk, when he'd had to write about a baby. Surely he wouldn't mind if she asked him to help now? She wanted to finish this story, she wanted him to be proud of her. His editor – that was the man at the publishers who helped him write – said they might publish her one day: Knight Junior, he called her. Maybe she'd be on television for all her schoolfriends to see, and all the friends she'd had in London. Daddy would be prcjd of her then, mummy would be too – they'd record her programme for her to watch whenever she wanted to.
She had written 'and', and was staring at her exercise book, when all at once it was too dark to see. The sky was suddenly almost as dark as a cinema when you went in after the film had started. She got up at once: now she had an excuse. Besides, she had another reason to go upstairs to see him. She couldn't help it, she was still worried about him.
She didn't know why. She would have told mummy if she'd been able to put it into words. As she went into the hall she could hear mummy in the kitchen, the mixer growling as it buried its nose in whatever she was making. Anna would have to look after him all by herself. She used to think she could, but by now she had some idea how unpredictable and mysterious grown-ups could be. Some things about them were too big for her to grasp. It made her feel small and lost sometimes, like a mouse in someone else's house. She ran up the stairs two at a time, to see that daddy was all right.
On the stairs to the top floor she hesitated. Perhaps she did know why she was worried. She remembered now that she'd had the same feeling yesterday – that someone had got into the house, into daddy's room. How could she tell mummy that? It would sound silly, the kind of thing grown-ups only pretended to listen to. She couldn't hear daddy's typewriter. She hurried up the last flight and across the landing to his room.
He was sitting at his desk in front of the window. He was hunched over the electric typewriter, which was humming loudly. Rain danced on the sill of the open window. Never touch anything electric while your hands are wet, never let water anywhere near anything electric. She was afraid to speak in case he didn't answer.
No, he was all right, for he'd hunched closer to the window. She went forward to see what he was looking at. She heard the waves rumbling like an earthquake; on the horizon the grey sky looked as if it was pouring into the sea. There seemed to be nothing else to watch, except the bedraggled goats that were huddling in the shelter of the pillbox. Or was he watching her reflection? She could see his face on the glass against the sea, but not his eyes, which were out there in the foaming waves.
All at once he growled, 'Well, what is it now?'
'Are you busy?'
'What does it look like?'
'No.'
He turned to glare at her. 'Well then, I can't be, can I?'
He was being so fierce that she couldn't help laughing. He was always like this when he was working, even if she brought him a cup of coffee that mummy made. He tried to look more fierce, then he smiled ruefully. 'I can't pretend I was thinking anything worth thinking. What's up?'
'I wanted you to help me with my story.'
'That's a laugh,' he said, not laughing. T can't even manage my own.'
'Shall I help you?'
He hugged her, tousling her hair. 'I wish you could, little one, believe me.'
'You said I did once.'
'That's right, you did. Well then, let's see if I can repay the favour.'
When she brought him her exercise book he switched off the typewriter and sat her on his knee while he read what she'd written. She couldn't look, she was so ashamed of having changed the N and making the page messy; when she'd started she'd tried to write as neatly as typing. She snuggled her face against his bare arm so that she wouldn't have to look.
'Well, that's a good start,' he said. 'What happens next?'
'I don't know.'
'Yes, you do. Do the kids go away?'
She pondered. 'I think so.'
'So you send them off and see what happens. Where do you think they end up?'
'Africa.'
'See, you did know after all. You get them there and see what happens next.'
She was comfortable on his lap; she felt warm and safe as the rain clawed at the house. 'Tell me about Africa again.'
'Look, darling, I'm having enough trouble writing about it myself. I can't squander the little I've got.' He held her away from him so that he could gaze into her eyes. 'You don't want me not to be able to write, do you?'
'No.' She'd wanted to please him, but all she seemed to have done was to get in his way. She would have left him before if he'd told her to go. She carried her book down to her playroom* but she didn't feel like writing any more.
She looked for something else to do to make the dull day start moving.
There was nothing. She'd done all her jigsaws already, except for the Little Red Riding Hood one that was too old for her – which really meant she was too young. She was too young to have a pet, too, mummy had said so. If she'd had a puppy she could have played with it on days like this. There was nobody to play with, that was the trouble. It wasn't like London, where she could have played in her friends' houses up the street; all her schoolfriends in Norfolk were miles away. She knew she oughtn't to wish it, because mummy and daddy loved it here so much, but sometimes she wished they hadn't come to live here at all.
She mustn't be selfish. She liked it here really, except on days like this. She wandered into the kitchen, but there was nothing to help mummy with. She went up to her bedroom, where her shelves were piled with her Read It Yourself books and Enid Blytons, but she didn't feel like reading, not even to show daddy how much she could read. She jumped downstairs two stairs at a time for want of anything else to do, then ran up two at a time to see how many times she could do it. She'd thumped up and down the stairs six times before daddy came out of his room to glare at her.
