Her Living Image by Jane Rogers Page B

there was an
unnatural quality of alertness in her posture, in the intent way she stared at you as you spoke, in her sudden jerky movements. They soon gave up trying to draw her into conversation. The first
advances she herself made were to Sylvia, Sue’s four-year-old daughter. Sylvia was pestering her mother for a story one morning after breakfast. Clare had gone to work, and Bryony was deep in
the newspaper. Carolyn was picking up on the movements of the three women, which had seemed so mysteriously random at first. She knew that Sue worked as a nurse four nights a week, going on duty
some time after the children had gone to bed in the evening, and returning at seven in the morning. On these mornings her freckled face was blanched, and she sat motionless at the breakfast table,
staring sightlessly into a cup of cold, wrinkle-skinned coffee, while her long red hair gradually slithered out of the nest of twists she had knotted it into, and hairgrips pinged out over the
floor and the table around her. After she had gone upstairs Carolyn collected them and put them in a jar on the mantelpiece. She was surprised by the extent of Sue’s gratitude, when she came
looking for them the following evening.
    “Shall I read it, Sylvia?”
    The little girl leaned back against her mother’s knee, staring at Carolyn.
    “Let me read it. I don’t know that story. Can I have a look – please?”
    Dragging her feet reluctantly, as if she was being pushed from behind, Sylvia took her book to Carolyn, standing well back and handing it to her at arm’s length. Carolyn opened the book on
her knee and studied it.
    “This looks interesting. What’s it about? The Snow Queen? Who’s she?”
    Sylvia put her thumb in her mouth.
    “Where does she live, Sylvia?”
    “In the North Pole.”
    “Does she? What does she look like?”
    Sylvia suddenly moved forwards and grabbed the book. “In a picture –” she riffled the pages “– there!”
    “She doesn’t look very nice, does she? Shall we find out what she does?”
    Sylvia nodded, and leaned her weight against the side of Carolyn’s chair. As Carolyn started to read a look of absorption came over the child’s face, and her thumb slotted into her
mouth. She gazed at the pages as Carolyn read, as if she could see the events unfolding there.
    Soon Carolyn was the favourite story reader, both with Sylvia and her older brother Robin. They liked her because she didn’t put the book down in the middle to go and do something else,
and because she read stories properly, as if she wanted to know what happened too.
    Carolyn was cautious about the times when she came downstairs. She knew Sue’s movements. She felt all right coming down when Sue and the children were there, or when the kitchen was empty,
although the suddenly-abandoned look of the room always gave her a shock. There was always the odd dirty plate or mug on the table, and a tub of margarine (open) and milk (in its bottle) lying
around, not put away in the fridge. She tried to avoid Bryony, which was difficult because she could not work out her routine. If their paths crossed Bryony usually ignored her, but with contempt,
as if she was behaving stupidly. Carolyn found everything about Bryony so alien that she could not begin to guess what she was doing that Bryony didn’t like.
    Bryony was squat with a cropped bristly head, reminding Carolyn of a wrestler on television. She wore enormous shapeless skirts which looked as if they were made from old curtains or bedspreads,
and baggy sweatshirts which she had dyed herself in dingy shades of rust, snot-green and pale mouldy purple. She described colours which appeared to Carolyn to be faded, dirty, or both, as
“subtle”, and Carolyn realized that her clothes were not these shades by dismal accident, but by the most painstaking design. She had tie-dyed various instantly recognizable T-shirts
and scarves for Sue, Clare and the children too, and was obviously pleased