Then she bent reluctantly to pick up a pencil, and I moved out into the hall. I stripped our bed and piled all the sheets into the washing machine. The noise of the water filling the machine meshed with the undulating roar of the Hoover. I stood there with the sounds of domestic life loud in my ears.
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The bracelet could be hidden anywhere: in a bag of flour, buried in the garden, at the back of a cupboard, behind a book. There was no point in searching; the only way I would ever find it was by trying to imagine what had gone through Jenny's mind. She knew that I was on my guard. It had been foolish of me to think that she would hide it in her room, for if it was found there, she would have no excuse. How stupid I had been.
I was sitting on our unmade bed, inching through these thoughts, when Stephen came in, pushing the Hoover. He stopped, as if surprised to see me. “I thought I might as well
do our room too,” he said, one hand still resting on the handle.
“I'll go and tidy up the kitchen.”
“Celia, what about your bracelet?” There was a slight hesitation in his voice. Perhaps something in my expression made him pause.
“I took it off when I was doing some washing. Then I looked for it, and it was gone.” Let him find the explanation, let him call me mad, I thought.
“It can't be far away. It's sure to turn up,” he said, moving, plug in hand, towards a socket.
In the kitchen I put away the breakfast dishes and cleaned the sink, the top of the refrigerator, the counters. As I performed these tasks I tried to make my mind float out of my body and into that of a child with pale skin and dark eyes, several inches smaller than her peers, who knew even so early in life that she would need cunning to survive.
I got down on my knees, so that my head was at the level of her head, and looked around, trying to see the room as she did. I looked in the oven, the fridge, I shook the box of soap powder, I took the lid off the binâtaking out the rubbish was one of Jenny's tasks, and I often had to remind her to do it. Suddenly I felt certain that in among the egg shells, potato peels, and coffee grounds I would see a glimpse of silver; Jenny would enjoy the irony of my asking her to throw out the rubbish and thereby the bracelet.
I began to transfer the rubbish from one bag to another. I was lifting out an empty orange juice carton when Stephen said my name. Above the throb of the washing machine, I had not heard him approach. “Guess what, Celia,” he said. “I found the bracelet in the bedroom. It was on the chest of drawers. You must have put it down without thinking and then forgotten.”
Smiling, he held it out to me where I knelt beside the rubbish, and smiling, I slipped it back over my right hand.
What could be more likely to convince Stephen of my madness than to hide the bracelet where I always put it?
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Once when I was shopping for my mother, the fishmonger had offered to show me a surprise. “Take a look in there,” he had said, pointing to a bucket in the corner. I tiptoed over and peered inside. What I saw made me jump back in terror. The bucket contained a mass of eels. In the confined space they writhed and undulated; such was their constant motion that it was impossible to know where one dark, slippery body began and another ended. Since Stephen had handed me the bracelet, my mind seethed in similar fashion. I could not tell where one thought ended and another began. I knew I had put the bracelet on the window sill. And yet there it was in the place where I laid it automatically, night after night. For a split second I wondered if I could have been mistaken. Then I remembered Jenny's behaviour; over and above my own memories, there was my proof. I was bursting with speeches I wanted to make, not to him but to her.
At lunch I announced that I would like to come ice-skating after all. In the circumstances, my plan to be more considerate towards Jenny seemed absurd, and I could not bear the thought of being alone.
“Great,” said Stephen. “It'll be good for my ego to have someone even worse than me around.”
“I can show you how to skate,” said Jenny, smiling. Her equanimity did not surprise me; it was part of her strategy to be especially friendly not only before but also after a fracas.
We were in the hall, getting ready to leave, when the telephone rang. As usual Jenny answered. “Hello,” she said. “I'm okay.” She passed the phone to Stephen.
“Hello,” he said. “Deirdre.” He was silent for a moment. “We were about to go skating.” There was another pause, and then he said, “Let me check with Celia.” He cupped his hand over the receiver and turned to me. “It's Deirdre. She
wants me to help her carry up her new bed. She says that she'll give me a lift to the rink as soon as we're finished.”
“That's fine. We can manage without you, can't we, Jenny?” I zipped my jacket up tight and turned to smile at her. I saw the reluctance in her face, but it was too late to feign illness or a change of heart; we were dressed, on the point of departure. She gave a stiff little nod.
As I drove, Stephen talked about one of his pupils, who had been suspended for starting a fire in the cloakroom. “Yesterday his mother came to see me. We were talking about Kenny, and she burst into tears. I thought she was going to tell me that he'd had nothing to do with the fire, but it turned out quite the contrary. She'd come to see me because she's terrified of having him around the house, and she wanted to know if there was any alternative.”
“Poor woman,” I said. “What did you tell her?” I had negotiated the Saturday hubbub of Princes Street and was driving up the Mound towards the black spires of the Assembly Hall.
“I recommended a couple of organisations, but Kenny won't go to them. I'm afraid there's nothing to be done until he's caught shoplifting and becomes a bona fide delinquent.”
“Why did he start a fire?” asked Jenny from the back seat.
“Just to make trouble,” said Stephen. “Or maybe he has a grudge against the school. I don't know. I'm not sure anyone even bothered to ask him.”
We passed various university buildings and turned onto the road that circled the Meadows. On the far side of the green I spotted Miss Lawson in her blue raincoat, walking Rollo; briefly a twinge of guilt distracted me from my thoughts about Jenny. I must visit her soon.
“Did you know Celia used to live here?” Stephen asked, as I drew up at the curb.
“Why doesn't she live here anymore?” said Jenny.
“Because,” said Stephen, “she's living happily ever after
with you and me.” He leaned over to kiss me, then got out of the car, leaving his door open. He opened the back door. “You get to sit in the front,” he said to Jenny.
