BY FLOWER AND DEAN STREET

Patrice Chaplin

1

The London sky was pale and hard and glistened like an ice rink. At the end of a long wintry front garden stood a narrow three-storey house with dry dignified trees on either side. Everything was still. The two lower floors were brightly lit and at some windows curtains weren’t drawn. Light from the street lamp didn’t reach the garden because rough overgrown shrubs with dead honeysuckle tangling through them ganged together just inside the railings, and small ones, spiky, treacherous, hid by the gate. A child’s new tricycle lay on its side across the path, its handlebars poking into the cracked earth of the flower border. A wind shook the trees. Then everything was still again.

A light went off on the first floor. The front door opened, and a man and woman walked quickly along the path. “Damn the child!” the man said and swung the tricycle away across the lawn and into a shed while the woman went on to the gate, the gravel spitting under her tall elegant shoes. She waited on the pavement, her black fur coat sleek around her, and the light of the street lamp shone on her face, pale and beautiful, as she turned and shouted, “Daniel! We’re late.” From the road, the house no longer looked isolated—there were other houses nearby, a church hung over the garden shed, cars lined the kerb.

Daniel ran to the gate, out of breath, and, knowing the plants well, jumped to avoid them. But sly, undercover, they were waiting somewhere else, and he tripped and swore.

“I’ll pull them up tomorrow, Connie,” he promised.

He closed the gate. It squeaked open immediately and they got into the car.

“Why doesn’t he put it away I wonder? Does he want to get it pinched?”

“Perhaps he does.” She laughed. “I think he’s bored with it already and daren’t admit it.”

He started the engine, and then turned and kissed her. “I didn’t give you this in front of the children.” He took a small black case from his pocket. “I wanted to wait until we were alone. A little extra present.”

She opened the case. Glittering on a nest of black satin was a small diamond brooch shaped like a heart. Still smiling, she said, “Oh. Oh, it’s lovely, Daniel. Really lovely.” She was all the more touched as once again he’d given her something she would never use. She never wore brooches—thought they were for elderly women. It would join the bottles of scent, kid gloves, jewelled powder compacts, which were aging elegantly in her bedroom. “But why a heart?”

He squeezed her hand. The car moved forward, and she undid the fur and pinned the heart to her dress.

Silence came back into the long wintry garden and the narrow house looked lonely again.

It was Connie’s thirtieth birthday.

2

The restaurant was well known for its intimate atmosphere, its roast beef, its blazing log-fire and the difficulty of getting a table.

They sat with two friends by the fire as the waiter cleared the empty Beaujolais bottle and glasses and brought the champagne. Jane had black bright eyes. She was full of energy, and she considered herself Connie’s best friend. She pushed back her long shining hair and started on her third portion of fresh figs.

“Can’t get enough of them,” she said, and seeing Daniel laughing at her, wriggled athletically. She could never keep still.

Her husband, Mark, was quiet and withdrawn and had pale, powdery skin like a moth.

Daniel raised his glass. “Happy Birthday, and thank you for ten marvellous years.”

“They haven’t all been marvellous,” said Connie. “What about when I couldn’t cook? You can’t have forgotten that. Are you drunk? It got better when I learned to open tins.” She laughed, and her teeth were slightly protruding; but even that, Jane thought, seemed attractive on Connie. “Before that, poor man! The burnt dinners, undercooked dinners, non-existent dinners he had to come home to.”

“You’re exaggerating,” said Mark mournfully. “I’ve had some very good dinners at your place.” He always seemed tired except when he talked about his work.

“They were usually burnt and undercooked at the same time,” murmured Connie.

“It’s lovely,” said Jane, flinging her hair back into the eyes of a passing waiter and nearly toppling his tray. She shivered towards the next table. “I haven’t had champagne for ages.”

Her black plain dress, its material, its style, seemed only to emphasise her flat chest. “It’s as much as I can do to get Mark to remember my birthday, let alone celebrate.” She looked at Connie’s bosom, generously revealed by the cut-out in the bodice of her dark-red dress, and she had to admit that in spite of nursing four children, it was still shapely. Jane gulped some champagne. “That’s a super brooch.”

The cut-out was shaped like a diamond; and Mark, eyeing more than the brooch, said, “Diamonds are definitely the evening’s motif.” Something like light came back into his eyes.

“The frock was meant to be modest,” Daniel told him. “But the long sleeves and high neck obviously got too much for the designer, so he ripped it open at the most telling point.”

“You need something super when you get into your thirties,” said Connie. “Thirty! Definitely the end. No more silly girlish indulgences—eh, Papa?” She pulled Daniel’s ear. “Can’t blame my mistakes on immaturity.” Her voice was husky.

“Will you have any more kids?” asked Jane. “God, that sounds awful. I didn’t mean they’re a mistake.”

“When David’s at school, perhaps. I’d like one more baby. I’d like really to enjoy it, lavish attention on it.” Her eyes were warm, caressing, as she smiled. Connie looked at people as though she cared for them; she’d been well-loved. She twisted the glass round, and the champagne splashed about and fizzed, and Jane noticed that even her hands were rounded and in proportion. “I had the others in such a rush. There was so much to do. I couldn’t give them enough time.”

“I’m certainly not having any more,” said Jane defiantly, and she looked at Daniel, for some reason, as though he’d contradict her.

He didn’t. “It’s the only solution,” he said firmly. “They’re easy to build, economical, hygienic—they’re sensible.”

“What’s he on about?” asked Jane. “Not tower blocks again?”

“They suck up the drifting surplus overnight. You can cram fifty families in the space you would use for one. They might not be pretty,” he added sharply, as though Mark had opposed him, “but how pretty is half a million with nowhere to live?”

“He’s going grey,” said Jane.

“Who?” asked Connie.

“Daniel. And his stomach! It’s a hazard.”

“You ought to see the ones the Council get. You’d soon forget your preoccupation with saving cornices and low-timbered roofs.”

Mark didn’t answer. His cheeks full of unchewed food, he looked like a hamster.

“Pansies. That whole group are pansies, Mark. What do they know about housing women and kids?”

“How d’you mean, a hazard?” asked Connie.

“Well, it sticks out,” said Jane.

Connie looked at Daniel’s stomach. “You mean someone might bump into it?” she giggled.

“No. It’s a health hazard. Men over a certain age should watch it. I’d stop giving him puddings.”

“You might say the hospital dominates the heath. You might say it should have been spread across, rather than up—but it saved space, for crissake, Mark. It’s economical.”

Mark still didn’t answer. Then he remembered the forgotten food and started chewing.

“Do you know you can see it from wherever you are on the heath?” said Jane disingenuously. “Even in the woody bits.”

Not quite sure of her tone, Daniel looked at her, his dark eyes, with their yellow lights, unblinking.

“I mean, wherever you are in Hampstead you just never forget that hospital.”

“People need clean, hygienic blocks,” he said swiftly and refilled the glasses. “Anyway, Mark, how’s Golders Green’s next best thing to a Regency terrace working out?”

Connie nudged him.

“It’s not!” snapped Jane.

“The builders are no good,” said Mark gently. “Very expensive, unreliable—”

“And who’s to blame for that?” asked Jane. “Who chose them?” Smiling, Mark pointed at himself.

“Change them,” said Daniel.

He started to answer, but Jane said: “It’s been unlucky from the start, that scheme. He did the drawings and spec. in his spare time. Then he found he’d put the drawings back to front. They’d all have been peeing in the front garden.”

Daniel looked sympathetically at the younger man and thought of a way to change the subject, so that Jane would keep out of it. “There’s another council meeting Friday. I’m proposing new flats for that old station site near—”

“Oh no,” said Jane flatly. “Don’t get him involved in any more work. I hardly—”

“—Camden Town. I think we should use a local architect. You’ll have to do some provisional drawings.” His decisive tone dropped under Jane’s high howl and gave Mark confidence to reply, softly, “I’ll have to think about it.”

“I hardly ever see him as it is.” Jane bounced up and down in her chair.

“Have some more figs,” said Daniel.

Mark suddenly looked crushed by fatigue. Jane took his energy, absorbed it and shone even brighter, spoke even louder, her smiles thrusting, her eyes jabbing, leaving him shrunken and uninteresting at the tail end of everyone’s conversation. She took the glow from everything except Connie. She even took it away from the brass ornaments round the fire.

Almost before Daniel looked in his direction, the waiter was beside him and another bottle was whisked to the table.

“It may be unimaginative, even ugly,” said Daniel. “No. Not ugly, I’d call it uncompromising. It serves a damn useful purpose. It’s a million times more efficient than that old Victorian one.”

“Efficient?” cried Jane. “Hell. It took me half an hour just to find the X-ray department. There’s no signs anywhere. Even the nurses don’t know where anything is. I walked miles. It’s like a city.”

“When I look back on my twentieth birthday—help!” said Connie. “I thought leaving your teens was the end of the world. I cried. D’you remember, Daniel? I’ve led a very sheltered life, when I think about it.”

“It’s been uneventful compared with everyone else’s,” said Jane, and she stared at Daniel. “I mean, it’s been so smooth. Married straight from boarding school—”

“Well, so were you,” said Mark.

“No. It’s different. I mean—” For a moment she looked sad, and as her eyes were pointing at the empty plate Daniel was going to suggest yet another helping of figs, when she said suddenly, “I’m going to teach full-time. I’ve decided. The money’s not worth it doing just mornings.”

“Oh no,” said Daniel. “That means you’ll be even fitter, your cheeks will be even rosier. You’re already the healthiest mum in N.W.3. Do you know that?” He leaned towards her, playfully. She turned scarlet. “You’ll put us all to shame.” He straightened back into his chair.

“I’ll give them isometrics and more running,” she said breathlessly. “Running’s what they need.”

Mark pointed over Daniel’s shoulder and Daniel turned round quickly.

“What?” He frowned, seeing nothing sensational.

“Through the windows, across the road—one of the most beautiful houses in London. Keats House. Late eighteenth century. Surrounded by gardens. Don’t you just long to tear it down and build one of your nice gleaming tower blocks?”

Daniel stared at him—at his long floppy face which strain and living with Jane had made already old, at his blue, harmless eyes, his woman’s mouth—and he said, “I’d really love you for the new project. If you can get it. I’ll certainly push you. We need an architect with taste.”

“Yes but—” Jane exploded.

“You’ll get a good fee,” he added quickly, not quite looking at Jane.

“How much?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Double, treble what—”

“We’ll think about it,” she decided. “I need a new fridge.”

“No more for me.” Mark put his hand over his glass and tried not to yawn.

“Don’t you ever get bored, Connie? Honestly?” asked Jane.

Connie, surprised, shook her head.

“You look all right, though. I don’t know how you do it with four kids and that big house. What’s your secret? Vitamin E?”

Connie laughed, and the way she looked at Daniel suggested he had a lot to do with it.

Mark was saying, “With the prices of everything now you can’t afford them.”

“Can’t afford what?” asked Jane.

“Kids.”

“Well, you’re not having any more, so don’t start worrying your head about affording them.” Her long teeth gleamed as she smiled at Connie. “He can’t even cope with one.”

“We’ve enough difficulty with one,” Mark was saying.

“But you’ve put your money into the cottage and you’ve had some rather exclusive holidays,” said Daniel.

“Jane likes to feel free.”

“Free!” Jane crossed her eyes.

Daniel put his glass down and his hand dropped out of sight. Suddenly Connie looked flushed—pleased. Daniel’s eyes were hot as he watched her.

Aroused, Jane could only wriggle wildly. Connie shivered a little, as though with anticipation. Nobody saw it, except Jane.

“Is that beauty spot by your eye real?” she asked fiercely.

“I hope so,” murmured Connie, her mind not really on what Jane was saying.

“Mark, d’you hear that? Mark!” she cried; and a waiter crept up, wondering how to deal with this obtrusive customer without upsetting her host, whom he cherished for his demeanour, his reckless appetite, and his bank balance. He offered her more champagne, naively thinking that that would shut her up. After several of her more spectacular sounds, she dragged Mark’s attention from out of whatever private grey crevice it had been hiding in. “Yes?” he sighed.

“D’you know that Connie’s beauty spot is real? I always thought it was false.”

“Is it?” he replied. Nothing much of what his wife said ever got through to him.

“I like this place better than the one we went to on Connie’s last birthday. It’s more intimate.”

Mark’s empty expression suggested that it was too intimate for him with her at the same table. Her remarks whizzed wall to wall like a ball on a squash court. Her “Oh goshes” and “How terrifics” became part of other people’s conversations. Her shriek, as the third bottle was uncorked, had everyone frozen.

“Daniel gave me a velvet dress—you know, one of those lovely new Ossie Clark ones—as well as this brooch.” Connie lowered her voice dramatically, hoping she’d follow her example. “The children gave me an electric mixer.”

