by K. M. Peyton
Geoff straightened up, coming away, shaking.
‘She’s—’
‘No! We’ll get her—she’s not touched, only her legs.’
‘Suffocated.’
‘The air’s getting in now. I’ll get in and try and lift that timber, enough to get her legs out.’
Pat loosened out a hole big enough to climb through. Geoff flung the bricks and stones out to enlarge it, and willing hands scooped it away, the access getting rapidly larger. The fragile cave trembled, the dust spiralling up. Pat went in, delicate as a cat. Geoff saw the danger and signalled a ‘hold it’ message. He wriggled in over the wall, holding out his arms to get a grip under Marion’s shoulders. He could only do it by feel, the light blotted by his own body, sensing Pat’s groping beyond him, trying to find a hold under the timber. Pat was doubled up, his back hard against the angel. Geoff retreated, seeing the difficulty, and got the torch and brought it gingerly back in. He shone it for Pat, lighting up his searching hands, scraped and bleeding like his own, the gloves long since shredded and discarded. He remembered, in that stupid moment, America and Ruth and Ephraim—their momentous problems dwarfed to trivia—forgot instantly, searching with the torch to help Pat. They worked together without any need for words, desperate to free the trapped legs.
‘Daddy,’ Marion said.
‘My little idiot.’ He knew he was crying, but it didn’t matter.
‘I’ve got it,’ Pat said. ‘If you’re—ready—’
Marion cried out once, and was silent. Geoff could hear Pat grunting and gasping, could virtually hear the timber moving by the noise of Pat’s exertions. He got his hands under Marion’s arms and pulled. She came some of the way screamed out again, and sobbed, ‘Daddy, daddy!’
Geoff, heartened enormously, rested momentarily.
‘Again,’ Pat said.
‘Try, Marion,’ Geoff grunted. ‘Your legs. Pull your legs—’
Pat made a noise like a discus thrower in the Olympics winning a gold medal, and Marion came to Geoff’s embrace, landing a cloud of dusty hair in his face. The stones slithered and crunched underneath them, filling their nostrils with plaster dust. Geoff heaved again.
‘Oh, daddy!’ Marion got her skinny arms round Geoff’s neck and he flung backwards, landing her like a fish over the top of the hole and on to the debris beyond. Eager hands reached for her, lifting her up.
Geoff groped up for the hole again, and found Pat on his way out, white and shaking.
‘Christ, give me air!’
‘Pat, she’s O.K.! It’s all right!’
They staggered out into the open, in a worse state than Marion. The crowd gathered round, beating them on the back in congratulation, everyone pushing and shouting, wanting to see where everything had been happening. The police pushed them back; the ambulance-men pounced to add Geoff and Pat to their collection.
‘No! Damn it! What have you done with her? Where is she?’
Geoff pushed his way to the altar steps where Marion was lying on a stretcher wrapped in blankets. She was smiling happily.
‘She’s all right,’ he said. ‘You’re not taking her away.’
‘We’re taking her to casualty.’
‘What’s wrong with her?’
‘Shock, bruises.’
‘She’s coming home.’
‘Yes,’ said Marion. ‘I want to go home.’
Alfred intervened, and the local doctor, and two policemen, and after a good deal of argument, the ambulance-men took their blankets and stretcher back and Marion got to her feet. Pat gathered her up in his arms. A newspaper-man took a photograph.
‘We’ll put her to bed,’ Geoff said.
‘I’ll come and see she’s all right,’ the doctor agreed. ‘To be on the safe side.’
‘Yes, but she’s not going away.’
Marion put her arms round Pat’s neck and buried her face in his wet, gritty pullover.
‘Pat.’
‘What is it?’
‘You’re still here.’
The sun was shining and the marshes lay serene and steaming in the early autumn light. The wind was merely playful, the sky washed-out and cloudless, a perfect day for flying.
Geoff said, ‘I’m afraid we’ve really messed things up for you this time.’
‘No.’
They went into the house. Geoff, from habit, put the kettle on. Pat laid Marion on her bed and left her with the doctor and came down, sat in the armchair.
‘I’m sorry,’ Geoff said. ‘Thank you, and all that. I can’t say it exactly how I feel—too difficult. You know what I mean. Words aren’t much good.’
‘No. It’s all right. I know—’
‘Your hands—I’m sorry.’
Pat looked at them dispassionately. ‘It’s not everything, playing a piano.’
‘Put it in writing.’
Pat grinned. ‘It’s too soon. I’ve never even said it before.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Go to sleep.’
‘Have my bed. Go up now. I’ll bring the tea up. I’ll ring Ruth.’
By the time the tea was made, Pat was fast asleep. The doctor came down and Geoff gave him Pat’s cup.
‘She’s quite all right. It’s a miracle. I’ve given her a sedative. Her legs are bruised, nothing serious. If she just keeps quiet for twenty-four hours—well, I don’t think there’s anything to worry about. She was incredibly lucky.’
‘Sugar?’
‘No thank you. What was she doing there, in the middle of the night?’
‘I don’t know. I suppose the storm kept her awake. More than it did me.’
‘Quite incredible, how that angel falling across the pew saved her.’