This time he wasn't just pretending to be fierce. All at once she felt very small. She would have gone up to say she was sorry, except that she felt too ashamed. She went into the kitchen, to be with mummy. Mummy was making bread; she was wearing lumpy gloves of flour. Anna wanted to tell mummy that she was afraid she'd done something naughty, and she was just opening her mouth when mummy said, 'What on earth have you been doing to yourself, young lady?'
Anna didn't know what she meant until mummy washed her hands at the sink and got a mirror out of her handbag to show Anna her tongue. It was almost black from chewing the pencil. 'Parrots are supposed to have black tongues, not little girls. The way you chatter on sometimes, maybe you're turning into a parrot,' mummy said, then she frowned. 'Don't put pencils in your mouth, Anna. We don't want you poisoning yourself, do we?'
The world seemed full of things you mustn't put in your mouth, but that wasn't why Anna felt miserable. 'I was making a noise on the stairs and I sto
pped daddy writing. Do you think he won't be able to write any more, ever again?'
'Oh, I think he'll manage.' Mummy was smiling, but she hadn't seen how he'd looked… 'Now look, I'm busy just now. Would you like to watch something on the video?'
Anna followed her into the long room, where the video cassettes were lined up like books on shelves above the recorder. Most of them were too old for her – mummy said so, though sometimes daddy said she could watch. She was allowed to watch Laurel and Hardy and programmes about animals and insects. 'How about The Wizard ofOzV mummy said, then frowned for a moment. 'You know it's only a story. The witch isn't real.'
But it wasn't the witch with her bright-green pantomime face that bothered Anna; it was the Cowardly Lion. She knew he wasn't real, he was only a man dressed up, but somehow that made it worse. When he peered out of the trees, making his noise that wasn't like an animal or like a person, she looked away. She didn't like him at all.
But looking away didn't help, because she could still hear his voice. She wished she'd switched the light on. The rainy windows looked as if they were melting, and the room jerked whenever the light from the television changed. Usually she didn't mind that, but now it made the claw on the mantelpiece seem to move, to creep forward when she glanced away. Why had daddy brought such a horrible thing home? It made her think of the torture chamber in the waxworks she'd been to once in London. She didn't like being in the same room with the claw, or even in the same house.
The Cowardly Lion was trying to roar again. He didn't look like a man dressed up, he looked like a man whom a spell had turned into a kind of animal. She thought she could smell an animal in the room. Either she was imagining the smell, or the soggy goats must have moved nearer the house. She left the recorder running, because she wasn't supposed to touch it, and took refuge in her playroom.
She could still hear the Cowardly Lion. So could mummy when she came out of the kitchen to call Anna to lunch. Mummy told her off for leaving the recorder on when she wasn't watching, which seemed unfair to Anna. Grownups often were. At least lunch was something to do.
Daddy had lunch in his workroom. Anna had hoped he would come down and talk to her. She hoped he was working, not failing to work because of her. She must have looked miserable, because after lunch mummy played Ludo with her all afternoon, to cheer her up. It was such a long game that Anna was tempted to cheat so as to end it, but luckily mummy went into the kitchen to start dinner.
Daddy came downstairs for dinner, and was cheerful once he'd had some wine to drink. He and mummy talked about people they'd known before they got married. Anna felt left out and bored, until she thought of playing I Spy; they had to talk to her then. She grew excited with the game and her glass of wine. She was going to enjoy today after all. But almost as soon as dinner was over, they told her it was time for bed.
She had been looking forward to staying up late and playing with daddy. She'd hoped to be with him more now that he was home again, but so far she'd hardly seen him at all. And now they were packing her off to bed so that they could be together, as if she didn't matter. When she was ready for bed she turned her face away and wouldn't let either of them kiss her.
She lay in bed, but couldn't stop seeing the Cowardly Lion peering out of the forest, couldn't stop remembering the torture claw that was in her home, the wax faces screaming silently in the torture chamber. The worst thing had been that the wax victims weren't being tortured; they had been screaming because they knew what was going to be done to them, screaming with no chance of being heard. Perhaps they'd had no tongues, she thought, and wished she hadn't thought it. Her room was growing dark.
She slept at last, only to dream that the Cowardly Lion had crept into her room. He was reaching for her with the metal claw, since he had none of his own. She cried out as she woke. The dark in her room, and the sound of the waves, were as strange and frightening as they had been the first night she'd slept here. Someone was coming upstairs to see why she had cried out, padding upstairs. His footsteps sounded very soft. It was the Cowardly Lion.
When the door opened and he came into the room, she could see his long soft monstrous face, like the face of a soft toy that ought not to be moving. By the time she saw that it was daddy with daddy's face, it was too late: she had already cried, 'I want mummy.'
