A Stitch in Time (16 page)

And all the while time was leaking away. There were ten days left, and then a week, and then the days lay ahead singly, five and four and three. And as they went Maria found herself overwhelmed with the most peculiar anxiety. It was not just that she did not want the holiday to end, but that she felt also a strong sense of apprehension. She felt that something was going to happen, but she did not know what it was or when it would be. And she did not think it would be something nice. She became jumpy and nervous. The sudden slam of a door made her heart
rocket most unpleasantly. The cat, sliding against her leg under the table as she wrote, made her drop the pencil.

“Don't
do
that.”

“Sorry, I'm sure,” said the cat, rasping its tongue against her ankle, a disagreeable feeling. “It's my nature, you must remember. The stealthy movement of the hunter.”

“Fat lot of hunting you do,” snapped Maria.

“No need, is there? Not with eighteen different kinds of pet-food on the market. But old habits die hard. Deep down,” it went on theatrically, “I'm remembering my savage ancestors, padding around those forests and jungles after their prey. I have to keep my hand in. It's my nature, as I said.”

“You should control yourself,” said Maria.

“And I thought you were so well-informed about evolution and all that. Anyway, who's talking? What about you and your friends, up and down that tree all day, just like a lot of monkeys. Your ancestors aren't anything to write home about.”

“That's entirely different. We do it because it's fun.”

“Huh…” said the cat. “And in any case, what's the matter with you these days? You're like a cat on hot bricks, if you'll pardon the expression.”

“I don't know. I feel nervous. I keep thinking about Harriet.”

“Harriet, my dear child, lived over a hundred years ago. She doesn't exist any more. Be your age.” It yawned pinkly.

“I know,” said Maria. “I know all that. But you see,” she went on, “I think she does in a way. Because of places being like clocks – full of all the time there's ever been in them, and all the people, and all the things that have happened, like the ammonites in the stones. You don't know what I'm talking about, do you?”

“To be absolutely frank,” said the cat, “no.” There was a rattle of plates from the kitchen below and it stretched itself and strolled out of the door and down the stairs.

Maria stared out of the window at the dark bulk of the ilex tree. I could have asked Mrs Shand what happened to Harriet, she thought. But somehow I couldn't. I suppose I didn't really want to be told.

If you ask blunt questions you get blunt answers, and the whole matter of Harriet was far too delicate and personal for that. If it weren't for actual, real things like the sampler, and the initials on the table in her room, and, come to that, the swing, she could almost think that she'd invented her, or imagined her. Always, since she was quite small, Maria had been extremely confused between what she had imagined and what was real, so much so
that she had learned to keep quiet about a good many things in case they turned out (like that burglar) to be part of the imaginings, so that everybody stared at you and you felt extremely foolish. Frequently, she was unsure whether she had thought things or actually said them out loud. Lately, she seemed to have been saying almost as much as thinking, which was un-Maria-like and part, she suspected, of this odd process of changing into someone a little different. Although, when you considered the matter, it was not really so very odd. Since people change on the outside all the time – first growing bigger year by year, going from baby to child and then to grown-up, and then getting wrinkles, and their hair turning grey – it seemed reasonable enough that they might also be changing inside, in how they felt and thought and behaved.

“Mrs Lucas has just reminded me,” said Maria's mother, coming into the kitchen, “about this picnic. I don't quite see,” she went on regretfully, “how we are to get out of it.”

“I know,” said Maria. “It's tomorrow.” And the day after, she thought, we are going.

“But not in the evening,” Mrs Foster continued, “even Mrs Lucas thought that was a bad idea. A lunch picnic.”

“We're going to cook everything ourselves. No sandwiches.”

“That seems to be the plan,” said Mrs Foster hopelessly.

