The space was full of toys now. She dragged them out one by one and piled them on the shelves she could reach, afraid that if she took out more than one at a time she'd make too much noise. She stooped and stood up, stooped and stood up; her legs were aching terribly, her thighs rubbing together, raw as scraped knees. More than once a toy almost slipped between the gaps in a shelf. She stooped and stood up wildly, terrified that her gasps of panic had been heard downstairs.
At last the space was empty, and she crawled in as quickly as she could. Then she began to sob. She'd grown too much since last time; she could no longer turn round in the space. When she tried, her shoulders lifted the shelf above her. If she hadn't backed out the shelf would have come loose, the toys would all have fallen, daddy would have heard.
She crouched on all fours outside the cupboard, shivering uncontrollably. If she crawled in backward, she wouldn't be able to move. What else could she do? There was nowhere else to hide. She backed shakily into the space and drew the doors closed, her fingers between the slats. One hinge squealed faintly, then there was silence, except for her aching heart.
The silence was beginning to let her feel safe, when she remembered that she'd closed the bedroom door. She wouldn't be able to hear if daddy came upstairs until he opened the door. She began to shake again as she peered through the slats, though she really hadn't room to shake. She was going to fall over, she couldn't stop herself – she would dislodge the shelf above her. She managed to lean her left shoulder against the wall to support herself, and then she felt as if the wall were shaking.
She stared out helplessly at the room. The slats let her see most of the brownish splash on the wall, but the more she watched it, the more she wanted to look away. It was making her want to think about it, think what it must be, here in the small dark grubby place that smelled like a zoo at feeding time. She was afraid of seeing baby Georgie -the brownish splash made her so, and she mustn't think why. If she did she'd run screaming downstairs, into daddy's arms, into his claws.
She was going to have to move soon; she was beginning to get cramp. All her limbs were aching. Any moment one or the other of them would move, whether or not she wanted it to. If she lay down on one side and curled up, would that be more comfortable? She had to try. She eased herself shakily onto her left side, but that was aching so much that she almost cried out. She jerked onto all fours again, too hastily. Her shoulders were lifting the shelf above her. Everything was going to fall.
It was a long time before she dared to move, to lower herself on her arms so that the shelf settled back onto its brackets. She was afraid that it would miss the brackets and collapse on her. But when she made herself crouch down, shaking, it fitted into place. Nothing would fall now, nothing; please, nothing…
But something moved above her – something reached down out of the dimness and clawed at her back.
As she twisted out of its way, only her breathlessness saved her from screaming. She was cowering against the wall and the shelf now, and the shelf was going to come loose again, but she could do nothing about it. The strips of wood above her shifted, and the object that had clawed her fell out of the widening gap.
It was the claw that daddy had brought home from Africa.
She didn't know what it was doing here, nor did she care. She only knew that it made her prison seem even smaller and grubbier and darker. Was it what Jane had been looking for, why she had made all the mess and the brownish splash on the wall? Anna didn't want to think about it – she mustn't think. She grabbed the claw and shoving the cupboard door open, flung it out as far as she could.
It clanged against the wall near the brownish splash and thudded on the carpet. She'd got rid of it, but had daddy heard the noise? Was he coming up now, unheard, to see who was in Georgie's room? She had to close the cupboard doors before he came into the room, but she couldn't reach from where she was crouching, she couldn't move forward for cramp.
She strained her whole body forward and managed to touch the left-hand door. Her fingertips fastened on the slats and pulled, but her fingers were slippery with fear. Her touch swung the door out of reach.
He couldn't have heard, he would be upstairs by now if he had. She would have heard him on the creaking stairs. Not if he was creeping – and that thought made her jerk forward, out of her cramp. Her shaking fingers grabbed the left-hand door so frantically that she broke one of the slats. But she had a grip on it, she could draw it toward her, and now it was closed. She leaned sideways to get hold of the right-hand door, to close it as she backed into her hiding place.
She had just pushed her fingers between two slats when the door of the room opened and daddy came in.
Fifty-four
At first all he could see was the claw. Its talons were upturned toward him, beckoning. When he looked up he saw Anna cowering among the toys. She must have flung the claw away from her, he realized. Perhaps something had made her throw it down in front of him, a challenge. He had yet to do what must be done.
First he had to get Anna out of the room, away from the claw. He mustn't give in to the temptation to hurl the talisman into the fog, even if that might persuade her to trust him. It had to stay here, where he knew where it was. But when he moved toward her and the claw she cowered back into the cupboard like an animal into its lair.
He mustn't do anything that might make her run into the fog. Somehow he didn't want to leave her for any length of time in the room with the claw. He stepped forward again, slowly so that she could see what he was doing, and kicked the claw into the furthest corner of the room, near the mark where something had been thrown at the wall.
His gesture seemed not to help. Anna looked ready to dodge around him and out of the door the first chance he gave her. He remembered how she'd done that once before. 'All right, Anna,' he said. 'AH right, baby. I won't hurt you. I want to take you where you'll be safe.'
Her face made it clear how that sounded to her. He mustn't let that reach him now; there would be time enough to feel shame and guilt and grief. 'Mummy's hurt,' he said. 'Granny Knight's taken her to the hospital. She'll want to see you're all right. Come on.'
She was staring at him with a child's boundless contempt, as if she couldn't believe he expected that to take her in. How could he have thought she would want to see Liz? He'd hoped that the idea of her mother in hospital would move her, but things had obviously gone too far. There was only one way to make her obey him, dismaying though it was. 'You don't want to stay here with me, do you?' he said.
He had to steel himself against the sudden terror in her eyes. 'Well then, come downstairs where I can see you while I phone for a taxi,' he said. 'You can sit on the stairs.'
He stood back from the doorway, though that took him toward the claw, until at last she crawled out of the cupboard. It looked as if cramp was forcing her to emerge. All the way across the room she seemed ready to run, to slam the door in his face. When he took her arm as he closed the door he felt her give herself up for lost.
He sat her down a few stairs from the bottom and managed to find a taxi firm that was operating in the fog. 'Just a few minutes, sir,' the girl on the switchboard promised, but he still wondered if he'd made his need sound urgent enough. Now there was nothing to do but wait and feel the exhaustion of his journey out of Africa threatening to overcome him, remember burying Isaac's body and saying as much over the grave as he could think of before trudging blindly through the jungle until luck brought him back to the road, remember the immeasurable sad resignation in Mrs Banjo's eyes before he had spoken a word… How long would the taxi be now? How long could he expect Anna to sit there without plotting to escape? Was the taxi delayed by the fog or by the follower of the claw, the blood-caked deathless famished follower? Surely it must try to stop Alan if it realized what he meant to do.