Slow Poison - Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-one

“MUMMY!”

The voice split the night, echoing through the house. Trim was instantly awake. He sat up, his body aching, the glutinous ooze smeared on leather. He listened. Acrid sweat poured from him. No other sound came. The child slept on. Three-ten. Trim pulled himself from the leather unit, his hand sticking to the surface. Sleep, in the master bedroom, was a feverish, broken stretch until the black beyond the window became grey. From the outer edge of sleep he could hear the child. She stirred in the second bedroom. The first day was beginning.

Stonehouse

The doctor arrived first. He diagnosed a stroke. He had since phoned through for the paramedics. The journey to Gloucester was out of the question, the roads far too treacherous, so Stroud would have to suffice. He worried about the drugs she had been given when the first symptoms had been noticed.

“She was worried about the girl. The strain must have been too much. I didn’t know what else to do. I only give her two.”

Glyn put his arm around the Husband’s shoulder. Janet sat in the unfamiliar sitting room, stunned into silence. Mrs. Trim lay inert and breathing shallowly on the settee, covered by a candlewick single bedspread.

“Everything will be all right. Don’t worry, the doctor’s here.” Glyn said, trying to calm the Husband.

“Mister Trim? Is this the bottle?” asked the doctor, holding up a brown glass bottle to the light.

Trim nodded. The doctor tutted. Paracetemol. He was concerned about the liver. The woman already appeared comatose. ‘Why do these people never read the instructions properly!’ he muttered to himself.

Janet started as the siren of the ambulance woke the few who still slept in the bedrooms of Little Australia.

“Is it the police?”

“No. It’s the ambulance.”

“Where are the police? Sarah could be anywhere.”

“She’s with the boy. It’s all right.”  the Husband murmured.

“They must have had an accident.” Janet moaned.

“Oh god. I hope not.” Glyn said.

“Poor Becky. After all she’s been through.”

Glyn had left the Husband and was showing the ambulance men into the sitting room. One of them had carried the boy, thirty or so years before, but there was no memory of the day. The Husband followed them out into the road, into the back of the ambulance. The doctor climbed into his own car and followed the ambulance slowly out of the estate and on into the High Street, the Railway Bridge and beyond. There were silent crowds to watch them departing, hisses of conjecture, stamping slippers and clouds of breath and the gradual dispersal to floodlit kitchens and piping hot drinks and another hour of the night ahead.

Janet and Glyn were suddenly alone in the unfamiliar house. The house was a mirror of their own, might have been their own but the furnishings and fittings were very different. The doors, the cupboards, the stairs, were all in place. It might have been Becky’s home too.

“It’s just like that night. The night that Fred was...”

“Shhh, don’t say it, love.”

He sat down on the Trim’s settee.

“Where could she be? Where?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.”

“Where are the police? Will you give them another call?”

But there was no need. They could hear a car approaching the house.

“Is it the Mercedes?”

“No. It’s the police.”

“Oh god. I can’t take this. I thought all of this was behind us.”

They avoided one another’s eyes. They had learned to fear the worst. There were diamonds and metal, fading tulips and a disembodied voice. ‘Becky. No one ever calls me that.’

“Glyn, I’m frightened.”

The phone. The time; two forty nine. Glyn sprang up and grasped the phone as if it were the dowel of a trapeze.

“Hello.” 

Coins in a slot. The sound of a crying baby. Echoing voices. It was the Husband. Trim. 

“She’s gone. Never come round. She’s gone.” he sobbed out. Then the money ran out. Pips. Then nothing. Dead air. A void.

“Glyn. What is it?”

“It wasn’t the police.” Glyn whispered.

He laid the phone down carefully. His skin was grey.

“Mrs. Trim, I think she’s dead.”

The Cotswold Cottage

“Sarah?”

She looked up and into the pale grey eyes. She said nothing.

“It is Sarah, isn’t it? You don’t remember me. I’m Mrs. Trim’s son.”

