Now Liz had – or would have as soon as she reached the post office. She was certain Barbara would come, even if she had to cancel other plans. The thought of Barbara, digging in her bulging bag for yet another photograph or thank-you letter from a patient, or misprint from a newspaper, made Liz feel optimistic. Surely Barbara would cure her of her impatience with Anna? Of course, if Alan came home while Barbara was there, that would be best of all.
She strolled downstairs, swinging her keys. She'd take Anna to lunch in the beer-garden or at the hotel. It made Anna feel proud of herself, and why not? Blue sky shone in all the windows, light filled the house; in the hall the telephone was bright as a ripe tomato. She was almost downstairs when it rang.
She couldn't help starting. She mustn't react as if every call was a threat; it would only make her nerves worse. Anyway, it might be good news. Perhaps it might even be Barbara. She lifted the receiver.
'Mrs Knight? Mrs Alan Knight?' a woman said.
Liz wasn't fond of that usage. 'I'm Alan Knight's wife, yes.'
'He's still away, isn't he?'
'Yes, I'm afraid he is. Who's speaking, please?'
'Don't let him come home.'
Liz must have misheard her. 'I'm sorry, what was that you said?'
'If you love your child, don't let your husband come home.' The woman's voice had already been shrill, but now it was rising. 'Go away – take her far away, and don't let him know where you are. You mustn't stay there, it's too dangerous.'
'Look, I don't know who you are,' Liz said, her throat suddenly so dry that it was threatening her voice, 'but I'm going to put this phone down right now unless you tell me who you are and what you want.'
'It doesn't matter who I am.' The woman's voice came scraping through the earpiece, until Liz felt as though a piece of metal was deep in her ear. 'Don't you understand what I'm saying? Your child is in danger. For God's sake go away.'
Twenty-nine
Anna sat in the room behind Rebecca's counter and gazed at a stain of red paint on the table. Out in the sunlight beyond the counter, painted stones and glass shelves gleamed, people strolled chatting among the shelves or brought things to the counter, everything was bright and cheerful. She didn't like sitting alone in the room; there were too many shadows, the red stain looked too much like a monster, the stones waiting to be made into things reminded her of Joseph, who might well have collected some of them. She was doing nothing in here, she didn't want to glue or even to paint. But if she went out, she'd want to speak to Rebecca, want to speak so much that she mightn't be able to stop herself, and she was afraid to think what she wanted to say.
Mummy was worried, that was all. Mummy was still mummy, whatever she did. Anna told herself that fiercely, over and over. Mummy was worried because she didn't know when daddy was coming home – Anna was sure of that now. Perhaps she was also worried about having lost the claw; perhaps that was the something of daddy's she'd been looking for on the beach; she must blame herself, just as Anna did. Those were the reasons why mummy was on edge, why Anna couldn't be sure any longer what mummy would do.
Rebecca came behind the counter, and Anna put her hand over the scratches on her arm. She couldn't tell Rebecca what had happened, she would feel too disloyal. It was between her and mummy. Everything would be all right once mummy stopped being worried. But the scratches on her arm were throbbing, the stones on the dim shelves looked like blank eyes watching her, the jingle of the bell above the shop door made her jump. When Rebecca said, 'Hi Liz,' she couldn't help growing tense.
'Where's Anna?' Mummy sounded almost as if she was accusing Rebecca of hiding her.
'Why, here she is.'
In a moment mummy was at the counter, peering beneath her thick frown into the room. Suddenly Anna felt as if the dimness of the room was her friend, saying that she didn't have to go. 'Come on then, don't keep me waiting,' mummy said.
Perhaps it was because mummy sounded so impatient that Rebecca said, 'You're just in time. I'll take you both for lunch and then Anna can stay for the afternoon if she likes.'
'Thanks very much, Rebecca,' mummy said without looking at her, 'but I don't feel like going to a pub just now.'
'I wasn't thinking of a pub.'
'Thanks anyway, but we really can't stay.' Mummy's voice was colder, as if she thought Rebecca had meant to tell her off. 'We're going straight into Yarmouth.'
