Free Marnie by Winston Graham Page B

on it is anybody’s guess. The only thing certain
is that it never runs to rule.’
    The lull came to an end with a flash and an explosion like a bomb hitting the damned house. The lights went out and there was a crackle and a crash outside. I don’t know who moved first
but we somehow collided. I was in such a panic that I didn’t know it was him until some seconds later. Then he seemed to be holding me while I trembled. I was trying to get my breath.
    In the silence there were voices somewhere. It was the woman in the apron.
    Then it began to rain. The noise grew until it was a noise like the drums at a firing squad.
    I was standing on my own now and he had moved to the door. The woman came in. ‘Are you all right, sir? It’s that maple tree: all down the side; and the lights has fused! Lucky you
wasn’t by the window: I was afraid for you! All right, miss? There’s a car outside. I wonder: oo, look, yes, see it’s broken the glass in the dining-room window!’
    Mark hobbled back towards the window, but I wouldn’t go. By the time I got half-way I could see the lawn already under water and bobbling like with fish, and rose petals had drifted off
the trees. A branch of a tree had been split and had fallen across the step.
    ‘It’s real dangerous today,’ said the woman. ‘Worst I ever remember.’ She pulled the french windows shut and bolted them. There was water already on the carpet.
    ‘There’s some brandy in the dining-room, Mrs Leonard. I think Mrs Taylor would like a drink.’
    I sat down in a chair well back in the room, clutching my hands together to keep them still. He seemed cheerful, more cheerful than he had before, as if the whole foul thing was rather fun.
    ‘The chances of being struck by lightning are very small,’ he said. ‘In future I’ll keep my big mouth shut.’
    ‘That taxi-dr-driver. He’ll be get-getting drenched.’
    ‘Not if he stays where he is.’
    ‘I really can’t go yet, not till this is over.’
    ‘I don’t expect you to.’
    ‘Mr Ward will be fuming. He wanted the proof back by four.’
    ‘Let him wait. It won’t do him any harm to wait.’
    There was another clatter of thunder as Mrs Leonard brought in the bottle and the glasses, but after that last crack ordinary thunder seemed nothing. He poured me something. ‘Swallow this
down. And you too, Mrs Leonard.’
    I swallowed some and coughed. It was as strong as paraffin. But I gulped at it and you could feel it like fire, burning as it went down. Mrs Leonard went out to see if there was any damage
upstairs. I began to let go of my hands.
    ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I wonder who won the three-thirty.’
    ‘Who was leading when you switched off?’
    ‘North Wind. But Gulley Jimson was the favourite.’
    After about ten minutes the lights came on again, but by now you hardly wanted them. The rain had begun to ease. Water still dripped from the gutter and gurgled in the pipes. Mrs Leonard put her
head in to say there was no damage upstairs. He rang Mr Ward to say what had happened.
    I got up to go. I was still quivering like a drunk round the knees, but he couldn’t tell that. He gave me the proofs and hobbled with me to the door. He was friendly and easy. You’d
hardly have known him. When we’d had tea after the rose show he’d been picking his way, not sure of himself or something. Now it was different. But there still didn’t seem much
risk of him heading the way of his cousin.
    When I got in the taxi I began to feel a bit cheap and ashamed of myself, which was something rather new for me. I thought at first I was developing a disease. It took a time to work out what
was wrong; and then at last I pinned it to that conversation we had had about me losing my husband and him losing his wife.

CHAPTER FIVE
    With Susan Clabon taking her holidays from 10 September until the 26th the best date to set my sights on was Thursday the 22nd.
    The staff was paid from eleven o’clock onwards on a Friday morning.