‘Margery!’ a voice called. ‘Fancy seeing you here! You haven’t been back for years.’
Never, in fact, she didn’t say, recognizing a former classmate, Stephanie; still ginger-haired and freckled, although now distinctly overweight. The woman was scrambling up to greet her, and at least half-a-dozen others from her year began smiling, waving and introducing themselves. Not that she had a problem remembering their names, which were tripping off her tongue as easily as if she were back in class: Philipppa, Elizabeth, Felicity, Lucinda, and the twins, Elspeth and Virginia. No one had a ‘common’ name like Margery, of course – another badge of inferiority, she had soon learned to her shame. On one hideous occasion, they’d heard her mother call her Marge, and immediately given her the nickname ‘Margarine’ – a name she’d loathed, but which had stuck till she left school.
At least they appeared to have forgotten it, thank Christ, and all trace of condescension had completely disappeared, as they made room for her on the tartan rug; even admired her hat.
‘Perfect timing, Margery!’ Lucinda said, with a smile. ‘We were just about to make a start on the nosh. And what would you like to drink? I’m afraid we’ve finished all the champers, but there’s enough wine here to get us all well and truly plastered!’
Only then did she notice the ice-buckets and wicker picnic hampers; the pretty patterned china and hallmarked knives and forks. In her particular circle, a picnic involved eating with one’s fingers from, at best, a paper plate – and eating something basic like a sandwich or pork pie. But here, spread out in banquet mode, was a whole poached salmon resplendent on a silver platter; an exotic layered terrine; what looked like a roast pheasant, and a huge cache of caviar. There were also mounds of fresh hulled strawberries, topped with clotted cream, and a variety of elaborate desserts, in pretty cut-glass bowls. They had been instructed to bring picnic food to share, so she had bought a pasta salad on her way home from work last night. In fact, she had totally forgotten it, in her distress about arriving late, and left it curdling and sweating in the car, together with a bottle of undistinguished wine. Now she blessed her oversight, since she realized with embarrassment that she should have brought home-made food, served in ritzy style; not an uncouth plastic tub, grabbed in haste from Asda.
As she continued to survey the feast, she noticed there were even damask napkins, and a bone-china dish containing exquisite little pats of butter – which immediately set her reflecting on her nickname. Butter was traditional and naturally superior, pure and undefiled, whereas margarine, in contrast, was an upstart: synthetic and adulterated, a garish-coloured mongrel, with no breeding or finesse – and very like her mum, in that respect. Clarissa and her cronies had once dismissed her mother as a ‘pleb’, and though she hadn’t understood the word, she had felt the deep contempt in it. The other girls had entirely different mothers: delicate, well-spoken women, with soft, white, work-shy hands, who wore floaty floral dresses and high heels, instead of her mum’s miniskirts and dirty, battered plimsolls. And they all had proper fathers who lived with them at home, and not in Honolulu with a bimbo. And they owned dogs and horses and villas in Provence, and went on skiing trips in winter, and employed live-in cooks and nannies. Even her rich grandmother did all the cooking herself (as well as piles of housework), and she and Grandpa never went away, except once, to some small guesthouse in Southend. In any case, their money was despised at school, as not being ‘the right sort’, although she had never really understood why any kind of money could ever be judged ‘wrong’.
‘So, Margery, how are you?’ Lucinda asked, offering her a platter of asparagus.
‘Er, fine,’ she said, deliberately refusing any food. She could hardly gobble theirs, having contributed nothing herself.
‘It must be – let’s see – thirty years since we last laid eyes on you.’
‘It’s actually thirty-six.’
‘Well, tell us what’s been happening all that time?’
‘Oh … this and that.’ It felt wrong to be the centre of attention; every eye now turned on her with interest. At school, she had learned her place, as someone best ignored.
‘Do you work at all?’ asked Stephanie.
‘Oh, yes.’
‘And what line of work would that be?’
‘I run a charity called Kids-in-Crisis, which I set up in the eighties. It helps disadvantaged children who—’
‘Brilliant! Good for you.’
