by Beth Moran
Mercy, one of the most inappropriately named creatures there has ever been, ran at me, squawking. I leapt on top of the toilet seat. At Denver’s command, the whole gaggle rushed into the bathroom, flapping and pooping and cackling like a bunch of crazy witches. I was trapped on Toilet Island, in a sea of evil, pecky sharks. I tried yelling, and waving my foot around as if preparing to give them a good boot out of the door, but those crafty girls weren’t fooled. They knew easy prey when they saw it. I didn’t really think that they wanted to hurt me, or to eat me. But like any bullies they were bent on humiliating me until I shrivelled up and cried.
I carried on hollering, clapping, and stamping up and down on the toilet lid until Belinda, a deceptively cute-looking black hen with gold eyes, snatched hold of my towel and began yanking it off. Admittedly, it had become partially unwrapped due to the scrambling and the kicking, but still. That was deliberate emotional abuse. Two of the other birds began to hop up and down on it, clawing it further away. We were engaged in a feathery, squawky, poopy towel wrestle when suddenly a voice shouted “HEY!”, causing Belinda to let go of the towel, me to stumble backwards and fall off the side of the toilet, and every other chicken to cower on the floor in terror. It was as if the teacher had finally showed up at the start of class. For one moment I really thought the voice was Denver’s. That’s how absolutely absurd the situation had become. When I saw who stood in the doorway of my bathroom, I almost wished it had been the cockerel.
It was the man with the dog. He coughed, his eyes wide with amusement. He did at least have the decency to duck his eyes as he passed me my towel.
“Out, girls! Now!” He pointed one straight arm in the direction of the outside door, and the hens meekly shuffled out in an orderly line.
“And you.” He swept up Denver and held him up to look sternly into his beady, blood-red eyes. “You should know better.”
He tossed Denver out of the door, and stood watching as he scampered off after his hens. I had hastily covered up my body with the wrecked towel, but no towel in the universe could have concealed my mortification. No man had ever seen me naked in broad daylight before (except for my da). I mean not even my boyfriend-slash-fiancé of eight years. And to be honest, if I had imagined the first time a man saw me naked, the scenario in my head would not have involved me wedged into the space between a shower and a toilet, the strip light glinting off the bird poo on my feet and dirty brown feathers stuck to my skin. (I would, however, have lost two stone and had a boob job.) I cowered behind the doorway, my eyes looking anywhere but at him.
“Are you all right? Did you hurt yourself?” He kept his head firmly angled toward the outside.
No! And yes! But I’m not about to tell you that I have a severely bruised bottom. Please go away and never come back.
“I’m fine. Thanks.” I began to edge the bathroom door shut, with me behind it.
“Do you want some help clearing up?”
“No. Thank you.” I whispered. Go!
“Okay. Well, I’ll see you around.” He turned and looked me right in the eyes, catching me there for a second before I could drop my gaze. His eyes were deep blue, with flecks of silver. The colour of twilight in the forest.
Suddenly he grinned. “I’m looking forward to it.”
He jogged down the steps, past my caravan into the trees beyond. I dashed out and whipped my front door shut, scrabbling through my bag for the keys to lock it. As I cleaned up myself and the rest of the mess, I felt, unaccountably, as flappy and flustered as the chickens.
If any man did ever get to see me naked in broad daylight for a second time, I maybe wouldn’t mind so much if he looked at me with eyes the colour of twilight in the forest.
I had nothing left to take to Fire Night. It had grown late by the time I was ready to leave, and I felt tempted to simply draw my curtains and curl up under the covers to have my own little pity party for one instead. But, with a knock on my window, Valerie’s voice called out: “Where are you, Marion? I was worried about you. We’re ready to start eating and you aren’t there yet. Are you all right?”
I grabbed my bag, unlocking the door.
“Yes, I’m coming. I had a bit of an accident, but I’m fine. It just took a while to tidy up.”
“Six thousand people are hurt every year either tripping up over their trousers, or falling down the stairs while pulling them up.”
“Oh. Well, good job we don’t have any stairs then.”
