Figures of Fear: An anthology (29 page)

‘She’s probably gone inside. You’ll have to go round and knock on the door.’

Just as Fiona was stepping back into the kitchen and closing the door behind her, she heard Robin shouting out one more time, ‘Ex-
cuse
me! Deaf ears! Can you throw our ball back?’

Fiona locked the kitchen door and went through to the hallway. Over the front door there was a semicircular stained-glass window, so that the hallway was lit up with green and red and yellow light, like a small chapel.

‘Mummy!’ she cried out. ‘Mummy, are you back yet?’

Silence. Fiona held Rapunzel tighter. ‘Mummy?’

At that moment, the doorbell rang, one of those jangly rings that left a salty taste in Fiona’s mouth. It must be the boy from next door, Robin, wanting his tennis ball back. What if she opened the door and he saw how beautiful she was and attacked her? She stood in the hallway for a moment, clutching Rapunzel, not knowing what she should do, but then he rang the doorbell again and she ran quickly and quietly upstairs.

‘Mummy!’

She stood on the landing outside Mummy’s bedroom. The doorbell rang again and she was so frightened that she wet herself, a little bit.

‘
Mummy!
’

‘I can
hear
you!’ said Robin. ‘I know you’re in there! We only want our ball back!’

Mummy always locked her bedroom door when she went out, but all the same Fiona pulled down the handle, and to her relief, it opened. Mummy must have come home and perhaps she had gone to the toilet and hadn’t heard her.

‘Mummy?’ she said, stepping cautiously into her bedroom. There was still no reply. Mummy wasn’t here, in the bedroom, and the door of her en-suite bathroom was open. She wasn’t in there, either.

Fiona made her way around the bed, with its pink satin quilt and its array of lacy cushions. On the left-hand nightstand stood a gilt-framed photograph of Daddy, with his hair receding, but smiling all the same. Daddy had died when Fiona was only nine months old, although Mummy never said why he had passed away so young. There was a smell of talcum powder in the room, mingled with that distinctive dustiness of people who live on their own.

The doorbell rang yet again, but in Mummy’s bedroom Fiona didn’t feel afraid any more. She touched the quilt, which felt so cool and silky, and she went to the window and looked out, and saw the street outside, with its neat front gardens and cars parked in everybody’s driveway. She felt like Rapunzel in her tower – not imprisoned by an evil enchantress, but by the beauty with which she had been blessed as an accident of birth. She was sure that one day a handsome prince would come to rescue her, just like the prince in Rapunzel.

In the story, the prince had tumbled from the top of the tower into the thicket of thorn bushes that surrounded it, and both of his eyeballs had been pierced, so that he had been blinded. Perhaps Rapunzel had been too beautiful for anybody to look at, too.

She went over to Mummy’s built-in closet. Even with the doors closed, it smelled of Mummy’s perfume and Mummy’s clothes. Mummy had never let her look in her closet before, at all of her lovely clothes. She was sure, however, that Mummy wouldn’t be cross if she had a quick peek. She needn’t even tell her.

She turned the little key and opened the right-hand closet door. Hanging neatly inside were Mummy’s dresses, in order of colour, and Mummy’s skirts, and on the shelves were all of Mummy’s jumpers and cardigans, neatly folded. On the floor of the closet were Mummy’s shoes, her sandals and her court shoes and the high heels she never seemed to wear these days.

Then Fiona opened the left-hand door. Immediately she gasped in shock, and jumped back, almost stumbling over. Standing in front of her was a girl, wearing exactly the same pink gingham dress as Fiona, and with her blonde hair tied up with two pink ribbons, exactly the same as Fiona’s hair.

This girl, however, had a hideously distorted face, with a bulging forehead and eyes as wide apart as a flatfish. Her nose was not much more than a small knot of flesh with two holes in it, and her mouth was dragged down as if she were moaning.

Fiona was about to demand what this monstrous girl was doing, hiding in Mummy’s closet. But when the girl raised her hand in exactly the same way that Fiona was raising her hand, Fiona began to realize, with a growing sense of horror, who she actually was. On the back of the left-hand door there was a mirror, and the girl with the hideously distorted face was
her
.

She touched the surface of the mirror, and the girl with the hid-eously distorted face did the same, so that their fingertips met.

