EIGHTEEN

Rose watches herself in the mirror. She's never really liked her face and likes it less now it's getting older. Those little marks working their way upwards from her lips are deeper, more noticeable; the grooves from nose to the outer edge of her lips are more pronounced. There's a shadow of wriggly lines on her forehead. Her eyes look smaller. She's tired. Is that a sign? She won't think about it right now.

The baby went off to sleep again before Bridget left, but only briefly, and he's been wailing off and on ever since. Rose has fed him, walked up and down with him, tried a bath, changing his clothes, remaking the bed, even singing to him. Maybe you should have tried another song Rose. He's probably getting pretty sick of 'Poor Cinderella'. I could have stood on my head, she thinks, nothing made any difference to his scratchiness. Or to hers. She's on the way to falling out of love with this baby and tells him so. He doesn't seem to heed the warning, although he does fall asleep for five minutes before he wakes again.

Rose is working up to ringing Alice. But it's Saturday night. You don't ring doctors on a Saturday night unless it's a real, dire emergency. And as far as she can tell George has no temperature, he's not feverish. He's flushed, but so is Rose. She's pervaded by disbelief that she did what she did to Knock-Knock. George has swallowed all his food, his stomach is not distended, he doesn't have any spots. Maybe he just feels like a good cry. Rose thinks she wouldn't mind a good cry herself. Perhaps this is why he was left on her porch. Someone just wanted to have a good cry in peace.

She wishes she knew more about babies. She puts the washing machine on for something to do. She drags an old drying frame of Ada's out of the shed and sets it up in the hall. The wind is getting up, but will bring more rain. No good hanging the washing outside. Even if the rain wasn't threatening, the clothes would be ripped to pieces or torn off the line by that onslaught.

At the rate this child is going through clothes, she'll have to beg some more from Wesley. As for nappies, he's rapidly using up all the fabric ones Wesley brought, and it'll be back to the throwaway ones soon. Luckily she's got three packets in the cupboard. If only he would just stay asleep — even an hour would be heaven. Rose thinks she'll have to get some sleep soon, she'll just have to. I'm fifty tomorrow, thinks Rose, I'm too bloody old for this. Too bloody old to be rushing around the streets with a spray-can full of red paint. She peers at her face in the mirror, the face of a petty criminal. Maybe a bit of moisturising cream might help.

While she smooths on the cream (always such a comforting feeling) she thinks of the gallons of this stuff she's used over the years. It's not that she really believes it works any of the miracles its makers claim, it's more basic than that. Like massage, the touch of hands, fingers on one's skin, the soothing repetitive actions, have a sort of settling effect, immediately softening the edge of the day or the night, although it often makes her think of the huge difference between this face the world sees and the real Rose. Terrible things, good things, have happened and yet her face hardly seems to register that inner barometer. Her face might lighten, might look happier even, at times, more sober, sadder, at others. It will age, has aged, but at no time is there real exposure of the intense depth of either immense pain or immense joy she might be feeling. It is a mystery. The small Rose whose swift moods, happinesses, despairs, had her mother saying, 'If your face gets much longer you'll trip over it,' was much more transparent. When it rained and that young Rose wanted sun or she came second instead of first in the spelling-bee, those were the tragedies of her life. And they show on her face. When did that change? When did she start hiding behind this mask?

Did they still have spelling-bees in primary schools? Probably gone out of favour long ago. Were already on their way out when she was winning them. Miss Graham believed that teaching by rote was the only way to go and was fired by a zeal to turn out pupils who could read and write and knew where to put apostrophes. Miss Graham thought that competition wasn't a bad thing. Miss Graham's face was a good example of a face that showed nothing other than a pleasant smile or cold displeasure. None of the children knew anything about Miss Graham's personal life. It would have been impossible to judge if she was happy or sad, ill or well, from looking at her face. Rose wonders if Miss Graham ever did anything illegal. Unlikely, but one can hope.

All adult faces, Rose decided, are uncommunicative. You meet someone, they say how's things, you say fine, you ask them how they are, they say fine, and you both go on your way, any inner turmoil, anxiety, pleasure, sexual contentment, well hidden. Look at Knock-Knock. Bugger Knock-Knock. Get out of my head. Take Jo. Always cleaning, washing, being nice to guests, cooking, baking, organising tours, flights, bus tickets. A word here, an interview there, letters, emails, accounts, financial statements, work spraying (unfortunate word Rose) out in all directions, it seemed. Who knew what Jo really thought of it all. If this was what she'd seen as her destiny, her life. And this business with Lizzie. Not a word to Rose about it. Why? Rose can't remember the last time Jo mentioned Malcom. Perhaps they'd fallen out as well. No. Malcolm is fond of his mother. The last time she saw him was at Thelma's funeral. He and Lizzie had been pall-bearers. Must have been hard for them, carrying her coffin. Perhaps not. Perhaps they wanted to do this one last thing for their much-loved grandmother.

