The Hours Before Dawn (14 page)

And it was only then that Louise saw in the growing light that the pram was gone.

A
t first she did not believe it. She closed her eyes quite calmly, confident that when she opened them again the pram would be there. And when it wasn’t, she still, somehow, could not take it in. I must be sitting on the wrong seat, she thought stupidly; and it was only after she had risen stiffly to her feet to peer through the icy mist at the
neighbouring
seats, that she realised the implications of this supposition. She might indeed be sitting on the wrong seat; but if so it meant that she, herself, either sleeping or crazily awake, had moved during the night from the right seat to the wrong one. Had moved purposelessly, without sense or consciousness, leaving her baby behind.

Or taking her baby with her – where? For what purpose? How far might you wheel a baby as you wandered sleep-walking through the night? Where might your brainless body put him while your sleeping mind, far off in some other world, dreamed, perhaps, that it was pushing him comfortably home?

‘No – no! I can’t have taken him far! Just to some other seat? – Behind the next bush—?’ In mounting panic she staggered on her stiff, chilled limbs from seat to seat, from bush to bush, and stood finally in the pinkish chill of dawn at the water’s edge.

It must be a shallow pool, surely. That steely, silent expanse of water, motionless as a slab of metal in the cold morning light, was meant for children to play in; to paddle and sail toy boats. It couldn’t – Oh, God! surely it couldn’t! – be more than two feet deep even in the middle. Far too shallow for a runaway pram to disappear in without trace. The handle would be sticking up out of the water. The hood. Or the wheels, crazily askew….

‘It
must
be shallow, I
know
it’s shallow!’ she muttered, and she knelt down and thrust her arm over the low stone rim.

It was even shallower than she had expected. Not even up to her elbow. Far, far too shallow to engulf a pram. The idea had been absurd.

Yet still the idea persisted. It was as if the idea was not her own at all, but had been forced upon her by some outside power. As if it had been left, like a booby-trap, for her to stumble into by the side of this metallic pool….

The police! The police will find my baby! The thought was suddenly, overwhelmingly reassuring. Of course they would find him. The police were finding lost children every day. All she had to do was to look for a policeman….

For the second time that night it seemed that a miracle was perfectly right and natural. She had only to think of the word ‘policeman’ and, of course, a policeman would appear at her side. Naturally, a rather young and embarrassed policeman he was, who said, ‘Excuse me, Miss,’ and then seemed unable to get any further. But Louise would not have let him get any further anyway.

‘You’ve found my baby!’ she cried, almost incoherent with joy. ‘You’ve found him!’

But the young policeman looked blank. His embarrassment increased.

‘I didn’t have no instructions about a baby,’ he said helplessly.
‘They didn’t say nothing about a baby at all,’ he proceeded, gaining confidence at the recollection of ‘Them.’ ‘They just sent me along to enquire if – well, what you was doing sitting in the Gardens at night. If you was ill – that kind of thing,’ he finished placatingly.

‘Who sent you? What do you mean?’ asked Louise, still
convinced
that all this must in some way refer to the discovery of Michael. ‘Has someone seen the pram?’

But the young policeman, it seemed, hadn’t had no
instructions
about a pram, either. It appeared that up at the Station they had had an anonymous phone call from some passer-by who had seen a lady sitting alone on a seat in the small hours, and had thought, not unreasonably, that something might be wrong. But this baby business, he didn’t know anything about this baby business, and hadn’t she better come along to the Station?

At the Station they seemed less bewildered than the young policeman, but not very much more helpful. No, the anonymous caller had made no reference to a baby, nor to a pram; the police officer who interviewed Louise was positive about this, and he seemed a little disappointed that Louise was in no way placated by this assurance, even when it was confirmed by his notes. He listened to her story with grave and kindly attention, though with an irritating air of having heard this sort of thing dozens of times before – irritating, that is to say, if she had been calm enough to notice it. Possibly he thought she was drunk; and indeed, the frantic and incoherent manner in which she related her implausible tale would have justified such a supposition.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Henderson,’ he said at last (he had asked for her name and address by this time, and had written them down in his ominous great ledger), ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t really follow your story at all. I think the best thing we can do is to telephone your husband and see what he can tell us. No – no, if you
please, Mrs Henderson, don’t trouble, I would prefer to make the call myself.’

