The Madness

by Alison Rattle

  ‘Thank you,’ said the boy. He sighed. ‘I expect you will be seeing us here most days from now on.’

  He wasn’t going to taunt her, thought Marnie. He hadn’t glanced once at her leg. ‘I’m sure your mother … Lady de Clevedon will benefit,’ said Marnie. She chanced a smile and a ribbon of delight slipped down her back when the boy returned her smile. She bent to pick up her boots. ‘I have to go now,’ she said.

  ‘Of course,’ said the boy, and he stepped aside, gesturing with his arm for her to pass. ‘But before you go … what is your name?’

  ‘It’s Marnie,’ she said. Then she took up her stick and turned away from him.

  This time, as she walked back up the beach, she didn’t mind the feel of his stare needling into her hot back. She didn’t mind one bit.

  8

  The Journal of Noah de Clevedon

  Clevedon. JULY 7th 1868, Tuesday

  The days are getting hotter. But it is quite pleasant up here in the orangery where I am sitting now with a glass of iced ginger beer by my side. Father left for London this morning. His business with the other directors of the Pier Company is finished now. It is all settled and building of the pier will begin soon. It has been good to have him here this last week. I begged him to take me back to London with him. But it is not to be. He said that at least here in Clevedon we are free from the stink of the Thames. I would rather the stink of the Thames than the dreary stink of boredom. But Mother has not improved yet, so I must stay.

  We went to the beach again this afternoon for Mother to take her dipping. The strange girl was there again. She was walking towards the sea carrying her boots. She looked so feral with her bare legs, loose frock and with her hair falling freely down her back. I followed her to the shoreline and amused myself in a short conversation. She is the daughter of Mother’s dipper and her name is Marnie. She is lame in one leg but seems quite full of character. Her eyes are like nothing else I have ever seen before. They are the bluest of any blue you can imagine. It was hard for me to tear my gaze away. For some reason, I am sure this will not be the last I see of her.

  Father left me a new book to read. It is called ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ and it is causing quite a stir, apparently. I shall start reading it tonight.

  9

  Goose Pimples

  Ma’s excitement at having the Lady de Clevedon to dip again knew no bounds. She preened herself like a milk-soaked cat and, although she was too heavy to prance as such, she seemed to have gained a certain amount of lightness to her step as she went about the kitchen preparing supper.

  ‘Oh, Smoaker,’ she laughed. ‘The Lady told me she thought she should never recover from the plunge I gave her! But when she’d got her breath back, she said it was the most delightful experience and she felt herself all aglow. “I will bathe as often as it is safe.” Those were her very words!’

  Smoaker sat in his chair by the fire and frowned. Nep was curled up on his lap and Smoaker had stroked the cat’s black fur to a shine. ‘’Tis good news,’ he said. ‘But I’m afraid we have a new concern upon us now.’

  Marnie looked up from the tallow candles she was trimming and listened harder.

  ‘A pier is to be built,’ said Smoaker. ‘I heard at the inn that Sir John de Clevedon has formed a company and put up the money himself.’

  ‘A pier?’ said Ma. ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘To bring more visitors to the village, they say. There’ll be paddle steamers too, going from the end of it to Wales and back.’

  ‘Good for business, then?’ said Ma. ‘Plenty of new bathers, I’d say.’

  ‘Maybe … ’ said Smoaker sullenly. ‘But what will we do in the meantime? While the pier’s being built?’

  Ma paused in stirring the supper pot; her face paled. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked slowly.

  Marnie knew the answer before it came out of Smoaker’s mouth and she felt her belly drop into her boots.

  ‘The beach’ll be out of bounds,’ said Smoaker. ‘There’ll be cranes and ironworks and an army of workers … ’ He left his sentence unfinished. Silence filled the kitchen as the news sank in. Marnie’s mind was racing to find something good to latch on to. But there was nothing but a horrible emptiness.

  ‘That’s why they came back,’ Ma muttered. ‘That’s why the Lady and Sir John came back to Clevedon then. To build a pier.’ Her voice rose in sudden panic. ‘But what about us? What will we do? How will we put food on the table?’

