When Barbara caught up with her, heart stumbling and mouth agonizingly dry, she found that the woman was gazing at the photograph of Angela that stood on the mantelpiece. "Oh, my dear, what a beautiful child. Calm yourself now, if you can. I'm here to find her for you:"
All at once Barbara was suspicious. "What exactly is your friend supposed to do?"
"She practices psychometry," Miss Clarke said as though the word were long enough to silence all objections.
"You mean," Barbara said, close to fury, "she claims she can locate people by handling something of theirs."
"It's more than a claim, Mrs. Waugh. I've seen her do things I can't explain, and you wouldn't call me easily fooled, would you? You must give Angela this chance."
The psychometer had pressed the photograph against her forehead; the glass was smeared with makeup. "Is there an article of clothing which your little girl particularly likes to wear?"
"Yes," Barbara admitted wearily, "there are one or two things."
"Bring me her favorite, quickly." The psychometer, or the actress--Barbara was by no means convinced there was a difference--sat down at Barbara's worktable, fists pressed against her temples. "And an atlas of the world," she murmured.
"I haven't one."
The woman seemed to emerge from a light trance. "Well, I'm sure she must still be in this country. An atlas of Britain will do." ------------------------------------com53
Keith had Barbara's road atlas, and he wouldn't be home for hours. "I haven't one of those, either."
"But Miss Clarke said you were a publisher. Otherwise I would have brought an atlas with me." She seemed to be saying that she couldn't do her job if other people didn't do theirs. "Never mind," she said magnanimously, "we shall see how much the article of clothing tells us."
On the stairs Barbara grew short of breath. It wasn't only the smouldering October day; she felt clammily resentful, for could this really be anything but a farce? She faltered in Angela's room, which she had tidied for distraction, shutting everything away, in the first week she had been left alone. She wished now she had left it as it was, waiting for Angela to come home--and then she realized that the psychometer kept speaking of Angela in the present tense, whereas she was sure that Jan and the rest of them thought of her in the past. She found Angela's favorite dungarees and took them downstairs.
The woman seemed not to have stirred. She was gazing at the photograph before her on the table as though she needed to fix every detail in her mind, though the photograph was out of date: Angela's blonde hair was no longer curly but poured straight down over her shoulders, her eyes were an even more piercing blue; the picture couldn't show how long her legs were, how graceful she already was. But the woman was too intent on it even to look away when Barbara handed her the dungarees. "Yes," she said at once, "these are what I need."
Miss Clarke motioned Barbara to sit and be quiet. As soon as she took her place at the table she wished she had switched on the lamps; clouds were looming over the hills, seeping across the dark clogged sky; the hot dim breathless room reeked of perfume. Perhaps the psychometer would have been distracted by the lamps, for now she had closed her eyes and was holding Angela's dungarees close to her, ------------------------------------com54
the cuffs of the trousers standing on her lap. In the dimness, and with her lack of sleep, Barbara thought momentarily that the woman was holding a child.
"Such a beautiful child," the psychometer said. "And she is more beautiful within." No doubt, Barbara thought, that would win over a mother less gullible than herself. Could there be any point. to all this except vague reassurances? She kept jerking herself back from belief as though it were sleep.
"Her hair is longer now," the psychometer said. "Yes, I can see her, a tall child with long blonde hair." She could have guessed that from the photograph, or Miss Clarke could have told her. Her vision of Angela seemed suspiciously rapid--or was Barbara afraid to hope too soon? "There is something on her shoulder," the psychometer said.
Barbara grew rigid, in danger of trembling. "What is it?" she demanded.
"I can almost make it out. A badge--yes, a kind of badge. Does she wear a badge on her shoulder?" Before Barbara could decide how to reply the woman said, "Wait, I see it plainly now. It's a wound, a wound on her right shoulder."
"No," Barbara said dully. "There's nothing on her right shoulder."
"Not when you last saw her." She waved away the discrepancy amid a chattering of bracelets. "But we mustn't concern ourselves only with her body, my dear. The important thing is her soul."