“I thought you’d already got a mixer.”

“Not an electric one.”

Connie reached across for the ashtray. For a moment Jane smelt the light, flowery perfume Connie always used—it echoed persuasively in her clothes, in her bedroom, in rooms she visited; it was a part of Connie, and Jane, who had never smelt it on anyone else, had secretly hung her nose over perfume testers in chemists all over the place but had never been able to track it down. It reminded her of summer. For some reason she felt silly, shy of asking Connie its name.

“You don’t go out much,” she accused her. “You must get fed up staying in. I know I would.”

“I don’t think about it.”

“Staying in makes one dull.”

Connie, with a little smile, said: “Well, I have so much to do.” She looked sideways at Daniel. “I mean by the time I’ve got the children to bed and David’s nappies soaked and we’ve had dinner and I’ve washed up and scrubbed the sink and cut the grapefruits ready for breakfast, I don’t feel like going out.” In spite of her tone, the little smile was still there.

Jane, unaware that she was being teased, said: “You lay breakfast the night before? Sounds like a boarding house.”

Connie almost laughed. “Well, I have to,” she managed to say, “or I’d never get the children’s handkerchiefs ironed for school and Daniel’s”—she nudged him under the table—“overcoat brushed properly.”

“Poor thing! Everyone thinks you’re awfully domesticated—I mean, homely—but I never realised you thought like this about it. I’ll show you some shortcuts. And we could do an evening class together once or twice a week. What about squash?”

Daniel’s mouth twitched, and Connie, who was shaking with the effort not to laugh, stared hard at the table. Then she thought of her house, of sitting by the fire, and she could see no reason why she should ever leave it.

The headwaiter padded over and gave his panda’s smile. Behind his back his hand made signals, and a tray of sweets was brought to the table. “On the house, sir. And would you like me to keep this table for Wednesday, sir? Or would you rather have the corner?”

“I’m not certain it will be Wednesday. It depends when my clients arrive.”

“I’ll keep the table for an hour, sir?”

Daniel said decisively: “Yes, keep it. My secretary will cancel if necessary. Friday week I’d like a table for six.”

“Very good, Mr. Stein. Very good, sir.”

“I’m handling the Bryant case. The old man’s flying over from the States. We’re in court ten days,” he told Mark.

“How will it go?” asked Mark.

“Oh, we’ll win,” he said lightly.

“You must hate it when Daniel’s out in the evenings,” said Jane.

“Usually he’s only out when he’s doing the free advice evenings, but now because of the flat project and—”

“You must hate it.”

“I don’t mind being on my own. I quite like it.”

“If your husband’s a Labour councillor, you can forget your cosy evenings round the fire talking about squash,” said Daniel. “A Conservative councillor—well that’s another thing.” He winked at Mark.

“Get an au pair,” said Jane.

“Don’t want one,” said Connie.

“You’d be much freer,” said Jane ferociously.

“Where you read rights for the Left, I read houses for the middle-class at lower cost. Why should—”

Jane snorted, and the sound terrified a man at the next table. “Enough of this,” she said, getting up. “You can discuss all this anytime. Come on.” She took Connie’s arm. “We’ve got a special birthday surprise.”

3

Jane’s surprise was a crowded nightclub in the West End, and they sat near the floorshow watching six girls, dressed as tigers, slither through a jungle number. Their breasts were bare, their eyes bored. Any interest they might have unearthed in Mark was quelled immediately by the music, which was so loud he had to cover his ears. Jane alone managed to shout above it. “This isn’t the surprise.” The music got louder, the girls spun faster, the lights cut out—Mark looked as though he’d have to be carried out. During the polite applause a spotlight picked out the Master of Ceremonies as he swished onto the floor.

“And now what we’ve all been waiting for. He’s taken them by storm in Paris, thrilled them in Berlin, and now, on his first-ever visit to London, we have the exclusive pleasure of bringing to you, the Magician from Hungary, the Greatest Magician in the World, Danchenko!”

Jane cried: “He’s supposed to be terrific.”

The lights changed colour several times as he came on in a cloud of white doves, produced a doubtful rabbit from a black hat and juggled a hoop, a ball and a skittle successfully. A pink chiffon scarf gave birth to multicoloured chiffon scarves.

“It’s not feasible to have the bloody thing spread all over London,” said Daniel. “What d’you want? A fleet of taxis to take patients from haemotology to X-ray?”

“I just said it spoils the view,” murmured Mark.

Drums rolled, doves disappeared, the magician climbed onto a small dais, and Mark fell asleep.

“He used to be a councillor before he became articulate—”

“Wake up, Mark!” Jane hissed. She passed him his drink.

“I’m not asleep, for Godsake.”

The magician was thin, dramatic; and he could have been any age. The MC stretched up and blindfolded him with three thick scarves.

“…No. I’ve never actually heard Lewis talk,” said Daniel. “He grunts. When he belches they mistake it for a protest and call point of order. Jenkins is the only tricky one. But I’ll push it through.”

“Not once, not twice, but three times for Danchenko! Now I will touch any object you choose and Danchenko will identify it.” The MC moved swiftly among the tables with his black tails whipping from side to side—he looked like a snake. “What am I touching now, Maestro?”

“Now you have a handkerchief. It is a woman’s handkerchief. Not new. Into it has flowed many tears, but the handkerchief will now stay dry. The cause of the tears is over.”

“You’ll have a free hand, Mark.”

“I’ve got a lot on.”

“You’ll do it,” said Jane happily. “You’ll fit it in. I want to get out of Europe this summer.”

“What am I touching?”

“A glass.”

“And now?”

“Another glass.”

Laughter. “You can’t fool Danchenko,” said the MC.

“Come out to the lavatory, Mark, and I’ll give you a dozen reasons why you should.”

Jane, waving her watch, jumped up and down, among the crowd all vying for attention. The MC, dismayed by her flapping hair and digging fingers, had no choice, and the watch was forced into his hand. He just stopped her holding up his arm by doing it himself.

“Now, Danchenko.”

“A wristwatch with a thin strap. I feel it is too tight.”

Jane’s mouth hung open.

“The wearer of this watch has a strong wrist. The pulse is often very fast but strong. The person does much running. The arm sometimes waves strenuously, but not goodbye to a lover she no longer has use for, nor again to warn a lover she likes that her husband is home.” Laughter. “She is playing tennis.” Loud applause and the MC escaped over to the other side of the room.

“I can’t Wednesday,” said Daniel. “The Lord Mayor’s having a thing at the Goldsmith’s Hall. Have a stab at the drawings and—”

“Did you hear that?” asked Jane.

“Terrific,” said Daniel.

“And what am I holding here, Maestro?”

“You are touching a bald head.”

Laughter.

“It’s all done by code,” Daniel told Jane. “Or he can see.”

“Well, he couldn’t see my strap was too tight. Still, it’s not the only thing tight around here. Wake up, Mark. Pull yourself together.”

“A glass,” said Danchenko.

“What’s in the glass?” shouted a man in the audience.

“Give him something of yours, Daniel. Give him—” Jane looked at his coat, then at Connie. “Give him her brooch. Go on, Dan.”

He stiffened. He’d made rather a point of always being called Daniel.

“Amber liquid. It won’t be there long.” Men around the table cheered. The magician leaned forward. Suddenly his blindfolded eyes seemed to peer into the audience. In a low menacing voice, he said: “The glass forever emptying, forever refilling. A sorrow is being swilled away. A hardening liver can be more sorrowful, my friend. Take an old magic man’s advice.”

During the shocked silence, Daniel was heard to say, “Isn’t there a bar or something? Let’s go and discuss it properly. The girls are all right. They’re having fun.”

“Too near the mark, Maestro,” someone bellowed.

The magician chuckled.

“His laugh isn’t the funniest thing in the world,” said Jane. She looked at Daniel—at his mouth, firm and decisive, at his yellow eyes, penetrating, steady—and she looked so hard she nearly missed the next bit and Connie nudged her. The MC was holding his hand up in the air.

“And now?”

“Do not think you are touching nothing, my friend. The air is not empty but full of vibrations.”

Daniel held out Connie’s brooch, but the MC, attracted to a nail-file at the next table, turned his back and was about to reach for it, when Jane, grabbing the brooch, swung it like lightning in front of the almost victorious nail-file and dumped it unceremoniously onto the MC’s outstretched hand. She’d won too many relay races to let her side be ignored, and the MC, startled by her, was obliged to hold it up and say: “And now?”

The magician shuddered. Perhaps it was his black, flowing clothes that made the action so terrifying. Conversation died, forgotten. Jane still tipped the champagne bottle against her glass. All around were objects, held out, held up, dangling, foolish. Only the cigarette smoke carried on drifting up, unafraid.

“A heart,” and he smiled—a long cavernous smile that made his face look like a Halloween lantern. Then the audience started to move, to mutter. A man at the next table leaned across to Jane. The MC, disconcerted, tried to hand the brooch back. The noise grew, and through it the magician said quietly: “A heart. It will not be gashed or cut or crushed but taken whole and still beating from the body.”

Stunned, Connie turned to Daniel. He was talking to Mark. No longer believing what she’d heard, she said, “Did you hear that?”

“What?” asked Mark.

She grabbed Jane. “Did you hear it?” Then she saw a woman at the next table looking at her. She’d heard it. She was appalled.

“He said something about a heart,” said Jane.

“ ‘It will not be cut or…’ He said that,” said Connie. Jane looked at her, startled.

“I didn’t hear that. Come on, Maestro. It’s her birthday,” she shouted.

The magician had taken his blindfold off and the MC was gliding onto the floor. The drums rolled, people clapped; but the atmosphere in the club was not as festive as it had been.

The magician walked slowly forward and pointed a long finger at a man at the back. “Bring me that glass, my friend.”

Amid a few calls and whistles (“Watch it or he’ll turn you into a rabbit”), the man went self-consciously up to Danchenko and gave him the glass.

Danchenko said softly: “What the magician touches brings luck. And now a small thing.” He peered into the audience, and here and there an object was held out to him. “An ear-ring? No, not an ear-ring.” He bent towards a middle-aged fat woman and chuckled. “Beware your ear hears too much gossip. A cackling woman and a crowing hen bring no luck to cock or hen.”

“He’s got that wrong,” murmured Jane. She was staring at Daniel again. “Hasn’t he?” She squirmed long and luxuriously. It seemed to relieve something. He looked away.

The magician’s black-rimmed eyes swung over the room, searching. They flicked onto Connie, and flicked away; but it was she he chose. The long finger pointed unquestionably at her. “And now bring me the heart.”

“Go on,” said Jane, excited.

“How did he know who it belonged to?” asked Daniel.

“He must have seen Jane give it back,” said Mark.

Connie got up and walked to the centre of the floor, her soft dark hair blue in the strange light. The magician held the heart for a moment, and then said, “A clean cut of the knife. Beware the reformer.”

Connie stared at him. Then she turned and went back to her place. She was still moving gracefully.

The magician did a complicated trick, during which he turned red, and then green. There was smoke, the doves flew round, the glass and the heart disappeared, and Connie thought, “How did he know the brooch was mine?”

As though encouraged by the half-light, Jane’s leg shifted so close to Daniel it must almost have been touching him.

Daniel was looking at Mark. “Will you do it?”

—

It was after four as they walked along a deserted road to the car. Daniel, though short-legged and pudgy, moved with surprising agility and had more speed even than Jane.

“The baby-sitter had better stay the night—what’s left of it,” said Connie. “It was fun, but I didn’t like his laugh.”

“He’s a fake,” said Daniel.

“He is not, Dan!” Jane pranced up and down like a horse.

Seeing her husband’s expression, Connie said, “Daniel doesn’t believe in the supernatural.”

“When will you get the drawings in?” Daniel asked Mark.

“End of the week,” said Jane. “He got my watch strap being tight.”

“Law of averages,” said Daniel. “He certainly isn’t Hungarian.”

“What are you muttering about?” Jane asked Mark. “Yes, you’ll have time. I’ll let you off the hour with the kid each night and you’ll have a clear run. Poor old Connie. Beating hearts and beware informers.”

“Reformers,” said Mark.

“Hardly a birthday greeting,” she said. “Anyway, how do you know? You were asleep most of the time. At least Dan doesn’t fall asleep.” Her voice was slurred.

“Yes, what was all that about?” asked Mark. “I thought I heard him say something about cutting things out from a body.”

“I didn’t hear that,” said Daniel. “I’m sure he didn’t say that.”

“He did,” said Connie. “Everyone was making such a noise. I wonder what it means.”

“Nothing to worry about,” said Jane. “Probably an abortion.”

Connie shuddered.

“And what about your departing and approaching lovers?” said Daniel.

“Huh!” Jane flushed. She had, unknown to the men, but known to Connie, just trifled with a lean young tennis player. “I wonder where we’ll go on Connie’s next birthday.”

