The Winter House

by Unknown

  There was a subject they needed to clear away, though, before – before whatever was to happen next.

  ‘Do you see much of Ollie?’

  ‘Yes. He’s my best friend, after all.’ He grimaced at the innocence of the phrase – best friend – and then added, ‘Apart from you. And that’s different.’

  ‘What happened between the three of us…’

  ‘What happened happened, and we all behaved foolishly in our different ways.’

  ‘When you ran away…’she said, then asked what she had never before dared because she had dreaded the answer ‘… did you ever think, I mean, ever let yourself imagine…’ she took a deep breath ‘… killing yourself?’

  ‘No. Yes. I mean, no, I didn’t think of it but, yes, of course I imagined it. Sometimes you just want the hurt to stop. That’s all you can think of. But you have to hold on to the knowledge that this will pass, even when everything in you tells you it’ll go on hurting for ever.’

  Marnie heard George’s voice: ‘Don’t hurt him.’ Terror rose in her, like dark water. ‘Do you still get like that?’ she managed to ask.

  Ralph gave her a little smile. ‘People don’t change, not really,’ he said. ‘At best, I think they learn – if they’re the lucky ones, that is – to manage who they are. So, yes and no. Of course I do sometimes – that Ralph-the-boy you were talking about is still there and always will be, I guess. He won’t go away. But now I know what to do.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I know how to hold on.’

  The waiter arrived, muttered at the sight of their barely touched plates and picked them up. ‘Was everything all right?’ he asked them, with bitter politeness.

  ‘Everything was lovely,’ said Marnie.

  ‘It was,’ said Ralph. ‘It is.’

  They looked at the pudding menu and decided they only wanted coffee, which came with little almond biscuits on a side plate and the bill. The restaurant had emptied and they were alone in their corner. Outside, it was now quite dark. Ralph shivered.

  ‘What?’ asked Marnie.

  ‘I’m happy.’

  ‘Oh, Ralph.’

  He put out a hand and covered hers. She let it rest there. They looked at each other for a long moment and Marnie could feel her heart knocking against her chest. Very slowly, she put her other hand flat against his cheek. He gave a sigh and didn’t move. She leant forward across the table, sliding her hand to cup the back of his head under the soft clean curls.

  ‘Marnie,’ he said. He looked stupefied with bliss and she had a clear sense of her power over him.

  ‘Hello,’ she said softly, and kissed his mouth.

  ‘Marnie, I want to ask you.’

  ‘Yes?’ She smiled at him and lifted his hand to her lips. She already knew what lay ahead. The walk home (where, though? He lived in Cambridge and her grotty little room was miles away), hands plaited, leaning in to one another, the night together, the way he would look at her.

  ‘I asked you once before, long ago when I was still a kid. Will you marry me?’

  Marnie felt as if someone had punched her hard in the stomach. Ralph’s shining face blurred before her eyes and she heard herself gasp in shock. ‘Oh,’ she whispered. For now she understood – and how could she have been so blind, so stupid and so monumentally cruel? Ever since their days in Normandy, when he had turned up like a soggy knight to rescue her, he had been planning this. That was why he had ended his relationship with the beautiful linguist; that was why he had invited her here this evening and looked so solemn and illuminated by joy. And he thought – no, she saw now with horror that he was sure – she would say yes.

  ‘I’ll never love anyone as I love you,’ he said. His face was blazing with joy. ‘You redeem me. You’re my home.’

  ‘But this isn’t what I meant. I mean – you can’t just –’ She stopped. Of course he could. This was Ralph, master of the unexpected and the absurd; Ralph, the last true romantic who had made her into his muse.

  ‘Please, Marnie, tell me you will.’ Ralph’s face had lost its look of suffused tenderness and had become pinched and chalky.

  ‘I thought we would make love,’ she said at last. ‘And then see what happens.’

  ‘I don’t want to spend a night with you, I want to spend a life with you.’

  ‘But, Ralph, darling Ralph.’ Marnie wanted to laugh hysterically, weep, run appalled from the restaurant. She put a hand on his arm. ‘We don’t know each other like that yet. We haven’t even kissed properly.’