  ‘It’ll take months to build,’ said Smoaker, his voice growing high with indignation. ‘We’ll lose all our winter visitors. And what about the horses? They’ll still need feeding even if they’re not being worked.’

  Ma came to the kitchen table and sat heavily in a chair. She put her face in her hands and began to moan. ‘We’re done for, Smoaker. We’re done for! The Lady de Clevedon!’ she spat. ‘The haughty bitch! Never said a word to me about no pier when I dipped her today. Taking advantage of our services, knowing all along they’re going to be the ruin of us!’

  Marnie thought about the boy on the beach. He’d said nothing about the pier either, though he must’ve known what his father was planning. She wished she’d never been so polite to him now. She looked at Ma’s stony face and at Smoaker angrily jabbing tobacco into his pipe. Why was everything slipping away? The world was shifting beneath her feet and there didn’t seem to be anything left for her to hold on to. Marnie’s chest tightened. The sea. The beach. They were all she had. They were what made her feel part of the world. Without them she was nothing, a nobody.

  ‘What’ll happen to us, Ma?’ she asked carefully. But her voice was lost in the noise of Ma’s whining and grumbling.

  Marnie took a deep breath and put a hand to her breast to calm the clattering of her heart. It wouldn’t be for ever; a few months at the most, she told herself. But she couldn’t stop the heat that rushed through her and made her mouth dry. The walls of the kitchen closed in on her and suddenly there wasn’t enough air to fill her lungs. She was suffocating. She needed the sea right now, if only the sight of it.

  Neither Ma nor Smoaker noticed when Marnie slipped outside.

  Marnie’s skin stiffened with goose pimples as the evening air wrapped itself around her. She hurried as fast as her leg would allow, down the embankment and across the esplanade to the railings that ran alongside the beach. She took deep breaths, gulping in the air as if that too was going to be taken from her. She stared out into the dark expanse of ocean. Was that a light far out to sea? A fisherman’s lantern wavering yellow in the darkness? She gripped the iron railings tightly. Was it Pa, come home at last? She stared for a long while, hope and longing burning through her insides. Was it her imagination or was the light growing larger as it moved its way towards the shore? Marnie blinked and strained her eyes to see more clearly.

  ‘Pa!’ she shouted into the glittering darkness. ‘Pa! I’m over here!’ Then a sad laugh choked its way out of her throat. Was she so daft? It was only the reflection of the moon she saw floating in the sea. She was a great soft lump to think it was anything else. She turned and slumped back against the railings. Then a terrible thought struck her. What would happen if Pa came back when the workers were building the pier? How would Pa land his boat if the beach was out of bounds? What if he came and went away again and she never knew a thing about it?

  It didn’t bear thinking about.

  10

  A Blue-Trimmed Straw Hat

  Marnie was dancing with her pa on sand as soft as velvet. She had two solid legs, as straight and strong as young saplings. She could jump and twist and turn and twirl. Pa was laughing at her gently and telling her he’d never seen anyone as light on their feet.

  ‘Get out of bed, you idle lump!’

  Ma’s voice broke into Marnie’s dream and shattered it into hundreds of droplets of sea spray. Marnie opened her eyes to see her dream evaporate into the bright light that was pouring through the bedchamber shutters.

  ‘Idle hands are the
Devil’s workshop, my girl!’ Ma shouted through from the kitchen.

  Marnie pulled the blanket over her head. What was the point in getting out of bed when every day was as miserable as the next? But the morning sun seeped through the worn weave and teased her with its dazzle. Get up, get up, it whispered. Even when she closed her eyes again, the light played and swam on the insides of her eyelids. Marnie sat up and pushed herself off the bed. She wished she could leave this place. She wished she could find a shell on the beach big enough to curl up inside. She would hide herself away in its pearly centre and be swept out to sea, across the horizon to a faraway shore where Pa would be waiting for her.

  Ma poked her head around the door. ‘If you think you’ll be getting any breakfast, then think again! Don’t know what’s come over you these last weeks. Get dressed, we’re going now!’