“Yes. Did you know you have a feather stuck to the back of your head?” Valerie reached up and plucked it off, blowing it away before taking hold of my hand. She jiggled and tugged me along to her garden, chattering the whole time about nothing much. That girl lifted my spirits more than she could possibly know. I felt entirely comfortable again by the time I reached the barbeque; maybe even a tiny bit confident. Until I saw how many people – and, more specifically, who – had come to the party.
His name was Reuben. He hadn’t been joking about owning the land where Pettigrew and I came to grief.
He introduced me properly to Lord and Lady Hatherstone – his parents. I managed a stammered hello, although they seemed perfectly at ease with the whole situation.
“Oh, none of that lord and lady twaddle! They only call us that to wind us up.” Lady Hatherstone whacked me on the back. “I think we are a little beyond formalities, all things considered. Don’t you?”
She winked. I wondered if your cheeks could get so hot they burst into flames. Her husband tipped back his round, bald head and roared. “Ha! That’s one way of putting it. No, we are Archie and Ginger to our friends, and anyone who has seen us déshabillé had better be a friend, not an enemy!”
Reuben glanced at me, raising one eyebrow. A panic attack began swimming at the edge of my vision. He turned back to his mum and dad, shaking his head. “Please don’t tell me Marion has had to see you two at it. When are you going to learn to get a room? One with a lock on the door?”
“Oh, grow up, darling! Marion didn’t mind. It’s happened to all of us at one time or another!”
Ginger and Archie wafted off to another corner of the meadow, leaving me standing with Reuben, desperately trying to think of an excuse to walk away, if only my brain would stop buzzing enough to let me think.
He cleared his throat and ran his hand through his dark hair a couple of times.
“Well. Looks like we’re even.”
I froze, horrified.
Reuben grimaced. “Sorry. I take that back. No comparison…”
At that moment, Jake sauntered over, just to crank up the tension further. He slung one arm round my shoulder, beer bottle dangling from the end of it.
“Reuben,” Jake nodded, in a macho, chin-jutting sort of way.
“Jake,” Reuben smiled, sticking his hands in his pockets. He got the message. If Jake were a cat, he would have sprayed his urine on me about now.
“So – where’s Erica?”
Reuben rolled his shoulders. As if Jake’s hot, heavy arm was annoying him as much as it was me. “Working. She’ll be here for the festival.” He glanced at his own bottle. “I’m getting a top up. See you later, Jake. Marion.” Reuben walked off toward the picnic table laden with drinks, pausing to take Katarina’s empty glass from her as he went.
Jake bent his head closer to mine. I could smell the alcohol on his breath. “Erica is Reuben’s girlfriend.” Of course she is. “Her parents own the campsite land, live in one of the new houses on the edge of Hatherstone. She rents a flat in Nottingham, ’cos she’s got some fancy job with a chain of designer shops, and the head office is in the Lace Market. Reuben is supposed to be finally popping the question at the festival next week. Sealing the deal. Don’t know what he’s waiting for. Erica’s a fox.”
I had nothing to say to that. I was too weak and too stupid to remove Jake’s tentacle arm for no better reason than not wanting the arm of a rude, drunk, presumptuous man pressing down on my shoulders no matter how strong and muscular that
arm might be or how good looking the man on the end of it. I did not want the whole of the Peace and Pigs, plus numerous guests, to imagine something going on between us. I especially did not want Jake to think that. Let alone Grace.
I pretended I needed the toilet.
Scarlett found me, much later on, hovering in her kitchen moving dirty pots from one side of the room to another.
“Okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine. Just thought I’d better help out a bit since I didn’t bring anything to share.”
“Well, that’s very kind of you.” She crinkled her eyes at me. “And there was me thinkin’ you were hidin’ from Jake. Don’t judge him too harshly tonight. He had a very uncomfortable conversation with Grace today, followed by the news that his mother has been denied parole again. He don’t know whether to celebrate or drown his sorrows, but either way he’ll only hate himself more in the mornin’.”
“I didn’t know his mum was in prison.”