Stephanie had not only interrupted, she had sounded rather patronizing. OK, Margery thought, if you don’t care about abused and battered kids, let’s change the subject, shall we? ‘And how about you, Stephanie? I remember you were a whiz at maths. Did you follow that up and become a big noise in the City?’
‘Far from it!’ Stephanie laughed. ‘I’ve never really done a thing – except bring up my three sons, of course.’
Margery stiffened at the mention of children; knew she’d be judged inadequate on the grounds of having none, and not even having married. Her mother’s own experience had put her off matrimony for life. Fortunately, she was saved an inquisition by the appearance of Miss O’Sullivan, their former English teacher; now stooped and grey and fading, but instantly recognizable by her hook nose and fierce black eyes.
‘Lucinda! How lovely! And Elspeth and Virginia, still inseparable, I see. And that’s Stephanie Simmonds, isn’t it? Yes, the same red hair. Wonderful to see you all!’
Extraordinary, thought Margery, that this figure of authority – indeed, a martinet – should be embracing her former pupils, even insisting they call her ‘Mavis’.
‘Ah, Felicity, you I’ll never forget! You were always trouble, weren’t you, and trouble with a capital T! I remember you asking me once why we had to study Wordsworth’s shitty daffodils!’
In the ensuing burst of laughter, Margery realized that Miss O’Sullivan had failed to acknowledge her at all. Hardly any wonder, when she had invariably tried to hide at school and make herself invisible. Well-bred girls like Felicity, overflowing with confidence, could afford to be ‘always trouble’, but not her, the parvenu. She sat in silence, listening to the jokes and banter, until Miss O’Sullivan (‘Mavis’ was a step too far) eventually moved away to liaise with another group.
‘She’s not still teaching, is she?’ asked Lucinda, gazing after the tall, bent figure, with its shock of coarse, grey hair.
‘Good God, no! She must be nearly eighty.’
‘Actually, I met the present English mistress when I first arrived,’ Virginia remarked. ‘And she looked about sixteen!’
More laughter. Once it had abated, Margery asked, with studied nonchalance, ‘I presume Clarissa’s here?’
‘Yes, she’s over there by the cedar tree,’ Elizabeth replied, ‘with quite a few of the others from her form. It’s priceless, isn’t it, the way we’ve formed ourselves into little tribal groups, according to which year we were.’
‘It’s not surprising, really, though,’ Felicity put in. ‘I mean, the higher forms seemed so old and scary, and we’re probably still reflecting that. I remember being quite in awe of Clarissa.’
With little cause, Margery thought, glancing at the woman’s chic designer suit. As the daughter of a judge who drove a vintage Daimler, Felicity had been smugly safe from any bullying attacks.
‘Apparently, she’s something of a star now,’ Philippa observed, spreading caviar on ciabatta.
‘Yes, marrying Lord Pemberton is certainly a feather in her cap, not to mention her own CBE.’
‘And both her daughters are high fliers, don’t forget. In fact, didn’t Annabel get hitched to some famous film producer?’
Margery took refuge in her wine, beginning to feel distinctly out of her depth. She wasn’t in the habit of hobnobbing with film producers, nor was she on first-name terms with any peer of the realm. In fact, she appeared to be reverting to her former lowly status, as she remembered, with a squirm of shame, how mortified she used to feel when her school-mates called
her ‘Margarine’. Imaginative to a fault, she had pictured herself as a tub of cheap, disgusting stuff, maltreated by Clarissa, who would stick a dirty knife in her, tainting her with toast-crumbs and globules of boiled egg. Or she’d be snatched from the fridge and left out in the broiling sun, which reduced her to a rancid, oily mass. Or the queen would even spit into the carton, sweep it from the table with a derisive curl of the lip, then chuck it in the rubbish-bin.
Often, she’d felt close to panic, experiencing the actual sense of being coffined in a bin; fighting for each laboured breath as she was crushed against other dregs and dross: potato peelings, jagged cans, clammy tea leaves, chicken bones. And, cowering amidst that toxic waste, she’d imagined how repulsive she must smell – the sickening stench of failure.
Such bitter recollections made her even more determined to take a stand, for once; challenge her oppressor and settle these old scores. ‘I think I’ll go and say hello to Clarissa,’ she said, speaking with feigned casualness, as if she intended to indulge in a little idle chatter, rather than a tongue-lashing. ‘I remember her so well.’
