The Perfectly Imperfect Woman

by Milly Johnson

  When the vicar asked them all to sit and think of their fondest memory of Judith Salt, Marnie tried her best to conjure up a time when she had felt like the true daughter of a mother. In thirty-two years there had to be something. She raked desperately through her memory banks and came up with nothing but that perpetual feeling of being on the cold outside of a family she should have been part of, of her Christmas presents being a much smaller pile next to Gabrielle’s. Of being told that no she couldn’t have a birthday party like her sister because no one would come. She had no recollection of being cuddled when she fell, of her mother’s joy when she had achieved something: her gold survival badge in swimming, a certificate for the perfect mark in a French exam, first place in a teenage cake-baking competition. Not one.

  When the curtains closed and ‘Eine Kleine Nachtmusik’ started up, Gabrielle began to wail. Marnie wanted to wail, she wanted to feel so much emotion that she out-wailed her sister. But if she had, she would have been accused of attention-seeking, so she could only sit and murmur a message in silence. Rest in peace, Judith. I wish you could have loved me. I wanted you to so much.

  Chapter 25

  She should have gone home after the service, she really should. She should have listened to her intuition and as soon as the limo dropped her back at the funeral parlour, she should have taken her car keys out of her bag and driven straight to Little Raspberries. But she didn’t. Instead she bowed to convention and joined the others in the funeral home function room to partake of finger food and small talk, because she wanted to prove to those people who had expected her not to do her duty by her mother – ‘adoptive mother’ as the vicar had so made the distinction – that they were going to be disappointed.

  There was a generous buffet with accompanying tea and coffee. No booze, because Judith didn’t drink, apart from sips of communion wine that is.

  Her mother’s neighbours Jean and Gerry Smith were there and said hello to Marnie and how sorry they were for her loss. They were nice people, friendly and she was grateful to them for rescuing her from feeling like a spare prick at a wedding. Jean said that she hoped she hadn’t caused any trouble in ringing her and Marnie assured her that she had done the right thing. The vicar came over to shake her hand and deliver the stock phrase that he too was sorry for her loss. He also, on the quiet, apologised for having said that she was adopted and that it was a directive he should have overridden. Marnie was appreciative of that disclosure and said that it was fine. She understood.

  A lady from the church came over to introduce herself and said that she hadn’t realised Judith had a second daughter, which was telling but not unexpected. She said that Judith’s washing machine had been given a lovely new home. The recipient – her neighbour – had been very thankful. The conversation wasn’t exactly thrilling but Marnie was glad of it and chatted about the banal with her until their tea cups were drained. Up to that point, all had been well. Marnie stuck to mingling with strangers with whom she could chit-chat superficially. She’d stay until people started to leave, she decided, and not give anyone cause to comment that she had been the first to go.

  She tried to ignore her Aunt Diana who, with her scowl and stabby pointing in her direction, was making her best attempts to make sure Marnie knew she was the subject of a character assassination. Marnie knew that her aunt would have enjoyed nothing better than for Judith’s renegade ‘daughter’ to create a scene, thus fulfilling Diana’s prediction that she would create a scene. All the more reason for Marnie not to bite and behave impeccably. Aunt Diana was the world’s biggest snob and had never forgiven Marnie for puncturing the illusion of her perfect world. Even after all those years, the fires of her hatred were still burning, and the feeling was mutual. Aunt Diana had been cruel to her. Cruel and unfair. In her attempt to preserve her ego, she had tried to destroy Marnie’s.

  The vicar began to make his goodbyes. Marnie took that as a cue to prepare to say hers. She started to walk towards Gabrielle and swanky Duncan but who should cut in front of her but her Aunt Diana and her big black feathery fascinator that sat on her head like a dead crow.

  ‘Wait long enough and a bad penny will turn up,’ Diana snarled. Having been denied a reaction earlier, she’d decided to hit Marnie directly with her cattle prod of confrontation. From the blast of her flammable breath, it was obvious Aunt Diana had been swigging from the silver hip flask of vodka she had always kept in her handbag. Marnie had known about her secret drinking since she was a child. Everyone knew about Diana’s secret drinking because the more she drank, the more her accent turned into Princess Anne’s. As worst-kept secrets go, it was right up there with Liberace’s being gay.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Marnie, politely side-stepping her. But Aunt Diana wasn’t having that. She caught Marnie’s arm in a death grip and halted her step.

