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Prill saw her face, with its high, domed forehead, its cloud of reddish hair, the prominent cheeks from which all the flesh had dropped away.
    She was crying out, but Prill heard nothing. She was helpless, cut off, sealed away behind a thick wall of glass through which the woman moved and implored her, bobbing and jerking about like some ghastly marionette.
    She shouted in her sleep and woke up suddenly. She was out of bed and standing by the open window breathing in great lungfuls of air. It was getting light. The small green field was misty, the air fresh and cool. The countryside and sea were very peaceful in the early dawn.
    In the quietness she heard a light click on and then the baby started crying. She had been yelling on and off all night. Prill went down the hall to the kitchen and found Colin there, talking to his mother. He wore nothing except his blue pyjama trousers and his face looked hot. Mum had just stuck a thermometer into his mouth. She looked relieved to see Prill.
    “Oh, hello, love. So you couldn’t sleep either. Now we’re all awake, except Oliver. I’ll have to get a doctor to look atAlison. She’s only had about two hours’ sleep all night. Just look at her.”
    She looked. The baby wasn’t pink, like Colin, she was turkey red and her whole body was tense. Prill picked her up and tried to slip a finger into the tiny hand; she loved it when the little fingers curled tightly round her own. But Alison wouldn’t respond. Both her hands were clenched up into hard little knots, and she was wailing.
    “Has she been eating?”
    “Yes. That’s what I don’t understand. It’s not as if she’s hungry. How can she be?”
    “Perhaps she’s got what I’ve got,” Colin mumbled, removing the thermometer and reading it. “I feel most odd. Oh, that’s funny. My temperature’s not up, Mum.”
    The electric kettle clicked off. “Let’s have some tea,” Mrs Blakeman said wearily. “When in doubt have a cup of tea.” She was trying to sound cheerful but Prill wasn’t fooled, she looked so tired and strained, not a bit like her usual self. She didn’t panic easily. “Do you drink Oliver would like some?”
    “Oh, he’s still dead to the world,” Colin said. “I should think he’s the only one who’s had a good night’s sleep, lucky devil!”
    Prill took the milk jug out of the fridge. The smell made her wrinkle her nose up. “ Ugh! We can’t use this, Mum. It’s off.”
    “It can’t be. The O’Malley boy brought it straight up from their dairy. It was chilled. Anyway, I used it at supper, Oliver had some Ovaltine.”
    “Well, it’s off now. ”
    Colin took the large brown jug and sniffed, then he carried it to the sink and looked more closely under the electric strip light. The contents of the jug had solidified completely, they were now greyish, and a fine hair was forming on the thick, wrinkled skin.
    He upturned the jug into the sink and a slimy gel plopped out on to the stainless steel. There was a sharp, bitter smell.
    “It must be the fridge,” Mum said, more concerned about the whimpering baby. “Perhaps there’s a lemon. We could have that with our tea.”
    “The fridge light’s on,” Colin said numbly. “And the motor’s going, listen. It’s working all right.” In the quietness they could hear the motor humming gently.
    “This fridge is brand new,” Prill pointed out. “Look, they’ve not even taken the label off it.”
    Colin carefully washed the stinking mess down the sink. Prill came up and looked over his shoulder. “I wish Dad was here,” he muttered, out of the side of his mouth so Mrs Blakeman couldn’t hear him. “I think Alison looks awful.”
    Prill was trying to convince herself that the woman outside the window had been a nightmare. She did not succeed, no more than Colin succeeded in persuading himself that he’d imagined that fuzzy growth on his pillow.
    “It’s this house,” she whispered back. “I wish we’d never come.”

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