Dark Dance (32 page)

‘Did he come after you?’

‘No. He just stood there.’

Rachaela said, ‘Did he have a dark coat and a woollen hat?’

‘Yes. I expect he was hot.’

Rachaela tried to order herself. She had begun to tremble with a sort of frightened and frustrated fury. How had he found them? How had he followed Ruth? How dare he speak.

Weeks since, she had tested the evening pavements for pursuit, looked from windows for watchers in the shadow. And all the while he had been creeping up on them, unseen. Of course, it was not Rachaela who interested them now. Their craving for continuance—the child—

‘You must never—
never
—have anything to do with that man, Ruth.’

‘Why?’

Tie’s bad.’

‘He just looked like a man.’

‘He works for the Scarabae.’

‘Is that for my dad?’

‘No. For the family. I told you, they’re mad and dangerous.’

It was like hurling stones into water. After a moment the impact vanished, leaving no trace. Rachaela had the feeling that, rather than warning Ruth away from the Scarabae, she was intriguing her further with them. What on earth was to be done?

‘I think you’d better stop roaming about. Either you must go to school or stay indoors here.’ Lock her in, keep her close.

‘Mummy I don’t want to.’

‘You’ll have to. I don’t want him getting at you.’

Could she go to the police? This man is molesting my eleven-year-old daughter... questions asked. This man is the agent of your daughter’s father, his family. Your daughter’s father has rights to your daughter. It could become complex, more perilous. Keep the child in. For how long? She must confront the man, drive him off. But now he never showed himself when Rachaela was there.

‘You’ll have to go to school. I’ll take you.’

‘I don’t want to.’

‘I know. I’m sorry. But this is serious.’

‘He only said he’d buy me a Pepsi. I didn’t go.’

‘He might—I don’t know.’

‘I won’t talk to him again.’

‘Ruth, you must do as I tell you.’

Do as I tell you.
Her mother’s voice, angry, at its wits’ end.

Ruth finished her food and left the table. She went behind the screen and Rachaela heard the familiar rasp of pencil on paper.

Rachaela got up and went to the edge of Ruth’s sanctum.

‘Ruth, if ever he catches you alone I want you to scream—scream as loudly as you can—and run away. Will you do that?’

‘Scream and run away,’ said Ruth. She gave Rachaela a cool and adult glance full of irony.

‘I mean it,’ said Rachaela.

‘There was a radio programme we heard at school,’ said Ruth. ‘This man said daughters take after their fathers. If I’m like my dad, I must be nasty too.’

Rachaela stared at her.

Why was she trying to protect this creature? Had she forgotten the way it was, the way it had grown? Now she was acting out the ill-fitting role of a protective mother, and protective of what? All about Ruth, in her grotto, hung weird pictures, bits of stained glass, bells and draperies. It was a crock of shadow and dull rich colour, and Ruth crouched there like a white spider in her web, her beautiful ugly little face pierced by the blackness of the Scarabae eyes.

Rachaela swallowed.

She wanted to say to Ruth, Do what you want. Talk to the man. Find out what you like.

Ruth knew it all already in her eleven-year-old bones.

‘You’re not like your father. Your father doesn’t want you. The family is nosy and possessive. You don’t owe them anything. Do as I say.’

‘Yes, Mummy,’ said Ruth, and bowed her head to her drawing of a witch.

Rachaela could only take Ruth to the school in the mornings; at least she saw her to the gates. In the afternoon she had to trust Ruth on the way home.

Sometimes still Ruth was late.

‘Where have you been?’

Ruth had been to the shops or round at the flat of some girl child never previously mentioned. Probably it was true, for Ruth did not lie, she only evaded.

‘Has that man been near you?’

‘I haven’t seen him.’

Tell me if you do.’

Rachaela tired of the stupid wardership to school. She sent Ruth off alone and followed her. No one other than herself pursued or accosted Ruth.

A sense of apathy overcame Rachaela.

The man would probably persist, he had done so before, but there were always people about. He could not abduct Ruth, even assuming he had instructions to do so, which seemed unlikely.

Rachaela did not care.
I do not care.
It was up to Ruth. For Ruth was still a burden. She must still be fed and clothed, and soon a decision must be made about a secondary school, with its uniform and other details. Ruth would become more of a problem as she grew older. For how long would Rachaela have to go on sharing her life with this being? She had got used to Ruth, that was all. It was not satisfactory.

