Sylvia came to a halt, stubbing her toe on the cardboard box that still lay in the hall. “Oh, this blasted box,” she said. “What am I to do with it?”
“Leave it.”
“I rang up again. That bloke’s foreign, who always answers. I can’t get any sense out of him.”
“You’ve got the right number?”
“She gave it me herself. Anyway, the address must be right, because that’s where I sent her wages, and if she hadn’t got them she’d have been round like a shot.”
“I could take it,” Colin offered. “I could drop it off.”
“No, I’ll do it. You follow the removers. Here you are.” She took out of her shoulder bag the keys to the new house, with the estate agent’s tag still on them. She dropped them into his hand. “You go and open up, and I’ll drop the box off at Napier Street and follow you in the Mini.”
“But I don’t know where you want the furniture.”
“Never mind.” She smiled. “Whatever I decide now, I’ll want it changed next week, I know I will. Off you go, then, I’ll be right with you.” She kissed him on the cheek.
Colin went down the path, swinging the keys. “My old man said follow the van,” he sang. “And don’t dilly dally on the way.” He jumped into the Toyota and revved up the engine, ready for a sporty start. “Off went the van with me home packed in it—” He sped away from the kerb, waving gaily as he approached the corner, though his wife was no longer in sight.
Leaving the front door ajar, so that the squally rain blew in through the crack, Sylvia turned and clip-clopped down the hall. Just a final check, she thought. In the kitchen the smell of pine disinfectant rose to meet her. She had given the worktops a good going-over that morning, and washed the floor. There had to be some mess, when carpets were taken up, but she wanted the purchasers to know that she was clean.
She opened the cupboards one by one. All empty; the groceries were in the back of the car. Inside the last cupboard, by the hinge, there was a smear of something red. Tomato sauce, she thought. Those kids again, eating, eating, always eating. Pulling her abdomen in, she looked around. There was nothing to wipe it up with, no cloth or anything. Not even a tissue in her pocket. With an expression of distaste, she clicked the door shut and left the kitchen behind.
Strange how the living room looked smaller with all the furniture gone. You’d think it would be the other way round. On the mantel-piece sat Colin’s head. Much to his disgust, and to Alistair’s, she had insisted it should be left behind. A horrible thing, she thought it, with its blind white eyes. She walked over to it, touched the tip of the nose, then the cold lips. The porcelain was yellowish and crazed at the base. Faculty of Benevolence. Faculty of Hope.
She climbed the stairs and checked the bedrooms, opening the doors of the built-in wardrobes and easing out the drawers. In Alistair’s room she stood by the window for a moment, looking out over the dank garden, into the tangle of grey branches that fenced it off. In summer it would be an impenetrable wall of green, but of course she would not be here to see it. She laid the palm of her hand flat against the wall. It felt damp, but there was no trace of the fungus now. Colin had done a good job on it. Perhaps there was hope for him yet. The growths would be back, naturally; but that was the next tenant’s problem.
The sun was struggling out as she left Alistair’s room, and shining through the narrow window onto the landing. It seemed to make everything look worse; illuminating the stains on the wallpaper, the cracks in the floorboards, even the brushmarks in the paintwork; a scouring, bleaching April sun. She hesitated, then turned back and drew closed the door of Alistair’s room. Softly, in turn, she closed the other doors. Her face half in shadow, she went downstairs. She picked up the box, surprised again by how light it was. “Lost me way and don’t know where to roam,” she hummed. The front door clicked shut after her. She took the keys out of her pocket and posted them back through the letter box.
As soon as Muriel turned the corner—she felt the baby stirring within the box—she saw the car parked by the kerb; hello, she thought, Miss Isabel Field. She was parked a few houses along, on the other side of the road, and she was watching Mr. K.’s gate. Muriel saw the upturned white oval of her face; then sunlight struck across the windscreen, and wiped it from her view.
Miss Field was not somebody who understood life. She had not grasped how things work. She had not grasped it ten years ago; almost under her nose, she and Mother had toddled off to the canal. Muriel had an impulse to cross the road, the box in her arms, and pass the time of day.
But there was a need to hurry. It was necessary to get herself back upstairs and change into her own clothes. She couldn’t take the baby to the canal wearing Lizzie’s white boots, it would be unsuitable. Besides, why should the changeling emerge, unless it recognised its mother?
She turned in at the gate. She saw it, in her own mind, the murky waters parting as the human baby sank. She looked down at Gemma; pity, she thought, you could get fond of it. Slowly, trailing green weed, her own skeletal child swam to the bank. “Resurrection is a fact,” she whispered. She drew the child from the water; rigid, but not with cold. With damp and bony fingers, the changeling reached for her face.
She was putting the key in the lock when she heard hurried footsteps behind her. She turned, holding the box between herself and her pursuer.
“What’s that?” Miss Field demanded. She peered into the box.
“That’s little Gemma,” Muriel said calmly. “That’s little Gemma Ryan.”
“And who the hell are you?”
“Just the baby-sitter.”
“Where’s Suzanne?”
“Upstairs.” She nodded towards the front door. “Coming?” Isabel followed her inside, leaving the front door ajar. Muriel put down the box on the hall table. There was no one around; the doors were all closed. Isabel looked down at the child. “She doesn’t look like anybody,” she said. “Just a baby. Why is she in a box?”
“Ask her mother.” Muriel led the way upstairs.
Outside on Napier Street, the Mini was crawling along. It had begun to rain again, quite hard, and visibility was
