The Perfectly Imperfect Woman

by Milly Johnson

  Marnie smiled. She believed that there was a little magic circulating in the world. Like Mrs McMaid’s special ingredient. And whatever magic had brought her and Justin together at Clifford’s retirement do. Yes, there was still some around, for sure.

  ‘I’ll see,’ she said, helping Lilian into the Roller. Then, she stood and waved as Lilian pulled out onto the road at a snail’s pace, testing the impatience of a car driver who had slowed down to allow her to manoeuvre out. He beeped on his horn and Marnie saw a long arm being extended through the window of the Roller, one finger held aloft. Then Lilian sped off as if the drugs squad were after her, the sound of a chirpy double-pip on her horn trailing behind her like a tail.

  Chapter 6

  HISTORY OF WYCHWELL BY LIONEL TEMPLE

  with contributions by Lilian Dearman.

  Edward Sutton Dearman was a brutal, feared man in the county. When Henry VIII embarked on his project to dissolve the monasteries between 1536 and 1541, Edward saw his way to bring himself to the attention of the king at court and his toadying demeanour was attractive to the king’s vanity. Edward, it was said, could smell a priest hidden in the walls of a house as sure as a dog could smell a rat. Ironic that he convinced his fellows that this gift was God-given and not witchcraft.

  As a reward for his duties, Henry ejected the Lord of the Manor Sir Percival Shanke and his immediate family, executing them for their allegiance to the Catholic faith, and gave the house and lands to Dearman.

  Dearman forcibly married Elizabeth Swannecke, the niece of Percival’s wife, but after a succession of miscarriages, Dearman – who had made many enemies through his ruthless ambitions – decided there was black magic working against him.

  In the woods resided a widow, Margaret Kytson. Some in the village, fearing the increasingly psychotic and paranoid Dearman might point the finger of blame at them, suggested that Margaret could be a witch stirring up evil. Indeed, Margaret grew medicinal herbs to trade for goods and was said to have a black cat. The villagers arrived mob-handed at Margaret Kytson’s cottage and found no cat but a newborn baby. In a kangaroo court, she was found to be guilty of witchcraft against the Lord of the Manor and sentenced to be thrown, along with her cat, down her own well which tapped into a natural spring. When no cat was found, Dearman was led to believe the cat was changed into the child to disguise it and invoke sympathy. Upon death the cat would show its bones, he was told.

  As Margaret and the crying child were lowered into the well, she cursed the villagers and said that no one who bore the Dearman name would ever know happiness. The well was immediately demolished and covered over to seal in the bad luck and Margaret’s cottage was burnt to the ground.

  Six months later, Elizabeth Dearman gave birth to a healthy son and Edward knew that he had done the right thing in executing the witch and the child. As he rode into the village with his newborn to show the villagers his heir, his horse bolted and threw them to the ground, killing them both instantly.

  Fearing the wrath of Margaret, the village (called Aldwell originally) was renamed Wychwell, in an effort, maybe, to appease her spirit. The well still exists somewhere in the woods and though the exact location cannot be traced, it is thought to be somewhere to the south west of the village (see Chapter on Little Raspberries).

  Elizabeth married Edward’s younger brother John, and had five children by him: Henry, William, James, Nicholas and Anne. By adulthood only James and Anne were still alive. James had married Catherine Blount who was barren. Desperate for an heir, it is said that he impregnated his own sister and he and Catherine raised the issue as their own. Anne, who was unmarried, was declared mad when she had safely delivered twin boys and interred in Bedlam asylum.

  Flipping heck, thought Marnie, reading the first pages of the book which Lilian had given her that afternoon. She was home by herself waiting for a delivery from Ping Pong’s Chinese takeaway in Eccleshall Road. Justin had sent her a cheeky text saying that he wished he were snuggled up in bed with her instead of in the midst of people he couldn’t stand and that his son had broken out in spots, which was probably the onset of chickenpox. She wasn’t stupid, she knew he was laying the foundations of why the children wouldn’t be getting to know about the divorce this weekend. She ached to be with Justin openly and completely and though he informed her of all the tiny steps he and his wife were taking to dissolve their marriage, she was starting to question whether they were just walking on the spot. But then again, she had never been in a relationship with anyone who had children before. She wondered if Gwyneth and Chris had taken this long.

