She hadn't gone yet. Anna realized she'd been behaving as if Granny Knight already had. She wanted to scream, but suppose mummy heard her before Granny Knight did? Suppose mummy got to her first? Having Granny Knight still here only made her feel worse; she was sobbing loudly now, she didn't care who heard, she just wished someone would so that everything would be over. She didn't want to try and speak to Granny Knight. She didn't want to use the phone.
But she could, if she was lucky. If she jiggled the cradle of daddy's phone until it rang, it might ring downstairs as well. If Granny Knight picked up the phone, Anna could tell her everything – she'd have to. Could she take the risk of mummy hearing instead? But already she was stumbling back to the desk, sobbing as she sat down in daddy's wobbly chair, sobbing painfully as she picked up the receiver and began to move the cradle, jiggling it more and more violently as it rang and still nobody answered. It was ringing downstairs, she could hear that now, and she could hardly breathe for sobbing. Someone must answer – her bruised arm was already aching, her head and her jaw and her whole body were.
When she heard the click of the phone being lifted downstairs, loud in her ear as the closing of a trap, she almost dropped the receiver. She had to clutch it with both hands. She didn't dare speak. Then she heard the hollow shell-like sound of a hand cupped around the mouthpiece. 'Yes?' a low voice said.
It didn't sound like mummy. Nevertheless it seemed to take Anna forever before she could swallow and draw a shuddering breath and, risking everything so completely that she had to close her eyes, whisper, 'It's Anna.'
'Yes?'
The voice sounded even gentler. It couldn't be mummy; she wouldn't speak like that, not any more. That thought broke the dam of Anna's fear, and she began to babble into the phone. 'Oh, please come and get me. Mummy's locked me in daddy's room. She's going to hurt me, she wants to hurt me, she isn't like mummy.' Now she was sobbing not so much with fear as with having to say such things about mummy; her face was blazing with shame. 'Please don't go away, please come and let me out. Please don't let mummy get me…'
The silence didn't last long, it only seemed so. 'I'll be coming for you,' the low voice said, 'don't you worry,' and Anna replaced the receiver as quickly and quietly as she could. She sat hugging herself on daddy's chair and watched the door. Thank you, thank you, she said over and over, not knowing if she was speaking out loud, or to whom. Nobody but she could have heard the low voice on the phone.
Forty-nine
It was Isobel who draped Alan's arm round her shoulders and guided him into the long room, while Liz searched for money in her bag to pay for the taxi, which had come all the way from Norwich. Alan seemed scarcely to realize it had to be paid for; he seemed aware of very little except that he was home. 'I'm all right,' he kept murmuring hoarsely to Isobel, 'I can walk.' But even if he didn't need to be supported physically, he was obviously grateful for the contact, pitifully so. When they disappeared into the long room, Liz gave the taxi-driver more than she'd intended, then closed the front door on him and the fog rather than wait for change. She didn't want to leave Isobel alone with Alan. She mustn't give her a chance to talk.
Alan was sitting in his usual chair facing the television. Liz was reminded of the time he'd shown her the Nigerian cassette, which was still on the videorecorder. She remembered the bloody man stepping towards her out of the mosque. The memory made her tremble, and so did the sight of Alan. He looked pale, famished, shockingly aged. His eyes looked as if he were hiding in them, or trying to.
Both he and Isobel were gazing at her. His eyes were pleading with her, Isobel's growing more suspicious every moment as Liz didn't go to him. Liz could see as well as Isobel that he was pleading with her to hold him, talk to him, ask him nothing for the moment; but she was afraid to go to him. Suppose he read in her face what she'd done to Anna? She was sure he would if she went near.
Eventually she did, for Isobel was growing visibly readier to tell Alan all she knew, or thought she knew. Christ, couldn't she leave them alone? Liz's body felt like one long tearing scream at Isobel, but she could only squat next to Alan and stroke his hair, massage his shoulders. He felt dismayingly thin and stiff and unresponsive; he didn't feel like Alan at all. Just now, what with the shock of his return and everything else that had happened to her, she, too, seemed unable to react.