T didn't know you were going anywhere this afternoon.'
Anna hadn't known either, but the way mummy was behaving, she thought she'd better not say so. 'Well, now you do,' mummy said. 'I'll speak to you again, Rebecca.'
She hurried Anna out to the car and tipped the driver's seat forward so that Anna could climb in the back. Anna had hardly settled herself when mummy slammed the door and drove into the crowd. Why was she so anxious to get to Great Yarmouth? Calling it Yarmouth always seemed to Anna like not calling a grown-up 'Mr' or 'Mrs'. Or was mummy just anxious to get out of the village? Somehow that seemed right, though Anna couldn't tell why and knew she shouldn't ask – not the way mummy was now.
Mummy drove fast once they were out of the village. Usually Anna liked going fast, but now she remembered the day daddy had driven home from Cromer after someone had banged his car. She looked at mummy's eyes in the driving mirror, mummy's eyes hanging above the speeding road, and wasn't sure if she liked what she saw. Perhaps you were supposed to stare like" that when you were driving. She looked away from the mirror and caught sight of the letter propped above the dashboard, a letter to mummy's friend Barbara. 'Is Auntie Barbara coming to stay?'
'Why? Do you want someone else interfering as well?' Mummy seemed to mean 'as well as Rebecca', and Anna was dismayed. Mummy seemed a bit ashamed of herself. 'Yes, I've asked her,' she said more gently. 'We'll have to see.'
Her voice was gentler, but not her driving. The road swung back and forth between sandhills and glimpses of fiat water, toward the sea, then inland to villages. Some of the villages were hardly even streets. Lonely birds hovered over fields. Anna couldn't help it: the letter to Barbara made her feel safer – though why she should need to feel safe she didn't know. Mummy wouldn't harm her, she knew how to drive. Eventually she managed to enjoy the ride, the twists and surprises of the road, and by the time they reached Yarmouth she was hungry.
She ought to have waited instead of saying she was hungry as soon as she saw a place to eat. Mummy stopped the car at once, even though the pizza parlour was so crowded that they couldn't have a table to themselves. Anna hadn't really meant here, but she felt she'd better not say anything.
The place was full of screaming babies and smeary trays and spilled ketchup. They had to share their plastic table with two little boys, one of whom kept spitting out his food onto his plate while the other tried to tell their parents, who were busy with more children at the next table. Anna's patch of table was sticky with a mixture of sugar and ketchup, and she wiped it as best she could. She sensed that mummy was growing tense with all the heat and noise and cigarette smoke.
When the pizzas arrived, Anna's was lukewarm on top and soggy underneath. Cutting it felt like cutting a bathroom sponge. 'Poo pie, mummy,' she joked, to help herself eat.
'Nobody's forcing you to eat it,' mummy said, so savagely that people turned to look and laugh.
Anna ate the rest of it in silence, though now she didn't feel like eating. She and mummy could always share jokes – mummy never lost her temper over them like that, especially not in public. Anna always used to say poo pie when she was little and didn't like her food. Now mummy had made her feel like the boy across the table who kept spitting on his plate. Her ears were burning, and each mouthful of pizza tasted nastier. 'I've finished, mummy,' she said at last, and mummy threw a penny into the mess on the table for a tip and stalked to the cashier's glass cage.
Anna felt depressed and hurt. She couldn't enjoy anything now. Mummy held her arm like a policeman as they strolled through the crowds on the promenade. She knew mummy was w
aiting for her to say what she wanted to do, but there was nothing. The beach here was full of people, she preferred the beach at home. The boating lake was like going for a sail in the bath once you'd been on the Broads. The Crazy Golf was crowded and anyway stupid, and the Kiddies' Cars were full of babies, except for the ones stuffed with big kids, their knees and elbows poking out on both sides. She found a pinball machine that she liked, that shouted at you in a monster voice when you were winning, but when she made to squeeze through the crowd at the fruit machines to look for another game, mummy shouted, 'Stay with me,' over the uproar of the machines, as if Anna were trying to escape. Anna felt depressed again. 'I don't want to go on anything else,' she said miserably.
