The Engagement
By Maggie Mountford


“Watch! Watch me!”

I stood at the top of the staircase. All day I’d been nervous. Now the world was askew, the ceiling a spinning top.

“Don’t be childish, Anne,” he said. His face was turned upwards, towards me, a white dial.

I thought, How can I marry you? You’re a bore – a bore! At the same time, hating myself because I wasn’t meant to think like this, I was meant to love him.

“Come on, Anne,” he said. “Stop playing around. Everyone’s waiting. The orchestra. Everything. It’s our engagement – until we appear, it can’t really begin.”

But I didn’t want to obey. I thought, I shall spend the rest of my life doing what he tells me. Just for a last time, I want please myself.

I don’t know why, but I felt oddly excited. As if I’d discovered a new me.
“Go away,” I said. The girl who was speaking didn’t sound like me, she sounded much older.

He started up the stairs, meaning to persuade me. He was always persuading me about something. Where to drive to on Sundays. What kind of dress to wear, what colour cloak.
Where we would live, once we’re married. How many children he wanted. Which schools they should go to, even. I was suddenly furious.
“Go away,” I said, again.

I could see impatience in his face. His eyes were very pale, and I looked away, trying not to laugh at him. I could hardly believe it was me, when I spoke again.
“Look!Look! I can fly,” I said. “I can take off, if you like, fly right around the ceiling. You’ll be amazed…”
“Anne, don’t,” he said. “You’re being silly, very silly indeed. Come down. Everyone’s waiting. Your father asked me to fetch you.”
I wanted to say something nice, but I found myself saying, instead, “You didn’t know I was a bird, did you?”

I held out my arms, lifting up a foot, and at the same time I stared straight into his eyes, quite serious, as though daring him to prevent me. He lunged upward, thinking I meant it. I took a step away from him, but he went on climbing, went on coming towards me, shouting,“Anne! Anne!”

I don’t think I’d have done it if he hadn’t spoken my name like that.
“Anne Cunningham! You’re a very silly girl!” he cried, his voice sharp. “You’re silly, and spoiled, and selfish. Come down, please. Everyone’s waiting.”
“I’m a bird,” I said. “You can’t order birds around, you know. You can’t tell them what to do. They’ll fly off, like this…”

I put out my foot, and my dress caught around my ankle. It was ivory silk – very, very beautiful. At that last moment, I meant to draw my foot back, take his hand, go downstairs with him, properly, soberly, and start the party. But instead I tipped forward.

It seemed like minutes though it was less than a second that I was flailing, trying to catch his hand, trying to get hold of him, but instead I grabbed the watch that dangled from his waistcoat and it came away in my fingers as I toppled, over and over, past him, until I lay at the foot of the staircase, inside an awful silence, my party, my wedding, my home and my children, all the years I’d have lived, all rushing away from me, like a mirage in the desert when you reach out to take it, but there’s nothing. Nothing.

I wanted to whisper, “Sorry! I’m so, so sorry! I didn’t mean it!” But all I could manage was one final sigh, before darkness claimed me.

Nobody in this house believes in ghosts. Watch me! Watch me!


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