He was talking about Lenny Bennett’s mother, about the unrecognizable smashed face in the film. She managed to look blank and at the same time angry, which seemed safe and which apparently amused him. “Can’t give you a lift unless I arrest you,” he said with a grin, and drove away.
She was making things happen at last. He would recognize her now, and that was the first step to getting herself invited into his flat. As she started the car she wondered if confronting him with the trophy and filming his guilt were bound to happen once she had dreamed of them unless she prevented them herself. No doubt her dream had exaggerated, as dreams do, but it made her feel powerful, and so did having beguiled Rankin. It was strange and encouraging that she knew his name though she had only heard it in her dreams. She felt sure enough of herself to drive straight to MTV.
Terry Mace wasn’t there, nor was Nell. At least Leon was back at last from filming Paddy Shaw. She found him watching the .rough cut.
His hair was cropped still closer to his head,” which made his face look even chubbier. “I got the film out before they blew the van up,” he said, “and we had no trouble at all filming. The Christmas truce, you see. Filming then was one of my better ideas. Sounds as if I had a better time in Belfast than you were having here.”
“Oh, you heard?”
“Eccles couldn’t wait to tell me. Martin’s in Oxford looking for safe subjects, I suppose.”
“Something like that.”
“That isn’t what we brought him here for. It certainly isn’t what he should be doing. And all this fucking nonsense about having to broadcast a retraction would only stir things up again. Gould must see that by now. I think it’s just a matter of time before they take Martin back. I spoke to him yesterday and he says there’s no way they can have him back without you. You can add to that that if they refuse to take both of you back they can do without me as well.”
She couldn’t tell him that she didn’t think that would be necessary. “None of this is your fault, Leon. You mustn’t think it is,” she said, and gave his soft cheek a kiss before she made her way home.
She drove past Nell’s, but nobody was there either, though for a moment she thought she had seen a child’s face at the window. It must have been the reflection of a cloud, the way it was changing. Tomorrow she would have to brazen her way into MTV again, to see if she could find out what was wrong at Nell’s and to persuade Terry to be ready when she needed him. She parked several streets away from her flat and walked home down the streaming lumpy hill. She was on the steps when she heard her phone ringing.
It was Mrs. Wallace. “Is Martin there?” she shouted faintly. “I tried the other number.”
“He’s away just now. Shall I give you the number or give him a message?”
“I’d appreciate your doing both, Molly. It’s his father. The doctor says he hasn’t long, maybe just a few days. He wants Martin to come back.”
Molly wasn’t sure if she meant his father or the doctor, but she wouldn’t have dreamed of asking. “I’ll call him straight away,” she promised. But he wasn’t at his Oxford hotel, and the receptionist had no idea when he might be back. Molly left a message for him to call her or his mother. She wished that he weren’t in Oxford; it wasn’t as if she wanted to know what Stuart had to say. She felt as if she’d made Martin go away purely for her own ends, and she couldn’t help dreading the consequences.
34
“SUSAN,” Mrs. Fisher said, “will you please stop daydreaming and try to do some work? The holidays are over now, for all of us.” But Susan wasn’t dreaming. At last she knew what she must do about Eve. School and the woman with the cats had helped her realize what she could do.
She ducked her head and tried to work with the other children in her group, and wished Lonnie hadn’t brought his Space Invaders. Mrs. Fisher had set one group of children timing the frequency of spaceships that jittered like insects across the tiny screen while the other groups had to work out the chances of winning. Susan had never been much good with figures (though she was sure that Mummy was spending more on Eve than she could afford), and she could only watch while the others in her group scribbled figures and compared them. Eventually Mrs. Fisher came to her. “What don’t you understand, Susan?”
“None of it, miss.”
“Budge over.” Mrs. Fisher sat on the corner of Susan’s seat and showed her what to do step by step, but Susan couldn’t concentrate. Her eyes kept wandering to the initials “E. V.” carved by the inkwell that she never used. She wouldn’t be able to concentrate until she’d done what she had to do about Eve. Mrs. Fisher leaned over to look into her eyes just as the bell rang for playtime. “What’s wrong, Susan?” Mrs. Fisher said.
