When Marnie Was There (16 page)

T
HE WATER LOOKED
leaden. The tide was more than halfway in, and the staithe was deserted. Beyond the marsh a great dark purple cloud was coming in from the sea. Anna shivered and wished she had put on something warmer.

She went down to the water’s edge. If Marnie were looking out of her window she could not fail to see her, she thought, walking slowly along, kicking at pebbles and stooping every now and then to pick up a stone, a feather – it did not matter what. She examined each closely, seeing
nothing, concerned only with being seen herself, and moved slowly along the shore.

It began to rain harder. The cloud had moved overhead, and she could hear the heavy raindrops spitting into the creek. She straightened her back, saw that she was now opposite The Marsh House, and involuntarily, before she had time to stop herself, glanced up at Marnie’s window. Yes, she was there. Or was she? She looked back again quickly to make sure. And remained looking.

Marnie was in the window, staring out with an oddly twisted face – or was it the rain running down the glass that distorted it? Anna moved up the staithe, still staring, forgetting all her previous resolutions, and saw that Marnie was waving to her, calling out to her to come nearer. She was trying to tell her something.

She moved closer to the bank and stood looking up, not even noticing the rain which was now pouring down, or the wind which was whipping up the water into angry little waves; seeing only Marnie in her blue smock, pressed up against the glass. She was beating her hands on the window, and crying out in her old, loving, extravagant way, “Anna! Darling Anna!”

“What?” she shouted back.

“Anna! Oh, how I wish I could get to you! But I can’t. They’ve locked me in. And they’re sending me away tomorrow. I wanted to tell you – to say goodbye – but they wouldn’t let me out.

“Anna—” she wrung her hands despairingly behind the glass – “please forgive me! I didn’t mean to leave you all alone like that. And I’ve been sitting up here crying about it ever since. Say you forgive me!”

The words were almost carried away on the wind, and Marnie’s face was nearly obscured by the rain that streamed in rivers down the outside of the window. But Anna heard and understood. It was almost as if the words were coming from inside herself, so clear they were in spite of the wind and the rain.

And suddenly all the bitter grudge she had been feeling against Marnie melted away. Marnie was her friend, and she loved her. Joyfully she shouted back, “Yes! Oh, yes! Of course I forgive you! And I love you, Marnie. I shall never forget you, ever!”

There was so much more she wanted to ask her; whether it was really true she was going away, and where? And would she be coming back? But the rain was falling now in blinding streaks, slantwise, whipping her hair across her wet cheeks and stinging her legs; and Marnie’s face had become barely more than a pale smudge in the dark window.

Then, suddenly, as she stood there straining her eyes up to the house, she felt the shock of cold water swirling over her feet. She turned quickly and saw that the tide had come in behind her – a great mass of choppy, grey water, spreading wider and wider. Already the marsh was nearly covered.

She turned again to the window. Marnie’s face had disappeared completely, blotted out by the blinding rain. But she waved wildly, trying to smile a goodbye, and pointing along the narrow strip of shore, which would soon be covered. And suddenly, as she looked, it seemed to her that the house was empty after all. That there was no-one behind any of those blank, staring windows. It looked like a house that had been empty a long time…

Sobbing, she turned away and plunged along towards the end of the bank where the road began. Already the strip of shore had disappeared and the water was pulling at her legs. The tide must have come in extraordinarily quickly, and it was still rising. She could feel the stones and sharp pebbles, and bits of sea wrack that lined the edge of the staithe, cutting into the soles of her feet. She tried to grasp the long grass on the bank, hoping to scramble up but it was too slippery to hold and she fell back again.

Gasping and sobbing, she plunged on, her legs heavy as lead as they pushed their way through the weight of the water. Already it was over her knees. Rain and tears poured down her cheeks, her clothes clung to her, limp and sodden, and her hair slapped across her face like bands of seaweed. She was icy cold and soaked through. Only her throat was parched and burning.

It came to her that she might be drowned if she could not reach the bank in time. The water was now rising up her thighs, and she was only halfway there. But
she would not
be drowned.
People could do what they liked to her, but nobody could make her be drowned if she didn’t want to be. She
must
reach the corner.

Her mind leapt ahead. In her imagination she saw herself hobbling home dripping, and creeping upstairs to her own room. She had been nearly drowned, but nobody should know. Nobody had ever known anything that was important to her. Not how she had felt about being paid for, about being treated as if she was different, about people not knowing what they were going to do with her. Not even about Marnie, her first, very own best friend. And now she had gone! She sobbed at the thought, stumbled, and fell, choking, into the grey swirling water.

A
NNA
HAD
NEARLY
been drowned, and somebody did know about it. Wuntermenny coming up the creek in his boat, saw her fall just as he rounded the bend, and, thinking more quickly than he had ever thought in his life before, he steered straight towards her. In a moment he was up to his waist in water, had caught her up in his arms, and was wading towards the shore.

Mrs Pegg said afterwards that never would she forget the
shock of it, when Wuntermenny came tramping through the scullery just as she was unloading her shopping bag. She’d turned round and there they both were, pouring half the creek over her clean kitchen floor without so much as a by-your-leave.

