The Nameless Read online

  "Eight months is a bit young, I should think. Why?"

  "Oh, just that she makes her greeting sounds sometimes when I'm not in the room."

  "Jason used to talk to the sunlight. I expect you'll find it's something like that with her."

  At their houses they parted. Through the wall Barbara heard Jason stampeding up and down the stairs. She played for a while with Angela, who was finding out that her plastic mirror had two sides, shouting at the blank side, shouting louder as she rediscovered herself.

  At bath time Angela lay, glowing pink and wriggling, in her towel. As she kissed the birthmark, a purple cloverleaf on Angela's left shoulder, Barbara felt her milk start, a spontaneous outpouring like love made tangible. She fed the baby beside the crib. Angela fell asleep in her arms, milk spilling from the corners of her mouth. ------------------------------------com25

  She was tucking Angela into her crib when she heard Jan's husband, Keith, arrive home. Jason went thundering downstairs, shouting, "Daddy, Daddy." That was something Angela would never be able to do.

  She collected Angela's toys and put them away beneath the stairs. Beyond Palace Field the sky was growing milky, cooling; clouds like ropes of dough rested above the hills. It had been as peaceful the night she had told Arthur she was pregnant, or had she felt peaceful because of the way he'd held her, quietly and protectively as she had known he would hold their child? He'd managed to seem not at all anxious or tense, and yet his problems must have been very bad--bad enough to keep him away from home for the rest of her pregnancy, bad enough that he almost forgot to phone- her at Christmas. She'd kept hoping he would return for the birth, and when the phone rang one sagging day between Christmas and New Year she had thought he was calling to say that he would; who else would be calling from Saudi Arabia? But muffled and incomprehensible as it was, she could tell that the voice wasn't Arthur's. It had called again almost at once, but she'd had to run back to the phone from the bathroom, for there was a new movement in her belly, violent and unnerving. Yes, the voice said, it had just called her, but it had thought she couldn't hear it. Could she hear it now? Yes, it had been calling about her husband. Arthur Waugh, that was correct. Yes, he was dead.

  It had seemed completely unreal, for she was already in labor. Her body had given her no time to think or feel. Arthur was even more distant, that was all, and she was so far from taking in the fact of his death that she hadn't even mentioned it to Jan as she had driven her to the hospital. In the labor room the truth had begun to seep through to her, when after hours of work she'd reached a stage where she had hung suspended in a limbo of futility, beyond ------------------------------------com26

  comforting or help. She'd hated the student nurses in their masks like yashmaks, the Arabian doctors who hadn't saved Arthur. Suppose the shock of Arthur's heart attack killed her baby as well? Then, quite independent of her, her abdominal muscles had begun to heave. Though it seemed almost too glib a compensation, Angela was coming to save her from despair.

  Angela was breathing in the intercom, loud as a spaceman in a Kubrick film. Barbara ate dinner, then she set out her work in the living room. She couldn't work in Arthur's room, which felt oppressive, cramped by worries. She had nearly finished copy editing the latest Invisible Spy novel. To think she'd expected to have time to write a novel herself! She wasn't forced to do the copy editing--Arthur had left more than enough in his will to keep them until she could return full time to publishing--but it helped her feel that she wasn't stagnating, that she hadn't been swallowed by motherhood. Or was the job welcome because it gave her less time to succumb to grief? Sometimes she wished she could succumb fully, for as long as it might take; since the news of Arthur's death she had never had the chance. The loss itself seemed distant now.

  "You vill not be fuckink much ze ladies any more," Hilde Braun sneered, brandishing a scalpel, but four-letter words were not for the popular genres, and so Barbara made her say, "You will have no longer much to offer the ladies." With his output of ten books a year it was hardly surprising that the author didn't polish his work, but someone had to.

  She had edited one chapter when Angela began squirming and muttering, amplified sounds that filled the room. She hoped the baby wouldn't have another restless night; she wanted to deliver the book by the end of the week. A man's indistinct voice was muttering--one of the many stray broadcasts the intercom picked up. The first time ------------------------------------com27

  Barbara had heard a man's voice in the intercom she had almost panicked.

