Bath.(Stories)(Short Story)

When Melanie comes in from collecting the eggs, Alison tells her Mum wants to talk to her. "You'd better hurry up," she says. She's in the bathroom waiting."

"The bathroom?" Melanie puts down the basket of eggs on the kitchen table and follows her sister, frowning.

Mum's standing by the bath. Her face is quite expressionless but she's got Grandfather's belt and when she sees Melanie she shifts it from one hand to the other. Melanie feels her mouth go dry. She stares at the belt. It looks alive. A snake. It looks like the brown snake Uncle Don killed last summer.

Mum says, and her voice is like her face, quite without emotion, "Look at the bath, Melanie. I want you to look at the bath and tell me what you see."

"It ..." begins Melanie. She lifts her eyes to her mother's face. "It's dirty. The water, the water's left a ring, a ring all round and ..."

"Yes," says her mother, and the belt jerks suddenly in her hand. "Yes, exactly. And what did I tell you last night when you were having your bath? I told you to clean it afterwards, to make sure ..."

'I did, I ..." says Melanie but her voice trails away uncertainly and she has to begin again. "I did. It was easy. When the water was draining out, I swirled it all round with the flannel and ..."