  ‘I know you.’ He wrenched away his arm. ‘Through and through.’

  ‘No. No, you don’t. Not like that. You know me as your friend Marnie, the girl you met when we were barely out of childhood. This is different.’

  ‘No. It isn’t different. Everything meets. You’re my friend and you’re my soul-mate. And I’m begging you to marry me.’

  ‘Can’t we just…’ The words died. She couldn’t kiss him now, hold him close. The stakes were too high. He had made everything impossibly serious.

  He sat up straight in the chair, formal and intensely serious, in despair. ‘Marry me, and I’ll devote my whole life to loving you and making you happy.’

  There was a fleeting moment when Marnie thought she would say yes: because she loved him, liked him, knew him, because he loved her too – had laid his soul at her feet – because she knew that nobody would ever feel for her, as he did, such unconditional adoration. But even as she imagined it, she saw her life quite clearly: she would mother him, care for him, follow him, fight off his hungry ghosts and save him, give him the home he had longed for all his life. And she, imprisoned by his love, would simply disappear.

  ‘If you make me say it, then… no, Ralph.’

  There was a moment of terrible silence. His figure seemed to dwindle in front of her; his face shrank, his eyes grew darker in his face. The light had gone out. ‘No,’ he repeated, in a rusty croak. ‘No?’

  ‘No, Ralph. Not like this.’

  ‘But I thought…’ he whispered ‘… I thought…’

  ‘You’re in love with an idea,’ she said helplessly. ‘I’m flesh and blood.’

  ‘An idea. You think you’re an idea to me?’ His eyes burnt at her. ‘How can you say such a thing?’ He stood up. ‘Is this an idea?’ With one swipe of his hand he sent the coffee cups crashing to the floor, where they shattered. ‘This?’ The biscuits flew like tiny frisbees through the air.

  ‘Stop, Ralph!’

  ‘Sir? Sir?’

  Their waiter was hurrying towards them across the empty room, on his face an expression of horror.

  ‘Flesh and blood?’ said Ralph. ‘Like this?’ And he struck himself in the chest, hard.

  ‘Don’t, Ralph. Don’t do this. Do you hear?’

  ‘I’m going to call the police,’ said the waiter. ‘Drunk and disorderly.’

  ‘Why? What have I done? Broken your cups? Here’s the money.’ Ralph took out his wallet, snatched several ten-pound notes and threw them onto the table as another man – the chef, to judge from his apron – joined the waiter. ‘And the bill – how much was the meal? Here, take this.’ He thrust a wad of notes at them. ‘Is that enough? You can have everything I’ve got. I don’t need it any more.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Marnie. ‘We’re going. I’m really sorry.’

  She tried to take Ralph’s arm but he jerked away from her as if scalded. ‘If you care about me at all,’ he said, ‘don’t try to help me.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  He stared at her blindly. ‘Going? I don’t know. Does it matter?’ And then, all of a sudden, the anger ran out of him and his face softened and crumpled, became harder for Marnie to bear. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said kindly. ‘I won’t do anything stupid. That would be inexcusable.’

  He left the restaurant and Marnie watched him walk by the window, but he didn’t look at her. He passed from her view like a figure dissolving into the shadows.

  She bent down and
picked up shards of china from the floor. The waiter gave her a glass of water and hovered beside her, solicitous and embarrassed, while she drank it thirstily. Then she, too, left. She walked through the empty night streets and at first she thought she was going to go dismally back to her grim little room in Lewisham. But then she found she was walking instead in the direction of Liverpool Street station, past the grand City buildings where lights were still on in the empty offices.

  She arrived in time for the slow train home, which stopped at every small station on the way, disgorging passengers as it went. Her carriage seemed full of half-drunk men in frayed suits, eating fried chicken out of paper bags or sleeping with their mouths open and their eyes flickering in dreams. Marnie pressed her forehead against the vibrating window and stared past her own reflection at the darkness as city gave way to country. She could make out rivers and fields under the starlit sky. A canal, a hamlet, a church with a steeple, an old warehouse with broken windows. She saw a fox on a siding: it lifted its muzzle and gave her a yellow glare, then trotted into the undergrowth.