If that was the kind of thing she had to offer, as far as Barbara was concerned it was worse than useless. The perfume seemed oppressive as incense; Angela's dungarees were drooping, broken-legged, empty. But the psychometer sat forward, clutching them. "Oh, my dear, I wish you could see her soul." ------------------------------------com55
Was she claiming that she could? Apparently, because she said, "She has so much to give. Already she has great spiritual power. As she grows she will learn how to use it."
Barbara was about to say that was enough--she had enough nightmares while she was awake about what might be happening to Angela, she didn't need this freak to make things worse--when the psychometer said, "Has she ever spoken of visions?"
Angela was just a child, a child in danger; how was all this helping her? But it was the first thing the woman had said that seemed more than a lucky guess. "Some of the things she says are very strange," Barbara admitted warily.
"She is not strange but wonderful." It sounded like a rebuke. "Yet I warn you, not everyone will see her that way. We will find her, you mustn't worry about that, my dear. But I warn you now," she said, her eyes opening wide to stare at Barbara, "that she is in dreadful danger from the people who have stolen her. She must be found before they destroy what she is."
"Be brave," Miss Clarke said. "She'll find Angela, I know she will. All she needs is a map."
"All right," Barbara said abruptly, "I'll get one." She couldn't bear to sit there any longer, suffocated by the dimness, her inaction, the sickening perfume. Perhaps Keith had left the atlas at home today; if not, she would ask among their neighbors until she found one. At least then she would know if the psychometer had anything other than nonsense to offer.
As soon as she opened the front door she halted, for a large man was trudging from the traffic circle, toward the houses. The dimness had smeared everything together, so that she couldn't be sure for a while that it was the police sergeant. For a moment she thought dreamily that he could provide a map. ------------------------------------com56
When he stepped onto her path she seemed to wake: her head was throbbing like a rotten tooth, her nerves were crawling. He closed her gate so carefully before he came to her that she knew he was reluctant to approach.
"Please come inside, Mrs. Waugh. I'm afraid I have to ask you a question."
If he had to ask, he couldn't be sure of whatever it was--yet she was afraid to insist on being told at once. Though her legs were shaky she hurried him into the living room. He switched on the lamps, and the psychometer stared vacantly, blinking like a bat. "What are you doing?" Miss Clarke demanded, then saw who he was.
He made Barbara sit down, and squatted beside her. "Mrs. Waugh, you said Angela was wearing a blue and white striped dress with a belt. Was there anything about it you forgot to tell us?"
She couldn't stand this game. "Such as what?"
"Was there anything about the belt you forgot to mention?"
The throbbing in her head was sharper now; she didn't want to speak. "She'd lost the belt from that dress, and I borrowed the belt from one of her other dresses. You could hardly tell," she pleaded. "It was a shade paler, that's all."
His face had fallen. "I'm deeply sorry, Mrs. Waugh, but it looks as if they've found her."
There was something she must remember, something that would nullify the horror he was threatening-- "It doesn't matter about the dress," she s
aid, close to hysteria. "If they didn't notice the birthmark on her shoulder then it can't be Angela."
"A birthmark," the psychometer cried. "Of course, that's what I saw."
He frowned at that, but gazed sadly at Barbara. "I'm ------------------------------------com57
afraid they couldn't identify her like that, Mrs. Waugh. Someone had used a shotgun at close range."
There was nothing but emptiness, inside Barbara and outside her. Somewhere the psychometer was saying, "When was the child killed?"
"It must have been early this morning."
The woman rushed to Barbara, tried to clasp her hands. "Mrs. Waugh, you must listen to me. That isn't Angela. She was still alive when I touched her clothes. She's alive at this moment and in danger."
Barbara jerked to her feet, knocking the woman backward. She tore the dungarees from her and hugged them to herself, only to feel how empty they were. "And I suppose," she said in a voice so full of hatred and betrayal and grief that it was scarcely recognizable as hers, "that they shot some other little girl to make me think it was Angela."