'Just wait a minute, then.' He sounded peevish, as he always did when she asked for mummy instead. It was only that mummy looked after her, and he was always too busy writing. Now she was afraid she might have driven him away. As soon as mummy came to her, Anna said, 'Daddy won't go away again, will he?'
'Was that what was wrong? No, I'm sure he won't, darling. He has no reason to.' Mummy cuddled her and stroked her head, and before Anna knew it she was asleep.
When she woke it was morning, and the rain had stopped. That was one of the good things about living here: it never rained for long. At breakfast time the sea was pale with haze, which meant a scorching day to come. As she helped mummy wash up the breakfast things, Anna heard children shouting and laughing on the beach below the Britannia Hotel.
Daddy wasn't in a good mood. He had his breakfast at his desk and didn't want to be spoken to, not a word.
'We'll go into the village, and then I'll make a special dinner,' mummy said. 'Perhaps that'll help daddy to relax.'
They were ready to go – mummy wouldn't let her cycle on the road to the village – when they heard the slam of the phone in daddy's workroom. The other phones rang in sympathy. He came downstairs as if he was looking for something but didn't know what it was. 'Problems?' mummy said.
'That was Teddy Shaw.'
He was daddy's editor. Teddy the Editor, Anna began to sing to the tune of Nelly the Elephant, until they both frowned at her. 'What did he want?' mummy said.
'Only to piss on my fucking title. It was a Robert Mitchum film. They changed the title in Britain.'
Anna shoved her fist against her mouth to keep in her giggles. She could see he was being serious, but he never said those words in front of her. Mummy was trying to calm him down. 'But you can still use it, can't you?'
'That's what Teddy said. You're both wrong. It doesn't feel right, and that means it's no fucking good.'
Mummy decided that the best thing was to leave him alone. 'We're going into the village and then we might look in at the hotel.'
'Fine, do whatever you like.' But he was staring at Anna. She felt small and guilty and defenceless even before he said, 'Just so long as I get some peace.'
Six
Anna seemed to forget the incident once they were out of the house. Perhaps she knew by now that Alan was sometimes unreasonable, or perhaps it was just that it was impossible to be unhappy for long beneath the open Norfolk sky, so blue it seemed to whiten when you looked at it. Liz thought it best not to refer to what Alan had said. She hoped Anna would forget if she wasn't reminded.
In every direction you could see for miles. To their right, past the turn-off to the village, the coast road wandered between low grassy slopes, bare except for the occasional house, a disused windmill, a gathering of caravans two miles away. To their left was a church, its graveyard slowly crumbling onto the beach two hundred feet below, the Britannia Hotel beyond it, and then the village came curving round toward the cliff top, bringing small hotels and amusement arcades and shops full of buckets and spades. Already kites were tugging at their leashes, naked children splashing in the sea beyond the bathing huts.
Anna went running on ahead along the coast road, toward the sign which warned that Seaview was closed. Most of that road had fallen onto the beach years ago. 'Chase me,' Anna cried.
'Not here, Anna.' The little girl knew to stay away from Seaview, but the road to the village was full of blind curves. 'When we come back along the beach,' Liz promised.
Along the village road, lush verges rippled in the breeze and sparrows squabbled in the hedges, darting back and forth across the tarmac. A scarecrow stood napping its sleeves in a field; Anna waved
back. Cars packed with holidaymakers roared around the bends, and Liz kept a tight hold on Anna's arm. Still, she didn't mind the holiday crowds; sometimes, in the winter, when the vicious east wind froze the air, this coast could seem very bleak and lonely. Not that she was ever tempted back to London, with its dirtiness and violence. No – it was worth suffering the winters to get away from that.
The houses of the village shone with whitewash; the walls of a terrace of cottages were cobbled with stones from the beach. Grandfathers sat in cottage gardens or on the bench in the village square, waiting for the pub to open. Most of the village folk were retired.
Beyond the pub was the open bus-shed, which sounded like an aviary much larger than the building was, and then the station, a single platform visited reluctantly by two trains a day. Sometimes the trains were on time, occasionally one failed to arrive at all.
'Look, mummy, what's Mrs Walters doing?' Anna said.
Liz wondered. Jane was standing on the pavement by the station entrance, holding a clipboard and a ballpoint pen away from her baby, who hung between her breasts from a sling. The street was so narrow that she was able to stop everyone who passed. 'You'll sign this, Liz, won't you?' she called.
'I should think so. What's it about, Jane?'
'It's a petition against closing the branch line. They want to cut us off – they don't care what damage they do to the village. Half the shops would have to close down.'
Liz doubted it, but there seemed no harm in signing. She smiled at Jane in her shapeless T-shirt and faded crumpled slacks, her baby Georgie sleeping to the sound of her heartbeats. 'You look very organized,' she said.
The Claw Page 4
