Jeanetta had made a good few hours’ work. The playroom contained two large cupboards and one oak chest. On the evening when she had been letting rip with her granny in charge, Jeanetta had learned for the first time the strength and skill to raise or lower the heavy lid of the chest which contained her mother’s ancient frocks, a red cloak, a long purple gown, and now the floor was festooned with evening clothes, the mess accentuated by the variety of colours. One of the blouses, frilly, georgette, was torn to shreds. From the cupboard, Jeanetta had dragged her toys along with all those which were Jeremy’s least favourite and kept separately from the store in his room. It had proved impossible to smash all these toys, but she had tried without discrimination, looking for something to break the window, then looking for distraction. Soft toys were minus eyes: a large horse, big enough to wheel around and once the right size for her to sit astride, present from Granny, was now minus tail and ears, while on the floor, eyes looking skywards in mute appeal, lay a doll with teeth marks in the pink forehead. One arm of the corpse rested on the window-ledge where the paintwork was scratched along the bottom of the pane. David turned back the door of the room, finding identical scratch marks, tuttutted loudly. Jeanetta shrank back from his discovery. It occurred to Katherine, very dimly and not in a way she could begin to articulate, that Jeanetta was growing like herself, all notions of what was right and what was wrong entirely dependent on his reaction, however irrational: the severity of the wrong never marked by anything as obvious as a blow.
‘Jack did it,’ Jeanetta shouted, pointing at the doll. ‘Jack did, he did, he did.’
David ignored her, stepped into the playroom and began to retrieve toys which belonged to his son. At the other end of the kitchen, Katherine stood by the sink, alongside three portions of fresh cheeses on the draining board, unidentifiable outside the delicatessen wrappings in which he had carried them home. She pushed one of the portions into her handbag, then moved towards her daughter with some hesitation. Since Jeanetta did not rush to her side, but stared with dark, suspicious eyes, Katherine did not venture to touch. ‘I’ll take her for a wash,’ mother murmured to the back of David’s head, and led the way upstairs. ‘Come on, sweetheart.’
‘I’m bringing Jack.’
‘Yes, I know.’
The child followed, slowly, without looking back, breathing with deep and noisy breaths. She had developed a cough. Katherine had heard it, dry, polite and painful.
I should have known, I should have thought . . . Cheese is too rich. Twitching in the heat, feeling warmth radiate from the body beside her, finding the touch of even one, thin sheet unbearable. Katherine placed a hand over her mouth to stifle her own retching. Hidden in the bathroom earlier with stinking Jeanetta, watching her wolf down four ounces of fresh soft cheese, grimacing at the taste she disliked but nevertheless swallowing without chewing. I should have known. Back down to the supper table praying all would be well; David these days preparing even that as if he expected to be poisoned, leaving Katherine nothing but the incessant cleaning. Jeanetta trailing behind silent but fresh in clean shorts and top, green around the gills, behaving to perfection. Until, gazing furtively into the now immaculate playroom, staying at the other end of the room, watching Papa as if transfixed and drawn to his side on a thread, she had been violently sick almost at his feet. The cheese, yellowish, scarcely digested, deposited on the shiny floor as vivid as egg yolk. Child stumbled towards the windows out to the garden, unable to run fast. He had followed without rushing, caught her easily, picked her up and put her back in the playroom without a word. Punishment; still out of control. This time she had not screamed.
In the silence after the locked door, Katherine watched not David’s face, but his hands as he replaced the key in the pocket of his trousers and resumed his swift and efficient preparations. Wash lettuce, not iceberg, tasteless stuff, preferred a good cos every time. Bash two fillets of veal with a small wooden mallet, coat them in fresh breadcrumbs. A few new potatoes, very few, tossed when hot in a tablespoon of soured cream with finely chopped chives, flavoured further with sea salt. As he cooked and as they ate, the silence beyond the playroom door was ominous. Katherine guessed Jeanetta was crying. David spoke as if nothing had happened, planning out loud the arrangements for the birthday party which was now becoming imminent. He loved to plan: they had not entertained for weeks. Katherine listened, part incredulous, slowly beginning to grow calmer as the other silence persisted. Her head was bowed. The prospect of a houseful of people was suddenly welcome. Jeanetta’s absence on that occasion would be very pleasant, a thought she dismissed but still gave room.
