The Ocean at the End of the Lane

The narrator feels frozen. He undresses in his sister’s room and lights the gas fireplace. The adult narrator wonders why, of all things, it’s hardest for him to believe that small children would have a gas fireplace in their bedroom. He pulls on his pajamas and a dressing gown as his sister comes in to fetch her nightgown; she announces that she gets to sleep in their parents’ room and watch television. Ursula appears and tells the narrator that his mother won’t believe the narrator, since she always stands with the narrator’s father. Ursula warns the narrator that the next time he’s defiant, she’ll lock him in the attic next time. When the narrator insists he’s not afraid, Ursula turns off the fire, confiscates the matches, and locks the narrator in.

The narrator learned from a book how to get keys out of locks, but the key isn’t in the keyhole. He cries, and it starts to rain. The narrator knows that Ursula will hurt him if he tries to leave, but she won’t expect him to try to leave now. The narrator opens the window, turns off the light, and imagines Ursula believing that he’s in his bed and falling asleep. Remembering all the book characters he’s read about who climbed drainpipes, he begins to shimmy down the drainpipe. He tries not to think and hopes he can avoid the television room window, where his father and Ursula could see him. The narrator focuses on thinking that he’s asleep and is surprised to find the television room empty. He drops into the flowerbed.

A light goes on in the drawing room. Curious, the narrator approaches the window. He’s not sure what’s going on—Ursula and his father both have their back to the narrator, but Ursula is pushed up against the fireplace with her skirt around her waist. The narrator doesn’t care what’s happening; he knows Ursula is distracted. He races out into the cloudy night, and his headache disappears as soon as he hits the lane. He imagines he’s in bed, having vivid dreams. Then he thinks of his father kissing Ursula and his father’s face as he held the narrator underwater. The narrator is afraid of what it means that his father is kissing Ursula. Realizing that his father and Ursula will be in a car if they chase him, the narrator cuts into the meadow.

Thunder rumbles behind the narrator. He pushes on through a plowed field and sees a car on the lane that he recognizes as a neighbor’s. Seeing the car makes the lane seem unsafe, so the narrator cuts across the meadow until he reaches a wire fence. However, when he reaches out to climb under, it shocks him. The narrator presses on, over more gates, until he has no idea where he is. Thunderclouds roll in, and he imagines wolves and ghosts. The narrator shouts for Lettie as lightning flickers oddly above. It illuminates the field, and the narrator can see that there’s no way out. He thinks he sees a break in the hedge, but as he reaches it, he hears Ursula’s voice: she’s behind him, floating weightlessly in the sky. Her blouse is unbuttoned to reveal her white bra.

The narrator knows that Ursula is playing with him. She wants him to run, and knowing that he has no choice, he races for the break in the hedge. He hears Ursula saying that the narrator’s father will do everything she says. He’ll let the narrator out of the attic and drown the narrator in a cold bath nightly until Ursula gets bored. She says that when the narrator dies, he’ll be happy, because he won’t like the attic—it’ll be full of Ursula’s friends who don’t like little boys. The narrator realizes that Ursula is floating right beside him, whispering in his ear. His legs give out. He stumbles and falls and then realizes that he’s wetting himself.

Ursula begins to descend. The narrator feels something soft touch his hand and realizes it’s a kitten. He picks it up, cuddles it, and refuses to go with Ursula. Ursula points out that she’s an adult, while the narrator is a child. Lettie, unafraid, walks up behind the narrator and tells Ursula to get off her land. She takes the narrator’s hand. Ursula smiles. The narrator thinks that Ursula is the powerful, cruel, adult world; he feels small and insignificant, and he knows that Ursula can make his father kill him. Lettie makes the narrator feel braver, but she’s also a child—even if she’s been 11 for a long time. Ursula will win since she’s an adult. Ursula refuses to go back where she came from and vows to take everything she wants from this world.

The narrator holds Lettie’s hand and strokes the kitten. Ursula taunts Lettie and asks what Lettie is going to do now that she’s used the narrator to enter the world. Thoughtfully, Lettie says that she could make Ursula a new door or have Old Mrs. Hempstock send Ursula back across the ocean. Ursula angrily demands the narrator, whom she insists she owns. Ursula points out that the narrator’s parents belong to her and they can take him back. The narrator feels prickly, and the field starts to glow. Ursula explodes in golden light. Lettie confirms that Ursula isn’t dead and talks about getting the narrator food and clothes. She says that the kitten is the same one that the narrator picked from the ground. The narrator tells Lettie that he doesn’t want to go home, but this is a lie: he wants to go home, but to his home before the opal miner showed up.