Through the closed door Louise could hear the ping of the receiver as he lifted it; and, a long, long time later, it seemed to her, she heard his voice, muffled and expressionless. She could not hear what he was saying, but he seemed to be talking to Mark for a very long time. What could they be saying to each other? Had Mark, perhaps, some notion of what could have happened to Michael? Some clue on which to base the search—?

Abruptly the door opened, and the police officer reappeared, a faint, pitying smile on his face:

‘Exactly as I thought. Your husband tells me that your baby is asleep in his cot, and the pram is just where it was last night, in its usual place.’

I
t was hardly to be expected that a young matron of this neighbourhood should be able to return home at six in the morning under police escort without rousing comment.

Louise did not expect it. She was not surprised when, a few hours later, while she was manoeuvring her basin of washing round the dolls’ pram which was blocking up the back door, she saw Mrs Morgan’s brown wrinkled face and neck stretching out over the brick wall like a tortoise from its shell.

Louise nearly ducked back into the house again; but two things prevented her. One was the knowledge that the longer the episode was left to Mrs Morgan’s unaided imagination the more horrific it would become: The other was the dolls’ pram, whose hood had now become entangled with the strings of Louise’s apron. Before she had managed to dissolve this
ill-timed
union, all hope of retreat was gone, for Mrs Morgan was already calling out, with piercing solicitude:

‘You feeling better, dear?’

‘I’m all right, thanks,’ called back Louise non-committally, wrenching at the knot in her apron.

‘It’s your nerves, that’s what it is, dear,’ bellowed Mrs Morgan sympathetically. ‘That’s what I said as soon as I heard,
I said “It’s her nerves, poor thing, they’re all to pieces, and it’s no wonder—”’

At this point the apron string gave way, and, with her apron dangling uselessly, Louise hurried across the grass before the three gardens on either side should enjoy any more of the story.

‘You’re looking proper poorly, dear,’ continued Mrs Morgan, examining Louise’s face enthusiastically. ‘Proper poorly. What you need is a real good rest. That’s what I’ve been telling
everyone
: I don’t want to listen to no spiteful gossip, I’ve been saying; all Mrs Henderson needs is a real good rest.’

This was clearly Louise’s cue to contribute something to the conversation. It was her opportunity, too, to think quickly of some dull, respectable and perfectly credible reason for such a melodramatic return with the police. But it was too difficult. She could think of very few credible explanations at all, and those she could think of were neither dull nor respectable. Anyway, it was important first to find out how much Mrs Morgan did in fact know.

‘Why, what have people been saying?’ she asked innocently. ‘I didn’t know anyone was talking about me.’

Mrs Morgan gave her usual precautionary glance at the tufts of grass behind her, and at the small, cheeky dandelions which by now really did seem to have an inquisitive, eavesdropping air; then she leaned forward excitedly:

‘I won’t mention no names,’ she began. ‘No names, no trouble, that’s what I always say. Besides, it was a wicked thing to say about anyone, and I wouldn’t be repeating it, dear, you know that, without I thought you had a right to know. That’s what I said to her, I said it’s not right to talk about Mrs Henderson like that, not behind her back it isn’t. There’s many good reasons, I told her, why a person might be paddling into a pond at four in the morning, and crying her eyes out with it. You don’t want to jump to the aspersion that she’s out to do
herself in, do you, now? That’s what I told her, I told her straight: You don’t want to jump to aspersions, I told her, it’s wicked. Never mind if they do bring her back in a police van, I said, it’s none of my business, no more than it’s none of yours. A nice, respectable young woman like Mrs Henderson, I said, she wouldn’t do no such thing. It’s just her nerves, that’s all it is, I told her.’

She paused expectantly, and Louise knew that the dull and credible story must be produced now, immediately, or the chance would be lost for ever. The possibility of telling the truth did cross her mind; but, as often happens, the truth seemed more fantastic when put into words than all the colourful inventions that were flocking into her mind.

‘So silly of me,’ she improvised hastily. ‘I was out at my – at some friends, you know – and I missed the last train back, so I had to walk. I lost the way, and so I asked a policeman, and he very kindly brought me back all the way. Very nice of him, I thought. Very considerate.’

‘Very considerate they are, some of ’em,’ conceded Mrs Morgan agreeably, and with unqualified disbelief of every word Louise had been saying. ‘Very civil. What was the pond, then, Mrs Henderson, what you stumbled in in the dark? You didn’t hurt yourself, did you? I heard you come home all wet.’

‘Oh, just my sleeve,’ said Louise lightly. ‘One of those paddling pools, you know. The lighting wasn’t too good.’

