Incarnate (9 page)

8

T
HE FLAT
was crowded before the men brought the table upstairs. There was hardly space between the piles of cartons for them to carry Susan’s bed to her room. She retreated to the kitchen and peered over the frosted glass of the nailed-down sash. Chimneys taller than she was stood against the empty sky, a woman shook a duster from a window and stared down at her. She ran to open the bathroom door as the removal men struggled to maneuvre the bed. When they managed at last to sidle it into her room, the doorway shook.

“These are your sheets,” Mummy said, dragging a carton away from the window. “You can be making your bed if you like.” She hurried after the removal men—she had been following them up and down the stairs, to make sure they didn’t damage anything—and Susan was alone in her new home.

It didn’t feel like home. Mummy’s photographs were standing on the mantelpiece above the gas fire, her herb chart and the calendar with Susan’s painting of the Mersey from the window of their old flat were hanging in the kitchen. But the calendar made Susan want to cry, and the photographs—Susan in her first school uniform. Mummy before she was married, with long black hair that Susan wished she had herself instead of her babyish auburn waves—only reminded her of the photograph Mummy had torn up. The flowers and scraps of flowers on the walls dwarfed her, a draft from the landing made the plastic streamers rattle, and then she knew what the flat felt like—the removal van, not meant for living in at all.

She unpacked the folded sheets one by one and stacked them by her bed. The smells of clean linen and new carpet cheered her up, almost made her forget where she was. Mummy had had the green carpet fitted throughout the flat, but that made it seem unreal, the same feeling underfoot whichever room you were in, even in the lightless shaky hall. Mummy had been in London all half-term, getting the flat ready and making sure of Susan’s place at school and, Susan presumed, finding out where her new job was, while Susan had stayed at Arabella’s house on Seaview Road. She’d used to tease Arabella because her house didn’t have a view of the sea at all or even of the Mersey, but she wished she had Arabella’s view now instead of the view from the main room of the tall, cold, white houses, the porches whose pillars looked like sticks of chalk.

She was making her bed when she heard the men leave. The outer door closed, and Mummy came to find her. “That’s a good girl. I’ll see if I can find your other things for you to put away.”

Susan’s little bookcase had to stand on her dressing table, in front of the mirror. She oughtn’t to complain, Mummy didn’t even have a proper bed now, only a bed-settee. She unpacked her annuals and C. S. Lewises and Alan Garners and arranged them in the bookcase, and saw herself staring out through the gap before the last few books fell into place. It made her think of the face she had seen at the window of the train. It must have been a daydream, and she was glad she didn’t usually have them; Mummy had warned her against them years ago. She propped her dolls against the wall at the foot of the bed— Rapunzel with her golden hair and Repulsive the witch with her long green nose and chin—and then closed the door and pulled the frayed string and watched the patterns of light that came rushing into her eyes, filling her vision and fading away to the edges to make room for the next wave, until she realized fully how dark it was; she had never been in a place with no windows before. She groped for the wobbly door handle and fled into the main room.

“You can be taking the empty boxes down,” Mummy said. “The bins are at the back.” Susan jumped on the cartons to flatten them and carried them down through the smells of dust and cats, the light like stagnant water beneath the unlit bulbs. Eventually the rusty bolt of the door beyond the stairs scraped out of its socket and let her into the yard.

The high walls were spiky with glass. A few weeds poked out from beneath a collapsed outhouse and two mattresses, a sandwich full of springs. “Flat 4” was painted on a dustbin near the gate, but it didn’t seem worth using in the midst of all that mess. She was dumping the cartons on top of the mattresses when a voice said, “Oh, dear no.”

It was an old man in a beret at the kitchen window under theirs. “Sorry,” she said, blushing, and stuffed the cartons into the bin, but before she could retreat upstairs he’d scurried out to her. “Tidy up, giddy up,” he gabbled. “Gee up, get your lid off, let’s see what you’re made of.”

He was rummaging in her and Mummy’s bin when a tiny woman with bright red hair and a face like crumpled paper appeared in his window. “Out of it before I call the police,” she shrilled at Susan. “And stay away from him if you know what’s good for you.”

“I live here,” Susan had to say.

“Do you now. Well, God help you and whoever brought you.”

