The little girls felt Marys panic, her anger, sensed some kind of fatality, and now tried to get back to their grandmothers. Granny, Granny, I want granny.
Mary gripped them both tight.
On Rozs face was a small bitter smile, as if she exchanged confirmation of some bad news with someone deep inside herself.
Granny, are you coming to fetch me tomorrow for the beach?
And Alice, Granny, you promised we would go to the beach.
And now Mary spoke at last, her voice shaking. All she said was, No, you will not be going to the beach. And, direct to the older women, You will not be taking Shirley and Alice to the beach. That was the judgement and the sentence.
Lil said tentatively, even humbly, Ill see you soon, Alice.
No you wont, said Mary. She stood up, a child on either hand, the bundle of letters thrust into the pocket of her slacks. No, she said wildly, the emotion that had been poisoning her at last pulsing out. No. No, you wont. Not ever. You will not ever see them again.
She turned to go, pulling the children with her.
Her husband Tom said, Wait a minute, Mary.
No. Off she went down the path, as fast as she could, stumbling and pulling the children along.
And now surely these four remaining, the women and their sons, should say something, elucidate, make things clear? Not a word. Pinched, diminished, darkened, they sat on, and then at last one spoke. It was Ian who spoke, direct to Roz, in a passionate intimacy, wild-eyed, his lips stiff and angry.
Its your fault, he said. Yes, its your fault. I told you. Its all your fault this has happened.
Roz met his anger with her own. She laughed. A hard angry bitter laugh, peal after peal. My fault, she said. Of course. Who else? And she laughed. It would have done well on the stage, that laugh, but tears poured down her face.
Out of sight down the path, Mary had reached Hannah, the wife of Ian, who had been unable to face the guilty ones, at least not with Mary, whose rage she could not match. She had let Mary go up by herself and she waited here, full of doubt, misery and reproaches that were beginning to bubble up wanting to overflow. But not in anger, no, she needed explanations. She took Shirley from Mary, and the two young women, their children in their arms, stood together on the path, just outside a plumbago hedge that was the boundary for another cafe. They did not speak, but looked into each others faces, Hannah seeking confirmation, which she got. Its true, Hannah.
And now, the laughter. Roz was laughing. The peals of hard laughter, triumphant laughter, was what Mary and Hannah heard, each harsh loud peal lashed them, they shrank away from the cruel sounds. They trembled as the whips of laughter fell.
Evil, Mary pronounced at last, through lips that seemed to have become dough or clay. And as Rozs final yells of laughter reached them, the two young women burst into tears and went running away down the path, away from their husbands, and their husbands mothers.
Two little girls arrived at the big school on the same day, at the same hour, took each others measure, and became best friends. Little things, so bravely confronting that great school, as populous and busy as a supermarket, but filled with what they already knew were hierarchies of girls they felt as hostile, but here was an ally, and they stood holding hands, trembling with fear and their efforts to be brave. A great school, standing on its rise, surrounded by parkland in the English manner, but arched over by a most un-English sky, about to absorb these little things, babies really, their four parents thought enough to bring tears to their eyes! and they did.
They were doughty, quick with repartee, and soon lived down the bullying that greeted new girls; they stood up for each other, fought their own and each others battles. Like sisters, people said, and even, Like twins. Fair, they were, with their neat gleaming ponytails, both of them, and blue-eyed, and as quick as fishes, but really, if you looked, not so alike. Liliane or Lil was thin, with a hard little body, her features delicate, and Rozeanne Roz was sturdier, and where Lil regarded the world with a pure severe gaze, Roz found jokes in everything. But it is nice to think, and say, like sisters, they might be twins; it is agreeable to find resemblances where perhaps none are, and so it went on, through the school terms and the years, two girls, inseparable, which was nice for their families, living in the same street, with parents who had become friends because of them, as so
often happens, knowing they were lucky in their girls choosing each other and making lives easy for everyone.
But these lives were easy. Not many people in the world have lives so pleasant, unproblematical, unreflecting: no one on these blessed coasts lay awake and wept for their sins, or for money, let alone for food. What a good-looking lot, smooth and shiny with sun, with sport, with good food. Few people anywhere know of coasts like these, except perhaps for brief holidays, or in travellers tales like dreams. Sun and sea, sea and sun, and always the sound of waves on beaches.