At ten to nine on Tuesday morning, Colin entered the staffroom, his heart thudding with apprehension. He had decided to say nothing, let Frank take the initiative. He had buttressed himself with no explanations for the assault, being unable to think of any; he would have to go on the offensive if he was tackled, claiming that he was owed an apology himself, and Sylvia too, for having her coat put in the dustbin. The bell was ringing for Assembly; there was Frank, folding up his
“Hello, Colin,” he said mildly. He was paler than usual, badly shaven, altogether worn and frayed. Colin’s resolve broke immediately.
“About the other night—”
“Yes,” Frank said. “Splendid do. Good food—if I say so myself—and the best of company. You must come again.”
Colin stared at him hard. “Oh, splendid do,” he said, with a heavy irony that did not seem to strike home. “A most civilised evening.”
“Excellent raconteur, Edmund Toye. And young Elvie the life and soul. Sylvia enjoy herself?”
“Hugely.”
“Get home all right?”
“In one piece.”
“Good, good, good. Well, better shuffle off now and sing a hymn, hadn’t we?”
Colin followed him. He felt benumbed, stupefied. What had he expected? Perhaps that Frank intended to sue him or at least knock him down, that Mrs. Toye had been taken to a psychiatric ward, that Yarker was in police custody. It seemed miraculous that anything short of murder should have come out of such an evening. Perhaps Frank was suffering some type of amnesia. He passed Stewart Colman in the corridor. Colman nodded amiably.
“I say,” he said, “did you nick Frank’s file?”
“Yes. Yes, I did.”
“All part of the fun,” Colman said. “We had a nude treasure hunt. Looked for it till dawn. What did you want to go rushing off for? Oh yes, they’re all right, Frank’s parties, if you can put up with the literary chitchat. That can be a bit of a bore.”
Is this how people live? Colin thought. I must have no idea how people live. At my age…He followed Colman.
“Stewart—”
“Got to get along.”
Colin took him by the arm. “Listen to me.” They came to a halt in the corridor seething with children. “Was he serious about writing that novel?”
“Good Lord, how do I know?” Sounding surprised, Colman disengaged his jacket from Colin’s grasp. “Doesn’t pay to take anything too seriously, you know. Life’s too short.”
“Look at it,” Evelyn said. “You can’t say it’s human.” It was Tuesday morning. She brought the child over to show to Muriel, pointing out the strange large ears, the wrinkled skin, lifting the flaccid limbs and letting them drop. “It cries all the time,” she added, unnecessarily. “You never cried, Muriel. You were as quiet as a lamb.”
Unable to bear the feel of the child’s damp skin, she crossed the room and put it back in the box. “It might be a changeling,” she said. “I’m not saying it is, but it could be. It didn’t seem as bad as this when it was born.”
Of course, she’d not been able to stay with Muriel all the time. Only a few minutes after the birth, she’d gone out to answer a call of nature. And any time, during the night or when she was down in the kitchen putting the kettle on; there was plenty of opportunity for a substitution to be made.
“Because I wouldn’t want you to think,” she said generously, “that it’s some shortcoming of yours. Not necessarily. You’re bound to be disappointed in it. Are you disappointed, Muriel?”
From Muriel, no answer. Head twisted away. No gratitude for her mother’s concern.
“If it is a changeling, you ought to give some thought to getting the real one back. The ones they take lead miserable lives. They look in at people’s windows. Their growth’s stunted. They’re always cold.”
Muriel took the feeding bottle and thrust it at the child once again. The ugly little face contorted, sucked a little, twitched away.
“It’s a simple matter, Muriel. You have to find some water, a river or something. Float it along. And sometimes they pick it up and give you your own back. Well, you ought to have something better than this after all you’ve been through. You’re entitled. I’m not saying it always works. There’s a risk, of course. A real baby would be nice, though, wouldn’t it?”
Muriel seemed dubious. She peered at the baby, as if she thought that, after all, this was her own, this was what she was entitled to. Did they have stores of them, she wanted to know, real babies stacked up by river banks?
“Fairly cunning, aren’t you?” Evelyn said in admiration. “Like to pull a little trick on them, would you? Well, you’re right, even if it’s not a changeling it certainly looks like one.”
Muriel had always been credulous. Evelyn had noticed that she believed most things she was told. I am perhaps halfway to believing myself, she thought, there are plenty of subhumans planted among the real men and women; you learn about them if you read the newspapers: rapists, vandals, people who make nail bombs. On the bus, she had been reading the headlines, and it made her feel queasy to think about it all.
“A real baby…” she said, her voice softening. “We could do the place up a bit. Decorate. Perhaps we could have television. Ah, you understand that, don’t you?”
She looked down at the baby, and saw Clifford again, sitting behind its eyes; behind the glassy layers the years peeling away. She picked up Muriel’s cardigan from a chair, and threw it over the baby’s face.