The sergeant intervened. "I think you'd better leave, Miss Clarke, and take your spiritualist friend with you." It no longer mattered to Barbara; her outburst seemed to have drained the last of her strength, and she could only slump in a chair. He came back soon and talked to her, and after a while Jan and Keith joined him, but she couldn't take in what they were saying or doing. She was aware of nothing but the emptiness of the house.
That was all there was for a very long time. People kept appearing--a doctor examined her, Jan stayed with her as much as she could when Barbara refused to leave the house--but she hardly noticed when they came or when they went away. Sometimes she found that she was facing plates of food which someone had begun to eat a long time ago. She tried to stay downstairs, for the cry of the first three stairs made her wince, but kept falling asleep here and there in the house and forgetting. She seemed not to know who she was or what she had been--at least, whenever she thought of her London job she grew sick with ------------------------------------com58
guilt. There were memories of Angela, but she felt she was no longer entitled to them.
After several nights and days had crawled over the hills and through the house, there was a funeral. She seemed unable to grasp that the small closed coffin had anything to do with her. As it was swallowed by the crematorium she imagined the flames of it, streaming away. When she began to shudder Jan moved closer to her, hoping no doubt to comfort her, to pay off a little of her guilt that way. But Barbara had gone even deeper into the emptiness of herself, a dried-up place where there were no tears.
It was later--days later, perhaps--and Jan was saying, "By God, I hope they catch the swine. I know what I'd do to him." All at once Barbara found her unbearable, for how could that bring back Angela? At last, just as Barbara was about to scream, Jan accepted that she wanted to be left alone. Once she was alone she could admit to herself what she wanted to do.
She plugged in the intercom lead to Angela's room and waited, hoping, praying incoherently. Static hissed at her, distant metallic voices floated by. The house grew dark, the silence intensified, and at last she realized that she was sitting like a catatonic in the emptiness, hoping blindly for the ghost of her murdered child. That could only lead her deeper into despair. All at once she was disgusted enough with herself to be able to drag herself back.
Early the next day she piled every one of Angela's toys and books and clothes into the car and drove away from Otford. Though she had no idea where she was going, she was soon in Maidstone, where the smell of malt trapped beneath the dull November clouds seemed almost suffocating. When she found a rummage sale in a church hall she left everything of Angela's at the first table, then she fled. Out in the country, among the dark drenched hills, ------------------------------------com59
she left the car in a rainstorm and walked in a circle for miles, sobbing and remembering.
She spent days hating herself for needing to go back to work; that need had killed Angela. But if she didn't go back to her job she could only return to the emptiness of herself. Once she was back at her London desk she gave herself so much work that for a while it seemed she would have time to think of nothing else, except that everything nagged at her memories--the things people avoided saying, the way her colleagues and Jan were especially considerate while trying to pretend they were not, the babies and children in half the books she had to read. Those weren't the only reasons why she'd taken the risk at last, had used Arthur's legacy and the cash from the sale of the house to move to London and set up her agency, but the move had helped her to heal, to accept that Angela was gone for ever--except that now, nine years later, a voice on the phone was calling her Mummy. ------------------------------------com60 ------------------------------------com61
61
Seven
Under the stone dome the night sky was trapped, and light was growing among the stars. At first it was clouds that looked crystalline, intricately patterned clouds of green and blue and crimson that drifted over one another, unfurling. Then there came an enormous scribbling of geometrical shapes, neon mathematics in the sky. Tangles of colors sailed across the stars as though giant kittens were at play, loops of light came swelling down to lasso the audience, geometrical flowers blossomed and closed and blossomed again. There were shapes too rapid to describe, so rapid that Judy forgot she was all of nine years old and squealed with delight.