‘A very gourmet, very simple meal, I think,’ he was saying cheerfully. ‘Only ten to feed, shouldn’t be so difficult. You’ll have Monica and Jenny for company, plus husbands, Susan thing next door and hers if he’s around, don’t blame him if he isn’t. Oh and I asked the American couple. Quid pro quo for the glamours of their thrash.’ He grinned at her meaningfully. ‘All forgotten now, honestly. Glass of wine, darling? Try this, you usually like Chardonnay. No? I agree, a bit heavy, this one.’
He ate the veal, and some of hers which was left unfinished, economizing with his movements, always quiet and perfect with a knife and fork, a quick eater, even in company. ‘We’ll take drinks outside, especially if it’s like this. Cooler.’ She was silent, blessing the apple tree which spread some of itself across the window of the playroom, shading half the interior until evening when the branches stepped aside for the sun to come streaming through. There were always wasps around the tree, as if booking space long before the autumn apples which never grew to fruition, remaining hard little marbles suitable only for scavengers. She forbore to mention the wasps to her husband: he would take the mere suggestion of a nest as a personal insult. Katherine ate the lettuce with the same enthusiasm she might have eaten porridge on this night of heatwave. It tasted of dust, spiced with the biting crystals of sea salt.
Then in the quietude of the post-prandial cigar, the one unhealthy indulgence allowed by the master of the house to himself, with David eyeing his wife like a man contemplating dessert, there came the scratching sound from the direction of the playroom. Scratch, scratch; then blows, more of a tapping than the kicking which had been the earlier noises. Jeanetta beyond, destroying the new tidiness of her little cell, weaker than she had been, hitting at the door with the dismembered arm of the doll which had fat fingers spread into a fan. The noise was slight, insistent, almost rhythmic. Katherine stiffened, alarmed but also irritated. Didn’t she know by now what was good for her, good for all of them? Peace was so fragile.
David reached back behind his chair and turned on the radio.
‘Let her out, please. Please, darling.’ Katherine’s voice emerged from a stranger.
He smiled at her, the devastating smile which creased his eyes, revealing teeth cleaned and flossed to white perfection. ‘Later, darling. I think we have better things to do.’ The words filled her with despair, the formula familiar. Food, wine, sex, a familiar cycle. She had been feeling sick all day.
‘No.’ Her own, sharp protest startled herself.
‘What do you mean, No?’ She shook her head.
‘I want more babies,’ he said suddenly, apropos of nothing. ‘More sons. You were right never to cut your hair. Beautiful, handsome sons, with hair like yours. Lots of them.’ Then he lifted her upstairs.
Such an old face in the mirror. The face of someone old enough to know better. Even if she was mad, so possible a fact she was prepared to embrace it, she could abdicate no longer, could not lie here and lie to herself in silence. Silence. A deafening silence one floor above the ground in a quiet, polished house. David’s lean and muscular torso turned away from the window. In the stillness, the hum of traffic, a tangible sound, quite inhuman and without any comfort. Her eyes, stiff with sweat and tears, thinking of Jeanetta downstairs, talking to Jack and frightened of the dark, her own intermittent anger at the child another source of unease.
Inch by inch, Katherine stole from the bed, moving with precise steps towards the chair where his clothing lay folded. She held her breath as she sidled to the chair, felt in the pocket of the trousers and closed her fingers over the key, the sensation of the metal feeling like a scald of hot water in her palm, jumping as the belt, still looped round the waist of the garment, clicked against the wood of the chair. David turned slightly in his sleep, a ten-degree movement of his broad shoulders, twisting his neck with his hand sliding under the pillow. Beneath the dark head, his neck looked vulnerable: at once she understood an impulse to take the pillow next to his face, blot out that springy hair, subdue that strong profile into a mass of white linen for it to remain still, without breathing for ever, but the passing thought fled without tempting action. She felt momentary triumph in her possession of the key, lost as she fumbled downstairs. Light from the landing windows reflected on the mahogany stair-rail she had polished to perfection this morning: she clung to the warm surface like a guiding rope, lowering herself by degrees into the bowels of the house, paying out the banister, reluctant to leave it. You must not shout or scream, Jeanetta: you must not make a noise, this is our secret: this will be over soon. Wait till he notices how thin you are, be quiet, darling, please: say nothing, do nothing. I’ll get you cornflakes at least. No key on the fridge and one locked cupboard yielded to Katherine. The one containing dry food, rice, cereals, ugh, all foods to stick to the lips, but there was fruit on the table. None of your favourites, Jeanetta: no biscuits, they make a person fat.
