Marnie (27 page)

‘Night, Tommy! Night, John!’ Terry called, but when I was going to move for my coat he put those fingers of his on my arm. His eyes were that gum colour again. ‘Why d’you
come here, Marnie?’ he said, quite roughly for him.

I looked down at his fingers but didn’t answer.

‘I know Mark wouldn’t want you to come. Things are pretty taut between us just now. Shall I tell you why you come? It’s because you’re much more like me than like Mark.
You breathe freely here. You’re not restricted by trying to behave as you think he
wants
you to behave. There’s no “naval discipline”. You’re not put on a
charge for whispering when the admiral goes past. Why pretend to yourself? Snap out of it, my dear.’

The others had all gone, all except the MacDonalds who were still in the bedroom. I was surprised at the feeling in Terry’s voice; there was no shrug-off about this.

He said: ‘I know you’re bogus, my dear. What sort and how much I haven’t troubled to find out, even if I could. Why
should
I? It doesn’t
worry
me what
you’ve been and what you’ve done. You could have poisoned your first husband for all I care. In fact, to me it would make you more interesting. Get that in your
head
.’

He pulled me towards him before I could stop him; but if I’d wanted to I could have stopped him kissing me. But I let him. Perhaps I saw it as advance interest on the money I’d had
to borrow. But chiefly I wanted to know if I’d changed at all. An awful lot had happened to me in the last few months, and I wondered if it made any difference to the way I felt about him. Or
about men generally.

It hadn’t. I got away.

He was smiling now. ‘Don’t come here again if you don’t want to; but don’t stay away just because Mark tells you. Understand, there’s no right or wrong so far as
I’m concerned; there’s only survival. You’ve survived. That’s what I like about you.’

Since I went back to Roman, I had been trying to play fair with him. Because of me depending on Mark’s goodwill to do nothing about Mr Strutt etc. I had to make some
effort. I felt Roman would let Mark know if I did nothing to help. It was like being a schoolgirl who’d had one bad report and couldn’t afford another until after her birthday.

So we had a sort of honeymoon two weeks, with me trying to be helpful and him not trying to probe too hard. I even went so far as to tell him I’d once stolen money and it worried me I
couldn’t pay it back, but he didn’t seem very excited or impressed by that.

Somehow, though, as time went on, even though he didn’t probe, I began to talk. More things began to leak out, not only in my talk but in my memory. I remembered odd bits of events that
didn’t seem to link together. I remembered looking out of the kitchen window at Sangerford at the rain splashing down the drainpipe; there was a break in the drainpipe and the water gurgled
and splashed against the sill. The taste of brandy-snaps was in my mouth, so I suppose I must have been chewing them. And the heavy jangle of trucks was in my ears (we overlooked a railway siding
but it wasn’t used more than twice a day). There was a man in the kitchen talking to Mother and Mother was at her most frigid. The man was trying to persuade her to do something, to sign
something that she didn’t want to, and Mam kept saying: ‘Part with her? Not if it’s the last thing I do!’ I could hear her voice so clearly, but I couldn’t remember
who or what she was being asked to part with.

And another time there was somebody fighting; I don’t think I was actually in it, but I remembered the heavy clump of fists and the grunting of men’s breath. And there was a woman of
about forty I remembered very clearly now. She was probably a nurse from what I could recollect of her clothes, but I was
scared
of her. She’d got braided fair hair that had lost its
colour, and a tight upper lip, and she always smelled of stale starch.

One day when things had been dragging rather, Dr Roman said: ‘Let’s see, have you one parent alive or both?’

I stopped then. ‘What d’you mean? You know they’ve been dead seventeen years, both of them.’

‘I beg your pardon.’

‘You’re thinking of your next patient, not me.’

‘No,’ he said, ‘I was thinking of you.’

‘So you don’t believe anything I’ve told you at all?’

‘Yes, I believe a great deal . . .’ He paused.

‘Well, go on!’

‘No, you go on, Mrs Rutland.’

‘I’ve told you over and over! Dad died when I was six. I remember he used to carry me round in his arms. No one’s ever carried me round since. Coh! I wish I was back at that
age now, and none of this palaver. Then maybe
you
could carry me around instead of leaving me floundering on this couch like a landed seal!’