  Marnie picked her frock off the floor where she’d dropped it the night before. She pulled it over her head and pushed her feet into her boots. She didn’t care about breakfast. She had no appetite anyway.

  Ma led the way, stomping off ahead towards the beach. As Marnie followed, the pointed glares and sharp words of the rat-catcher’s wife and her neighbour, Mrs Munsey, jabbed at her all along Ratcatcher’s Row.

  ‘Walking around, bold as brass.’

  ‘No good will come of it.’

  ‘Little fiend.’

  ‘Devil’s child!’

  Ma turned, her face flushed with shame, and she gestured for Marnie to get a move on. Marnie glared at the two women. They could think what they liked. Marnie didn’t care. If they thought she was the Devil’s child then she’d act like the Devil’s child. Marnie locked eyes with them and scowled until she saw a flicker of fear cross their faces. Then she laughed.

  ‘Marnie!’ Ma hissed. Marnie threw the women one last glare and hurried after Ma. She could tell by the set of Ma’s broad shoulders that her face would be dark with rage. Marnie swiped at the ground with her stick. The morning hung heavy and hot around her. It hadn’t made her feel any better glowering at the women like that. It hadn’t given her any satisfaction either. There was no comfort to be had anywhere. There was only the blaze of Ma’s anger and the scorch of the July sun quivering and boiling in the blank blue sky. Day after day of the unforgiving heat had turned Marnie’s skin nutmeg brown and sucked the juice from her very soul.

  With work on the new pier due to start in September, Ma and Smoaker were making the most of the few weeks they had left on the beach. The weather had brought in new crowds of visitors from Bristol, Bath and London. They thronged the beach, all anxious for a dip, and the air thrummed with chatter, the squeals of paddling children and the barking of dogs. The bathing machines had never been so much in demand, and Ma and the other dippers spent every daylight hour up to their waists in the sea.

  Marnie stayed close to the hut, walking backwards and forwards to each bathing machine to remove damp towels. She felt she was melting to nothing in the heat as the noise of the sea filled her head with a confusing muddle of longing and resentment.

  ‘Hello, again.’ The voice was loud inside the wooden walls of the hut.

  Marnie started. She looked up from the towels she was folding to see the boy again. He was still wearing his blue-trimmed straw hat, but this time he was dressed in a pale cream linen suit, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

  ‘The Lady de Clevedon on her way, is she?’ asked Marnie. Her tone must have been brusque, as the boy’s smile faltered for a moment. Marnie didn’t care an inch. This boy’s father had ruined everything with his fancy plans for a pier.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘It is too hot for Mother today. But I thought I would take myself and Prince for a walk.’ He paused and put his hands in his pockets. ‘They say it is the hottest July in living memory.’

  ‘Do they?’ said Marnie. She wasn’t interested in his small talk. The boy was looking at her intently. She remembered his eyes; one blue, one a cloudy grey. His hound came around to her side of the counter and snuffled at her feet. She nudged it away irritably. Why this boy was bothering her, she didn’t know. The way he was looking at her made her feel like a freak at a sideshow. Well, she was used to that. Let him quench his curiosity if he wanted; it made no difference to her.

  ‘I have taken the waters in Bath,’ said the boy. ‘Mother was very fond of it. But I have to admit I have never seen the appeal in sea-bathing.’

  You wouldn’t, thought Marnie scornfully.

  ‘Perhaps you could persuade me to change my mind?’ he said. ‘I could hire a machine, maybe?’

  Marnie glanced up at him. What game was he playing? She wished he would go away and leave her be. ‘The bathing machines will be moved off the beach soon enough,’ she said. ‘To make way for the pier.’ She glared at him. ‘In any case, it’s Byron’s Bay you’ll be wanting. That’s where the men bathe.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Of course,’ said the boy.

  Marnie was pleased to see a pink blush spread across his cheeks. ‘But I’m sure I wouldn’t bother if I were you,’ she said. ‘The men at Byron’s Bay are mostly hardy types who bathe for pleasure, and without attendants. Maybe paddling the shallows would suit you more?’ Marnie knew she was being rude and disrespectful, but she couldn’t help herself. It warmed her insides to see the flutter of shock cross the boy’s face. He had most likely never been spoken to so bluntly before. He would chastise her now, or complain to Smoaker, she was sure. But at least he would leave her alone, which was all she wanted right now.