  There was an old adage that you could fool everyone else, but not yourself; but it was rubbish because Marnie was very good at doing exactly that. She had learned to rationalise away anything that threatened to bash her in the heart, that held up a pin to those little bubbles of tenuous delight that came her way so rarely. The skill was born from some internal self-preservational part that wanted to see her happy, but this frustrating situation with Justin had gone on for so long now that it was really contesting her powers of self-delusion. Her brain was starting to ask itself some awkward questions and despite all the expert assurances Justin gave her, she was finding it harder and harder to keep convincing herself that she wasn’t being spun a very elaborate yarn.

  Angrily, she picked up her mobile and replied to Justin’s message in emphatic capitals:

  I DONT THINK THIS IS WORKING. LET’S CALL IT A DAY.

  Her finger hovered over the send arrow. She imagined him falling into a tailspin on receiving it. Then she imagined him replying with a cool, YEAH, WAS THINKING THE SAME.

  She flew into a panic and deleted the text. What on earth was she doing? He’d told her he knew that this wasn’t a traditional courtship but she had to trust him. He was under a lot of pressure. She should give him the benefit of the doubt. She’d promised she would. Not all men were bastards.

  The doorbell rang and just for a second, her heart gave an excited little kick that it might be Justin surprising her after all. But it wasn’t. It was her chicken and mushroom Cantonese-style arriving from Ping Pong’s.

  Chapter 7

  Two more weeks passed with Marnie still in limbo. She’d been right, of course. The children still didn’t know that Justin and Suranna were separating because the little boy had been quite ill with chickenpox, which he kindly then passed on to his sister and you couldn’t drop a bombshell of that magnitude into the laps of poorly children, could you?

  On the Wednesday of that week, Marnie walked into the massive atrium of Café Caramba and immediately felt something strange in the air, something amiss, something not quite right. It was nothing she could put her finger on: the snooty receptionist ignored her as per usual, there was the regular buzz as people rushed past her on the escalator to go to one of the two floors above, either because they were late or keen; but it was present like a gas in the air, waiting for the moment to jump out of the cupboard dressed like a clown to scare her half to death. Or maybe it was the warm wind of change for the best, she thought hopefully. They couldn’t carry on treading water for ever.

  She got off the escalator and, as always, made a right through the first set of double doors where the Product Development team were having their usual morning huddle. She said a cheerful good morning to Sweaty Andrew, who replied a cheerful good morning to her boobs. Then she walked past Justin Fox’s office, giving him only a cursory glance, which belied the thump in her heart. Oh, how she wanted to stop and flash her secret smile to him that said, ‘Remember what my lips were doing to you yesterday afternoon on the back seat of my car?’ All the more reason to keep her attention fixed forward. The affair had remained secret for almost two months and that was because they’d never let their guard slip. Careless talk costs lives, as they said in the war, adapted to her own version: stupid mistakes result in all sorts of crap.

  Straight on through Merchandising, then a right into her own department. Her mood immediately sank to find that Ele
na was back at her desk after a week and a half off with ‘women’s complaints’. Starved of a counterpart with whom to gossip, Vicky had got on with her work and kept her head down.

  ‘Nice to have you back, Elena,’ Marnie lied sweetly.

  ‘Good to be back.’ Elena’s reciprocating smile was as false as her natural pout.

  In her bag, Marnie’s phone bleeped. She pulled it out to see a reminder flash up for the Wychwell May Day fair on Sunday. Marnie winced guiltily. She wouldn’t be there, despite giving Lilian the impression she might. The weather forecast was brilliant for the weekend and she had decided to take the bull by the horns and insist that Justin spend Saturday with her moseying around the villages of Derbyshire and then they stay in a hotel overnight so she could – at last – wake up with him the next morning, which happened to be her thirty-second birthday. She’d found a beautiful olde worlde hotel off the beaten track with a suite that had a huge four-poster bed and a hot tub for two on a private patio. It hadn’t been cheap but it would be worth every penny.

