Marnie (8 page)

A middle-aged woman in a striped apron let me in. He was in a room with open french windows that looked over one of the lawns towards some pine trees and the golf course. One of his legs was up
on the sofa and he was watching a race on TV.

He smiled and said: ‘How are you? Sorry to bring you over like this. Do sit down.’

I smiled back and gave him the programme. ‘I expect you know what Mr Ward wanted to know. Is your ankle better, Mr Rutland?’

‘It’s doing fine. Now let’s see.’ His thick wad of black hair was as untidy as ever, but in an open-neck shirt and old flannel trousers he looked less pale than in a city
suit. It was funny that he looked less delicate when he ought to have looked more.

While he turned over the programme I looked at the TV.

‘Yes, Ward was right. I don’t like this a bit.’ He took a pen up off the table. ‘Hot, isn’t it. Did you come by taxi?’

‘By hire car. Yes. He’s calling back in fifteen minutes.’

‘Switch that thing off if it annoys you.’

‘No . . . it’s nearly over. It’s Kempton Park, isn’t it.’

He began to write on the margin of the programme. ‘Are you interested in racing?’

‘I love it.’

He looked up as if he’d caught something different in my voice. ‘D’you often go?’

‘Not often. When I can.’

‘Going to race meetings seems the sort of thing one does in company or not at all. But perhaps you do have company?’

‘Not now,’ I said, remembering in time that I was a widow.

‘Your husband was fond of it?’

‘Yes.’

He went on tinkering with the programme. There was a rumble of thunder. It began as nothing but came nearer, bumping downstairs like a garden roller. I got up and switched off the TV just before
the race finished.

He looked up when I didn’t sit down again. ‘This will probably take me another five minutes. If you like roses go out in the garden. They’ve been very early this year, but
there’s a bed of Speke’s Yellow round the corner.’

‘I think it’s going to rain.’

He nodded. ‘Perhaps you’re right.’

The room really was dark now. The sky outside was a ghastly coppery yellow and the leaves of a tree by the window glistened like old spoons. There was a flicker of lightning that made me jump
about nine inches, and I did a graceful retreat towards the back of the room.

Old Lucy Nye. You couldn’t get away from her, you really couldn’t. ‘Cover the mirrors, dear,’ she’d say. ‘If you see the lightning in ’em you’ll
see the Devil
peering
out at you. ’Tis true. ’Tis God’s way of showing you Hell. Cover them knives; let the lightning get in ’em and it’ll get in you next time
you pick ’em up. I seen folk struck by lightning, split like a tree. I seen a man with his clothes cut in ribs, his face black and purple, his poor burned hands twisted up like he was boxing.
He was still alive when I got there even though ’is eyes and face had gone . . .’ You couldn’t beat her at that sort of X-certificate stuff.

It was nearly too dark to see at the back of the room, all shadows – and the furniture was pretty depressing anyhow. There were shelves with old cups and figures and vases on them, some of
the vases chipped and broken, and some were so smothered in old dry mud or clay that you wanted to get at them with a scrubbing brush. Just in front of the shelves was a grand piano as big as two
coffins, and on the piano was a photograph of a young woman standing at the entrance to what might have been a bit of Stonehenge. Dawn had been quite right; she wasn’t pretty; her face was
too long; but she’d got nice hair and her eyes were big and bright.

A flash of lightning: the thunder that followed was near and nasty and noisy. ‘We’re all corrupt,’ Lucy’d say, holding me on her knee as if I was going to slip down a
nick somewhere. ‘We’re corrupt an’ the worm’ll eat us. But better be eaten than
burned
. See that one, ah, ah, nearly got us! Come just inside the window, it did, I
seen the tongue flickering. Just didn’t reach us. The Devil’s out tonight all right, lookin’ for ’is own. Keep your ’ead covered, dear, don’t
look
at it,
guard your eyes!’ You couldn’t beat Lucy, she really was laughable. I laughed.

He looked up, but I turned the laugh into a cough. ‘That’s about it,’ he said, looking again at the programme. ‘Anyway it’s decently balanced now. Look, can I
explain it to you in case Ward doesn’t follow?’