  She crept upstairs. The first three stairs were noisy, and she couldn't stride over them all. The empty house magnified the creak. But Angela was asleep, wrapped in a tangle of her blankets and the twilight of the room. She'd plugged her pacifier into herself without walking.

  Barbara tiptoed back onto the landing and had just eased the door closed when she heard the indistinct voice again, inside the room with Angela. She was turning away, having told herself that the microphone beside the crib was picking up the transmission, when she realized that a microphone could do nothing of the kind. Someone was muttering at Angela beyond the door.

  She jerked the door open so clumsily that she might have woken Angela. The room was empty and silent, except for Angela's regular breathing. Barbara had to creep in and make sure, for dimness crawled on everything, changing familiar shapes. Even when she had checked the room twice, her heart felt unsteady. Perhaps she was hearing things because she'd had so many broken nights with Angela, but she left the bedroom door open when she made herself go back to her work. Whenever static passed through the intercom, it sounded like whispering. ------------------------------------com28 ------------------------------------com29

  29

  Three: 1968

  "Not too far," Jan called. "Don't go out of sight." She and Barbara were sitting in Jan's garden, amid an assortment of toys that had spilled out of the house. Jason was leading Angela and his little brother about the field, to show how grown-up he was. Beneath the pale still April sky, the day was warm and absolutely clear. Bare glossy trees were tipped with new colors, the hills and the field were greener than yesterday, the first bees were clambering into flowers.

  Angela had halted on the concrete path and was pointing excitedly if haphazardly toward the road. Barbara couldn't hear what she was saying over the hoofbeats of two horses which teenagers were riding around the field, and Jason only said "Come on." He was too old to listen to baby talk. Barbara watched her daughter in her bright blue overalls as she stumbled impatiently about the path, and ------------------------------------com30

  could hardly imagine her as a newborn baby. "God, I do love her," she said laughing to Jan.

  Angela had despaired of Jason. She stumped toward the women. "Man flying," she said urgently, pointing at the road.

  The women stood up to look, ice jingling in their glasses. A funeral was gliding by, toward the church. In the first of the passenger limousines the widow dabbed at her eyes. "Man above her," Angela said.

  "Really, Angela? That's nice." Jan sat down quickly, in case the funeral party saw her staring. "Children say some funny things," she said to Barbara. "I shouldn't tell her what it really is."

  Perhaps she knows more about it than we do, Barbara thought. Did we know when we were her age? She thought not. "Do you remember what she said the day we passed the crematorium?" she said impulsively.

  "Something about golden people, wasn't it? Something strange."

  "Golden people streaming up, to be exact."

  "Yes, she's got a good vocabulary. I expect it's because you read to her so much. It certainly was a peculiar thing to say."

  The momentary clatter of hooves on concrete drew Jan's attention to the field, where Jason had forgotten he was looking after Nigel and was fighting with him on the path. "Stop that, Jason," she shouted, but perhaps he couldn't hear.

  Before she could reach the boys, Angela had done so. They stopped fighting at once and escorted her rathe
r solemnly toward the stream, across which the horses were leaping. "They mustn't want to look bad in front of their girl friend," Jan said.

  "Do you think that's all it is?" ------------------------------------com31

  "What else could it be? What are you trying to say?"

  Perhaps it was best not to share the secret. "Probably just that I love her," Barbara said.

  "So you keep saying. Are you trying to tell me or yourself?" When Barbara's face changed, uncertain how to look, Jan said, "How do you really feel?"

  "Do you love Jason and Nigel all the time?"

  "All the time? You're joking. I'd kill anyone who laid a finger on them but believe me, there are times I could cheerfully dump them both in the pond." She glanced at the horses, which were kicking up turf as they raced around the field. "But I think you mean something else. You're frustrated, aren't you?"

  "It's just that sometimes I feel so cooped up. I start feeling I've seen nothing but the inside of the house for years." Barbara shook the ice cubes in her glass as though she might throw sixes. "And I really hate the work I'm doing, carving up books and calling it plastic surgery. No doubt they need the work, in some ways they're terrible books, but I don't want to be the one to do it any more." She threw the melting dice on the lawn, where they glittered then vanished. "When I was working in London I could work with books I enjoyed."

