Ramsey Campbell - The Claw

Anna seemed to forget the incident once they were out of the house. Perhaps she knew by now that Alan was sometimes unreasonable, or perhaps it was just that it was impossible to be unhappy for long beneath the open Norfolk sky, so blue it seemed to whiten when you looked at it. Liz thought it best not to refer to what Alan had said. She hoped Anna would forget if she wasn't reminded.

In every direction you could see for miles. To their right, past the turn-off to the village, the coast road wandered between low grassy slopes, bare except for the occasional house, a disused windmill, a gathering of caravans two miles away. To their left was a church, its graveyard slowly crumbling onto the beach two hundred feet below, the Britannia Hotel beyond it, and then the village came curving round toward the cliff top, bringing small hotels and amusement arcades and shops full of buckets and spades. Already kites were tugging at their leashes, naked children splashing in the sea beyond the bathing huts.

Anna went running on ahead along the coast road, toward the sign which warned that Seaview was closed. Most of that road had fallen onto the beach years ago. 'Chase me,' Anna cried.

'Not here, Anna.' The little girl knew to stay away from Seaview, but the road to the village was full of blind curves. 'When we come back along the beach,' Liz promised.

Along the village road, lush verges rippled in the breeze and sparrows squabbled in the hedges, darting back and forth across the tarmac. A scarecrow stood napping its sleeves in a field; Anna waved back. Cars packed with holidaymakers roared around the bends, and Liz kept a tight hold on Anna's arm. Still, she didn't mind the holiday crowds; sometimes, in the winter, when the vicious east wind froze the air, this coast could seem very bleak and lonely. Not that she was ever tempted back to London, with its dirtiness and violence. No – it was worth suffering the winters to get away from that.

The houses of the village shone with whitewash; the walls of a terrace of cottages were cobbled with stones from the beach. Grandfathers sat in cottage gardens or on the bench in the village square, waiting for the pub to open. Most of the village folk were retired.

Beyond the pub was the open bus-shed, which sounded like an aviary much larger than the building was, and then the station, a single platform visited reluctantly by two trains a day. Sometimes the trains were on time, occasionally one failed to arrive at all.

'Look, mummy, what's Mrs Walters doing?' Anna said.

Liz wondered. Jane was standing on the pavement by the station entrance, holding a clipboard and a ballpoint pen away from her baby, who hung between her breasts from a sling. The street was so narrow that she was able to stop everyone who passed. 'You'll sign this, Liz, won't you?' she called.

'I should think so. What's it about, Jane?'

'It's a petition against closing the branch line. They want to cut us off – they don't care what damage they do to the village. Half the shops would have to close down.'

Liz doubted it, but there seemed no harm in signing. She smiled at Jane in her shapeless T-shirt and faded crumpled slacks, her baby Georgie sleeping to the sound of her heartbeats. 'You look very organized,' she said.

'I look very fat, you mean,' Jane said, which was true enough – she looked like an oversized replica of herself made out of dough. 'Were you like this when you had Anna?'

'Oh, worse – really terrible,' Liz lied, to comfort her. 'It goes away after a while, Jane, you'll see. You won't know yourself.'

'I don't know myself now, that's the whole trouble. Do you think I've changed? Do you think I should see someone about it?'

It wasn't Jane's fault, and perhaps Liz ought to say so – but Jane was looking beyond her now, and smiling like a mask.

'Can anyone join the mothers' meeting?' It was Alex.

'Of course you can,' Jane said. 'We don't mind you showing us up.' Her tone was bantering, but Liz sensed the pain beneath it. Men glanced at Alex admiringly: her nipples, standing out through the halter top, her long brown legs, her tight round-bottomed shorts… 'I see you're helping keep the dairy open,' Jane said.

Alex was carrying a bottle of goat's milk. 'I wouldn't be without it. Nothing like it for the complexion. You should try it yourself, Jane.'

Liz wondered how they were supposed to know, since Alex's complexion was invariably buried under make-up, but Alex was chattering on. 'How's the little one?' she said sweetly.

'I think he's all right.' Jane stroked the golden fuzz on her baby's sleeping head. 'I hope he is. He's been waking rather a lot at night.'

'So I gathered,' Alex said. Already Liz was wondering how much more she could take: her head was thumping. Perhaps she ought to leave them to it and hope Jane turned on Alex – except that Jane never would. 'Maybe you should try him with goat's milk,' Alex said. 'Didn't I read that's good for sickly babies?'

'Oh, I think I'll carry on feeding him, thanks. It's not as if my tits are worth preserving any more.'

'Now, Jane, you shouldn't underrate yourself. I'm sure you're an excellent mother.'

Anna was demanding 'Mummy, mummy,' and tugging at Liz's hand. Perhaps she could sense the thinly-veiied hatred as the two women talked.

'And how's your career?' Jane said to Alex.

'Well, I'm resting just now while my agent lines up some work. There's a new horror film and some underwear modelling. I do get so bored sometimes down here – I don't suppose you'd know how that feels. I wish I could keep myself occupied like you do.'

'I thought you did, in your own way,' Liz said, unable to contain herself. At once she wished she hadn't spoken; she had only succeeded in making Jane wince, she hadn't touched Alex at all. She turned to Jane. 'Anyway, let me sign your petition. And then,' she said with heavy emphasis, 'I think we should all leave you to get on with the good work.' As she scribbled her name she added, 'You and Derek must come to us soon for dinner,' and had the awful thought that she might have been addressing either of the two women. She could hardly look up for fear of finding that the same thought had occurred to Jane too.

She left Jane as soon as she could, hurrying Anna away and staring back to make sure Alex left as well. 'See you next week at Liz's,' Alex said to Jane, which made Liz feel even worse.

She battled through the sticky crowd of pensioners and holidaymakers, past the mobile library parked on the green, the post office, whose window displayed Alan's books beneath a hand-painted 'Local Author' arrow, the hairdresser's where old ladies sat with their heads in egg-shaped helmets like the victims of a mad scientist on an old pulp magazine cover. Her headache was worsening – it felt as if a metal band was jerking tighter around her head -and she was desperate to talk. She went into The Stone Shop to see Rebecca.

The shop was full of creatures made of shells and pebbles, carved boxes containing polished stones, multicoloured arrays selected from the beach, larger stones made into ashtrays, candle-holders, cruet-stands. Rebecca was trotting about, fussing over her creations with a feather duster. She was a small square woman who wore voluminous clothes as grey as her hair, and was Liz's best friend in the village. 'That's a pretty dress you're almost wearing,' she said to Anna. 'I wish I could dress for the weather.

Would you like to go in the back and see if you can make me a creature? I'll give you some shells.'

As soon as Anna was out of the way, carefully gluing shells together in the workshop, Rebecca said, 'What's up? You look like I feel.'

Liz threw herself into the rickety chair behind the counter. 'I've just seen Jane,' she said.

'Oh? She was in here before with her latest petition. I suppose she needs to feel she can still organize. Apparently she had quite a well-paid secretarial job before she had Georgie. Why, what was she saying to you?'