Stephen turned off the television and began to brief her. “There's macaroni cheese in the oven. It'll be ready at seven. You can eat in here, but be sure to take everything back to the kitchen afterwards.”
Listening to Stephen's instructions reminded me of my own career as a baby-sitter. The best part had been having the run of an entire house; as I wandered from room to room, I could almost taste what it would be like to be an adult, to be free, and never to be in the wrong. Suddenly I wondered if Jenny would avail herself of our absence to explore our room. Stephen had told her that it was out of bounds, but I knew
that when I was her age I would sneak into my parents' room at every opportunity, to smell my mother's lipstick, run my father's comb through my hair. I guessed that whatever it was that made us a family was going on here, and I scrutinised my parents' possessions in the hope that they would yield up the secret.
I looked at the two girls. Charlotte was gazing at the floor and wobbling back and forth on the sides of her feet. Although she was only fourteen, her large breasts and wide hips made her look, at first glance, like a woman. Jenny was standing beside her, and the contrast between the two made the difference in their ages seem much greater than it actually was; Jenny's body still showed no hint of the coming of puberty.
“Jenny has to be in bed at eight-thirty,” Stephen said, “and she can read until nine. We should be home by eleven.”
As soon as Stephen finished speaking, Jenny said, “Come. There's something I want to show you.” She skipped out of the living room, and Charlotte, with a quick nod to us, followed. A moment later shrieks of laughter erupted from Jenny's bedroom. We called goodbye. “Bye-bye,” they called back in unison.
“What if something goes wrong?” I asked Stephen as we got into the car.
“What could possibly go wrong?”
“Once when I was baby-sitting for Aunt Ruth her son Adam fell and cut his face. Jenny could hurt herself. Or,” I said, casting around, “there could be a fire.”
“Celia, what a worrier you are. Nothing's going to happen, but if anything does, Charlotte will ring her mother. I spoke to Irene, and she's going to be in all evening. Now stop it.” He began to talk about a review he had read of the play, and I forgot my fears.
When we arrived home, shortly after eleven, Jenny's room was in darkness, and Charlotte was curled up on the sofa,
reading a book. As we came in, she hastily slid it into her bag, but not before I glimpsed on the cover the hero and heroine exchanging a passionate embrace. While Stephen escorted Charlotte home, I took a quick look around. In the kitchen, not only their supper dishes but the ones we had left were washed and the table was set for breakfast; there were no signs that anyone had been in our bedroom.
Â
Next morning we rose late, and as soon as we had finished breakfast it was time to start preparing lunch for Joyce and Edward. It was their first visit since Jenny moved in, and we were determined that for once they should behave like guests and not spend the entire afternoon working on our house and garden. Stephen ran out to buy eggs and I tidied up. Nowadays the house seemed to be perpetually strewn not only with Jenny's possessions but also with Stephen's and mine, as if we no longer had the time or inclination to be neat. I went through the living room and dining room, picking up books and newspapers and articles of clothing that we had discarded during the week. In the living room there was an old painting shirt of mine, a jacket of Stephen's, and a pair of Jenny's socks. I put the socks on Jenny's bed and took Stephen's and my clothes to our room.
As I opened the bottom drawer of the chest of drawers, something caught at the back of my throat. A dreadful pungent smell surrounded me. Trying not to breathe, I hurried to the window. I pushed up the sash to its fullest extent and leaned out. I was desperate to expel from my lungs every vestige of the peculiar odour.
Outside the air smelled very faintly of wood smoke. I took several deep breaths and then, holding the last one, plunged back into the room. From the open drawer the smell rose around me like a swarm of insects. As hastily as possible I began to shake out the articles of clothing. From between two T-shirts something small and furry tumbled out. It was the
corpse of a mouse in an advanced stage of decomposition. Vomit came into my mouth and I swallowed. The idea of touching the tiny carcase made me hurry from the room.
I went to the kitchen to fetch a bag and a pair of rubber gloves; if I didn't look too closely, I thought, I could put the mouse in a bag. On my way back to the bedroom, I met Jenny in the hall. “There's a funny pong,” she said, wrinkling her nose.
“Yes,” I said. “I found a dead mouse.” As soon as I had spoken I regretted it; for some reason I did not want Jenny to know what had happened.
She gave a small shudder. “How gross. What are you going to do with it?”
“Put it in the dustbin.”
I managed to pick up the mouse by what remained of its tail and dropped it into a polythene bag. I tied the top, then put that bag inside a paper one. When I came out into the hall, Jenny was still standing there. She said nothing as I hurried by, carrying the paper bag by the tips of my rubber-gloved fingers. I deposited my burden in the dustbin.
Leaving the back door ajar, I returned inside. As I stepped through the dining room door, I saw that Jenny did not seem to have moved. “What are you doing?” I asked.
“Nothing.” She squeezed out the two syllables in a way that suggested it was none of my business and that she was perfectly entitled to stand in the hall for as long as she pleased.
“Sorry about the cold,” I said. “I'm trying to get rid of the smell.”
When I reemerged carrying the drawer, she followed me through to the kitchen, and stood in the doorway watching as I emptied the contents of the drawer into the washing machine. I set the machine to hot and added as much bleach and soap powder as I thought the garments could stand. “These clothes are going to be cleaner than they've ever been,” I said.
The sound of Stephen's return saved Jenny from the need to respond. She ran to meet him. I started the machine and began to scrub my hands.
“It smells like a hospital in here,” said Stephen, as he came into the kitchen. “I knew you were doing some cleaning, but I didn't know you thought it was necessary to sterilise the house before my parents set foot in it.”
“She found a mouse,” Jenny said. She was standing on tiptoe at the counter peering into the bags of groceries.
