Vacant Possession (17 page)

At the Housing Aid Centre she sat for two hours in a waiting room surrounded by mothers with children. The women were pallid and harassed; each one of them was hung about by three or four plastic carrier bags. Although it was the height of summer, they wore great cardigans. She could not take her eyes off these cardigans; sagging and shapeless, hanging almost to their knees, or shrunken and felted and standing stiffly away from the narrow bodies inside them. Some of them wore jeans, others wore summer frocks with gaping plimsolls on their feet. Their hair hung in rat’s tails, they had spots around their mouths, some of them sported tattoos. They made her feel an uneasy guilt, as if she had somehow been transported to the Third World. Some were heavily pregnant, some had babes in arms; they all had a couple of toddlers, running about the room, sucking from bottles or trainer cups, crumbling biscuits in their sticky hands. Every few minutes the one called William fell over, bashing his head on the corner of the table which stood in the centre of the room. Their mothers watched them with lacklustre eyes, unable or unwilling to check them. They climbed over the women’s legs, snivelling and bawling; one of them took Suzanne’s
Spare Rib
and tore it apart like a circus strongman. Suzanne didn’t protest. She felt it was no use to her anyway. “Give over with that, Tanya,” the child’s mother said, “give it back to the lady,” but she didn’t move from her position, slumped forward on the metal stacking chair, her legs splayed in front of her and her eyes on the floor. No one spoke to Suzanne. She felt conspicuous. She should have padded herself with a cushion or something. The Centre’s workers scampered about with paper cups of coffee, light-footed and glowing in their seersucker flying suits and their rainbow-coloured trainers.

“So just let me get a note of this,” her worker said at last. “Lavatories two, bath, shower. Kitchen, lounge, breakfast room, utility, bedrooms four, okay?”

“But I can’t live there. That’s my parents’ house.”

“Well, it does seem to be the most viable option, I’m afraid.”

“I’ll take anything you have to offer.”

“But we couldn’t offer anything, you see, on the basis of what you’ve told us. Not unless they throw you out. And it’s no good colluding on that, we’d have to have proof, and unless you were actually out on the street with the baby, there wouldn’t be anything we could do.”

“I suppose I should have given Manchester as my address. I only had a room in a hall of residence, and I haven’t even got that now, so you’d have had to find somewhere for me.”

“In that case we’d have sent you back to Manchester. We’d give you your fare.”

“It’s impossible, isn’t it?”

The girl shrugged minutely.

“I mean, those women out there, some have got two babies, and they all seem to be pregnant again. Why do they have so many children?”

“Because for children,” the girl said patiently, “you get Points.”

Charge Nurse Toynbee was just going off as Poor Mrs. Wilmot reported for duty. “Cheerybye,” she said, snuffling. “Have a lovely weekend, won’t you?”

“What about you, Mrs. Wilmot? On the razzle?”

“Shouldn’t be surprised,” she said, wheezing and sniffing, laughing her soundless laugh. “Course with me knees I don’t go dancing, but I enjoy meself all the same.” She went off down the corridor for her metal bucket and her mop.

Standing in the recess by the patients’ bathrooms, near B Ward (Male), she watched Mr. Field’s visitors leaving. His daughter looked paler than ever, shocked and wary. Her clothes were disordered; she was wearing a strange red anorak, smeared with oil, that could have belonged to her husband. She strode down the corridor; her husband scurried after her, his expression abject. He too was pale; his eyes seemed unfocused, as if he had been drinking. But it was only just after seven. Mrs. Ryan swept open the firedoors and passed through. Her face was set; she was a woman who had been disabused of one monstrosity, only to be presented with another. In the corridor beyond she started to run. Her shoes squealed on the corridor floor. Her husband swore, and broke into a trot. At the other side of the firedoors he stopped. He turned, and looked back through the smeary plastic panel. He hesitated, then began to walk back uncertainly to where the cleaner was standing, a bucket and a bottle of Pine-O-Shine in her hand. “Who are you?” he said.

“Me?” the despondent greyish face looked up at him. “I’m Mrs. Wilmot. I do cleaning.”

“Do you know my wife?”

“Your wife? Oh no, Your Worship.”

“What?” said Mr. Ryan.

“I said, oh no, Your Worship.”

“She thought you were watching us. She said there was something familiar about you.”

“Familiar?” The old woman looked scared and aggrieved. “I wouldn’t be familiar.”

