The Hours Before Dawn

by Celia Fremlin

  It was some minutes now since Louise had heard Michael’s first tentative squawks from upstairs. It wasn’t really time for his ten o’clock feed yet, but she might as well fetch him before he worked himself into a rage over it. It was a wonder, really, that he hadn’t done so already. Having once woken up he didn’t usually stay quiet so long.

  ‘It’s time for Michael’s ten o’clock feed,’ she announced firmly, standing up; hoping as she did so that this would call the attention of her guests to the lateness of the hour.

  But the results were disappointing. Her mother-in-law was the only one who leaped to her feet in proper dismay.

  ‘Gracious heavens! I’d no idea! Hugh will be furious! Poor darling, I promised I’d be there early and give him moral support – he’s an absolute baby when it comes to entertaining.’

  A moment later she was gone, in a whirl of apologies for her short visit – though Louise suspected that her sudden departure was due less to concern for the incapable Hugh than to the imminent prospect of encountering one of her grandchildren while in her best clothes.

  But the two remaining guests seemed to suffer from no such qualms. They sat on, evidently expecting Louise to bring the baby down and go on with the conversation while she fed him. Louise made one more half-hearted attempt:

  ‘Isn’t it time for Christine’s feed, too?’ she asked hopefully. ‘Oughtn’t you to be getting her home?’

  ‘Oh no!’ Mrs Hooper was shocked. ‘I believe in Demand Feeding. That’s the natural way – feed a baby when it’s hungry, not to a timetable.’

  ‘Of course,’ agreed Magda. ‘I think any other method must be terribly frustrating to a child, it could affect him for the rest of his life. When Peter was small, I made everything give way to his demands. If I was in the middle of cooking the supper I’d leave it to burn rather than risk frustrating him.’

  Louise could not help feeling that this method of housekeeping might have contributed something to the lack of inner security suffered by the departed second husband; but before she had time to say anything there was a yell, sudden and terrifying, from upstairs. Not an ordinary yell of hunger; of boredom; of loneliness. Fear was it then? Or pain? Or sudden rage? Louise raced upstairs; and as she ran she was aware of the pattering of bare feet on the landing above.

  ‘Margery!’ she called; ‘Harriet – whoever it is – get into bed! Whatever are you doing?’

  There was no answer. But she had no time to spare for whichever tiresome little daughter it might be; she hurried past their room and into Michael’s. He was still screaming, with the quick, breathless screams of real distress; his face was scarlet and beaded with sweat; and his arms and legs were flailing wildly. Louise snatched him up and tried to soothe him, and at the same time to find out what had happened. A pin? No, they were both secure. A sharp-cornered toy? Something left accidentally in the cot? But there was nothing; and as Michael’s screams were now subsiding, Louise began to think about the footsteps she had heard. One of the girls must have been in and upset him somehow. She dismissed at once the possibility that either of them had hurt him on purpose. In spite of all the warnings one received nowadays about jealousy of a new baby, they had both seemed entirely delighted with him right from the start, and they handled him with an instinctive gentleness that seemed proof against any amount of provocation. But all the same, Margery was often clumsy; Harriet often heedless; there could easily have been some accident – a toy dropped on him – his finger pinched in the fittings of the cot – anything. It was Harriet, probably, scuttling away like that. If Margery had had any kind of mishap she would still have been standing there, tearful and inept, waiting for someone to come and scold her and put matters right. Settling Michael, now pacified, into the crook of her arm, Louise tiptoed into the girls’ bedroom.

  ‘Harriet – Margery!’ she called softly. ‘Which of you has been playing out of bed?’

  There was no answer. Both little girls were breathing deeply, regularly. She switched on the light, and peered in turn into each of the apparently sleeping faces.

  No, there was no shamming about it – nothing easier to recognise than a child pretending to be asleep. Odd that whichever child it was should have fallen asleep so quickly after her mischievous adventure. Louise wondered uneasily if either of them was developing the habit of sleep-walking? Wasn’t it said to be fairly common in children of – well – some age or other? On her way downstairs, she thought of asking if Tony had ever done anything of the sort, but quickly dismissed the idea. With Magda there as well, she would certainly be told that sleep-walking was a symptom of repression, frustration, and, above all, of regular feeding in babyhood. Particularly since she had already told them that this was Michael’s ten o’clock feed, and the clock was tactlessly striking ten at this very moment.