‘But, Margery, you haven’t eaten a thing.’
‘And barely touched your wine.’
‘Don’t worry, I won’t be long. Back here in a tick.’
Advancing towards the cedar tree, she was aware of her stomach turning nauseous somersaults, but she made herself walk on, resolving to pursue her quarry, whatever it might cost. However, she noticed with alarm that even pronouncing Clarissa’s name caused her voice to gag and grate.
‘My … my friends said she was over here, but I … I can’t see her anywhere.’
‘No, she’s just gone inside to spend a penny,’ some Sloaney type replied: ‘You’ve only missed her by a couple of minutes.
Disconcerted, she turned on her heel, only to realize this was a blessing in disguise. She could hardly shout abuse in public, whereas a private confrontation would leave her free to be as vicious and as vengeful as she chose.
Crossing the expanse of lawn, she headed for the house, making for the downstairs cloakroom she remembered from the sixties. The whole layout of the school might have changed since then, of course, but, no, the cloakroom was still there, although totally deserted. Clarissa must have nipped upstairs to the much grander bathrooms adjacent to the dormitories. Before going up to join her, she took a quick peek in the school-hall, concealing herself in the doorway. How free and relaxed the pupils seemed, compared with her own stiff and scared obedience. The intimidated child she’d been would never have dared to sprawl or slouch in such a slipshod fashion, let alone shriek with raucous laughter. (In fact, she couldn’t remember laughing even once at school – not in thirteen years.) And the uniform was also much more casual – no longer a severe grey tunic, prim white blouse, and black, frumpy, lace-up shoes, but T-shirts, for heaven’s sake, worn atop jaunty pleated skirts, and a wild assortment of free-and-easy footwear: trainers, sling-backs, ballet-pumps, in cheerful fruit-drop colours.
Mindful of her mission, she tore herself away and began climbing the flight of handsome wooden stairs, although assailed by painful memories even there. Clarissa had once ordered her to go upstairs on her hands and knees and lick each step in the process. She had slavishly obeyed, of course, tasting grime and dust on her tongue, but willing to be chastened because the Queen was taking notice of her.
Fired by new indignation, she tried the first large bathroom on the left, but found that empty, too. She stood a moment, however, marvelling at its sumptuousness. Claremont Grange was a listed building, so any modernization must be subject to strict rules, and certainly here, at least, there was no sign of even minor change: the same toilet ‘thrones’, with their polished mahogany seats; the same huge bath, with lions’ paws as its feet, carved in elaborate detail; the same ornamental tiling, bright with birds and flowers.
Mechanically, she found herself walking further on, making for the dormitory she had slept in when she first arrived. In contrast to the bathroom, the place was completely transformed. Gone were the stark white counterpanes, the high, white-curtained beds, each a private ‘cell’, cut off from the others, to discourage dangerous intimacy. The new divans were companionably close, topped with coloured duvets and strewn with cuddly toys. She recalled her sleepless nights here (all such toys forbidden); the longing for her mother so intense it was a pain; the yearning for a goodnight kiss or consoling bedtime story, instead of only silence and severity.
Drifting on to the infirmary, she remembered daily cod-liver-oil and occasional syrup-of-figs (one disgusting, one delicious), and her long spells in the sick-bay, with cystitis, tonsillitis, bronchitis, laryngitis. Whatever ‘itises’ might be, she had hated them for confining her with Matron; keeping her a prisoner in that bleak and pallid room. Naturally, she had failed to understand back then that physical illness could be caused by mental pain.
‘For God’s sake!’ she muttered to herself. ‘Don’t be such a misery.’
She should be counting her blessings, not indulging in self-pity. In point of fact, she’d been extremely fortunate to inhabit such magnificent surroundings, when she might have been at a sink-school, with no ornate ceilings, spacious rooms or acres of extensive grounds. And she could have landed up with rotten teachers, poorly trained and incapable of discipline, instead of the likes of Miss O’Sullivan, with her Double First from Cambridge. In any case, why linger in the past when she had now achieved success, with a satisfying job and good friends who shared her values? She felt not the slightest envy of her classmates’ hedonistic lives; their snazzy cars, or social whirl of Henley, Ascot, Glyndebourne. Nor, strange as it might seem, was she jealous of their children. Kids-in-Crisis had become her cherished child; one she’d nurtured lovingly from its frail and feeble babyhood.
