He was angry; angry that she could now seem so immature, so callous. And she had been trained, he thought, trained to be in charge of other people’s lives, selected for it. It seemed that she had set out in their last conversation to demolish the picture he had built of her in his mind. It was not a reasonable picture. But reason has grown tired of its own successes.
Mr. Field came to the door. Without his spectacles, he blinked at Colin.
“I think you are expecting me, Mr. Field.” He held out the file. “This is for Isabel.”
“Ah, yes. Yes, thank you.” Mr. Field took the file from him and held it carefully in both hands. “Thank you so much. I hope it has been no trouble to you. Goodbye. Drive carefully.”
Have I failed her, let her down? Did she expect too much? I am too tired to think about it any more. Colin climbed into his car, slammed the door, set the windscreen wipers going. Life came home to him as blind chance and triviality, a series of minute disappointments impatiently endured. I shall never see her again, he thought, as he drove away.
“Monday morning, Muriel,” Evelyn said. “I should think you’ll be up and about later today, don’t you?”
She had hit on a brisk and reassuring tone, like the one that the Welfare visitors used. Talk loudly; keeps matters at bay.
The child was not deformed, but she did not take to it. Since its birth it seemed definitely to have changed for the worse. It seemed feeble, and it cried all the time with a noise like the mewing of a cat. It took no notice of them, never smiled. For all the company it was, it might have been inside Muriel still.
“I’m going now,” she said to Muriel. “It looks like snow. I hope it holds off.”
She took a bus. It was years since she had been in a bus. There was no conductor, and the driver called her lady. She had to give him her money.
“Don’t you know where you want to go, lady?”
“Yes, I do. I want to go to the shops in Kenilworth Road.”
Muttering to himself, the driver pulled out a book of fare tables and laboriously followed a column with his stubby finger.
“Fifteen pee,” he pronounced, and rolled up the book and shoved it away. She offered him some coins. “Right money,” he said, “right money. No change will be given. God help us.”
“That’s all right,” Evelyn said. “I don’t want the change, if it’s so much trouble. You can keep it.”
“What do you think I am, a hackney carriage?” the driver said. “What’s up with you?”
“I know what you are, a most ignorant and unpleasant man.” She pulled her ticket from the machine and handed herself down the bus to an empty seat. Her heart fluttered. It was warm and damp on the lower deck, the breath of the swaddled passengers steaming up the windows. She rubbed the pane with her hand, so that she would know when she got to Kenilworth Road. No one bothered about her; an old man with a loose cough, women with string bags, two young lads sharing a cigarette. A girl brought on a big collie dog and took it upstairs; up it ran, its jaws laughing, used to riding on the bus. A nice woman leaned towards her and offered her a mint.
“I heard that cheeky devil,” she said. “You did right to tell him off.”
“He was very rude, really he was.” She turned to the young woman. “I’m on my way to the chemists at Kenilworth Road. I’m shopping for my daughter. She’s got a new baby, you know.”
“Oh, that’s nice,” the woman said. “I’m expecting myself. Nice to be a grandma.”
“Yes,” Evelyn agreed. “It’s lovely.”
Her eyes were bright when she stepped off the bus. In spite of the driver, it had been a lovely journey, and perhaps she was rather at fault in not knowing the procedure. In the chemist’s shop, a girl in a lilac overall was opening cardboard boxes and putting bottles of egg shampoo on a shelf. She smiled over her shoulder at Evelyn. A man in a white coat came from the back of the shop.
“All right, Carol, I’ll serve this lady,” he said. “Good morning, madam.”
“Good morning,” she said. “I want some milk for my daughter’s baby, and a bottle, if you please.”
The chemist seemed most interested, very attentive. He sold her some fluid for sterilizing and carefully explained to her what Muriel would have to do. “I’m surprised the midwife didn’t sort you out,” he said, “and being your daughter’s first, frankly I’m a bit surprised that she’s not in hospital.”
“Oh, she likes to be at home,” Evelyn said. “She wanted it like that.”
“Well, they say it’s the modern trend among the young mothers,” the man said, “and there’s a lot to be said for a home confinement. They go in for it in Holland, you know, and they’ve a lower mortality rate than here. Anyway, you’ll have the Health Visitor along, won’t you? Any problems, she’s your girl.”
Then the telephone rang in a back room, and the chemist had to go. Nodding to Carol, she pushed her purse into her bag and went out. She felt dazed as the shop door closed behind her. She could have stood there for ever, she thought, talking to that considerate man. She hadn’t told him that the baby had only been born yesterday, much less mentioned its odd behaviour. Perhaps he could have given her some good advice. She hesitated, wondering whether to turn back. But better say nothing perhaps. We’ve got this far, managed for ourselves. Her own convictions had carried her forward, her convictions about what was best for Muriel in the long run; and it was she, Muriel’s mother, and not the Welfare workers, who ought to know about that. She did not wish to admit to herself that now that the child was born she was confused, beginning to be frightened; menaces from the tenants she had expected, but she had not reckoned on a deep shrinking antipathy to what Muriel produced, the feeling that even their precarious foothold in the house was crumbling further; and that feeling dated, she knew, from her first good look at the baby’s face. She began to walk towards the bus stop, as slowly as she could, looking at the people she passed.
There was pleasure in being amongst them, a safety in being on the street. It was a feeling she remembered from before, from the day she got the library books, and stood among the shoppers hurrying to the sales. In the foggy air, in the pavements under their busy feet, she saw for a moment a prospect of release.
She thought she might begin to cry. Tears seemed to choke her, and she put up a hand to unfasten the top button of her coat. She turned back and retraced her steps to the chemist’s shop, and stared in at the window. She stared at bottles of nail varnish in glittering racks, at hot water bottles, shelves of toothpaste. I would like to possess all of those things, she thought, all of that shop, everything new and plastic and wipe-clean, and live under those hard strip-lights. I would not go home when it was time to close. Everyone who wishes could look in at my life; there would be no shadows, no dark corners, no locked rooms.
But now it is time to go home. The baby, which might have changed everything, has brought nothing but the stench of its own peculiarities; that misbegotten, that changeling, that demon-food. She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand, hoping that no one had noticed her crying.
When she got back the baby was still wailing. She had put it in a big cardboard box, lined with old blankets; it was cosy enough. She bent over it; Clifford stared back.
At ten to nine on Tuesday morning, Colin entered the staffroom, his heart thudding with apprehension. He had decided to say nothing, let Frank take the initiative. He had buttressed himself with no explanations for the assault, being unable to think of any; he would have to go on the offensive if he was tackled, claiming that he was owed an apology himself, and Sylvia too, for having her coat put in the dustbin. The bell was ringing for Assembly; there was Frank, folding up his Daily Telegraph.
“Hello, Colin,” he said mildly. He was paler than usual, badly shaven, altogether worn and frayed. Colin’s resolve broke immediately.