Isobel’s face was wavering, trying to be calm for his sake, but then her feelings won. 'Oh, Alan, what have they done to you?'
He stretched out his hands to her in a gesture that was meant to be reassuring, but, as he lurched forward in the chair, Liz saw how long his nails were. 'Don't upset yourself,' he said. 'It's over now.'
He sounded as if he wasn't sure himself. His voice was cracked and uneven, as though he'd almost forgotten how to talk. No wonder Isobel said, 'You need a doctor. Stay where you are, Elizabeth, I'll phone.'
'The phone isn't working,' Liz said, searching desperately for a way to turn this to her advantage.
'I don't need a doctor.' Alan leaned back, trapping her arm behind his shoulders, and closed his eyes. 'Just let me be quiet.'
Liz saw how to get rid of Isobel. Once Isobel had gone she might be able to talk to Alan, tell him how she'd changed – perhaps he could help her sort out her feelings. 'Isobel's right,' she said, for the first time in her life. 'We ought to fetch a doctor. My car's off the road, Isobel. I'm afraid you'll have to go.'
Isobel's eyes narrowed. She must know that Liz had got the better of her; how could she refuse? Yet she seemed prepared to do so, for she wasn't standing up. Liz was just wondering if hysteria would help – perhaps if she pleaded with Isobel to get a doctor, it would work on Isobel's anxiety – when suddenly her body stiffened, her lips froze. Upstairs a door was rattling.
It was the door of Alan's workroom. Anna had come round. Liz couldn't move; she was sure that Alan and Isobel knew what the sound meant. Perhaps if she didn't move, everything would go away. In a sense it seemed to, because the rattling wasn't repeated; Isobel relaxed, stopped listening; she must have decided that it had been only a draught. Liz was about to turn on the hysteria, when Alan demanded, 'Where's Anna?'
For a moment Liz couldn't speak for panic; she thought he knew. She swallowed painfully. 'At the hotel.'
'Are you sure?'
'Of course I'm sure. Why else would I say it?' Fool, she screamed at herself, he knows you're lying now; you wouldn't have said that if you were telling the truth. And see the way Isobel's looking at you now. But Isobel was watching Alan, who had put his hands over his face, peering out eventually through the crack between his hands as if he didn't want to be seen. He seemed both relieved and deeply distressed.
Isobel couldn't bear it. 'What's wrong with you, Alan?' she cried.
All at once Liz didn't want to know, dreaded hearing what had happened to him or what he might have done while he had been away. She didn't need to know just yet, only the doctor did. Alan seemed to agree with her, for whatever reason. 'I've told you, don't upset yourself,' he said, evidently unaware how his whole body was visibly writhing. 'I don't want to talk about it just now.'
'In that case, I might as well not be here at all,' Isobel said. 'I wonder why you asked me to come.'
Alan took his hands reluctantly away from his face. 'Because I didn't want Liz to be on her own.'
How much did he know? As much as Isobel suspected? Both of them were gazing at her. She could feel then-pressure in her brain, building up into a scream or a confession – she wouldn't know which until the pressure forced her mouth open. So Alan distrusted her too, did he? Everyone did. Her fury at that gave her back some control. She must get rid of them before they heard Anna; she still had time. Getting them out of the way was all that was important now. 'I don't know what's wrong with you, Alan,' she said, with a bitter delight in her ambiguity, 'but you must listen to Isobel. You need to see a doctor right now. It'll be quickest if she drives you to the village.'
Isobel nodded agreement. Of course – then she'd have a chance to be alone with him, to tell him all about Liz. Liz no longer cared what Isobel said, so long as she was rid of them both before they heard Anna. Isobel came and pulled him up by his armpits, as if he were a child again – he couldn't weigh much more than a child, by the look of him. Supporting him with one arm round his waist she gazed down at Liz, until Liz wondered what she was waiting for. Isobel pursed her lips impatiently. 'I take it you're coming too?'