Joan G. Robinson - When Marnie Was There

One day Sandra-up-at-the-Corner came to the cottage with her mother. Dinner was late that day, so Anna was caught before she had time to slip out of the scullery door.

Sandra was fair and solid. Her dress was too short and her knees were too fat, and she had nothing to say. Anna spent a wretched afternoon playing cards with her at the kitchen table, while Mrs Pegg and Sandra’s mother sat and talked in the front room. Sandra and Anna knew different versions of every game, Sandra cheated, and they had nothing to talk about.

In the end Anna pushed all her cards over to Sandra’s side and said, “Here you are. Keep them all, then you’ll be sure to win.”

Sandra said, “Ooh, that I never!” went bright pink and relapsed into sulks in the rocking chair. She spent the rest of the afternoon examining the lace edge of her nylon petticoat, and trying to twist her straight, straw-coloured hair into ringlets. Anna read Mrs Pegg’s Home Words in a corner and was thankful when they went.

After that she was less trouble than ever, and stayed out all day in case she might ever have to play with Sandra again.

One afternoon, coming back from the beach where Wuntermenny had been collecting driftwood, and she had been looking for shells, Wuntermenny astonished her by saying his first complete sentence. They were coming up towards the staithe when he suddenly jerked his head over his shoulder and said in a gruff, casual voice, “Reckon they’ll be down soon.”

Anna sat up in surprise. “Who will?”

Wuntermenny jerked his head again, over towards the shore. “Them as’ve took The Marsh House.”

“ Will they? When? Who are they?”

Wuntermenny gave her a look of deep, pitying scorn and shut his mouth tightly. Too late she realised her mistake. She had been too eager, asked too many questions. If she had just looked sleepily uninterested he would probably have told her all she wanted to know. Never mind, she would soon find out. She might even ask the Peggs.

But on second thoughts she decided not. They might think she wanted to make friends with the people, and that was not what she wanted at all. She wanted to know about them, not to know them. She wanted to discover, gradually, what their names were, choose which one she thought she might like best, guess what sort of games they played, even what they had for supper and what time they went to bed.

If she really got to know them, and they her, all that would be spoiled. They would be like all the others then – only half friendly. They, from inside, looking curiously at her, outside – expecting her to like what they liked, have what they had, do what they did. And when they found she didn’t, hadn’t, couldn’t – or what ever it was that always cut her off from the rest – they would lose interest. If they then hated her it would have been better. But nobody did. They just lost interest, quite politely. So then she had to hate them. Not furiously, but coldly – looking ordinary all the time.

But this family would be different. For one thing they would be living in ‘her’ house. That in itself set them apart. They would be like her family, almost – so long as she was careful never to get to know them.

So she said nothing to the Peggs about what Wuntermenny had said, and hugged to herself the secret that they would soon be coming to The Marsh House. And as the days went by she followed her fancy in her imagination as well, until the unknown family became almost like a dream family in her own mind – so determined was she that they should not be real.

ONE EVENING ANNA and Wuntermenny were coming home in the boat on a particularly high tide.

The sky was the colour of peaches, and the water so calm that every reed and the mast of every boat was reflected with barely a quiver. The tide was flooding, covering quite a lot of the marsh, and as they drifted upstream Anna had been peering down into the water, watching the sea lavender and the green marsh weed, called samphire, waving under the surface. Then, as they rounded the last bend, she turned as she always did, to look towards The Marsh House.

Behind it the sky was turning a pale lime green, and a thin crescent moon hung just above the chimney pot. They drew nearer, and then she saw, quite distinctly, in one of the upper windows, a girl. She was standing patiently, having her hair brushed. Behind her the shadowy figure of a woman moved dimly in the unlighted room, but the girl stood out clearly against the dark, secret square of the window. Anna could even see the long pale strands of her hair lifted now and then as the brush passed over them.

She turned quickly and glanced at Wuntermenny, but he was looking along the staithe towards the landing place and had seen nothing.

Anna ran home, turned the corner of the lane, then stopped. Mrs Pegg and Sandra’s mother were standing talking at the cottage gate – their faces brick red in the orange light of the sunset. Mrs Stubbs was a big woman with bright black eyes and a rasping voice. Anna did not want to meet her again, so she stepped back into the dusky shadow of the hedge, and waited.

“You’ll be coming over to mine tonight, won’t you?” Mrs Stubbs was saying. “My sister’s over from Lynn and she’s brought them patterns.”

“Has she now!” Mrs Pegg sounded eager, then hesitated. “Well, there’s the child –” she added doubtfully.

“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—’”