The Janus Stone

January. Then he puts on another mask and drones on about the lottery and choices and whatnot. At least this reminds Nelson that he hasn’t bought his ticket for Wednesday’s draw yet. Then the curtain goes up and there are these people in togas having an orgy, only they can’t have much of one because the production obviously can’t stretch to more than four actors. Then the curtain comes down and the man in the mask drones on about women’s rights, puts on his other mask and starts on about rape. The curtain goes up and there are two people in Victorian dress having breakfast. Turns out the man is seeing a prostitute and the woman kills herself. Up pops Chummy in the mask again and goes on about terminations and oral sex and the pill. Cue a blast of sixties music and the four actors at another orgy, only this time with LSD rather than grapes. Somebody dies of a drug overdose and the others sing ‘Yellow Submarine’ as a kind of funeral dirge. The man in the mask appears to say it’s all the fault of the planets and the jolly foursome appear in space suits to say that the Earth has finally disappeared into its own orifice. Cue applause and calls for ‘Author, Author’.

‘Jesus,’ says Nelson as they file out of the doors, ‘what a load of crap.’

‘Shh.’ Michelle looks round. ‘Leo’s just over there.’

Nelson looks and sees the bearded playwright surrounded by admiring friends. He thinks he sees Shona’s red hair in the crowd but there’s no sign of Ruth.

‘I’ll arrest him under the Public Decency Act,’ Nelson mutters.

‘Shh.’

In the car, Michelle admits that the play was dire and she even agrees to stop off for a Chinese. Cheered, Nelson hums under his breath as he negotiates the Norwich suburbs, the car flying merrily over the speed bumps.

‘So,’ says Michelle chattily, ‘what did you think of Ruth?’

Nelson stops humming. ‘What do you mean?’

Michelle laughs. ‘Oh Harry, you’re hopeless. Didn’t you notice?’

‘Notice what?’ Be careful, he tells himself.

But Michelle is still laughing. ‘She’s pregnant.’

Nelson counts to ten, keeping his eyes on the road.

‘Hadn’t you noticed?’

‘You know me,’ he says, ‘I never notice anything.’

‘A fine detective you make,’ teases Michelle.

‘You don’t know for sure that she’s pregnant,’ counters Nelson.

‘Yes, I do. I asked her when we went to the loo together.’

Nelson curses women’s inability to go to the loo on their own. And why do they have to chat? Catch men chatting in the bog. No wonder women always take so long in there.

‘She didn’t say who the father is,’ Michelle continues, leaning forward and fiddling with the car’s radio.

‘Didn’t she?’

‘No. I bet it’s her ex-boyfriend. You know he went back to his wife?’

‘Did he?’

Michelle changes stations until she finds some music she likes. A woman’s voice fills the car, telling him that girls just want to have fun. ‘You know, Harry,’ says Michelle slowly. ‘I’d like to help Ruth a bit.’

Careful, Harry, he tells himself again. Careful.

‘Why?’

‘Because she’s going to have a baby and she’s on her own and she’s not with the father. I’m sure she’s got lots of friends at the university, people like that weird warlock who gave us the dreamcatchers, but we’re probably the only normal family she knows. So I’d like to help her. Take her shopping for baby stuff, that sort of thing.’

In all the years he’s known her, Michelle has never wanted to take another woman under her wing. Why, thinks Nelson despairingly, does she have to start with Ruth? He glances at his wife. She is smiling to herself, twisting the ends of her blonde ponytail like a little girl.

‘All right,’ he says at last, ‘anything you say.’

Ruth is in a good mood as she drives home. She has survived a social event without being sick or rushing to the loo a million times. Even though the play was terrible it was nice to go out for the evening, to see well-dressed people and to talk about something other than bones and decapitation and death. It was nice too to spend time with Shona. Maybe they will be able to stay friends even after Ruth has passed into the shadowy Mother World. Even seeing Nelson and Michelle hadn’t been too bad. It had been a bit of a shock when Michelle had asked her about the baby but she supposes that everyone will know soon. And, the funny thing is, she would like to go shopping for baby clothes with Michelle. Ruth is dreadful at shopping. It is a female ritual that she has never mastered. Other women can disappear into a shop for half an hour and come out with piles of tasteful clothes in the right size, artfully matching accessories and the perfect pair of shoes. Ruth can shop all day and still only have a T-shirt two sizes too small to show for it.

And she needs a woman friend. Someone who is not jealous or disapproving but who has had children herself and is ready to give advice and encouragement. It’s just a pity that the only woman who fits the bill is the wife of her baby’s father who, if she knew the truth, would certainly never speak to Ruth again.

She sighs as she turns onto the Saltmarsh road. The light and noise and colour of the Little Theatre seem a million miles away. Here everything is dark and still. Far off she can hear the roar of the sea. Strange how loud it is at night. The tide must be coming in. At high tide water covers the salt marshes completely, stopping at the freshwater marsh only a few hundred yards from Ruth’s front door. Sometimes, on nights like this, it is hard to believe that the waters won’t engulf her altogether, leaving her little house bobbing on the waves like Noah’s ark. As Ruth knows to her cost, one should never underestimate the sea.

An animal runs out into the road, its eyes glassy in her headlights. A cat, maybe, or a fox. She hopes it isn’t Flint. When she parks outside her house, the security light comes on, bathing everything in theatrical brightness. Maybe she should leap out and start declaiming a speech about Janus. But, unlike Shona for instance, Ruth has never wanted to be an actress. Giving lectures is one thing, emoting on stage quite another. She gets out her bag and starts scrabbling for her key. Since her mother bought her an organiser handbag she has never been able to find anything. Christ, her back hurts. She is longing to sit down with a cup of tea and a giant ham sandwich.

There it is. Ruth hauls out her house key attached to a black cat key ring (a present from her nephews). Then she stops. The light is still on and the sea is still thundering away in the distance. But there is now another sound too. Very faint but unmistakably there. The sound of breathing.

Frantically, Ruth fits the key into the lock and throws herself into her house. Once inside, she puts on the lights and double locks the door. The security light goes off and outside there is complete darkness. Trembling, Ruth turns off her own lights in order to see outside. But, even though she presses her face to the glass, there is nothing. Blackness.

Flint rubs against her leg and she jumps. Stroking him calms her down. Relax, she tells herself, it’s nothing. Just a fox or some other animal. But Ruth knows that the breathing, heavy and regular, was that of a human. A human, moreover, who is still outside, still waiting for her. Is it the person who left the baby for her to find, who killed the cockerel and wrote her name in blood on the wall? If she opens the door, what will she see? Will it be the Goddess Hecate herself, flanked by two spectral hounds, the moonlight white on her skeletal face? Or will it be only too human, the killer who murdered a child and threw her head down a well? The killer who has now, inexorably, come back for Ruth.

She doesn’t know how long she stands there, stroking Flint and looking out into the night. It is as if, as long as she doesn’t move, she will be safe. As soon as she moves, he will move. The unknown person outside. He will move and he will come for her. Tears come to her eyes.

A tiny movement in her stomach brings her back to herself. She has to protect her baby. The creature outside can’t move through solid walls after all. Gathering Flint in her arms, she turns away from the window and stumbles upstairs to bed.

She is woken by Flint meowing outside the front door. He often declines to use the cat flap, preferring the personal touch. Groggy with sleep, Ruth descends the narrow staircase and opens the door. A dawn mist billows in from the marshes. Flint is halfway down the path, his mouth open in outrage. On Ruth’s doorstep is a dead calf. A