None of us ever talks about death either. Had she ever said to anyone when they asked how she was, 'I'm a bit worried about death, whether I'll know, what it will be like,' although it had been on her mind for months and months. Do Jo or Wesley think about death before they sleep? The way our skeletons outlast everything else, except perhaps hair. That in the end all our dramas, crises, tragedies, come to this. Bones, skulls, are dug up all the time, revealing secrets not available anywhere else. Just this morning there was a report in the paper about the discovery of the grave of a powerful Iron Age queen who had been buried alongside her richly decorated chariot in the fourth century BC. She was in her late twenties. In the grave were the remains of a harness which, it was hoped, would shed light on the puzzling links between the Celts of East Yorkshire and tribes living in Northern France at the time. Ordinary people were placed in simple graves, sometimes with a brooch, while leaders were buried with their chariots. This chariot was decorated with coral from the Mediterranean. Teeth and bones would be analysed to discover whether this woman was descended from Gaulish immigrants. Iron Age burials were relatively rare. Most people were left outside to rot after death. But the Celts of East Yorkshire had distinctive death rituals.

Perhaps they too had a Church of the Golden Light?

Does Olga think about the implacability of time? No, Rose thinks, Olga actually embraces time because to her the past and the future are just other dimensions going on parallel with this one. So the dead are always there with the living. Rose understands this more since Ada's accident. Rose thinks Ada is somewhere close, invisible but close; she senses her presence at times, hears her voice. She supposes this is a normal phenomenon when someone has died in a road accident. No dying on the road for me, she thinks, remembering those two little boys playing some sort of game with pretend guns. They'd run out from the driveway next to the house where she'd been looking at books the owner wanted to sell. 'Bang! Bang!' yelled one. Too late. The other one had darted behind one of the phoenix palms. Just as the first one ran towards the tree the other one jumped out from behind it and yelled 'Bang!' The first boy dropped where he stood. 'No dying on the road!' called the other one urgently, 'Mum said no dying on the road!' The dead body lifted its head and slithered to the safety of the verge where it collapsed again. No dying on the road. Perhaps their mum should have had a talk to Ada.

Bridget Pearl was not satisfied with their talk. She'd be back and keep on coming back until Rose gave her the information she was looking for, whatever that was. She'd asked if she could hold the baby. 'Just for a minute,' she said, 'before I go. I offered to cook dinner for Claude and Elena so I'd better not be late.'

She cuddled George in the crook of her arm. 'Hello doll,' she said, and the baby stopped his aha-ing and dribbled happily at her. 'He's lovely,' she said when she handed him back. 'How could anyone hit him?'

'You mean if he wasn't lovely it'd be OK?'

'No!' Bridget was appalled. 'Of course not.'

'Sorry,' said Rose. And she was. Stupid thing to say. What is the matter with her today? 'Sorry.'

'You're tired,' Bridget said.

No, thinks Rose, well, I am, but it's not tiredness that's making me like this. I did something terrible. Something smack against everything I think is right. And I did it to poor Thelma's house. How could I do it? And what will happen when Jo and Wesley find out?

'Aha aha, aha.' He's awake again. She'll ignore him.

Rose in the mirror. So neat it's sickening. Neat eyes, neat nose, neat mouth. All very — neat. No idiosyncratic jaw or nose, not even large ears. Her eyes, always a pale hazel, were now even lighter. Underneath the face is a thin body. A thin, scarred body. That gash across her breast is unsightly and Rose hates the way her breast looks now, but even so, Rose likes her body much better than her face. Her body let her down, that's true, but only once, only once please. Her body is hardworking, reliable, supple, strong. She likes her hands, the skin rough between the slightly embossed veins. These hands, they've done well and they'll go on doing well. She grimaces at Rose in the mirror. Neat, she thinks, you were a neat little girl, and you're a neat woman. No passion, thinks Rose. Style maybe, but no passion. She pushes away the image of red spray-can. That wasn't passion, that was senseless, stupid, out-of-control rage. She hopes to God she's not going to make a habit of that sort of thing. Maybe it's yet another variation on the effects of the menopause. Oh come on Rose. Once. You've done something like that once. Don't make a drama out of it. It was a mistake, but it doesn't mean you're Mr Big.