  At last she arrived at her station and climbed out. It was late and there were no taxis so she decided to walk. It was only a few miles; she’d walked it dozens of times, though never, she thought, alone in the small hours. She’d walked it with Lucy, with Ralph, with Oliver, with all of them together. She remembered a time coming back from a concert when they’d all held hands in a chain and sung as they went. She remembered a time with Oliver, so wrapped up in his embrace, his lips against her hair, that their feet tangled and they stumbled. Here was the pub she had been to with David and never again because it brought her too many feelings of unresolved guilt. Here was the little café that had bought one of her charcoals. She didn’t know if it still hung on the far wall. The second-hand-clothes shop where Ralph had found most of his outlandish moth-eaten garments – that old trench coat, the white drainpipe jeans, the velvet jacket.

  Now she was out of the town and on to the smaller road. Lights petered out, but tonight the moon, though only half full, was high in the sky and bright enough to cast a shadow. She walked slowly; there was no hurry, after all. Could she smell the sea yet? Hear its faint steady roar in the distance?

  By the time she came to the track leading to the house, it was dawn. A rim of orange light curved along the horizon, casting a dull glow on the water. Birds were already singing. Marnie could see a wren in the hedge beside her. There was dew on the grass and her feet made tracks over the lawn. The hens clucked in the run as she passed. There was an extra car in the drive, which meant Emma had B-and-B guests, but no lights were on behind the closed curtains: everyone was still asleep.

  Marnie didn’t have her keys with her so she settled on the bench outside the front door and closed her eyes. The birdsong grew louder and even through the lids she could see the light strengthening as the sun rose above the horizon. She opened her eyes and watched as it climbed the sky, large and orange-red, with a wisp of cloud trailing across its centre. It was going to be another glorious day – and she remembered how she used to feel, looking out of her bedroom window at the morning sun on the water.

  She felt surprisingly awake, so she stood up and walked down the garden and onto the path that led to the shore. Her feet crunched over the shingle, where a ragged hem of waves foamed. She squatted near the water’s edge and searched for a stone with a hole at its centre that would bring her a wish. She found one, irregular and rusty-brown until the water licked it when it turned golden, and held it tightly in her hand. She would wish that Ralph would be all right. She would wish that this had never happened. She would wish the clock to turn back. She would wish.

  From here, the house was invisible, but as she came back over the slight hill she noticed that the lights were on in the guest room and the kitchen. Drawing nearer, she saw her mother through the window: she was standing at the stove, turning rashers of bacon in the pan. Marnie could see the familiar frown, the impatient movements, and smiled to herself – Emma had guests she didn’t like so she was ruining their breakfast for them.

  She rapped her knuckles on the pane and Emma turned, putting her hand to her eyes against the glare of the sun. She didn’t appear particularly surprised to see her, but the frown disappeared, and in its place there was a smile that was both warm and anxious. ‘Marnie!’ she said at the door, wiping her hands on her striped apron, then putting them on her daughter’s shoulders. ‘This is a lovely surprise.’ And she kissed her on both cheeks. ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Marnie, although the question brought tears to her eyes. ‘Except I think your bacon’s burning.’

  ‘So it is.’

  ‘Shall I make breakfast? How many are there?’

  ‘Three.’

  ‘You don’t like them.’

  ‘You won’t either,’ said Emma, ominously. She undid her apron and passed it to Marnie. ‘Go on, then. It’ll keep you in practice. The sausages are already cooked and in the oven.’

  Marnie threw away the burnt bacon and laid several more rashers in the frying pan. She cut three tomatoes in half and added them, face down. She ground coffee beans and boiled water. When the bacon was nearly done, she put slices of bread under the grill and cracked eggs into the second pan. ‘No mushrooms?’ she asked.

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘They’re that bad?’

  ‘Wait and see.’

  Marnie laid out three plates and slid the food onto them. She put the cafetière on a tray, with the toast and the pots of marmalade and jam.

  ‘Can we go for a walk when they’re gone?’