‘She’s done quite a lot for the angels in her time. Paying off a debt, you could call it.’
‘It’s a miracle.’
‘Yes.’
‘A tragedy for the church, but how much worse it could have been! You’re a lucky man, Geoff.’
‘Luckier this time than last.’
‘Yes. You could put it like that. Liz didn’t have luck on her side, I’m afraid.’
When the doctor had gone, Geoff poured another cup of tea and stood at the door, looking down the garden. His hands were shaking. Thinking of Liz, he was beyond tears, iced over. Even the tea would not warm him. And the doctor with his black bag of comforts was back in the village, sitting down to breakfast with his wife.
It was like watching a film, the effect of the sedative perhaps, not wanting to sleep, yet forced under, so that reality was blurred. With the doors left open, Marion from her bed could see across the landing to her father’s bed, and Pat rolled up in the eiderdown fast asleep. A blackbird was singing on the roof and it was a lovely day. The sun fell in great slashes across Pat’s form, turning all the grime on his face to gold-dust. He did not stir. Somebody came into the room very quietly. Marion recognized, even through the blur, a dark dress with red flowers on, dark hair, thin brown arms, reaching out. She lay down on the bed and took Pat in her arms, eiderdown and all, and laid her cheek over his, her hair falling over him. Marion saw Pat stir, unrolling from his cocoon, his arms reaching back. She saw his hands come slowly round Ruth’s body, taking her, holding her, red and bloody, mixed up with the flowers. The blackbird was singing its head off.
Marion slept.
* * *
When she woke again the sun was much lower. It was very quiet. She lay still, remembering everything. She got out of bed and went to the window and saw the church with its lopped tower and the hole in the roof. Colin Pewsey was up there, covering it with tarpaulins, and quite a lot of people standing round watching. It was all very peaceful now, quiet and warm.
She crossed the landing and went to look out of the other window, remembering how it had looked in the storm. The tide was high again, but the serpentine loops of the river glittered idly, calmly, across the marshes and the reeds were flowering to the sunshine, standing up straight. The garden smell
ed of roses. Geoff and Ruth and Lud were sitting side by side on the deck of Geoff’s boat, and Pat was in the river, naked, swimming all the dirt off him.
It was all over now, Marion could see. Her miracle had worked. She went back to her bed and sat with her knees pulled up, leaning against the pillows. She felt very hungry, and a bit shaky. She heard the others come up the garden and the sound of the kettle filling, voices talking quietly, laughing.
She called down. ‘Pat!’
There was a silence below at the sound of her voice, then Geoff’s voice, ‘Do you want to come down? I’m making a cup of tea.’
‘Yes, but I want to talk to Pat first.’
‘All right.’
Pat came up.
‘Privately,’ she said.
‘Of course.’ He was dressed in the kitchen towel, still wet. He sat on the bed.
‘You don’t have to tell me,’ he said quietly. ‘You were praying for another miracle, and it happened.’
‘Yes. How did you know?’
‘The same as you knew we needed one.’
‘Yes. It all happened at once. You were on the cliffs, weren’t you, and the grave—the grave—’
‘Went. I saw it.’
‘I know.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I don’t know that.’
‘I don’t think you should go in for miracles any more, Marion.’
‘No. I shan’t. We don’t need them any more.’
‘Well, not this moment.’
‘I never shall again. They don’t work how you expect.’
‘You can say that again.’
They sat and stared out of the window at Colin Pewsey’s work party.
‘We’re going back to London,’ Pat said.
‘Not America?’
‘Not this time, no. I feel differently about it—about quite a lot of things, actually. I’ll tell Mick to go to hell and I’ll have a quiet think. A long quiet think.’
‘Yes. After all, you’ve got till you’re about eighty, getting better all the time.’
‘I suppose.’
He was silent for quite a long time, and Marion didn’t say any more. She had never seen him look as he did now, completely at peace.
Ruth shouted up, ‘I’m getting the tea. Are you hungry now, Marion?’
‘Yes! I’ll get up.’
‘Ten minutes.’
‘I’m coming.’
Pat got up, but stood hesitantly. ‘There’s something else,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Only for you, not to anybody else.’
‘No.’
‘When that grave went, I saw the bones. I got you one, for a keepsake.’
‘Before they all went?’
‘Yes. I nearly went too, you see. I was all mixed up with the cliff and the bones, scrabbling to stay on top. I just happened to grab one, and I held on.’
‘Pure chance?’
‘No. I wanted the lot, but I couldn’t, could I? I shouldn’t have been there at all. It was daft.’
‘Where is it?’
‘In the car.’
‘I’ll get dressed. I want to see it.’
‘You remember what you said that time we walked there, that it might have been Swithin?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, it’s the tibia I’ve got. I asked the doctor, I showed it to him. He came back this afternoon to check on you, when you were asleep. And it’s broken. Only half a tibia, snapped off in the middle.’
‘A broken leg.’
‘Yes.’
‘And the church tower came down.’
‘At the same time, yes. I saw it. I got back on firm ground, holding my half a bone, and the whole sky lit up and I saw the church tower fall.’
‘That was me, praying.’
