Marianne Dreams

by Catherine Storr; Susannah Harker

  She was surprised when she found herself in the dream to notice that it was dusk. Lately, it had never been darker than the half-light which seemed to be daylight there, but now it was clear that night was approaching. She was in an unfamiliar room too, empty, cold, with a curious fusty unpleasant smell, the smell of mouldy damp stone. Against one wall, looking out of place in its surroundings, stood a brand-new shiny radio cabinet.

  Marianne left the room and walked across the landing to Mark’s door. She gave a preliminary knock and had half opened the door, when Mark’s voice said, ‘Half a moment. Don’t come in till I tell you.’

  Marianne waited obediently, and a minute later when Mark’s voice said, ‘All right, come in,’ she opened the door fully and stepped into the room.

  Mark was standing by the bed.

  ‘Wait!’ he said, before she had time to speak. ‘I want to show you something. Stay there by the door’

  He let go of the bedpost and took a step towards her: then another step, with the other leg, the weaker of the two. Then another with the left leg. Two more steps and he had reached Marianne, who put out her hands: but Mark shook his head without speaking, took one more step and touched the door, turned and faltered his way back to the bed again. Once there he pulled himself easily up by the rings and swung himself into bed. He grinned at Marianne.

  ‘Surprised?’

  ‘Frightfully. And I think it’s wonderful.’

  ‘Oh, no, not all that wonderful. I’ve been practising though, so I could do it before you knew I’d tried. I did it seven times this morning and I wasn’t too tired, either.’

  ‘Then you must be hungry,’ Marianne said. I’ll go and fetch the chicken.’

  The chicken had, of course, to be fetched from the downstairs room where it had first appeared and where it always reappeared after being eaten. Marianne went down and collected the chicken, and the plates, knives and forks on a tray and brought them upstairs.

  ‘There,’ she said, putting the tray on the bed. ‘You start. I’m not frightfully hungry, and I want to go and fetch something I’ve drawn for you.’

  She went across the landing to the other room and took hold of the radio cabinet. To her surprise it did not move. A sharp tug made no difference, and, on examining it all round, she found it was fixed firmly to the wall.

  ‘That’s funny,’ she thought. ‘None of the other things have been fastened like this’

  ‘Mark!’ she called out, ‘I can’t bring it because it’s fastened in here, but I’ll turn it on. Listen!’

  She turned one of the two knobs and went quickly into Mark’s room.

  ‘Listen to what? I can’t hear anything’ he said, his mouth full of chicken.

  ‘It’s a radio. I thought you’d like it. I expect it’s warming up now; it must start soon.’

  She held out her hand for the chicken, but dropped it again as a sound reached them from the farther room. It was a low booming noise, almost a growl, not continuous, but coming and going in snatches. Accompanying it, but going on all the time and much fainter, was a thin dry rustling sound, like that made when the wind blows through dry grass, or dead leaves shake on a tree.

  ‘Ugh!’ said Marianne shivering. ‘I don’t like that. I must have tuned it wrong. I’m sorry. I’ll go and try again.’

  She came back from the other room looking puzzled.

  ‘There are only two knobs and one is what turns it on and the other makes it louder or softer. There isn’t a tuning knob at all!’

  ‘Perhaps there’s only one station here,’ Mark said reasonably. ‘What happens when you turn it up?’

  ‘Just the same noise, but louder. Only, Mark, it almost sounds as if the humming sort of noise might be words, only I can’t understand them.’

  ‘Turn it up really loud so I can hear.’

  ‘All right. But I don’t like it. I wish I’d never drawn it. And it’s getting awfully dark.’

  ‘Never mind,’ Mark said, ‘the light will be coming round soon.’

  Marianne went back unwillingly into the other room. In spite of having no bars across its window it seemed even darker than the rest of the house. She turned up the volume control and immediately the house echoed with the low broken boom, and the rustle of dead grasses seemed to be in the room. She turned it down again.

  ‘Not too much,’ Mark’s voice called from the other room.