Connie was aware of the street without looking at it. It was narrow, ordinary, its buildings vague, except for a lighted shop-front here and there, and at the end Regent’s Street brimming with light. Suddenly it all changed. The lights didn’t look right. The corner of the street moved, and the tailor’s shop was something else. She stopped, and blinked; but when she opened her eyes the street was all right again.

“Forgotten something?” Daniel asked.

“Too much to drink.”

4

Connie’s kitchen was large, and its long harsh lights made the red-and-black tiled floor jump and dazzle, with all the impact of a migraine attack. The rugs were away at the cleaners. When they were there the kitchen was cosy. Old, useless things on their various journeys from other parts of the house to the dustcart had congregated there and stayed. There was a dilapidated rocking-chair that squealed if touched, an ancient mangle with nonsensical legs, an enormous radiogram, its insides long since gone; and these things, like aged and stubborn relatives, had their place and refused to move or be humiliated by the rest of the kitchen, which gleamed and was impeccably the latest thing.

Connie, dressed in long striped socks, slippers and a short skirt, was sweeping the floor. Her green-and-white striped sweater emphasised her body and the hazel-green of her eyes. She bent to pick up a crust and saw, beneath the table, other things that had a way of gathering there—the forbidden toys.

“Daniel!” she shouted. “Tell the horrors to come down and take their stuff up to the playroom. I keep telling them.” She waited optimistically for a reply, and then, when there wasn’t one, went to the door and shouted, “Right! I’m throwing them out.”

“Coming, Mum,” called the child least likely to come.

Daniel wasn’t fooled and shouted from his study, “Adam! Do what your mother tells you.”

Connie shoved her mending-basket and the heap of clothes to be ironed further along the wooden table and wiped the new space with kitchen paper. She fetched a plate piled with raw meat from the fridge; and as she did so Daniel came in and put down his coffee cup, a screwdriver, a door-handle, and the space was gone. “I’ll propose Mark for the new scheme if I can get it through.” The heap of ironing overflowed onto the floor. “We’re voting tonight.”

Connie kicked the fridge-door shut and hurried across with the heavy plate. “Move all that,” she said, eyeing the screwdriver.

“I want to talk to him. He’d be good, you know. But I must do it somewhere where she can’t possibly be, or he’ll never get a word in.”

“Male sauna,” and she pushed the plate to the end of the table and got a chopping board from the drawer.

The overhead light started whirring, and like an answering mating call the pipes started rattling. At the other side of the kitchen the fridge did its bobbing-and-shaking dance.

“Pub,” he said. “Tomorrow lunchtime.”

“But he doesn’t want to do it.”

“We’ll go round the corner to the Crown. Lamb’s Conduit Street’s too crowded.”

Connie found a recipe book and put on her big shiny apron. The fridge slowed down, and there was sudden silence.

Daniel pressed himself against her back and stroked her breast. “He gets quite soppy about the changing face of London. I don’t know if he’s got illusions or just rather commonplace scruples.”

“He’s sensitive.”

“He’ll grow out of it.” He left her breast alone and ate a hunk of cheese. “She’s not always as bad as the other night. She seems to get louder when she’s with you, for some reason. He’s quite worn out by her. No wonder people think he’s dull.”

“She’s a good friend, Daniel. Her heart’s in the right place.”

She went over to the other side of the kitchen, over to the long sink unit with its jangling jungle of metal implements, tricks and time-savers, and picked out her sharpest knife.

Daniel checked his watch with the electric clock. “Yes, I’ll get him to the pub.”

“I wish you’d get them to take their stuff upstairs. I wait on them hand and foot.”

“I’ve told you. You’ve devalued a mother’s best weapon. No television.”

“Threats are no good. I—”

“Of course they’re no good,” he shouted. “You never carry them out. Just take the plug out.” He ate a tomato and looked at the collection Connie had put by the door. “The sight of Dolly Deirdre in the dustbin now…”

In the twitching strip-lighting, Connie’s face was flawless, serene. Its only signs of age were small lines at the corners of her eyes—upward, optimistic lines. Her eyes, beautiful in shape and colour, had a rare combination of elusiveness and good humour. Her eyes were all you really noticed, some people said; and that was lucky, they added, because her looks were so ordinary.

“It would really be one up, you know, if I could get Mark to do it.”

Upstairs the battle of the television channels raged, and the losers gave the action a last twist by screeching. It brought Daniel up there in a flash and the plug was pulled out.

Connie cut the meat.

“Adam’s getting smug,” said Daniel coming back. “The answer is two television sets, Dad,” he mimicked. “Why should I watch crap?”

She smiled and shifted the cut-off fat to one side.

“What’s it going to be?” he asked, looking over her shoulder.

“Steak and kidney pie.”

“Plenty of crust.”

“Jane says you’re getting horribly fat.” She went on cutting.

“Has he done his homework, by the way?” he asked, and rushed out.

The meat was tough suddenly.

Upstairs, her eldest son discovered that his father’s idea of hard work did not match his.

The meat became fleshy, knotty. It seeped bloodily. She cut again, and blood spurted out, ran over her hands, spread blackly over the chopping board. She put the knife down carefully and backed away, trying to wipe her hands on the slippery apron. Then the meat looked all right again. She stared at it. The blood seemed less. She turned and walked slowly across the kitchen. The red polished floor was blinding.

Daniel was in the living room putting papers in his briefcase.

“Darling, would you cut the meat for me?”

He looked up, surprised. “But I’m just off. Use a sharper knife. You all right?”

She nodded.

“You look quite pale.” He kissed her quickly and hurried to the front door. “Ring Jane, will you, and go on to her about exotic holidays. Three weeks in India. No, that’s too cheap. Safari. That’s it. She’d enjoy that. Back about midnight—if Jenkins doesn’t stir the idiots up too much.”

When he’d gone, she crept back into the kitchen. Upstairs, children splashed in the bath. Timidly, she approached the meat. It looked like stewing steak. She started cutting again.

It was curious, that change in the meat, she thought. For a moment it had looked alive.

5

It was almost dark as Jane and Connie, both carrying Sainsbury bags piled high with food, stood on the corner of Willoughby Road near the heath.

“I’m fed up with Mark,” said Jane, putting down her carrier. “He shuts himself up in his room and works every evening. What life do I get? I’m sure he doesn’t have to work so much. The kid and me are important as well. You must get fed up with Daniel being out so much.”

“Well, I’d rather he was home, but there’s a lot happening on the council at the moment. Have you talked to Mark about it?”

“Of course. He just retreats even further. And now Daniel’s waving this new project under his nose. I don’t know what to think. I don’t know whether we should do it or not. I’d like the money.” She hopped from foot to foot and banged her big fur mittens together. “Anyway, I’m off with you-know-who tonight. I’ll say I’m with you, so please back me up.”

Connie hesitated, and then said reluctantly: “Well, all right. What if he rings?”

“He won’t. Haven’t you ever wanted a change?”

“Well, I suppose there’ve been men I’ve thought attractive, yes, but it’s never gone further than that. I suppose its because I’m O.K. with Daniel.”

“You still feel the same about each other sexually after ten years? I don’t believe it.”

“No, it’s not the same. It’s better, if anything. But it goes in cycles. Sometimes for days we hardly notice each other.”

“You’re lucky.” Jane was envious but open about it. “Still, Daniel’s put on weight. I told him so. Doesn’t he do any sports? I thought he said he was good at athletics.”

“He doesn’t have time.”

“His eyes really look at you, don’t they? That’s what makes him attractive. Mark goes round as though he’s blanketed in thick fog. Still, I must be off, if I’m going to—you know.”

“Jane, have you ever had something happen to you where things you’re looking at change shape…texture…just for a moment?”

Jane laughed. “Frequently—if I’ve drunk a bit too much.”

“I’m serious.”

“Then, no.”

“I can’t tell if it’s the things or my perceptions. It’s happened the past few days.”

“Tiredness. Eyestrain. Anyway, I must go.”

Connie walked home. The dark streets seemed too empty. There were people about—a long way off. The wind blew the trees and she heard footsteps behind her, a man’s footsteps, getting nearer. Nervously she walked faster, but the other person was catching up. When he was almost up to her she gasped, and swiftly crossed the road. The man gave her a quick, surprised look and carried on walking. At the end of the road he went into his house, and Connie, her heart still thumping, felt rather silly.

—

The next day Connie was sprawled in the huge padded chair, watching television. Her eyes were half-closed and she looked fluffy and full of curves like a big cat. A book lay open at her feet, and beside her the electric fire, full on, sent its never-dying flames leaping up the tin grate; the coals twinkled rhythmically. The curtains weren’t drawn. Outside, the trees, taller than anything around them, stretched up into the clear night sky. A breeze flapped around them. They creaked and the smaller branches jabbed against the roof.

The programme faded, and on came the adverts, blaring and bold, tumbling over each other like bad clowns. Connie stretched luxuriously, and then lay back again. She’d endure the adverts—anything rather than move.

The programme began again, but her eyes suddenly flicked over to the window. Seeing only trees they returned, rather carefully, to the television. Then she jerked up and listened. There should be a sound. She looked at the round polished table, at the hi-fi, at all the familiar things in her living room, but they didn’t seem familiar anymore. The trees stiffened, alert, waiting, and high up a stronger breeze prowled through their branches. What was the sound she expected to hear? The television audience laughed. She sprang out of the chair and turned round. The front door, she could see, was closed. She switched off the set and, after the loud audience laughter, the house was too quiet. She didn’t like the trees, the way their hard silent trunks filled the window, so she drew the curtains and stood still, scarcely breathing. There was a sharp noise in the kitchen—but it was just the fridge getting ready for its next dance. Things around her only looked recognisable when she examined each one and murmured its name. Sweating slightly and out of breath, her heart tumbling inside her, she forced herself back into the plump black chair. She turned down the fire, and the flames were obliged to twitch over coals reduced to a mere glow. She picked up the book and opened it, and put her slippers on. Her mouth was dry. She looked at the page. She looked at the clock, then at her watch. She looked into space. She looked at the clock again.

From the window, the garden seemed too long. She couldn’t see the road, she realised, because the shrubs were too high. The swing didn’t look harmless. The little stubbly plants she liked had disappeared. She let go the curtain. She sighed: breathing wasn’t easy.

She’d go to the kitchen and make some tea. Purposefully she crossed the living room but stopped at the edge of the hallway. The staircase looked menacing. For the first time, her own house frightened her. The front door, bristling with old locks and bolts, disused and rusty, gave no security. The panels of frosted glass seemed particularly frail. She put the chain on quickly, and then remembered the back door and sped down to the kitchen to make sure it was locked.

Everything was too bright here. Alone on the dazzling floor she was exposed. She hurried back to the shadows and the dubious security of the hallway, and for some time she stood, her back pressed to the wall, alert, listening for the sound she wanted. She could almost hear it now. Then she remembered Daniel. Weak with relief, she reached across for the phone and dialled his number.

“Hello, darling.” Her voice sounded too loud. “I wondered how you’re getting on.”

“All right, Catkin. Is it anything special?”

“I wondered when you were coming back.”

“I told you. I’m not sure. Are you all right?”

“I’m feeling a bit shaky.”

“Maybe you’re getting flu.”

“I’m worried about that chain.”

“What chain?”

“The chain on the bloody door.”

“Connie!”

“It’s all right. It’s all right. But the kitchen locks aren’t any good. They’re rusty. Any—”

“Connie. I’ve got to go back to the meeting. I’m holding everyone up. Look, you sound as though you’re getting a touch of something. Have a scotch, a strong one, and go to bed.” He hung up.

She poured (she was not an accustomed drinker) what she considered a strong one. It tasted vile. She went upstairs and looked at her sleeping children. Listening to them breathe made her feel better.

Coming down the stairs she saw something—something on the wall, on the curving wall of the stairway. It was a huge shadow of a man. Terrified, she turned round. There was only the stairs and the boxes on the landing. She looked at the shadow. It looked like a man and his arm was raised high above his head. She’d never seen the shadow before.

She walked down to the phone, her legs tingling and stiff, and as her shadow passed into the other it looked as though the arm was about to strike her.

She called Jane.

“So you’ve heard the news?” Jane said immediately.

“No, Jane. Look, I’m—”

“Daniel’s proposed him for the scheme, and—”

“Look, Jane. I’m feeling a bit wobbly. I don’t know what it is. I’ve got a feeling that—”

“Yes?”

“—that someone’s trying to get in.”

Jane gave an animal shriek. “Let’s hope it’s someone nice.”

“Jane,” she said hesitantly. “Could you come round?”

“Oh, Connie. I can’t. There’s no one with the kid. Mark’s out. Go to a neighbour.”