He was a grown up. He was too old to be Mrs. Trim’s son. He didn’t smell like Mrs. Trim. He smelled more like Mummy. His hands were very soft. She held his hand as they edged past the others, the stilted movement disguising the limp for now. Trim was quite tall, so Sarah shuffled along beside the fine surface of the camel coat. She was helped into her own blue duffel at the door and then Trim knelt down before her to help with the toggles. She looked into his pale grey eyes. Trim busied himself with the fastenings and did not notice her intense gaze. Suddenly he looked at her, into her eyes, the deep brown eyes. He could see the twin reflections of his face there. Oh my god. Lenny. Fred and Lenny. No one was conscious of their leaving. Personal triumph and the tumbling snow filled the heads of the others that jostled to escape the Centre for home.

“And don’t forget, girls, be here on time tomorrow. That goes for you too Mister Brennan’  Mrs. Lewis called.

“The car’s down here.”

“I don’t want to go down there. It’s scary.”

“Okay. We’ll walk around.”

He had wanted to avoid the other way. The wider road that led to Bradley’s and the bicycle shop, the slight incline toward the High Street and the Woolpack.

“Have you hurt your foot?”

“No. Just twisted my ankle. It’s the snow.”

But no one gave them a second glance. Someone called out to Sarah, that was all.

“See you tomorrow, Sarah.”

It sounded like Cathy, but when Sarah turned to look, there were only the huddled groups of grown-ups pushing against the flurries of snow.

“Quick. Jump in the back. You can snuggle under this.”

Trim draped her with a thick blanket. He started the motor almost soundlessly, and they wheeled round slowly in the car park and headed out toward the High Street. Mills” Chip Shop was no more than twenty yards from the entrance of the car park, so the Mercedes remained in first, pulling onto the kerb outside the empty shop. Sarah stayed in the car, watching through the misted window as Trim went into the shop. He returned in a few moments, filling the car with the wonderful reviving smell of fried potatoes and battered fish, and vinegar.

“Go on. You can eat them now. Try not to get any on the seat.”

Damn. Why had he bought them. There had been no obligation to fulfil any part of the lie. Concentrate, man.

“Shall I save some for Mummy?”

“No. She’s had her supper. You eat them all up.”

“Why didn’t Mummy come tonight?”

She’s not at home. She’s somewhere else. That’s where we are going.”

“Where’s your Mum, then.”

“Just at home. Look, eat your chips and we’ll soon be there.”

The car swished under the Wycliffe foot-bridge, toward the forecourt of the petrol station.” Damn!”  he swore, knowing the need to fill up. Another witness. First find an Access or a Visa. A new one from the pocket of a coat hanging limp in the Centre. Damn. The nozzle was cold. Even through kid gloves.

Sarah was asleep by the time Trim returned to the car. The unfinished fish and chips lay still steaming upon her lap. He scooped up the paper and rolled the contents into a ball, adding the Visa card as an afterthought. He tossed the bundle into a bin full of oily tissue paper between the pumps. The snow was still falling heavily, but the Cainscross Road had been in constant use, making the surface still manageable. At the exit he waited for two distant cars to roll by before pulling out into the road, following the tail lights until they turned off at the Old Brewery Roundabout. He drove past the Bus Station, the last of the buses waiting for the drunks to arrive. He turned left at the derelict Police Station and headed toward the Cheltenham road, past Stratford Park, the Post Office HQ, on to the first slopes leading to Paradise.

The white light shimmered like a sequinned curtain, billowing out, as though hidden children crouched whispering in the folds. The light dimmed and the glass wall came into view, almost a mirror. There were sounds, crackling voices in the distance. The wall dissolved, doors parted and Fred stood beaming his big smile, his skin dark and tanned, his eyes, big doe eyes, brown and lustrous. Music swelled with the crowds that marched through the door, around and beyond. There was a sudden sensation of floating, and a disembodied voice joined the music.

“Daddydaddydaddy.”

“Sarah. Sarah - we have to walk. The snow is too thick to drive. Come on Sarah, wake up.”

“Daddy? Where’s Daddy?”

But Trim didn’t hear. He slammed the door on the driver’s side and didn’t hear. He lifted the girl out of the car and held her close to him, shielding her from the worst of the snow. Sarah said nothing more. The numbing cold trickled through her, the damp of the dance dangerously cooling, the warmth of the half-eaten meal keeping her stable.