  ‘You were the worst thing that ever happened to the family. You were never part of it,’ she said through clenched teeth.

  The hairs on the back of Marnie’s neck began to stand to attention. She really did need to get out of here.

  ‘She wouldn’t have had a heart attack if it hadn’t been for you.’ Diana’s voice was rising. ‘The strain you put her under all your life. It killed her. You killed her, you little bitch.’

  ‘Let go of my arm now,’ said Marnie, enunciating each word clearly so there could be no misunderstanding.

  ‘You think you are something, don’t you?’ Diana growled, like an evil entity from a Stephen King film.

  ‘I won’t tell you again, get off my arm, Diana.’ Marnie said, hanging onto her cool by the fingertips.

  ‘Oh, you’re threatening me now are you?’ said Diana, loudly so that everyone could hear.

  ‘What’s going on here?’ Uncle Barry strode over as if he were The Rock. Close up, Marnie could see that the years hadn’t been kind to him. Or rather he hadn’t been kind to himself, because the ridiculous comb-over of too-brown hair put twenty years on him rather than the intended effect of taking them off. He’d never been a looker but she didn’t think he had that far to drop.

  Despite the fact that his wife had her claw stuck into Marnie, it was to his niece that he addressed the question. ‘What are you up to?’

  ‘This little scrubber is pretending she’s better than us all now,’ scoffed Diana.

  ‘What?’ snapped Marnie in disbelief.

  Diana laughed. ‘She’s baking buns for a living and she thinks she’s Raymond Blanc.’ She pronounced it as ‘blank’ but it still punched Marnie’s pride right in the motherboard.

  She levered Diana’s hand off and Diana yelped dramatically. ‘Did you see that? She stuck her nails into me.’

  Then Gabrielle appeared, with Duncan and his handmade shoes.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she said, a tremor of panic evident in her voice.

  ‘Diana’s pissed, Barry’s turned into He-Man and I’m going home,’ said Marnie. ‘You know where I am if you need anything.’

  Gabrielle’s face started to crease into tearless distress. ‘I knew you’d spoil it. I’ve been waiting for you to start all day.’

  ‘For the record, they started on me, Gabrielle,’ said Marnie, adding under her breath, ‘Where’s Jeremy Kyle and his lie-detector when you need him.’

  ‘Don’t let her upset you, love,’ said Uncle Barry, pulling Gabrielle into his shoulder. His head twisted nastily towards Marnie. ‘Go on, get out. You’ve done what you always do, ruin it. I see the years haven’t changed things. Once a liar, always a liar.’

  Liar.

  If any word could have sprung the lock on Marnie’s self-control, it was that one. She could have taken the sneers, the asides, the withering looks. But not that word. Not now when she was a grown-up who could fight back. This time she wasn’t going to be sent away to the naughty step to think on her actions.

  ‘Liar?’ she threw the word back at her uncle.

  ‘She’s trying to cause another family rift, as if one wasn’t enough,’ Diana announced to t
he room. ‘I didn’t speak to poor Judith for years because of this one.’ She pointed to Marnie as if she were exhibit A and years of repressed anger and injustice started to fizz up inside Marnie as if she were a shaken-up bottle of warm cola. It wouldn’t be settled. There was only one way for it to go and that was out.

  ‘You didn’t speak to poor Judith for years because of this one!’ Marnie yelled back at her aunt but her finger was extended towards Barry. ‘Yes, this piece of shit that you accused me of trying to seduce.’ She took a leaf out of her aunt’s book and addressed the slack-jawed audience. ‘Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this paragon of virtue, this fine specimen of manhood standing before you – my Uncle Barry – who said to his fourteen-year old niece “It’s fine, it’s not as if we’re related, is it?” and “It’s not as if you’re a virgin”.’