“They’re a long way away.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Well, they seem a long way. I’ve got to go down that long garden and through the gate—”

“Hop over a wall.”

Connie, hurt, didn’t say anything. Jane said, “No, really. Go over the wall. It doesn’t sound like you.”

“I’ve been feeling a bit odd for days.”

“Pregnant. You’re pregnant again. You know that awful early stage.”

Connie sat down, dazed with relief. “That’s it. That’s why the meat looked funny.”

“Get yourself a big drink and watch television. Get your mind off it. We’ll see you Thursday. So long, kid.”

Then she heard the sound she had been expecting. It seemed to come from a long long way away. It was the sound of heavy, wooden wheels and a child’s squeaky voice shouting, “Watercresses!”

—

Something woke her. She lay, not breathing, wondering what the noise had been. Without turning in the bed, she knew she was alone. A muffled noise downstairs coming from the hallway, the noise of someone trying to get in. She jolted up. “Cor.” The expression lingered in her mind, even after she heard Daniel’s voice call, “Connie, open the door.”

She was so relieved, she half fell on the stairs in the rush to get to him. The door jammed; she’d forgotten the chain. Dithering, she took it off and clung to him and “Cor!” clung to her mind and she couldn’t get rid of it.

“All right, Catkin.” He comforted her. “What’s happened?”

She shook her head.

He sat her gently on the stairs. “Why did you have the chain on?”

She looked at him, at his dark eyes, at his black sleek hair, at his pallor, at his firm mouth, at all those things she loved. Then she remembered the shadow.

Without looking, she pointed above her head, upwards at the curving landing.

He stiffened.

“The shadow,” she whispered.

He frowned at her, and then darting up the stairs, “Shadow? Shadow? What shadow?” He was tired, on edge. She came up behind him.

“There,” and she pointed at the thick, looming shape.

He looked at it as though he was in an art gallery viewing pictures way beyond his comprehension. He frowned, blinked, bent sideways. “It’s always been there, Connie,” was all he could find to say about it.

“It hasn’t.”

“For Godsake!”

“I haven’t seen it.” She was nearly crying.

“Anyway, what about it?”

“Ssh!” indicating the children. “Can’t you see?” she whispered.

He turned and looked at her.

“It’s—it’s a man, isn’t it?” she said.

“No, Connie, it isn’t a man. It’s a meaningless shape caused by the landing.” He turned and looked upwards, searching.

“But he’s holding his arm up. Can’t you see that?”

“That’s a box. That long box up there. Jutting out.” He ran up four stairs, pushed the box up so it rested against the wall and the menacing arm disappeared. “It must have fallen down.”

“Oh,” she murmured. “I am sorry.” The shadow was now nothing more than a big blob.

“It must have fallen yesterday when I was getting my old case notes out,” he explained patiently. “It stuck out and caused that shape. It’s five to one. Now let’s get some sleep. Please.”

—

The next night she sat in the kitchen sewing her daughter’s dress. The electric clock thumped out the minutes and a chicken soup bubbled on the stove. It was full of homegrown herbs and smelt delicious. Connie bit through the thread, put the dress gently on the table and went up to the curving stairway. She looked at the shadow. It was exactly as it had been before he moved the box. A man loomed up, his arm raised and somehow she knew, before she even turned, that the long box would be up against the wall and not jutting out.

6

On Thursday evening they sat at the oval table in Connie’s small dining room. There were long white candles, white roses, a crisp white table cloth. They’d just enjoyed, or said they had, Connie’s first attempt at home-made cannellonis in Neapolitan sauce. The frozen beans had been excellent. The dinner was to celebrate Mark getting the Camden Town flat project and there were three bottles of claret on the sideboard.

Connie was wearing the scarlet velvet dress Daniel had bought for her birthday, and her shoulder-length hair was pinned up in a chignon. She didn’t wear the diamond brooch and nobody mentioned it. Jane, who again wore her prim black frock, said she was impressed with the way Connie looked and she kept nudging Mark. “Doesn’t she look old-fashioned?”

Exhaustion had already got a foothold on his evening and he sighed “Yes. Yes.” His wife was getting loud again, but at least it wasn’t in public.

“Everyone should have a deep freeze,” said Jane.

“Nonsense,” Mark replied, his voice high and cracking. “They’re just a fad. You’ve survived all this time without one.”

“That’s no reason for not having one. I want one. Why shouldn’t I have one?” Her eyes gleamed maliciously. “You have what you want. What about that twelve-function calculator you got last month? You can work perfectly well without it but I didn’t stop you having it.”

“It seems amazing people ever got by without refrigerators,” said Daniel and scooped up the last beans.

“Think,” said Jane, looking at his fleshy chin and the suggestion of others under it.

He grinned and cut a huge lump of bread.

She poked her tongue out and then turned to Connie. “I’m saving up for a deep freeze. I don’t know whether to get a really big one, like you’ve got, or an upright one.”

Mark gave her a baleful glance. “There’s no room.”

“There will be, Mark. There will be,” and her staccato laugh made him fear for his twelve-function calculator and all his other luxuries.

“I’m thinking of placing the flats round a central space area,” Mark said, rather awkwardly.

“How will you fill the space?” asked Daniel.

“I wasn’t thinking of filling it.”

“Christine across the road from me has just got a washing-up machine,” said Jane. “It’s the only thing for that job.”

“Only for large families,” said Daniel.

“Rubbish! For any family. Why not? Though why she needs one, when she’s got an au pair, I don’t know.”

“I was thinking of having just grass,” said Mark.

Daniel shrugged and looked at the sideboard. “You’ll have trouble getting grass past Jenkins. He wants a shopping precinct included in the scheme.”

“But there’s shops all round—”

“A modern shopping precinct, split-level. Where’s the chocolate, Connie?”

“You know Christine. Her husband’s in advertising. She wears loads of make-up even first thing in the morning. Mark’s seen her before seven with eyelashes on.”

Connie’s youngest boy, David, came running into the room, a baby’s bottle hanging by its teat from between his teeth.

“Go to bed, angel,” Connie said softly.

“Want lilly juice.”

“Bed!” roared Daniel and the child tottered off.

“What’s lilly juice?” asked Jane.

“Gripe water.” Connie laughed. “He’ll never grow up.”

“The kid’s the same about—”

“Would you support me?” Mark asked suddenly. “I mean—what do you think?”

“Sure,” Daniel said rather absently.

“You see, it would be a play area. I’ll show you the new drawings.”

“The drawings should be simple. Straight up and down.”

“No, there’s no problem about—”

“Pass your glass, Jane, Connie. Try this one—…”

“It’s not twenty pound a night,” said Mark.

The candles had gone right down, and wax dripped over the holders and hung suspended in obscene, horrid shapes. Connie stared at them.

“It is,” Jane insisted.

“On the wagon-lit, she means,” said Daniel; and he opened another bottle.

Connie was leaning, elbow on the table, head resting in her hand, precariously. Her eyes were unseeing and the exact purpose of the evening was no longer clear.

“For two,” said Mark.

“Twenty pound a night,” shouted Jane.

Connie heard, quite clearly, another voice say, “It’s fourpence a night for the doss house, Liz. Otherwise it’s the casual ward.”

“It’s ten pound each, stupid,” said Jane.

The other, a rough, deep Cockney voice, said, “If you go in the casual ward, you’ve got to stay there two days.”

“You don’t want to try Flower and Dean Street?” Connie said and her head lurched off her hand. She jerked it up again.

“What?” asked Daniel.

“In Buck Row it’s mixed. You can sleep two to a bed,” and Connie giggled.

They all stared at her. “Are you all right?” Jane asked.

Connie, suddenly bewildered, tried to laugh. “Of course I’m all right.”

“Well, what’s all this two-to-a-bed?” asked Jane.

Connie tried to laugh again. “Just a joke.” She poured some wine and her fork fell on the floor. A vague sense of her position as hostess came back to her and she said to Mark, in a loud voice, “Congratulations!”

They were staring at her. Then Jane said firmly, “It’s a hell of a price for one night,” and drew the men’s attention off Connie. “I’d rather sit up. Wouldn’t you? Except of course if you’ve got the kids with you. Then no price would be too high.”

“The other night she put the chain on the door,” Daniel told Mark, quietly.

“Well, that’s not such a bad idea,” he murmured.

“No. That’s not what I mean.”

“I don’t even sleep in a wagon-lit,” said Jane. “It’s either too hot or too cold. It’s always noisy.”

“We’ve lived here for over ten years,” said Daniel. “She loves this house. It was my mother’s house.”

Connie gulped her wine and poured some more. Her way of drinking became unfamiliar. It was out of control, angular.

“Half the time the back door isn’t locked even when she goes out,” Daniel said. “We’ve got nothing to steal, after all.” He looked at Connie, who was swaying a bit, and winced.

“It may be her nerves,” muttered Mark. That was a complaint he was familiar with.

Jane pounced on “nerves.” She knew all about “nerves.” “It is not her nerves. Anyone can see she’s pregnant.”

The men looked at Jane, astounded. She’d got their attention and she meant to keep it. “Women go through funny changes at the beginning of pregnancies.”

“But she’s not been like this before,” Daniel said, timidly.

“Every pregnancy is different, Daniel. She’ll be all right after the twelfth week. Anyway, she wanted another one.”

Connie was poised between the desire to pour her next drink and oblivion. She stroked her thigh in an inviting way, then looked down sharply.

“What have you dropped?” asked Jane.

“I touched my dress. It felt rough. Then I look down. I see velvet.” She hiccoughed.

“They’re lovely flowers,” said Jane brightly.

“Daniel got them for me. He gets me such lovely presents.” She emphasised the “lovely” and giggled.

Daniel clapped a hand over her glass. “That’s enough.”

“I wish Mark would,” said Jane. “Get presents I mean.” She hooted with laughter.

Connie started singing, at first hesitantly.

“Oh, they say I killed a man, so they said.

Oh, they say I killed a man, so they said.

For I hit him on the ’ead

With a bloody great lump of lead

Damn ’is eyes.

Oh they put me—”

“Shut up!” said Daniel.

Jane took her arm. “What about a bit of air? Come on.”

Connie wouldn’t move. There was a different expression on her face. She looked—lewd. “Pass the bottle, love,” she said to Mark.

“Time to go,” said Mark, waving his eyebrows at Jane. “We’ll walk back. It’s a fresh night.”

Connie bawled,

“Oh they put me into quod

All for killing of that sod.”

Daniel, aghast, said, “Shut up!”

“They did so ’elp me Gawd

Damn their eyes.”

Embarrassed, Jane tried to join in, but she didn’t know the words.

Connie slumped onto the table, knocking her glass over.

“She did want another one,” Jane said again.

Connie murmured, “Another new bonnet, pretty one. It cost a sovereign. That’s not a bloody sovereign, you bugger. It’s a church farthing. You polished it up.”

Mark, hoping to save Daniel further embarrassment, got their coats and waited in the hallway. Daniel opened the front door.

“Just have a pee,” and Jane ran upstairs.

Mark hesitated, and then said, “Could I see you before the planning permission meeting? I’d like to get the idea across to—”

Daniel shook his head abruptly. “I doubt if I’ll make the meeting. I’ve got the Bryant case all this week and I’m eager to get that derelict area near Lisson Grove used properly. They’re talking about building some damn silly composition football pitch.”

Connie started singing again.

“She’s got quite a voice,” said Jane, adjusting her dress.

Daniel almost shoved them out and then hurried back to the dining room.

“Come on. Bed!”

“Why should I go with you?” She waved a finger at him. “You’ve got me mixed up.”

Connie lay dizzily in bed, a cold flannel on her forehead, a glass of Alka Seltzer fizzing murderously beside her. She was talking into the phone, and every word had to be dragged up with great effort. David ran round and round the room.

“I’m sorry about last night, Jane. Was I awful?”

“Pretty drunk.”

“I can’t remember a thing. Daniel’s furious. I spilt wine all over the cloth. He had to do everything—this morning. I couldn’t move.”

“Have you been sick?”

“Not yet. Anyway, say sorry to Mark. It’s not something I’ll do again, believe me.”

“I wouldn’t. You’re just not yourself when you’re like that. It’s like being with a different person.”

7

Spring was early and Connie moved David’s toys onto the lawn and started preparing her flower borders and vegetable patch. She hadn’t seen Jane for some days and she arrived unexpectedly as Connie was running round the garden with David.

“How’ve you been?” Jane asked.

“Fine.”

They sat on the grass.

“It’s such a good day I thought I’d go on the heath.”

“I hope it doesn’t go cold again. It’ll kill everything.”

“I’ve just had another set-to with Mark. I want a deep freeze and a hi-fi. He says we can only have a deep freeze. He’s astonishing. He’s not really mean, just careful, and there’s no reason for it, especially now he’s got the new thing from Daniel. You must come to dinner with us. Daniel’s amazing the speed he gets things done.” After a pause she asked, “Done any more take-offs of the Good Old Days lately?”