Now she could hear him. Breathing heavily in the other room. The room between her room and the stairs. The world beyond the window was black. And white. Grey. A light below the window, the porch light, showed up the steady falling snow, emphasised the darkness, the smoothness of the terrain.

Sarah could remember the dream. Could remember the acetic smell. Could remember the pantomime and the cup cakes. Could remember the strange man. She lay in a bed, in a nice room. She was a little hungry, but otherwise she felt safe. Trim was breathing heavily. He sounded old. Wheezing and puffing. And the old men go hobbledy, hobbledy, hobbeldy and DOWN into the ditch. He had been a young man. Maybe it was a different man. She tried to see without leaving the warmth of the quilt. She could see nothing. The other room was in darkness. There was only the sound. It frightened her. She shivered in the bed, trying to remember the songs Becky had taught her to sing when the bad dreams came, when the walls closed in and the hands reached out. All that came to mind was the song she had been singing to help the soldier in the cave, when the dogs appeared, eyes as big as saucers, as big as tea-trays, as big as man-hole covers.

‘We are little sparks in the dark,

we are little lights in the night.

we. we are little stars in the sky.

we are here you way to light.’

Trim could hear her tremulous voice muffled by the quilt. His head was splitting open with a sledgehammer migraine. His skin was wet with sweat. He felt panic hit him as he realised the danger of becoming a fellow prisoner. A prisoner of the snow and a prisoner of the pain.

“Damn you, Lenny, you unfaithful cow.” he thought. What evil legacy had been bestowed from beyond the grave. Trim coughed suddenly, violently, the spasm leaving a fine spray of spittle upon the pillow, carrying with it minuscule spots of blood that spread out across the cotton in tiny pink stars.

“Jesus Christ!”

He had thought himself immune. Completely safe. He had arranged it so.

“Damn you, Lenny, you bitch. You fucking whore.” 

When could it have been? He thought back. There had been no chance. He had been with him exclusively from the outset. He had owned him. Lock, stock and bollocks. There had been the basement. He had been there for over a year. The drug had dissipated the bulk of his own desires. The films and the pain had taken care of the rest. And there had been Lenny. Trim could not control the spinning sensation that took his senses, throwing him into near hallucinatory realms. This had not been the plan. No. Calm down. This was madness. He felt the symptoms of flu.

“It’s just a bloody cold. I’ve been out in the bloody snow. The bloody shoes are ruined. No wonder I feel, like shit.”

Seven. He listened to the girl humming gently in the next room. There would be a phone call to make. Damn. The woman was not at home. Damn. He would phone someone. He felt a sudden urge to vomit. The bathroom would entail passing through the girl’s bedroom. The kitchen. He stumbled down the stairs, naked, falling heavily against the corner of the tiled kitchen surface.

“Damn!”

He leaned against the sink unit, his genitals pressed against the cold wood, a trickle of blood running from the flesh wound near his left hip bone. His body convulsed with retching, and he vomited into the stainless steel reflection.

“Godver-degodver-degodver!”

Sarah hid under the quilt and wished there was a door between her bedroom and Trim.

“We are little sparks in the dark. in the dark. in the dark. MUMMY!”

Babworth

Outside the window several villagers had begun to dig a pathway through the deep drifts. There were ten men. No children. The village had no children as far a Becky could see. The digging seemed futile.

“Rebecca.”

“Alan?”

But Alan was sleeping deeply. Who had called her that. There was a stranger at a wedding anniversary years before. The Trim’s anonymous son. Mrs. Trim spoke little of him. Becky tried hard to recall the exact sound of his voice. He had said so little to her. She had been alone, helping with the catering, Fred had been off somewhere else. It had been little more than a formal introduction. What had been said?

“Francis, this is Mrs. Farthing. Becky.”

“Rebecca? Pleased to meet you.” 

Nothing more. Wait. There had been something. His after shave. More of a perfume. A cologne. What had it been. Patchouli oil. No, something nearer musk. ‘Rebecca.’ No one called her ‘Rebecca’.

“You’re shivering. come here. what is it?”

“I remembered something. It’s nothing.”

“Are you hungry?”

“Ravenous.”

“Shall we slip into our formal clothes and descend for breakfast.”