In the kitchen, the silence was profound, the room insulated from the traffic sounds just discernible upstairs. There was a slight, tick-ticking sound from the boiler hidden in the cupboard by the playroom door. As Katherine placed the key in the lock, one hand gripping the cool brass handle of the door, the ticking sound seemed to exaggerate, move closer. She imagined a booby trap, a time bomb triggered to the latch, but the hands with a will of their own, remained functional, the ticking regular. Shhhhhh, she breathed into the keyhole. Shhhhh, Jeanetta, me, shhhh, for heaven’s sake. Her whisper cut through the silence like a knife, horribly loud like the staccato shufflings on the other side of the wall. Katherine paused, then pushed open the door, seeing the brilliant blonde of Jeanetta’s head emerging from the cloth of the evening dress she was using as a blanket. It was cooler on this floor, but Katherine sweated beneath the cotton nightdress she had dragged over her head. The clash of colours inside the room was so vivid, Katherine held her breath for a second, expelled it in one gasp. There was a fleeting impression of how pretty the child looked swathed in this adult satin, lit by the moon; pretty and almost comic, rubbing her brilliant eyes, then staring without smiling. She began to scrabble out of the material, one arm stuck in one sleeve of the dress. Her hand came free with a small tearing sound; Katherine put one finger over her mouth. ‘Shhhhhh,’ she said again.
‘Mummy,’ said Jeanetta, ‘Mummy, Mummy, Mummy. Help me, Mummy. I’se so hungry. Very hungry. I’ll be good.’ She was wobbling slightly as she stood, not a shade of the truculence left, no pride, frightened baby. She stretched out her arms and Katherine held her briefly, aware that there were tears coursing down her own cheeks, blinding her, making her shake. Already, as they swayed together for a moment, her plans were changing. Food first, then get out. Anywhere, just out, even in the dark, dressed as they were, out. Away. It was suddenly obvious there would be no end to this, no finale apart from a fading away and in that brief embrace, of desperate love and affection, Katherine could feel the sharp edge of a ribcage, more poignant and revealing than any tears. The child was thin, horribly thin, and the cough a rasp of accusation.
Softly, she closed the door of the kitchen. The pair of them, Katherine in particular, suffering from the peculiar desire to laugh, the kind of giggles accompanying a midnight feast, although, despite her still persisting nausea, Katherine had found from nowhere a clear head and considerable authority. Jeanetta clutched her skirt, refusing to move from her side. ‘Now,’ she whispered to Jeanetta, ‘eat as slowly as you can: you don’t want to be sick, we haven’t time.’ Katherine had always been vague about food suitable for her children, gave them whatever she had, but in the 2.00 a.m. clarity, saw how cornflakes were the best she could offer in all their digestible blandness. With even more uncharacteristic forethought, she placed two apples in the handbag she had left earlier in the kitchen, thinking ahead with furious planning. There was a thin summer coat on the hallstand outside, a pair of espadrilles, enough to cover her modesty. There was no money in the handbag, nowhere to go, but none of that mattered, not any longer. All they had to do was get out, knock at the next-door house, hammer as long as it took for one of the inmates to answer, didn’t matter if they were resentful. Nobody would listen, but someone had to listen. Perhaps she could encourage response by yelling ‘Police’ through the letter box, or ask Jeanetta to create one of her truly piercing screams, but they were wasting time. Katherine watched: Jeanetta shovelling a small portion of cornflakes in so tidy a fashion she was clearly cured of the habit of mashing all food to pulp, one thin arm transferring the spoon to her mouth with well-mannered speed as if she had only just realized this was the most efficient way to consume, eyeing her mother over the bowl. Slowly, darling, please. Katherine wanted to stop the eating process, flee the house without delay, but she did not have the heart to curtail a tiny meal. In the mind’s frantic calculations lay the knowledge that in real terms, the child had been subsisting on crumbs. She had been on the verge of lunacy, distracted, out of her mind, thinking all the time that it was herself who was the most vulnerable. For a brief moment, she felt as strong as a lion.
‘More, Mummy. Please.’ Dear God, the manners were perfect. So was the obedience.
‘No, darling, not yet. We’re going now.’
‘Where?’
‘Mrs Harrison.’
‘Ohhh, yes.’ There was a long sigh of sheer relief. Jeanetta had been kneeling on the chair, twisted off it and made for the kitchen door. ‘I’m bringing Jack.’
‘Wait. Got to be very, very quiet.’ Oh why had she mentioned a destination causing this noisy excitement, when all the time the front door was locked, how could she have forgotten? ‘Come back, darling, come back, not that way. By the window.’ Katherine’s head was clearer than it had ever been, her words showing no shadow of the usual hesitation. Jeanetta obeyed her.