  Marnie turned on her aunt then, who strangely wasn’t so vocal any more. ‘And you know exactly what you saw, however much your booze-addled brain tried to convince you otherwise. And so you know why I kneed him in his scrawny bollocks. Because he’s a letch, a perv, a sex-pest, a dirty, filthy paed—’

  ‘Get out,’ screamed Gabrielle, tearing herself away from Uncle Barry whose head was growing so red it was in danger of melting his comb-over. ‘No man could ever resist you, could they, that’s what you think, isn’t it? You’re the disgusting one. You ruined my life because you couldn’t keep your knickers on.’

  ‘You spoilt, evil, little . . .’ As Marnie stepped forward with her fists clenched in hard knots, the whole of the Salt family, including the despicable in-laws, closed around her sister in a defensive wall. The moment crystallised, and Marnie felt the tenuous thread between herself and that loathsome cluster break. She had never been one of them, would never be one of them. Why had it ever been on her list of aspirations?

  ‘I think it would be better if you left,’ said Duncan, his voice level but hostile.

  ‘So do I,’ said Marnie. The walk to the door was a matter of twelve steps but it felt like twelve hundred.

  ‘I never, never want to see or hear from you again,’ bawled Gabrielle as Marnie opened the door.

  ‘Fucking ditto,’ Marnie threw back over her shoulder.

  ‘And I’m not sending you any of Mum’s money. She told me not to give you any anyway,’ screeched the woman who had been her sister.

  ‘Stick the money up your arse, Gabrielle. Or buy yourself a personality. Either way, I don’t bloody care.’

  The fresh air felt like the first breath of oxygen after emerging from a sealed box. Her whole body was shaking with rage, with upset, with emotions she couldn’t untangle.

  She stalled the car in her eagerness to set off and knew she wasn’t fit to drive. Her plastered Aunt Diana would be safer on the road. The young vicar knocked on her window and scared the bejesus out of her. He asked if she was all right and though she said she was, it was an obvious fib. He invited her to follow him to the vicarage and have a cup of tea and a chat and his kindness brought tears to her eyes that her mother’s death hadn’t. She declined and said that she wanted to go home but she appreciated his concern, and she really did. She would probably have crashed if he hadn’t taken those few minutes to help calm her and make her realise that the whole world wasn’t on her back.

  She pulled in at the first café she came to on the A1 and ordered a coffee and sat down in a booth sipping it and thinking, pulling apart what had just happened but as usual, where her family were concerned, it didn’t make much sense. Her aunt had always looked down on them all. She wanted to the be the one the Joneses kept up to. She lived a life of show and illusion: a brand-new Range Rover on the drive – bought on HP; dressing room full of Jacques Vert whilst her visa bill was in quintuple figures. Double-fronted detached house with ornamental pond – crippling second mortgage. Golf and Rotary club membership, hob-nobbing with councillors – the fur coat and no knickers brigade. They went on a yearly cruise on a cheap inside cabin yet bragged to all and sundry that they’d booked a suite and had dined at the Captain’s table. They’d polished out the stains on the veneer of their marriage by editing the manuscript of their life. Fourteen-year-old Marnie Salt – no blood relation – had come on to her uncle and the subsequent rejection of her advances had induced her to knee him in his knackers. Even the fact that Diana had witnessed her husband’s hand slipping down the front of his niece’s shirt, a second before she turned into the Karate Kid, hadn’t made any difference. If anything, it made matters worse, because Marnie had to be quashed completely for the truth to go away. Obliterated.

  It hadn’t been the first time his hands had wandered, either. Marnie had managed to jump away from him before, but he’d caught her off-guard that day as she was concentrating hard, sitting at the table doing her maths homework, trying to catch up with all the work she’d missed. Come on, love. It’s not as if you’re a virgin, is it? And though there had been two years of non-communication between her mother and Barry, Judith had said to her once – after they had finally been reconciled – ‘I know my brother, Marnie. And he would not have been capable of such a disgusting act.’ Lying to herself was always more preferable than believing uncomfortable truths.