“My skin is better pressed than this heap of wrinkles.” said Alan pulling his shirt from the end of the bed.

“Do you know, I don’t really care any more.”

Becky leaned over and kissed him decisively.

“Right, you can keep the job.”

He was ready for the flying pillow.

The Cotswold Cottage

Trim had struggled up the stairs as far as the master bedroom, only far enough to pick up his bathrobe. He was suddenly aware of his nakedness. The girl was quiet. Downstairs again, he filled a kettle with difficulty. He plugged the kettle in and waited for the bubbles to rise. He looked out through the window into the hidden garden. Snow. Better than tulips. He hated tulips.  He suddenly realised how much he despised all flowers. Lenny had never needed flowers.  He ran his fingers through his hair to push it off his face. He was alarmed to see more than usual left clinging to his fingers. His hair felt lank and lack-lustre. Once more his stomach churned and left him hanging over his scoured reflection, pale and wasted in the sink.

“Oh god, not me, not me. Goddamn you, Lenny. God damn your fucking soul.”

“Mister, I’m hungry. Mister, are you all right?” 

He wheeled around, his face like a ghost, all colour drained.

“Uh, yes I’m fine.”

He composed himself with a superhuman effort.

“What would you like for breakfast?”

“Frosties.” she announced.

There were Frosties in the cupboard. And milk. A lot of milk. Looking though the contents of the cupboard, he remembered just how well he had planned for the siege. The memory closed the gaps completely. Briefly he was in control once more. There was milk, bread, meat, fuel and ammunition.

Sarah eyed Trim with suspicion. He looked very strange. He looked like Mister Farmiloe with his soldier’s make-up all over his face, his white grease paint. This man’s eyes were ringed with black. As big as saucers.

“It smells of sick there.”

Stonehouse

“Officer, I am trying to be calm. I want you to do two things. Please. Will you please listen to me?” Glyn looked at Janet with hopelessness.” I want you to put the girl on your missing list and I want you to contact her mother.”

Glyn held the receiver to his ear, angry at the stock answers he was being given. He continued.

“I believe there is a chance that the girl might have been abducted. Yes, I told you that. She’s been missing since last night. She’s only five, for Christ’s sake!”

Glyn fell silent as he listened to the reluctant officer attempting to be reasonable with him.

“LISTEN MAN! THE KID’S FATHER WAS BLOODY MURDERED. WILL YOU A LEAST GIVE ME THE COURTESY OF TAKING THIS SERIOUSLY?”

Janet joined him at the phone. She put her arm around his waist, trying to keep him calm.

“Yes all right.” Glyn said, much calmer, “I’ll come over now. Thank you.”

He replaced the receiver and put his arms around Janet.

“I think I got through at last. They want me to go over with Sarah’s photograph, and a photograph of Trim if we can get one.”

“I’ve still got a key. I’ll get a photo. Oh, Glyn, do you think Sarah might really be in danger?”

“Yes. I’m afraid I do, love.”

“Oh, the poor kid. What on earth is Becky going to do?”

“Well, unless we can get through to her, she isn’t going to know.”

“Oh Glyn.”

“Now, I’ll get the car out and you see if you can find those photographs. As soon as we can get them into the police the better. I want to find her.”

Janet entered the Trim’s empty house, still reeking with the scent of stale tobacco. She felt no strangeness at what she was about to do. It seemed so natural. She climbed the stairs, their stairs, her stairs, Becky’s stairs - and looked into the front bedroom. There were two framed photographs on the dressing table. A black and white photograph of the Trims, which judging by the clothes had been taken in the late Fifties, the other photograph was of a blond boy with a crooked smile and a serrated fringe. The boy. Janet needed the man. There was nothing of interest in the drawers.

Downstairs, she tried the sideboard. Nothing. Where would a photograph be kept? The kitchen. There was nothing among the knives and pieces of string in the unit drawers. There seemed no hope. She heard Glyn blow the car horn impatiently. Where would she keep a photograph? Then she saw it. On the sideboard, next to the fruit bowl and the brass bell was a thick glass biscuit barrel. Through the moulded glass she could just make out the distorted features of a face. Inside the barrel there were traces of chocolate, and five photographs, curling and scarred with folding. Four of the Mrs Trim of the Fifties with her arm around the blond boy. The fifth photograph was of a man. Not the husband.

