came up to her. The yellowish light was settling on her eyes, and she felt as if they were clouding over. She reached out one shaking hand and clutched the doorknob, but she couldn't turn it. She was sure that if she looked into the room she would see baby Georgie, who was dead.
The hall creaked. Even that couldn't make her open the door. Though she didn't know what had happened to Georgie, she knew it had been horrible from the way everyone had avoided talking about it in front of her. If she opened the door he would sit up in his cot. What would he look like now he was dead?
Something creaked below her. Perhaps daddy was on the stairs now, perhaps he had heard her up here. Her fear of him was even greater than her fear of Georgie's room. Her hand was prickly with sweat, it felt as if the doorknob was electric and she couldn't let go. When she turned the doorknob convulsively she wasn't so much opening the door as falling forward into the room.
Georgie wasn't in the cot. She saw that at once, for the cot was splintered against one wall. His toys were scattered everywhere, but he wasn't in the room. She could see now why it was so foggy upstairs; his bedroom window was open a few inches at the bottom. She'd reached her hiding place; there was nothing to be frightened of in the room -and yet she was.
It wasn't just the dimness of the room, which was the fault of the fog. It wasn't the smell, though the room smelled more like a zoo than the rest of the house – a zoo at feeding time, she thought, without knowing why. It was the feeling that what had happened here was still here, even if she couldn't see it: baby Georgie's death.
She spun round, almost falling, thinking she'd seen red. It couldn't have been at the window: how could a red face have looked in up here? It hadn't been the mobile of six silver birds, still turning in the air above where the cot had stood; it hadn't been any of the Fisher-Price toys, rattles and music-boxes and an activity centre, though there was red in some of those. She mustn't waste time looking, she had to get into the cupboard before daddy came upstairs. She was stooping to the cupboard when she caught sight of the patch of red above the cot.
She stared at it, and then she shuddered away. She didn't want to know what it was. It wasn't really red, it was more brownish – a splash of reddish-brown as wide as her chest, high up on the wail. It looked as if a large egg had been smashed there, an egg full of-… She didn't want to know, she hadn't time to think. She got down on her hands and knees, all her limbs threatening to give way, and pulled open the cupboard doors.
Derek had built the cupboard into one corner of the room, with doors full of slats like wooden Venetian blinds. It reached to the ceiling and opened to reveal several shelves, strips of wood resting on wooden brackets screwed into the walls, several strips to a shelf. Toys were piled on all the shelves – so many toys for just a baby: Anna had heard mummy say once that Jane kept buying toys to try and keep him quiet. There was just room beneath the bottom shelf for her to squeeze in; at least, there had been a few months ago.
The space was full of toys now. She dragged them out one by one and piled them on the shelves she could reach, afraid that if she took out more than one at a time she'd make too much noise. She stooped and stood up, stooped and stood up; her legs were aching terribly, her thighs rubbing together, raw as scraped knees. More than once a toy almost slipped between the gaps in a shelf. She stooped and stood up wildly, terrified that her gasps of panic had been heard downstairs.
At last the space was empty, and she crawled in as quickly as she could. Then she began to sob. She'd grown too much since last time; she could no longer turn round in the space. When she tried, her shoulders lifted the shelf above her. If she hadn't backed out the shelf would have come loose, the toys would all have fallen, daddy would have heard.
She crouched on all fours outside the cupboard, shivering uncontrollably. If she crawled in backward, she wouldn't be able to move. What else could she do? There was nowhere else to hide. She backed shakily into the space and drew the doors closed, her fingers between the slats. One hinge squealed faintly, then there was silence, except for her aching heart.
The silence was beginning to let her feel safe, when she remembered that she'd closed the bedroom door. She wouldn't be able to hear if daddy came upstairs until he opened the door. She began to shake again as she peered through the slats, though she really hadn't room to shake. She was going to fall over, she couldn't stop herself – she would dislodge the shelf above her. She managed to lean her left shoulder against the wall to support herself, and then she felt as if the wall were shaking.
She stared out helplessly at the room. The slats let her see most of the brownish splash on the wall, but the more she watched it, the more she wanted to look away. It was making her want to think about it, think what it must be, here in the small dark grubby place that smelled like a zoo at feeding time. She was afraid of seeing baby Georgie -the brownish splash made her so, and she mustn't think why. If she did she'd run screaming downstairs, into daddy's arms, into his claws.
She was going to have to move soon; she was beginning to get cramp. All her limbs were aching. Any moment one or the other of them would move, whether or not she wanted it to. If she lay down on one side and curled up, would that be more comfortable? She had to try. She eased herself shakily onto her left side, but that was aching so much that she almost cried out. She jerked onto all fours again, too hastily. Her shoulders were lifting the shelf above her. Everything was going to fall.
It was a long time before she dared to move, to lower herself on her arms so that the shelf settled back onto its brackets. She was afraid that it would miss the brackets and collapse on her. But when she made herself crouch down, shaking, it fitted into place. Nothing would fall now, nothing; please, nothing…
But something moved above her – something reached down out of the dimness and clawed at her back.
As she twisted out of its way, only her breathlessness saved her from screaming. She was cowering against the wall and the shelf now, and the shelf was going to come loose again, but she could do nothing about it. The strips of wood above her shifted, and the object that had clawed her fell out of the widening gap.
It was the claw that daddy had brought home from Africa.
She didn't know what it was doing here, nor did she care. She only knew that it made her prison seem even smaller and grubbier and darker. Was it what Jane had been looking for, why she had made all the mess and the brownish splash on the wall? Anna didn't want to think about it – she mustn't think. She grabbed the claw and shoving the cupboard door open, flung it out as far as she could.
It clanged against the wall near the brownish splash and thudded on the carpet. She'd got rid of it, but had daddy heard the noise? Was he coming up now, unheard, to see who was in Georgie's room? She had to close the cupboard doors before he came into the room, but she couldn't reach from where she was crouching, she couldn't move forward for cramp.
She strained her whole body forward and managed to touch the left-hand door. Her fingertips fastened on the slats and pulled, but her fingers were slippery with fear. Her touch swung the door out of reach.
He couldn't have heard, he would be upstairs by now if he had. She would have heard him on the creaking stairs. Not if he was creeping – and that thought made her jerk forward, out of her cramp. Her shaking fingers grabbed the left-hand door so frantically that she broke one of the slats. But she had a grip on it, she could draw it toward her, and now it was closed. She leaned sideways to get hold of the right-hand door, to close it as she backed into her hiding place.
She had just pushed her fingers between two slats when the door of the room opened and daddy came in.
Fifty-four
At first all he could see was the claw. Its talons were upturned toward him, beckoning. When he looked up he saw Anna cowering among the toys. She must have flung the claw away from her, he realized. Perhaps something had made her throw it down in front of him, a challenge. He had yet to do what must be done.
First he had to get Anna out of the room, away from the claw. He mustn't give in to the temptation to hurl the talisman into the fog, even if that might persuade her to trust him. It had to stay here, where he knew where it was. But when he moved toward her and the claw she cowered back into the cupboard like an animal into its lair.
He mustn't do anything that might make her run into the fog. Somehow he didn't want to leave her for any