  To her surprise, the boy began to laugh. ‘You are probably right,’ he said. ‘I would be no match for hardy men and strong waves. But maybe, when you are not so busy, you would consider teaching me the ways of the sea? Or at least introduce me to the pleasures of paddling?’ He tossed Marnie a smile so full of easiness that she was too stunned to reply.

  Then he whistled to his hound and the both of them were gone, out of the door. Marnie looked down at the pile of towels in front of her and realised she had folded and unfolded the same one at least a dozen times.

  11

  The Journal of Noah de Clevedon

  Clevedon. JULY 21st 1868, Tuesday

  I stayed for a long while at breakfast this morning and ate three boiled eggs for want of anything else to do. Mother has ordered in The Times newspaper (although she never reads it herself) and I felt quite the gentleman as I breakfasted alone while flicking through its pages. The only item worth noting was the weather report. This July is one of the hottest ever recorded. It has not gone unnoticed. Everyone and everything is wilting! It is too hot even for Mother to take the sea-cure. The strength of the sun is too much for her to bear.

  Despite the heat, I felt in need of some life outside these stone walls, so I took Prince for a walk into the village and along the esplanade. I have never seen so many people crowd the shore.

  I saw the girl, Marnie, walking back and forth from the bathing machines with armfuls of towels. I could not help but go and speak with her. She is certainly fierce! She seems not to care at all that I am the son of Sir John de Clevedon. For some reason I like that about her. She intrigues me. I will try to persuade her to teach me to swim. It will give me something to do, at least.

  Dined with Clarissa again tonight. At least the food was agreeable (pork cutlets and baked pears). Clarissa says Mother is refusing to take even a little broth. I wish she would just have something. I will take a tray up to her in the morning. Maybe she will eat for me.

  I must write to Father now and ask him to send me more books.

  12

  A Scrap of Scarlet Ribbon

  After supper that evening, as Marnie sat in the shadow of the old stone wall in the backyard at Ratcatcher’s Row, she remembered the boy’s name. She wasn’t even thinking about him when, suddenly, the name Noah announced itself. She shook her head, trying to get rid of it. She didn’t want to think about him.

  She was looking at the treasures she’d collected over the years that were hidden under the old
firebrick. Things that had been left behind in the bathing machines: lost objects, broken objects, things that might not ever be missed. Did a young lady from London ever notice she’d lost a carved-bone comb? Did a starchy old matron from Bristol ever miss a mother-of-pearl button? Did a frail governess from Wales mean to leave a scrap of scarlet ribbon behind? Marnie was thinking all these things as she tried to cool her skin in the shade of the old wall. The heat of the day seemed to have sucked all sound from the world and Marnie thought she might be the only person left breathing. She felt small and lonely. In a strange way she even missed Ambrose and his mocking sneer. She’d known what to expect from him, at least. His half-cocked taunts had been a familiar part of her day. Now he was just another piece of her life that was missing.

  Noah’s name came into her head again. Tap, tap, tapping behind her ears and pushing its way in front of her other thoughts. Marnie groaned with annoyance. He didn’t deserve a name; he only deserved to be thought of as ‘the boy’. Why did he and his family have to come back to Clevedon and ruin everything? A pier? Marnie snorted. Who needed a pier anyway?

  But despite trying her hardest not to think about him, Marnie couldn’t help remembering how it had been in the hut that morning and how his smile had made her feel. A flicker of warmth sparked in her belly. It was as though the boy – Noah – had known somehow that she had always wanted to be smiled at like that.

  But no. She wouldn’t think of him any more. She never wanted to see him again. Not when it was his fault that everything was being taken away from her. Marnie was surprised to feel hot tears slipping down her cheeks. She wiped them away angrily. She hadn’t cried for years; not since she was a little girl, unused to the cruelties of the world. She sniffed hard and pushed her shoulders back. There was no room for that sort of nonsense.