Fearie Tales Read online

  “Just used to having you about.”

  “I will be on the day that matters most, won’t I? You’re all right otherwise, both of you.”

  “Pretty much as you left us.” She could tell that was what he hoped if not felt entitled to hear. “You?” she said.

  “Not especially looking forward to three more days of hearing how we can improve the public image of the banks. I’d rather just get on with actually improving them if we can,” Hubert said loud enough to be heard by colleagues who were audible nearby. “Enough of my grumbles. Shall I say good night to the bedtime boy?”

  “He isn’t quite that yet,” Doreen said as she switched on the loudspeaker. “Who’s this, Benjamin?”

  “The man.” Once Hubert greeted him Benjamin said a good deal more enthusiastically: “Grandad.”

  “How’s the youngest and the best? Only three more nights and you’ll be seeing me.”

  “Free nights.”

  “That’s more or less it, yes. Are you being good for Granny? You look after her and see nothing bad happens to her while I’m at my conference.”

  For an instant the toddler looked worried. “Nothing bad.”

  “Nothing’s going to,” Doreen reassured him. “Better say good night to Grandad now. I can hear he’s anxious to relax.”

  “Good night, Grandad,” Benjamin said so enthusiastically that both his grandparents laughed.

  He helped tidy up his toys before bath time. “Hot,” he said gravely as Doreen tested the water, and then “Not.” While she couldn’t call herself religious—even less than her parents, which was why her prayers for Anna had seemed so desperate, falling short of defining their goal—whenever Benjamin came out of the bath he looked and felt as she imagined someone newly baptized would. She toweled him and kissed him and vowed to keep him safe as long as she lived, however much that sounded like a fairy tale.

  She helped him into his sleeping outfit and laid him down in the cot. She was turning the pages of Anna’s battered old book when the title of a story caught her eye. Of course, that had been Anna’s childhood favorite. No wonder Doreen had dreamed something of the kind, but she didn’t want to read that tale to Benjamin just now. “‘Once upon a time,’” she began instead, “‘there was a woodcutter and his wife who had children called Hansel and Gretel …’”

  She omitted the oven and the children’s threatened fate. The children were rescued just before Benjamin fell asleep. She turned out the light and took the monitor downstairs, keeping it on the kitchen table while she ate dinner. A day of Benjamin had tired her as usual, not that she would want it to be otherwise, and she was soon in bed.

  She wakened to find the zeros of the bedside clock staring out of midnight. She was hoping her body hadn’t adopted a routine, having been roused at the same time last night, when she heard the voice. It was so muffled that it could have been inside her skull. “It’s you again, is it?” she said or thought. “What do you want this time?”

  “What I always get.”

  “You didn’t in the story, did you? Not when they found out your name.”

  “That old thing? Don’t believe everything you read.”

  “Why, isn’t your name Rumpelstiltskin?”

  “That’s just the tale they told.” With a snigger not unlike the rattling of small teeth the voice said “Some of it’s true. I know when I’m wanted.”

  “Then you ought to know you aren’t.”

  “Your girl did when she needed a witness.”

  “Don’t you talk about her,” Doreen protested before managing to laugh. “Why am I getting worked up? You’re just a dream.”

  “Still think you’re dreaming, do you?” The voice sounded grotesquely resentful. “You’ll see,” it said, “there’ll be another sign,” and left her alone.

  As far as Doreen was concerned there hadn’t previously been one. She found she was trying to remember the witness who’d come forward on Anna’s behalf. He’d lived below the apartment she’d shared with Denny, and he’d testified that Denny had abused both her and their child. Despite her efforts Doreen was unable to recall his name or even his appearance, except for an impression of somebody smaller than average, close to dwarfish.

  The sun was up by the time Benjamin wakened her. She lay enjoying his soliloquy until she began to wonder why his words were even harder to make out than usual. He couldn’t very well be muttering “I drub hens for tot forever,” nor yet “Her son for furtive debtor.” He sounded oddly distant, that was it—so remote that she could imagine he was being carried away from her. She lurched out of bed and almost fell headlong in her dash to the next room.