‘But I’m beautiful,’ she whispered, and the girl with the hideously distorted face whispered it, too. ‘I’m so beautiful that nobody can look at me, because they’ll be too jealous.

‘I’m
beautiful
.’

It was then, however, that everything started to make sense. The reason why she could never go out, and meet other people. The things Mummy said to her.
Beauty is in the eye of the
beholder.
She hadn’t really understood what that meant, but now she did. She
was
beautiful. She was very, very beautiful. But too many beholders had looked at her, and every one of them had stolen a little bit of her beauty away.

Her beauty was still there, but now it was inside their eyes. Somehow she had to find a way of getting it back.

She took one more long look at herself and then she closed the closet doors and locked them. Her heart was beating very fast and she was breathing quickly, too, as if she had waded chest-high into an icy-cold swimming pool.

What could she do to get her beauty back? Mummy always kept her protected, inside the house, in case any more beholders saw her, and made her look even more hideously distorted than she was already. But had Mummy ever tried to confront those beholders, and demand that they return her daughter’s looks? Perhaps she didn’t know who the beholders were, or if she did, perhaps she was afraid to ask them. Anybody who would deliberately steal a young girl’s beauty would probably be very selfish and vicious.

Fiona went downstairs, and as she did so the front door opened and Mummy came in, carrying a bag of shopping.

‘Why aren’t you out in the garden?’ Mummy asked her. ‘It’s so lovely out there.’

‘The boy from next door threw his ball over the fence and he came to the door to ask for it back.’

Mummy put down her shopping bag. ‘You didn’t open it, did you?’

Fiona shook her head, and now she was conscious of how loose and wobbly her lips were. ‘I went upstairs to see if you were there, but you weren’t.’

‘Well, I’m here now. I’ll throw his ball back over for him. Would you like some lunch? I can make you some sandwiches, and you can eat them outside, like a picnic.’

‘Mummy …’ Fiona began. She wanted to ask her about the beholders, and how Mummy had allowed them to take her beauty away, but then she thought better of it. Mummy always took such good care of her. She had probably done everything she could to keep the beholders away, and Fiona didn’t want to upset her or make her feel guilty about something that she had been powerless to prevent.

There were many times when Fiona had heard Mummy sobbing in the middle of the night, or she had come downstairs late in the evening for a glass of water and Mummy had quickly torn off a sheet of kitchen towel to wipe her eyes.

They went outside. Mummy picked up the tennis ball in the middle of the lawn and threw it back over the fence. There was no reply from next door. Robin and Caroline must be inside, having their lunch, too. Fiona knelt down on the patio and put Rapunzel back on top of her tower.

‘Rapunzel! Rapunzel! Let down your hair!’

As she said that, she saw a large brown snail creeping across the patio, leaving a silvery trail behind it. It had only one pair of ten-tacles sticking out from the top of its head, and she knew from her children’s encyclopedia that the shorter tentacle was for feeling its way around, while only the longer tentacle had an eye on the end of it. All the same, that single eye was definitely looking at
her
.

She hesitated for a moment, and then she stood up and went back into the kitchen.

‘Won’t be long, darling,’ said Mummy, spreading butter on four slices of bread. ‘Would you like tomato in your cheese sandwich, or brown pickle?’

‘Brown pickle, please.’

Mummy was standing with her back to her, so Fiona was able to slide open the drawer next to the cooker and quietly lift out the black-handled scissors which Mummy used to cut the tips off chicken wings. She dropped them into the pocket in the front of her dress and went back outside.

The snail was still only a third of the way across the patio. Fiona knelt down close to it, and peered at it intently. Its eye was unquestionably swivelling in her direction, so in its tiny way it, too, must be a beholder. Even if it had taken only the minutest part of her beauty – a pretty little dimple from her chin, perhaps – she wanted it back.

‘What do you want to drink?’ called Mummy. ‘Orange squash or lemon barley water?’

She would be coming outside in a minute, so Fiona couldn’t hesitate. She took the scissors from her pocket and snipped the snail’s eye from the end of its tentacle. Instantly, the snail rolled both of its tentacles back into its head, but it was too late. Fiona had its eye now, and everything that its eye contained.