  She was surprised when she returned to the sitting-room to find that the blue suitcase was gone. Apparently Miss Brandon had come in to collect it while Louise was upstairs, and must have gone on up to her room without Louise hearing her.

  ‘And do you know – such a funny thing,’ added Mrs Hooper, ‘I know her. That is, she didn’t seem to recognise me, but I remember her very well – she came to our Sex and Society Group two or three times last winter. Such a pity – I thought she was going to become a regular member, but she quite suddenly dropped out. I don’t know why.’

  ‘Too repressed and frustrated,’ chipped in Magda, eager as a child who has come to the bit of the lesson that it knows. ‘That sort never go on coming long. They can’t take it. Didn’t you notice she went out early every time, as soon as the discussion began to get really intimate? And your Tony says—’

  ‘Talking of Tony,’ Louise interrupted, with sudden hope, ‘won’t he be wondering what’s happened to you? Surely you should go back?’

  But this only evoked a fresh assurance that it was perfectly all right; that Tony was with a neighbour, and didn’t mind a bit how long he stayed there; he never worried a bit, even when left so late that the neighbour had to make up a bed for him on the sofa.

  By this time Christine was complaining, in her thin, peevish fashion, and her pram in the corner of the room was jerking irritably. But it appeared that the Natural Method of feeding allowed a margin of time sufficient for her mother to hear an account of three further neurotic characters who didn’t understand Magda; and it was nearly eleven before Mrs Hooper finally bumped her pram away into the darkness, while Magda set off at a loping stride in the opposite direction, to who knew what haunt of further misunderstanding.

  Louise had to lock up herself that night, for Mark had gone to bed without a word – in a fit of sulks, no doubt, about the unwelcome visitors. Louise, indeed, felt very much like having a fit of sulks herself, if only it would have done any good. All that ironing would have to wait till tomorrow now; tonight, she could hardly stand up for sleepiness. But what could you do with people who wouldn’t take a hint? Even if you told Mrs Hooper point blank that you wanted her to go because you were tired, she would only beam at you and explain that it had been proved that tiredness was all psychological; and Magda would back her up, and tell you it was because you lacked inner security…. Louise bolted the back door with a violence which nearly took the skin off her knuckles; and quite suddenly, as she stood there nursing them, her tiredness seemed to push her over some invisible frontier, and everything took on the quality of a dream. And in that dream it seemed very, very important that the house should be locked up thoroughly tonight. Half sleeping, half waking, she stumbled from room to room, fastening windows, trying latches. Downstairs, upstairs – even to the top floor of all, where there were only Miss Brandon’s room and the lumber room. There was no bulb in the lumber room, but there was plenty of light from the landing to show her the way past Mark’s fishing tackle, past the broken scooter, past the roll of underfelt. Plenty of light to cast wild, huge shadows on the white walls. Among the shadows her own head swayed and dipped, oval and distorted where the ceiling sloped ne
arly to the floor. For a moment the shadow seemed to quiver … to divide into two heads, vast and impossible; and then it was one again, swooping insanely across the ceiling, and vanishing as Louise stepped into the darkness at the far end of the room. Clumsily she made her way among the old chairs and lino; senselessly she latched the window which could scarcely have admitted a skilful cat; and then she hastened, trembling, down the stairs to the bedroom.

  The dreamlike feeling was gone now, and she was awake; but Oh! so wearily awake! She was so tired that her whole body seemed to be swaying, rocking, and when she lay down it was as if she was being sucked into heaving, bottomless water. ‘All conquering sleep.’ The phrase drifted into her mind – was it some quotation from the classics? And had the author of it been inspired by a weariness as deep as hers? Across the span of the centuries Louise reached out for the solace of a fellow-sufferer. But uselessly; for that long-ago poet had managed to put his torturing sleepiness into immortal verse; not, like Louise, into muddling the laundry list and snapping at the children.