An afternoon a few days after her father died. Ada — bright red beret on her dark hair, long red scarf slung around her neck, the belt of her old blue coat tied in a tight knot around her thin waist — strode through town like The Fool stepping out into the unknown. Rose scurried along at her heels like the little white dog. 'Where are we going, Ada?'

'To see someone who might get me a job.'

'Mr Big?' Rose said.

'You've been reading too much Chandler,' Ada snorted.

She walked as though on a mission, as though nothing would deflect her from her goal. People on the footpath stepped back to let her through, others looked away, embarrassed perhaps.

When Rose was older and this image popped up it always struck her how often, more often than not, it is the victim from whom we turn our eyes rather than the perpetrator. People hang around courts, houses and streets to see perpetrators, but there's not the same unloosed avidity toward victims. Perhaps they're too painful a reminder of our own vulnerability, our fragile dominion over the flesh surrounding our bones. We take that inward breath, oh no, we think, not another one, and we turn away from the bruised face, the old battered mouth; we turn off the television, unable to bear the ravaged face of the mother begging for someone, anyone, to please, to please tell her where her daughter is. Perhaps there's an old, deep, unspoken, communal guilt that these things happen at all. And, thinking of things buried deep within us, Rose thinks again of the Skeleton Woman dancing, clatter clatter clatter, rattling her bones to the music only she can hear.

The baby's aha-ing is increasing in volume. She could try some boiled water again. She offers him the bottle. He's not silly, he doesn't want boiled water, so he's not going to drink boiled water. Nothing for it. It might be Saturday night, but she will have to ring Alice and be done with it. She carries him to the phone. He stops aha-ing. She looks at him suspiciously. Maybe he's been sleeping too much. Maybe he's just wakeful? Why the hell can't babies be born talking?

This is ridiculous. He will just have to go to bed and stay there. She simply must lie down. He's perfectly safe in the carrycot. There's absolutely nothing wrong with him. Anyway he's stopped aha-ing. She stares at him suspiciously, waiting for him to start again. He doesn't.

As she drifts off she decides it's a good thing no one knows what another person is thinking. Oh you can guess, and we all get good at guessing, informed guessing, informed by our own experience. But it's just as well all our suffering lies unexposed, because we probably couldn't handle the raw and bitter truths behind all the faces we see and they couldn't handle ours. It's enough to look into our own eyes.

There's not been a sound from Knock-Knock. The silence is magic. The silence is uncanny. The silence is — worrying. She rips out of bed and moves quickly to where George is sleeping. He's still breathing. Everything's OK. She creeps away. 'Aha, aha, aha,' he says.

Rose goes back to bed but she can't get back into the drifting-off stage. She lies still and breathes deeply. In, out, in, out. Aha-aha-wah-wah. She reviews all the babycare books she has in the shop. Why the hell hadn't she read them? She thinks of all the people in the world who are asleep. All those lucky people who don't have babies. All those fortunate people who do have babies but have babies who go to bed and go to sleep. All those rational, sensible people who haven't sprayed their neighbour's house and sound system, haven't caused a problem for the person they love most in the whole world, haven't had cancer and so can't be worried about it coming back and are therefore beautifully, wonderfully, amazingly asleep.

It might be better to lie on her right side away from the carrycot.

It's not.

Why is a baby's wail such torture? Why do people bother with electric rods and dripping water when they could just stick a crying baby in the same room as the prisoner? The information they want would come pouring out in two minutes flat.

'Please George,' she pleads out loud, 'please.' It makes no difference. No wonder people have to walk out of the room, she thinks. I'd walk out of the room but I'm too bloody tired. I could crawl, I suppose. No wonder people leave babies on other people's porches. Maybe she should pack him up and deposit him on someone else's porch and come home and sink into blissful slumber.

'I'm going to go mad soon,' she decides, 'stark raving bonkers.'

She picks him up, shushes, and he stops. She puts him down again and he starts aha-ing. 'Right,' she says, 'right. As long as we're clear about this. You're a bloody wanker and all you want is attention. Just as long as you know I know.' She picks him up, and takes him back to bed. She fixes a pillow as a bolster between them, takes her arm away. He starts wailing. She puts her arm around him. He stops. 'OK,' she says, 'I give in. You win. OK? Are you listening you little creep? You win. But be warned. I'll remember this. Next time you want a smile you'll be out of luck. And for Christ's sake kid, if I roll over on top of you, for the love of God, yell.'