  The clock hands crawled around to eleven forty-five. As soon as the big hand on her watch had touched the nine, she picked up her bag, stood and smoothed down her skirt.

  ‘Roisean, I’m taking a long lunch. I have a business meeting with Justin Fox.’ They had decided that avoiding each other entirely could cause as much suspicion as flirting. There was nothing wrong with announcing a legitimate tête à tête every so often.

  ‘Lucky you,’ said Roisean, clicking her tongue.

  ‘You think?’ said Marnie.

  ‘He’s certainly a looker,’ said Roisean.

  ‘I’ll put in a good word for you,’ Marnie winked at her.

  ‘No, you’re all right but I’ll hold the fort. I’m not going out anywhere.’

  Marnie hated lying, especially to Roisean. She wanted to be able to say to her that she was taking a long lunch with Justin because he was her boyfriend. Or better still – her fiancé. She’d even started doodling ‘Marnie Fox’ on her notepad at home (never at work of course) to see how it fitted. It sounded like a name that kicked ass.

  She was meeting Justin on the other side of Leeds, at a pub called the Blue Boy which didn’t look much from the outside, but inside it was newly refurbished with large comfortable leather seats and sofas with lots of private alcoves. She ordered two baguettes, a half and a pint of diet cola and waited, nervously drumming her fingers on the table because she was worried about telling him she’d booked the hotel. She had the awful feeling that she’d been too reckless and would lose her money because he wouldn’t go. Then annoyance began to replace any anxiety as half an hour passed and he still hadn’t arrived, leaving barely time to eat never mind have a snog in the car. But her tight pout instantly softened when she felt Justin lean over her from behind, enveloping her in a cloud of Joop and issuing a throatful of apologies that he hadn’t been able to get away from Laurence. Then he went and spoiled it all.

  ‘. . . Then Suranna called,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I have no idea what’s wrong with her at the moment. I’m jumping through every hoop she’s putting in front of me and it still isn’t enough.’

  Marnie hated hearing the ‘Suranna’ word. It made her into a real person, one who was still joined to Justin in holy matrimony, even if he did call it ‘unholy matrimony’. It was obvious that she was clinging on to him for grim death, using every excuse in the book to keep him consciously coupled to her. Didn’t she realise how stupid she was making herself look? How desperate and deluded? Marnie had a vision of Suranna hanging on to Justin’s leg every morning when he set off to work, with him dragging her down the path towards his company car.

  She changed the subject quickly. ‘I got you a prawn baguette. Hope that was okay.’

  ‘Er . . . yes. Not really hungry though. Had a huge breakfast with the law firm lads.’

  She bit down on what she had been about to say, But you knew you were coming out to lunch with me, because she didn’t want to sound as whiney as his wife. She was getting sick of constantly having to hold her tongue, though.

  ‘You okay? You look stressed,’ he said.

  Marnie took a deep breath and, given the cue, dived straight in.

  ‘You know it’s my birthday on Sunday.’

  ‘Yeeees,’ he said, drawing the word out so slowly that it made her wonder if he’d remembered. Then again, she’d told him in a very heated moment.

  ‘Well . . .’

  Her mouth stopped suddenly, like a Shetland pony faced with Beecher’s Brook.

  ‘What?’

  It came out so fast it was almost one long word. ‘I’ve booked us a night away in a hotel. Not too far away in Derbyshire. And in the room where Mary Queen of Scots stayed. It has a four-poster and . . .’

  His face, creasing in awkward regret, told her everything she needed to know and had really known from even before she had made the reservation.

  ‘I can’t, Marnie.’

  ‘Say it’s work,’ said Marnie with an unashamed tone of pleading in her voice.

  ‘She’d know it wasn’t.’

  Marnie felt close to tears. Hot, annoyed, frustrated tears. ‘But you went away golfing with Laurence a few weekends ago.’

  ‘Yes, but that was work.’

  ‘I feel like I’m having an affair with a married man.’ The words burst out of her and she had to quickly gather the reins on the volume.

  ‘Well, technically, you are.’ Justin picked absently at a prawn.

  ‘You know what I mean, skulking around, having to wait for you to ring me, meeting in secret, never being able to spend the night together.’