  ‘Of course. How did you get here, by the way?’

  ‘I got the last train and walked from the station.’

  ‘So you’ve been up all night?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Hmm. I’ll take this through. I’ve laid the little table next door for them, so we’ll have the kitchen to ourselves. You make us another pot of coffee, OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Do you want anything to eat?’

  ‘Maybe I’ll make porridge. It’s comforting.’

  ‘Make some for me as well.’

  Next door they could hear the guests’ voices rise and fall. Marnie raised her eyebrows at Emma, who said in a hissed whisper, ‘Rich smarmy couple, spoilt daughter. They treat me with that kind of gushing condescension that makes my skin crawl – as if they’re doing a really good thing in treating the servant well. God only knows what they’re doing here rather than staying in some hotel with a Jacuzzi.’

  ‘I see.’ Marnie sprinkled soft brown sugar on top of her porridge and watched it darken and melt. She took a spoonful, then a sip of coffee, and looked out of the window beyond the garden to where the sea now sparkled, sending off gleams of light. She sighed contentedly: last night felt a long way off, and its vivid remoteness had the quality of a dream.

  ‘Tell me,’ said Emma, as they trudged along the shingle.

  ‘I saw Ralph again. He asked me to marry him.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Emma.

  ‘I said no, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘He was angry, very upset.’

  Emma didn’t say anything, just nodded.

  ‘I think it was my fault – I think I led him to believe… When we were coming back from France it was so nice with him, and then I think he thought – well, to be absolutely honest, maybe I thought too, for a moment, anyway – I let myself think – because he’s always been so – oh, God, sorry, I’m not making much sense.’

  ‘I think I can join up the dots.’

  ‘Yes, you probably can. You always do. I feel so muddled.’

  ‘But you know you don’t want to marry him?’

  ‘How could I marry him? We’re not in a Victorian novel. We haven’t gone out together. We haven’t had sex, if that’s what you’re wondering. Or done anything. It was just a glimmer of possibility, that’s all, and Ralph turned it into this huge drama. Anyway, it’s a perfectly s
tupid idea. He’s Ralph. He’s like my brother or something. I don’t love him. Yes, I do – I do love him, of course, not in that way, though, not the way he loves me. I don’t –’ She looked away: this wasn’t the kind of thing she usually talked about to her mother. ‘I don’t really desire him.’

  ‘So you were quite right to say no. Were you unequivocal?’

  ‘Don’t you think,’ said Marnie, bending down and picking up a flat stone, which she sent skimming over the water, ‘that being loved almost makes us love them back? Men are put off women who adore them unconditionally, but women are often won over by men’s devotion.’

  ‘That’s rather a generalization,’ said Emma, drily. ‘By “them”, I take it you mean Ralph, and “us” would be you?’

  ‘OK, then. Sometimes I think he’ll wear me down and win me over. And, to be absolutely honest, if he stopped loving me – which is what most of me wants him to do, for his sake and mine – then I also know I’d feel, I don’t know, abandoned. As if I’d lost something rare and precious that I’d never find anywhere else. That’s wrong of me, isn’t it?’

  ‘To feel it isn’t wrong, but to act on it in any way would be. To encourage him would be unkind.’

  ‘I think I encouraged him,’ said Marnie, in a low voice.

  Emma linked her arm through her daughter’s. ‘You and Ralph,’ she said, with a sigh, ‘it just goes on, doesn’t it?’

  Marnie saw how much older Emma looked, how her hair was turning grey and her face had new lines in it. What did she do, evening after evening alone in the house, with everyone gone from her – even Marnie, even Eric? ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I know how you feel about Ralph. He’s a bit like your son, isn’t he? Or, at least, you’re like his mother.’ There was a silence, thick and heavy, between them. Marnie swallowed hard, staring out across the water.

  Emma stopped and looked intently at her. ‘It’s time for you to leave us behind,’ she said.

  Lucy comforted me. She had always been waiting to comfort me. I shouldn’t have, I shouldn’t have, I knew all along, but I didn’t seem to have much strength left and she was always so strong. Small and sour as a crisp green apple, straight and true as an arrow.