She wouldn’t believe what was happening. Susan’s school friends might, but they couldn’t help. There was only one person who could help Susan, and she had to tell that person just enough. “Nothing, miss,” she said and ran out before Mrs. Fisher could stop her, ran downstairs and out of the gates before the teacher on yard duty could demand where she was going.
Frost clung like mold to the roofs of parked cars. She ran grabbing railings that felt soaked and crumbly, she crossed a road and dodged aside from a squashed dead cat, which proved to be a frozen furry newspaper. She was several houses away from the flat when she saw Eve beyond the window.
Susan held onto a gatepost and watched while melting frost trickled down her sleeve. Eve was singing to herself and dancing, pirouetting and writhing her arms. Susan remembered what the woman with the cats had said about the song she’d heard. She tried to focus Eve, who was somehow losing definition even though she was turning more slowly. It must be frost on the window that made her look blurred and pale, so blurred that she no longer looked like a person, a pale blurred shape that seemed to be expanding, filling the window that was writhing too, like the house and the street and the sky where the clouds were exploding outward, impossibly fast. Not only couldn’t Susan hear Eve’s song, she could hear nothing at all except an enormous stealthy shifting.
She shook her head, wrenched herself away, and ran back toward the school. Now she knew Eve was still in the flat, and she was sure that Eve went to no school. She didn’t want to think why.
The bell was ringing for the end of playtime. They all groaned when Mrs. Fisher told them to write what they’d done in the holidays. Estelle had had her first period, and Monica was wearing a bra, but Susan didn’t think they would be writing about those events any more than she was able to mention Eve, or how Mummy was someone she hardly knew all the time now, or how last night, as she’d lain trying not to think, she’d felt as if Mummy had gone away and left her alone with Eve. She wrote a page and a half about how much she’d enjoyed Christmas in London, mile after mile of Christmas, and almost felt as if Eve hadn’t happened after all.
She gobbled lunch in the dining hall, fish fingers and chips of all consistencies, followed by something buried under wobbly custard. She was standing up when Zoe caught her. “Chloe and me and Estelle are going to play table tennis. Come on or there won’t be any tables.”
“Can’t, I’m busy.”
“Aw, go on or we won’t have a proper game. You’re the only one who plays as good as us.” When Susan pushed by, Zoe poked a finger up at her. “Don’t you ever ask us for anything, girl.”
Susan darted through the gates. Boys tried to grab her through the railings as she ran toward Bayswater Road.
She’d forgotten it was early closing day. The post office was closing in ten minutes. At least there wasn’t a queue at the phone booths. Directories were spitted spine up near the booths, and she turned up the directory for “T,” flicked the pages so fast that they almost tore. “Trading,” “Travel,” “Truncheon,” but there was no listing for a truant officer.
She ran to the counter, to a window beyond which a small man with glossy hair and hair cream on his ears was counting stamps. “No change for the phone,” he grumbled without looking up.
“I�
��ve got change,” Susan said indignantly. “I can’t find the number for the truant officer.”
He frowned at her. “If you were at school you wouldn’t need him, would you? Look under ‘Education.’ And be quick,” he shouted after her.
Education referred her to yet another directory. She found the number as a woman with a bandaged leg limped out from behind the counter and stood with her hand on the bolt of the door. She was clearly expecting Susan to leave, but Susan ran into the nearest booth with her fistful of change and dialed before anyone could stop her. “Education Offices,” a brisk voice said.
Susan shoved in a coin. “Please may I speak to the truant officer?”
“They’re probably at lunch. Hold on.” There was total silence for so long that Susan started repeating, “Hello?” In the glass over the notice above the phone about emergency calls, she could see the woman with the bandaged leg glaring at her. She mouthed into the phone in the hope that would keep the woman away. When a voice said “Truancy” she jumped and almost couldn’t turn her mouthing into speech.