Part of Maria was looking forward to the picnic. Part of her, though, was dreading it. The day after, they would go. And thinking of this all that morning, down on the beach, under sombre skies that threatened rain, with the wet sand chill under her feet, she became silent, more like the old Maria, and hung at the edges of the games, and finally did not want to play any more but went up early to the house, leaving the others. And that evening, alone in the garden in the twilight, she swung and swung, going higher and higher until the swing rocked a little on its black iron legs, and again Harriet was so strongly in her head that the thought of her seemed to blur the real world and alter sounds and feelings so that she, Maria, might momentarily have been someone else, some time else.

She woke next morning to a day of wind, racing clouds and sunshine. Mrs Foster, whose hopes had been pinned to appalling weather and a forced last-minute cancellation of the picnic, stared dourly out of the window and set off for the grocer's to buy sausages. Mr Foster, who had made a desperate but unsuccessful bid to get out of the whole thing by pleading a sudden chill, began to assemble rugs and a vast supply of matches and firelighters. Martin
arrived in the middle of this and depressed him even further with tales of other picnics that the Lucases had had along the same lines in the past, packed with drama and disaster. Surreptitiously, Mr Foster added Detol, sticking-plaster and bandages to his expanding pile of equipment. Mrs Foster returned from the shops with food that Martin examined with appreciation.

“Super nosh… Once,” he began reflectively, “we roasted an ox on Wandsworth Common. Well, not really an ox – a leg of lamb from Sainsbury's but it was the same idea. That was the time James got his head stuck between those iron railings.” Mr Foster picked up the newspaper and retreated into the drawing-room.

At last, after many comings and goings to fetch items that had been forgotten by way of food, drink, clothing and various small Lucas children, both families assembled on the drive in front of the house. The Fosters were dressed for every eventuality of weather, wore sensible walking shoes, and carried their possessions in convenient bags and baskets. The Lucases were clad in everything from bathing-suits to what appeared to be some kind of fancy dress, and clutched innumerable tattered carrier-bags which leaked chops, sausages, tea-bags and the odd can of beer (which Mrs Foster eyed with disapproval). Martin's mother
carried nothing except a baby and a book. The older children were weighed down with everything from fishing-tackle to beach-balls. They made a most ill-assorted party, which was apparently what Mrs Shand thought, passing the gateway and staring in at them with unconcealed curiosity.

“An outing of some kind, I see.”

“We're going for a picnic,” said Mrs Foster bravely.

“To Charmouth, no doubt?”

There was a chorus of contempt from the Lucas children.

“Not just the ordinary
beach
.”

“A special place of ours…”

“That way…”

“You have to climb down
miles
.”

“It's all lovely and slippery.”

“Ever so steep…”

Mrs Shand listened with what seemed particular attention. And Maria, watching her, felt again this creep of unease and apprehension that was blighting what should otherwise be a most agreeable, indeed a thoroughly special and extraordinary day. She had never, after all, done this kind of thing before: Foster picnics were invariably matters of thermoses and foil-wrapped sandwiches, eaten at
carefully selected and unhazardous places. But Mrs Shand, staring at them over the spectacles, brought back other thoughts and she found herself, suddenly, wishing that they could do something entirely different. Just stay here, for instance. And thinking that, knew it to be impossible, even if someone as small and uninfluential as herself could persuade all those other people, louder and older. There is a point at which a certain train of events is begun, and nothing in the world can stop it, and one is caught up in it and part of it, willy-nilly.

“Mmn…” said Mrs Shand, and then, “well, I should take care, if I were you.”

“Why?” said Maria, and although the question was drowned in an outbreak of talk from the Lucases, and no one paid any attention, it somehow reached Mrs Shand, for she looked directly at Maria and said, “For obvious reasons.”

“Obvious…?” Nobody was listening. James had fallen over and grazed his knee. Piercing screams swamped everything.

“The cliffs along there are notoriously unsafe. There was a tragedy in the past – many years ago now. However, I'm sure you are all extremely competent.” And Mrs Shand was gone, stumping away down the road, leaving Maria
staring after her, the question she would have liked to ask left unspoken, echoing only in her head.

What tragedy?

“Off we go,” said Martin's mother. “Not before time. Oh, be quiet, James, you're not dead yet. Jane, you've dropped a sausage.”