The photograph seemed to be an enlargement of a passport photograph. Posed and stilted and badly lit. There was a date stamp across the back. 1983. If it were Trim, he would not have changed that much. Would he? She compared the photograph of the man with the ones of Mrs. Trim and the boy. They might have been the same person, but it was hard to tell.  The car horn blew again, and Janet scooped up the photograph and made her way out of the house toward the waiting car.

“I’ve just got to pick up a snap of Sarah.”

Glyn revved the engine angrily.

An hour later someone believed them.

“It’s not going to be an easy job with this weather.” the detective warned them.

Janet laid the two photographs out on the table top in front of them. The two faces looked wrong, side by side.

“This came too.” said Glyn, removing the envelope with the diamond from his coat pocket. “I almost forgot.”

“Right, now explain the significance of this little beauty.”

The pieces of the puzzle served only to confuse rather than clarify. The detective listened carefully to the other facets that Glyn and Janet added to the intricate story. The detective was already well versed with the details of the story. Few had missed it. It had raised brief heated debate about soccer violence in the Commons, the focus being on that particular aspect, rather than the glorifying of Fred’s death. The tabloids had toyed with a headline or two, but Becky had proved so uncooperative that the journalists soon gave up. Being a local story the details had been bandied about the stations in the district. The detective was familiar, but preferred to hear the background from these involved people. And now this. Some people seemed to live under the shadow of a dark cloud of misfortune, he thought.

“Inspector Barnes, what can we do?”

“There’s nothing much you can do Mister Wood. Just go home and sit tight, just in case we need to contact you. Or in case Sarah and Trim simply turn up. It has been known. Leave the rest to us. If there is any news, we’ll contact you. I promise you that.”

Janet and Glyn turned to leave.

“Mister Wood, here’s my number.” he said, holding out a card bearing a police vignette and his name and number.” I’ll write my home number on it too, just in case.”

Glyn held Janet close to him as Barnes wrote his other number on the card. The snow outside seemed to be falling harder.

“You will call us if you hear anything.” Glyn asked.

“The moment anything comes in. Try not to worry.”

The old man looked out at the snow. His trembling hands had been little use in setting the coffee he had offered the Husband. There was no alcohol in the house. The Husband had waited in the kitchen, filling the kitchen with his smoke, driving grief away. The old man thought about the boy. About the book. His words tainting the page with his twisted memories. Children’s games. That’s all it had been. The sick things he had written of, these were untruths - he could have no knowledge of the real pain that comes with losing someone. There was a loud crack. Trim shifted forward in his chair, the stiff joint in his knee resisting the forward movement. The snap of a brittle bone.

The coffee, when it had come, had been vile. Too strong. Stored too long in the open tin. The Husband had cried and had said ‘why?’ over and over again. The old man had watched him trudge the length of Midland Road, the coffee cup filled to the brim with evil, undrinkable liquid. Once, he had set fine coffee. Even the dandelion root had tasted better. Better than the boiled water and stinging nettles of later, better than the endless sugar beet varieties, better than the rats. Reluctantly he poured the dregs down the sink and washed away the grounds. Without thinking he looked around for the cat, lying in its slow moving shape of sunlight. But the cat was not there. There would be no sun today. He wondered if he would live to see sunshine ever again.

The Cotswold Cottage

No one knew where they were. The night was as black as it could ever be. Nothing stirred the sky, the hardware hidden far above the layer of cloud that held Britain siege. The girl slept in the bed, still in her day clothes. Trim prayed for sleep to come. The ashtrays were full of stubbed cigarettes, sixty or more. A bottle of Cognac that had been full at five was almost empty at eleven. There was only the drug left to go. That sleep was so elusive was a mystery. He had never felt so completely exhausted as he felt this moment. Each time he focused in on the frightening possibilities, his mind turned in sickening circles of panic. His eyes felt as though someone had rubbed them with salt. The inside of his stomach might have been clawed raw by a nameless beast desperate for freedom. The stuff. If sleep would not come, then at least his insomnia would be made tolerable by the drug.