  CHAPTER SIX

  What’s more, that poet was wrong. This was Louise’s first dazed thought as the relentless, intermittent crying from Michael’s room forced her to battle her way back to consciousness a couple of hours later. For weeks now she had fought this nightly battle, and each night it grew a little harder. Each night, too, she would pause for a little in the midst of the struggle, allowing herself to think: Perhaps he’ll stop: perhaps if I lie here and do nothing about it, he’ll get tired and drop off again. He wouldn’t: she knew with absolute certainty that he wouldn’t, and yet the thought still gave her a sort of respite; gave her time to collect the strength needed to open her eyes and to move her limbs again.

  Two o’clock. It was always two o’clock. There was no need, really, to peer into the little phosphorescent dial; no use, either, to cherish that flickering hope that possibly, this time, it would be three, giving a hope that his habits might be slowly changing.

  The cries, which had been irregular, were continuous now, and growing louder. She must go to him, at once. If she delayed any longer Mark would wake up too, exhausted past endurance, and she would have a row on her hands as well as the crying baby.

  The linoleum was icy on her bare feet as she felt about in the darkness for her slippers; her heavy dressing-gown gave, as always, its odd assurance of support, as if its enveloping warmth was a sort of relic of the blessed sleep which was gone. Clutching round her its delusive comfort, Louise padded through into the next room, and set herself to the nightly routine as one might set a machine in motion.

  The routine had changed since Miss Brandon’s arrival. As Mark had pointed out, one couldn’t expect a stranger to put up with this nightly disturbance; and after that first night of hearing doors reproachfully opening and closing, Louise had evolved a new method. Instead of feeding Michael in his own room, and then rocking him, patting him, senselessly pleading with him, and at intervals trying to settle him back in his cot, she now took him straight down to the kitchen and sat with him there. Sounds seemed to carry upstairs less from here than from the sitting-room, and if his screams became really impossible, she could always carry him through into the scullery, thus putting two doors between him and the rest of the household. There she could sit, her feet propped on the mangle, her head drooping against the draining-board, and jig her baby up and down – up and down; while behind her the taps dripped in the darkness. There she would stay; and presently she would be neither sleeping nor waking; neither thinking nor at peace; scarcely aware of the cold striking up from the stone floor. And her head would sink further and further over the throbbing little body … the screams would become part of an uneasy dream…. People, crowds of people, shouting, calling, demanding … rushing for a train in a station full of screams and whistles and roars…. And then, quite suddenly, she would start awake, cold and deadly stiff, to find the baby relaxed and quiet in her lap, and the dawn breaking in the queer shapes and shadows of a downstairs room at this uninhabited hour.

  Tonight Louise took Michael straight to the scullery. The comfort of the warm kitchen was out of the question with him screaming as loud as this. This time, even feeding him did not bring the usual temporary peace. He seemed restless, aggressive, pulling away from her breast, and would not settle to sucking steadily. Of course, it probably wasn’t a feed that he needed at all – everybody said he was far too old to be needing a night feed. Except, of course, the people who said he was far too young to be denied one. Oh, there was so much advice to be had; and it was all so kind, and sound, and sensible. All the problems of child management seem to be solved, mused Louise, except the one problem which confronts me. Is that why I always feel so guilty when I’m talking to Nurse Fordham? She knows the answers to so many questions – it seems dreadful to bring just the question that doesn’t fit any of her answers. As if I’d done it deliberately. Like going into a smart dress shop when you weigh about fifteen stone. Of course they can’t fit you – and it’s your fault, not theirs…. ‘No, Moddom, nothing like that at all, I’m afraid.’ … It was Nurse Fordham’s voice that rang so genteel and scornful in Louise’s ears … Nurse Fordham who was advancing across the deep pile carpet, a slinky model gown draped over her arm….