I explained what had happened. “I don't understand why neither of us noticed the smell before,” I said. “I mean we open the drawers all the time and it must have been there for quite a while.”
“Grapes,” exclaimed Jenny. “Can I have some?”
“No,” said Stephen. “They're for after lunch. I imagine Tobias is to blame.”
“He might have killed the mouse, but how could he have put it into a drawer?”
“Maybe he drove the mouse to take refuge there, and it died of shock. Anyway you've got rid of it now.”
“She put it in the dustbin,” said Jenny.
Stephen turned to her. “Will you give me a hand with lunch?”
“Okay. What do you want me to do?” She popped a grape into her mouth and turned to face him.
“You could wash the potatoes.”
“Ugh, I always get the potatoes. Why can't I do something else for a change?”
I went into the living room and knelt down in front of the hearth. As I raked the poker back and forth over the grate to shake down the ashes, I kept thinking about the mouse. Harmless in itself, the tiny corpse seemed like a bad omen, linking me with the dark side of life. Into my mind came a picture of Jenny standing in the hall. She had worn an expression rather similar to that with which she had regarded
the hole in my pullover the day before. She was not, I thought, sorry to see misfortune befall me. Suddenly I remembered the money I had lost a few weeks earlier. Where could it have gone, I wondered. I spread a newspaper open on the hearth and began to shovel the ashes onto the printed page.
Â
At twelve-thirty the doorbell rang. I went to answer and found Joyce and Edward, bearing a bottle of wine and a bunch of russet-coloured chrysanthemums. “Flowers for the lady of the house,” said Edward, handing them to me.
“Thank you. They're beautiful.” They were the largest, most perfectly formed chrysanthemums I had ever seen.
Joyce explained that they had come directly from church; it was the Harvest Festival. She was in the middle of describing the wonderful array of fruits and vegetables, when Jenny appeared from her room. She ran to hug her grandparents. Before doing anything else, she insisted they must come and visit Selina. As she led them towards the garden, I heard her recounting the composition she had written about Selina and Edward. “My goodness,” Joyce said.
Stephen opened the wine, and I put the chrysanthemums in water. We both bustled around, and by the time the three of them returned from the garden, everything was ready. We all sat down. I served the quiche and the potatoes, Stephen poured the wine. When everyone had taken salad and was poised to eat, Edward raised his glass. “Here's to you and your new home,” he said, looking in turn at Jenny, Stephen, and me.
“To you,” Joyce echoed. She beamed round the table and gave Jenny, who was sitting beside her, a hug.
“Thank you,” said Stephen, smiling. In the brief pause I drank some wine. Jenny had already begun to eat.
“The house looks wonderful,” said Joyce as she picked up her fork. “And so clean.”
I was suddenly afraid that Jenny might say something
about the mouse, but she seemed absorbed in her food. Stephen began to talk about the tutoring program, and the moment passed.
“What a good idea,” said Joyce. “I must mention it to our school.”
“I should think the tricky part is getting the bad students to come forward,” said Edward thoughtfully. “People don't usually like to admit that they have problems.”
“Do you think you'd be interested in doing something like that, Jenny?” Joyce asked.
She shook her head. “I don't like trying to teach people. Even if I'm older than them, they don't listen to me. Anyway it's boring.” She patted her mouth with a napkin.
“What about if you need help?” Joyce persisted.
“Then I ask Dad or Celia.”
“You're lucky to have them,” said Joyce. “Lots of children have no one at home who can help them with their homework.”
“Mother,” said Stephen, “have some more quiche. You haven't said a word about my pastry. I thought you'd be praising it to the skies.”
“I'd love a small piece. It's delicious.”
After lunch we decided to go for a walk. The weather was not as fine as the day before. The sky was largely overcast and there was a keen wind but, as Edward remarked, that would keep off the rain. “Look at those roses,” Joyce exclaimed, pointing to the blooms in our front garden. “Ours are almost over. You wouldn't think forty miles could make such a difference.”
“Perhaps being close to the sea helps,” I said.
“That's probably the only way I could ever get Edward to consider moving, by suggesting a place with a longer growing season. He does tend to get cranky in winter.” We passed a young woman peering under the hood of a car. “I can't tell you how glad we are that Jenny's living with you,” said Joyce.
The two men had already drawn ahead, but Jenny was only a few paces in front of Joyce and me. “Look at the cat,” I said loudly, pointing to an animal lying asleep on a doorstep. “Jenny, why don't you go and ask Stephen if we can go by the allotments.” He and Edward were by now some hundred yards ahead.
“Why don't you go?” she said. She did not stop walking or turn around; I was certain that she had heard and understood her grandmother's remark. The set of her shoulders beneath the navy blue anorak and the scissoring of her legs conveyed fury and despair.
Beside me I sensed Joyce's disapproval. “Please, Jenny,” I said. I stared at her back, willing her to do as I asked. She paused, and I caught a glimpse of her pale face as she gave a swift, sharp glance over her shoulder; then she began to run at top speed.
“I've never known her to be rude,” Joyce said. She had stopped walking and turned to face me.
“I think she may have overheard you and thought you were criticising Helen.”
“Oh, dear.” Joyce's blue eyes widened in remorse. “It's not easy to know how much Jenny understands. She's changed in the last few yearsâshe used to be such a sweet little girl, and now, I can't really explain, but she seems different, as if she had something to hide. I'm sure it all has to do with the separation. Once she's settled in with Stephen and you, she'll become her old self.” She smiled.
A gust of wind blew my hair across my face; I closed my eyes against the grit. When I opened them again I saw Stephen, Edward, and Jenny standing at the corner. The two men were talking together; between them stood Jenny. She was holding on to her father's hand with both of hers, but her head was turned in our direction.