enough, I’ll loosen it, by degrees I’ll unstick it, it will give. A faint odour from the cardigan caught her attention, and she lifted it to her face.
Her lips set, and suddenly she began to blush, a deep crimson blush which seemed to wash over her whole body and turn her legs to water. She wanted to sit down, and did sit down, on the bed. To be sure, she sniffed the wool again. It was unmistakable, the sour-sweet baby odour of regurgitated milk.
Then, all those months ago—when she had come to the house and seen Muriel in that peculiar smock; she could hear her own words to Colin, “For a moment I thought she might be pregnant.” So why, why on earth had she not seriously entertained that possibility? All these months, Muriel had been absent from the Day Centre. No one else had seen her since the old place was closed. And that was plenty of time. I have certainly made, she thought, a gigantic professional blunder.
But then, people do worse. She tried to comfort herself. She thought of the court hearing she had attended only the day before yesterday. Children go to school hungry and fall asleep at the back of classrooms; teachers are only grateful if they don’t scream, start fights, come at them with knives. Children fall into fires. With childish obstinacy, they ram doorknobs into their eye sockets. They fall downstairs with the thumping regularity of prisoners in South African police stations. I can’t live in your pocket, Mrs. Axon. One of my colleagues returned to its parents a child that is now dead, a snivelling and unappealing brat with impetigo, which I once visited myself.
If Muriel had a child, it would have to be removed at once. But where had she delivered the child? Which hospital? Surely any half-observant medical personnel—but perhaps it had been born here, at home. What an awful thought. It occurred to her that the house was quite silent; twenty minutes had passed; was the baby sleeping soundly?
Perhaps it is dead.
Oh Christ, she thought, if Muriel has a child, who is the father? But I’m jumping to conclusions. A smell of milk on an old cardigan. Does that add up to a baby? And Muriel’s strange clothes? Muriel’s clothes were strange at any time.
She launched herself up from the bed and flung herself at the door, hammering again with her fists. “Mrs. Axon, let me out, let me out immediately. You’re behaving in an incredibly stupid fashion. If you don’t let me out someone from my office will come to look for me, so you see it’s no use.”
Not tonight they won’t, she said to herself. And Evelyn, standing on the stairs, thought, not tonight they won’t, and tomorrow’s another day.
Isabel turned and flew back to the window. The frame shuddered, free in the middle but sticking at the top and bottom. She reached up and thumped at it. She beat at the wood with a series of sharp heavy blows, and with an involuntary sound of triumph and surprise saw the window give and swing outwards. She stuck her head out, peering into the darkness.
She couldn’t see much to help her. There was a drainpipe, but it wasn’t within reach. She leaned out further, trying to estimate distances. If she had been locked into the room next door, her fall would have been broken by the roof of the lean-to, but from here there was nothing between her and the flagstones below. If there were a fire, I suppose I’d jump, she thought. But it’s suicidal. I could break my back. And if by some mischance there was a baby, and if by some mischance it’s dead; who knows? Who knows, besides me?
She picked up the pink cardigan from the bed and looked at it carefully, turning it inside out. Nothing more, no smell of urine. Quickly, she rolled it up and pushed it into her big bag, averting her face as she did so, as if she did not want to see what she was doing. She placed her newspaper on top of it, and Muriel’s file. Would the neighbours know? Possibly, and possibly not; perhaps Evelyn was in the habit of locking Muriel up. If I have the only knowledge, she thought, I may also have the only evidence. She could not picture Muriel surrounded by terry squares and baby bouncers, and little bibs from Mothercare.
She tried to think back over the weeks. When was it, that Muriel had appeared in the smock? The file would tell her the date of her last visit. But no, never mind that; the important thing was to get out of here. Suppose she had made an error, why should she suffer? Why should I? she demanded of the clammy air. They wouldn’t let me in, they didn’t want me, they rejected my help. I had no reason to expect this, none.
She returned to the window. What can I shout? She felt foolish. Just then, the dim glow strengthened perceptibly; someone had switched on an outside light, not here at the Axon house but at the house next door. She could see a little paved area outside the house, with dim shapes that must be flower tubs. From ground level, she thought, the shrubs and bushes would completely conceal one garden from the next, but from here she could see a long path leading down the lawn between empty flowerbeds. Now a torch beam struck across the path.
She did not shout at once, but held her breath. Someone was definitely coming out into the garden, and she wanted them to spot her, recognise the problem, and get her out with the minimum of fuss. Screams and shouts would only create panic. Just a ladder, that’s all she needed, and somebody to hold the base steady. After that, she would be able to find out what the neighbours knew or suspected; they would come out with it without any prompting, once they knew she was from Social Services. Heights did not worry her; she could manage to scramble out backwards, and would be on the ground before she had time to think twice.
A woman, broad and shapeless, was stumping down the path. Halfway, she stopped and turned back to the house. That must be Colin’s sister, surely? It would be more reassuring to call to her by name. Explanations for that could come later. As she leaned out, another torch beam crossed the first. Colin came down the path and joined his sister.
I can hardly believe my luck, or lack of it, Isabel thought. The pair below shone their torches up at the roof. What were they doing? From Florence she caught the words, “Guttering looks dubious too.”
From Colin, “Better in daylight, Saturday.”
And from Florence, “But a loose slate might—”
“Help me,” she yelled. She hung out of the window. “I’m locked in here. I’m locked in, help me get out.”
Startled, their heads jerked up. The torch beams swept over the trees and fences till they rested on her face.
“Good God!” Colin said. More loudly, “What are you doing?”
“What?” Florence said. “Who is it? Do you know her?”
“I’m a social worker, Miss Sidney. These mad women have locked me in.”
“I’ll be right there,” Colin shouted. He approached the fence. “Hang on, I’ll be right there.”