More than that – Wuntermenny had then made the longest speech anyone had ever heard come out of his mouth. “Little lass were near drownded,” he had said. “Lucky that were blowing up nasty, so I come back and see’d her blundering about in water. Tide’s flooding uncommon fast.” Then he had laid her down on the sofa and said, “Heaviest catch I ever made, I reckon,” just as if the poor little lass were a cod fish, and stumped out again before ever Mrs Pegg could draw breath.

But that was later. For many days Mrs Pegg had neither time nor inclination to talk about it at all. And it was not until long after that she took to telling the tale as if it had been wonderfully exciting, almost funny, instead of quite terrible.

Anna was ill for a long time. She had feverish nightmares and woke screaming, and every bone in her body ached. But always there was someone there to break the terrible dream, and soothe her, or give her a drink. Once, to her surprise, it was Mrs Preston who was bending over her in a dressing-gown, holding a glass of water to her cracked dry lips.

“Auntie,” she croaked, and tried to smile.

Mrs Preston patted her hand and laid her gently back on the pillow. “Go to sleep, my pet,” she murmured.

Even in her half-delirium Anna thought, can she mean me? How strange. She had never heard her use such a term of endearment before. Then she did as she was told and fell into a dreamless sleep.

Gradually she grew better and was able to get up a little. Mrs Preston, who had been staying at the cottage helping Mrs Pegg, began to talk of going home again. “Uncle” needed her, she said. But the doctor thought Anna should stay on if possible, as the air here was so good for her.

“I’m wondering how you feel about it, dear?” Mrs Preston, perched on the edge of Anna’s bed, was casting anxious, sideways glances at her. “Would you
rather
come home with me?” Anna did not know what to say. “You have been happy here, haven’t you?” Mrs Preston went on. “Mrs Pegg says you have, and she and Sam want you to stay on. But of course I should hate to leave you here if you weren’t. What would you
like
to do?”

“Did Mrs Pegg
say
she wanted me to stay?” Anna asked incredulously.

“Yes, she did. She said they both liked having you about the place. But I wanted
you
to choose.”

Anna sensed a certain anxiety in the way Mrs Preston waited for her answer. “I’ll stay, then,” she said.

Mrs Preston got up at once and said brightly, “That’s settled then. I’ll go and tell them.”

Considering how relieved she must have been at her choosing to stay, Anna thought it odd that Mrs Preston
looked so suddenly upset when they parted. Just for a moment she held her tightly in her arms and mumbled something that sounded almost like, “wish you were coming – never mind, perhaps some day we’ll—” Then, without finishing the sentence, she let go and pretended to be buttoning up Anna’s cardigan, which was buttoned already.

Anna had just time to give her a quick, unexpected hug before Sam shouted up the stairs that the station bus was coming round the corner. Then she was gone.

Before long Anna was out and about again, and life at the cottage had settled back into its old routine. But for Anna things were not the same.

Since her illness a shutter seemed to have come down between her and everything that had happened to her just before she was nearly drowned. It seemed now as if it had all happened a long time ago. Sometimes she almost felt as if she were seeing Little Overton for the first time. Then she would remember Marnie.

Marnie had gone. There was no doubt about it. As soon as she saw The Marsh House again, Anna knew for sure. She stood for a long while gazing at it, wondering what was different, and could find nothing specific. The house just looked empty. She was not surprised. She had known in her heart that she would never see Marnie again. But secretly she mourned for her.

Another thing that was different was that there were more people about. The first of the summer visitors were
beginning to arrive; families with babies, and toddlers who splashed about almost naked in the shallow water on the sandy side of the creek. She helped two of them build a sandcastle one day, while their mother talked to a friend higher up the beach. She had never played with such little children before, and almost enjoyed it.

Coming across the marsh at low tide one afternoon, she found an old lady sitting on a camp stool, sketching. She stood behind her for a moment, quietly watching, and saw that she was painting the staithe and The Marsh House.

The lady turned and glanced up at her, and smiled. Instead of slinking away, as she would previously have done, Anna found herself smiling back. The lady was not so old after all – only about Mrs Pegg’s age.

“Do you think it’s like it?” she asked, pointing to the house in her picture.

Anna leaned forward, studying it carefully, and said yes, it was.

“I love that old house, don’t you?” said the woman.

“Yes,” Anna said.

The woman turned back to her painting. Anna waited, wondering if she would turn round again, but she didn’t, so she crept quietly away. But she was pleased and felt as if she had made friends with someone just by not running away.

She went along the main road past Pritchett’s one morning, and coming to the front entrance of The Marsh House was surprised to find the iron gates wide open. She
went in a little way and heard a sound of hammering, then following the bend in the drive she came in full view of the house, and stopped and stared.

She had never imagined it would look like this. It was just as attractive as the old house by the water. For some reason she had always thought of the front as if it were some quite different place. Now, for the first time, she realised what she must always have known really; they were two sides of the same house. And this side was, if anything, even more attractive. It had a warm, welcoming look which she had never expected.