Mrs Morgan considered this with tolerant incredulity.

‘A shame,’ she summed up at last; and, astonishingly, the phrase held in it genuine warmth and sympathy, in spite of the disbelief with which it was uttered. It was the same warm, genuine sorrow that an author can feel for his heroine when he is about to plunge her into yet worse disaster.

‘A shame,’ proceeded Mrs Morgan. ‘A proper set-to, eh? And the kiddie, and all. Must have given him a scare, didn’t it?’

Louise was startled, Mrs Morgan’s talents were truly
astonishing.
Neither the police nor Mark had believed for one moment that she had really taken Michael out last night – with the child safely asleep in his cot and the pram in its usual place, why should they? The police probably assumed that she had been drunk; Mark that she had been dreaming, or
sleep-walking,
or both. Louise herself was by now inclined to agree with Mark. The memory of last night seemed now nothing more than a confused nightmare. How then could Mrs Morgan, even with all her skills, guess that Louise had – or had imagined that she had – taken Michael with her on her queer journey?

‘What kiddie?’ she asked stubbornly. ‘I was by myself. Naturally.’

‘Naturally,’ agreed Mrs Morgan happily. ‘That’s what I said. Mrs Henderson’d never do a thing like that, I said, not take the kiddie out with her for such a purpose. Not that time of night, giving him a chill in the night air. It’s your nerves, duck that’s all it is, you want to watch your nerves. My husband’s sister, she used to suffer with her nerves. They found her lying in the kitchen one day with the gas full on – all three of the rings, and the oven too. And the grill.’

‘And was she—?’ enquired Louise hesitantly. ‘I mean, did she—?’

Mrs Morgan shook her head regretfully.

‘They was sharing the kitchen, see, with another young couple. Makes things difficult, you know, sharing. Two women shouldn’t try to share a kitchen, that’s what I always say, it’s bound to lead to inconvenience.’

Louise could see that this was indeed probable, particularly if one young woman’s suicide attempts coincided with the other’s need to prepare breakfast; and she expressed guarded
agreement
with the principle. Then, feeling that this shifting of attention from herself to Mrs Morgan’s husband’s sister was to
be encouraged, she led Mrs Morgan on to a further recital of that lady’s career, including her gentleman friends, her varicose veins and her final demise without a burial insurance.

By this time the church clock was striking half past twelve, and Louise hurried indoors. She had been late with everything this morning, and now lunch would be late, too. It had been a mistake to go to bed at all when she came in at dawn this morning; but the temptation had been very great. She had been encouraged, too, by the reflection that as school had finished yesterday it wouldn’t matter what time the children got up; and had been bowled over completely by Mark’s touching but impractical suggestion that she should stay in bed all day. And so she had fallen into a heavy sleep from which she had been roused by Margery, wearing a pyjama jacket and one bedroom slipper, at a quarter to ten. Mrs Philips was at the door, Margery explained, and was asking did her mother know that the baby was crying again, and could she, Margery, start the new packet of cornflakes because the old one was all crumbs?

Foolishly blind to the implications of this last request, Louise was naïely saying ‘Yes’ to it when a babel of shrill protest arose from half way up the stairs. It’s not
fair,
Harriet pointed out, with all the unanswerable righteousness of a foghorn; Louise had
promised,
she’d absolutely
promised,
that Harriet should have the next one of Bimbo the Boxer. Margery had already had
three
Bimbo the Boxer’s, and—

All this, of course, had somehow to be side-tracked for long enough to get a civil message delivered to Mrs Philips, still glowering on the front step. Louise had no intention of facing Mrs Philips herself, particularly in a dressing-gown. It was bad enough that Mrs Philips should see that the children weren’t dressed by this hour in the morning, without revealing to her the still more disgraceful fact that Louise wasn’t dressed either.

