Tunnels 02, Deeper

could never be -- not on Dr. Burrows's fleabite salary -- she gave up. Mrs. Burrows had closed her eyes to her surroundings and her situation, seeking solace in the worlds on the other side of the television screen. In this blinkered, unreal state, she'd abdicated motherhood, handing the responsibility of the house, the washing, the cooking, everything, to her daughter, Rebecca, who took it all on with surprising ease, considering she had been only seven years old at the time.
    And Mrs. Burrows felt no remorse or guilt about doing this, because her husband hadn't upheld his part of the bargain when they had first married. And then, to cap it all off, Dr. Burrows, the chronic loser, had had the gall to walk out on her, taking away what little she did have.
    He had ruined her ruined life.
    She loathed him for this. And all this loathing fermented away inside her, never far below the surface.
    "Your visitor," the matron prompted her again.
    Nodding, Mrs. Burrows tore her eyes from the television and rose wearily from her chair. She shuffled out of the room, leaving the matron rearranging some boxes of puzzles on the sideboard. Mrs. Burrows didn't want to see anyone, least of all a social worker who might bring unwanted reminders of her family and the life she'd left behind her.
    In no hurry to reach her destination, she slid her slippers lethargically over the highly buffed linoleum as she passed "Old Mrs. L.," who, at twenty-six, was ten years Mrs. Burrows's junior, but had shockingly little hair. She was in her habitual pose, fast asleep in a corridor chair. Her mouth was open so wide that it looked as though someone had tried to saw her head in two, her prominent larynx and tonsils displayed in their full glory for all to see.
    The woman let go an almighty rush of air from her gaping mouth, with a sound somewhat akin to air escaping from a slashed truck tire. "Disgraceful!" Mrs. Burrows declared, continuing down the corridor. She came to a door with a crude plastic label in black and white proclaiming it to be The Happy Room and pushed it open.
    The room was at the corner of the building and had windows on two of its walls that looked out onto the rose garden. Some bright spark on the staff had come up with the idea of encouraging patients to paint murals on the other two walls, although the final result hadn't been quite as anticipated.
    A five-foot-wide rainbow composed of brown strands of varying hues arched over a strange assortment of humanoid figures. One end of the rainbow curved down into the sea, where a grinning man stood on a surfboard, his arms outstretched in some form of clownish greeting, as a large shark's fin cut a circle through the water around him. In the sky above the dun rainbow, seagulls wheeled, painted in the same naive style as the other pictures. They had a certain charm to them, until one noticed the droppings shooting from their rear ends in broken lines, much as a child might draw gunfire in a battle scene, which strafed the heads of a group of figures with bloated human bodies and the heads of mice.
    Mrs. Burrows didn't feel at ease in the room, as if the fractured, mysterious images were trying to communicate hidden messages. For the life of her, she couldn't imagine why it was used to receive guests.
    She turned her attention to her unwanted visitor, staring disdainfully at the woman in nondescript clothes, who had a folder on her knees. The woman immediately got to her feet and looked at Mrs. Burrows with her very pale eyes.
    "I'm Kate O'Leary," Sarah said.
    "I can see that," Mrs. Burrows said, looking at the visitor's badge clipped to Sarah's sweater.
    "Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Burrows," Sarah continued, unperturbed, forcing a perfunctory smile as she offered her hand.
    Mrs. Burrows murmured a hello but made no move to shake it.
    "Let's sit down," Sarah said as she took her seat again. Mrs. Burrows looked around at the plastic chairs and intentionally didn't pick the one closest to Sarah, but chose another by the door, as if she expected she might want to make a quick exit.
    "Who are you?" Mrs. Burrows asked bluntly, sliding her eyes over Sarah. "I don't know you."
    "No, I'm from social services," Sarah answered, briefly holding up the letter she had retrieved from the doormat in the Burrowses' house. Mrs. Burrows craned her neck to try to read it. "We wrote to you on the fifteenth about this meeting," Sarah said as she quickly put the creased letter on top of the folder on her