It worked. It always did. The pure rush of pleasure that rid the body and mind of all direction. His fingers fell limply open and brushed an object beside the leather unit. He gripped the hard, heavy object and brought it within his range of vision. The object was flat, circular, a buckle or an amulet. It felt large and cold in his hand. The piece was a small Celtic brooch found by the owner of the house on an archaeological dig in Cornwall. The angled symbols blurred in their closeness, melting into a reversed swastika, straining against the sun. The thoughts found their route. The voices rang through his head and he recalled why he was holding court in the Fortress of Solitude. The charm slipped from his fingers and clattered upon the flagstones. The metallic rattle of Muffin.

Bastards! He would invoke all the devils in Hell for the chance of having them here. Fred and Lenny. Damn their souls. They would pay all over again. Forever itself could never be long enough. Eternity too brief for their pain. Damn their souls.

“Mummy!”

The cry divided a moment, turning eyes toward the stair. Scared. Inside, in her dream, she was scared. Of what? Of the dark, the night - not of Trim. Not yet. He had carried her to bed, the dead weight, from the cradle of the armchair. A day filled with television had closed her eyes and she would sleep through the dreams into the late morning of Sunday. The still countryside would not disturb her until the sky brightened to a dull gleaming grey.

Trim needed music. The CD player lay where he had thrown it. The discs, dazzling with their rainbows, scattered over the table top like oil drops on a puddle. He dragged himself from the leather unit and slid back a panel in the wall cupboard. He ran his finger over the cardboard spines searching out the accompaniment to his mood. There was little to suit his taste; Denver, Galway, Last. Trite, pre-digested music. Muzak. In desperation he pulled at a sleeve. Home to the sea. Kerr and McKuen. He dropped the record on to the turntable and set it revolving, skimming tracks. The lush orchestral arrangement nauseated him, but the deep tones of the spoken voice caught him and held him. ‘I’m running out of tomorrows, of arms to run to, I’m running out of strangers.’ Running out of strangers. Oh, no, there was always another. Darkness hid so many of them; nameless, faceless strangers, breathless with desires, with whispered demands, pleas thick with emotion.

Once there had been a daydream; to knock once on every door in the world. The idea filled him, at seven or eight, with wild rushes of excitement. To walk, and brush each life, briefly. To touch each one and pass on, his face engraved forever on their minds. Immortality. He had plotted the journey, had walked the pavements of the estate counting the gates; Seventy-seven, seventy nine, eighty one. the task was impossible. At seven or eight he knew fury and frustration, freeing the anger in the act of clawing the wallpaper from the wall behind his bed. And yet it had been so simple. He had brushed their lives, would do so again. The drug washed on through him, flattening the music, mellowing the cognac, repelling all thought of sleep.

The record crackled to a close, leaving only the Jobim worth hearing. Music for a summer evening filling his thoughts with the heat of a daisy bank, the drone of the bi-planes circling overhead, the ribbon of the Severn glistening in the broad plain of the valley. Dusk, with its early lights burning in the kitchen windows below, disclosed the strangers” homes. Night; the daisies closed, the cropped grass dampened with dew, made stars of each light. As though the vast sky was reflected in Noah’s flood, the strangers bloated , lungs awash, deep beneath the surface. The Husband had found him there, high on the hill, awe-struck and silent.

“Your Mother’s been frantic looking for you. You’ll be the death of her?

The boy said nothing.

“What have you got to say, you little bugger?”

The boy had nothing to say. The Husband, in his fury, struck out at the boy, sending him spinning to the grass, staining his shins with green.

“Come on home, you little sod. Come on.”

The boy looked back as they reached the foot of Doverow Hill. The spot where he had been sitting, watching the world, was far behind them. A light flickered between the trees at the summit of the conical mound of the Hill. Someone had taken over the vigil. He walked home beside the Husband, sullen and thoughtful, the Husband muttering his anger as he wheeled his rattling bicycle toward the estate.

