The Children's Bach Read Free Page B

shut. She had to keep one knee against it so that the sound of her meek trickling would not escape into the black air.
    She wiped herself. The door swung open. Just as she reached up for the chain, she heard a noise. Something trotted, something dragged itself. She stood still with her hand hooked through the metal loop. The noise came again, a small and intimate sound. She blew out the candle and sight returned like the slow relaxing of a muscle. Ten feet out from the lavatory door was a cage, a derelict chook pen, covered in creeper. Something in the cage was shifting in its straw.
    Up there under the leafless vine they were talking. Vicki saw their breath. From the angles of their bodies she could tell they were arguing. Dexter was trying to make Elizabeth do something.
    â€˜It’s not my job,’ she said. ‘Why the hell should I?’
    â€˜Because no-one else will,’ said Dexter. ‘Because there’s nothing else. What else is there? Otherwise we’re all just dry leaves blowing down the gutter.’
    Vicki got into the car and kept her face against the side window. She saw sour street lights, a house standing in a junk yard: old washing machines, tea-chests, a car with no wheels. Elizabeth sat silent with folded arms. Dexter sang aloud in a foreign language.
    They turned into a long, important-looking street with silver tramlines. The buildings looked like closed shops. They had flat fronts and stone vases on their roofs.
    â€˜This is it, Dexter. Stop here.’
    Elizabeth got out and slammed the door. She looked up and down the street with her hands in her pockets. Vicki dragged her suitcase on to the pavement. Dexter did not want to abandon her. He blundered out of the car and skipped behind the two silent women to the door of the building.
    â€˜Vicki! You must come to our place whenever you like! Athena’s always there. Come round the back. We never lock the door.’
    She turned her bleached face to him and gave a small nod. Elizabeth rammed the key into the lock and twisted it back and forth. Dexter looked at the shop-fronts opposite. One of them had a dull red light over the door; its number was painted in numerals as tall as a man.
    â€˜Morty!’ he said. ‘Shouldn’t you be living in a proper house?’
    â€˜Oh shutup. You’re worse than Mum.’
    Dexter fell back to the edge of the pavement and they went past him into the building. The street door clashed behind them.
    Elizabeth took the stairs very fast, making a lot of heel noise. Her coat billowed and Vicki tramped in a wave of perfume. They went up and up. The staircase was concrete. At the very top there was another big door.
    Elizabeth strode straight across the boards to the bed and pulled a cassette player out from behind it. She shoved in a tape and went to the bare window; she turned her back on Vicki and stood with her feet apart and her hands on her hips. She looks like a record cover, thought Vicki. Tape hissed, music burst out. Elizabeth begin to dance: no, not to dance, but to move her body, to sway forward from the waist, as if she were on a stage, as if the audience were outside the black window.
    What is this, thought Vicki. What is in here? It is a warehouse, it has no walls or rooms. There is a row of windows, each one shaped like an eye with its brow raised. There is a TV, a phone on the floor, a bed like a big pink cloud. Where does she cook? Where does she wash herself? Where will I sleep? Everybody needs a bed. There are no walls or rooms.
    Elizabeth turned round and saw her standing there beside her suitcase. She was ashamed. She turned down the music.
    â€˜I’m not set up,’ she said. ‘Tonight you’d better sleep with me. Tomorrow we’ll think about what to do.’
    The sisters got into the bed: it was cold and there was no sofa and nothing else to do. Elizabeth sat up and crocheted. Vicki lay flat, and kept well out to one side so as not to be in the