Mummy's lips went thin, and she didn't speak until they were outside. 'Well, what do you want to do?'
Anna heard the warning note in her voice, but she didn't care. 'I wanted to make things for Rebecca.'
Mummy glared at her as if she'd been forbidden to mention Rebecca. 'We're here now. What do you want to do here?'
'I don't know.' The way mummy was, Anna was too depressed to care what she said. 'Nothing.'
'Then you'll just have to do what I want to do,' mummy said – but she seemed not to know what that was. She stared about at the beach and the piers, the model village, the Maritime Museum. 'For a start, let's get away from all these people.'
It took them a long time to struggle through the crowds, and she could feel that mummy was growing more tense. At. last they reached the river quays, where there were fewer holidaymakers. Barges rocked gently in front of the Town Hall, the smell of fish drifted along the river wharf. Now that there was room to stroll along the broad quay, mummy was relaxing, so much so that she let go of Anna's arm. As far as Anna was concerned, it was too late. She felt depressed and bewildered and bored. She didn't understand mummy at all.
That was how she felt when they came to Haven Bridge, and that was why she thought of something naughty to do. A ship was coming down the river, and she knew that the bridge would have to lift up its halves to let the ship through. If she timed it right, she could be on the other side and mummy wouldn't be able to get to her. She wasn't going to run away, she only wanted those few minutes away from mummy. Mummy was making her feel like a dog on a leash.
As the ship sailed toward the point at which they would lift the bridge, she quickened her pace, ready to run – but then mummy grabbed her arm. Just because she no longer knew what mummy was thinking, she shouldn't have assumed that the opposite was true. 'Oh no, you don't,' mummy said, in a voice like a saw. 'That's enough for one day, miss.'
'You're hurting me.' Anna began to cry. 'You're hurting my arm.' But mummy didn't let go until she'd dragged her back to the car, all that way through the crowds. Anna's arm hurt dreadfully, worse than when she'd fallen off the top of the climbing frame at the nursery. The worst thing was the way people laughed as they saw mummy dragging her along, as if that was the proper way to treat her. They didn't know that mummy was never like this.
Mummy held on to her while she unlocked the door. She threw the driver's seat forward and shoved Anna into the gap. Anna baulked, for she'd seen the letter still propped on the dashboard. Just now it seemed her only friend. She reached for it with her throbbing arm; she'd seen a postbox at the corner of the car park. 'I'll post your letter, mummy,' she said.
'No, you won't.' Mummy leaned in, still holding onto her, and snatched the letter. She must think Anna was going to play another trick, though nothing could have been further from Anna's mind. She ran to keep up with mummy – she wanted to anyway, though the grip on her arm gave her no choice – as mummy hurried toward the postbox. Auntie Barbara would come to stay, she would help mummy stop worrying, help her get better. She was mummy's best friend.
As mummy stepped out of the car park, tugging Anna's arm even though she was hurrying, she turned away from the postbox. For a moment Anna thought she hadn't seen it, then she realized what mummy was going to do. She could only stand there feeling sick as mummy let go of her for long enough to tear up the letter to Barbara and throw the pieces in the nearest wastebin.
Thirty
Liz drove home from Yarmouth feeling surer of herself than she'd felt for days. Dark clouds were crawling above the fields, toward the sea, but the darkness couldn't touch her. She could hardly believe how much destroying the letter had helped. When she thought of the letters, that one as much as the ones she'd rejected, she cringed inwardly. How could she have allowed herself to become so hysterical? She couldn't even recall now why she'd been so desperate to invite Barbara. She'd let everything get on top of her, that was all. No, not everything – just Anna.
That made her feel calmer, as if her problems were capable of being solved. Of course Anna was disturbed by all that had been happening, but there was a limit to the allowances that could be made for her, the liberties she could take. What had she been doing the night Alan had chased her along the beach? Perhaps Liz had been looking at that incident the wrong way. When she glanced at Anna in the mirror, at her untypically secretive eyes, she was almost sure she had.