  Louise started awake, and clutched Michael more tightly. Somehow, one never actually did drop a baby, however much one drowsed and dreamed, but all the same there must be a risk. And this hard stone floor, too. She should have brought down a blanket to spread at her feet, just in case. Or an eiderdown. Yes, an eiderdown would be better. Only the floor was so dirty; you couldn’t put an eiderdown on a floor like that. Thursday was supposed to be her scrubbing day; had she missed scrubbing it last Thursday? No, of course she hadn’t, she remembered it very clearly, particularly the slimy scantiness of that old worn cloth. She would need a new cloth. Oh, most certainly she would….

  Louise found that she could think about the new floor cloth better with her eyes shut…. She could think really hard…. But wait: this was a new cloth, wasn’t it? New and white – but why so big? And so stiff? What is it that is stiff and white? A shroud? No, of course it couldn’t be a shroud; no one would use a shroud for scrubbing floors. It must be a sail. A canvas sail for a ship….

  Oh, but it was so heavy to work with! It needed all her strength to pull it out of the pail, heavy and dripping. Her arms ached. She had been scrubbing for hours, surely, and still the unwashed floor stretched ahead … yards of it … acres of it … all thick with grease and old sodden rubbish.

  She must clear it all, though. They would make her. They were watching her even now, their eyes fastened on her, murderous, and without pity. Such eyes! All the hatred of the whole earth must be mirrored in those eyes … those bared teeth coming closer, closer … she could feel the hot breath on her face, and it smelt of hatred….

  Panting, gulping with fear, Louise awoke. For a second she thought the baby had slipped off her lap while she slept. But no; if anything, he seemed even more securely pressed against her than before. She clung to him in relief, sat up straighter; but even now that she was fully awake shreds of the nightmare still clung about her. The smell of hatred still seemed to hang like steam in the chill of the scullery; she seemed still to feel the damp threat of it on her cheek.

  But at least Michael was quiet now. She staggered to her feet and cautiously, painfully, she carried him upstairs again, the giddiness of sleep compelling her to feel with her toes for every step.

  But it was no use. The moment she bent towards the cot, Michael began to yell again. If she had been alone in the house it would have been worth putting him firmly in the cot and leaving him to it; something in the quality of the yells now told her that they would exhaust themselves in ten minutes or so. But ten minutes would be quite enough to rouse the household; there was nothing for it but to set off down the stairs once more.

  She reached her uninviting destination, and sat down again on the chair by the sink. As she settled he
r feet against the mangle and leaned her head against the draining-board in the now familiar position, she felt for a moment that she was settling right back into the nightmare; as if it was waiting there, to go on for her exactly where it had left off.

  But Louise knew the cure for this. She had only to shift her position a little, and the nightmare would shift too. As if it could only catch the people who were in one particular attitude; and now it must depart frustrated, and hover over the towns and cities of the world – waiting – watching – peering – until at last it found another woman with her feet propped against another mangle, her head resting on another draining-board. And perhaps that woman, too, would not have washed up the supper last night; she too would have the smell of stale tea-leaves in her nostrils, would see the stacks of dirty saucepans looming at her in the darkness, huge, like towers, like lumpish, shapeless bodies, with little gleaming eyes where the street lamp caught the curve of the enamel. Brown eyes of course, the saucepans were brown; it was only common-sense that their eyes would be brown, too. Green saucepans would have had green eyes. Brown eyes, so brilliant and so hard. Enamel eyes, with all the hatred of all the earth mirrored in them….

  But this time, as the face approached, Louise knew it was only a dream. She tried to cry out, to wake herself. She even knew that Michael was in her arms, and she clutched him more tightly to protect him from the nightmare. Closer came the face, and closer; and Louise saw now that the malignant eyes were filled with tears; the face was stupid with grief, sobbing, crying; and the tears poured down in great swollen streams. Suddenly the twisted mouth opened. ‘Don’t make me laugh!’ it shrieked; and again, in rising agony, ‘Don’t make me laugh!’ And a moment later it was laughing, showing great teeth, pointed as nails – teeth set wide apart, like bars…. And louder came the senseless laughter – louder – louder – until it seemed to fill the room….