‘You’re some miracle-worker, I’ll say that for you.’
‘Yes.’
‘It’ll be safer in London. Don’t do it any more, Marion.’
‘No.’
It was a bit hard to take, thinking about it. Marion was still feeling fragile, and getting dressed was difficult, somehow. She decided to put the bone at the back of her mind for the time being. Pat got dressed too, in his filthy jersey and jeans, and they went down to tea.
It was scrambled eggs in the kitchen, with a cloth laid, and the evening sun streaming through from the open front door. It was very quiet and peaceful, nobody talking much. A great serenity pervaded the place, as if to compensate for the night before, the activity on the church roof finished, and nothing else yet started.
‘I wonder what will happen to the church now?’ Ruth said.
Curiously, Marion didn’t feel she really cared. Perhaps it was the sedative. It didn’t look very much different, once the first shock was over; there was an awful lot of it still left. Her angels could still fly, pinned back by Ephraim’s appeal. There were centuries still to come, and go, and nothing was in her hands any more. She had done what she wanted.
After tea she went out with Geoff to see Pat and Ruth off. Pat took a parcel out of the glove locker, wrapped in the old vest he used for cleaning the windows, and gave it to Marion.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
‘Thank you,’ he replied. He bent down and kissed her. ‘For everything.’
She decided that she did love him very much. Ruth kissed Geoff.
They drove away and Marion stood with her father until the car had disappeared round the curve in the lane. They seemed to stand for a long time. Marion could feel the sun beating on her back; their shadows crossed the lane and tipped the walls of their cottage.
She glanced at Geoff. There was nothing she could do at that moment, she knew, just as sometimes he knew when to leave her alone, when it worked best. She went back to the church and lifted the heavy door-latch, and went inside.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
Not for everything, but for most things. Thank you for being alive. Thank you, Herbert, for saving my life. She went through the rubble to where Herbert lay across the front pew, and stroked the dust off the great ropy tendrils of his hair. She could feel the marks of Swithin’s chisel under her fingers. She unwrapped Pat’s oily vest and lifted out the bone.
‘Swithin,’ she said.
But it was Pat’s face she saw, thinking of Swithin. Pat making music, as Swithin had made angels, the affinity binding them in her mind. And Swithin, for all that his bones, except one, were under the sea, was still here in his angels, and Pat was still in her life, in friendship.
It was strange, but she felt very happy, very much at peace. Trying to think why, in the face of all that had happened, it seemed to her to stem from the moment in her semi-consciousness when she saw Ruth go into the room where Pat slept and they had put their arms round each other. It had cut a cord, releasing her not only from a great burden of guilt, but showing her that, faced with fact, she had no regrets. The dream of someone coming as a substitute mother had been with her since Liz died, had crystallized, fleetingly, into possibility with Ruth’s presence, but now that Ruth had gone she saw quite plainly that she felt the need no longer. The realization filled her with confidence and a feeling of freedom.
She thought of the things she wanted to do that she had neglected: see Flint and try his skateboard first; see if she could sew like Ruth and make herself a skirt. Ruth had said it wasn’t a bit difficult. There was going to be a trip to London from school and she must ask Karen Norris if she would sit next to her in the coach. Karen was nicer than any of the girls in the village; she lived in Oldbridge. She had asked Marion to go back to hers for tea. She could come to mine too, Marion thought. Geoff would drive her home afterwards.
Everything was different now, somehow. She felt very contented, tired, like a cat in the sunshine. She walked out of the church and shut the door behind her.
Geoff was sitting on the front doorstep in the last of the sun, but he didn’t look like a cat. Marion went and sat down beside him and put her arms round him.
>
‘It’ll be all right,’ she said.
‘I daresay. You can’t win them all.’
‘I’ll look after you.’
‘God help me, I reckon you will.’
‘Truly. I’m different now. It will be better.’
‘If you say so.’
He gave her a tired smile, turning his head, and she kissed and hugged him. She felt very strong and confident. The sun was a glowing halo over the trees beyond the church, slipping away fast, but the shadows were full of the warmth of the day, kindly and familiar.
‘You’re tired. You must go to bed. And in the morning you’ll feel better.’
He allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. They turned their backs on the shadows and the silhouette of the stunted tower, and went indoors.
About the Author
Kathleen M Peyton is a top-selling author of more than thirty novels, the best-known of which is FLAMBARDS which, with its sequels, was made into a TV serial. She lives in Essex with her husband.
Also by K. M. Peyton
No Roses Round the Door
The Sound of Distant Cheering
Dear Fred
Pattern of Roses
Prove Yourself a Hero
Righthand Man
Flambards
The Edge of the Cloud
Flambards in Summer
Flambards Divided
Pennington’s Seventeenth Summer
Beethoven Medal
Pennington’s Heir
MARION’S ANGELS
AN RHCP DIGITAL EBOOK 978 1 448 17433 1
Published in Great Britain by RHCP Digital,
an imprint of Random House Children’s Publishers UK
A Random House Group Company
This ebook edition published 2014
Copyright © K. M. Peyton, 1979
First Published in Great Britain by Oxford University Press, 1979
The right of K. M. Peyton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.