There was no other music of worth, so Trim chose silence. He could not be sure whether sleep had finally come, or whether the dream state was a prolonged wakefulness fuelled by the drug. As the last of the darkness ebbed away from the night, he felt none of the peace that sleep sometimes brings. He felt unease, uncertainty, an awful sense of trepidation, a foreboding of failure. Prisoners they were - both of them. How soon would they come, he wondered. Bellamy from the estate agent’s would recognise the photograph, would send them to the house. The Mother and the Husband, hurt and angry, would be there to accuse, to wail and moan. There was a way out. A sure-fire, twelve bore bolt-hole. What was there to fear. He had already started the journey once before, long ago. Since then there had been few thrills to equal Heaven.

The diary had not prepared him for the rigours of this prison. The extremes of winter. The old man had only scratched at the surface. What did he know. He was senile, probably always had been. This was prison; waking up so alone, knowing that there is nothing more to live for, knowing that there was nothing really to have lived for.

Sarah was suddenly there, crying at the top of the stairs.

“What are you crying for?”

“I done something?, she whimpered.

“What do you mean?”

“I done something in the bed.”

He pulled himself up the stairs and followed the girl into the middle room. She stood before him, staring down at the sheet. In the centre of the sheet was a small, damp patch.

“I’m sorry, I forgot where the toilet was.”

“It’s nothing, it doesn’t matter.”

“But I haven’t got any clean knickers.” she cried.

“We can rinse these through.”

Was this all part of the nightmare?

“You can’t do that. Mummy’s got to do it.”

“Yes, but we can’t see Mummy yet.”

“Why do you walk like that? All funny?”

“What?”

The candid question floored him.

“None of your business.”

“Why don’t you live with Mrs. Trim if you’re her son?”

“Because I live here. I’ve got my own house.”

“When can we go to Mummy?”

“When I say so.”

“Do you kill rabbits and things with that gun?”

“Yes.”

“Then I think you’re horrible!”

“Why don’t you have a bath, then I can rinse your things through.”

Sarah eyed him with suspicion. She was always suspicious of bath time.

“Oh, all right?” she sighed. “Can I have lots of bubbles?”

“Yes you can have lots of bubbles.” he said wearily.

He could not bring himself to watch her undressing and stepping into the steaming water. When she was safely immersed in the hot water, he came through from stripping the single bed of its dampened sheet to collect her underwear. The ends of her hair were damp where they touched the bubbles. Sarah was preoccupied, whipping more bubbles from the water with her hands. Then she looked up at Trim.

“There aren’t any curtains. people can see in.”

“There aren’t any people.”

“It’s funny with no curtains.”

“They can’t see you through the bottles.”

“What’s in all they bottles? That green one.”

“All kinds of stuff. Aftershave. You know.”

“My Daddy says that aftershave is for cissies.”

“Where’s your Daddy?”

“He’s in Heaven. He had an accident in Asterdan. With a car. He was in a cahcash.”

“A car crash? That must have been terrible.”

“Yes, but he’ll come home when he’s better.”

“Did your Mummy tell you that?”

“No. I just know he will, that’s all.”

He could take it no further. There was no wound ready for salting. This person was so tiny. So vulnerable sitting in the giant bath tub. Such easy prey. The bubble bath liquid had given the water an oily character, the sloping sides of the bath would be slippery. With his hands upon her head, in the act of baptism, he could take her to the planes he had once sighted, far beyond the light. It would be so easy. Heaven was waiting. Suffer the little children to come unto me.

“My Daddy didn’t live at home, either.”

“Oh.”

“He lived at the seaside.”

“Oh.”

“He showed me a picture of him on the beach, all brown.”

Trim had no idea that children were like this. She did not seem at all afraid of him. She was not much like the Fred that he remembered.

“How old are you?”

“Five!” she said, proudly.

“When’s your birthday?”

“I don’t know. How old are you?”

“Thirty seven.”

“Ooh, you’re OLD!”

He felt as old as time, as grey as Lenny’s ashes, as decayed as Fred’s corpse.

Steam rose from the laundry that hung drying over the radiator in the kitchen area. Sarah sat before the television wearing one of Trim’s hand made shirts. It was cream coloured with pale lemon stripes. It looked like a night-shirt, Sarah’s skin glowed from the hot bath. She sat in the large armchair, curled into a ball, eyes fixed rigid on the screen. No one knew she was there.