“Toby, what are you doing in here?” Jen demands, as she lifts the kicking, screaming infant out of her cot. The air is redolent with an unhappy marriage of diarrhoea and talcum powder. “Didn’t you hear Mummy calling?”
She lays Emmie down on her changing mat. Judging by the spreading yellow stain at the thigh of her babygrow, it’s another squitty one.
“Mrs Mulligan doesn’t like Emmie screaming,” he says with candid honesty.
“But she’s a baby,” Jen says, wearily, “and that’s just what babies do. And this one more than most,” she adds under her breath.
“Mrs Mulligan says that children should be seen and not heard,” the toddler says. “Mrs Mulligan says we’d all be better off if the little blighter had never been born.”
She turns on him at that. “Toby! That’s a horrible thing to say! I never want to hear you say such a horrible thing again!” With Emmie kicking her way out of the open nappy mid-change, Jen grabs Toby by the arms. “I never want to hear you talk about your little sister like that again!”
Toby cries out in pain and drops the doll. It lands on the carpet, its head turned towards Jen, its painted features set forever in the same disapproving black scowl.
Without thinking, she lashes out, kicking the doll out of the door and halfway across the landing.
Toby starts to cry.
“Go to your room!” she screams at him.
Toby does as he’s told, his little body shaking as it’s wracked by his sobs.
She turns back to the baby, fists clenched as she struggles to hold in her simmering rage.
There’s shit everywhere. Emmie’s legs are covered in it, as is the changing mat. Some has even made it onto the wall.
Jen gives in to her own scream of frustration, the baby’s yells rising in response in animal panic.
“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” she shrieks. And then she stops, exhaustion threatening to overcome her. Her heart’s racing. She looks at her hands. She’s shaking too.
She just stands there for a moment, letting out her breath in a weary sigh. She doesn’t know how long she stays like that, eyes closed, doing nothing, wishing the world away. But the world doesn’t go away.
Taking another deep breath, she opens her eyes and sets about clearing up the mess.
“I mean, where did he even hear language like that?” she says to Chris over dinner, as she twirls a piece of spaghetti onto her fork over and over and over.
“Not on CBeebies, I take it.”
“I wish you would take this seriously, Chris.”
“Why? You seem to be taking it seriously enough for both of us.”
Her silence is reaction enough.
“Look, you don’t know what he might overhear at Nursery. They’re caring people, sure, and I’ve got nothing against them, but they’re common as.”
“It didn’t sound like something they’d say.”
“Look, what is it you’re really worried about here?”
She hesitates before answering, still twisting the same piece of spaghetti around the tines of her fork.
“I guess I’m worried he might try to hurt her.”
“Emmie?”
“Of course, Emmie! Who else would I mean?”
“Alright,” he counters defensively. “But come on, be serious. Do you really think that’s likely to happen?”
She says nothing.
Chris looks at her, an expresson of burgeoning anxiety on his face. “Clearly you do.”
She meets his gaze at last, her tired eyes wide with fearful doubts of her own.
“Look, here’s what I think you should do. Call Doctor Pomeroy in the morning.”
“Great! So you think I’m going mad.”
“No! No, I don’t. Not at all. But what harm could it do just to have a chat about things?”
Jen turns her attention back to the congealing meal on her plate. “Everything was alright until she brought that bloody doll’s house round.”
“Now, come on, Jen. You got ill before and it didn’t have anything to do with a doll’s house.”
“I was right. You do think I’m going mad.”
She pushes her plate away from her with a clatter of cutlery.
“Look, let’s not do this again. Not tonight. I’ve had the day from Hell and –”
“And you think I haven’t?”
“I was just going to say we’re both tired, so let’s open a bottle of wine and relax. Watch some TV, nothing more heavy than that, and let’s see where the evening takes us. No pressure.”
“That’s your answer to everything, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“Alcohol!”
Chris slams his hands down on the breakfast bar and gets up from his seat. “I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.”
“Where are you going?” she asks, suddenly consumed by overwhelming dread.
He’s already in the hall putting on his shoes. “Out.”
“But we haven’t finished supper.”
“Oh, I rather think we have, don’t you?”
He picks up his keys from the shelf by the door and is gone, slamming the door behind him.
“I’m worried about you, Jennifer dear,” comes her mother’s voice down the phone line later that evening.
Jen takes a moment to wipe her nose on the balled-up tissue she’s been using to wipe away her tears, as she struggles to compose herself.
“Don’t be,” she manages between sniffs. “I’m alright. Really I am. It’s just that I’ve been so tired and then Chris storming out earlier… I just wanted somebody to talk to.”
“Are you sure, Jen? I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but this isn’t your old condition coming back, is it?”
“If we’re going to rake over the past, Mum, can we at least call it by its proper name? It’s not ‘my old condition’ or ‘the baby blues.’ It’s called postnatal depression. But I’m not depressed!”
“Couldn’t you just give that nice doctor of yours a call in the morning? You know, the one you saw last time. What was his name?”
“Doctor Pomeroy. And no, I’m not going to call him in the morning, because I am not suffering from postnatal depression.”