Now, three hours later, things seemed to have achieved a
temporary lull. Mrs Philips had gone out shopping, and might, if Louise was lucky, be meeting a friend at the Kosy Kuppa, which would keep her out for some time yet. Margery and Harriet seemed to have reached some amicable agreement which had resulted in Bimbo the Boxer and his surrounding coils of cardboard covering the whole of the kitchen floor, while paste and more snippets of cardboard littered the table. Both children were now quietly engaged in writing in their new fourpenny exercise books, bought with last Saturday’s pocket money. They were very quiet and quite absorbed, and Louise was surprised at the number of pages they seemed to have covered. Margery’s would probably be a hideously
derivative
story about a pixie, and Harriet’s would consist entirely of rhyming couplets – or triplets – or quadruplets – according to how long it was before her vocabulary gave out. There once was a frog, Louise found herself thinking as she sorted out the large potatoes which wouldn’t take so long to peel – Who sat on a log, And saw a dog, And fell into a bog – Really! Who was it said that motherhood automatically rots a woman’s brain? One could see what he meant…. It would have to be chips, of course; they were quicker than anything else, and besides, if there were chips perhaps there wouldn’t be any fuss about the cold meat that was to go with them….

‘Mummy, how do you spell “Recknergizzled”?’

Bother, she hadn’t even put on the chip pan to heat yet, and it was nearly one o’clock. Now it would be at least twenty minutes before—

‘
Mum-mee
!
How do you spell “Recknergizzled”?’

‘What, dear?’ Louise hastily lit the gas under the pan. ‘R-E-C-K—’ she continued mechanically, and then pulled herself up. ‘
What
did you say, Margery? What’s the word you want?’

‘Recknergizzled,’ repeated Margery patiently. ‘How do you spell it?’

‘But, darling, there isn’t such a word. Where did you hear it?’

Margery looked helpless, and Harriet broke in cooperatively:

‘It’s in the Spy Book. I know how to spell it. R-E-C—’

In spite of the chips, and the preternatural speed with which the hands of the clock always revolved as lunch-time drew near, Louise was becoming interested.

‘What
is
this word?’ she asked. ‘I’ve never heard of it. What does it mean?’

Both children stared at her, and Louise felt apologetic for having introduced so superfluous a complication into an already difficult problem. She went on hastily. ‘What’s the Spy Book? I don’t remember it. Is it from the library?’

‘Oh
no!
’
said Harriet, wide-eyed. ‘It’s not a printed book at all. It’s a written book. Spy books always are, Tony says.’

‘Is it a book of Tony’s, do you mean?’ asked Louise, light (she thought) beginning to dawn. ‘Something he’s written about spies?’

‘
No!
’
said Harriet again, a little impatiently. ‘Tony didn’t write it, he’s only copying it. At least,’ she added cryptically, ‘we’re copying it for him, because he can only do it if you ask him to tea a lot. It’s only us who can get into the Rubbish Room.’

‘You’re not to call it that—’ began Louise automatically; and then, realising the implications of Harriet’s words, she became suddenly alert:

‘Do you mean it’s something of Miss Brandon’s? A story she’s shown you?’

‘Oh no,’ said Harriet placidly. ‘She hasn’t shown us. It’s a secret, you see. We go when she’s not there and copy it out for Tony. He says we’ve got to, it’s very important, but it’s miles long, and we’ve still only done four pages, haven’t we, Margery?’

‘
You
’ve
only done three and a bit,’ corrected Margery. ‘Because you got that page with only two or three words on it.
I’m on my fifth—’ She pointed proudly to her new page, where the words: ‘She knows nothing. I am washing my time’ were clearly written.

For a moment Louise was mystified. ‘
Washing
my time’? – was this a code message to delight Tony’s heart? Then she realised that the word must be not ‘washing’ but ‘wasting’ – a mistake easily explained when she saw the untidy, crumpled piece of paper from which Margery was copying.

‘You see,’ Harriet explained proudly, ‘we have to copy it quickly – you know – anyhow – while we’re up there, and then we rush down and copy it properly into our Record Books. Tony says we mustn’t
ever
take the Spy Book itself away, even for a minute, or she might come in in that minute and notice. That’s why we have to copy it twice.’

Evidently this refinement of technique had taken a lot of explaining by Tony, and Harriet was proud to have mastered it.

‘And it’s all a deadly secret cross my heart,’ added Margery, rather belatedly. ‘That’s why we can’t tell you about it, Mummy. Mine’s much tidier than Harriet’s, isn’t it?’

Louise studied the proffered page, hoping that she was not betraying too much interest. But the text, twice copied by Margery, was too garbled to convey much at a brief inspection. ‘The apple in M’s eyes’ – did that mean ‘the appeal’? And what about this word that Margery was struggling to spell? ‘Recknergizzled.’ Once written down, the derivation was clear. ‘Recognised,’ of course. Miss Brandon had been writing
something
about someone being (or not being) recognised…. The document appeared to be something in the nature of a diary….