her own children better.
‘I don’t mean to hit it. Or only on the end of the tail, to scare it away. I’m a dead shot, you know.’
‘Certainly not. If we ignore it, it will soon go away. It’s time you were tucked up with your light out.’
‘Oh, all right. I’ll have to fire the gun though. You can’t unload it.’ The gun gave a vicious spat, and there was a sharp thud from down the garden.
‘Outhouse door,’ said Tim. ‘Have a look at the hole it’s made, in the morning.’
‘Tim, really!’
But with a rather sinister little giggle, he had slipped away to bed.
She went back to bed in a fluster. Really, damaging people’s property . . . he needed a father’s hand.
Which reminded her that she hadn’t tried to phone Philip this evening. She’d just forgotten. What was she coming to? It was all that upset about the rockery. Everyone was being so very odd.
And that damned cat went on yowling and yowling, fit to wake the dead.
She finally managed to get to sleep by jamming a pillow over her ear. She’d only ever read about people doing that before.
She wakened feeling leaden and weary. Breakfast was a chore to make, because the fire in the range had gone out, in spite of careful banking-up. The kids were weary too. It was a morose meal, during which Rose several times asked herself what the heck she was doing here, instead of sitting down to fresh coffee and croissants in some four-star hotel. This was supposed to be a vacation, for God’s sake!
She went back to cleaning the sitting-room, telling the kids to ask Mr. Gotobed to come and see her as soon as he got here. She was still angry about the snares, and even more angry about the half-inch hole in the outhouse door. That gun was a terrifying thing; the pellet had gone through the outhouse seat too. Mr. Gotobed would certainly notice, and might go and tell Miss Yaxley. Philip had been totally irresponsible buying Timothy a lethal weapon like that. She was cross with nearly everybody.
And she was cross with the dimness of the sitting-room, even on a sunny morning. In a fit of reluctance to start, she idly picked up the book that she’d found under the armchair. Such funny writing. The way you thought you could just about read it, then found when you focused your eyes that you couldn’t. It didn’t seem to be in any foreign language; she knew French and German, and could recognise most European languages. It seemed more like abbreviated English. ‘Wth’ might be ‘with,’ for instance . . .
‘You wanted me, missus?’ The small open window darkened, and she looked up to see Mr. Gotobed standing outside. He had a truculent look on his face; she somehow knew that he knew about the snares. Oh, God, more bother! She walked to the window, studying Mr. Gotobed’s face. His eyes were slitty, and his mouth turned down.
And then his eyes dropped to the level of her navel. His mouth fell open, displaying a decaying graveyard of leaning teeth. His eyes, from being slitty, went very wide; she could quite distinctly see the whites all round them. She thought, as he looked her in the face again, that he was about to scream. He had certainly gone very pale; his unshaven whiskers stood out like dark paint. Perhaps he was going to have a stroke or a heart attack . . .
Instinctively, she reached out her free hand.
‘Mr. Gotobed . . .’
He backed away from her hand as if it held a viper.
His mouth made a couple of movements and a moan came out. And then suddenly he wasn’t there any more. He was running down the garden path, as fast as his old legs would carry him. He flung open the front gate so savagely that it fell off its remaining hinge. And then he was just a head bobbing away down the lane.
Two more heads appeared at the window, as she stood paralysed.
‘What did you say to Mr. Gotobed?’ asked Tim in an awed voice.
‘I only said, “Mr. Gotobed,” ’ said Rose, helplessly. ‘Then he ran off. He looked terrified. Why should he suddenly be terrified of me?’
Her children looked at her, with disconcerting seriousness.
‘Your hair needs combing,’ said Jane. ‘And you’re not wearing any makeup. But you never do, in the mornings.’
‘Bare feet in sandals,’ said Tim severely. ‘It must be your hippy image, Mum.’ She realised