Vacant Possession

another row with that wimp she married, sounds as if he’s been getting a bit on the side. I was telling her what I wanted on my headstone, but she wasn’t taking it in.”

“Here’s your Horlicks. Looking forward to dying, are you?”

“If I don’t make arrangements, nobody will. I was thinking about a verse for the paper.” He leaned over to open the drawer of his bedside locker. The Reporter shook a little in his hand. “Here’s one I like:

We shed a tear although we know

Our dad is now at rest;

God wanted him for an angel and

He only takes the best.”

“You don’t really think you’re going to die,” Muriel said. She stood at the end of the bed, her colourless eyes fixed on his face. “You think you’re going to hang around for months, putting your hand up nurses’ skirts. You’d do it to your own daughter if she’d let you.”

“It’s not right,” the old man said. “I should have grandchildren to put in a verse for me. My daughter hates me. She wished me in hell. That’s not right, is it?”

“I could come and see your grave,” Muriel said. “Me and my little mite.” She approached the old man, peering down at him myopically. “I’ve got an idea about that. Just the bones of a scheme.”

“Or this one,” said Mr. Field, ignoring her.

“He went with ne’er a backward glance,

And ne’er a complaining sigh:

He knows he will see his dear ones again

In the heavenly bye-and-bye.”

“I’m a changeling,” Muriel said. “Did you know that, when you did it with me in the park? I’m not a human thing.”

“Whatever’s that?” said Mr. Field, coughing. “What’s a changeling when it’s at home?”

“It’s a substitute. It’s what gets left when the human’s taken away. It’s a dull-brained thing, always squawking and feeding. It’s ungrateful. It’s a disappointment to its mother.”

“How you talk,” Mr. Field said, showing his gums. “How about a kiss and cuddle?”

“Don’t you laugh. A changeling’s nothing to laugh at if you found one in your house. My mother didn’t have the wit to drown me. If you throw them in some water you sometimes get your own baby back, but she didn’t do that and so she had to put up with me. A changeling’s a filthy thing. It’s got no imagination.”

“Well,” Mr. Field said, “it must be an uncommon condition.”

“It’s not uncommon. You see them on the street. You have to know what to look for, that’s all.”

“Not much you can do about it, then?”

“A changeling’s a cruel thing. It likes its own company. It likes its own kind. I thought if I had my little changeling back, we’d suit very well.”

“Oh yes?”

“So I thought,” said Muriel, sitting down on the bed, breathing hard, “if I could get a loan of a baby, just an ordinary one, I could try the trick in reverse. Throw in the changeling and get a human; throw in the human, and get a changeling.”

“You’re touched,” Mr. Field said. “I’ve never heard of this before. It’s horrible.”

“A changeling can’t talk.”

“But you can talk. You’re talking now.”

“I learned it from other people. Everything I know, I learned from other people. I want to give my child a better life. Well, it’s natural.”

“Your child’s dead,” Mr. Field said in alarm. “That’s what you told me.”

“I don’t know if changelings do die. Anyway, there’s resurrection. Leave that to me to worry about.”

“Where are you going to get a baby? You’re tapped. You ought to be locked up. I’ve never heard anything so morbid. Get off my bed. I’ll ring for the nurse.”

“Nurse won’t come. Nurse never comes.”

“Look here,” Mr. Field said, “you wouldn’t do me a mischief, would you?” Suddenly he had turned cold; his eyes were glazing, he trembled a little, and dribbled from the corner of his mouth.

“Save me the trouble,” Muriel said indifferently. “Your nose is turning blue, old cock. I think your heart’s giving out. What does it feel like?” She waited. The room filled with his laboured breathing. “I’ll do you a verse,” Muriel said. “Our daddy’s life is ended, No use to wail and blub, Let’s toss him in his coffin, And all go down the pub.” Leaning forward, she knitted her fingers into the front of the old man’s pyjama jacket. “If God has called our daddy, We’d better come to terms, By squatting at his graveside, And cheering on the worms.”

Mr. Field gaped up at her, his mouth opening slowly. No sound came out. Muriel flung back the bedcovers and with one movement haled him out of bed and onto the floor. He landed with a dull thud, and lay looking up at her, his legs kicking feebly. For a few moments longer his mouth continued to open and shut. Muriel sank her thick neck into her shoulders, assumed a mournful expression, sniffed once, and walked out of the room, closing the door quietly. When the Night Sister did her rounds, Mr. Field was cooling rapidly: the surgical scissors she had armed herself with were not necessary. She summoned the student to help her heave him back onto the bed, and then left