The Crocodile Bird by Ruth Rendell Page A

enough, she went straight to sleep.
    Next morning she did what she always did in the mornings, ran into Mother’s room for her cuddle. Mother had always been alone in her big bed but she wasn’t alone this time. Mr. Tobias was in the bed with her, lying on the side nearest to the window.
    Liza stood and stared.
    “Go outside a moment, please, Liza,” Mother said.
    A moment always meant counting to twenty. Liza counted to twenty and went back into the room. Mr. Tobias had got up and done his best to get his broad shoulders and long body inside Mother’s brown wool dressing gown. He muttered something, grabbed his clothes from the chair, and went downstairs to the kitchen. Liza got into bed with Mother and hugged her, she hugged her so tight that Mother had to say to let go, she was hurting. The bed smelled different than usual, it didn’t smell of clean sheets and Mother and her soap, but a bit like the river in a season of drought, a bit like the dead fishes washed up on the sand, and like water with a lot of salt in it for cooking.
    Mr. Tobias came back, washed and dressed, saying it was terrible they hadn’t got a bathroom, he would have a bathroom put in as a priority. And why on earth didn’t Eve have a phone? Everyone had a phone. He went away after breakfast but came back in the afternoon with a present for Liza. It was a doll. Liza had very few toys and what she had had been Eve’s—a rag doll, a celluloid one, a dog on wheels you pulled along with a piece of string, a box of wooden bricks.
    The doll that Mr. Tobias had bought her wasn’t a baby but a little girl with dark hair like her own that you could wash and legs and arms and face that felt like real skin and a wardrobe of clothes for her to put on when the dress she was wearing had to be washed.
    Unable to speak, Liza stared mutely.
    “Say thank you to Mr. Tobias, Lizzie,” said Mother, but she didn’t seem very pleased and she said, “You really shouldn’t, Jonathan. She will get all sorts of ideas.”
    “Why not? Harmless ideas, I’m sure.”
    “Well, I’m not. I don’t wish her to have those ideas. But you are very kind, you are very generous.”
    “What shall you call her, Liza?” Mr. Tobias said in his softest sweetest voice.
    “Jonathan,” said Liza.
    That made them both laugh.
    “Jonathan is a man’s name, Lizzie, and she’s a girl. Think again.”
    “I don’t know any girls’ names. What were the ladies called who stayed with you?”
    “Last weekend? They were called Annabel and Victoria and Claire.”
    “I shall call her Annabel,” said Liza.
    After that Mr. Tobias slept in Mother’s bed most nights. Liza slept with Annabel and brought her into Mother’s bed in the morning, knocking on the door first as instructed to give Mr. Tobias a chance to get up. He stayed at Shrove for three weeks, then four, and the dogs with him, but no more people were invited for the weekends.
    Mother was very happy. She was quite different and she sang a lot. She washed her hair every day and made herself another new skirt. Every day they were either up at Shrove or Mr. Tobias was with them at the gatehouse, and if anything was wrong it was only that when Mr. Tobias wanted to take them out in the Range Rover, Mother always said no. Liza very much wanted to go to the seaside and the suggestion was made, but Mother said no. All right, said Mr. Tobias, come to London with me for the weekend, come to Montagu Place, but Mother said that would be worse than the seaside.
    “You like it here, Jonathan, don’t you? It’s the most wonderful place in the world, nowhere is more beautiful.”
    “I like a change sometimes.”
    “Have a change, then. That’s probably the best thing. Have a change and then come back here to us. I can’t believe the Ullswater house is more beautiful than this.”
    “Come and see. We’ll all go up for the weekend and you shall judge.”
    “I don’t want to go from here ever and Liza doesn’t. I