  The door swung inwards just a few inches before meeting an obstruction. At least Benjamin was in the cot, and gave Doreen a sleepy smile as she edged into the room. The plastic microphone was trapped against the door, yards from where she’d placed it on the shelf and at the limit of its wire. When she picked it up she found her hand was shaking. “Who put this here, Benjamin?” she said as gently as she could.

  “The man,” he said with a touch of defiance. “Man with all teeth.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Teeths.” As if to demonstrate how plural they could be, the boy opened his mouth wide and dug his fingers into the corners to tug it wider still. “Lots,” he said.

  Doreen wanted to think he was boasting about his own. “What did I tell you the man was?”

  “Comes when I’m asleep.”

  She was making for the cot when a thought halted her. “Can you climb out for me?”

  Benjamin stood up but gave her a reproachful look. “Like you lifting.”

  That needn’t mean he was incapable of clambering out, but when he held up his arms Doreen lifted him. She had to restrain herself from hugging him too fiercely; that wasn’t how to protect him. She stayed close to him as he stampeded through the rooms, and found she didn’t want to leave him alone at all. Once she’d secured him in the high chair she performed her morning necessities as fast as she could. “What would you like to do today?” she said when she’d recovered her breath.

  “Change books.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Doreen said, having realized what else she could do.

  The library was in the opposite direction from the railway, past the nearest of the parks, which she had to promise Benjamin they would visit later. Doreen signed a petition against closing six libraries and watched him grab books from the table in the children’s section. Once he was installed in a miniature chair she hurried to a computer. She could have thought she was growing delusional as the anniversary of her loss came closer, but she found the details for the landlord of Anna’s last address.

  At home she read three of Benjamin’s library books to him before he fell asleep. She succeeded in carrying him upstairs to the cot without rousing him, and took the monitor into her room. She listened to her heartbeats, having keyed the phone number, until a woman said “Wesley Properties.”

  “I’m trying to find out the name of a tenant of yours.”

  “We can’t give out that information, I’m afraid.”

  “I see you wouldn’t normally, but he was a witness in court for my daughter Anna Marshall. She lived in the same building. She died nearly a year ago.”

  Doreen heard two more of her urgent heartbeats before the woman said “And you were asking for the gentleman’s name because …”

  “I can’t remember it and I need it to help me keep custody of my grandson.”

  “I’ll have to speak to somebody. Please hold on.”

  Doreen’s pulse grew more strident for at least a minute before she was asked to continue holding, after which she heard murmurs that she had to reassure herself weren’t in the monitor. More than another minute was measured by her not entirely constant heartbeats, and then a new voice said “Mrs. Marshall, is it? Tony Wesley. Sorry for your loss.”

  “I still have my grandson, Mr. Wesley.”

  “So Jane was saying. I do
remember your daughter and the sad circumstances. I’d like us to be of assistance.”

  “Please do.”

  “As I say, I wish we could be. I can only think we’ve suffered a small problem with the system. We’ve no record of the tenancy you were inquiring about.”

  For several beats her heart was louder in her ears than his voice. “What do you mean, no record?”

  “The period of the letting shows up blank. It was only a few weeks while the lady who lived there had moved out and the lady who has the apartment now took up residence.”

  “But he was there, wasn’t he? You know he was there.”

  “Of course he was.” Wesley sounded defensive, however. “You’ll forgive us, but nobody here can remember his name,” he said. “Not really anything about him.”

  Doreen felt as if Wesley had robbed her of more than words—of certainty if not worse. She mumbled thanks she didn’t feel and held the empty cell in her unsteady hand. Should she phone the court? Suppose there was no official record of the witness? The possibility deterred her more than she understood. Surely she oughtn’t to delay, or was her anxiousness just a symptom of age? She hadn’t made the call by the time Benjamin left her in no doubt he was awake.

