where she sometimes bought vegetables the green wooden shutters rolled down with a clatter. The shopkeeper ducked out to lock them and the rain made dark spots on the shoulder of his overalls. He rushed back into the shop without glancing at Julia. Her shoes were filling with water and she walked faster, trying to dodge the biggest puddles.
The shop on the next corner was still open, and in the steamy neon brightness inside she bought milk and bread and cheese, and felt her spirits lifting. She thought of reaching home and putting on dry clothes, making a pot of tea and taking a cup in to Jessie. Perhaps Felix would be home, and she would lean against the kitchen cupboard to watch him prepare a meal. Julia came out with her bag of shopping and saw that the off-licence opposite was just opening for the evening. It seemed to contradict the soaking, shrinking mood of the night so positively that she marched across and bought a bottle of red wine for Felix. She chose at random from the shelves and paid over her shillings cheerfully. She hurried the length of the last streets and into the square, humming to defy the cold and the rain.
She thought of Josh as she passed under the dripping trees, but all her longings were fixed on being warm and dry and the yearning slipped away again.
On the dingy stairs she met the last office-worker on the way out. She was an anxious-looking middle-aged woman, always the last to go. Julia brushed past her, nodding, and heard her locking doors on her way down.
The black door of the flat loomed on the lauding above her. With a grateful rush she took the last stairs two at a time and reached it, panting, raindrops rolling from her hair and coat and spattering unseen on the dusty floor.
Julia unlocked the door and pushed it open.
It was dark and quiet inside. Jessie didn’t usually sleep in the early evening. Julia wasn’t afraid of disturbing her.
She called out, ‘I’m home. Hello, I’m home.’
Jessie’s room was in darkness, and the street light from the square seeped into a dull, orange glow on the cracked ceiling. As she turned in the doorway Julia heard water running. Jessie was in the bathroom. A line of light showed under the door. Julia went into the kitchen and unpacked her shopping, then crossed to her own room and stripped off her wet clothes. She turned on the electric fire and warmed her feet, then leaned forward to rub her hair dry. It steamed as she combed her fingers through it, and the brittle heat from the red bar made her cheeks smart. When she was warm all through Julia pulled on slacks and a jumper, and stuck her feet into her slippers.
The flat was still quiet except for the sound of running water.
She had almost reached the kitchen when it struck her that it had been running for a long time.
If Jessie was taking a bath, it would be full by now. Julia turned back and put her hand out to the bathroom door. She felt the grainy wood of the panels under her fingertips. The bathwater was running, but it had a peculiar double resonance. It took Julia a second to realise that it was splashing, too. Spilling over the side of something.
‘Jessie?’
The water noise seemed to have grown louder. It drowned her voice.
‘Jessie, are you all right?’
Julia thumped on the door. There was no answer, except the water.
‘Jessie.’
Julia went on shouting, but her shoulder was already against the door. Inside her head she could see the other side of it. The door was white-painted, Felix must have done that. There was a little chrome-plated bolt screwed to it. Only four tiny screws holding it in place. Nothing substantial. The door creaked under her weight, protesting, but the lock didn’t give. Why had Jessie locked it, alone in the flat? Julia rattled the knob, turning it to and fro. Then she looked down. She saw the dark finger run out beneath the door, then spread into a fist-shape. The water was reaching out to her. The sight of it gave her terrified strength. She leaned away from the door and then flung all her weight against it. There was a shudder as the screws were torn out of the wooden frame and the door collapsed inwards. Julia fell into the bathroom where the water was running from the taps, spilling over the side of the bath and washing over the floor.
Jessie was in the bath. Julia saw mountainous, veined flesh and floating sparse grey hair. Her face was grey and purple, and it was under the moving skin of water. The noise of the water was deafening, like a terrible waterfall, thundering in the wet white space.
Julia had stumbled backwards, a single step. Her eyes had clenched themselves shut and her knuckles were crammed against her teeth, stifling a scream. It was no more than a second before she opened her eyes again and Jessie was still lying there, under the water, her hair moving tranquilly around her head like seaweed fronds.
Julia began to move at last through the waves of shock. She stooped to the taps and turned them off. Water still slopped over the side of the bath, soaking her legs. She plunged her arms into the bath, locking her hands behind Jessie’s shoulders, straining to lift her up. Julia grunted and her feet slid on the slippery floor. She could hear herself whispering, ‘Come on, Jessie. Sit up, Jessie. Sit up, please, won’t you?’
The huge weight shifted a little with her efforts and the bath plug on its chain was wrenched out of the plughole. The water gurgled and drained quickly away, and Jessie was left supported in Julia’s arms. Julia heaved at her, imagining that she would lift her out of the bath and lay her on the floor so that she could tend to her. But Jessie’s wet skin only sucked against hers, and the weight of her didn’t move again.
Gasping and sobbing with fear and panic and exertion, Julia let her fall backwards again against the slope of the bath. Jessie’s face turned upwards with tendrils of hair stuck to her cheeks. Her mouth hung open a little, like a yawn.
Without looking into the eyes Julia understood that she was dead.
She knelt down helplessly in the wet and groped for Jessie’s hand. Her skin already felt cold, and Julia’s tears that ran down her face and on to Jessie’s seemed hot enough to burn.
‘Oh, Jessie. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’
She knelt there, holding the cold hand and crying.
After what seemed like a long time, Julia replaced Jessie’s hand by her side and stood up stiffly.
‘I’ll have to go for some help,’ she whispered.
She turned then, and ran. The movement thawed her and made her heart thump in her chest and she cursed her own slowness, even though she was dully certain that Jessie was dead and nothing or no one could help her however fast she ran.
The floors of offices were silent, and their telephones were securely locked behind unyielding doors. Julia ran out into the rain again, her sodden clothes flapping as she ran. There were people in the square but she ran past them unseeing. She reached the scarlet rectangle of the telephone kiosk on the corner, and listened to the quiet burr of the dialling tone.
When she had given the details and she knew that the ambulance was coming, she let her head fall sideways and rest against the streaming glass. There was a pain in her chest and her breath was ragged and her legs felt as if they would dissolve beneath her.
So much running and shouting and struggling, and yet Jessie was dead. As the first dim understanding of finality touched her, Julia thought of Felix. She didn’t want him to come in and find his mother lying like that in the bath, in all her huge and painful vulnerability. Julia was running again, back across