“There’s a girl who never goes to school. Her mother thinks she does.” Susan hardly knew whose she meant, hers or Eve’s. “She’ll have to be sent away, won’t she? She’ll have to go to a school where she can’t get away.”
“That sounds a bit drastic.” The light voice, which might have been a man’s or a woman’s, seemed amused. “How old are you, may we ask?”
“Fourteen.” Susan had anticipated some such question. “My mum, my mumther told me to call you,” she said, squirming at not having been able to say mother, as a girl of fourteen surely would. “She can’t get out of the house.”
The voice sighed. “Well, I suppose we must set the machinery in motion. Just a moment.” It went away for considerably longer than that, until Susan felt as if the coins were melting in her fist. “Will you give me your name first and then your mother’s, and your address.”
Susan almost dropped the sweaty coins. She hadn’t expected that question, she could think of nothing but the truth. She stuffed the coins into her pocket to keep them safe, and gasped, for that had told her what to say. “My money’s running out,” she gabbled. “I’ll tell you the girl’s name first. It’s Eve.”
The voice sounded weary. “Eve what?”
Susan didn’t know. “Eve Verney, I think,” she said, and gave the address.
“All right, I have that. Now your name and address and your mother’s.”
“We live at the same address,” Susan said, not caring how stupid she sounded so long as it wasted time. She couldn’t have sounded stupid enough, for the voice said, “The same address as the one you’ve just given me, you mean?”
“No, as each other.” She was sounding too stupid now, the truant officer might think she was playing a joke and not bother to do anything about Eve, but she couldn’t give their real names and address in case the truant officer got in touch with Mummy before calling round to check on Eve. She stared at the glass where the bandaged woman was limping purposefully forward, she tried to think of something reasonable to say to waste time. She said, “We live across the road,” and then, as if in answer to a prayer she hadn’t been able to put into words, the pips began. “That’s all my money,” she said and dropped the receiver into its cradle, “I’m going now,” she said cheekily to the limping woman and ran back to school. She slipped unnoticed into the schoolyard, and felt as if she were flying. She’d got the better of Eve.
She felt free until she was back at her desk. As the others piled into the classroom and Mrs. Fisher told them to make less noise, Estelle came over. “We saw you creeping out when sir wasn’t looking. We’re telling miss.”
“See if I care.” But she did, because Mrs. Fisher might make her tell where she’d been, she would tell Mummy what Susan had done and then Mummy would protect Eve from the truant officer. All afternoon, every time Zoe or Chloe or Estelle raised a hand, Susan wanted to run out of the classroom, out of the school, except that she had no idea where she would go. “Now I want you all to paint something you’ve never seen,” Mrs. Fisher said eventually, and Susan wondered if imagining something could make it exist or whether everything that could be imagined already existed, and other things too. The idea of imagining something into existence made her more nervous than she already was, and so she painted an eclipse of the sun, which she had never seen and which was easy to do. “I would have expected something more imaginative from you, Susan,” was all that Mrs. Fisher said before she moved on to Zoe’s desk.
Susan held her breath and waited for Zoe to tell on her. She rubbed her slippery palms on her skirt, and then she wondered what she was afraid of. All she had to do was tell Eve the truant officer was coming. Eve wouldn’t be able to ask Mummy to hide her unless she admitted she hadn’t been going to school, and wouldn’t Mummy want to know why? Susan thought she knew: because Eve didn’t want too many people to see her, whyever that was. Mrs. Fisher was at Chloe’s and Estelle’s desks now, and they weren’t telling on Susan after all, but by now Susan didn’t care if they did.
She ran home as soon as school was over. Mummy shouldn’t be home for more than an hour, but Susan wanted to make sure of getting to Eve first. The streets seemed to be growing whiter under the darkening sky, though she could hardly see for her white breath. The light was on beyond the dimming window of the flat, which ought to mean that Eve was there. Surely it didn’t mean that Mummy had come home early, as she sometimes had on Susan’s first days back at school.
Susan turned the key and hurried upstairs into the smell of cats. As she opened the door of the flat she saw Eve sitting watching television, except that it was switched off.