“Do you want me to come over, Jennifer? I’m supposed to be going over to Tommy and Sheila’s but it’s nothing I can’t cancel. I mean we’ve had it planned for weeks now, but if you want me to come over, I’ll give them a buzz and tell them I can’t make it.”
“No, Mum, it’s alright. I’m fine. Honestly, I’ll be okay.”
“Alright, then, if you’re sure. But just give Doctor Pomeroy a call for me, will you dear?”
“’Bye Mum.”
“’Bye, dear.”
She puts down the phone quickly before the tears start again.
It’s gone midnight before Chris comes home again. The time it takes him to open the door and the way he stumbles about downstairs, in a vain effort to be quiet, tells her he’s drunk. He’ll regret it in the morning.
She listens as he makes himself some toast and then hears the muffled tones of the television as he moves into the sitting room. He doesn’t come upstairs until gone one. She pretends to be asleep as he plants a beery kiss on her cheek, whispering, “I’m sorry,” before climbing into bed beside her.
He’s asleep within seconds, and she prays his drunken snores won’t wake the baby.
But sleep doesn’t come for her, even after the day she’s had. She lies there tossing and turning for what feels like an interminable age, and the longer it goes on, the more she worries that she’ll be up again at 03:33 anyway. It’s becoming a habit.
In the end she gives up and sits up. She looks at the alarm clock, already knowing what it’ll say.
03:33.
She gets up. There are baby grows and bibs and shirts and God knows what else to iron before the next round of washing begins.
Despite herself, she tries the surgery in the morning. After getting the same answerphone
message what feels like twenty times, she eventually gets through to the receptionist. Doctor Pomeroy is busy, but the girl on the end of the line says she’ll get him to give Jen a call after morning surgery.
She feels a little better after that, more clear-headed and more motivated. She puts that motivation to good use, having got Toby off to Nursery. She finishes the ironing, gives the kitchen and the bathroom and the downstairs loo a thorough clean as Emmie gurgles and chuckles contentedly in her baby-bouncer.
She tidies Toby’s toys, hoovers the house from top to bottom and even gives Chris’s football boots a clean, ready for the pub league game at the weekend. She even has time to make herself another cup of coffee before she has to pick Toby up. And it’s then, as she’s tidying away the last few toys while she waits for the kettle to boil, that her thoughts turn to the doll’s house again.
It’s got to go. She doesn’t care that Toby will miss it. It has to go and it has to go now.
There and then she decides to forego her cup of coffee, put the doll’s house in the boot of the car and make a diversion to drop it off at the nearest charity shop before collecting Toby from Nursery.
She’ll deal with Toby, Chris and her mother later, but at least she’ll be shot of the bloody thing.
It’s then that the phone rings. Its Doctor Pomeroy calling back.
By the time she gets off the phone again, she’s feeling better in herself but she’s late for Toby. The doll’s house will just have to wait until later. But she’s decided; it’s going, no matter what.
“It’s no good, Toby, it’s going. It doesn’t matter how much you scream and shout; I’m not having that thing in the house a moment longer. Why don’t you go and shoot some goals in the garden or play with some of your other toys?” she says, steeling herself as she makes for the toy table. “We could get your paints out if you like.”
Screaming like a banshee, Toby throws himself at her, grabbing her arm with his small hands. He digs in with his fingernails, making her gasp in surprise and pain.
“Toby!”
It’s then that he bites her.
It is the action of a moment, a consequence of instinct rather than rational thought. The punch sends him flying across the room to land in a heap on the floor.
He looks at her with hatred in his eyes, his bloody teeth bared in an animalistic snarl.
“You spiteful bitch!”
Jen stares at her son in horror, the moment of appalled guilt and self-recrimination swallowed up by the implications of that one simple statement.
It’s the same voice that she heard Toby use before, only now she recognises the shrewish, accented tones for what they are. It’s too deep, too old, too malevolent, to be her baby boy.
Her eyes alight on the doll he’s still gripping tightly in his little hand.
“Give me the doll, Toby,” she says, her voice shaking. “Give me Mrs Mulligan. I’m sorry I hit you, it was an accident, but I want you to give Mrs Mulligan to me now!”
“No!” Toby screams at her in his own voice.
“Do as Mummy says!” Jen demands, her heart racing.
“No!”
This isn’t like him. He’s never this badly behaved. And he’s never bitten her before.
“Be a good boy and do as Mummy says now!”
“No! No! No!” Toby yells, running away from her, heading for the hall.
Jen grabs his arms and holds on tight. “Do as you’re told, young man. You don’t want to make Mummy cross, do you?”
Toby struggles and kicks as he tries to wriggle free.
“Give me the doll – now!”
She lets go of one arm so as to take the doll from him, but he continues to resist, putting the hideous thing behind his back in his vain attempt to stop her taking it from him.
“Right, that’s it!”
Not holding back now, using her full strength against him, she spins the boy round. Seizing the offending hand, she bends the little boy’s fingers back, finally succeeding in prizing the doll from his grasp.