I went back to his sofa half a step at a time and he began to explain. But while he was doing it there was a flash that cut right across us, and I gave a yelp and dropped the sheet I was
holding.

‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘did it startle you?’

I began to say something, but it got nowhere in a rattle of thunder that stamped down on the house. The whole room shook and shivered like with an earth tremor. Then there was an awful
silence.

I could see he was waiting for me to go back to him by the window but I didn’t. So he said: ‘Put the lights on if you like. The switch is by the door.’

I went over and fumbled around, but I couldn’t find it and my fingers were trembling. There was not a sound outside, no rumbles, no rain.

‘It’s like waiting for the next bomb to drop, isn’t it,’ he said. ‘Would you like tea? It’s nearly time.’

‘No, thanks. Shall I help you away from the window?’

‘No, I can get about with a stick.’ There was a wait. ‘I think it’s moving away.’

‘Sorry; I always get in a panic over a thunderstorm,’ I said.

‘That’s rather surprising.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, when you ask me, I don’t know. Except that perhaps you don’t give the impression of being a person who would get in a panic easily over anything.’

‘Ho . . . you don’t know!’

‘Quite true. We don’t know each other really at all. Look, it’s beginning to rain.’

I edged diagonally nearer the window. Two spots the size of shillings had fallen on the step and were spreading as they dried.

He put down the proof programme and eased himself out of his chair. Then with a stick he got up.

‘You interested in Greek pottery?’

‘I don’t know anything about it.’

‘I noticed you looking at it. They were my wife’s things. She collected them, mainly before we were married.’

‘Oh.’ Another rattle of thunder.

‘What about my taxi?’ I said.

‘Oh, I doubt if he’ll be back yet.’

‘I don’t want to go in this, anyway.’

‘Don’t worry, it’ll soon be over.’

I suppose he saw I was in a state, so he started talking about the Greek things to take my mind off it. I heard him say something about Crete and Delos and so many hundred bc, and he put a
little pot in my hands and told me it was a stirrup cup, but all the time I was waiting for the next explosion.

It came. The room lit up – two mirrors, the tiles of the fireplace, the glass over the photographs, all flickered and winked, then there was darkness. Then there was a sound as if the sky
was made of cheap tin and was cracking under the weight. Then the sky split open and the weight fell on the house.

Death and disease and disaster. Thunderstorms and judgment and corruption. The worm dieth not.

‘And did she – bring it back – with her?’ I asked.

‘Yes. I don’t know if it does anything to you, but to me, to hold in my hand as my personal property a piece of pottery that has been turned by someone living five hundred years
before Christ . . .’

Another flash was followed right on top by a great tearing roar of thunder, all round our ears.

‘That was a bit close,’ he said, looking at me. I wondered if he could see the cold sweat on my forehead. Anyway he hobbled across and switched on the lights. ‘Sit down, Mrs
Taylor, if it worries you that much. I’ll get you something to drink.’

‘No, thanks.’ I was irritable as well as scared.

‘The chances of being struck by lightning are awfully small.’

‘I
know
that. I know all the answers.’

‘And it doesn’t help?’

‘No.’

He said: ‘In a sense I suppose you and I are in much the same boat.’

‘I don’t follow.’

‘Well, you have lost your husband recently, haven’t you?’

‘Oh . . . oh yes. I see how you mean.’

He put the cup back and shifted a couple of other things on the shelves. ‘How did it happen – with you?’

‘Well, it was – it was very sudden, Mr Rutland, Jim – was on a motor bike. I just couldn’t
realize
at first, if you know what I mean.’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Then when I did begin to realize I felt I had to get away. I couldn’t have stayed. It’s much worse, isn’t it, like you, to have stayed.’

He eased his foot. ‘I’m not sure. In some ways it’s a challenge. In others it’s a comfort, to be among the things that she knew . . .’ He stopped. ‘One hears
a lot about the way one
should
take these things but when it comes to the point it’s a new page, absolutely new. What you write on it is anybody’s guess. The only thing certain
is that it never runs to rule.’

The lull came to an end with a flash and an explosion like a bomb hitting the damned house. The lights went out and there was a crackle and a crash outside. I don’t know who moved first
but we somehow collided. I was in such a panic that I didn’t know it was him until some seconds later. Then he seemed to be holding me while I trembled. I was trying to get my breath.

