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`I know it's not your fault,' she said as she started walking away from the
bathers and towards a turn in the headland, her lovely head stooped in that
way of hers, her face in profile against the sparkling water. `I don't blame
you for what you've done or for your life. It's nothing to do with your
being a radical and a mart and not some wealthy
Northcentral guildsman, as I know you're probably thinking. These people are
no better than you are, Robbie. I understand that as well. But you shouldn't
imagine that they're worse than you either.'
`You know I saw Mistress Summerton?'
`Of course I know.'
`And you know what she told me?'
`I can imagine. That tale of hers and all those terrible things back in
Brownheath and the death of my poor mother and how Missy saved me and raised
me and did everything and that it's really her money that still keeps me
going. It must have taken most of the day, until you got up in that box in the
Opera House to gawk down at me.'
`It's been part of my life, too, Anna the things that happened.
My mother was a friend of your mother's. She died as well. It just took
longer.'
`I'm sorry. I know all of these things. But they're in the past, aren't they?
We're adults. We've made our own choices. That's why we're walking here now.'
We walked on, in the bright sunlight, beside the waves. Not so long ago, Anna,
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I thought, I'd probably have agreed with every word you said about the past
being gone and finished. But not now. `I can't help feeling,' I said
carefully, `that, after all we've shared without even knowing, we might be
able to help each other ..
Annalise blinked slowly. Her eyelashes were as blond as her hair.
`You think you know what I am, don't you? That's the place from where your
problem comes. It was a pity, really, that I let you find me at the fair. Yes,
it was fun at the time, but it was also a mistake . . .' She shot me a look
colder than the waves. `And now you come trailing after me with
half-understood secrets.'
`You're different, Anna. How can you deny that?'
`I don't. But everyone's different in their own different way.'
`That's just a riddle. You're '
`What?' She threw up her head, the sunlight thinning her limbs.
`You mean, I'm like Missy? Or who is that dreadful creature? Mister
Snaith? Believe me, Robbie, you really don't know! They're not me!' She waved
her hands as if she was banishing something and the sea flashed dark through
them. Then she stopped and turned. She held out her wrist. Of course, the Mark
was there now. Its scab glinted on the pale inner curve of her wrist like a
ruby.
`This is me.'
I opened my mouth, but it filled only with the dull burrowing ache which I
always felt in the presence of Anna, Annalise whoever or whatever she wasn't
or was. That ache was growing even now as the wind picked up and drew a slash
of hair across her face; it continued growing when I had thought it could grow
no more and had already consumed me. But her lucent flesh; the very substance
of Annalise. I
could have studied it forever. Her veins were so fine I could see the living
pulse within them like a darting blue fish. She let out a sigh and stamped her
bare right foot in the waves and yanked her arm away from me.
`You really are hopeless Robbie!'
`But you could be so many things. You could have been anything!
So why this?'
She turned and continued walking. Up ahead, the cliffs were divided by a steep
vee. A pathway led up from the beach beside the stream which cascaded down
from it, winding from side to side on neat little wooden bridges as we
followed the ferny shadows. It was a chine, moist and cool and dark even on
this hot morning.
`Unlike you,' she was saying as she walked briskly ahead and the water fell
beneath us and pooled and fell again, `I don't see that there's anything wrong
with simply being happy. And then in making happier the lives of the people
who surround you. Your problem is that you imagine happiness is too easy, that
it's some cheap illusion to be scorned in favour of ...' Searching for the
words, she glanced back at me.
`Whatever it is that you want to bring down on us all, Robbie.'
Vegetation dripped. Mist rose. A rainbow hung in a shaft of sunlight. I half
expected each turn to reveal the house of that imaginary aunt.
`But it's been a struggle sometimes, that I'll have to admit. And I
suppose I
am different, or I could be if I let things get through to me.
When I enter a room, I can feel people's thoughts like the roar of this water.
When I pass a haft, a building, a machine, I have to close my mind to it or
else its spell comes tumbling into me. If I were to blur my eyes, if I were to
open my ears and forget myself and let it all in, the whole world would
overwhelm me. It's like a madness. And I'm lost then.
I'm like those poor creatures you hear about. The ones far worse than
Missy whom they keep in St Blate's. So why on earth should I want that? It's a
door which I've always striven to push shut.'
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`But you have power '
` don't talk to me about power!' she snapped. `I want my life as it is. I
still want to be Anna Winters. I want to be happy and ordinary ...'
We had neared the top of the cliff. The path was levelling out. Ahead of us
was a gate. Predictably, beyond that, and seeing as we'd walked less than a
mile, lay some part of Walcote's huge gardens. You could still see
the house's many rooftops from here, and the high white spire of the
Turning Tower. `If you want power, Robbie,' she muttered, `you should look
over there.'
The stream which fed the chine fanned out. There were ponds and water-gardens.
Huge fish, golden-armoured, ancient-eyed, nosed our reflections. With every
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