The kitchen window, security locked, but not with a key. On either side the window was fastened against intruders by bolts in the frame, easily unscrewed from the inside. What had once been a steep basement well a few feet below had been boarded over by David to save it being filled with litter from passers-by, strong enough boards for a safe landing even if they jumped. They were both such light people. Sudden movements, she noticed, made Jeanetta stagger, issue her polite little cough: her small feet unsteady as she smothered the sound, while Katherine was finding yet more energy, removing the bolts with deft fingers. She had cleaned the inside of the glass yesterday morning, noted the position of the locks even then, but as she opened the sash window, her eyes registered another problem. Once out on the boards above the basement, they would still have to surmount the railings, but all would be possible once they had placed both feet into the outside world. Pad the top of the railings, climb over.
‘Sweetheart, fetch one of the dresses from the playroom.’
‘No, Mummy, please: you go.’ Jeanetta could not bear to retreat back in that direction. Katherine smiled at her, ran back across the floor, pulled out the red cloak from the pile of clothes on the floor, ran back, forgetting now the need for shoes or coat, she would go as she was rather than risk opening the door into the hall. ‘I’ll go out first, darling, then you can land on me. Jack will manage.’ Jeanetta smiled weakly, her face strained.
The stone window-ledge barked Katherine’s shins and the height of the ledge from the boards was greater than she had imagined. At first she tried to lever herself down, then she jumped, stil
l carrying the red cloak, landed with a thud and a searing pain in one foot. Hurriedly she threw the cape over the railings, turned back to the window. ‘Jeanetta?’ a loud whisper, full of exhilaration. ‘Come on, darling, quickly.’ There was silence. No small head appeared above the window, no sign, no voice. The rustling of the fine trees in the street was deafening, the sluggish breeze in the air deliciously cool after the confines of the house. I’m wrong, I’m wrong, Katherine was thinking, all wrong, suddenly quite terrified of the dark: I could have simply taken her out through the garden, over the wall at the back, into next door, we could have waited there, just as we were, until morning. She looked briefly at the railings which surrounded her, the height of her shoulder, huge, but not insurmountable. Then called again, ‘Come on, Jeanetta, come quick, just climb over, I’ll catch you. Don’t be frightened.’ There was more silence. Katherine gripped the stone ledge, jumped up to look into the kitchen, saw nothing but the yawning gap of window, unable to see far into the room. Had child gone back for food perhaps? For Jack? Katherine stood irresolute, ready to risk a shout, or climb in again to fetch her daughter, and standing, was aware of a prickling in the scalp. As she held on to the ledge, ready to go back upwards, swearing under her breath, she turned her head to one side, stopped. The front door of the house was standing open. David lounged on the top step, shaking his head. He held in his hand the old key to the gate in the railings, and the new key to the door of the house.
‘Are you looking for burglars?’ he asked. ‘Or were they looking for you?’
Her headband fluttered to the floor. As if it had controlled the inside of her skull, something in her mind snapped and darkness closed round her.
Sophie Allendale had always known it would happen some day, and now it had. To her own surprise, she had been the soul of calm, but then she had not caught them in action. The other fears set in later. Her life for the last few years had been geared to fear of this breed, burglars, that was: people she always envisaged from her local paper as being large, fat, working in gangs armed with axes, the scourge of anyone over sixty, all hell-bent on pursuit of her possessions. But she had been talked out of the usual vigilance by one of her friends, who said you can only die once, and the way you carry on, death will be from heatstroke. Don’t be so silly-billy, Sophie, Mary Fox had added cosily; even burglars get lazy in a heatwave like this and you’ll shrivel up if you don’t open the windows. They had been eating tea the other day, or at least, Sophie eating, Mary pacing up and down in an irritating manner, bitching about her sister and also about the heat. Today is August, Granny, do open the windows, there’s a dear: having them shut all the time is bad for your skin. This last remark was the deciding factor. Sophie considered her own skin quite remarkable for her age, while Mary considered the panoply of pots necessary to sustain the bloom quite excessive. They prevented access to the bathroom basin. So Sophie, if only to justify the expense of the pots and lotions, had opened the French windows of her living room to find the effect such a relief she forgot to close them again as often as not. Somehow the burglars, or the survival of her furniture, or the prospect of rape, were not as important as they had been and the neurosis of a lifetime slipped sideways. She had other things on her mind.
The Playroom Page 23