“Well, it ain’t a secret round here, but it ain’t exactly the kind of thing you share with the girl you’re tryin’ to impress, either.”
“So – do all your employees come from tough family situations?”
Scarlett wiped her hands on her apron. “I don’t know, sugar. Do they?”
I turned and began scraping leftovers into a goody bag for the chickens. “I’m not very good at parties.”
“Most people aren’t. That’s why I have ’em every week, so we can get used to ’em. This is about the busiest it gets, though. With the festival comin’ up we always have extra.”
“The Robin Hood Festival?”
“Absolutely! It’s the highlight of the Peace and Pigs year. We’ll be full to the brim those three days; but on the last day – the Sunday – reception is closed and all employees must attend the festivities. It’s in everyone’s contract.”
My breath got stuck somewhere behind my diaphragm. I thought about the photograph, and my head swam. All I could do was nod.
Scarlett gently took the plate out of my hand, and put it with the rest of the pile on the draining board. “This isn’t your job tonight. You are going to listen and put into practice Scarlett’s lesson in survivin’ party minglin’.
“One: never forget Scarlett’s Lesson Number One.”
I smiled. It wasn’t hard in the warmth of Scarlett’s kitchen.
“Two: find someone who looks as lost and lonely as you feel, walk right up to them and ask them how they’re doin’. Listen to their answer and respond accordingly. Ask intelligent, thoughtful questions, and keep goin’. If you can’t see anyone lookin’ lost and lonely, look harder. If you can’t think of an intelligent question, ask ’em what they like to do and go from there. Never, never ask somebody, ‘What do you do?’ It’s dumb and rude to think that anyone can answer that question adequately by recitin’ a job title, and most of us are far more interestin’ than that. These days, goodness knows, enough people are spendin’ every moment searchin’ high and low for any kind of work, worryin’ about how they’re gonna pay the bills or buy their kids that mobile phone they want so they don’t get laughed at in the playground. They cry, wring their hands in despair and work their butts off tryin’ to scrimp and save on every penny, meanwhile prayin’ it will be enough to prevent the big fat bank manager from bootin’ them out of the house they spent years makin’ into a precious home for their family. Before he jets off to spend his big fat bankin’ bonus on yet another luxury holiday to erase all that stress he gets makin’ so much money off poor hard-workin’ everyday folks.
“So don’t ask ’em what job they do. Lift your head, look ’em in the eye, remember you are as worthwhile a human bein’ as anybody else, with a unique story to share. Three: don’t ramble, moan, bitch, gossip, drink too much or agree with somebody just to seem nice when you think they are talkin’ outta their patoot. Got it?”
“Um.”
“Good. Now go make some friends.”
I was on my first holiday at Auntie Paula’s house. Except even then I knew holidays should be far away, not just past the Post Office. And you don’t have to go to school. And they are actually fun. Auntie Paula told me I was on holiday because she didn’t want to say, out loud, the truth that Ma was locked up in the hospital for crazy people having electricity zapped into her brain until her eyes span round. I knew this because my cousin Declan told me.
In a town of typically large Catholic families, Declan was the only boy in his class with his own bedroom. This status symbol somehow made up for him being mean and spoiled, and smelling of old chip fat from his parents’ fish van. Now that I had come to stay while the doctors drilled holes in Ma’s head to stop her eating her own fingers, Declan had to share with his five-year-old brother, Benny. Benny woke Declan every morning at five-thirty by jumping on his bed, yelling. He broke Declan’s model of a zillion-pound Lamborghini, and scribbled on his Italia ’90 Republic of Ireland football cards. Declan hated Benny, but he blamed me.
The second day of my holiday, he picked his nose and wiped the snot on my battered cod. Two days later he smeared dirt in my underwear so Auntie Paula thought I had messed myself. He didn’t even try to be sneaky about it. He knew I couldn’t tell anyone.
