Vacant Possession

“Well, I hope you’ve been saying your litany,” Mrs. Wilmot said. “Course, I don’t know any litanies, I’m a Metho.”

“We need more than prayers, we need revolvers,” Mr. K. said. “Mantraps, Molotov cocktails. You see new woman in the street, watching out of a car? Always watching, watching, seeing who comes and goes. Always silent, silent, silent like the grave.”

“Don’t get carried away,” Mrs. Wilmot said. “You make me shudder with your prognostications.”

“Soon I will lay about me,” Mr. K. promised. “I cannot longer endure the agony of mind. My nerve is twisted to such a pitch—” He picked up a fork from the kitchen table, one of only two he had, and taking it in both hands, bent it until the handle was twisted and the tines drooped. “Like that,” he said. The sweat started out on his forehead. “Like that.”

It seemed to Colin, light-headed in the severe spring weather, that for once things were going his way. His appointment was confirmed, and he was counting off the weeks till the end of the summer term. He had sent Frank a get-well card and a basket of fruit. His colleagues said he was just the man for Frank’s job, and he knew it was true. He hugged himself, mentally, when he went into his office every morning. No more shillings, no more pence, no more sitting on the old school fence, No more geography, no more sums, no more beating on us bums. He had made a resolve that on the last day of term he would go home and turn out every one of his pockets, and blow out the chalk dust for ever, and never never let it back. He would never touch a stick of chalk again, or even engage with the school computer; he would never walk into a classroom again, except as a strict noncombatant. He would be a serious professional man, not a registered child minder, and he would impress his colleagues old and new with his suave, considered, and practical advice. He would be the History Advisor; he would be given the best chair in staff rooms throughout the county, and he would enjoy single malts—though not too many—with an obsequious Brother Ambrose.

Of course, there were many weeks to get through first; but they would be moving in a few days, and then, in part, he would be free. Free of Florence, with her wearisome protestations of innocence, for she never let the subject drop; free of ten years at Buckingham Avenue. At a stroke, he would sever his wife from the canal scheme, his son from his gang, and his youngest daughter from the Brownies; and who knew whether the change of air would not improve Karen’s spots? Whether Suzanne came back or not, no doubt the family survivors could begin to put together some sort of life.

Sylvia was behaving herself, he thought. She seemed content, wrapping newspaper round such crockery as remained, making inventories of their possessions. She was too busy to rake up the past. The telephone stayed silent. Or it rang; but not for him.

Wednesday came. Muriel had set the alarm early, but she woke up without it and turned it off. Just like the old days; as if Mother were standing over her and shaking her.

She pulled the covers up to her chin and lay there, thinking. Emmanuel had explained it to her, or tried to, before they took him back to Fulmers Moor. The unbaptised child is the lodge of the devil; and wasn’t it the Devil in person whom Mother had feared, taking a turn on the landing, peering at them down the stairs? Baptism drives the Devil out; the child gets contented and grows fat. The bad child you put in the canal and the good child you get out are the same one, but the Devil is out, and God is in. That can make a lot of difference. It’s only baptism; a bit more drastic and risky than what you get at the parish church, but there are some babies that are hard cases.

Of course, that was only his theory. He was on the bottle at the time. “Where’s this resurrection you promised?” she asked him. He looked pious. “Easter, of course.” And here it was. Give or take a few days.

Now the house was very quiet; before Jim got up, Isabel was wrapping her parcel. The expose had turned quite bulky. She couldn’t get it in an envelope. Strange that failure should take up so much space; that foolishness and ineptitude should need so many stamps. Finishing the narrative had not brought her the release she had expected. The more she wrote, the less clear it had become. What were those writing tips she had been given, at the evening class where she had met Colin? But that was as unclear as all the rest, all the events of her life up to now muddied and confused by her fear and sickness in the Axons’ spare room. The strange bulk under her clothes sighed softly, shuffled, and disposed itself.

She sat at the kitchen table, fumbling with her string. She was glad in one way that she had written it. Whatever happened, it would be a sort of testimony. That day, she was going to find Suzanne, for sure; she would give up the futile observation, and go and knock on the door. She would find her, and talk. Suzanne could not harm her, she could not murder her, could she? Why was she so afraid? She would have a little drink, just a small tumbler of whisky to steady her. She addressed her parcel; she would post it on the way.

Would they be able to follow it, at the Sunday Enquirer? They wouldn’t mind, they would print anything. Would they want proof, some sort of circumstantial evidence? There was the file, of course; the file on Muriel Axon. She had kept that. It had been easier to account for its disappearance, than to account for its contents. But the file did not tell the end of the story. The old woman was dead. The baby was dead too. The baby’s mother was locked away somewhere, a person or persons unknown. Was that the phrase? It didn’t seem quite right. Her hand shook as she poured her drink. “MANY YEARS LATER,” she said to herself, “THE FACTS OF THE CASE CAME TO LIGHT.”

Perhaps it would not make sense to the reader. But sense was not her requirement.

She pictured her parcel, travelling in a van along Fleet Street. She imagined the people in the offices of the Enquirer, opening her parcel. Now when people pointed at her in the town, they would have something to point about. Now when they talked, they would have something to say. When she poured her drink, she noticed, she had poured far more than she meant to. She was not going to put it back.

Seven o’clock struck. Jim was running the bath taps. The day had begun. She caught sight of her white face in the dark kitchen window; peaked, blurred, with formless swimming eyes.

And now Muriel was out of bed. She was on her feet, regarding herself in the spotted mirror of the dressing table; the carefully shuttered expression, the drooping lids. She reached out and picked up Lizzie’s wig from its stand. Her high-heeled boots were under the bed, her leopard-skin coat was in the wardrobe. It was the last time she would need them.

Miss Anaemia came in from the street, her teeth chattering. “That woman,” she complained, standing in the kitchen. “It’s her, you know, Mr. K., the one with the hollow face. These DHSS get worse and worse. I know she watches me, but she’s never done anything before. I was just going to the post box, trying to catch the first post with my appeal form, and there she was, squashing a great big parcel into the slot. It gave me a shock, I can tell you. I’ve never seen her out of the car before.”

“And so? What did she do?” Mr. K. asked fearfully. So early in the morning, alarms before his oat flakes.

“So she caught hold of me and pinched my arm. She says, where’s the baby? I say, what baby? I said, I wish I had one, I could get rehoused. She says, don’t try to pull the wool over my eyes, Suzanne. Suzanne? Who’s