The child’s screams of protest have become incoherent howls of hysterical rage and frustration. Emmie adds her own wails of uncomprehending infant fear from where she sits restrained in her baby-bouncer.
Toby grabs hold of his mother’s leg as she strides across the kitchen towards the bin.
Jen slams her foot on the bin pedal and the lid snaps open. She holds the scowling doll over the mess of potato peelings, used tea bags and sticky baby wipes filling the black bag, but then stops herself.
Going out with the rest of the rubbish is too good for the old witch. Mrs Mulligan’s fate needs to be something more final.
Kicking her son away from her, Jen opens the cupboard under the sink – the one with the toddler safety catch – and takes out the can of lighter fluid and the box of matches she keeps there next to the floor polish and the sink unblocker.
Deaf to the screams of her howling children, she flings open the back door and storms out into the garden. The barbeque is standing there on the patio.
Throwing back the barrel lid, she chucks the doll onto the grill and pops open the can, dousing the thing with accelerant. Dropping the half-empty container at her feet, she takes a match from the box and lights it, watching as the white flare of initial combustion subsides to become a flickering orange flame, the thin stick of wood twisting and blackening in the heat.
Holding the match over the doll, she hesitates, Mrs Mulligan staring back at her with those soulless black eyes of hers, the same bitter scowl of disapproval on her painted wooden face.
The warm afternoon sun is as hot on her face as the match is between her finger and thumb.
And she hears the housekeeper’s scolding voice once more inside her head.
Chris leaves work early that night, eager to be home, eager to spend some quality time with his kids, and eager to make amends, desperate to let Jenny understand how much he loves her, how sorry he is, and how much she means to him.
He stops at the front gate, catching the sweet scent of cooking on the air. Some lucky bugger’s going to eat well tonight.
He lets himself in, throwing his jacket over the end of the stairs, half-expecting his son to come charging down the hall and throw himself into his father’s arms. But he receives no such welcome. They must be having supper already.
“Hell-oo! I’m home!” he calls. But his announcement is met by silence.
They must be in; the car’s parked right outside the house. They must be in the garden.
But they’re not in the garden. They’re in the dining room.
Jen’s sitting at the breakfast bar, rocking Emmie gently in her arms, humming what sounds like a lullaby.
The succulent cooking smells wafting in through the open back door are making his mouth water. Having suffered a stinking hangover for the best part of the day, he now feels like he could eat a horse.
“Something smells good,” he says. “Are we having a barbeque?”
But his wife says nothing. She doesn’t even acknowledge his presence.
“Jenny?” he says, suddenly feeling sick, as if his hangover’s returning. “Is everything alright? Where’s Toby?”
There’s the doll’s house, sitting on top of his old coffee table – despite Jen’s threats to get rid of it – but there’s still no sign of his son.
“Where’s Toby?” he asks, his heart pounding.
He makes for the back door, barely registering the fact that Jenny’s entertaining the baby with the tatty old thing from the doll’s house, or the burns on his wife’s hands.
Then he goes outside.
INSIDE/OUT
Nicholas Royle
There are many rooms in Nicholas Royle’s story, both on the inside and the out; all are haunted and it is up to reader to decide on the nature of the ghost therein. If this sounds like something of a puzzle, then that’s exactly what it is, for Royle is adept at constructing beautifully realised, deeply unsettling and deceptively complex stories
. ‘Inside/Out’ is a tale that draws the reader into a labyrinth of imagery and symbolism, leading them through the rooms of a house that holds many secrets.
‘In its effective development of a surreal atmosphere of Otherness, combined with its imaginative use of the notion of the dream itself, [Natsume Soseki’s Ten Nights of Dreams (1908)] creates a liminal literary world which is clearly that of the twentieth century. It is a world which Freud or Jung would certainly have recognized in terms of its suffocating representation of such peculiarly modern anxieties as crises of identity and free-floating guilt, expressed through archetypal imagery.’
– Susan J Napier,
The Fantastic in Modern Japanese Literature
His first day. They gave him the tour. Three floors at the top of a building on the edge of Covent Garden. Hitchcock had shot scenes from Frenzy in a similar building close by, a little over ten years earlier.
He saw two women at neighbouring desks, both in white tops, both with blonde hair. They both leaned back in their chairs and looked at him at the same moment, with the same gentle arching of the back, the same hair falling away from the same slender neck. He heard two names, but he had no idea which was which, and then he was whisked away to the next office in this warren of tiny spaces and interconnecting staircases with worn lino and rubber tread.
He would invent excuses to go to her office. He could tell them apart now; Judy was the one who sat nearest the door. She was the one he liked. He didn’t not like Madeleine, her colleague, but the liking he felt for Judy he felt somewhere inside, in his chest, in his stomach. In his chest and his stomach. Her skin was clear, white marble; when she rolled a cigarette, the pink tip of her tongue appeared between her lips. He was both impressed and faintly terrified by her. Rarely was he able to find her on her own, though; Madeleine was generally sat alongside. They didn’t always wear the same clothes, but in his mind they did and they looked alike. Identical.
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