“She thought she’d seen you before.”

“Yes, course, sir, because I clean here.”

“Yes, of course you do. She’s got herself worked up, as usual. My apologies.”

Mrs. Wilmot blinked; a single rheumy tear began a slow path down her left cheek towards her chin. “Oh, look now, I didn’t mean to upset you. I wasn’t accusing you of anything.”

“You was.” Mrs. Wilmot’s voice quavered. “Theft, cheating, familiarity. Spying on you. I’ll tell the charge nurse. There’s tribunals. I’m entitled.”

“Look, no one’s accused you of theft, don’t be silly.” Looking uneasy, Mr. Ryan dug into his pocket and shuffled some small change into the cleaner’s palm. “Why don’t you…get yourself a cup of tea, or something?”

“Stout’s what I have,” said Mrs. Wilmot. “Sweet sherry.”

“Yes, I see. Please don’t upset yourself. Look…here you are.”

Mrs. Wilmot bit off a tearful wail. “Brandy Alexandras.” Mr. Ryan fled along the corridor after his wife.

“That dirty old Field’s son-in-law accused poor Mrs. Wilmot of spying on his wife,” said the Night Sister. “He accused her of stealing from his wife’s handbag. And being drunk on the ward.”

“Honestly,” said the student. “She’s only just got over her Sexual Harassment at Work. Poor Mrs. Wilmot, imagine. She ought to sue him.”

“Bloody relatives,” said Sister, “coming in here once a month and throwing their weight about. Salt of the earth, Poor Mrs. Wilmot. That blasted Field is a menace to womankind, if he pegged out tonight, I wouldn’t touch him, I tell you: I’d leave him for the day shift.”

“You do that anyway,” the student said, earning a dirty look. “Mrs. Wilmot,” she called out, “are you going to help us with the Horlicks?”

Mr. Field, his breathing stertorous, was propped up on a bank of pillows. “Another upset,” he said. “Stupid girl, my daughter, always whinging on about something or other, never listens.” He coughed hoarsely. “She’s had another row with that wimp she married, sounds as if he’s been getting a bit on the side. I was telling her what I wanted on my headstone, but she wasn’t taking it in.”

“Here’s your Horlicks. Looking forward to dying, are you?”

“If I don’t make arrangements, nobody will. I was thinking about a verse for the paper.” He leaned over to open the drawer of his bedside locker. The
Reporter
shook a little in his hand. “Here’s one I like:

“You don’t really think you’re going to die,” Muriel said. She stood at the end of the bed, her colourless eyes fixed on his face. “You think you’re going to hang around for months, putting your hand up nurses’ skirts. You’d do it to your own daughter if she’d let you.”

“It’s not right,” the old man said. “I should have grandchildren to put in a verse for me. My daughter hates me. She wished me in hell. That’s not right, is it?”

“I could come and see your grave,” Muriel said. “Me and my little mite.” She approached the old man, peering down at him myopically. “I’ve got an idea about that. Just the bones of a scheme.”

“Or this one,” said Mr. Field, ignoring her.

“I’m a changeling,” Muriel said. “Did you know that, when you did it with me in the park? I’m not a human thing.”

“Whatever’s that?” said Mr. Field, coughing. “What’s a changeling when it’s at home?”

“It’s a substitute. It’s what gets left when the human’s taken away. It’s a dull-brained thing, always squawking and feeding. It’s ungrateful. It’s a disappointment to its mother.”

“How you talk,” Mr. Field said, showing his gums. “How about a kiss and cuddle?”

“Don’t you laugh. A changeling’s nothing to laugh at if you found one in your house. My mother didn’t have the wit to drown me. If you throw them in some water you sometimes get your own baby back, but she didn’t do that and so she had to put up with me. A changeling’s a filthy thing. It’s got no imagination.”

“Well,” Mr. Field said, “it must be an uncommon condition.”

“It’s not uncommon. You see them on the street. You have to know what to look for, that’s all.”

“Not much you can do about it, then?”

“A changeling’s a cruel thing. It likes its own company. It likes its own kind. I thought if I had my little changeling back, we’d suit very well.”

“Oh yes?”

“So I thought,” said Muriel, sitting down on the bed, breathing hard, “if I could get a loan of a baby, just an ordinary one, I could try the trick in reverse. Throw in the changeling and get a human; throw in the human, and get a changeling.”

