Филиппа Карр - The pool of St Branok

"I don't think she's in a fit state to talk," said Ben.

My mother took me up to my room. She took off my coat and for a second or two studied it in consternation, and putting my hand in the pocket of my skirt, I felt the ring I had picked up.

"What's that?" asked my mother.

"Oh ... nothing ... something I picked up."

"Never mind that now," said my mother, and I opened a drawer and put the ring into it, vaguely wondering why I had bothered to pick it up except that I had always been interested in things I found and did it automatically.

"We'll soon have you comfortable," said my mother. "You're soaked to the skin. We'll get you out of just everything."

She wrapped me in a blanket and put me into bed. I still could not stop trembling.

"Your father has sent one of the men to get Dr. Barrow," said my mother.

"I'll be all right."

"The doctor is going to have a look at you. You never know when you have a fall like that. I don't think anything can be broken."

I lay in my bed. My mother sat beside me and in due course the doctor came.

He examined my head. There was now a vivid bruise on my cheek.

"Did you fall on your face?" he asked.

"I ... I can't remember. It is all so confusing."

"Hm," he said. "Open your mouth. You've bitten yourself, I think. You must have done that as you fell. You've got some good bruises."

I was terrified that what he discovered would not fit in with our story.

"On the beach ..."he murmured, looking puzzled.

"I can't remember much about it. Suddenly I was down ..."

He nodded and turned to my mother. "Might be a little concussion. It's a good thing she fell on soft sand. It's the shock more than anything else. Keep her warm and I'll give her a sedative that will ensure a good night's sleep. Then tomorrow we'll see."

A good night's sleep! I thought: I shall never sleep peacefully again. I shall dream of that awful moment when he had his hands on me ... and when he fell down ... the trail of blood as we dragged him to the pool ... and that moment before he went down when he seemed to stare at me with his dead eyes and the water was pink with his blood.

I knew I could never forget and nothing would ever be the same again.

I did sleep deeply, due to what Dr. Barrow had given me, and when I awoke next morning my head was heavy. I felt dizzy and very hot. Memory came back to me and hung over me like a stifling cloak. I just wanted to get back to blissful forgetfulness.

My mother was alarmed when she saw me and Dr. Barrow was immediately summoned.

It was a blessing in a way. It saved me from too many questions and I believe that if I had had to face them while the incident was fresh in everyone's mind, I might not have been able to support our story.

I had a cold which, during the next few days, developed into bronchitis and then pneumonia. I was very ill and there was a possibility that I might not recover. I lived through the days in hazy dreams. For a lot of the time I was floating in a strange world. I was not sure where I was. I would see my mother's face watching me so tenderly that I felt I must get well. Then I would be back at the pool. I would see that face floating on the water and I would cry out "No, no." Then I would hear my mother's voice: "It's all right, darling. I'm here. Everything is all right."

There was a great deal of activity in the room. Through the haze of unreality I saw Grace Gilmore. She seemed to be there often. Ben came to see me. I was aware of him as he was standing by my bed; and I thought we were at the pool together. I started up.

I heard my mother say: "I don't think she should have visitors ... yet."

Then they were talking about the crisis. There were many people in the room ... faces which swam vaguely before me ... voices which came from a long way off. My mother was trying to smile, but I knew she was crying and I thought: I am dying.

And then the fever had gone and everyone was smiling and my mother was bending over the bed and saying: "How are you feeling, darling? You are better. You will soon be well."

I was like a new person—not a child any more. I had grown up. The world in which I had complacently lived before that day at the pool had evaporated. It was a different place now—a world in which terrible things could happen. The fears of the past had been shadowy ... something one only half believed; they were for other people; not for me. I had my parents, my secure home, and nothing could harm me. Ghosts and witches, cruelty and horror, pain and murder, that might happen to other people, but not to me and those around me. They were something to talk about, to frighten oneself about ... but with the delicious fear of childhood ... when you terrified yourself knowing that mother was close behind and you could run to hide yourself in her skirts and the bogey would go away.

But I had left all that behind now. I had come face to face with horror. I knew a little of what that man would have done to me before he killed me. The awful realization had come to me. It could have happened to me!

My mother would not let me look in the glass for some time, and when I did it was a stranger who looked back at me. Pale and thin, my eyes seeming bigger, but my hair ... it was short like a boy's.

My mother touched it gently. "It will soon grow. And look, it is wavy. We had to cut it off because of your fever."

I could not stop looking at that face in the mirror. There were secrets there. Those were not the innocent eyes of childhood. They had looked on the fearful realities of life.

I felt older. My illness had changed me. While I had lain there in Umbo, I had grown up. I knew now that what we did was the only thing we could have done. Ben had been right. He had killed a man but it was something which had had to be done; the man was a murderer; he would have committed more murders. It was not like killing an ordinary person.

But I had to stop going over it. I had to accept what was done. Ben had said I had to believe what we had said had happened and he was right.

I was feeling better. I was sitting up now.

My mother said: "Watson was down at the quay this morning and found this John Dory. He thought it would be just the thing to tempt you. Mrs. Penlock has done it in a special way. You'd better eat every scrap of it. You know what they are."

I smiled. I cherished every aspect of normality, of the return to the old days.

I heard my mother whisper to my father: "Better not say anything about the accident. It seems to upset her."

I was glad of that. I didn't want to have to talk of it. I did not want to have to lie more than was necessary. That was a great help.

I learned that I had been very ill for three weeks.

"Jack has been so upset," my mother told me. "He's been wanting to bring you his train and you know that is his dearest possession. You should have seen the glum faces in the kitchen. Mrs. Penlock is full of ideas as to what she is going to give you to eat. She says she is going to 'build you up' as though you are some sort of edifice. You would be the size of a house if she could have her way. We've all been so worried ... every one of us, and we are so happy now that you are getting well. But don't think you are going to rush it. You're going to spend another week in bed; and then we are going to take it very slowly."

"I must have been very ill."

She nodded, her lips trembling.

"You thought I was going to die."

"Pneumonia is very serious ... and there was a fever. You seemed to be so disturbed. But it is all over now."

All over? I thought. It will never be all over. He will always be there ... lying at the bottom of the pool.

I said: "How is Ben?"

"Oh, he has gone. He waited to see if you ... he waited until he knew you were going to recover. He couldn't go till then. Well, you know, he was only coming here for a month or so."