  ‘We want to be able to hear ourselves speak. But a bit louder than that.’

  Marianne regulated the volume as well as she could. When she went back to Mark, the room was so dark she could hardly see to reach for her share of chicken on the plate on the bed.

  ‘It’s a very queer noise,’ Mark said dubiously. ‘It’s not like any radio programme I’ve ever heard.’

  ‘I don’t like it’ Marianne said.

  ‘Well, turn it off, then’ Mark began. But as he spoke the sound altered and at the same moment the radiance of the great golden beam from the lighthouse passed the window.

  When it had passed Marianne stirred uneasily on the bed.

  ‘I head words!’ she whispered.

  ‘So did I.’

  ‘And something else!’

  ‘I wasn’t sure. Was it music?’

  ‘I wasn’t sure, either!’

  ‘Let’s leave it on and listen again next time the light comes.’

  They sat in silence. The low boom seemed more disjointed than ever; the rustling continued. Then, as the light swung round, each child heard distinctly the rumbling of harsh voices, which spoke all together. ‘Not the light! Not the light! Not the light!’ the voices said as it approached. For a moment as the light came fully outside the house, the voices and the rustling were silent; as it swept past they began but less distinct, uneven, as if shaken by the glare. And in that moment of silence, each child heard, infinitesimally far off, music, like the music of a trumpet a hundred miles away.

  ‘It’s THEM’ Marianne whispered. ‘They don’t like the light.’

  ‘And the rustling is the grass outside.’ ‘We’re hearing what THEY think. It’s horrible.’ ‘Still, we know that you’re right. THEY don’t like the light’ Mark said.

  ‘Yes. Mark, did you hear that other sound? Music? Very far away.’ ‘Yes, I did’

  ‘What do you think that is? It can’t possibly be THEM talking.’

  ‘I don’t know. I agree, it can’t be THEM, though. I think it might be something to do with the light. It comes at the same time.’

  ‘I do hope it is.’

  ‘Let’s hope THEY don’t like music any more than light,’ Mark said.

  ‘There seems to be an awful lot of them,’ Marianne said, shivering. ‘There are lots of voices.’

  ‘There couldn’t be any more, could there?’ Mark said dubiously. ‘Aren’t there just the number you drew at first?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Last time I looked out - it was a long time ago - there seemed to be more. But it might just have been that it was more this side of the house, and that some had come round from the other side.’

  ‘Could they move, do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ll look out next time the light comes.’

  She felt her way round the bed and across to the window, and as she reached it the sounds from the radio told her that the light must be coming. The low hum broke more frequently, the whisper of the grasses became more agitated and sibilant, and as Marianne took a quick look round the window-frame, the garden and plain were flooded with light and the low voices said urgently together, ‘Not the light! Not the light! Not the light!’

  When it was dark again Marianne went back to the bed.

  ‘Well,’ said Mark’s voice in the darkness.

  ‘Mark, there are more of them! Much more. And they’re closer.’

  ‘How can they be closer? They were only just outside the fence before.’

  ‘Yes, but now they’re inside. Some of them are!’

  ‘Right up to the house?’

  ‘Not
quite. But they’re coming. Mark, do you think they know we’re planning to get away and mean to stop us?’

  ‘I suppose so!’ Mark’s voice was gloomy. ‘And I should think they’ll manage it. I can’t see how we can get out if there are so many of THEM all just outside.’

  ‘We’d have to get out while they shut their eyes, like I said before. But I’m not going without you. You’ll have to come, Mark. If they can get right up to the house they might get in and then -‘

  She stopped.

  ‘All right,’ Mark said.

  ‘You’ll come? You’ll try?’

  ‘Not tonight. I must practise a bit more or I wouldn’t have a chance. I’m quite good on the bike, but I must be able to walk a bit more.’

  ‘Very well,’ Marianne said, a little disappointed. ‘When do you think you’ll be ready?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly. Time’s funny here. I think it goes quicker than I’m used to, because if I practise something one day I seem to be able to do it, very often, the next.’