Connie shivered.

“I know Daniel didn’t go much on the coarse bits, but Mark was terribly impressed. I mean, you knew it all through. Where did you learn it?”

“I don’t know,” she said quietly.

“You couldn’t have heard it at boarding school—though on the other hand boarding school is probably just the place you would.”

“That must be it.”

“What would you do about the hi-fi? I feel like just going and getting one.”

“Well, do.” Connie was preoccupied.

“Don’t you and Daniel ever have rows?”

She shook her head without thinking.

“You don’t belong in Hampstead. With a marriage like yours you ought to be living in Golders Green.”

Connie, wearing her latest dress, yellow, short and backless, stood at the sink. The sound of voices talking and shouting, police whistles, and feet running, started up among the clatter of plates and noise of running water.

“No one came out of Buck’s Row.”

“Some sneaky yid who wouldn’t pay for his fun.”

“She cut up nasty.”

“Come quickly for gawd’s sake. It’s something horrible.”

She turned off the tap and, almost collapsing, held on to the sink. Around her there were only the ordinary noises of the kitchen. A plate was broken.

“Aren’t you cold?” asked Daniel, suddenly behind her. “It’s a very appealing number, but I don’t want strawberries and cream getting cold.” He patted her bare back. “Back when I can, Catkin.”

“Don’t go!”

“Oh, Connie.”

“Please don’t go. I can’t stand it.”

“What, dear?”

And then she turned round and he saw her face. The fluorescent strip-light had whited out all colour from it.

“Connie!”

“Being alone. I can’t stand it.”

In a responsible tone he said, “Now look here. You were alone Sunday night and perfectly all right. I’ve got to do my stint at the Neighbourhood Law Centre. I can’t just not go.”

“Not tonight. Please not tonight.” She started crying.

“You’ll wake the children! Oh, Connie, I’m sorry.” He touched her cheek. “Come on, old girl.” He had no idea how to cope with the situation and he was badly alarmed. “You’ll be all right. You’ve got to do some pulling together. Now I’ll only—”

She shrieked, “Someone is trying to kill me!”

She stood, quite still, appalled at what she’d said.

“Now stop it! Stop it!” he said, anticipating a storm of hysterics. “Stop it!”

She didn’t move or speak. Slightly reassured, he pulled over a chair and sat her in it. He gave her a drink of water. When she did speak her voice was calm.

“That shadow came back and you wouldn’t see it. It came back even though you moved the box. I showed you but you wouldn’t see.”

“The shadow didn’t change,” he said.

“You said the box made that arm.”

“I moved the bloody box.”

“The arm came back. It’s there now.”

Exasperated, he said, “I’m going to phone Jane.”

—

Jane looked at the shadow and laughed loudly. “It’s—it’s—I don’t know what it is. It’s like the blotting paper test they do for your personality. Everyone interprets it differently.”

“But how do you see it?” asked Daniel.

“A cloud. Oh, I don’t know.” He was standing close to her, and she was suddenly embarrassed.

“Well, Jane, would you say it looked like a man with his arm raised?”

She hopped up and down, her body in a turmoil. She almost touched him. “Yes, it could be. Yes, now you come to mention it.”

Downstairs, Connie waited, sullen.

—

Jane held Connie’s hand as they sat in the kitchen. She’d just cooked some dinner but Connie wouldn’t touch it. Jane nudged her. “Come on. Eat up.”

The meat looked more meaty than it should. It was sinuous, knotty. Nauseated, Connie pushed the plate away.

“You’re all right,” said Jane. “I mean, you’ve got everything.”

Then Connie heard the sound again. In the distance the child’s voice cried, “Watercresses. Four bunches a penny.”

She looked almost slyly at Jane. Jane hadn’t heard it.

“You’ve got a bloke who’s nuts about you, a super house, good health, lovely kids that you wanted. This is no time to crack up.”

Daniel came into the kitchen.

“You’re early,” said Jane brightly.

“I came back.” He took his coat off and looked at Jane, like a conspirator. Connie was staring at the pepper pot. They watched her for some time. She didn’t blink.

“Eat up, love,” said Jane.

It echoed in Connie’s mind. “Eat up, love, or you’ll never go to heaven. Along came Jack and then there were seven.”

“She won’t touch meat,” said Daniel.

“Then she is pregnant.” Jane was triumphant.

“No. She isn’t.” He sighed, and sat at the table and took Connie’s other hand. “I’m getting an au pair because I think some of this—a lot of this—is strain.”

Connie shook her head.

“It can suddenly hit you. You go for years doing the same thing day after day and one day—bang!”

Jane nodded energetically.

“It isn’t that.” Her voice was toneless and depressed.

“Well, for Godsake what is it?” he shouted.

“Oh do leave me alone. It’s just my nerves.” She shivered and near to tears said, “Please leave me alone.”

Offended, he got up and went out of the kitchen.

Connie’s eyes filled with tears and she lit a cigarette, her hands trembling. Jane, who had never seen her like this, was astonished.

“Come on. It’s not like you. What’s wrong? What is it?”

“I don’t know. I mean—it’s voices.” She sighed deeply. “They say things I’ve never heard. Everything changes, just for a moment.”

For once, Jane could think of nothing to say. She’d just realised Connie was nuts.

“I don’t even smell like me.” She wiped the tears off her cheeks. “I have a bath every day, yet sometimes I stink.” She emphasised the word and looked at Jane.

Jane remembered the perfume, the lovely summery perfume, and was secretly pleased. Then the moment passed, and she asked, quite kindly, “What of?”

“Sweat. Nasty sweat. And other things. Sperm. Stale sperm.” Her voice was pale, resigned.

“What d’you do then?”

“I wash again.”

“Well, use something. A deodorant. No, not a deodorant. Something stronger. An anti-perspirant. You know, one of those you spray on. They last for hours and they’ve got a nice smell.” She shrieked with laughter. “Help! We sound like a TV ad.” Connie smiled. “And shave your armpits. If you’re in a nervous state, your sweat does smell. So remember—shave.”

8

Baffled, his world a hurting, inexplicable mess, Daniel arranged to meet Mark in a local pub after work. Mark as usual looked tired, but not as tired as Daniel. They stood at the bar, and Mark, having turned to make sure he wouldn’t be overheard—an eccentric precaution considering his small voice—mumbled, “Is there anything else?”

“What?”

“Anything apart from being alone in the house that worries her?”

“Water.”

“Water?”

“Kids in the bath. The other night David—she was washing his hair—came up from under the water and she got a funny feeling he was drowned. She said for a moment he looked dead. Damned job calming her. She won’t let them near the pond at the top of the heath. It’s only two inches deep, for Godsake. She hears things. Said this morning she thinks she’s possessed.”

“You don’t think she could be a—schizophrenic?”

“Is persecution conflict—I mean mania—a part of schizophrenia?”

“Does she have hallucinations? That’s the decisive symptom with schizophrenia.” He was dimly trying to visualise the shelf of tatty psychiatric paperbacks he’d collected a month after marrying Jane. “Withdrawal from reality.”

“Happens to everyone at some time or other,” said Daniel. He was equally authoritative. “Three out of four women go in the bin at least once in their lives.” He swallowed his beer quickly. “The figures may be inaccurate, but you know what I mean.”

Mark nodded. “Change of life.”

“For heavensake! Connie’s a bit young for that.”

“No. I mean, it disturbs them.”

“First it was the doors, then the windows. I’ve had bars and grilles put all over the place. Damned job explaining to the kids. It takes a quarter of an hour to lock up at night. Then, sod it, she gets out of bed on some pretext and checks it all. Now it’s the children and water.”

“Symptoms of anxiety change.” Mark looked at the ceiling. “You treat one thing. There’s another. The cause, you see, doesn’t change.”

“You’re talking about an anxiety—” He paused, fumbling for the name.

“Neurosis?”

“That’ll do. Neurosis. Not schizophrenia.”

“Jane says Connie’s worried about smells.”

“Smells?”

“Body odours.” Shyly, Mark took a long drink and plunged into the delicate question of underarms and sperm.

“She really said that?”

“The schizophrenia possibility aside, I would have bet it was a—” A long silence, and then Mark dredged up, “phobic illness, if it wasn’t for this revulsion to the smell of semen. That’s important. It indicates sexual—uh—problems.” He’d just read a thick book on sexual aberrations. He knew all about that.

“She never has had. I mean—”

“They’re deep-rooted. Is her father alive?”

“Why yes. What’s that got to do with it?”

“A transference—uh—state is difficult to…It could be a transference state.”

Daniel urgently tried to think of an equally illuminating possibility. Mark definitely had the grip on all the good ones. He was deciding between nervous breakdown and premenstrual blues when Mark said, his voice croaking with pleasure, “Guilt.”

“Sounds more like transference to me.”

Mark looked at him out of the corner of his eye. “Actually, I’m not that sure what transference is.”

“No. Well, I’m not absolutely certain about that one.”

“I mean, I know it’s what a lot of people go to an analyst for. But guilt is quite common. It causes all sorts of—traumas.”

“Yep. Yep.”

“I’ve got a suggestion, a tentative one. It could be suppressed nymphomania.”

“Repressed nymphomania, you mean. The trouble is it could be anything. There’s so many damn things they get. Care for a short?”

Meanwhile, Connie, her hair pinned up, sat in the hot scented bathwater shaving her armpits.

—

They came back from the pub, slightly drunk, and Mark came in for a last scotch and another look at the patient. Whatever they’d been expecting, Connie morbidly gazing at the shadow or overchecking the window locks, they were not prepared for what they did see. Connie stood in the hallway, by the telephone. She was naked, wet, and blood oozed down her left breast and spilt onto the carpet—the patch by her feet was already scarlet. For a moment it seemed to Daniel there was blood everywhere.

“Doctor,” said Mark, and leaving him to tend to the blood he rang the GP.

“The blood wouldn’t stop. It wouldn’t stop. There was lots of blood.” She was getting hysterical.

“What were you doing?” Daniel was frantic.

“Shaving. The water’s all pink. I couldn’t stop the blood.”

He put a cold flannel under her arm, wrapped her in his coat while Mark located the brandy and three glasses. By the time the GP arrived the blood had stopped, but she was shaking violently and unable to speak.

The GP was puzzled. Although the cut was fairly deep, it wasn’t serious enough to cause such shock. He gave her two injections, one for tetanus, helped her to swallow a glucose drink, disinfected the cut and covered it with gauze. Then he took Daniel to one side. “She’s overshocked.”

“There was a lot of blood.”

“Well, there’s bound to be if you cut yourself in the bath. The hot water makes the tiniest cut bleed like the devil.” He turned and looked at her, yawning and pale on the sofa, and said: “The cut’s nothing, but I think a night in hospital might be the thing, just to get her over this—shock.”

—

There was a dark blue light overhead and Connie, wearing a white hospital nightgown, lay on her bed in the general ward. It was night, but women, some of them dressed, were wandering about or sitting on each other’s beds talking quietly. Among their words were others and Connie heard a voice distinctly say, “She’s in the casual ward off Thrawl Street.”

Another voice said, “You’ve got to stay the forty-eight hours. It’s the law. She’s gone to her sister.”

“Which one?”

“You know. Across the river. They’ve been hop-picking.”

“Where’s the money, then?”

“Drunk it, haven’t they? She was drunk as a lord.”

“Here’s tuppence, but not for rum. You look real poorly, Liz.”

A patient came up to Connie’s bed and asked, “What are you here for?”

“My kids were drowned when the pleasure steamer went down. I lost my old man.”

“You don’t sound English.”

“I’m Swedish.”

“You’re the worse for drink,” said another voice.

9

The next morning was dark and sodden. The windows and frosted-glass partition in the roof rattled with uneven bickering rain which, discovering the occasional hesitant slates, worried at them, nagged at them, until finally it dribbled between them. A patch in the corner of the ceiling started to darken and bulge.

They kept the hot white lights on and everybody, sick and well, turned a disturbing greenish colour. All around there was a powerful smell of wet rubber raincoats. Connie woke up feeling quite different. She felt all right. A young house doctor, his drenched hair sticking up in spikes, took her pulse and ordered commonplace drugs. She wanted to go. The depression was gone.

When Jane came to take her home at midday she was so full of energy, she said, “Let’s go and have a marvellous lunch. Let’s go shopping. Let’s walk across the heath.”

“Are you mad?” Jane’s hand flew to her mouth. “I mean, it’s pouring with rain.”

“Oh, rain’s lovely. It’s soothing.”

Discomfited, Jane shifted from foot to foot. Then the old, how-to-handle-the-insane adage came to her rescue. Humour them.

