Inexplicably, Muriel leaned down and put a finger into the slime, as if she were testing bathwater. There was a kind of avidity in her face; no doubt she was straining her eyes. Evelyn gave her a clean handkerchief to dry her hand, then took it off her and put it in a damp ball in her pocket.
They waited on the bank for ten minutes. It was quite dark now. “It must be dead,” Evelyn said at last. “They won’t give you anything in exchange for a corpse. Well, I did the best I could for you, Muriel.” She folded the bedding and crammed it into her shopping basket, and took out a torch to light their way home. “Kick that box over by the wall,” she said, “we don’t want that.”
Muriel did as she was told, with an energetic boot from her sturdy leg. It will all be as before, Evelyn thought, as they trudged back across the field. As if Muriel had never been pregnant. Back to our old life. Oh, dear God. A sickly fear began to tickle and scrape in the pit of her stomach, then rose and lodged itself behind her ribs. The old life. What have I done? Her heart felt like lead, but molten lead, heaving and pulsating inside its coffin of flesh.
On the doormat there was another card from the gasman. Muriel rushed into the hall as if she had no concept of what might be waiting for her. Perhaps the changeling, come home already. She showed no fear. Sometimes Evelyn wondered at her.
“We’ll have our tea early,” she said. “We’ll have corned beef. I want to put my feet up. That walk’s taken it out of me.”
There was something she had to do first. She collected together the baby’s towel, its blanket, its feeding bottle and the sterilizing solution, and put them in a paper bag. She took them out to the lean-to, and thrust them into a pile of Clifford’s newspapers. It gave her a sour satisfaction. Back from the dead, are you? Your own daughter, in your own house. Damn you, Clifford; your handiwork hasn’t lasted long.
As she came through to the kitchen, she heard the doorbell ring. It was probably the gasman again, she thought. They’d not let him in the last two times, and he was getting impatient. Well, it could do no harm now, there was nothing out of the way for him to notice. Calling to Muriel to stay in the back room, she went down the hall and opened the door. On the doorstep stood the girl from the Welfare.
Evelyn’s jaw sagged. With a bleat of protest she stepped back and made to slam the door. But the girl put up her arm and held it open, a stronger girl than she looked, planting a booted foot on the threshold. She smiled implacably.
“Hello, Mrs. Axon. May I come in?” She was coming in, even as she asked, pulling off her woollen gloves as if she meant business. “I’m sorry to call on you so late, but I did come by just after half-past three.”
“I was out.”
“Yes. I thought you must be,” she said easily. “How’s Muriel?”
Evelyn felt she might suffocate with rage. “Who notified you?” she said fiercely.
“Notified me?” The girl’s face was blank. “But it’s just a routine call, Mrs. Axon. You’re on our files.”
“But you’ve not been, have you? Not for months. What have you come for now?”
The girl hesitated for a second. “No, it’s been a while. I’ve been very busy, Mrs. Axon, and—let’s be honest now—you don’t always let me in when I do call, do you?”
“Why should I?”
“I do want to help you, you know,” the girl said gently. “You’re not getting any younger, Mrs. Axon, and I know there are some things that Muriel can’t do for herself. You’re always hostile, but nobody’s against you. Nobody means to upset you.”
“I don’t appreciate these visits. I never have done.”
“I know that, Mrs. Axon. But I need to see Muriel, so let’s get it over with, shall we? Can I put the light on?”
“It’s gone. The bulb’s gone.”
“Can’t Muriel change it for you? She’s a big girl. You ought to let her do things like that.”
“Would you like a cup of tea?” Evelyn asked abruptly.
The Welfare woman stopped short, struck by the change in her tone. “Why, that’s very kind of you, Mrs. Axon. Actually, no thank you, but I appreciate the offer. I really do.”
She looked very pleased. She thinks it’s going to be a new era in our relationship, Evelyn thought. “My daughter’s upstairs,” she said sweetly. “In my husband’s old room. Just one minute.” She opened the drawer of the hallstand, felt about, and pulled out a key on a piece of string.
“You haven’t locked her in, have you?” the woman asked in consternation.
“She’s been wandering, Miss Field. Wandering off. I don’t like to think she might get into trouble, and how else do you stop a grown woman going out?” Evelyn made her voice pathetic. “I’m getting on in years, Miss Field.”
“Yes, I know that.” The girl was striding upstairs ahead of her.
“She hides from me,” Evelyn said. “She’s always up to something.”
“I told you always to call me if you felt you couldn’t cope.” Her voice had an edge to it; Evelyn fumbled with the key. “I can’t live in your pocket, Mrs. Axon, and I can’t read your mind.”
The door was open now.
“Where is she?” the girl said. “I don’t see her.”
“Hiding again. Under the bed, very likely. In the wardrobe. Go and fetch her out. She won’t come for me.”
She stepped into the room, her heels clicking on the floorboards, and wrenched open the door of the huge wardrobe. An empty mothball dimness within, but a space big enough for two. As she bent down to peer under the high old-fashioned bed, her dark hair slid forward over her shoulder.
“There’s no one—”
Evelyn stepped out of the room, closed the door, and turned the key in the lock. Smiling to herself on the landing, she imagined that she had heard the girl’s neck click back as she glanced up in surprise. She waited for the inevitable. Yes, there she was, banging on the door. Predictable as Muriel, and not much cleverer.
“Mrs. Axon, let me out. For goodness sake, Mrs. Axon. What do you think you’re doing?”
The noise hadn’t attracted Muriel into the hall. Muriel had many faults, but curiosity wasn’t one of them.
Isabel fumbled for the lightswitch. At least there was a bulb in here, though it was dusty and dim, the strength you’d have in a table lamp; unshaded, it cast patchy shadows into the corners of the room. She looked around. Besides the wardrobe, there was a heavy chest of drawers, and the bedstead with its mattress inside a yellowing cover, and a solid bolster lying across it. The top of the chest of drawers was thick with dust, and there were drifts of it under the bed and on the windowsill.
She raised her fist and banged on the door twice, as loud and hard as she could. I might as well save my strength, she thought. By now she had realised that the room was very cold, colder even than the rest of the house. Even in her jacket and scarf she felt it, not icy, but a clammy chill like wet earth. Let me think, she said to herself, let me think.
She thought she caught a movement from the corner of the room. She swung round. Nothing there. Crossing to the window, she looked out. Worse luck, the room looked over the gardens. The light must be on in Evelyn’s back room, and so perhaps were the lights in the house next door; a dim glow allowed her to see a little. Could that be Colin’s sister’s house? Not that it would be any help, if it were. Colin’s sister was unlikely to make a habit of gardening in the wet February darkness. It had turned half-past five. Not even hope of a delivery man calling at this time. Besides, could she be seen from the garden next door? Why did I come, she asked herself angrily. That stupid, malign old woman. The daughter will have to go away, and I’ll have to make out a very good case to explain why I didn’t see the situation deteriorating. She knew why she had come, of course; guilt had brought her back. Guilt, and duty, and an inability to go on living with a set of stupid and groundless fears. Whatever Muriel’s problems were, a secret sex life wasn’t one of them.