Free The Hours Before Dawn by Celia Fremlin

frustration, and, above all, of regular feeding in babyhood. Particularly since she had already told them that this was Michael’s ten o’clock feed, and the clock was tactlessly striking ten at this very moment.
    She was surprised when she returned to the sitting-room to find that the blue suitcase was gone. Apparently Miss Brandon had come in to collect it while Louise was upstairs, and must have gone on up to her room without Louise hearing her.
    ‘And do you know – such a funny thing,’ added Mrs Hooper, ‘I know her. That is, she didn’t seem to recognise me, but I remember her very well – she came to our Sex and Society Group two or three times last winter. Such a pity – I thought she was going to become a regular member, but she quite suddenly dropped out. I don’t know why.’
    ‘Too repressed and frustrated,’ chipped in Magda, eager as a child who has come to the bit of the lesson that it knows. ‘That sort never go on coming long. They can’t take it. Didn’t you notice she went out early every time, as soon as the discussion began to get really intimate? And your Tony says—’
    ‘Talking of Tony,’ Louise interrupted, with sudden hope, ‘won’t he be wondering what’s happened to you? Surely you should go back?’
    But this only evoked a fresh assurance that it was perfectly all right; that Tony was with a neighbour, and didn’t mind a bit how long he stayed there; he never worried a bit, even when left so late that the neighbour had to make up a bed for him on the sofa.
    By this time Christine was complaining, in her thin, peevish fashion, and her pram in the corner of the room was jerking irritably . But it appeared that the Natural Method of feeding allowed a margin of time sufficient for her mother to hear anaccount of three further neurotic characters who didn’t understand Magda; and it was nearly eleven before Mrs Hooper finally bumped her pram away into the darkness, while Magda set off at a loping stride in the opposite direction, to who knew what haunt of further misunderstanding.
    Louise had to lock up herself that night, for Mark had gone to bed without a word – in a fit of sulks, no doubt, about the unwelcome visitors. Louise, indeed, felt very much like having a fit of sulks herself, if only it would have done any good. All that ironing would have to wait till tomorrow now; tonight, she could hardly stand up for sleepiness. But what could you do with people who wouldn’t take a hint? Even if you told Mrs Hooper point blank that you wanted her to go because you were tired, she would only beam at you and explain that it had been proved that tiredness was all psychological; and Magda would back her up, and tell you it was because you lacked inner security…. Louise bolted the back door with a violence which nearly took the skin off her knuckles; and quite suddenly, as she stood there nursing them, her tiredness seemed to push her over some invisible frontier, and everything took on the quality of a dream. And in that dream it seemed very, very important that the house should be locked up thoroughly tonight. Half sleeping, half waking, she stumbled from room to room, fastening windows, trying latches. Downstairs, upstairs – even to the top floor of all, where there were only Miss Brandon’s room and the lumber room. There was no bulb in the lumber room, but there was plenty of light from the landing to show her the way past Mark’s fishing tackle, past the broken scooter, past the roll of underfelt. Plenty of light to cast wild, huge shadows on the white walls. Among the shadows her own head swayed and dipped, oval and distorted where the ceiling sloped nearly to the floor. For a moment the shadow seemed to quiver … to divide into two heads, vast and impossible; andthen it was one again, swooping insanely across the ceiling, and vanishing as Louise stepped into the darkness at the far end of the room. Clumsily she made her way among the old chairs and lino; senselessly