Читать книгу The River's Song - Jacqueline Bishop - Страница 5

I went to see Annie on my last day on the island. She was sitting on a plain wooden chair in her room, looking out of the wide-open windows at the dark-blue mountains. She turned slowly and looked at me when I walked into the room, a long searching, searing look, before she looked back out the window without saying anything. Her mother, pale and ashen, kept looking from Annie to me, trying, for the umpteenth time, to figure out what had happened between us – just what had gone so terribly wrong. Getting no answer, she withdrew.

Annie looked down at her slender fingers. She turned to look at me again, another searing, searching look, tears rapidly filling her eyes, before she looked back out of the window. It seemed in this one moment that I was saying goodbye to so many people: to a woman named Rachel whom I had loved and who had so loved me; and to the girls, now women, who had all left their mark on me – to Junie, Sophie, Nilda, and that girl Yvette, wherever in the world she might be. I was saying goodbye to my mother, my grandmother, Zekie, the island. But most of all, I was saying goodbye to Annie. Dear sweet Annie.

She tried to say something, but it was too great an effort to get even a few words out. She seemed to be searching for something else to say, before she gave up, and pulled an even tighter veil over her face. She looked down, frail, emaciated, hands trembling in her lap. There was that look again on her face, of deep confusion; something just did not make any sense to her.

I made to go over to her, but found I could not; my feet had grown roots it seemed, down into the ground. She seemed so tiny, so frail. Annie. After that, all I could do was hurriedly leave the room, hurry down the stairs and out of the house, an anguished sob trailing behind me. This is how I remember it, years and years later. This is how I remember it, and why I had to write it down.