In the rear-view mirror I saw her sitting absolutely still; then her head bobbed, she vanished from the mirror, as she did her father's bidding, and appeared beside me. “Have fun,” Stephen said. “I should be there in half an hour.”
I drove slowly round the cobbled crescent and turned left onto the main road. The needle on the speedometer hovered at twenty-five; I looked in the mirror, signalled, manoeuvred with pedantic care, as if taking a driving test. “Jenny,” I said, “we need to talk.” Ahead of us a bus pulled up at the stop. A young man got off, and the conductor leaned down to talk to him. “It can't be easy for you living with Stephen and me, but until Helen comes back you have no choice. It's stupid not to be friends.”
“I'm going to Paris for Christmas, and Mummy's coming back in June.”
“June is seven months away. That's a long time if you and I keep behaving like we did this morning. More than two hundred days.” We were at a red light. I glanced at Jenny; she was fiddling with the knob of the glove compartment, giving the least possible indication of listening. “I know you've been upset, and I must seem like an interloper, but none of what is happening is my fault. I didn't make Helen go to France. I'm not your enemy.” I paused.
She was turned away, resolutely absorbed in what lay beyond the window. Still there was no reply. Like a prisoner in a fairy tale, I kept hoping that I would stumble upon the magical word or phrase which would release me from her animosity.
“The light's green.”
As I put the car into first gear, my foot slipped on the clutch; we stalled. Behind me a car honked; beside me Jenny giggled. I felt myself blush. When we were once more in
motion, I said, “Stephen doesn't know what's been going on. It would be a pity if he found out. He trusts you.”
Jenny had breathed on her window and in the mist was drawing or writing something. I looked at the back of her head and knew with a feeling of discomfort that she had measured exactly the force of my threat. “Say something,” I said.
“We're nearly there.”
“Jenny, don't pretend you haven't heard.”
“I heard you, but I don't know what you're talking about.”
“I'm talking about you being a thief and a liar.”
“We turn here,” she said.
“We're not going skating until you answer me.” We came to a roundabout and I went resolutely straight ahead. I pushed down the accelerator, cutting off a young woman who was hesitating on the edge of a zebra crossing. I had a sudden image of us driving in silence all the way to Glasgow.
Jenny continued to look out of the window. “Whenever something goes wrong, you think it's my fault.” She spoke in a small, even voice. “It's not fair. It has nothing to do with me.”
“Nothing?” I said. “So it's a series of coincidences.” My earlier thoughts of patience vanished; my temper was up, and I longed to wrest the truth from her.
“I don't know what it is,” she said sullenly. “Where are we going?”
Anger pressed me towards speech, but I was determined to resist. I switched on the radio. “Don't miss your only chance,” the announcer urged, in a soft Scottish burr, “to catch U2. They're playing at Meadowbank next Friday and Saturday.” He introduced their latest record and I turned up the sound.
“Mum really likes them,” Jenny said. “She has all their records.”
I pushed my hair back and shifted my hands on the steering
wheel. We came to a row of shops. I wondered briefly if Jenny would tell Stephen what I had done, and then dismissed the thought. We were nearing the outskirts of the city. The two-storey stone houses that lined the street were set well back behind large gardens; in the distance I glimpsed tall, leafless trees and bare hills.
“This is stupid,” said Jenny. “We'll never get to go skating. What will happen to Daddy?”
“I'll telephone Deirdre.” As if by magic I saw on the other side of the road a call box beside a garage. I pulled over and reached down for my bag. “I'll just be a minute.” I opened the door and got out.
A lorry was approaching; it rumbled by, followed by a line of cars. I was certain that Jenny was watching me, but I did not look. I paid attention only to the business of crossing the road, waiting for the moment when I could make my way to the other side.
A green bus passed, and the road was clear. I ran across. The call box was empty. Inside, it smelled strongly of urine. I wedged the door open with one foot and got out my address book to look up Deirdre's number. I did not know what I would say to Stephen, but I thought that when I heard his voice something would come to me. I lifted the receiver.
“Celia.” She spoke through the crack in the door.
I balanced a ten pence piece in the slot.
“Please,” she said. Her lips were moving. Above the noise of the traffic, her specific words were inaudible, but the sense of them reached me, something about “trying,” about “friends.” It was almost irrelevant; the fact that she had crossed the road was sufficient.
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I turned into the car park of the ice rink and stopped beside a red Cortina. Before I had even switched off the engine Jenny had climbed out and was running towards the entrance. I sat there looking after her small figure zigzagging between the
parked cars. On the playing field behind the rink, three boys were playing football. The orange ball flew back and forth across the dun-coloured grass.
In the ladies' changing room Jenny was bent over, lacing up her second skate. “Will you look after my shoes?” she asked when she saw me. I nodded and went over to the counter, where I exchanged my boots for a pair of grimy white skates. When I turned around, Jenny was hobbling on her skates out of the door. I put our shoes and my bag in a locker and sat down. I loosened the laces of the skates all the way down, then pulled on the left skate. In spite of my thick socks, the leather felt hard and cold. Beside me a stout woman in a pink pullover and blue stretch trousers was taking off her shoes. “You're not lacing them tightly enough,” she said.
“I don't know if I can do them any tighter.”
“You've got to really pull. If they don't feel uncomfortable to start with, something's wrong.” She demonstrated with her own skates.
I did my best to follow her instructions. Nevertheless, as soon as I stood up, my ankles began to shake. I made my way unsteadily across the rubber mats to the edge of the rink, where at least I could hold on to the barrier. As I stood clutching the rail with both hands, the woman who had supervised my lacing walked past. She reached the ice and set off into the millrace of skaters. I saw her on the opposite side, twirling along, entirely at home in her new element.