When Marnie Was There (5 page)

“Oh, I forgot about her! She’s a bit of an awkward one, ain’t she? My Sandra said—” the voice was lowered and Anna missed the rest of the sentence.

“Yes, well – maybe…” said Mrs Pegg, “but I don’t hold with interfering between children. If they don’t want to make friends, then let ’em alone, I’d say.”

“My Sandra was quite willing,” said Mrs Stubbs. “Put on her best dress, she did,
and
her new petticoat, but she says to me after, ‘Mum,’ she says. ‘Never did I see such a stiff, plain thing—’”

“Yes, well,” Mrs Pegg interrupted mildly, turning towards the gate, “don’t tell
me
what she said, for as true as I’m standing here, I’d rather not know.” She closed the latch with a click. “Any road, she’s as good as gold with us,” she added – defiantly now she was inside the gate. “But perhaps we won’t come tonight and thank you all the same for asking.”

“Just as you please,” said Mrs Stubbs. “Shall you be at the Bingo tomorrow night?”

“Yes, that’s right. I’ll see you at the Bingo tomorrow,” said Mrs Pegg, and went indoors.

Anna waited until Mrs Stubbs had gone, then slipped in by the back door. Mrs Pegg was bustling about, fetching bread and butter from the pantry. She looked a little flushed and her hair was untidy but she greeted Anna as usual.

“Ah, there you are, lass! Sit you down now. Tea’s just ready.” She turned to Sam as he put down his
paper and drew up a chair. “What’s on telly tonight?” she asked.

Sam looked surprised. “Weren’t you going up to the Corner tonight? I thought Mrs Stubbs said her sister was there?”

Mrs Pegg shook her head. “Not tonight. That can wait.” She glanced at Anna, then said, “Listen, love, next time you see Mrs Stubbs or Sandra, try and be a bit friendly-like, will you?”

Anna blurted out, “Is it because of me you’re not going?”

“Of course not, what an idea!” Mrs Pegg made a good pretence of looking surprised. “Only maybe they’ll ask you up to theirs one day, if you look friendly-like. That might make a bit of a change for you, eh?”

Anna mumbled, “I like it better here,” but Mrs Pegg might not have heard because she was again asking Sam what was on the telly.

“Boxing,” he said, looking slightly guilty, “but you won’t like that.”

“Oh, well,” said Mrs Pegg, “I’ll like it tonight and lump it. And that’ll make a bit of a change too.”

“It will and all!” said Sam, chuckling and turning to wink at Anna. “She’ll never look at boxing, no matter what I say—” But Anna had gone.

Upstairs in her room she sat on the edge of her bed, hating herself and hating everyone else. It was her fault that Mrs Pegg wasn’t going to the Stubbs’ tonight. Sandra, that fat pig of a girl, had called her a stiff, plain thing. Mrs Pegg – kind Mrs
Pegg – hadn’t wanted to listen and she had said she was as good as gold. But she wasn’t going to the Stubbs’ because of Anna, and that was
stupid.
She was silly and stupid. So was Sam, with his silly boxing. And as for Mrs Stubbs—! Mrs Pegg should have gone anyway, then Anna wouldn’t have felt so guilty. She looked at the framed sampler on the wall and hated that too.
Hold fast that which is Good –
but nothing was good. Anyway what did it mean? Was the anchor supposed to be good? But you couldn’t walk about holding an anchor all day long, even if you had one. You’d look sillier than ever.

She turned the picture to the wall and went over to the window. Kneeling on the floor she looked out across the fields, pink in the glow of the sunset, and let hot, miserable tears run down her face. Nothing was any good – Anna least of all.

For a moment she almost wished she was at home, then she remembered all the misery of that last half term before she came away. No, it was better here.

She knelt there, listening to the now familiar country sounds; voices from the fields, the distant rattle of farm machinery, and the roar of the last bus from Barnham as it came tearing down the hill and disappeared along the coast road. Then there was silence – only the odd cry of a bird from the marsh, and little ticking sounds that she could never quite identify. At night the silence fell like a blanket. When a dog barked you could hear it from one end of the village to the other.

Gradually, as the tears dried on her cheeks and the fields darkened, and the quietness became even quieter, she forgot about Mrs Pegg not going to the Stubbs’, and thought instead about the girl she had seen in The Marsh House. Why had she been having her hair brushed? It had been too early for bedtime. She had been wearing something light, surely not a nightdress so early in the evening? She had not been a very little girl. She had looked about the same age as Anna…

The thought struck her that the girl would have been dressing for a party. Yes, that was it. She would have been standing there in her petticoat, having her hair brushed, with a white party dress laid out on the bed nearby, and a pair of slippers on the floor – silver slippers. And now, with dusk already falling, she would be coming down the central staircase into the hall. There would be bright lights and there would be dancing…

Kneeling quite still by the open window, Anna sank into a dream, seeing it all as if she herself were there – not inside, but watching from the footpath outside. Through the narrow side window she could see the bright dresses passing and repassing. The faces of the people were vague, but she could tell they were laughing. Then all at once she saw them turn one way, to watch the fair-haired girl as she came down the great staircase, stepping carefully in her silver slippers.

And now, it seemed to Anna, she was farther away. She was standing on the marsh on the far side of the water, and
seeing the lights from the windows reflected in the creek, a wavering pattern of gold. The sound of music came over the water, only faintly and mingling with the soughing of the wind in the marram grasses…

So clearly did she see it all in her imagination that she felt it must be true – must be happening now. Getting to her feet she closed the window, then, stiff with kneeling so long, and trembling, partly with cold and partly with excitement, she limped softly across the room and downstairs. As she slipped out of the door she heard the shouts and roars of the television boxing match going on in the kitchen, and marvelled how grown-ups could spend an evening watching anything so dull.