"That was lovely," she said when the house lights came up. "Thank you, Daddy." She went skipping out of the planetarium and onto Baker Street while Ted's eyes were still adjusting: he felt as though the patterns of the ------------------------------------com62
carpet were about to shift. When he caught up with her, on the fringe of a group of stoned young people, she said, "Mummy took me to the museum last week, but I didn't like it nearly as much."
In the underground the route map looked like the patterns of the laser show. "I shouldn't put it to her quite like that," he said.
"Of course I won't." The shrewdness of her grin startled him. Glimpses of her growing up often took him by surprise. Of course she was a week older each time he saw her.
On the escalator she clattered down, then tried to outrun the steps back to him. Waiting for the train, she held his hand, and seemed at once as ladylike as her ankle-length dress. Did she know how proud he was to be with her? He thought so. As they boarded the train he said, "Has Uncle Steve taken you both out again?"
"He said he was going to take us on holiday, but he went to South Africa instead. I don't think Mummy liked him very much."
"That's a pity." Judy had quite liked him and, from what she'd said, Steve had grown fond of her. Steve had been an accountant, but it seemed he was less dependable than his job. No doubt Helen would distrust men even more now.
They climbed into the daylight at Highbury and Islington. On Upper Street the shops were crammed haphazardly together like boxes left on a shelf to bleach with dust and sun. Flats huddled above the shops, National Front stickers lurked among the badges of credit cards on a restaurant window, a dressing table leaned outside a discount furniture store, one unhinged wing of the grubby mirror flat on its back. "Do you like living round here?" he said casually.
"Yes, it's quite good, really. But I liked it best in our old flat." ------------------------------------com63
He'd thought she would have been too young to remember. He'd hoped so, for he would have expected her memories to be unpleasant: the smallness of the flat, intolerable once there was a baby; the arguments that must have resounded through her bedroom wall, as he and Helen retreated into themselves, found fault with everything the other did. He only hoped she didn't realize that she had been the cause of the arguments.
Workmen were disemboweling white Georgian houses to make room for apartments. Helen lived at the end of the side street, beyond a low archway which might have led to stables but which gave onto a small as
sortment of flats. She came to the door before Judy could ring, her hands pink as a dummy's with rubber gloves. "I hope you had a good time," she said.
"It was beautiful, Mummy, better than Close Encounters. And it was ever so funny, the man said that if anyone had brought anything to smoke they had to do it outside. We all laughed, because we knew he didn't mean tobacco."
When she'd run to her room Helen said, "I don't think it's at all a good idea to let Judith hear that sort of thing."
"Good Lord, I only took her to a laser show. Hardly a legalization rally." He didn't want to argue, for she looked tired and haggard; the band in her hair seemed to draw her face tight, wrinkles tugging at the corners of her eyes. "She's just trying to seem grown-up," he said.
"Oh, is that what you think?" She clearly felt he had no right to an opinion. Abruptly, with a change of mood that he was meant to notice, she offered him a drink. "Happy birthday," she said.
"Here's to finishing my private-eye book this year. Here's to promises kept eventually."
Her smile was so thin it was more a rebuke. However friendly he tried to be, all his visits felt like the aftermath ------------------------------------com64
of a row. "How are things with you?" he said, and hoped that was neutral enough.
"Judith's happy. That's the main thing."
"But it's not the only thing. What about you? Can I help?"
She stared through him. "I can't imagine how."
"Well, for example," he said, thinking that she looked overworked yet couldn't be earning much at the bookshop, "would you like me to pay you more now that Judy's growing up?"
"Whatever it may look like to you, I'm managing perfectly well. If I need more I'll apply to the court. Does Judith look badly dressed? Does she look as if she doesn't get enough to eat?"
He could feel the old hatreds rising sourly in his throat. Once she had been so much more intelligent, but motherhood had locked her into itself until she seemed able to think of nothing else. Now she refused to let him reach her at all: she behaved as if the alimony were a punishment he should be ashamed to mention, she called Judy by her full name as though to rebuke him for being too familiar. But here was Judy to save the situation. "You haven't given him his presents yet, have you?" she said anxiously.
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