LITMIR.BIZ

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      An answering spurt of anger burned in Dinah for an instant. They looked at each other, barefaced, waiting.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ said Dinah. She dragged Ape away by the collar and shut him in the utility room. Milly trailed off into the den and watched a game show on television while Dinah cooked her food. She could see through the open door that Milly was curled up with her boots resting on the cushions.

      When it was ready she ate the plain rice and then a banana, but she deflected all Dinah’s attempts at conversation while she did so. They finished the meal, picking at their opposing dishes in silence.

      ‘Shall we go out and see a movie?’ Dinah suggested when the plates had been cleared away.

      Milly’s black mouth twitched with a suggestion of sarcastic amusement. ‘Thanks, but no. You go, if you want.’

      ‘I can hardly go out and leave you here alone, can I?’

      She stared. Her eyes were black-painted and the lashes were thickly spiked with mascara. Dinah noticed for the first time the colour of her irises, a pale greenish hazel. ‘Why not?’

      ‘Because I told Sandra I’d look after you.’

      Another shrug, dismissing her. ‘Well, okay. That’s between the two of you. I’m going upstairs.’

      She went, closing the door with a snap. Dinah sat on at the kitchen table, listening to Ape lumbering about in the confined space between the washing machine and the boiler. She imagined that Milly would be sitting on the unfamiliar bed, arms wrapped around her knees. She wanted to go up and tap on the door, open it and slip into the room and perch on the bed beside her, to twist a blade between the clamped halves of Milly’s shell and prise it open so that the child could be reached.

      Another voice, a colder tone of her own inner monologue warned her, it isn’t Milly who needs that. It’s you.

      Dinah pressed her knuckle against her mouth. Her thoughts tipped sideways and away from her. Thetford. England. A house, probably on an estate somewhere. Another bedroom, a child’s room with animal posters and family photographs. Not her family.

      The telephone rang. Dinah lifted it and heard Nancy’s voice.

      ‘Hi. Listen, Linda and Maria are coming over for a drink and a sandwich. We thought we might play a couple of hands of poker or something dumb like that. Want to join us since you’re a free woman?’

      ‘I can’t. I’m not. I’ve got Milly Parkes staying the weekend, Ed and Sandra have gone to LA.’

      ‘Sweet Jesus, rather you than me.’

      Is this what I’d rather? Dinah wondered, as she hung up. Rather a clumsy attempt to bond with another woman’s child, who looks at me as if she despises me?

      When she went up to bed the closed door of Milly’s room confronted her. She hesitated briefly and then silently eased it open. Milly was asleep, lying on her side with the covers pulled tightly up around her. Her face looked younger, smoothed out by sleep. There were streaks of black eyepaint on the white pillowcase.

      In the morning Dinah was downstairs early. She loaded the washing machine and fed Ape, promising that she would take him out for a proper walk later. Perhaps Milly would want to come, and they could take one of the paths that led through the woods beside the Franklin river. It was another white-skied day, but perceptibly colder than it had been. Bare fingers of branches were beginning to show through the burst of fall colour, and waves of burnt-out leaves accumulated beneath the trees.

      The morning crept on, until Dinah had done all her usual chores and found herself some extra ones as well. When she looked out into Kendrick she saw that most of the driveways were empty; everyone had gone off about their Saturday morning business. There was no sound from upstairs. The silence of the house began to oppress her. She felt confined and then, with a sudden clap within her head, anxious for Milly. Of course she couldn’t be asleep all this time. Something must be wrong.

      She ran up the stairs two at a time and rapped on the closed door.

      ‘Yeah.’

      Milly was sitting on the bed, fully dressed. Clearly she had been staring vacantly out of the window. Dinah wondered for how long. She had preferred to sit alone in an empty spare room rather than come downstairs and seek Dinah’s company.

      The evaporation of her anxiety fuelled another spurt of anger, a stronger flame than last night’s.

      ‘Why didn’t you come down? Don’t you want any breakfast?’

      Milly regarded her, judging the effects of her behaviour.

      ‘What is there? Pizza?’

      ‘Brown bloody rice and bananas, if that’s what you want.’

      ‘No thanks.’

      ‘Milly, what’s the matter? You must eat something. I don’t want to force you into anything …’

      ‘You couldn’t. Don’t bother to try.’

      ‘… but you’re here, and I’m responsible for you for this time, and it would make it pleasanter for us both if you were co-operative.’ I sound like the mother in some nineteen-fifties radio drama. We haven’t even got a common language.

      There was no answer. Milly’s eyes wandered back to the window. Dinah made a last attempt, breathing through the rising waves of her irritation.

      ‘Come downstairs. Have some breakfast and then we’ll go and buy tofu and mung beans. We can take Ape for a walk by the river. Or drive over to Northampton, there’s a shop there …’

      Milly leaned forward on the bed. One knee protruded through a hole in her black knitted leggings. Her chin jutted out as her gaze swerved back to Dinah.

      ‘What do you want? Do you need some kind of a doll that you can take out for walks and dress up in frocks and tip upside down to say Mama?’

      Dinah’s heart knocked in her chest, squeezing the breath against her ribs. ‘Why are you so rude?’

      ‘Is it rude to say what you think?’

      ‘Yes. Don’t you know that?’

      She turned and left the room, aware that Milly was testing her for something, and that she was failing miserably.

      It was another hour before Milly came downstairs. She skirted around Ape and made for the kitchen. She found the bread and cut herself two doorstep slices, then smeared them thickly with raspberry jelly. She wouldn’t talk, although Dinah offered her the most neutral of openings. She turned on the television and sat in front of it, her eyes fixed on the screen as if to let them wander elsewhere would be to betray vulnerability. Dinah couldn’t persuade her to leave the house, and Ape’s demands for exercise were becoming impossible to ignore. In the end Dinah took the dog for a walk and left her.

      It was a raw afternoon with a taste of fog in the air. Ape ploughed through the undergrowth beside the river path while Dinah shivered and stared into the grey-white rush of water. She was glad when the moment came to turn back towards Kendrick Street. There were plenty of logs on the back porch. If she lit the fire perhaps Milly might even enjoy something improbable like toasting marshmallows.

      As soon as she came back into the house she sensed that Milly’s mood was different.

      She was waiting in the kitchen, holding back the knots of her hair with one hand so that her face was completely exposed. It was small, triangular, almost pretty under the disfiguring paint. The silver rings in her nose glinted.

      ‘You were gone a long time.’

      ‘Only an hour.’

      ‘Seemed like longer.’ Milly’s eyes were very bright.

      ‘Glad you missed me. Would you like some tea?’ There was something different about the kitchen, a detail that Dinah couldn’t quite place.

      ‘Nah.

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