Free Appointment with Yesterday by Celia Fremlin Page B

speak.
    “I can’t understand it!” she was saying, “I can’t understand it at all! Alison always sleeps till lunch time! Now what am I going to do?”
    By now Milly could hear the sounds too—the unmistakeable protests of a baby who considers that her morning sleep is over. Mrs Graham pressed her hand against her white forehead despairingly.
    “And Arnold will be back at one, wanting his lunch, and I’ve still got my correlations to finish! Look, Mrs Er, would you mind seeing to her for me? Do you know anything about babies? If you could just get her up, and change her nappy? And then keep her with you while you do the dining-room? She’s no trouble: you just have to see that she doesn’t pull down the ornaments, or open the sideboard, or put anything in her mouth, or interfere with the papers on the couch, or get at the china in the cabinet, or play with the lamp flex, or pull the books out of the bottom shelf, or pinch her fingers in the door—Oh, and watch out for the vases, won’t you, Mrs Er? She’s mad about flowers. And the clock too: now that she can climb up to the clock I just don’t know what we are going to do. And whatever you do, don’t let her cry, because I must get on with my correlations, I just can’t be interrupted any more this morning.”
    With which instructions, she whisked up her cup of coffee and fairly fled into the sitting-room, shutting the door behind her with a finality that was almost a slam. Milly was left to locate the baby as best she could.
    Not that it was difficult. The screams were reaching a crescendo now, and Milly opened the door behind which theyresounded with a good deal of trepidation. She was no automatic baby-lover: she only liked them if they were nice, and there was so far no evidence at all that this one was going to fall into any such category.
    At the sight of the furious, red-faced little creature, standing up clutching the bars of its cot and jigging up and down in its rage, all Milly’s most non-maternal feelings surged into her breast.
    “There, there! Now, come along, then!” she forced herself to squeak ingratiatingly across the uproar: and at the sound of her voice Alison at once stopped screaming, presumably from sheer shock. For a moment the two glowered at each other in mutual dismay. Traumatic, that’s what it must be, thought Milly glumly, to have a complete stranger walk in like this and yank you out of your cot and start changing your nappy. Surely, even a mother without a degree in Sociology might have thought twice about it?
    Still, everything has its bright side: it seemed, mercifully, that the effect of traumatic experiences on Alison was to stop her screaming for minutes on end: long enough for Milly to change her nappy, get her leggings on, carry her into the dining-room, and set her down on a rug, where she sat, sucking the plug of the Hoover with ferocious intensity, and following Milly’s every movement with unblinking concentration . She remained in this felicitous state of shock for long enough to allow Milly to dust all the furniture, and even to wipe the window-sills and mantelpiece with a damp cloth. After that, inevitably, recovery set in, and Alison began to feel well enough to screw up her face ready for a new bout of crying. At this unwelcome sign of returning vitality, Milly hastily gave the child a pair of nutcrackers out of the sideboard drawer, together with a small brass tray to bash them against: and while Alison was thus employed, she herself got on with the hoovering. By now, she was feeling really pleased with herself. She was managing the job splendidly. Mrs Graham had been really pleased with the kitchen, and surely she would be pleased with this room, too: it wasbeginning to look very nice, with all the furniture polished and shining, and the last of the crumbs disappearing off the floor like a dream … and it was just then, just as she switched the Hoover off, that the telephone began to ring.
    It was