She hurried down to the creek, running barefoot, her ears straining for the sounds of the music, her eyes straining to catch a glimpse of the lights which by now she felt sure would be spreading right across the creek. Then she turned the corner and stopped dead.

The creek was in darkness, the cottages and the boathouse were in darkness, and along where The Marsh House stood, only the black background of trees showed up against the sky. There was not a light anywhere, except for the distant revolving beam of a lightship which made an arc of light across the sky every half minute, then disappeared. There was no music either, only the soft lapping of water against the sides of the boats, and the sudden, feverish rattling of rigging slapping against masts…

She stood there for a moment, amazed. Then from far across the marsh came the mad, scary, scatter-brained cry of a peewit, and she turned and fled back to the cottage.

T
HAT WAS SILLY
, Anna thought next morning. Because she had been miserable about the way things really were, she had tried to make something imaginary come true instead. But that never worked.

She went down to breakfast thinking she would try and make it up to Mrs Pegg for missing her outing, by being helpful in some way.

“Shall I wash up?” she asked casually, standing beside her at the sink after breakfast.

“Lord no, my duck! That’s kind of you, but I’m used to it.” Mrs Pegg seemed touched, and a little surprised. “I’ll tell you what, though. You
can
do something for me. Pick me some sanfer when you’re down on the marsh, and on your way back pop in and ask Miss Manders if she’s any spare jam jars. If she has, get some vinegar as well. Sam’s a fancy to have some pickled sanfer again.”

The Peggs always called samphire “sanfer”, so Anna knew what she meant. She set off with the big, black plastic shopping bag and went down to the creek.

It was one of those still, grey, pearly days, with no wind, when sky and water seemed to merge into one, and everything was soft and sad and dreamy. Sam had said at breakfast that in weather like this his rheumatics were like Old Nick screwing the pincers on him, but Anna liked these days better than any. They seemed to match the way she was feeling.

The tide was out, and she paddled across to the other side without even turning to look at the old house. There was a purple haze over the marsh, which was the sea lavender coming out, and she thought she might pick some of that, too, when she had finished with the samphire.

For two hours she slithered about on the marsh, jumping over the streams, sometimes landing on springy turf and sometimes sinking into soft patches of black mud; hearing only the distant cry of the little grey-brown birds calling “Pity me! Oh, pity me!” from a long way off. The samphire
was green and juicy, though it only tasted of sea salt, she thought. She picked until the bag was full, then, deciding to leave the sea lavender for another day, she set off towards the Post Office.

Miss Manders looked at Anna over her spectacles and gave her a thin, tight smile. Anna gave her Mrs Pegg’s message, hearing, at the same time, someone come in behind her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw that it was Sandra and another girl.

“—and Mrs Pegg says if you can spare the jam jars, please can she have some vinegar as well,” she finished, aware that the two girls were looking at her sideways and that Sandra was whispering. The younger girl burst into a peal of laughter, then there was some shushing and quiet scuffling behind her.

When Miss Manders had gone out at the back to find the jars, Anna turned round with every intention of looking friendly, if she could. But try as she would she could not catch Sandra’s eye. She was now standing with her back to Anna, pretending to look at some postcards in a rack, and talking to her friend in a low voice. Again the other girl laughed, half glancing over her shoulder at Anna. Then Sandra, looking into a crate of ginger beer bottles, said loudly in an affected voice, “Ho, and hif you ’ave any old bottles to spare, kindly fill them with ginger beer, will you?”

They both laughed immoderately at this, and Anna stood there feeling awkward, but she was determined to
make Sandra look at her. She walked over towards her, intending to say “Hello,” but at that minute Miss Manders came back.

“Tell Mrs Pegg I have got some,” she said to Anna, “but I’ll have to look them out later. They’re away at the back.”

Anna said, “Thank you,” and moved towards the door. Then she remembered the vinegar. She went back and stood uncertainly behind the two girls, waiting while Miss Manders served them with two ice-cream wafers. Then the telephone rang, and Miss Manders, thinking Anna was only waiting for the others, shut the till and went to answer it. Sandra turned round and faced Anna.

“Why are you following me about?” she demanded.

“I’m not.”

“Yes, you are. Wasn’t she?”

The other girl nodded, licking delicately round the edges of her ice-cream. Sandra put out her tongue and kept it out, staring hard at Anna, then, very slowly and deliberately, without shifting her gaze, she lifted her ice-cream and ran it down the sides of her tongue.

Anna stared back, noting with pleasure that the ice-cream from the lower end of the wafers was about to dribble down the front of Sandra’s dress. But she showed no sign.

“I was only going to say hello—” she began coldly, but Sandra interrupted before she could finish her sentence.

“Go on, then, call me, call me!”

“What do you mean, call you?”

“Call me what you like.
I
don’t care! I know what you look like, any road.” She turned and whispered to her companion, giggling, and the blob of ice-cream fell trickling down her dress.

Anna looked at her scornfully. “Fat pig,” she said, and turned to go out.

But Sandra barred her way. She had just seen the ice-cream on her dress and was scrubbing at it furiously. “Now I’ll tell you!” she said, spluttering. “Now I’ll tell you what you look like! You look like – like
just what you are
. There!”

This startled Anna. She walked out of the Post Office – quite forgetting the vinegar – with all the appearance of not having heard, but knowing that Sandra had dealt her an underhand blow. Like
“just what you are”
she had said. But what was she?

Angrily she walked down the lane, tearing at the poppies in the hedgerow, and crumpling them in her hot hand until they became slimy. She knew what she was only too well. She was ugly, silly, bad tempered, stupid, ungrateful, rude… and that was why nobody liked her. But to be told so by Sandra! She would never forgive her for that.

She left the bag of samphire behind the outhouse, and went in to dinner looking sulky.