“Well, all right. Let’s.” Her enthusiasm seemed false even to someone accustomed to her noise.

Connie took Jane’s arm affectionately. “It’s really nice of you to come and get me.”

“Well, I needed a day off.” Her voice was gruff.

“Is David O.K.?”

“Fine. My mother’s there—will be there for some time. Much to Mark’s dismay.”

“That cut was an exorcism. All the horrors leaked out of it.” She laughed.

Jane’s expression was far from humourous. “Well, don’t rush things.” Mark had thrown another derangement into the ring—manic depression—and Jane felt he might have a point.

The summer leaves, swollen with rain, hung motionless like huge furry tongues. They made Jane feel quite disturbed and she was glad to get off the heath. They turned into the narrow streets leading to the top of Hampstead. Jane was talking about hi-fis and washing-up machines. She’d just got a deep freeze, and a washing-up machine was the new idol and new excuse for battle with Mark. “Happened to call in at his bank on the way to get you and what do you think I find? There’s two thousand quid in there. I’m not letting it rot while I spend half the day standing at the sink.”

Connie looked down. “That’s funny. The street’s cobbled.”

“A lot are.” Jane eyed her suspiciously.

For a moment Connie felt badly shaken. Then she looked up—up into the grim sky—and said, “Yes, a washing-up machine sounds a good thing but you still have to spend time loading it.” She took a noisy breath. “Perhaps they should invent a machine for that.”

Obsessive, Jane decided.

The next street-corner was high up on a slope and there was a conspicuous shop, oddly shaped, painted black, that sold pottery. Connie could see a big floral jug in the window. Then it wasn’t there. The shop wasn’t there. It was nighttime. Nearby, men were singing drunkenly. She could hear a horse and cart coming along behind her. She screamed. “There’s a horse and cart behind me.”

Jane’s voice cut in. “Of course there’s a horse and cart.”

Connie whirled round and the nighttime was gone. Coming up the splashy slope was a rag and bone man with his horse.

“I hope you’ve not come out too soon,” said Jane. “You’ve gone a horrible colour.”

“It’s probably the blood I lost. I’m all right.” She started talking quickly. “We’ll go to the new French place. We’ll have lots of wine and garlic bread. I’d love onion soup, a steak—”

By the time she got to Heath Street her heart had stopped jumping and her colour was back. She walked effortlessly, enjoying the rain, and feeling good. People passing looked as though they thought her pretty, but she didn’t feel quite as good as she had felt earlier. There was a shadow on her.

—

Connie and Jane sat on the sofa, and Daniel, undecided, paced between the armchair and piano stool on the other side of the room. He passed two floor cushions, almost sat on the straight-backed chair in the corner but ended up for the third time at the drinks cabinet where he poured another large soothing whisky. Jane’s hair was tied in a ponytail. Two racquets waited by the door. The bourgeois ordinariness of the room emphasised the barred windows, and Daniel, looking miserable, drew the curtains. It was a cold evening, the fire was on and Connie, watching the twinkling, twitching, flitting flames, said: “I know it can’t go on, Daniel. But don’t you see, I say things I can’t possibly have heard.”

“What do the voices sound like? Are they talking to you?” asked Jane.

Daniel left the room.

“No. They’re just going on around me.” She spoke steadily. “They sound normal until I realise what they’re saying. No one I know speaks like that.”

“Is it like hearing them on a telephone?”

“More like a radio. They suddenly tune in, and then they’re gone. Sometimes they’re faint, but mostly they’re just like you and me talking now. Do you know anything about possession, Jane?”

“I do,” said Daniel, back in the room. “It doesn’t exist.” He stared at Jane’s thick white socks and went out again.

“That song I sang the night you came to dinner. How could I have known it?”

Jane, thinking back over that evening, said, “Do you know Flower and Dean Street?”

Connie shook her head. She looked pale again.

“You said something about Flower and Dean Street. I remember the name.”

Connie, not aware she’d said anything, looked even paler.

“I’ve never heard of it,” said Jane.

They sat in silence.

“It was about the time of my birthday,” Connie said slowly. “It all began then. It was something about that magician.”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” said Jane rudely. “I admit he got my watch strap being tight but—well, he also got lovers departing and approaching, didn’t he?” She jigged her knees up and down. “I suppose if you start tampering with all that magic stuff things could—get out of control, mixed up, all those vibrations flying about. Still I don’t really believe it, any of it. You probably knew a Flower and Dean Street when you were a kid.”

“Probably,” Connie lied.

“It’s a nice name.” She crossed to the bookcase, picked out the A–Z and turned to the index. “It’s here.” She crouched on the floor and her brown finger traced a squared map for some moments before she found it. “It’s a little street. It’s in Whitechapel in the East End.”

“I’ve never been to the East End.”

“Perhaps when you were a kid…”

“Living in Brighton? Unlikely.”

Jane shivered. “It seems extraordinary. It’s probably a coincidence. Still…”

“Do you believe me, Jane?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, I know,” said Daniel, hurrying back to the whisky bottle. “People say extraordinary things, do extraordinary things, clairvoyance, E.S.P., what you will. Yet when they’re put to the test, the result is very ordinary. Nothing. It’s not possible, so it doesn’t exist.”

“Its not existing doesn’t mean it isn’t possible,” said Jane hotly. “Fucking rationalist!” she said, as he went out.

“I’m going to find out what’s happening to me and why,” said Connie bluntly.

“You’d better keep it from him. Balding, fat go-getter.”

—

They sat close together in Jivanjee Natraj’s waiting room. It was very plush, and Jane whispered: “The supernatural’s on his side.” He appeared stealthily in the doorway, an exceptionally tall, thin brown man, dressed in a well-cut grey suit. He bowed slightly but didn’t speak, and Jane burst out laughing. Connie, giggly, embarrassed, followed him into his consulting room, where, still without speaking, he took her hands, covered the palms with blue marking-ink and pressed them flat onto some paper. He touched her shoulder lightly and she followed him into a colourful cloakroom where he indicated a sink and she washed her hands. Back in his room he sat behind his enormous imitation Regency desk and pointed to a chair opposite. She sat down, which made her lower than him by about a foot. He put a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles on, and studied the imprints of her palms. “Date of birth?” His voice, though soft, seemed to echo, and what he said stayed in the room.

She told him.

“You have an exceptionally good life with your husband. I see you are a good wife. Your life is tranquil, but you have an appetite for adventure.”

She looked surprised.

“In books.” He laughed. “I see you like reading. The distinguished wife of a famous politician came to me yesterday. Like you, she is a good wife. Her eminent husband has many problems, but I am able to solve them. I help the Prime Minister of India. I help many people.” He pushed across a huge leather-bound book of press cuttings. “Look. There is what the Prime Minister says about me. And here, the famous actor, celebrated all over the world—see what he says. I advise him on the roles he should accept.” He looked at the cutting hungrily. “And here—see what they say about me in California.”

“Quite fantastic,” she said and snapped the book shut. “Will I have any children?”

He laughed uproariously. “You are participating in a trick, dear lady. You know you have four.” He looked back at the print. “Your husband is very kind to you, most kind. He is well-suited to you.”

“Will I have any more children?”

Slightly uneasy, he looked out the window. “That is up to you, my dear lady. You have a decision to make soon. Please do not look so alarmed. It’s about education. You have boy child, no?”

She nodded.

“You have your way about education, but you have to fight. Remember my advice and it will give you strength. You have a rosy future.” He smiled and his yellow teeth were stained and crooked. The smile gave his dignified face the crafty aspect of a jackal. “That will be seven pounds.”

She paid him and turned to go. His expression changed. He stared very hard and thoughtfully at her as she went to the door.

—

“What crap!” She imitated his voice. “You have rosy future. You have boy child, no?” She laughed. “What shall I do now?”

“Try another one.”

And they felt quite safe about trying another one.

10

Connie’s bedroom was spacious and calm and reflected her serenity, her need for order. Daniel’s personality didn’t exist there at all. Rich blue curtains tumbled luxuriously onto the white wall-to-wall carpet. There was a full-length gilt-edged looking-glass. The lights were low except the one above the dressing table, where she sat, making up her face.

She mascaraed her lashes quickly, and then without thinking picked up an eyebrow pencil and emphasised her eyebrows. She unscrewed an unused rouge-pot and flooded her cheeks with colour. She painted her mouth. Dissatisfied, she searched for a darker lipstick. She picked up the pencil again and gave the eyebrows sensational arches. On impulse she enlarged her beauty spot. She packed her face with white powder, combed her hair so that it hung over one eye and gave Daniel the fright of his life. She seemed hardly aware of what she was doing.

“Cab, Connie.”

He managed not to say anything but silently repeated over and over the GP’s number as though it was some mind-saving mantra. They walked to the gate, and he opened the door of the cab.

“Give my best to Jane.”

She got in and he shut the door. Loudly, she told the driver the name of a local cinema. Before they reached the corner she turned to wave, but Daniel had already disappeared.

As the cab turned left by the heath, she leaned forward and said, “Take me instead to Flower and Dean Street, E.1.”

—

The cab throbbed at the corner of Fashion Street, while she walked up and down Flower and Dean Street. It was dark and cold and she had no feeling of recognition or anything else. Half the buildings had been pulled down. There was no one about. It was depressing.

She got back in the cab, and the driver said: “Looking for anything special?”

“No.”

“It’s all changed round here. All been torn down.”

“What was here before?”

“Houses.”

“Are any of the old parts still left?”

“I should think so. You ought to ask at the library.”

—

On Saturday evenings Connie and Daniel usually went to the home of Baxter, one of Daniel’s colleagues on the council, and the routine was to have a drink and play mahjong. The following Saturday was Baxter’s birthday and there were more people and more to drink. Daniel, his heart sinking, kept close to Connie; but she stayed sober, her make-up muted—she even seemed to enjoy herself. It gave him confidence to attend, as he’d hoped to, a meeting to try to pry the Lisson Grove derelict area out of the hands of the mad composition footballers.

At a quarter to twelve, Baxter came out with Connie to find her a taxi. He was older than Daniel, officious, hearty, with a loud voice and a clipped moustache.

“Dannyboy’s a bit of a bounder with this Lisson Grove thing. He’ll get his way. Wants half London torn down and his new hygienic—hey, cabbie!” He waved both arms.

“He likes getting things done,” she said loyally. “Thanks for a lovely evening. Come to us next week.”

“Thanks, love, I will.”

The cab stopped, and he gave her address. He was just about to open the door when she said, “Give us some money.”

Taken aback, he fumbled in his pocket. “Will a pound do?” Then he laughed. She was having a joke.

“No, it will not do.”

His smile died. If it was a joke, he didn’t find it funny. “Now come on, Connie—”

“Come on, you bugger. Give us some more.” She leaned sensually against the taxi and in the street light her face was coarse. “Give us all you’ve got, big boy.” She prodded him. “All of it.” She hiccoughed and giggled.

He pushed the pound into her hand, forced her into the cab, slammed the door and walked away fast.

Connie was preparing the Sunday lunch when the phone rang. Wiping her hands on her apron, she ran up to the hallway and answered it.

Baxter said, “How are you?”

“How are you, Baxter? Isn’t it a gorgeous day? It’s spring again.”

“Terrific.”

“D’you want Daniel?”

“No. Is he there?”

“He’s in the garden, pulling up the shrubs by the gate. People keep tripping up. I’ll call him.”

“No. Look, Connie. I’m an old friend and I’m going to say something straight. Straight, anyway, is the only way to say it. Lay off the bottle. You can’t take it.”

“But I hardly had anything.”

“I know. That’s what’s been worrying me until I remembered the ladies who carry gin in scent bottles. Lay off it, flower. It doesn’t suit you. It isn’t nice.” When she didn’t answer, he said, “D’you remember getting into the cab?”

“It’s a bit hazy.”

“I bet it is. You were as tight as a tick.”

“Was I?” Her heart pounding, she sat on the stairs.

“You made me look a damn fool in front of the cabbie. You behaved just like a tart.”

Overcome, she put the phone down. David ran up with his bottle, then stopped and stared at her, worried.

“It’s all right. It’s all right,” she murmured. Then she grabbed him and held him to her, tightly.

11

Feeling rather silly, Jane and Connie sat in the kitchen of a small untidy house in the suburbs, while a little homely woman bustled about making tea.

“Is it a reading for both of you?”

“No. Only my friend,” said Jane. She dug Connie under the table and indicated her wedding-ring. Connie took it off.

“Well, I charge fifteen shillings a reading—or should I say seventy-five pence as it is in the new money? Is that all right? I’ve had to put my prices up a bit, I’m afraid.”

“That’s all right,” said Connie.

The woman beamed at her. “Well, we’ll get straight on, shall we? You don’t look too well,” she said kindly. “But I won’t ask you any questions. Do you want your friend here, or would you prefer to be alone? She can sit in the living room. There’s a good fire.”

