Slater locked the door behind them and they walked in silence the length of the hushed corridor to the elevator. There, as they waited for the lift, Slater turned to him. ‘Don’t expect any help from me, Bannerman.’ And, almost as though he knew what Bannerman had been thinking, he added, ‘And keep your nose out of my affairs.’
IV
The child sat alone in the darkened room, the muted light from the street lamps seeping in through net curtains. She had been sitting there for nearly half an hour and her eyes had grown quite accustomed to the dark. She could follow clearly the lines of the old dresser, the book shelves and the desk. She could pick out the faded pattern of the old worn rug, the shape of the fireplace, the armchair opposite, the bed. From the kitchen came the sounds of Sally preparing the evening meal, from the street the occasional passing car.
It had been a bad day for her. Twice she had lost control; the screaming, the flailing arms and legs, the aimless striking out. She had tried, God how she had tried, to control it. But the frustration had been growing, taking hold of her in a way she did not know how to control. There had been the patient faces, the firm hands, and then the angry words. The vacant, staring faces of the other children who knew also how it was, but could not tell it. Sally had talked to her on the way home; silly things, just chatter. But it had helped in a way. Now she was at peace again, or as much at peace as she could be, and control was easier. If she closed her eyes and sat back here in the dark, then she could speak, not aloud, but with some inner voice. She could walk to the window if she wanted and touch the curtain, feel its silkiness in her hand. It meant little, but it was contact with something. It was good when she could touch things, feel things, embrace things; express her love, express herself. But such moments were rare, though they had seemed more frequent recently. Perhaps as she grew older it would improve even more. They always said it would. But, in the past, as it had improved, so her frustration had increased at those times when the improvement was not there and she could not make contact. God gave with one hand and took with the other. Still, there was always the drawing, she thought, and when that came it was like every good thing she knew concentrated in a few furious moments of expression that flowed through her arm, her hand, her fingers, through the pencil and out on to that vast white landscape of fresh, crisp paper. And then afterwards, there was such pleasure in seeing it.
She heard the front door opening and her father’s voice. There was someone else with him. A voice that she did not know. She listened now in the darkness, finding as she always did that the presence of a stranger in the house unsettled her. Routine was something she clung to without knowing why. There was a great security in the familiar, a devastating uncertainty in the unknown or unusual. Always she looked forward to her father’s return from work. She found an odd comfort in it, though she had no love for him. She had long since been aware that he had no love for her. The memory of her mother, a pretty, smiling, caring woman, had faded quickly, leaving her with nothing more than the hollow affection of her father. He went through the motions of love, was almost always gentle. But he spent so little time with her, and she felt his lack of interest with an extraordinary perception. Still, it did not affect the comfort she sought in his presence. If only it was possible to say what she felt, to tell them the things that were in her head.
Her father and the other man were in the living room now and she listened carefully. There was something oddly familiar in the stranger’s voice. He spoke English with an accent like her father, but there was another quality in it that she felt, almost like a hand touching her. She had already detected the hostility in both voices, though neither man was arguing and there were no harsh words. It was simply there, and she sensed it clearly. She pulled her bedroom door gently inwards so that it stood slightly ajar, enough for her to see through into the living room.
Her first sight of Bannerman affected her in the same way as his voice had done. There was something more than just the man she saw; the set, sarcastic face, the hard blue eyes, the relaxed liquidity of his body in the chair. She sensed in him an aggression, perhaps frustration. Yet more, there was a feeling of contact, as though they were touching, the way she had felt his voice touch her. It was important somehow, she knew, though she didn’t know why and she was seized by a sudden foreboding. Everything about him and all she felt about him filled her with a great confusion and uncertainty. It was clouding her mind — thoughts that had not come in words (for she had no real sense of words) but in some inner understanding of things that words could never make as clear. With the clouding, the frustration was returning, and the control was slipping away. She left the door and crossed to the window. Her hands were starting to tremble and then she heard her father’s voice calling her. The door opened and she saw him framed in the doorway against the light.
‘It’s all right, Tania,’ he was saying. ‘There’s a man come to see you. He’ll be staying with us for a while. He wants to meet you.’ All she heard was the false gentleness. He came to the window and took her hand and she allowed herself to be led passively to the door and into the living room. There she stopped and pulled back. The man had risen from his chair and was standing by the fireplace below the big, framed painting. He turned to look at her. All her self control began dissolving under the gaze of those blue eyes and she felt herself pulling her hand from her father’s.
Bannerman was startled by the first shriek and alarmed when this clumsy, unattractive child, who only seconds before had appeared so passive and uninterested, clutched at her hair with both hands and began backing away into the darkness behind her. The screams ripped into the quiet of the flat. Slater became quickly flushed and he tried to pull the child back towards him, coaxing, appealing with soft words that only seemed to increase her distress.
‘It’s all right, Tania. It’s all right, little one. There’s nothing to worry you.’ She lashed out with a tightly clenched fist, catching him a sturdy blow on the side of his face. ‘For Christ’s sake, child!’ he shouted and snatched her arm, half turning towards Bannerman. ‘Damn you! I knew this would happen.’
The girl was struggling and pulling against him, tears streaming down her cheeks, her voice hoarse already with the screaming. Bannerman’s confusion gave way to a strange, stinging embarrassment. He stared numbly, sensing a great inner pain behind the child’s dark eyes. And there came to him the first glimmer of understanding of why Slater was like he was. Father and daughter were grotesquely tangled, the child’s arms still trying to beat on her father who had lifted her and was clutching her to him. And still the screaming went on, filling the room, the dreadful cries of a disturbed mind.
Suddenly Bannerman was aware of another presence in the room. He turned to see a dark-haired young woman, perhaps in her middle twenties standing in the open doorway to the kitchen. She was watching in silence and Bannerman thought she looked tense. She glanced in his direction and smiled, but it was a troubled smile. ‘You never quite get used to it,’ she whispered.
Slater carried the child into the bedroom and closed the door on the screaming. He was quite pale, his lightly freckled face almost grey against the red of his hair and beard. He looked viciously at Bannerman. But the young woman stepped into the room before he could speak. ‘Your dinner’s in the oven, Mr. Slater. It’ll be about fifteen minutes. I have to go.’
Slater plunged a hand into his pocket and threw a bunch of keys to Bannerman. ‘Take my car and run her home, will you?’ he said curtly. ‘And do me a favour. Eat out. I want the child asleep before you get back.’