  She had bought him a daft tie with foxes on it, but he had left it in her house because he couldn’t take it home with him. Suranna would ask where he got it from and she’d know he was lying if he said ‘a rep’ or that he had bought it for himself. Suranna Suranna Suranna. Marnie felt like the second wife in Rebecca.

  ‘I know. It’s hard for me too,’ he said, stealing a look at his watch. ‘Come on, let’s have some “us” time.’

  By which he meant a shag in the car. Her car. They’d only had sex once in his car and all traces of her had been removed immediately afterwards with squirts of Febreze and a sticky roller thing.

  Marnie stood up to go with a resigned sigh. Maybe she could make him change his mind by ‘doing his favourite’ on her cloth rear seating.

  Which she did. But he didn’t.

  There wasn’t enough time then to do anything else that she might have benefitted from, not that she was bothered because she knew she would have had to fake anyway; her head was too full of disappointment to let lust come to the fore. She followed Justin back to the office and again felt that strange foreboding in the air as she walked through the revolving doors. It was thicker now, more pronounced, as if it was a fat spot, filled with infection, pushing up from below the surface of the skin, ready to make its vile appearance.

  It was at precisely half-past three when the zit burst and the pus covered everyone on the trading floor. Marnie had been talking on the phone to Laurence when she heard the noise from departments away. Arthur and Bette looked up from their desks and then put their heads back down again. They wouldn’t stop trying to balance a sheet if there was a sudden earthquake and the roof fell in.

  Marnie tried to focus on her conversation but one ear was now cocked to whatever was going on. A woman was shouting.

  ‘WHERE IS SHE? WHERE IS THE SLAG?’

  Vicky, Elena, Roisean, the whole of Beverage Marketing now, including the older ones were looking at each other raising their shoulders, mouthing ‘what’s that’ at each other. Even Laurence, at the other end of the phone, was asking what on earth was going on and Marnie had to reply that she had no idea.

  Then from around the corner appeared a short, Weeble-like woman wearing a blue swingy pinafore. Behind her, Dennis, the world’s most ineffectual security guard, was wheezing as he tried to keep up. The woman was facial-scanning everyone
as she passed them, matching them up to a photofit she held in her head.

  ‘Madam, Mrs . . .’ pleaded Dennis, grabbing hold of the Weeble’s arm, but she shook him off forcefully and the effort swung her round slap bang in front of Marnie’s desk. The little woman’s eyes widened then narrowed. It seemed as if she’d found a match.

  ‘You,’ she levelled at Marnie with a non-too friendly stab of her finger.

  ‘I’ll ring you back, Laurence,’ said Marnie, putting down the phone. The woman’s rotundness did nothing to stop her from throwing herself across the desk to grab a handful of Marnie’s hair so when Dennis pulled her back, Marnie was dragged over the desk with her. The woman had demonic strength and she wouldn’t let go. Marnie instinctively groped around for something to use as a weapon, found a stapler and launched it but it flew way off target. The woman was going to scalp her in a moment if she didn’t do something. She was aware of Arthur now, trying to dislodge the woman’s fingers. Marnie made her right hand into a claw, lashed out in the direction of the woman’s head, felt her nails rake against soft skin and heard a sharp yelp as she let go. Marnie staggered backwards, her head pulsing with pain, to see the fat little woman clutching her face before she recovered and lurched forwards again with a cry worthy of Braveheart. This time, though, Dennis and Arthur were able to secure her and Roisean dived defensively in front of her boss forming a cross-shaped barrier.

  ‘You bitch, you bitch,’ the woman kept repeating over and over again. A large audience had now gathered. It seemed as if the whole building had come to gawp at the floorshow.

  ‘What the hell . . .’ said Marnie, fighting back tears which the hair-pulling had brought involuntarily to her eyes, their flow not helped by her humiliation at being the target of this lunatic’s attention.

  ‘Hell? Hell? Yes I’m in hell because of you, you . . . bitch. Do you know who I am?’ screamed the woman, spittle flying from her mouth. ‘Because I know who you are. You’re the slaggy tart who is fucking my husband.’