Indeed, she was beginning to see that the very idea of a showdown with Clarissa was both pointless and demeaning. They were both grown women now, and what had happened in their schooldays was of very little consequence. She must return to the picnic and do her best to enjoy it; make the day a genuine celebration, not an exercise in reprisals and revenge. She could celebrate her own good luck in having soaked up poise and polish here, which had given her the confidence to mix with any level of society – a crucial aspect of her job when it came to raising funds. Besides, there was little point in searching any longer for Clarissa, when she must have long since left the house and be back outside, chatting with her friends.
As she ran downstairs and along the panelled corridor, she suddenly blundered to a halt; overcome with a heady mix of panic and sheer awe. Could that be Clarissa, standing by the window, or just a dream, a mirage?
No. The Queen was there – a real, concrete, breathing presence. And not fat or grey at all, but still divinely elegant; her gleaming golden hair now swept up in a chignon; the violet eyes as lustrous and long-lashed as ever. Her overwhelming instinct was to prostate herself and lick the woman’s feet; beg to be allowed to do any menial service for her: carry bags, wash dirty clothes, clean mud-encrusted hockey boots.
Had she gone insane? She was no longer an inferior child, but an adult and an equal, and, if she had any sense at all, would enlist this wealthy woman’s support for her ever-needy kids-in-crisis. Clarissa’s glitzy circle might well donate substantial amounts, if she could only get her act together and explain the crying need.
Impossible. She was incapable of any rational action; incapable of thinking straight. She was in the grip of passion – a passion even more intense than it had been in her schooldays. It was not enough to kiss Clarissa’s feet; she craved to kiss her on the lips; touch her breasts; slip a hand inside her blouse; feel the warmth and texture of her skin. Something must be wrong with her, she realized with a surge of guilt. Was that why she had never married – not because her mother’s divorce had put her off the prospect, but because no man could ever rival her intense love for a female?
Her heart was pounding so wildly, with bewilderment and shock, she had to
cling to the wall for support.
‘Hey, are you OK?’ Clarissa asked, striding over with the same regal bearing she’d possessed as a young girl.
Margery nodded mutely. The woman’s sheer physical proximity had left her dumb, and reeling.
‘My name’s Clarissa Scott. I don’t think I know you, do I?’
The lack of recognition was a slap across the face. Margery felt its force and fury spread throughout her body; scorching every limb and cell, leaving deep, red marks.
‘I helped to organize this jolly little junket, so I want to check who’s actually turned up. Could you give me your name and—’
‘Actually, I thought you might remember me,’ Margery suddenly blurted out, in a shrill, unsteady voice. ‘Margery Tomkins. We were … thrown together quite a lot at school.’
‘Oh, Margarine!’ Clarissa cried. ‘Of course!’
The nickname felled her. Instantly. She was dwindling at a stroke; becoming synthetic and adulterated, common and inferior, with no breeding, no finesse. Dirty knives were being stuck in her, until she was disgustingly polluted with gritty little toast-crumbs and snail-trails of boiled egg. She was contaminated, tainted; a green fur of mould giving off a nauseating smell.
‘Fancy seeing dear old Margarine,’ the queen continued, with a mocking laugh. ‘Well this is a surprise, I must say. So, are you coming outside, to join us; provide us with a spot of diversion? You were always rather priceless, I recall – I mean, the way you never seemed quite to get the point. And what happened to your peculiar little mother? Is she still—?’
Margery closed her ears, unable to endure another word. And, with one last look at her despised, desired tormentor, the mongrel and the upstart slunk away, making for the rubbish-bin, where trash like her belonged.
Charmayne
‘Look, buzz off! I’m in a rush.’ Adam snapped his fingers at the small, white, curly creature that had been following him since he left the Rose and Crown, despite his constant attempts to shake it off. But the dog merely seemed to smile, as if enjoying a good joke.
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