“I’d rather she was here.”

The woman pulled up a chair and sat facing Connie, their knees almost touching, and instead of peering into the tea leaves, as Connie had expected, she reached out, took Connie’s hands in hers and then gently let them go. Her eyes were shut, as she settled back in her chair.

She shivered. “Is it a cold day? I feel quite shivery suddenly. I expect you’ve come a long way.”

“Quite a long way,” Jane said brusquely.

“How did you get my name, dear? I only ask because I don’t advertise, and I like to know how people come to me.” She spoke normally, but her eyes were still shut.

“From a girl who works with my friend—a teacher,” said Connie softly.

Jane looked at Connie as though to say, “You’re giving yourself away.”

“People come to me from all over. I don’t see many people anymore as a rule, because I’m retired.” Connie, prepared for another failure, relaxed back in her chair. Then the woman said, “But I thought I should see you. You probably wonder why I keep going on like this, but it’s as though I want to get away from that shivery feeling. I think that’s how you’ve been feeling lately. You keep doing things, going out, talking, you feel—oh, if I could only get back to the way it was before.”

“Yes.”

The woman’s eyes were shut tight behind the thick pebble-glasses and she looked mottled, closed in like a tortoise.

“Are you afraid of gas lamps, dear? I know it sounds a silly question, but that’s what I’m getting, so I have to ask you.”

“No.”

“Well, watch out for it, dear. I’m getting a lot of children here, oh, ever so many. Are they all yours? There’s nine. No. You’re too young. They don’t have such big families as they used to. That’s a funny thing to say, but I had to say it. Does it mean anything to you?”

“No.”

“There’s a gentleman here, older than you. A father perhaps. Are you married? I have to ask. Otherwise what I say next is going to sound rather rude.”

Ignoring Jane’s passionate signs she said, “Yes, I am married,” and she felt in her pocket for the ring.

“Well, I don’t think I can really ask you anyway, because the question seems more for an older woman.”

“Please ask me.”

“Someone’s asking how many half-pennies you got from the last bloke. It’s funny, because half-pennies aren’t used anymore. It’s funny as well because when I told you the price I said it in shillings, even though I’ve got so used to the new money I hardly ever make a mistake.” She spoke quickly, as though embarrassed. “I feel you’re running, but whether it’s from someone or to them I can’t see. You’ve not been well lately. It’s not your body, more your—nerves. Have you been in hospital?”

Connie shook her head, forgetting completely the night she’d spent the month before.

“Have you got a dog? Well, I can see someone offering you one. You’re not connected with the theatre, are you? I don’t mean as an actress, more in the wardrobe department.”

“No.”

“I see a lot of costumes. Old-fashioned dresses and shawls and boots and bonnets. Perhaps you’re going to get a job,” she said brightly. “Do you wear gloves? No? I’ve got this older gentleman again. He’s, oh—I get a feeling of irritation. If he gets a bit short with you, you mustn’t mind. He’s worried, but he doesn’t know what to do. Is he a lot older than you?”

“Thirteen years.”

“Then he’s not this gentleman I’m getting now, because this one’s more your age. I see blackness all round this one. He comes out in the night. Does he work at night?”

“Her husband often goes out at night,” Jane cut in.

“I get a feeling of dissatisfaction. Is that your husband?”

“It might be.”

“Terrible dissatisfaction. Frustration. I think it’s more this younger man. A job not finished. Does that mean anything to you?”

Connie shook her head.

“He doesn’t wish you well, dear. I wish I could say he does.”

“Who is he?”

“He’s too vague for me to see him. He’s smart. Well turned out. He’s a long way off.”

“Do I know him?”

“You have known him. Just once.”

The kitchen was suddenly very depressing. The woman stopped talking. Even Jane was still.

Then the woman said, making an effort to be cheerful, “I get children going to school. I get only three. There should be four. One’s not well and stays at home.”

“He’s too young to go to school.”

“I think he should go to school. It would be better for him. Even a little nursery school.”

“Why?”

The woman seemed to hesitate, then she looked directly at Connie. “When you’re not too well, dear, it upsets him. I want to sing a song. Oh, it’s ever such an old one.” She looked at her lap. “It’s even before my time.

“A smart and stylish girl you see,

Belle of good society;

Not too strict, but rather free

Yet as right as right can be.

Never forward, never bold

Not too hot and not too cold.

But the very thing I’m told

That in your arms you’ll like to hold.

Ta-ra-ra-Boom-de-ay.

“My voice isn’t very tuneful. You must excuse me. Does it mean anything to you?”

“No.”

“You haven’t said anything about her future,” said Jane.

“Well, I can only see a little way ahead with anyone.” She looked at the window. “Anyway, it looks as though it’s brightened up a bit.”

—

They were both awake and staring into the dark.

“Connie,” he whispered.

“Yes. I can’t sleep either.”

“I think we should go away, right away this summer. What about Spain? I could take my holiday earlier.”

“That would be lovely. But what about the summer-house for the back garden? You won’t have the money for both.”

“I’ll do that next year. Have you taken the pills the quack gave you?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sure you haven’t. I wish you would. You’re still depressed. They’re supposed to be anti-depressants.”

“I’d like David to go to nursery school.”

“What?”

“I think he’d enjoy it.”

“Well—I—I’m not keen. No, Connie. We’ll have to think about that.”

They lay silent again. She felt she was almost asleep at last when he suddenly turned and got on top of her and started kissing her, passionately. She didn’t like it. The feeling got worse the more excited he got. She tried to sit up. She looked round her in the dark. She didn’t know quite where she was. The moment of alarm passed and she closed her eyes and relaxed. A different expression came into her face—lewd, cunning—and she murmured something sexually provocative, something a prostitute might say, something she couldn’t have known. Daniel froze, then slapped her face hard.

Slowly he got off her and fumbled his way back to his place in the bed. They lay as before—separate, sleepless. Then she reached out and touched his hand and said, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. It felt different. I didn’t know where I was.” She tried to laugh.

He didn’t respond. She lay still, tears streaming down her face.

12

Six weeks after Connie cut her armpit, she had to go back to the doctor for a second tetanus injection and what he called a checkup. Daniel had been phoning him nonstop. Jane came with her.

The waiting room—it was also his drawing room—was lived-in and pleasant, with enormous sagging brown chairs like old dogs humped in front of the fire. There were only tattered magazines on knitting and housecraft, so Jane opened the bookcase.

“Do they go in for medical books! The Aberrations of—Can’t pronounce it. Ah! This looks interesting. Crime. My God! The pictures. Ugh! ‘Her head had been nearly severed from her body, the womb and two thirds of the—’ ”

“Shut up!”

“ ‘Had been pulled from her and left lying over her shoulder and—’ ”

“Will you shut up, you bitch!”

Jane looked up. “Oh, I’m sorry. Christ! Is it upsetting you? I just thought—”

“I’ve got to get some new shoes.” Her voice was shrill. “I want some red ones with—” Her foot tipped up. She stared at it.

Jane flopped onto a massive hairy chair, and its brown arms sank inwards and hugged her. She seemed quite unable not to read aloud. “Lobe of her right ear missing? What could he have wanted that for? No one knew who he was, you know.”

“I don’t want to hear, goddamn you, Jane!” Connie looked grey and drawn.

“He used to creep up behind them—Good God! They mention Flower and Dean Street.” Jane whipped over a page. “Help! He did two in one night. Elizabeth Stride. Throat cut. No mutilation. Possibly because he’d been interrupted by a hawker arriving with his horse and cart.” She leapt up, leaving the chair lopsided. “Ah, here’s an interesting one.”

“What does it say about that horse-and-cart one?”

“This girl’s much more interesting. It took six hours in the mortuary to get her looking like a human—”

“Go back to the other one!” Connie’s voice, low and desperate, was hardly recognisable.

Jane, resentful at being dragged away from an attractive victim, took a long time finding the page. “Elizabeth Stride. Married in 1869 to a carpenter. Came from Sweden. In 1878, the pleasure steamer Princess Alice sank in the Thames and her husband and two of her nine children were drowned. She ended up in Flower and Dean Street, notorious for prostitutes, and was frequently arrested for being drunk. It doesn’t say much.”

Connie murmured, “Drowned…drowned.”

“Now with this other girl—”

“Go back to Elizabeth Stride. What about her death?”

“Just throat cut in Berners Street, 30th September, 1888. A hawker found her body at one A.M….His horse shied with fright and probably disturbed the murderer, who disappeared as if by some black magic before he could do anything worse. He had the desire, if that’s the right word, to remove bits of the body. A labourer said he saw her with a man shortly before she died and the man said, ‘You’d say anything but your prayers.’ She was holding some grapes in her right hand and sweetmeats in the left.”

“A dissatisfied gentleman,” Connie said quietly.

“Where are you going? Hey, Connie.”

Connie was on the pavement by the time Jane caught up with her. “What about your appointment? He needs, I mean wants, to see you. I’m sorry if I upset you. Heavens, you’re a dreadful colour.” Connie seemed drained of blood—she could hardly walk. “You are upset. I wouldn’t have thought that would upset you.”

—

Connie insisted that Jane should go with her to Whitechapel; and Jane, although she said she thought it perverse, agreed. They took the 253 bus from Camden Town; it was a grey heavy afternoon and in that light Jane realised how Connie had changed. The laughter-lines at the corners of her eyes were wrinkles; her hair was lank; she no longer smelt of the summery perfume.

“God, you’ve lost weight,” said Jane.

Connie’s face was washed out, the beauty spot glaring. She’d tried to go back to the clairvoyant in the suburbs, but when the woman knew who it was she said she’d definitely retired, most definitely. Connie had asked quickly, “The man who didn’t wish me well. Does he want to kill me?” And she had replied: “I didn’t get kill as much as steal.”

They trailed around the streets that had once been trailed around by the Ripper’s victims, and Jane, who was carrying her long bag full of racquets, asked, “Do you feel anything?”

Connie shook her head.

Jane stopped and took her arm. “You’ve got to admit it’s daft. We’ve done Flower and Dean Street twice, Berners Square three times.” She started giggling. “I mean, if anyone knew what we’d been doing they’d lock us up.”

She laughed so much that Connie started too, and a man nearby stopped and stared at them.

“Perhaps he’s the Ripper,” said Jane, and they doubled up, helpless with laughter.

13

The summer seemed full of heavy grey afternoons. One Sunday towards the end of July, Mark, Daniel, and Connie sat by a tennis court watching Jane play. The club tournament—today the women’s finals and Jane was winning. She was brown and lean, and she looked cooler than anyone around her, even the spectators. Connie watched Daniel watching her legs. It seemed to Connie that people had always noticed Jane’s flat chest—only noticed her flat chest—but now suddenly it was her thighs. Her thighs were riveting. She put a hand on his arm, but he took no notice and went on watching Jane.

After the match silver cups were distributed, and everyone drank lemonade and escaped from the exhausting heat outside into the stuffy cool of the clubhouse. Kids whizzed round the long tables piled with sandwiches and lurid cakes. Jane pushed up to Daniel, showed him her cup and waited foolishly for his approval. Mark elbowed his way through the crowds towards her, said Congratulations, and was ignored. He attempted to kiss her, but someone got in the way.

“It’s got to go back to have my name engraved on it. I got the doubles as well.” She seemed weak with victory.

“It’s a nice shape,” said Daniel. “How does it feel to win?”

“Terrific,” and she hugged the cup.

As Connie was pouring lemonade for the children, she noticed Daniel in a corner, standing close to Jane, and it seemed to her that as they talked they were looking into each other’s eyes.

—

The next morning, early, Jane came swinging up the path. Connie, wearing a bikini, was tidying the kitchen, and when she saw her, she bent down fast and hoped to creep to the stairs without being seen. She did not want to talk to Jane. It was another grey thick day and she was deeply depressed.

Too late. Jane’s voice clattered into the kitchen. “What are you doing?”

“Picking up something.”

“Can you have the kid tonight?”

They stood silently looking at each other. Without her racquet Jane looked vaguely unsatisfactory.

“Is Daniel in?”

Connie shook her head. Another silence.

“I just wondered if he could sort out a point of law for me. It’s about HP,” she said breathlessly. “I’m getting the washing-up machine on HP. It’s the only way to get it. Mark makes Scrooge look like the Gulbenkian Foundation.” She started talking faster and louder. She hopped left-leg, right-leg, with an occasional yelp—she seemed much more her usual self.

“I’m going to track down that magician.”