‘You’d like that?’

‘I might like it if I really was six and if I knew you better. I don’t know a thing about
you
, while all the time you’re prying into my life. You just sit there behind
me like a – like a father who’s no good. What good are you, to me or to anyone?’

‘Why was your father no good?’

‘I didn’t say that! I said
you
were no good. You never advise me! You never tell me anything. You never suggest what I ought to do.’

‘As a real father should?’

‘Well, yes.’

‘But yours did not?’

‘Who said not? Now you’re putting words in my mouth! When he died I had a picture book with an elephant on and I didn’t say anything but just put my head down on the book and
let the tears run on to the elephant. It was a cheap book because there was a sun behind the elephant and my tears made the colour run until it looked as if I’d been crying blood.’

‘Who told you, Margaret?’

‘Lucy Nye. Mother wasn’t there and Lucy told me. I’d been playing with the kitten next door – there was an old wash-tub in the garden and a broken pram – and she
called me in and I didn’t want to come and I sulked and at first she didn’t tell me why she called me in and I sat and read the book.’

Tears were running down my face and I grabbed my bag and took out a handkerchief. This was the second time now I’d cried at these sessions – really, I mean, not for effect. I felt
such a fool crying there because I’d remembered something I’d forgotten and because I felt again the twist of the grief inside me, remembering that day and how I knew I’d never
have complete protection or shelter or love again.

Mark had invited this Mr Westerman to dinner. Mark said he was a very old friend of his father’s, and I rather got the idea that he had something to do with the
underground squabble that was going on around Rutland’s. He was a lean man of about sixty with a sharp nose and grey hair slicked back. I suppose I ought to have guessed something by the way
he buttoned his jacket.

After dinner Mark said: ‘I’ve some business to talk over with Humphry, so I’m going to take him into the study for a time. You’ll be all right on your own,
Marnie?’

I said I would, and after powdering my nose I helped Mrs Leonard to clear up. As I passed the study I could hear the murmur of voices, Waterman’s booming over the top of Mark’s.

When I dried the dishes for Mrs Leonard she said: ‘The first Mrs Rutland was awfully nice – a real sweetie – but she never did help like you do and it makes a difference,
don’t it, just that little bit extra. She was one on her own as you might say. Often you would talk to her and all the time she was thinking of something else, you could see. Mr Rutland used
to laugh at her – really laugh. You don’t often hear him like that now. They used to laugh together. You’d hear them sometimes in the mornings when I was getting the breakfast. It
was lovely . . . But by midday every day she was deep in it. Books on the table in the study piled half-way to the ceiling. Then she’d be away three or four days – didn’t care how
she looked – he used to join her at the weekends. They used to dig up things called barrows, or some such. Funny what interests some folks have.’

I put away the wine glasses. Funny? I wondered what sort of companionship Mark had expected from me. I mean, we laughed sometimes, and of course there was the day-to-day business of living in
the same house. But there hadn’t been any
real
companionship, not the sort I suppose there might have been. Often he made some move and then froze off short.

Mrs Leonard said: ‘Was the lamb
really
all right?’

‘Yes. Lovely.’

‘I said to Mr Rogers we don’t want anything but the best tonight. It’s important, because we’ve got a bigwig coming, and one that’ll be on your trail fast enough if
you sell us mutton dressed as lamb.’ Mrs Leonard tittered at her own wit.

‘D’you mean Mr Westerman?’

‘Well yes. Chief Constable and all that. I mean to say.’

‘Chief . . . Mr Westerman is the Chief Constable? Of – of Hertfordshire?’

‘That’s right. I think he retired last year, didn’t he? I ain’t sure, but I think he did. But once one of those always one of those, I say. Not but what I haven’t
always been law-abiding myself. And what with that great telly aerial you have to put up, you just have to pay your licence these days.’

She went on talking. I went on drying knives and forks. Mark and this Humphry Westerman were in the study.