She looked at Susan as if she were the intruder, but Susan wasn’t nervous. Eve couldn’t stop what was going to happen now that Susan had made the call. “You didn’t go to school today,” Susan said at once.
Eve stared at her, then shrugged. “Some schools don’t go back on the same day as yours.”
“You don’t go to school ever.” Susan felt she’d beaten Eve at her own game, especially when Eve didn’t answer. “Why don’t you?”
“You know why.”
Did she mean she didn’t want to be seen by too many people? Could she really hear what Susan was thinking? It no longer seemed to matter. “Someone’s told the truant officer you don’t go to school,” Susan said. “The teacher told me so. They’ll lock you up in a special school if you’re still living here when the truant officer comes.”
“Mummy won’t like that.” Eve was staring at her with the look she’d had when she crushed the beetle, and not only then. “Mummy won’t like what you did.”
So she knew it was Susan who’d called the truant officer. Perhaps it had been obvious. Susan didn’t care, it was done now. She tried not to care when Eve said, “Mummy said she wanted to see you as soon as you came in.”
That was just like Eve, talking about Mummy as though she were Eve’s and not even telling Susan until now what Mummy had said. “Where is she?” Susan demanded.
“In the bedroom,” Eve said with an odd lopsided smile, and stood up as Susan made for the hall. She must think Mummy would be on her side, but Susan didn’t think so: Mummy wouldn’t like the truant officer coming here and asking her why Eve didn’t go to school. Maybe it would make her angry, maybe she would take it out on Susan. Anything that Mummy did to Susan would be worth it so long as Eve went out of their lives.
Susan told herself all this as she ventured into the hall, but she couldn’t help being afraid. Mummy must be lying down, for the bedroom light was off. “Mummy?” she said.
When there was no answer, she stepped into the dark. An echo made the boxy space seem larger than it was, an echo of her footsteps and of Mummy moving on the bed in the dark. Susan reached out and pulled the cord, pulled it twice and heard it click, but the light didn’t go on. “I don’t want to stay in here, Mummy,” she said, suddenly afraid of the largeness of the movements and of the
echoing dark.
She had just reached the doorway, which seemed more distant from the cord than it ought to be, when Eve stepped in front of her and gave her a shove backward. It was so unexpected that Susan stumbled the length of the room, tried to save herself from falling over the end of the bed before she realized it wasn’t there. She was still stumbling backward, because there was no wall to stop her. The dark was even larger than it sounded. She threw herself forward, toward the lit doorway in the distance, and only managed to stand still. “What’s happened?” she cried in a voice that didn’t sound like hers. “What have you done with Mummy?”
“She’s there with you. She likes the dark.” Eve might have been grinning, as her voice was, but it was impossible to tell, because of what was happening to her face. “It’s time you met her. My Mummy, not yours.”
She was reaching out to close the door in the shaky wall. Susan knew that once the door was closed she would be lost in the total darkness. She was running as she had never run before, running as if she could outrun having to think about what Eve had said, yet the doorway was still impossibly distant, and something else was wrong. At first she thought Eve had shoved the dressing table into the doorway to block her way out, even if she reached it; she thought she was seeing herself in the mirror. Eve closed the door tight and Susan heard the soft unhurried movements that now seemed as large as the dark, the movements and the giggling whisper that were between her and the vanished door. The dark cut her off from the world forever and the last thing she saw was that Eve’s face was no longer Eve’s. It was her own.
35
THE YOUNG WOMAN in the white lab coat who smelled of soap and duplicator paper led Martin through the pale green corridors to the auditorium and showed him a seat at the back. Though a film was being projected on the curtainless screen, all the lights were on, and so he recognized Stuart Hay as soon as the man in the front row turned to glance up the steep rake at him. Hay was quite stout now and had grown a clipped red beard, but there was no mistaking Molly’s description of him. his faint superciliously skeptical expression and the appraising glance he gave Martin’s escort. He nodded curtly to Martin and turned back to the film. Martin tried to watch it too, to understand what it was supposed to be, to quell his instinctive dislike of Stuart Hay.
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