  ‘Perhaps in a few days,’ Marianne urged. ‘We’ve got to be quick, because of THEM.’

  I know. I’ll practise hard.’

  After a moment, he said, ‘Marianne!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s one thing you haven’t thought of, isn’t there?’ ‘What?’

  ‘Where are we going to?’

  It was certainly something Marianne had never considered: yet, without knowing she was going to, she answered at once, ‘To the lighthouse first and then to the sea.’

  She couldn’t tell whether it was her certainty or because Mark saw himself that it was the only possible answer, that he agreed at once, ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘I wonder if we’ll need anything else when we go,’

  Marianne said. ‘I could draw some extra things if you can think of them.’

  ‘You ought to have a bike, too. Can you ride?’

  ‘Yes. But I don’t think there’s room to put another one in.’

  ‘Not anywhere in the house?’

  ‘Not in any of the rooms, except the one where the radio is and I don’t want to put it there, it would turn out wrong somehow, like that did’

  ‘What about in the hall?’

  ‘Yes, that’s a good idea. Anything else?’

  Mark considered. ‘Bicycle baskets,’ he said. ‘We ought to be able to carry food with us.’

  ‘We could take the chicken.’

  ‘And some sausages.’

  ‘And the eggs.’

  They both laughed. For perhaps the fourth time since Marianne had left the window the murmur of the radio rose to a babble, the light swept round and the proud distant music sounded in the instant of silence, before the rustle and the voices began again.

  ‘I hate that noise,’ Mark said uneasily. ‘Couldn’t you turn it off?’

  ‘I suppose I could,’ Marianne said. She was very unwilling to go into that dark room again. ‘I wish you would,’ Mark said. ‘It’s awfully dark.’

  ‘But you know just where it is, don’t you? Couldn’t you feel your way there and back?’

  ‘I’ll try,’ said Marianne, with a sinking heart.

  She went out of Mark’s room on to the dark landing and felt her way along the wall to the room opposite. She went through the open door and saw a dim light coming from the black hulk of the radio. In here, close to it, in the dark, the booming voices were more distinct. Marianne thought she could distinguish words, though so broken and confused still she could not be sure. ‘Watching’… ‘I am watching’…

  ‘Watch’… ‘We watch them,’ she thought she heard. She put out her hand to turn the knob, but at that moment, suddenly, the boom increased, became rhythmical with terror. ‘Not the light! Not the light! Not the light!’ cried the voices, boring into Marianne’s ears and hammering the sides of her head. She stepped back, cried out, ‘No!’ and then in the moment of silence and music, turned the knob. In the following quiet and darkness, she woke.

  16. The Escape

  Dr Burton came early on Tuesday morning, and pronounced Marianne fit to get up; so that afternoon, for the first time for more than two months, she put on her clothes and sat in a chair for an hour. At first, although her legs felt feeble, it was a delightful and exciting adventure: but after quite a short time it palled. Sitting in a chair was in some mysterious way much more exhausting than sitting up in bed, and it was not funny, after the first time, to try to stand up and find oneself on the floor because one’s legs simply wouldn’t carry one. Before the hour was up, Marianne was aching to be back in bed, and when she finally got there it was with tears of weariness and despair.

  ‘Never mind’ said Dr Burton, who had called in at the end of his evening round to see how she had got on. ‘You’re bound to be tired after the first time up. I expect you wish you were dead, don’t you? Everyone does when they have their first outing after two months in bed. Now tomorrow you can do exactly the same as you did tonight, then on Thursday make it an hour and a half.’

  Marianne thought, but didn’t say then, that she never wanted to get up again; she would rather stay quietly in bed for ever than feel so battered by fatigue. She slept without dreaming that night, and the next day, to her great surprise, found that she had quite recovered and was even looking forward to her hour out of bed. But again she was exhausted by the evening, too tired to draw, too tired to think about Mark, too tired even to remember the other world where so much was happening.

  ‘Tomorrow you shall stay up for longer,’ her mother said, as she tucked her up. ‘You really are getting on, darling. I’m so glad.’