They straggled away down the track beyond the garden and over the fields towards the cliff path. Mr Foster, with a sudden assumption of command, as the only man of the party, took the lead but was rapidly overtaken by rushing, competing Lucas children. He strode along behind them, occasionally calling warnings which were ignored, and presently lapsed into a glum silence, recognising that things were out of control. The rest of the party, women and small children, trailed along behind. Maria, last of all, followed reluctantly. She was carrying a bag heavy with cups and plates, knives and forks which she had known to be unsuitable but which Mrs Foster had insisted upon packing.

“They eat with their fingers, the Lucases.”

“I daresay they do.” Maria wished she were back in the kitchen, having that conversation with her mother.

By the time they reached the start of the cliff path several children were missing. There was a long stop while
they were rounded up. Mr Foster sat on a stile and stared out to sea in silence. Finally, with the party reassembled they set off once more, along the narrow woodland path that meant they must walk in single file. The Lucas children, pushing and shoving each other, rushed off at a gallop, all trying to be first. Mr Foster, abandoning all attempts at leadership, placed himself last of all, presumably to gather up the lost or injured. The various sections of the party soon became separated, though clearly audible to each other as their voices came through the trees. Maria, hanging back from the rest of the children, could hear their progress marked by the woodpigeons that erupted from the branches as they approached, and the occasional shriek of a jay.

They went on and on. They passed the point at which the Fosters had turned back on that Saturday afternoon walk with Aunt Ruth and Uncle David. Maria, plodding onward, could imagine her mother's misgivings, and felt a flicker of sympathy. Mostly, though, she was buried in her own thoughts and feelings. They had reached a part of the woods where the trees were of the most immense size, towering above her to such heights that, straining her neck to look up at them, they seemed to crowd out the sky altogether. She felt even smaller than usual. Putting her hand on the trunk of a huge beech, as far up as she
could, she was covering only a minute fraction of its height; far above her, the leaves shivered and rustled indifferently. They must be very old trees, these. Hundreds of years old, indeed. Perhaps Harriet had walked underneath them and had the same feelings of smallness and insignificance. Perhaps she too had felt dizzy as she looked upwards at those shifting branches, had wished herself somewhere more open, less silent and oppressive.

The silence, though, was partly her own creation, removed into her own thoughts. For, coming round a corner, she caught up suddenly with the other children, engaged in ferocious discussion that rang through the trees.

“It's down here.”

“No, it isn't. You don't know
anything.
It's further.”

“It's
here.
I remember that tree.”

“There was a sort of path…”

“Shut up, you lot,” said Martin authoritatively. “It's there. We'll have to wait for the others.
Mum…!
”

Gradually, they all regathered. Maria observed with amazement that her father was now carrying a small child (she never could remember all their names). He looked exhausted and his hair was much disarranged on one side where the baby was strap-hanging from it.

“Down there?” said Mrs Foster in alarm.

The path, at this point, followed what must really be a ledge along steeply shelving cliffs. To one side, the ground reared upwards to where, above and through the trees, the final rocky summit of the cliff could be seen, golden-brown, capped with turf and bushes. And to the other it dropped away down to some invisible point where the sea could be heard washing to and fro on the shingle. But, thick with trees and undergrowth as this place was, it seemed not so much cliff as woodland that had somehow got tipped on one side. It was only looking downwards, at the thin track plunging away through bushes, that you realised how steep it was.

“I wonder if perhaps…” began Mrs Foster.

But nobody paid any attention to what she might have had to say. The Lucas children were explaining that there was a proper beach at the bottom and nobody ever went there so you had it all to yourself. (“So I should imagine,” said Mr Foster drily.) And, they insisted, it wasn't half as steep as it looked, and all started plunging one after another down this precipitous path (that barely seemed certain if it was indeed a path) while behind the mothers shouted, “Be careful! Not so
fast
!” and somewhere a long way below the sea pushed and pulled uncaringly on the pebbles.