“Oh no, Connie, don’t! Don’t be a fool. I mean, nothing’s happened. I mean, the voices don’t warn you of anything. Mark says it’ll just wear off—vanish like poltergeists do. Anyway, I wouldn’t go near a magician. There’s a theory that the Ripper was a magician. He had to do five murders—the number five formed a pentagram—and then he’d be immune from discovery. He never was discovered…Mark and I are going through a real wobbler. We fought all night. At least I did. He won’t. He locked himself in the kitchen. I’ve taken the key away. If he’s not careful I’ll take myself away. God, you’re lucky you’ve never had anything awful in your life.”

“Will you help me find the magician?”

“No. I’ve got too much on my mind. I’ve got my own problems. Concentrate on what you’ve got going for you. I think Mark and I are—finished. I’ve got that feeling.”

Connie stared out thoughtfully at the grey day.

—

Connie went back to the nightclub. A fire door was open and the beam of afternoon light showed up the whirling dust and made the red plush chairs and little pink table-lights tawdry. The owner, tired and irritable, stood smoking a cigar and watching a chorus girls’ audition. Connie, standing beside him, had finished her story and was waiting for a reply.

“Danchenko? Danchenko? He’s not here.”

“Do you know where I can find him?”

“Why d’you want him? D’you want to book him?” He turned and looked at her.

“Yes. No.”

The man shrugged, and looked back at the girls. “He’s probably in New York.”

—

At the second theatrical agency a secretary said, “He’s not Hungarian. He comes from Tottenham. I can’t give you his address, but he’s appearing at the Spread Eagle in Barking.”

Seeing Connie’s reaction, she added, “It’s his slack season.”

—

That evening Connie got the children to bed early and made chilled cucumber soup, cheese soufflé and a crisp salad. She put on her yellow backless dress and her new platform shoes and served dinner in their rarely used dining room. The sideboard was full of flowers from the garden. There were long candles in elegant holders and iced white wine.

As Daniel and Connie ate, they looked at each other from time to time but didn’t once speak.

14

Connie was walking with David along a main road by the heath when a car slowed down beside them. She turned, and Daniel said, “Get in.”

He drove to the nursery and they sat and watched as David knocked on the door and then turned and waved, smiling happily. They waved back.

“It can’t go on,” he said.

She stared ahead.

“Bye, Mummy,” David called.

“It’s not been right for weeks. We haven’t made love, we haven’t—”

“Well, you don’t want to—”

“Nor do you. Not in your heart of hearts. We just avoid each other all the time—”

“You don’t love me, Daniel.”

After a pause, he said, “I do. Anyway, we’ve been together a long time.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? I’m not tired of you.”

“Look, love.” He put his arm round her. “I was put off the night you—well, you remember. I know I’ll get over it. I’ll certainly try. But you’ll have to try. I think you should have analysis.”

“All right,” she sighed. “All right. All right. Maybe I am nuts. I decided I must be the day we watched Jane play. I got terribly jealous. It was the way you were looking at her.”

“Oh, for heavensake, Jane!” He laughed.

“I got quite upset. I thought you were having an affair.”

He squeezed her to him. “Well, let’s you and me have a pact. You go to analysis and I won’t look at Jane’s thighs. O.K.?”

“Yes. I’ve never realised she had such lovely thighs.”

He stroked her hair, persuasively, and suddenly she grabbed his hand and kissed it.

“It’s a lovely morning,” he said softly. “You go and have a long walk on the heath. Enjoy it.”

Suddenly, marvellously happy, she walked across the heath in the sweet morning. The light was golden. A crocodile of schoolchildren moved noisily along a path to her left, a bumpy path that converged with hers by the lake. Today was the height of summer, with the heath over-ripe, full of scents and buzzings, the trees blowsy. Connie looked serene again. She moved at the same speed as the gnashing, swaying crocodile, its chattering so loud and shrill that it was impossible to distinguish anything, and they arrived at the lake together.

For a moment they muddled up. Schoolchildren tried to pass Connie. She bumped into one, apologised and hurried to get ahead of them. Dazzled with sun, she stepped behind the old men with their fishing tackle and sandwiches, and the crocodile wound round, squeezed past the men and followed her. Among the shrill voices—were other shrill voices.

“Murder! Murder! He’s done it again.”

Connie stopped.

“He’s ripped her properly.”

The crocodile nudged up behind her. She ran, right to the top of the hill and over it, and flopped exhausted onto a bench. Below her, London was spread out misty and silent. She could see right across the river.

The crocodile came over the top of the hill and the children’s voices rose up, again tinny and confused. Then she heard, “Ripped out one kidney, whole. Ate it for his breakfast.”

She jumped up and ran screaming down the hill.

—

The pub in Barking was brightly lit and had a very different atmosphere and clientele from the nightclub. Throughout the magician’s act, the audience laughed uproariously. Instead of an MC an old woman, with a cracked voice, shuffled round touching objects.

“What am I touching?”

“A glass.”

“And now?”

“Another glass.”

“You can’t fool Danchenko. And what am I holding now?”

“You are touching a bald head.”

The audience screamed with laughter.

“A glass.”

“What’s in the glass?”

“Amber liquid. It won’t be there long.”

“And now?”

“A looking-glass.”

“Wrong!” yelled the audience.

“Well, you know what I mean.” Caught off his guard, his accent was not the usual approximation to mid-European but a more familiar strain that came from no farther than Tottenham.

The old woman held her hand up as high as she could, but her bent body, stiff with rheumatism, deprived the action of drama, and the magician’s response, sonorous, melodramatic—“Do not think you are touching nothing my friend. The air is not empty but full of vibrations”—made the audience roll about with laughter.

“She can’t reach, Danchenko.”

“Want a bunk up, luv?”

The old woman lowered her arm and scuttled off into a corner. Danchenko, probably deciding that the supernatural stuff was getting nowhere with this audience, took off his blindfold and looked straight at Connie. “He will not come like a thief in the night. And that means something to someone over there.” He circled a long finger and chose a woman at the back of the room. “She knows what it means.” And he added, addressing a fat woman by the bar, “No, lady. He’s not under your bed.”

Wild laughter.

“Happy birthday to Alf behind the bar. Seventy today.”

People cheered.

The magician looked at Connie. “Now what have we here? The ideal couple? Ah, but only half of it tonight.”

“Her better half’s gone off,” shouted a man nearby, and before the laughter entirely stopped, Danchenko said:

“And where’s your heart this time, doomed lady? Not on your sleeve.”

“Go on. Make us laugh, Danchenko. Make us happy,” yelled the audience.

“Some people are too happy, my friends,” he said maliciously, his eyes still on Connie. “Some people are too pure of heart.” He accented the “pure” and made it sound horrible. Then, rubbing his hands, he smiled round at the audience, and the smile, the most chilling thing so far, had quite the opposite effect to making them happy. The room was quiet as he took off his wizard’s hat and gave it to the old woman. He leaned forward. “Make sure you fill it up. Then Danchenko will show you a trick or two.”

As she took it round, Danchenko shouted abuse. “Come on, you stingy swine. You miser. Your silver’s in your other pocket. That’s not enough, lady. I may be a magician but I can’t live on air.”

—

The magician changed his clothes in the publican’s cramped office on the first floor. A single naked lightbulb hanging from the middle of the ceiling showed up the peeling walls, the dust, the damp, the disorder. It seemed even to accentuate the smell—which was a mixture of stale beer, gin, fish, and other less nice, less definable things. A cat had been sick on the soggy matting.

Connie, nervous but in control, knocked and went in without waiting for an answer. Danchenko, his thin body existing easily in the small space between a cluttered desk and a pile of beer crates, was taking off his make-up in front of a cracked mirror.

He twisted round, and they looked at each other, their eyes solemn in the gloomy room. Abruptly, he turned back to the mirror. He was not pleased to see her. His face changed with every layer he peeled off. He looked young, and then old and sinister, and then strangely naive. He stripped off the sides of his nose and wiped out his eyebrows; for a moment he looked like a professional tango-dancer from the ’30s. Removing his wig, he revealed a head of black sleek hair, which he patted over with Brylcreem.

“Why call me doomed?” she asked.

“I have nothing for you. The show’s over.” The Hungarian accent was gone. He straightened up and seemed much taller than he did on the stage.

“Why doomed?” she asked angrily, and the desperation of the past months took away all fear.

“We are all doomed.”

“Why me?” she asked swiftly.

“Why me? Why me? Why not you?” he said in a singsong voice. “Why shouldn’t anything happen to you? Why should you have everything?” He slithered out from between the desk and the crates and closed his black case.

“But I’m going to die.”

“Why shouldn’t you die? People die violently every day. Excuse me!” and carrying the case he slid past her and into the passageway with all the ease and slipperiness of an eel.

She ran after him. From behind he looked young, sleek. “It’s my life!” she shouted.

He turned and said, scathingly, “Why would your life belong to you?” He opened the exit door and turned left in the street.

Again she followed him. “I’ll run away. I’ll hide. I’ll stay in. I’ll go abroad. I’ll—”

He shook his head as he opened the door of the public bar. “Whatever you do won’t make any difference. It’ll happen when you least expect it.”

He went in. The door swung shut.

Fleetingly, she saw him through the window leaning against the bar, a pint of beer in front of him. He looked malevolent.

15

It was a cold November night, and the station was ill-lit; but Daniel and Connie with Jane, Mark, and several other friends were in high spirits and slightly drunk. They were waiting at the end of a short platform for the infrequent local train to take them back to London. The station was old-fashioned, neglected. A woman said to Mark, “Some of these stations are early Victorian.”

“I love this line,” he replied mournfully. “I hope they don’t close it. They’re always threatening to.”

“You’ve got that wrong,” said Jane. She hopped about and smiled at Connie. “Soon be your birthday. Where shall we go? Soho?”

“It’s what I’ve given the last two months of my life to do,” said Daniel. “Tear down those old blocks. They’re ugly. Of no historical value. Rip ’em up. Get rid of the squalor.”

“All at once?” asked Baxter.

“A clean cut of the knife…”

Connie shivered.

Jane hopped more energetically. “Connie, I’m dying for a pee.”

“It’s nice to see old Connie again,” said Baxter, thinking it was the last thing he wanted. She’d changed drastically. He’d decided it must be the booze. “Where’ve you been hiding yourself?”

“Oh, I don’t go out much. We don’t entertain.” She looked cautiously at Daniel.

“You could hardly miss this evening,” he said. “Daniel’s victorious assault on big bogey itself.”

“Terrific darling!” Connie kissed him, but he didn’t respond. He was looking at Jane.

“Come with me, Connie,” she said.

“The train’s due in four minutes,” said Mark.

“Maybe it is, but you’ll have a splashy patch on the platform.”

Connie moved close to Daniel, which put her under the light. Baxter decided her face was too pale. For an instant he thought of the terminal ward at the local hospital. He’d have to have a word with old Daniel about this.

Something made Connie look up, and she gasped.

“Why, it’s a gas lamp,” said Baxter, pleased. “You don’t often see those.”

“Oh, these little stations often have them,” said Mark.

Connie moved out of the light, and her face, Baxter admitted with slight disappointment, was all right again.

“Isn’t there a loo on the train?” asked the woman.

“No there is not,” snapped Jane. “It’s all that beer I’ve put back. I can’t hold it. Come on,” and grabbing Connie she ran squealing to the waiting room.

“Have one for me,” shouted Baxter.

It was locked up.

“Blast!” Jane scuttled to the ticket office. The collector was lolling by the entrance looking up the road.

“Where is it—the lav?”

“It’s out of order. Best go to the pub, love.”

“Where? Where?”

“Just over there,” and he pointed up the street.

Jane and Connie started running.

“Can’t hold it since I had the kid. A pint of bitter and I’m up all night.”

Making a strange growling noise, she dashed into the pub; and Connie was about to follow, when a group of people plunged out and sped towards the station. A train was approaching.

Connie waited on the corner, her black fur coat sleek around her and the light of the street lamp on her. She wasn’t as beautiful as a year ago, but she was still appealing. The street—modern, suburban, with lighted shop-fronts further along—seemed deserted. She walked up and down, and then lounged on one leg and looked up idly at the sky.

Footsteps came up behind her. She froze. They were quite distinct on the stone-slab pavement. She began to walk fast in the direction she was facing, away from the station. The footsteps got faster. She started running. She could see a pub on the next corner. She could hear singing. Enormously relieved, she ran towards it. Though it was a cold night, a knot of people were standing outside drinking, and for some reason they stared at Connie. She looked at them. They didn’t seem quite right. Their clothes were strange…She started running again, her hair falling forward over her eyes. She lost a shoe and looked down. The street was cobbled.

Gasping for breath, her chest aching, her legs numb, she stumbled on. She nearly fell. The footsteps, definite and slow, came right up behind her and stopped. In the distance, “That in your arms you’d like to hold. Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay.”

She turned, just slightly, and saw a shadow on the wall. She knew the shadow well. Then a man’s voice—soft, educated—said, “Now, my dear. You’d say anything but your prayers.”