I felt as if someone had clamped an iron band round the top of my head and was slowly tightening it. I went on drying the things until they were all finished. I looked at the clock and saw that
they had been in the study now for fifteen minutes. I thought, I can go in and ask them if they want more coffee, but if I do they’ll stop talking and wait for me to leave. And if I
don’t leave, if I won’t take any of the hints, it will only delay whatever they’re discussing until another time.

Because if Mark wants to betray me, nothing will stop him sooner or later.

Mrs Leonard said: ‘I’d dearly love to have been there. Of course Mrs Bond, who used to work for the Heatons, swore that he used to come home drunk practically every night, and they .
. .’

If I went out and stood in the passage I might hear part of the conversation. But Mrs Leonard would be certain to come out of the kitchen and catch me.

There would be enough lamb left for tomorrow’s lunch. We could make a casserole. We were nearly out of coffee, that sort you had fresh ground. It was twenty minutes to ten. The study had
french windows that looked out on the lawn.

I said: ‘I’ll just go and look at Forio. He was restless this afternoon.’

‘Well, put your coat on, dear. It’s damp outside.’

I could hear everything if I crouched down and put my ear against the glass.

Mark was talking. I don’t think he’d been talking long – about this – but it was long enough. When it came to the point it was hard to believe. Even in spite of
everything I’d thought I must be mistaken. It’s hard to believe when you listen and hear your husband betraying you.

‘. . . I had no idea, of course, when we were married. But all the same I’m absolutely convinced of one thing – that at the time she committed these thefts she was mentally
distraught, temporarily unstable. And she no longer is that. You can see for yourself.’

‘She certainly seems a very attractive young woman, but—’

‘That was one reason why I asked you here, so that you could see her for yourself. Already there’s been a big change since I married her; and I’m absolutely certain that as
time goes on, if she hasn’t to face criminal charges, she’ll become absolutely normal – even more normal than she is tonight.’

‘Has there been any—’

‘Wait a minute before you say anything. Let me finish. My wife is probably wanted under three different names by the police. There are pretty certainly warrants out for her arrest. But the
police have
no clue at all
which can connect the women they want with Marnie. So if she went in and made a full and frank confession to the police of all that she had done, it would be
entirely voluntary. That’s the first point. Unless she surrenders I’m convinced they haven’t a
hope
of tracing her. The second point is that I’d be perfectly willing
to repay out of my own pocket all the money that she stole, to the persons or firms from whom she stole it. The third point is that she is already receiving psychiatric treatment, as I told you.
But if she were so ordered I know she’d willingly accept any sort of additional treatment that the police or the police doctor – who must have had cases like this before – would
prescribe.’

There was a pause and I crouched down as someone’s shadow fell across the window, but it was only one of them moving his position.

Mark said: ‘The one thing I’m certain of at this stage is that any sort of public charge or trial would be disastrous. Naturally
I’d
hate it like hell, but that’s
not the important point. She’s the one who has to be considered, and at the moment she’s very delicately poised. If she goes on living the sort of life she’s living now I’m
certain she’ll become – and remain – a perfectly normal, completely honest woman. But if she’s charged and sent to prison you’ll be creating a criminal.’

The blood was thumping in my ears as if there was an express train somewhere. I thought, Mark’s stretching the case, for his own ends; he’s told at least two lies so far.

Westerman said: ‘No, thanks, just water please . . . I must say it is a pretty problem, Mark.’

‘I’m sorry to let you in for it. I could, of course, have gone to a good criminal lawyer; that would have been the smart thing to do. But it happened I knew you and have known you
pretty well all my life, and I thought this was an occasion to come straight to the fountain-head. Nobody can know better than you what the official attitude would be.’

‘On that point at least we agree, Mark.’

‘But on no other?’

‘Oh, I’m not saying that. But I don’t think I’m quite clear enough yet on all the facts. There’s a lot more I should want to know about your wife before making any
comment at all.’

‘Such as?’

‘You see . . . No, have one of mine this time; they’re ordinary gaspers . . . You see – well you obviously want me to reflect the official attitude, don’t you. Supposing
you had come into my office last year, before I’d retired; suppose that; then there’d be certain questions I’d want to ask right away.’