  ‘I’m not,’ Marianne said gloomily, as she straightened her aching back in the bed. ‘And I don’t want to stay up for an extra half-hour. I feel like jelly after just one hour and I should think I’ll die if I have to stay up longer.’

  ‘I don’t think it’ll be quite as drastic as that,’ her mother said, laughing and kissing her. ‘We’ll see tomorrow, anyhow. Sleep well, Marianne, darling. Have nice dreams.’

  But that night again Marianne had no dreams.

  Thursday started badly. It was a grey depressing-looking morning and directly after breakfast Miss Chesterfield rang up to say that she was very sorry but she had a streaming summer cold and wouldn’t be able to come. So there was a whole morning to get through, with nothing particular to do, and the doubtful pleasure of getting up to look forward to in the afternoon.

  At about eleven o’clock it began to rain steadily; a fine drizzling downpour that looked as if it might go on for ever. Marianne felt that this was more than she could bear. She had been half-heartedly reading one of the Arthur Ransome books; but she knew it too well already to be really engrossed, and when the steady patter of the rain on the leaves outside had been going on for some time, she pushed it away from her impatiently. All the characters in the book were so active and well, they annoyed her; it seemed to emphasize her own feebleness. She lay for some time looking out of the window at the sheets of rain with very disagreeable reactions.

  ‘I don’t want to get up this afternoon’ she said to herself.

  ‘I hate feeling tired all the time, and it isn’t like being properly well. It’s neither one thing nor the other, not being well and not being ill, and I hate it. I suppose that’s how Mark felt the first time he got out of bed, but I didn’t know then what it was like. I’m not surprised he was so cross. I feel cross. Very.’

  It cheered her a little, however, to remember that Mark had been feebler than she was when he had first got up, and he had got stronger very quickly. ‘But that’s in a dream,’ she thought, ‘and time is different there. I’m sure it takes me longer to get well here than it does Mark there. I wonder how he’s getting on?’

  She remembered suddenly how very important it was that Mark should get on quickly in the house surrounded by Watchers. She pulled out her drawing book, found the pencil, and in the hall of the house she drew a bicycle which she hoped would turn out the righ
t size for her. She added baskets to both machines, Mark’s and her own, and then looked at her drawing of the road winding up to the hills. It looked extraordinarily naked; she drew in some bushes and a few trees in the foreground, but it seemed to her that the distant part of the road should remain as bare as the hills it climbed. She put a tiny door at the bottom of the lighthouse: it was essential they should be able to get inside. She was pleased with herself for thinking of this and was encouraged to draw a plan of what she thought the inside of a lighthouse might look like. Long, long ago she had been shown over one in Cornwall, but all she could remember now was an enormous number of steps leading up to the light at the top. She divided the tower into two large circular rooms and made the stair go up, as well as she could, through both, and up to the dome where the light came from. She drew electric lights in both the rooms and was engaged in putting in a tiny carpet with a very elaborate pattern, when her mother surprised her by coming in and announcing that she had finished all her shopping and cooking and could read aloud or play cards, or any game that Marianne chose, till lunch.

  ‘I suppose I am getting better,’ Marianne said doubtfully, as she got back into bed that evening, after her hour and a half of being up.

  ‘Much better,’ her mother said firmly. ‘I can see that you aren’t as tired tonight as you were yesterday, and you’ve been up for longer, you know.’

  ‘It’s awfully slow,’ Marianne said, sighing.

  ‘I’m afraid getting quite well after such a long illness is bound to be slow,’ her mother said. ‘But Dr Burton thinks you are getting on quite quickly enough. He especially doesn’t want you to hurry.’

  ‘Shouldn’t I do some exercises to get my legs strong again?’ Marianne asked, thinking of Mark. ‘I could sort of bicycle in the air to work my muscles, or touch my toes, or do somersaults on the bed.’

  ‘Not yet’ her mother said. ‘Perhaps later. But for the present you must just stay where you are and only get up a little more every day.’