We parked the car on the grass verge and climbed over the stile into the
woodland. There was nobody else about, since it was a blusterous sort of day,
though not cold.
“Come on!” I said to Sarah, “This is one of my
favourite walks!”
“How long is it going to take?”
“Oh, less than an hour, I
should think; then we’ll go to the pub
for lunch”
We walked along the path through the trees, chatting about this and
that. It was the first time I’d seen Sarah for
quite a while. After a bit we turned a corner, and there was the little lake
spread out beneath us. I thought it was a glorious view.
“What do we do now?” asked Sarah.
“Walk round the lake and then
back to the car. It’s not as far as it
looks”.
“Oh”. She sounded very unenthusiastic. “The path isn’t too close to the
water, is it? It looks deep!”
“It’s perfectly safe: I’ve been round
hundreds of times. What’s the problem?”
“I’m scared of deep water”
“Can’t you swim?”
“I’ve never swum a stroke in my life. It terrifies me: it
always has done. And then there was my sister …..” her voice faded out.
“Oh yes, I heard about that
somewhere. You had a younger sister who died when she was very small, didn’t you?”
“Yes; she fell into a pool and
drowned. It was while we were out on a picnic”
“Where was this?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t much older myself
at the time; too young to remember the details; and my parents never talked to
me about it, ever. They found it much too distressing”
We started out along the shore, with me doing my best to keep between
Sarah and the water whenever the path was wide enough to allow this. But we
hadn’t gone very far before Sarah
said, “Look, I really don’t want to go any further. You might find I’m being silly, but I don’t like this place at all; it unsettles me. And the wind’s really getting up: I think we might be in for a
storm”.
“Fair enough, if that’s how you feel. Let’s just walk as far
as those benches, then we’ll go back to the
car”
There were two wooden seats
near the water’s edge, which looked as though
they’d been there for ages. I sat
down on one of them to retie my shoelaces. Sarah remained standing, gazing out
into the water. Then I heard her say, “My God!”
The wind was really howling by this time, making a fearful racket in the
treetops. I wouldn’t have heard Sarah
at all if she hadn’t started to shout
at the top of her voice. But she wasn’t shouting to me:
it was as if she’d forgotten I was there.
“My God, it was here it
happened! Here! I can see it in my mind, just as it was!”
You! You! You! Said the wind.
“It wasn’t my fault! I didn’t mean to push her
in! It was an accident!”
You! You! Said the wind.
“It was mummy and daddy’s fault! They were too far away, and didn’t get back in time to pull her out!”
You! You! You!
“It wasn’t fair to expect me to go in and help her! They know I’m frightened of water!” Sarah collapsed in hysterical tears.
I managed to grab hold of her and led her back through the woods. I
helped her into the car without a word, and we sat there for a while until she’d managed to calm down. Then I said, “Look, I really am sorry for bringing you here”
“No”, said Sarah, “You couldn’t possibly have known. I didn’t know myself until we reached that spot, and then it
all came back to me. It was my fault for losing self-control like that. I’m sorry. It must have been very embarrassing for you”
There was another silence, then she said, “It was just like I heard voices by the lake there. But it was only the
wind, wasn’t it?”
