“And so she wants to get in touch with him?”
“Well, I know you do that sort of thing.”
“I’m afraid I don’t any more.”
Evelyn was careful to keep all colour out of her tone, all emotion off her face. And no doubt, she thought, this about Dennis Deakin thinking Muriel attractive, it was something and nothing, a passing fancy. She imagined Mr. Deakin coming softly down the path in his bedroom slippers, putting his hand on Muriel’s arm, guiding her down the garden to the shed; the smell of grass cuttings, compost, the lawnmower oil, and Muriel’s dumpling thighs exposed in the broad sunlit afternoon. No, he could not be the father, flies undone amongst the diving swallows, Ena Harkness rotting softly towards midsummer. Deakin’s beds were orderly ones.
“Oh, don’t you do them now? Ag will be that disappointed.” Mrs. Deakin bobbed up on her toes. “Don’t put that roast ham away, I want six ounces,” she called out in a piercing voice. “Well, I mean, it’s no good letting them wrap it up and put it away again, is it? Only I mentioned you, you see, I’d a feeling you’d given seances at one time, and I asked Florence Sidney, and she said she’d a feeling you did as well.”
“I’ve given it up.”
“That’s a shame. Only you ought to be more sociable, Mrs. Axon. Florence was saying she never sees you. Couldn’t you just do one for Ag? You might enjoy it. Take you out of yourself.”
“Thank you, but I really have given it up.”
“Only can you recommend anybody? Mrs. Dobson in Argyll Street has a ouija board.”
“Has she? She must be careful that she doesn’t get more than she bargained for.”
“How do you mean, Mrs. Axon?”
“Oh…” Evelyn sighed. Could she really be bothered to explain, on the chance of saving Mrs. Dobson, whom she did not know, and who probably deserved what she invited? “Oh, people get in…things get in…the house gets overcrowded.”
“She says she does limit it to six people. Because their rooms aren’t big, you know, and that’s all she can get round the table.” The queue shuffled forward a bit. “I mean, it’s only harmless fun,” Mrs. Deakin said.
When Evelyn got to the head of the queue she asked for steak, two large pieces. She would have been appalled at the price if she had stopped to think about it, but in the event she pushed some crumpled notes into the man’s hand, leaving him to hand one back to her and then sort out her change; she snatched it from him, thrust the parcel into her bag, and made for the door without a word. The man shook his head comically, and made little circular motions with his forefinger. The queue went tut-tut, at this insult to a paying customer, and crackled their stiff raincoats. Mrs. Deakin said, “You can’t expect that lady to waste her time chatting with tradesmen. She’s a very well-regarded Spiritualist.”
Evelyn arrived home, and put down the parcel of meat on the kitchen table. The brown blood was seeping through the wrapping. She heard a rustling noise from the lean-to, and went to investigate it. When she returned, having found nothing, the meat was gone. A trail of dark drops led towards the kitchen door and out into the hall. Bending painfully, she peered at the floor. On the parquet of the hall she lost the trail, but there was another splash, on the staircarpet, halfway up.
Evelyn sat down on the bottom step, and rocked herself back and forth like a child. Such appetites, she thought, such vile appetites for raw and bloody meat. Were their jaws at work, behind the spare-room door? And if she went up there would she hear them, salivating and sucking, smacking unpicturable lips? Baby flesh would tear like butter.
They do not have claws, Evelyn told herself, they do not have claws or jaws, they do not have faces at all. But one thing was for sure, she would not dare to stand in their way. Muriel might, if she liked; self-sacrifice is a mother’s prerogative, and Muriel would be a mother soon enough.
Since Christmas, Muriel had become more and more lethargic. Her ankles swelled. She took no interest in anything.
“I have to think of everything myself,” Evelyn complained. She worried quite often about what she would do if Muriel got into difficulties. “You ought to be all right,” she reassured her. “You’re a strong type of woman. There’s nothing wrong with you, Muriel. Not physically anyway.”
Conscious of the responsibility facing her, she went to the public library to borrow some books. She chose first aid books, which told you how to deliver babies in an emergency. The library had changed a good deal, she noticed. The old wooden desks had gone, and the newspapers in racks. There were low vinyl seats that an elderly person could not get in and out of comfortably. There were modern pictures on the wall, sun-bursts of yellow and orange, and a part marked “Children’s Play Area.” Children did not play in it, but ran about, loud and healthy. Fluttering notices on a cork board advertised yoga classes and Community Welfare Programmes, playgroups and Councillor’s Surgeries. People talked quite unashamedly, in ordinary voices; there had been only an odd subdued whisper in the past, in the old days when Clifford used to step down to get a detective story, and she used to ask for a nice mystery from Miss Williams on the desk.
Evelyn shuffled up to the counter, cradling her books. “Where’s Miss Williams?” she asked, as she put them down.
“Who?” A fat girl looked up at her, a fat girl in a fluffy pink cardigan, very like the one that Muriel used to wear.
“Miss Williams. The Librarian.”
“We don’t have a Miss Williams here.”
“Has she left?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember any Miss Williams. Frances!” she called. “Frances, have you got a minute?”
“Shhh,” Evelyn said.
“What’s the matter?” The girl was irritated. “You asked me a question, didn’t you? I’m trying to find out, aren’t I?”
Frances glanced up from the books she was stacking onto a trolley. “There’s been no one of that name while I’ve been here. Miss Williams? No, I don’t think so.”
“Never mind,” Evelyn said. She put her tickets down by her books.
“What are these?”
“Oh, really,” Evelyn said, “don’t be so foolish.”
The girl picked the tickets up and held them by one corner, as if they were contaminated. “These expired thirty years ago,” she said. She looked at Evelyn, a strange sideways look, as if she were considering calling for help. “You’d better fill in a form,” she said at last. “Are you a ratepayer?”
“Where did you get that cardigan?” Evelyn demanded.
“What?” The girl’s head jerked back, her eyebrows raised, her leaky ballpoint pen poised in the air. Evelyn turned her back and made for the door.
“Just a minute—” the girl said, but she didn’t come after her. Somebody laughed. Evelyn found herself back on the street.
She walked down to the town centre, to the Central Library. They had the same books, the ones she wanted. She just put them under her arm and walked out, past the desk, nodding to herself. Nobody saw her go, nobody tried to stop her. It was easier that way.
It was a cold, misty day. The town was full of people tramping to the January sales. The buildings seemed distant and insubstantial, walls of air and smoke. Nobody looked at her, stumping along in her old grey coat. Nobody looks at an old woman to see if her clothes are fashionable; old women have a set of fashions all their own. The crowds clutched their parcels and their slippery plastic bags, heading for home, weary and overheated from the department stores. Evelyn stopped on a street corner, by the entrance to a great cavern brilliantly stacked with scented soap and woollen hats. She felt a kind of safety and peace that she had not known in years, or that perhaps she had never known; but it touched her with a warm finger of nostalgia. Treading in the footsteps of the crowd, no demon would know her. She would get herself a parcel, jostle in a bus-queue, she would never, never go home. Impulsively, she turned to go into the store, and a young woman collided with her, a pale woman with dark almond eyes that seemed familiar from somewhere.