The blackened road veered back and forth like smoke beneath the crawling sky, the verges glowed luridly. A phone box stood beside a deserted stretch of road – a red oblong rooted in the streaming supine grass. As the door of the empty box creaked open in the wind, Liz heard the phone ringing, ringing. It reminded her of the anonymous call, but that didn't bother her so much now; the voice must have been disguised – it must have been one of the people who were spreading rumours about her; perhaps the caller was the source of all the gossip. Now she was trying to scare Liz away for whatever warped reason an anonymous caller might have. She must have heard that
Alan had been with Anna the night the child had fled to the hotel – that was why she'd accused him. The call was another reason to doubt that he had done anything to Anna. Anna was rubbing her arm where Liz had held it, rubbing as if the pain would never fade. Liz was sure she hadn't held her that hard. If Anna was exaggerating that, why not Alan's behaviour that night as well?
The house was catching the last of the sunlight before the sky closed up. It looked unreal against the gathering dark. As Liz dragged the garage door into place, she wondered if the child would try to flee from her as she'd run away from Alan. But Anna went reluctantly into the house, into her playroom. That wouldn't save her from answering the questions Liz was determined to ask.
Anna stayed out of the way while Liz made dinner. Didn't that prove she had something to hide? When she ventured into the kitchen to pour herself an orange juice, wincing as she used the arm she wanted Liz to think was injured, her movements sounded clumsy, intrusive, far too loud. That was because the house was empty – empty of Alan. Liz had to make an effort to restrain herself from blurting out her questions.
As soon as they sat down to dinner, she said, 'Anna, I'm going to ask you something, and I want you to tell me the truth.'
'All right,' Anna mumbled through a mouthful of salad.
Liz waited until the child had finished her mouthful; she wasn't about to give her an excuse not to answer. 'What did you do that night I went to the party at the hotel?'
Anna stared blankly at her. 'Nothing,' she said, forking up another mouthful.
'It won't go cold. Leave it until we've finished talking,' Liz said, and the echo told her how loud her voice was. 'What did you do to make daddy chase you out of the house?'
'I didn't do anything.'
Her blank stare, and the forkful of food she was still holding, infuriated Liz. 'Put that down and answer me.
Anyone would think you were starving as well as everything else I'm supposed to be doing to you.' She glared at Anna until the fork dropped onto her plate. 'Don't ask me to believe that daddy chased you all the way to the hotel for no reason. What had you been doing?'
'I was asleep. He woke me up.'
She looked tearful and hurt, but Liz wasn't to be put off. 'And then what happened?'
&
nbsp; 'He frightened me.'
'How?'
Anna gaped at her as if the question were meaningless. Liz felt her fury growing. 'I'm asking you a question, Anna. What did he do to frighten you?'
Anna's eyes were blank again. She was silent for a while, then she said, 'He just did.'
Liz felt as if she should have known it all along: Anna had fled for no reason, Alan had only been trying to bring her back.. He'd gone away because Liz had lost the claw, not because of Anna at all. Even if he had lost his temper with the child that night, who could blame him? Liz had – perhaps that had been another reason why he'd gone away. She stared at Anna, then looked away quickly. If she lost her temper now, she didn't know what she might do to the child.
Anna was behaving as if Liz had already mistreated her. She winced whenever she reached for the salt or the pickles. 'Stop your play-acting,' Liz said. 'I didn't hurt you that much.' The bruises weren't very marked – less so than the scratches on the child's other arm. The sound of Anna crunching lettuce grated on her nerves.
After they'd washed up the dinner things – Anna taking plates mutely, holding herself aloof – Liz decided she couldn't stand any more. 'If you're going to sulk, young lady, you can take yourself off to bed.' It was a relief when Anna did so. Coming out of the bathroom, she hesitated over which bedroom to enter. Eventually she went into Liz's room as though she were doing Liz a favour. Liz tucked her up and made herself stoop to give her a token kiss, but the child turned away under the sheets.
The Claw Page 19