  The sound of ice had roused Keith from his doze beneath sections of the Observer. "Do I get the impression you're beginning to resent Angela for hindering your career?"

  "Yes," Barbara said miserably, "I suppose I am."

  "You'd be abnormal if you didn't feel that way. Why don't you go back to work?" Jan suggested. "I could look after her during the day."

  "Oh, Jan, would you really?"

  "I'm sure it would be great for her and Nigel. Get them ready for nursery school next year." ------------------------------------com32

  Jason had brought the little ones back from the field. "Angela says she's tired," he said gravely.

  "I'll come in with you, Barbara. Keep an eye on the boys, Keith." As they went up to the small bedroom she asked Angela, "Would you like to play in my house in future while your mummy goes out to work?"

  "Yes." Nevertheless the little girl's smile looked fragile. "Come home sometimes," she bade her mother.

  "Of course I will, darling." Barbara hugged her and put her down for her afternoon nap. Downstairs she said ruefully to Jan, "Now I'll feel guilty for wanting to leave her."

  "That's better than resenting her, isn't it?"

  "I suppose it must be." She switched on the intercom and heard a train of bleeps, the censored side of a police call fading away into the hills. All at once, amid her sounds of settling in the cot, Angela said, "Daddy."

  Jan turned quickly to the window, in case Barbara wanted to keep her feelings private. "Are you coming back outside?" Jan said.

  "I think I'll stay in now. I have to finish butchering a chapter."

  When Jan had left, she set out the work. This chapter didn't seem too bad, except for the struggles the characters had to say anything plainly. "No," one barked, snapped, rapped, and clipped off while his partner in the conversation uttered, breathed, husked, and croaked. Someone was trying to interrupt by jawing, clacking, maundering, and blathering, but they ignored him. Barbara couldn't help grinning to herself, partly because of Jan.

  Still, that was unfair. Jan had thought that Angela was feeling her lack of a father and was calling an imaginary playmate Daddy. No doubt she had left so that Barbara could have a quiet weep, but Barbara was sure by now that Angela knew exactly what she was saying, and to whom. ------------------------------------com33

  Of course she had wept when she had first overheard Angela, yet she had often felt they were not alone in the house. She hadn't heard the voice again--perhaps it had been at least partly a hallucination--and the sense of an invisible presence had been much easier for Barbara to take. Once she'd grown used to it, it had seemed comforting, and she had come to believe that was because it meant to be.

  She had hoped that she knew who it was long before Angela could form words, for she kept making her greeting sounds when Barbara left her alone, yet once she'd begun saying "Daddy" Barbara dared not believe. Perhaps Angela had picked up the word from Nigel and Jason.

  One day she had left her album open at a photograph of Arthur before she brought Angela downstairs. Angela had never seen a photograph of him, since Barbara had thought it best to wait until she asked where he was. On the stairs she had been tempted to run down ahead of Angela and hide the album; her heart had felt like a small fist trying to punch through her chest, her breath had grown harsh as smoke. But as soon as Angela saw the photograph of her father, smiling widely but a little shyly as if he thought he wasn't really worth photographing, she'd said, "Daddy."

  That was enough for Barbara. Perhaps Arthur had shared their child after all--Angela squeaking at her month-old hands as if to persuade them to reach her mouth, her first smile that was intentional rather than a colicky grimace, the first time she had managed to roll over and had burst out laughing at herself, her first words. In labor, Barbara had been haunted by an image of Arthur's face which crumbled like sand and blew away. So that had been nothing but a waking nightmare.

  Sometimes she wondered if his presence had anything to do with Angela's aura of peace. It wasn't only Jan's ------------------------------------com34

  children: nobody could stay angry for long near her. Perhaps the calm which Barbara felt while watching her was more than maternal. She didn't want to examine what was happening too closely; it was too delicate, it might be spoiled. She was almost used to it by now.

