The Ocean at the End of the Lane(20)

I wondered if this would be a good time to try and leave the property, to head down the lane, but I was certain that if I did, I would look up to see my father’s angry face beside Ursula Monkton’s, all pretty and smug.

So I simply watched them from the huge branch of the beech tree. When they walked out of sight, behind the azalea bushes, I clambered down the rope ladder, went up into the house, up to the balcony, and I watched them from there. It was a grey day, but there were butter-yellow daffodils everywhere, and narcissi in profusion, with their pale outer petals and their dark orange trumpets. My father picked a handful of narcissi and gave them to Ursula Monkton, who laughed, and said something, then made a curtsey. He bowed in return, and said something that made her laugh. I thought he must have proclaimed himself her Knight in Shining Armour, or something like that.

I wanted to shout down to him, to warn him that he was giving flowers to a monster, but I did not. I just stood on the balcony and watched, and they did not look up and they did not see me.

My book of Greek myths had told me that the narcissi were named after a beautiful young man, so lovely that he had fallen in love with himself. He saw his reflection in a pool of water, and would not leave it, and eventually died, so that the gods were forced to transform him into a flower. In my mind, when I read this, I knew that a narcissus must be the most beautiful flower in the world. I was disappointed when I learned that it was just a less impressive daffodil.

My sister came out of the house and went over to them. My father picked her up. They all walked inside together, my father with my sister holding on to his neck, and Ursula Monkton, her arms filled with yellow and white flowers. I watched them. I watched as my father’s free hand, the one not holding my sister, went down and rested, casually, proprietorially, on the swell of Ursula Monkton’s midi-skirted bottom.

I would react differently to that now. At the time, I do not believe I thought anything of it at all. I was seven.

I climbed up into my bedroom window, easy to reach from the balcony, and down on to my bed, where I read a book about a girl who stayed in the Channel Islands and defied the Nazis because she would not abandon her pony.

And while I read, I thought, Ursula Monkton cannot keep me here for ever. Soon enough – in a few days at the most – someone will take me into town, or away from here, and then I will go to the farm at the bottom of the lane, and I will tell Lettie Hempstock what I did.

Then I thought, suppose Ursula Monkton only needs a couple of days. And that scared me.

Ursula Monkton made meatloaf for dinner that evening, and I would not eat it. I was determined not to eat anything she had made or cooked or touched. My father was not amused.

‘But I don’t want it,’ I told him. ‘I’m not hungry.’

It was Wednesday, and my mother was attending her meeting, to raise money so that people in Africa who needed water could drill wells. The meeting was in the village hall of the next village down the road. She had posters that she put up, diagrams of wells, and photographs of smiling people. At the dinner table were my sister, my father, Ursula Monkton, and me.

‘It’s good, it’s good for you, and it’s tasty,’ said my father. ‘And we do not waste food in this house.’

‘I said I wasn’t hungry.’

I had lied. I was so hungry it hurt.

‘Then just try a little nibble,’ he said. ‘It’s your favourite. Meatloaf and mashed potatoes and gravy. You love them.’

There was a children’s table in the kitchen, where we ate when my parents had friends over, or would be eating late. But that night we were at the adult table. I preferred the children’s table. I felt invisible there. Nobody watched me eat.

Ursula Monkton sat next to my father and stared at me, with a tiny smile at the corner of her lips.

I knew I should shut up, be silent, be sullen. But I couldn’t help myself. I had to tell my father why I did not want to eat.

‘I won’t eat anything she made,’ I told him. ‘I don’t like her.’

‘You will eat your food,’ said my father. ‘You will at least try it. And apologise to Miss Monkton.’

‘I won’t.’

‘He doesn’t have to,’ said Ursula Monkton sympathetically, and she looked at me, and she smiled. I do not think that either of the other two people at the table noticed that she was smiling, or that there was nothing sympathetic in her expression, or her smile, or her rotting-cloth eyes.

‘I’m afraid he does,’ said my father. His voice was just a little louder, and his face was just a little redder. ‘I won’t have him cheeking you like that.’ Then, to me, ‘Give me one good reason, just one, why you won’t apologise, and why you won’t eat the lovely food that Ursula has prepared for us.’

I did not lie well. I told him.

‘Because she’s not human,’ I said. ‘She’s a monster. She’s a …’ What had the Hempstocks called her kind of thing? ‘She’s a flea.’

My father’s cheeks were burning red now, and his lips were thin. He said, ‘Outside. Into the hall. This minute.’

My heart sank inside me. I climbed down from my stool and followed him out into the corridor. It was dark in the hallway: the only light came from the kitchen, a sheet of clear glass above the door. He looked down at me. ‘You will go back into the kitchen. You will apologise to Miss Monkton. You will finish your plate of food, then, quietly and politely, you will go straight upstairs to bed.’