In the silence there were voices somewhere. It was the woman in the apron.

Then it began to rain. The noise grew until it was a noise like the drums at a firing squad.

I was standing on my own now and he had moved to the door. The woman came in. ‘Are you all right, sir? It’s that maple tree: all down the side; and the lights has fused! Lucky you
wasn’t by the window: I was afraid for you! All right, miss? There’s a car outside. I wonder: oo, look, yes, see it’s broken the glass in the dining-room window!’

Mark hobbled back towards the window, but I wouldn’t go. By the time I got half-way I could see the lawn already under water and bobbling like with fish, and rose petals had drifted off
the trees. A branch of a tree had been split and had fallen across the step.

‘It’s real dangerous today,’ said the woman. ‘Worst I ever remember.’ She pulled the french windows shut and bolted them. There was water already on the carpet.

‘There’s some brandy in the dining-room, Mrs Leonard. I think Mrs Taylor would like a drink.’

I sat down in a chair well back in the room, clutching my hands together to keep them still. He seemed cheerful, more cheerful than he had before, as if the whole foul thing was rather fun.

‘The chances of being struck by lightning are very small,’ he said. ‘In future I’ll keep my big mouth shut.’

‘That taxi-dr-driver. He’ll be get-getting drenched.’

‘Not if he stays where he is.’

‘I really can’t go yet, not till this is over.’

‘I don’t expect you to.’

‘Mr Ward will be fuming. He wanted the proof back by four.’

‘Let him wait. It won’t do him any harm to wait.’

There was another clatter of thunder as Mrs Leonard brought in the bottle and the glasses, but after that last crack ordinary thunder seemed nothing. He poured me something. ‘Swallow this
down. And you too, Mrs Leonard.’

I swallowed some and coughed. It was as strong as paraffin. But I gulped at it and you could feel it like fire, burning as it went down. Mrs Leonard went out to see if there was any damage
upstairs. I began to let go of my hands.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘I wonder who won the three-thirty.’

‘Who was leading when you switched off?’

‘North Wind. But Gulley Jimson was the favourite.’

After about ten minutes the lights came on again, but by now you hardly wanted them. The rain had begun to ease. Water still dripped from the gutter and gurgled in the pipes. Mrs Leonard put her
head in to say there was no damage upstairs. He rang Mr Ward to say what had happened.

I got up to go. I was still quivering like a drunk round the knees, but he couldn’t tell that. He gave me the proofs and hobbled with me to the door. He was friendly and easy. You’d
hardly have known him. When we’d had tea after the rose show he’d been picking his way, not sure of himself or something. Now it was different. But there still didn’t seem much
risk of him heading the way of his cousin.

When I got in the taxi I began to feel a bit cheap and ashamed of myself, which was something rather new for me. I thought at first I was developing a disease. It took a time to work out what
was wrong; and then at last I pinned it to that conversation we had had about me losing my husband and him losing his wife.

With Susan Clabon taking her holidays from 10 September until the 26th the best date to set my sights on was Thursday the 22nd.

The staff was paid from eleven o’clock onwards on a Friday morning. Making out the pay packets was quite a major operation. In calculating a journeyman’s wages – that is, a
printer – you had all sorts of additions and subtractions to make. First you put down his basic wage – say £11 a week – then to that you added overtime, which might be
£4 in a week. Then there was merit money which was a sort of bonus bribe to keep everyone happy, which might be £3. Then in some cases there was an agreed extra if the work was
specially awkward. When all that was added up you began with deductions. First there was Lost Time – if anyone was late or absent – then each man had his PAYE number, which of course
was usually the same over a period. Then there was National Health, and finally there was Voluntary Contributions which were not listed separately but which might be two or three small items for
the annual dinner and the yearly summer outing, etc.

Susan Clabon and I operated together, one working the machine and the other putting the money in the pay envelope along with the slip showing how the wages were made up. Usually I did the second
part, and then Susan would check the money before sealing the envelope and putting it in a flat tray against the number of the particular printer or binder. These were usually finished on Thursday
evening before we left and locked in the safe until the following day; but sometimes we had to run the work over into Friday morning.