Page 113 of The Boathouse By the Loch

Marnie resumed her seat.

Everyone waited and watched as she cast a furtive glance behind her, as though she was checking she wasn’t being followed.

‘Can you tell me what you see?’ Marnie asked.

‘It’s so dark. There’s no shops open. Everyone’s gone home for Christmas.’ She cupped her hands and blew into them as though trying to warm them up. ‘Now I’m free I don’t know what to do, where to go.’

‘Are you no longer in Logan’s car?’

‘I … I tried to start the car and drive off when he got out, but the car wouldn’t start.’

She suddenly raised her eyebrows, as though something had caught her attention. ‘Oh, my god.’

‘What is it?’ Marnie asked.

‘I see a light on in a shop.’

‘On Christmas Day?’

She didn’t reply, but glanced over her shoulder, eyes darting around the room as though looking for someone. ‘It must be a security light they leave on to deter people from breaking in. Not that it would deter Logan.’She stopped abruptly and put her hand to her mouth. ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’ She spoke so quietly the others could barely hear. ‘You won’t tell anyone I said that, will you?’ she whispered.

‘It’s just you and me, Bonnie,’ Marnie whispered back, suppressing a smile at the absurdity of that statement.Just you, me, and a bunch of people who want to know who you really are.

Bonnie said, ‘But it can’t be just a security light because I see, I see …’

‘What do you see?’

‘There’s a woman sitting at a table in the window of Wilbur’s Bookstore.’ She craned her neck. ‘She’s looking right at me and she’s pointing. No, wait … she’s not looking at me. She can’t even see me because it’s pitch black out here. She’s drawing on the window … yes, in the misted-up window she’s drawing something.’

The same thought was going through everyone’s mind; the person sitting in Wilbur’s Bookstore on Christmas Day must have been Robyn – the real Robyn. And what everyone wanted to know was: if the person sitting in front of them was not Robyn Parker, which she obviously wasn’t, what had happened to the real Robyn?

‘Can you describe her?’ Jake broke ranks and spoke out of turn.

Marnie was about to admonish him, but to everyone’s surprise, she answered his question. ‘She’s a young woman, but the window is too misted-up for me to see her clearly.’ Her eyes moved to her left. ‘I’m going to try the door. It says it’s closed, but I’m going to try it anyway.’

‘What’s happening?’ Jake whispered to the shrink.

Marnie whispered, ‘She’s going into the shop.’

Everybody leaned forward in their seats as she held out her hand and tried the door in her memory. ‘It’s locked!’ She held up her hand, appearing to knock on an imaginary door. She suddenly stopped, lowering her hand.

Then she looked down and seemed to be studying what she was wearing. ‘What will they think?’

They?Jake mouthed, looking around the room at the others, who were exchanging confused glances.

Marnie said, ‘Is there someone else in the shop with the young woman?’

She didn’t seem to hear the question; she was too busy looking down at what she was wearing. ‘I’m standing here in a flimsy dress with no coat,’ she touched her face, ‘and a face like a punch bag. I don’t know what I’m going to say if someone answers the door. I’m not here to buy a book. I’m trying to hide from Logan. Oh, the girl, the one I saw in the window, is coming over. I’m scared she’s going to tell me to leave, but she surprises me when she says,Hi, we’re having tea, want to join us?Like I’m just an ordinary person who’s strolled in to look for a book on Christmas Day. I know the shop saidClosedin the window. And she doesn’t ask me questions that are going to make me embarrassed, like why I haven’t got proper winter clothes on, or a coat, and what I’m doing here all alone on Christmas Day. Somehow I feel I’m good company. Like they understand.’

Bonnie smiled before she continued her story …

‘The lady speaks with an accent. I know straight off that’s she’s from England. She speaks with this posh English accent that I recognise from all those wonderful old black-and-white movies that I love. And suddenly I’m feeling so sick of my life, like I’ve completely had it, you know? I always wanted just to be able to step into one of those old movies, just step out of my old life and into some place different,besomebody different.’

She paused. ‘Is that so very bad? To want something more out of life?’

She didn’t wait for an answer, although given the chance, every person in the room would have answerednoin unison.

‘It was kind of like a dream, finding that old bookstore on Christmas Day.’

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