  Lilian’s voice came to her as she looked at the bill for the coffee, ‘Your family are shits of the highest order, Marnie.’ And Marnie laughed and a tear escaped from her eye at the same time. Still, there was a bright side to today, she never had to see Uncle Barry or Aunt Diana again. Or Gabrielle. She knew she wouldn’t be invited to the wedding, and what a relief that was. She couldn’t wait to tell Lil—

  Just for a second there, she imagined going back to the manor, sitting in Lilian’s lovely conservatory with the view of the lake and telling her old friend about what had happened today. She wouldn’t be able to demonstrate to her the smacked-arse expression on her Aunt Diana’s face when she’d hit her with both barrels from the home truths gun. They would never again put the world to rights over a slice of cheesecake and a glass of Lionel’s raspberry wine. She knew as the days passed she would feel the loss of Lilian far more than she ever would her mother. Lilian, who had made her feel as if she really were the person she’d always wanted to be. Lilian who had given her a home that she had settled into as surely as if it had been a nest custom-built around her. Lilian who had decided, along with the new owner of her beloved Wychwell that she – Marnie Salt – was the person who should manage the estate, rescue it, unbugger it up, and love it as she had done.

  She’d do it.

  If she was going to be disliked, it might as well be for a good and worthy reason. She would pat Wychwell back into shape for Lilian, whatever it took to do it. She went to her car, took out Mr Wemyss’s business card and rang him to tell him as much.

  Chapter 26

  Unknown to Marnie, the previous night there had been a meeting in the Lemon Villa. The whole village had been summoned – except for Marnie, but then it looked as if she wasn’t at home anyway. Her car hadn’t been there since Saturday but sadly, it appeared to Kay Sweetman that she hadn’t done a moonlight flit because she could still see her things in Little Raspberries when she peered through the window.

  Titus, who had called the gathering, obviously took charge. Everyone sat around the table in his dining room; Hilary and Pammy Parselow bustled around distributing refreshments to everyone before it started. For those who had not been in the Lemon Villa before, it was quite eye-opening how opulent the interior was. Homes and Gardens magazine perfect. There were no damp patches on the walls or draughty windows for Titus and Hilary Sutton.

  Titus knocked on the table with his teaspoon to stop all the twittering.

  ‘I thought we should have a formal meeting in the light of . . . recent events.’ He chose his words carefully. ‘I can see absolutely no reason why the new owner of Wychwell has decided to stay anonymous. Can we all swear that none of us around this table is Lilian’s chosen heir?’

  ‘I think that is unfair to ask,’ said Lionel, immediately bringing
suspicion to his door. ‘They have no obligation to declare themselves. Whoever he or she is has done so for a reason.’

  ‘What possible reason can there be?’ asked Kay Sweetman.

  ‘There is only one reason and that is because they don’t want to. We are therefore forced to accept that. Besides, they have delegated the running of the estate to Miss Salt,’ replied Lionel. ‘It is her we will have to deal with respecting any village matters.’

  ‘I think it is her,’ said Ruby. ‘Then if she does something unpopular, she can just fend off any blame on “the new owner”.’ She drew two emphatic quote marks in the air.

  There was a nodding of heads at that and low grumbles of agreement.

  ‘But who is to say that it is someone who lives in Wychwell?’ asked Herv. ‘Maybe Lilian decided to leave it to someone outside the village.’

  ‘Who? Margaret Kytson?’ scoffed Titus, causing Kay to humour him with a chortle.

  ‘Maybe Margaret had a descendant we don’t know about,’ put in Hilary. ‘Lilian was always so keen to make amends for what had happened to her at the hands of her ancestors.’

  ‘Go and fill up the teapots, Hilary,’ said Titus dismissively. ‘What a ridiculous imagination you have.’

  Hilary coloured and Lionel, angered by Titus’s put-down of his wife was driven to defend her.

  ‘I don’t think it’s ridiculous at all. Lilian was fascinated by family trees. She and I worked on her own for years. She may have discovered something that hasn’t yet come to full light.’

  ‘Or maybe someone is about to sell our houses from under our feet,’ snapped Una.

  ‘They can’t sell any houses,’ countered David, who didn’t say much but when he did, he always spoke considered sense and fact. ‘The manor cannot be sold, only inherited. The houses cannot be sold, only rented out by the estate.’