  After lunch they walked to the park. In the deserted playground a seesaw was twitching as though someone had sneaked away at their approach. Doreen thought she closed the gate securely, but more than once it proved to be unlatched after she turned her back. A notice said dogs weren’t allowed, and she had the distinct impression that one was somewhere nearby, perhaps lying on its belly and baring all its teeth. She pushed Benjamin on one swing after another and bounced him gently on the seesaw and dodged around the climbing frames to be ready if he fell. Far too often she had a sense that a toothy intruder had crawled into or otherwise invaded the playground and was waiting at her back.

  When she took Benjamin home she could have fancied that a visitor was lying low somewhere in the house. Perhaps it had curled up in the oven to peer through the glass door, or was poised to poke its head out from behind a piece of furniture. She might be even more dismayed to find it sitting in a chair like an uninvited guest or, worst of all, in Benjamin’s high chair. Of course it was nowhere except inside her feverishly buzzing head, but she found herself urging Hubert to call, and almost dropped the phone as she hastened to answer it. “How was your day?” she said as if this might return hers to normal.

  “Oh, professional enough.”

  “What have you had to put up with this time?”

  “Plenty of ideas that can be put to good use.”

  It was plain to Doreen that he didn’t want his real thoughts to be overheard. She felt prevented from reaching him, all the more so when he said “And how was yours?”

  “Our day?” She couldn’t admit to her fears or how they’d caused her to behave. “I’m sure you can imagine it,” she said. “Library and park.”

  “So long as everything’s in order,” Hubert said, and she heard how much he wanted that. “Shall I speak to the man himself?” When she brought up the loudspeaker he said “Are you looking after Granny for me?”

  “Yes, Grandad,” Benjamin said so earnestly that Doreen had to suppress a nervous laugh.

  “You make sure you carry on, then. Two more nights and I’ll take over.”

  Once he’d gone Doreen said to Benjamin “Would you like to look after Granny a little bit more?”

  “Yes,” he said more solemnly than ever.

  “You can sleep in my room while Grandad’s away, then. We’ll be company if anyone wakes up.”

  Was she being too protective? Sometimes she felt she had been with Anna—felt she’d left Anna vulnerable, even helped to cause her death. Nevertheless Doreen dragged the cot into the main bedroom while Benjamin gave it an energetic push. After his bath she lowered him into the cot and sat on the bed to read him Cinderella’s tale divested of any ugliness, and then she went downstairs with the monitor.

  She couldn’t read. She was too aware of the silence in the monitor and throughout the house. Before long she was nervously ready for bed, but she found herself switching on her laptop. Rumpelstiltskin wasn’t the only name to figure in versions of the old tale, and she repeated all the names until they were fixed in her head. She felt close to senile for carrying on like that, but would she really rather think she’d neglected some method of protecting Benjamin? When she was certain of recalling the names she tiptoed up to bed.

  Benjamin murmured and grew still as she slipped under the quilt. Doreen suspected she would be unable to sleep, but she opened her eyes on the far side of a darkness that had lasted until midnight. As she read the time she heard the voice. “You’ve been trying to find my name out, have you? Try all you like.”

  It was closer to her than the cot—perhaps as close as the inside of her head. When she blinked at the dimness, the cot was the only unfamiliar object she could see. “You’ll leave us alone if I name you, will you?” she said so softly she could barely hear herself.

  “Try me.”

  “It wouldn’t be Whuppity Stoorie, would it?”

  “Not in your lifetime,” the voice said in a mockingly Scottish falsetto.

  “Tom Tit Tot, then.”

  “Not on your tits and not on your tot.”

  “Ruidoquedito.”

  “Not even if you say it right.” Having rejected the rest of the names as well, the voice said “Aren’t you going to ask them at the court?”

  Doreen was instinctively suspicious. “Why would you want me to?”

  “Let them see there’s no name in their records and maybe they’ll have to reopen the hearing.”

  That was why she’d felt she oughtn’t to call, Doreen realized now. “What difference would that make?”

  “Maybe they’d have to tell the father and give him another chance.”

  “Or,” Doreen said in a rage that made her reckless, “you could tell him.”

  “No chance of that. Nobody else can hear me.” As Benjamin shifted in his cot—perhaps Doreen’s outburst had roused him—the voice said “I’ll leave you a sign, though. Or do you think you’re doing it all?”