The old man who might be her father or her husband was at his own bin now, digging out an empty bottle and stuffing it with rubbish—banana skins, a tangle of string and sealing wax. “Watch and learn,” he cried, but Susan fled upstairs to find Mummy staring at the cartons as if she couldn’t quite recall what she had sold to make room. “Just keep an eye on the flat while I make sure there’s nothing left in the van.”

“Let me come with you,” Susan pleaded.

“Why?”

“I don’t want to be on my own. Not just yet,” she said, hoping against all her instincts that it would be never, not here.

“Susan, I hope you aren’t going to start that kind of silly nonsense. You’re a sensible girl, you don’t imagine things, and if you do you can just get rid of those books. You know the ones I mean. And the dolls. I mean it, Susan. You start imagining things and I’ll throw them out myself.”

Susan bit her lip. “I want to see if they’ve left anything of mine in the van.”

Mummy must know she was lying, but she softened. “All right, I know, it must all be a bit sudden, moving when we’ve never moved before. Come on then, we’ll both go down. I expect we’re being overcautious, but it never hurts to check.”

The street was deserted. The houses looked glossy and brittle under the colorless sky. Susan lingered by the flaky gateposts, for the removal van reminded her how empty it had made her old home. Her footsteps had echoed as she’d walked through the flat to say good-bye, and she’d hardly been able to see for tears. She had almost forgotten to take the plaque that said “Susan’s Room” off her bedroom door, and she didn’t think she would ever put it up. “Hello, Eve,” said Mummy from the back of the removal van. “I wondered when we’d see you.”

Susan’s heart seemed to stall and start again. Was this part of what was wrong with Mummy, was it getting worse? The street shivered around her as if its glassy surface were cracking. But when she went to Mummy there was someone after all: a girl of about Susan’s age was sitting on the step at the back of the empty van, a girl with hair almost as long as Rapunzel’s and as black as Mummy’s in the photograph. “Susan, this is Eve who lives near us,” Mummy said. “I told you about Susan, Eve, my little girl.”

Eve turned her small face, delicate as a doll’s, up to Susan and smiled shyly. “Will you be my friend?”

Susan couldn’t help resenting that Mummy had told Eve about her but hadn’t bothered to tell her about Eve. “I’m sure you will,” Mummy said to both of them.

Eve turned to her with a grateful smile, and her hair swayed away from her face. Her left ear was red and swollen. “Whatever have you done to yourself?” Mummy cried. “Did someone do that to you?”

Eve pulled her hair over her ear and shook her head, too quickly. “If someone did, they should know better,” Mummy said. “Hitting people on the head is very dangerous. If I were you, I’d tell your mother who it was.”

Eve seemed frightened, and Susan closed her eyes. The space behind Eve didn’t look like a van, it looked like a tunnel, huge and dark and endless. It must be how her eyes went funny sometimes when she was nervous.

“Have you moved in now?” Eve asked. “Can I see?”

“Of course you can. You don’t mind, do you, Susan?”

“No.” It wasn’t Eve’s fault that Mummy hadn’t mentioned her. Nevertheless Susan felt resentful all over again as Eve ran upstairs without waiting for her. Eve’s duffel coat flapped as she ran, displaying a hole in the seat of her jeans. She waited by the open door for Susan, then skipped in, almost tumbling over a carton of last-minute packing. Eve was turning round and round, clapping her hands. “Isn’t it big!” she cried. “It’s much nicer than ours.”

“It is nice now, isn’t it, Susan?” said Mummy. “It’ll be even nicer when we’ve unpacked.”

“I can help you, can’t I?” Eve was already unfastening the toggles of her coat; one was missing. Underneath she wore a pink cardigan with holes in the elbows. “You tell me what to do.”

“You can help Susan. These need to go in the kitchen.” Mummy pointed out two cartons, and Eve stooped to the larger at once. “Be careful,” Mummy called as they struggled into the hall, stomping like camels.

Eve made unpacking seem like a treat. Didn’t her mother let her do anything? They unwrapped the plates and stacked them, and Mummy showed them where to put the plates away. “You’re both good girls,” she said and retreated a step, for a large black beetle was ambling out from under the sink unit, rocking from side to side as it walked on the pile of the new carpet. Before Susan could run for the dustpan—Mummy hated insects—Eve picked up the beetle and squeezed it in her fist. Susan heard it crack and squish and saw a black leg twitching helplessly between Eve’s fingers. Eve stared at her for a moment, then she went to the toilet and flushed the beetle away. “Well done, Eve,” Mummy said, but she sounded as queasy as Susan felt, and hurried away to bring them the last carton of kitchen things.