On the street. Walk quietly and listen.

Who was this coming from a doorway? Only an old man with a bag.

Turning the corner, oversee each gap in the walls. Was anyone there?

Upstairs, Ruth not home. Go to the window in the dark, and see.

What was that?

Only a man in an anorak.

Where was Ruth? Round at this Ludle’s?

There she was on the stairs now. Key in the door.

Mrs Mantini said, ‘You do more looking out of that window than cleaning it.’

Who was that standing across from the shop, black overcoat, perhaps a woollen hat.

‘This customer wants serving, Rachaela.’

He had gone now.

But he would not be following or watching her. This necklace is fifteen pounds.’

There was a frost of green on the trees. Still some light in the sky.

Ruth sat at the table eating bread and jam.

‘Why didn’t you wait? You’ll be having dinner in twenty minutes.’

‘I was hungry. Tea’s always late now.’

‘You’re usually late.’

‘I go to Lucile’s.’

Rachaela faced Ruth. ‘Have you seen that man again?’

‘Yes.’

‘I told you to tell me.’

‘He didn’t do anything. He didn’t speak to me.’

‘Where was he?’

‘Outside the gates.’

‘The school gates?’

‘Yes. He just stood there, and I came out and he didn’t move. Lucile thought he was funny.’

‘Don’t tell Lucile who he is.’

‘I didn’t tell Lucile anything. She said look at that funny old man.’

If she was with Lucile, he would not approach her—was that it? Perhaps the liaison with Lucile was a good thing.

Rachaela, at the window, scanned the street. He was there. Across the road, beneath a lamp just now turning candy red. There to be seen, showing himself. ‘Stay here,’ she said to Ruth.

She ran down through the house and dashed out into the street. The Scarabae agent was gone.

Above, Ruth’s white face looked down on her from the window. Impartially.

Mrs Mantini picked nail varnish off her nails. ‘I’ve been meaning to speak to you, Rachaela,’ she said, ‘about the way you keep being late. You were late by half an hour this afternoon. It puts me all at sixes and sevens.’

‘Yes,’ said Rachaela.

‘I must ask you not to let it happen again.’

Rachaela reduced the fifteen-pound necklace to the prescribed fourteen pounds and carefully replaced it with the price tag face down.

Mrs Mantini ran her finger over the dustless surface of a Victorian overmantel. This mirror could do with a clean.’

Presently Mrs Mantini went out, to be gone for her usual two hours before closing-time.

A Japanese man came in and asked about the china ducks. When he had left, Rachaela cleaned the mirror with the glass spray which left smears, then returned to re-pricing the case of jewellery.

At a quarter to four Mrs Mantini unexpectedly reappeared.

‘You’ll have to close up, Rachaela. I have to drive to Brighton.’

After Mrs Mantini had gone again, the late afternoon trade began to come in, and at four-thirty, an hour early, Rachaela shut the shop in the faces of two eager customers.

Rachaela felt a sense of freedom as she walked home. She imagined Mrs Mantini in heavy traffic on the motorway. It was as if a cloud had lifted. She had given up concerning herself with the agent of the Scarabae. He could do nothing, and neither could she.

She reached the house and went up the three flights. It was an overcast day, the dark was coming.

She opened the door.

There was a strange noise. It sounded like a child crying. She knew at once it could not be Ruth.

She went around the lobby formed by the bathroom and stared at the dusk flat. Then she turned and looked into Ruth’s area.

Ruth, who was kneeling on the floor, turned also to look at her. Her eyes were black as voids, heightened by the black eyeshadow and mascara with which she had augmented them. She was draped in a kind of Greek fashion by two of her coloured shawls and she wore round her neck Rachaela’s green glass beads. Her mouth was dark red with lipstick, and smudged. It looked at first as if she had been drinking blood.

On Ruth’s bed lay a brown-haired whimpering female child, also draped in a shawl and with dabs of make-up less hectically or successfully applied to its face.

On the neck of this child was a terrific black bruise.

The child sat up.

‘Ooh, Mrs Day,’ said the child, crying and snotty now, ‘she was biting my neck.’

‘For Christ’s sake what have you been doing?’

Rachaela seized Ruth and pulled her upright.

‘Nothing. We were dressing up.’