As Mummy stepped out of the kitchen, carrying a small tray, Fiona popped the snail’s eye into her mouth and kept it on her tongue. It felt very small and bobbly, and it tasted
beige
, if there was such a taste.

‘Here you are, Fee-fee,’ said Mummy, and set the tray down on the top of the steps that led down to the lawn. ‘Cheese-and-pickle sandwiches, and a strawberry yogurt.’

Fiona nodded and tried to smile. Mummy affectionately scribbled her fingers in Fiona’s hair. ‘You are a funny girl, aren’t you?’ she said, and then she went back inside.

With the tip of her tongue, Fiona pressed the snail’s eye as hard as she could against her palate, but it refused to pop. In the end, she manoeuvred it between her front teeth, and bit it in half, and swallowed it. It was far too minuscule for her to taste any optical fluid, but she knew that she had taken back at least a tiny part of her beauty, and that was a good start.

The snail stayed where it was, not moving, as if it had been paralysed by the shock of losing its eye. Fiona watched it for a while, as she ate her first sandwich. After five minutes, when it still hadn’t moved, she stood up and stamped on it, with a crunch.
Serves you right
, she thought. She touched her chin to see if she had regained a pretty dimple, and she was sure that she could feel some indentation. This seemed to work, taking the eyes from her beholders. She wondered how many more snails were carrying images of her beauty around in their eyes; or how many birds, for that matter.

As if in answer to her question, she heard a tinkle, and a grey tortoiseshell cat jumped up on to the fence, with a little silver bell around his neck. He belonged to old Mrs Pickens, who lived on the other side of Fiona and her Mummy. Fiona knew that the cat’s name was Zebedee, because she had heard Mrs Pickens calling him in at night. Zebedee was always sitting on top of the fence, staring at her unblinking with his yellow eyes, so he must be a beholder, too.

‘Here, puss!’ Fiona called him. ‘Come on, Zebedee! Come here, puss!’

Zebedee remained aloof on top of the fence. Fiona stood up and walked across the patio until she was standing directly beneath him.

‘Come on, puss! Come down and play!’

Zebedee stared at her for a long time but still stayed where he was. Fiona took the top slice of bread off her half-eaten sandwich and threw it out into the garden, so that it landed on the lawn. Zebedee yawned and looked the other way.

Less than minute later, however, two fat pigeons landed on the lawn, and strutted toward Fiona’s sandwich as if they had ordered it specially. They started to peck at it, and that was when Zebedee crouched himself down and arched his back and scratched at the fence with his claws as he repositioned himself, ready to strike.

‘Go on, puss!’ Fiona urged him. He ignored her at first, as he tried to balance himself in the best position for leaping off on to the lawn. But then – as the pigeons started to squabble with each other over the last remaining fragment of crust – he sprang off the fence and landed less than two feet away from them, making a southpaw lunge for the nearer pigeon and catching some of its tail feathers.

The two pigeons immediately flapped up into the air, and were gone. Zebedee circled around the lawn, looking up at the sky as if he had intended only to chase the pigeons away, and was just making sure that they didn’t have the temerity to try to come back.

Fiona was sitting on the top step now, watching him. He came toward her, climbed the steps and started to sniff at her sandwiches.

‘Cats don’t like cheese and pickle,’ said Fiona. Zebedee stared at her and licked his lips, as if he expected her to offer him something else, like sardines. Or maybe he only wanted to show her how much he relished the beauty that he had taken from her.

‘You’re a beholder, too, aren’t you, Zebedee?’ Fiona asked him. ‘I can tell, because you’re so beautiful. “What a beautiful pussy you are, you are.”’

Zebedee came up closer to her and sniffed at her. She reached out and stroked his head, so that he half-closed his eyes and flattened his ears back.

It was then that Fiona suddenly snatched his green leather collar and twisted it around tight, so that it was almost strangling him. He yowled and struggled and scratched, jerking his body wildly from side to side, but Fiona held on to him, and pressed her thumb into his furry throat until he was whining for breath.

Gradually, his convulsive kicking became weaker and more spasmodic, and at last he stopped struggling altogether. Fiona laid him on his back across her knees, and tried to feel if he still had a pulse, but she couldn’t find one. His eyes were closed and his upper lip was raised in a silent snarl.