As she put away the cutlery. Susan was wondering if Eve had helped Mummy clean the flat. She wished she had been here to help Mummy—it might have made the flat feel more like home to her—but staying at Arabella’s saved train fare. Mummy was always saying that librarians weren’t paid enough.

The girls began to flatten the cartons, competing to see who could jump highest, giggling. They didn’t stop until Susan was out of breath and Mummy called. “Don’t make too much noise.” Susan felt as if she had been jumping on the old man’s head downstairs and couldn’t stop giggling. “I’ll take these down if you like,” Eve said.

Susan took a breath that made her head ring and her vision begin to flicker. “There’s a horrible old man down there.”

“He won’t mess with me,” Eve said as if she already knew.

Susan was lining up the plastic bottles on the windowsill and listening to hear if he caught Eve when Eve came back. “Is this your bedroom?” she said from the hall. “Can I see?”

“Go on then,” Susan said, and hurried through the streamers in case Eve couldn’t find the light cord and tripped over something.

“Haven’t you a lot of books. I read too,” Eve said. “We can lend each other books.”

“If you want,” Susan said, though she didn’t like lending books; half the time they came back damaged, if at all. She cringed inside when Eve chose her favorite Alan Garner, the horsemen riding into the sky and Susan in the story falling behind, though Susan reading always hoped that this time she would go on riding, into the sky and the magic. She pulled the frayed cord and followed Eve into the main room.

“Oh, isn’t it lovely!” Eve cried.

Susan had to admit that the room looked improved. Mummy’s streaky pottery squatted on the bookshelves among the junior encyclopedias and Mummy’s books about librarianship. Mummy’s plants and Japanese trees in their pots helped the room to look green, the green settee and the chairs sat near the gas fire, waiting for the television to be switched on. Mummy was underneath the dining table with a screwdriver, fixing the round top to the pedestal.

“More empties,” Eve said, jumping on the cartons. “I’ll take them.”

“I will too.” As they dumped the cartons on the mattresses, Susan felt brave and a little wicked. When they ran back upstairs, Mummy said, “I think we all deserve a cup of tea or would you like something else, Eve?”

“I’ve got to go now. I said I’d lend Susan a book.”

“I’ll come with you while Mummy makes the tea.”

Mummy and Eve exchanged a glance. “Stay and help me,” Mummy said. “Eve won’t be long.”

Mummy served the tea in brand-new mugs. Mummy’s had a green flower on the side, Susan’s had Snoopy. It must be meant to cheer her up, and so she did her best to seem as if it had. The gas fire grew orange and filled the air with the smell of burning dust, and Susan sipped her tea to wash away the tickling in her throat. After a while Mummy said, “We’ll try and go back for Christmas if you like.”

“Oh, yes, please,” Susan said, and wished she hadn’t sounded quite so eager. They were both staring into their tea when the doorbell rang, making them both jump. Susan went to the door and there was Eve with a book and a carrier bag. The book had a witch with a nose and chin like horns on the glossy cover. Eve handed it over, and then the bag. “My mummy said I had to give you this.”

The bag contained fish fingers and frozen chips. “You’d better tell my mummy,” Susan said.

“No, I’ve got to go now. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I’m going to school tomorrow. Just round there. Mummy says.” Susan pointed to the curve of the street, where four young blacks were sharing a cigarette under a streetlamp. “Do you go there too?”

“No. I’ll see you after school,” Eve said, and was gone. Susan fled upstairs before the grudging time-switch could leave her in the dark.

Mummy was in the kitchen. “Do you know what I’ve forgotten? We’ve nothing at all to eat,” she said with an embarrassed laugh.

“Eve brought something.”

Mummy looked in the bag. “Well, that’s kind of her mother, I must say. I must be sure and find out where she lives so I can thank her.” All the same, she was frowning. “Between you and me, Susan, I don’t think Eve’s mother treats her very well. You saw her ear. I have my suspicions. Maybe if I meet the mother I can help.”

Susan liked it when Mummy talked to her like this, it made her feel grown up. “It’ll be better for Eve now that she has you to play with,” Mummy said. “I got the impression she roams the streets at night because she’s afraid to go home.”