  Soon she had finished editing the chapter. He said, she said, said, said. Barbara left the man blathering and twaddling and rattling at them, for she'd grown too fond of him to cramp his style. For the first time in months she was enjoying her work, because she knew it was nearly finished. Soon she would be back at her desk. Angela ought to be safe with anyone, let alone Jan. ------------------------------------com35

  35

  Four: 1970

  As Barbara reached the Tottenham Court Road a man with a handful of pamphlets tried to grab her, muttering "Apollo 13 was doomed from the start. We've got to watch out for the numbers." He was darting at people beneath Centre Point, an empty cage of concrete and hundreds of windows. Earlier today a Scientologist had accosted her in Piccadilly; bald young men were dancing and chanting along Oxford Street as if at the tail end of a party, several youths were meditating cross-legged by the public lavatory in Leicester Square. At least the Apollo man's theme was relatively topical.

  Close to the Post Office tower, fifteen stories of greenish windows like a stem of cheap cut glass, the Melwood-Nuttall office resembled a small bookshop. Football fans were tramping past from Euston, kicking parched litter, reeling into shops, cursing pubs for being shut. Outside ------------------------------------com36

  Melwood-Nuttall a pneumatic drill juddered in rubble, a particle of the interminable rebuilding of London.

  Ted Crichton was sitting behind a confusion of letters and dog-eared typescripts. His large round face beamed at her, his small nose wrinkled in greeting. When he stood up, knocking his jacket from the back of his chair, his desk appeared to shrink to classroom size. "This is it," he said, handing her the novel he was soon to publish.

  "You think we could do the paperback, do you?"

  "I think you could do very well. Let me know as soon as you can--some of the others are sniffing around."

  She slipped the typescript into her briefcase, alongside books for Angela. "What else is new?"

  "Would you believe a novel with Hitler as the hero? That would put Melwood-Nuttall on the map--right out of the country, in fact. I told the author I thought it was somewhat ahead of its time," he said, laughing. "Have you had anything unputdownable lately?"

  "I thought so, yes. I thought I had the best first novel I've read for years,
by a man called Paul Gregory. He can say more in a sentence than most writers can say in a paragraph. But The Pontiff said it was `of limited appeal,` and I had to send it back."

  "Well, that's the price you pay for working for a large house. You ought to be like me, just me and my list of safe bets. At least then you'd know you couldn't afford to take chances." When she didn't laugh he grew serious. "You were really disappointed, were you?"

  "I thought it deserved to be published. I'm sure it would have done well, handled properly. I just felt bad about discouraging such a talented writer. You could see his book had made the rounds."

  "Let me have his address and I'll take a look at it. Maybe if I can promise a hardback you can persuade your boss. You know," he said, tugging at his graying beard, ------------------------------------com37

  "I've heard you talk like this before. At Frankfurt, wasn't it? That was the time of our mutual unburdening."

  He'd looked after her at her first Frankfurt Book Fair: he'd introduced her around, made sure she didn't have to eat alone, towered over lecherous editors if she seemed to need help. "Maybe you should be an agent," he said now. "You've certainly got the energy. It might give you more freedom, not to mention a damn sight more money."

  He headed for the outer office to rescue his secretary from an invasion of football fans. "You can take the books if you want them," one was saying. "There's nowhere to pay." When Ted appeared, six foot three of him, they left at once.

  "It's a good thing I look daunting," he told Barbara. "I've never laid a finger on anyone in my life. No future at all as a heavy father. How's the family?"

  "Oh, fine. You say I'm energetic, but you should see her. Even though she's at nursery school she's raring to go when I get home. She's into playing Snakes and Ladders now."

  "That's pretty advanced for four years old, isn't it?"

  "I believe so." Yet she was by no means insufferably precocious. Everyone took to her at once--everyone except the lopsided woman, and more than her face had been wrong with her. However special Angela might be, she never behaved as if she knew she was. Once, when Barbara had tried to ask her about the times she talked to her father, she was suddenly just a child with a secret, unsure if she ought to tell. Barbara had changed the subject rather than risk making Angela feel that anything was wrong. Sometimes she was tempted to listen through the intercom, which was still in position though rarely used, but she felt that would be worse than eavesdropping.