‘What were you doing to her?’

‘She was biting me,’ said the other child, hysterical, and began to scream.

Rachaela dropped Ruth. She grabbed the other child to shake her. The child flung herself at Rachaela, burying her snot and make-up smeared face in Rachaela’s jumper.

‘It was a game,’ said Ruth, reasonably.

‘Did you make this mark on her neck?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘I told her to stop,’ squealed the other child, who was probably the mysterious Lucile. ‘She wouldn’t. She kept on and on. Am I bleeding?’

‘No, you’re all right. You’re all
right
. Come over to the lamp and let me see.’

She dragged the howling Lucile towards the lamp, and lit it.

The mark was a bruise, purple and ripe, like a lover’s kiss but worse. It looked awful.

‘Nothing to worry about,’ said Rachaela. ‘I’ll get some TCP and a plaster.’

‘My mummy won’t let me play with her again,’ said Lucile, a note of righteousness creeping into her terror.

‘I think that would be very wise.’

Surprised, perhaps, Lucile’s torrent weakened to a snivel. She allowed Rachaela to dab her with antiseptic and to apply the plaster.

With luck ‘Mummy’ might disbelieve the dire tale, especially if the bruise went down a little before she saw it. One could not tell the child to lie to its mother. Lucile was obviously bursting to reveal all.

‘You’re all right now, and I think you’d better go home,’ said Rachaela. ‘Do you know your way?’

‘Yes, Mrs Day.’

‘Go and wash your face first.’

Lucile went docile to the bathroom.

Ruth said over the splash of water: ‘I didn’t really bite her. I could have. I didn’t.’

‘You’re mad.’ Rachaela’s mother had said this to Rachaela over more trivial offences. ‘What possessed you?’ A foolish question. Obvious what had possessed her.

‘It was a game,’ said Ruth again.

‘No it wasn’t,’ said Rachaela, ‘I know what it was.’

Ruth looked at her, every inch a small vampire with her white face, reddened lips, black eyes and streaming hair. She did not look alarmed or bewildered or even scared. She looked—complacent.

Lucile emerged from the bathroom. She tore off Ruth’s shawl and flung it on the bed.

‘My mummy will be angry.’

‘I expect she will. Well, go home now.’

The Lucile child left, blotchy and aggrieved. Rachaela had not behaved the way Mummys behaved. Another failure.

The windows were blue against the lamp’s gold. Was he out there, on the street?

Ruth sat on her bed and drew towards her the unfinished drawing of lions apparently devouring people—Christians probably, from the school’s Religious Knowledge.

Rachaela felt the violent urge to laugh. It was her own hysteria.

‘Put that down.’ Ruth released the picture. ‘You’ve done something incredibly stupid, Ruth. You’ve behaved in a way that will cause a lot of trouble. You expect me to protect you. Why should I?’

Ruth looked at the windows, the coming night. She did not seem at a loss, only waiting for some boring and pointless noise to end.

Rachaela felt fury then.

It was a fearful rage, in which everything became abruptly mixed, the aversions and angers of twelve years.

‘What are you, you horrible little beast?’ Rachaela shouted.

Ruth looked at her after all.

The white, black, red face was surprised, just for a moment, then it settled into a closed mask. Rachaela remembered this from long ago. She had seen this expression, this lack of expression, this closing in and down, on the face of the demon baby Ruth had once been.

‘It wasn’t a game,’ said Rachaela. ‘It was something disgusting that came out of your foul head.’

‘Lucile will be all right,’ said Ruth, flatly.

‘I don’t care about Lucile, that revolting little fool. I don’t care about you, either. If you want to act out this sickness you’ve got then I suppose you must. But why bring it here? Why involve me in it, you bloody filthy little beast!’

Ruth wriggled, like a child embarrassed in class. Then she was entirely still, passive again, almost inanimate.

‘Look at me,’ said Rachaela.

And Ruth fixed her eyes on her mother.

For a second there was a peculiar juxtaposition. It seemed Ruth’s eyes were scarlet and her mouth black.

‘Have your bath and go to bed,’ Rachaela said. ‘If you’re hungry you can make yourself a sandwich. I don’t want anything to do with you. I don’t want to see you.’

‘Yes, Mummy,’ said Ruth.

And picking up her nightshirt from under the pillow, she went into the bathroom.