‘You’re all here,’ observed Laura, for it was she, recognisable to me only by the stubborn, little-girlish convexity of her forehead. ‘Have you all come up for lunch?’
There was something in the way she asked this question which made the matter of how to reply to it more complicated than it ought to have been.
‘Not really,’ said Adam. ‘We just dropped in.’
‘Because mummy’s running pretty low,’ Laura continued, heaving the baby around on her hip. ‘If you’re all going to stay someone should really go down to Doniford and pick up some things. We’ve been over at the stream,’ she added, with red in her face. ‘Toby’s been trying to spear a fish. Didn’t there used to be trout in there?’
‘They’ve netted it lower down,’ said Adam. ‘The people who bought the place at the bottom of the hill are starting a trout farm. Don’t you remember,’ he said to Brendon, ‘that was what dad went so crazy about last year.’
‘Spear it with what?’ asked Lisa. She wore an expression of distaste.
‘You just tie a penknife to the end of a stick,’ said Laura, as though Lisa was likely to try it.
‘He said he was going to put sh-sheep dip in the water,’ said Brendon. ‘But I don’t think he ever did.’
‘Do you want to run down or shall I?’ said Laura.
‘I was going to boil up these potatoes,’ said Vivian.
‘Laura,’ said Lisa, drawing confidentially to Laura’s side and speaking into her ear, ‘you might want to check on Rufus. He’s walking around with a crossbow. He says you gave it him.’
Laura looked straight ahead while Lisa addressed her ear, an expression of amusement on her face, as though she were hearing something entertaining on the telephone.
‘Is he being really awful?’ she said delightedly.
‘It’s just that he says you gave it him.’
‘He got it for his birthday,’ said Laura. ‘He’s quite a good shot, actually.’
‘The thing is,’ said Lisa discreetly, ‘the other children won’t go outside.’
‘They’ve just got to stand up to him!’ cried Laura. ‘Tell them to shout at him if he bothers them. Is he being really awful?’ she asked again. ‘Nobody at school invites him home any more, you know. They’ve been told not to invite him home. He’s quite upset about it.’
‘I think they’re a bit frightened to go out,’ said Lisa.
‘What are they frightened of? Polly’s out there, isn’t she?’
‘Polly’s got an axe,’ said Janie.
‘Look, shall I just leave the children here and run down to the shops?’ said Laura, looking around at us with purpose flaming in her pale blue eyes.
‘What do you mean?’ said Lisa.
‘She’s got an axe. I saw her.’
‘Shall I?’ said Laura. She inched towards the door. ‘Look, I’ll take the baby,’ she added, as though brokering her own escape.
‘There’s no need to go if you don’t want to,’ said Adam. ‘We don’t want much. Vivian’s going to boil the potatoes.’
‘If you let her go she won’t come back until tomorrow,’ Vivian interjected from beneath her brows. ‘I tell you, she won’t — she’ll phone from Doniford and say that something’s come up and could we keep the children overnight.’
‘That’s charming!’ shrieked Laura, laughing robustly and nevertheless keeping her hand on the door handle.
‘It’s true,’ said Vivian quaveringly. ‘You don’t realise you’ll have to do it all again,’ she said, to me. ‘It’s all right for the men — they just claim a sort of immunity, don’t they? They say they don’t know how to do it because they didn’t do it the first time and now it’s too late for them to learn, and that sort of thing, don’t they?’
‘Laura, Janie says Polly’s got hold of an axe,’ said Lisa.
‘I saw her,’ said Janie.
‘Well, you tell her it’s naughty,’ said Laura.
‘I don’t want to tell her,’ said Janie.
‘You’re not frightened of Polly too, are you?’ said Laura. ‘You’re frightened of everyone! Is she shy?’ she said to Lisa.
I heard footsteps in the hall and the kitchen door slowly opened with Laura’s hand still holding the handle. Caris put her bushy head into the room. Her manner was ostentatiously cautious. I was arrested by the distinctive expression on her face: she looked excited and slightly devious and somewhat ashamed. It was an expression I had seen before only on the face of my wife. Slowly she digested the fact of the crowded kitchen and as I watched I saw subjectivity break as though in rays or waves over her physiognomy. Her obscure knowledge of who she was rose into her face and shone glaringly through the strange derangement of her features. With her same great deliberateness of manner she stayed like that for several seconds, her body out of the room and her head in it, regarding us all with an expression of wonderment.
‘Not particularly,’ said Lisa, who had looked at Caris and looked away again.
I wondered if Caris had gone in some way mad, for she did remain in utter self-consciousness at the door, moving her eyes from one to another of us with a little smile. Her head, unbodied, began to look slightly eerie. I noticed that no one spoke to her. It struck me that this might be reinforcing her madness — that her expression could be that of someone whom numerous people are feigning an inability to see. I thought I understood, though, why no one did speak to her: it was her air of great import, which seemed to presage an announcement that never came.
‘Polly’s completely harmless,’ said Laura, who appeared not to have noticed that Caris’s face, with its mystical expression, was suspended a mere ten or twelve inches from her own. ‘You can’t be frightened of Polly!’
‘She’s got an axe,’ said Janie. ‘I saw her running after that boy with it.’
‘Oh, she’s only playing. She wouldn’t actually hurt him, you know. Oh look!’ Laura laughed, pointing at Janie. ‘She’s terrified, the poor little thing!’
Caris finally made her announcement.
‘Mum’s here,’ she said.
Vivian looked up.
‘Here?’ she said.
‘She brought me up in the car. She’s outside talking to Rufus. I thought I’d come and warn you.’
‘What’s she doing here?’ said Vivian.
From outside I could hear the sound of the dogs barking.
‘She’s just come up to say hello,’ said Caris. Her look was inscrutable.
‘Well, no one invited her,’ said Vivian. ‘It’s a bit much, just to turn up uninvited!’
‘Vivian,’ said Adam pacifically, ‘come on. Mum’s always up here with you and dad.’
‘If she wants to see him she knows where to find him,’ said Vivian. ‘She can’t just come turning up here uninvited!’
There was a commotion out in the hall and suddenly the door was thrown ajar against Laura and the dogs tumbled through, tearing around Caris’s legs and into the kitchen. They skidded over the flagstone floor and hurled themselves with a deafening volley of barks at Vivian’s chair. Vivian shrieked and got to her feet, knocking the chair to the floor. The dogs snapped their livid, fleshy muzzles at her over the upended legs and made contorted shapes around her with their scruffy bodies.