“You’re touched,” Mr. Field said. “I’ve never heard of this before. It’s horrible.”

“A changeling can’t talk.”

“But you can talk. You’re talking now.”

“I learned it from other people. Everything I know, I learned from other people. I want to give my child a better life. Well, it’s natural.”

“Your child’s dead,” Mr. Field said in alarm. “That’s what you told me.”

“I don’t know if changelings do die. Anyway, there’s resurrection. Leave that to me to worry about.”

“Where are you going to get a baby? You’re tapped. You ought to be locked up. I’ve never heard anything so morbid. Get off my bed. I’ll ring for the nurse.”

“Nurse won’t come. Nurse never comes.”

“Look here,” Mr. Field said, “you wouldn’t do me a mischief, would you?” Suddenly he had turned cold; his eyes were glazing, he trembled a little, and dribbled from the corner of his mouth.

“Save me the trouble,” Muriel said indifferently. “Your nose is turning blue, old cock. I think your heart’s giving out. What does it feel like?” She waited. The room filled with his laboured breathing. “I’ll do you a verse,” Muriel said. “Our daddy’s life is ended, No use to wail and blub, Let’s toss him in his coffin, And all go down the pub.” Leaning forward, she knitted her fingers into the front of the old man’s pyjama jacket. “If God has called our daddy, We’d better come to terms, By squatting at his graveside, And cheering on the worms.”

Mr. Field gaped up at her, his mouth opening slowly. No sound came out. Muriel flung back the bedcovers and with one movement haled him out of bed and onto the floor. He landed with a dull thud, and lay looking up at her, his legs kicking feebly. For a few moments longer his mouth continued to open and shut. Muriel sank her thick neck into her shoulders, assumed a mournful expression, sniffed once, and walked out of the room, closing the door quietly. When the Night Sister did her rounds, Mr. Field was cooling rapidly: the surgical scissors she had armed herself with were not necessary. She summoned the student to help her heave him back onto the bed, and then left him as she had promised, to be laid out by the early morning shift.

Mr. Kowalski, too frightened now to keep to any observable routine, had given up his evening shift at the factory. He spent much of his day sitting fearfully by the stove, compiling his book of idioms. At night he took a turn round the block, keeping his eyes peeled. He was lonely, he said, and hungry for love. These sad nocturnal promenades were his only diversion. Mornings, he dozed off.

A letter came, pushed under the door. There was a rude message from the postman, saying would they please unseal the letter box, having regard to his bad back, who did they think he was, Olga Korbut? Muriel picked it up. It was addressed to one of her, to Lizzie Blank. Good thing Mr. K. didn’t see it. He’d have thought it was a letter bomb, or something. She sneaked it off upstairs.

After work that night she went off to Crisp’s to get into her Lizzie costume and meet her new beau. If she was a bit late, he wouldn’t have to bother about that; she would explain that she worked evenings and had been kept later than usual. She was fresh and spry for dancing, ten-pin bowling, whatever he had in mind; it wasn’t as if her work tired her. But would they hit it off? That was the question. Under her wig, under her make-up, she could guarantee that no one would know her from a human being.

But as it worked out, she was very disappointed by the young man from the dating agency. At the pub where he had arranged to meet her, he towered above the other customers; his height was all of six foot seven inches, and his long thin face was as morose as Poor Mrs. Wilmot’s. People made remarks as they ordered their round. Muriel thought they should have gone to the Rifle Volunteer, where she was known and known to be dangerous.

“Clyde’s my monicker,” the giant said. “What I always say is, Clyde’s my name, confectionery’s my game.” He laughed gratingly, but when he looked her over his face fell. “You’re not six foot two,” he said. “I’ve been done.”

“So?” Her voice was flat. “You want to make something of it?”

You could tell that Clyde was not used to threats. Distressed, he sat over his pale ale, cracking his knuckles in a thoughtful way. “No, I’ve thought it over, you’ll do,” he said at last. “I’m not that bothered about the height. What I really wanted was a bird with big knockers but they don’t give you a space for that on the form. Here, I’ve brought you something.” He thrust two enormous fingers into his breast pocket, and produced a shrivelled rosebud, its leaves curling and its head almost severed from the stem. “Single red rose,” he said. “It’s romantic. My last girl was always hinting for me to buy her one. They think you’re mean in the shop. They expect you to have a bunch.”