  “I don’t—” Doreen began without knowing how to continue, only to realize she was talking to herself. Listening for an intruder in the room kept her apprehensively awake, but at some point exhaustion put out her vigilance until she heard Benjamin’s morning murmur. She had to waken fully to recall why it was closer than usual, though that didn’t help her to grasp what he was mumbling—hardly “Observe or differ on truth” any more than “Run forever, tots, be hid” and still less “Bred introvert, ooh, suffer.” He started chatting to her once he met her eyes, but she couldn’t help glancing away in search of a sign. Perhaps it hadn’t been left in the room, if indeed the threat wasn’t just an elderly woman’s fearful dream.

  She could see nothing wrong downstairs either. Benjamin was eager to walk to the trains again, though he was untypically mute on the way, so that she wondered if he didn’t find anything worthy of a comment. Wouldn’t he have remarked on a dwarfish shape that seemed to peer over a net in a tennis court before somehow hiding behind the mesh? Perhaps the tuft like greasy unkempt hair that poked above at least one mound on the golf course was too insignificant, but how about the childish shape that dodged out of sight around the school? Doreen wouldn’t have expected to glimpse an apparently unaccompanied child in more than one of the shops, but surely these impressions were symptoms of sleeplessness, like the face that glared out of the antique dealer’s window before sinking into a vase. “Robber jug,” Benjamin said, having found words at last, and Doreen rather wished he hadn’t rediscovered those.

  The red lights at the level crossing blazed in her eyes while the clangor of the bells jerked her nerves. Though the trains were almost empty, Benjamin kept repeating “He’s looking.” Surely he meant the toddler on the opposite side of the tracks—a real child, not one of Doreen’s fancies, wheeled in a stroller by his mot
her. All the same, the phrase Benjamin kept parroting worked on Doreen’s nerves. Each train reminded her of a strip of film being drawn through a gate, because she could easily imagine that a face was peering over the lower edge of every window—just the top of a face, but the same one. Six trains had to pass before Benjamin had had enough, by which time Doreen certainly had.

  Once he was safe in his cot she lay down on the bed. She didn’t mean to fall asleep, but she jolted awake to find him at the bars and more than ready for his lunch. As soon as he’d devoured it and she’d cleaned him up she drove to Jonquil’s. “Don’t worry and don’t rush,” Jonquil said as he ran to find Daisy. “You take all the time you need with his surprise.”

  At home Doreen set about making the cake. It wasn’t quite enough to distract her from being alone in the house or from recalling how she’d felt last year. She had been on the train to London when her phone had jangled with Anna’s final text:

  Sorry, Mommy. You won’t understand but he’ll get in.

  Doreen had certainly never understood how Anna could have left Benjamin with a friend and overdosed on drugs she’d obtained somewhere to supplement the ones the doctor had prescribed. Did Doreen understand at last, or was the memory undermining her mind? She left the cake in the oven and went up to lock the wardrobe; she needn’t risk Benjamin finding his presents while he was sharing the room.

  The stunted figure that peered out of the cot was only one of the bears. She opened the wardrobe to glance at the presents, and her hand clenched on the wood. She’d arranged the wrapped packages along the back of the wardrobe, but now they were piled in a ramshackle stack against the left-hand corner. So this was the sign, or had she done it herself in her sleep, if not in some more distracted state? Suppose instead that the doubts had been planted in her mind as a distraction? She ducked into the wardrobe to line up the presents and made sure the door was locked. She’d begun to think there was something else she needed to recognize.

  Though she took her time icing the cake, the middle of the big blue digit on the yellow sugar carapace betrayed an inadvertent shiver. The day was growing dark when she hurried to the car, so that she didn’t immediately notice the small figure in the child’s seat. It was all the more unobtrusive for the absence of a head. It was a toy, either a plastic baby or a toddler, and its head had been chewed off; the tooth marks were still glistening. The door was unlocked; perhaps Doreen had been so distracted she’d left it that way. She flung the doll into the rubbish bin on her drive, and once she was able to control her hands she started the car.