Frustrated at my continued silence, my aunt took me to see Father Francis. She figured that when all else fails, you had better try God. I hadn’t been to mass since my daddy had gone, but I remembered Father Francis. He had a moustache. I liked watching it waffle up and down when he talked. His voice was soft and slow, and he always shook my hand and called me Miss Marion. He was my daddy’s friend. Four times after the funeral he came round and knocked on our door, but the first two times Ma ignored it. The third time she opened the door, threw the dirty dish water over him, and screamed at my daddy’s friend: “Get lost, you lying hypocrite. Go on back to your land of make believe.” The fourth time she phoned the police.
Mrs Dunn, the housekeeper, showed us into a room with fat, flowery sofas and an entire wall of shelving units crammed with books. Above a worn desk was a noticeboard covered in photographs. Radiant brides with their arms flung around grinning grooms. Babies in christening gowns, older children in smart suits and first communion dresses. Anniversaries, birthday parties, graduation pictures. And squeezed in between all these smiles and hats were dozens of cards of thanks and good wishes to Father Francis, who had cheered on every morsel of good news, and wept with every loss that touched his beloved parish.
Auntie Paula sat up straight and tucked her solid brown bag behind crossed ankles. I was wearing my best dress. Like all my clothes, it had got too small and I kept trying to stretch the skirt to cover a bit more of my skinny legs. When Father Francis came in, carrying a tray with a teapot and mugs and a sticky brown cake, Auntie Paula stood up. She nodded and smiled at the priest, and then suddenly remembered she had to ask Mrs Dunn about the next month’s cleaning rota.
Father Francis waited for her to leave, then cut an enormous slice of cake and handed it to me. I took a bite, but the chewed-up crumbs stuck in my throat, blocked by the traffic jam of words. He sipped his tea and smiled at me. His moustache smiled too.
“How are you, Miss Marion? I haven’t seen you in a while. We’ve missed you at mass, and Sunday club.”
I drank some tea to force the cake down.
“That’s okay if you don’t feel like talking. Do you mind if I tell you a story?”
I shook my head. I didn’t mind. Stories were my favourite thing.
“Many years ago, when I was still a young man and not long a priest, I used to go fishing at the lake behind the Mullans’ farm. Only on this particular occasion, I didn’t know that two very naughty boys, who shall remain unnamed, had protested against my telling their mammies when I found wee Carla Bragg locked in the church cellar.”
My mouth twitched. Carla Bragg was now the captain of the women’s rugby team. There were rumours that when the men’s team were short she donned a thin disguise and played for them. They always won th
ose particular matches.
“Their protest took the form of a hole in my boat – tiny enough to make sure I reached the very middle of the lake before I noticed water seeping in to fill the bottom. I tried to scoop it out with one hand and row closer to shore with the other, but as a clever girl like you knows, you cannot row with one hand. You just go round and round in circles. Now, the lake wasn’t all that deep, and I could swim well enough, but what I haven’t told you is that on this particular afternoon I had to conduct the funeral of James Herbert Hamilton Moore. The late husband of Miriam Hamilton Moore.”
I sat up in my chair. Miriam Hamilton Moore was the snootiest, bossiest, pickiest woman in Ballydown. I hadn’t known she had ever been married. I felt a moment of pity for James Herbert.
“I had been a little bit foolish, Marion. I only had an hour or so until I had to be getting myself ready, and by the time I had rowed myself round and round in circles for a while, I had maybe time to change, but certainly not to shower stinky brown lake water out of my hair. Besides, there was a six-foot, iron-jawed old pike living in the lake in those days. I didn’t fancy him nipping at my trousers as I swam past.
“So I was stuck in the middle of the lake in a sinking ship, with no way out that didn’t involve me turning up to conduct a respectable man’s funeral smothered in mud and whatever else you might find floating about in that water. I prayed a heartfelt prayer, I can tell you, asking God to forgive my reckless decision to fish on a funeral day, and to help me to forgive those two monkeys who right then I felt like sticking on the end of my fishing rod to use as pike-bait. And asking him to send me an angel to get me out of there dry. And just at that moment, a young man whom I had never set eyes on before appeared at the far side of the water. Seeing my difficulty, he called across to ask what my problem was. And so I told him. Do you know what that young man did, Miss Marion?”
