Rachel Cusk - In the Fold

‘I think they’re a bit frightened to go out,’ said Lisa.

‘What are they frightened of? Polly’s out there, isn’t she?’

‘Polly’s got an axe,’ said Janie.

‘Look, shall I just leave the children here and run down to the shops?’ said Laura, looking around at us with purpose flaming in her pale blue eyes.

‘What do you mean?’ said Lisa.

‘She’s got an axe. I saw her.’

‘Shall I?’ said Laura. She inched towards the door. ‘Look, I’ll take the baby,’ she added, as though brokering her own escape.

‘There’s no need to go if you don’t want to,’ said Adam. ‘We don’t want much. Vivian’s going to boil the potatoes.’

‘If you let her go she won’t come back until tomorrow,’ Vivian interjected from beneath her brows. ‘I tell you, she won’t — she’ll phone from Doniford and say that something’s come up and could we keep the children overnight.’

‘That’s charming!’ shrieked Laura, laughing robustly and nevertheless keeping her hand on the door handle.

‘It’s true,’ said Vivian quaveringly. ‘You don’t realise you’ll have to do it all again,’ she said, to me. ‘It’s all right for the men — they just claim a sort of immunity, don’t they? They say they don’t know how to do it because they didn’t do it the first time and now it’s too late for them to learn, and that sort of thing, don’t they?’

‘Laura, Janie says Polly’s got hold of an axe,’ said Lisa.

‘I saw her,’ said Janie.

‘Well, you tell her it’s naughty,’ said Laura.

‘I don’t want to tell her,’ said Janie.

‘You’re not frightened of Polly too, are you?’ said Laura. ‘You’re frightened of everyone! Is she shy?’ she said to Lisa.

I heard footsteps in the hall and the kitchen door slowly opened with Laura’s hand still holding the handle. Caris put her bushy head into the room. Her manner was ostentatiously cautious. I was arrested by the distinctive expression on her face: she looked excited and slightly devious and somewhat ashamed. It was an expression I had seen before only on the face of my wife. Slowly she digested the fact of the crowded kitchen and as I watched I saw subjectivity break as though in rays or waves over her physiognomy. Her obscure knowledge of who she was rose into her face and shone glaringly through the strange derangement of her features. With her same great deliberateness of manner she stayed like that for several seconds, her body out of the room and her head in it, regarding us all with an expression of wonderment.

‘Not particularly,’ said Lisa, who had looked at Caris and looked away again.

I wondered if Caris had gone in some way mad, for she did remain in utter self-consciousness at the door, moving her eyes from one to another of us with a little smile. Her head, unbodied, began to look slightly eerie. I noticed that no one spoke to her. It struck me that this might be reinforcing her madness — that her expression could be that of someone whom numerous people are feigning an inability to see. I thought I understood, though, why no one did speak to her: it was her air of great import, which seemed to presage an announcement that never came.

‘Polly’s completely harmless,’ said Laura, who appeared not to have noticed that Caris’s face, with its mystical expression, was suspended a mere ten or twelve inches from her own. ‘You can’t be frightened of Polly!’

‘She’s got an axe,’ said Janie. ‘I saw her running after that boy with it.’

‘Oh, she’s only playing. She wouldn’t actually hurt him, you know. Oh look!’ Laura laughed, pointing at Janie. ‘She’s terrified, the poor little thing!’

Caris finally made her announcement.

‘Mum’s here,’ she said.

Vivian looked up.

‘Here?’ she said.

‘She brought me up in the car. She’s outside talking to Rufus. I thought I’d come and warn you.’

‘What’s she doing here?’ said Vivian.

From outside I could hear the sound of the dogs barking.

‘She’s just come up to say hello,’ said Caris. Her look was inscrutable.

‘Well, no one invited her,’ said Vivian. ‘It’s a bit much, just to turn up uninvited!’

‘Vivian,’ said Adam pacifically, ‘come on. Mum’s always up here with you and dad.’

‘If she wants to see him she knows where to find him,’ said Vivian. ‘She can’t just come turning up here uninvited!’

There was a commotion out in the hall and suddenly the door was thrown ajar against Laura and the dogs tumbled through, tearing around Caris’s legs and into the kitchen. They skidded over the flagstone floor and hurled themselves with a deafening volley of barks at Vivian’s chair. Vivian shrieked and got to her feet, knocking the chair to the floor. The dogs snapped their livid, fleshy muzzles at her over the upended legs and made contorted shapes around her with their scruffy bodies.

‘Get down!’ shouted Adam, lunging for their collars. He kicked one of the dogs and its skinny, unresisting legs skated over the floor.

A woman’s voice drifted in from the hall.

‘What on earth were Nell and Daisy doing locked up?’ she said. ‘I found them out in the stable — I couldn’t believe my eyes!’

Adam held both dogs by their collars and they strained madly at his arms, barking, their clawed feet skating and scratching over the flagstones.

‘What are you doing?’ said Audrey, appearing in the doorway. ‘Let them go, Adam! You look like that man at the gates of hell.’

‘I can’t,’ puffed Adam. ‘They keep going for Vivian.’

‘They just went mad,’ said Lisa.

‘I don’t like them!’ wailed Janie.

‘What do you mean, they keep going for her? They’re just a pair of silly old girls. Aren’t you? You’re just a pair of silly old girls. You don’t go for people. No, not like the hounds of hell. Not like the horrid hounds from hell.’

Audrey had advanced into the room and was caressing the dogs’ slobbering muzzles as she spoke. They made high-pitched mewling sounds. She was wearing a close-fitting brown coat made of some kind of skin or pelt. Her slim, shapely legs were bare. On her feet she wore narrow, high-heeled boots of the same brown, hairy material as the coat. I became aware of her scent, which was moving in a body over the room. It was a heady smell composed of numerous elements — perfume, face powder, soap, leather, a smell of varnish — and their notes sounded on me randomly and repeatedly.

‘Do you like my new coat?’ she said girlishly, whirling round to face us all. ‘I got it in London last week. It’s pony. Don’t you think it’s divine? The boots were made to match. They cost the earth! But I had to have them, didn’t I? The pony has to have her little hooves shod.’

‘Was it really a pony?’ said Janie to her mother. Her expression was perturbed.

‘God, it’s fantastic,’ said Laura enthusiastically, stroking Audrey’s arm.

‘Was it really?’ said Janie.

‘It’s absolutely lovely,’ said Lisa. Her tone was uncharacteristically professorial. She looked slightly stiff beneath Janie’s scrutiny.

‘I’m going to put the dogs back out in the yard,’ said Adam.

‘I love clothes,’ said Laura, ‘but I never buy them any more. Look.’ She lifted her shirt cheerfully to reveal the zip of her skirt peeled open to accommodate her white, fleshy middle. ‘I can’t do anything up.’

‘There isn’t another baby in there, is there?’ pouted Audrey.

‘Don’t!’ shrieked Laura.

‘No more babies,’ said Audrey, shaking her manicured finger.

‘It’s awful, isn’t it?’ said Laura delightedly.

‘I met one of yours outside — he wanted to show me how to use his crossbow. It’s rather fun, isn’t it? I shot my bolt straight into a tree and imagined all sorts of people it might be. He was very gentlemanly when I showed him my new boots, and he climbed up and got it himself, gorgeous boy.’