Whatever Happened to Margo?

by Margaret Durrell

  Nelson’s flat-footed, providential arrival saved any further discussion, and despatched an irritated Barry back to his floats. ‘Some fun,’ he panted, whipping up his small towel, blowing his nose, rubbing his rolling body, and repeating the whole process of annoying our neighbour with flying sand.

  ‘That’s better,’ he stretched himself out, wriggling about like a well-fed puppy, giving the child who was still snivelling from its father’s hand a vindictive look.

  I studied the contours of Nelson’s bone structure, blunted to circles of roundness, so different from his mother: Nelson was well insulated from the cold. The stubble hair was flattened to a dark smoothness; it was a different Nelson, more mature, but the voice was the same.

  ‘I suppose yer didn’t see me standin’ on me ’ead?’

  ‘No. It must have been a revolting sight,’ I said callously.

  ‘Thought yer didn’t,’ he sounded hurt. ‘Yer was all caught up with ’im – drooling, positively drooling, ’e was. Wot was ’e saying anyway?’ Nelson couldn’t bear a conversation to flourish without him.

  ‘We were just talking about things,’ I remarked vaguely. Better not let Nelson get hold of the story of that proposal. ‘You know, situations and so forth. You wouldn’t understand if I did tell you.’

  ‘I understand more than you think,’ the pink mound rose indignantly and, producing a bottle of suntan lotion given to him by Paula, he poured a generous amount into his hand and beat it into his body. ‘Yer can tell by people’s mugs what they’re talking about.’

  ‘Can you? Then you must find life very interesting! And it’s not “mugs”, it’s “expressions”.’

  ‘’E’s a fine chap, don’t you think?’ The question was deliberately artful.

  ‘I suppose you could say that.’ I was deliberately vague. Nelson and I were playing our usual game, the game which so often Mrs Briggs and I indulged in, when curiosity got the better of one.

  ‘Ain’t you betrothed to ’im yet?’

  For sheer unadulterated curiosity Nelson and Mrs Briggs were united. I fumed. ‘Mind your own business,’ I retorted, looking at the body now exposing itself to the sun. The mischievous eyes were closed. ‘Mind you don’t get burnt. Remember what happened to Barry.’

  Nelson kept his eyes closed. ‘It’s time yer got yerself married off.’ His face was full of fatherly concern. ‘Yes,’ I thought. It was just the expression that preceded his telling Mrs Budden to drown her baby. ‘Ma only said so last night, not that there’s much to recommend the process,’ he added in a very mature way, ‘from what I can see.’

  I couldn’t help feeling that the comment was not something that his dad had said, but Edward or Roger, because both ‘recommend’ and ‘process’ were entirely new words spouted from the mouth of Nelson.

  ‘Nelson, where’s your father?’ I asked in direct attack, feeling it was my turn, and using his and Mrs Briggs’ tactics for a change.

  ‘In prison. I’ve told yer before.’ His reply was airy, a little impatient at my disbelief. He sat up to examine his toenails carefully, his breath caught up in a roll of rippling fat.

  ‘I can’t believe you, you take the matter too lightly.’

  Nelson chuckled. ‘All ’em bars. I wouldn’t like it meself.’

  ‘I only asked because I like your mother and I would like to see her happy. Perhaps we can send your father a food parcel or something, that is if he is in prison, though I very much doubt the fact.’ I was certain that Nelson was a liar.

  ‘Ten years, he got. Robbing a bank, it were.’

  I gasped, genuinely horrified. Ten years, how ghastly! Perhaps he was speaking the truth. I watched Nelson’s face closely, but not a flicker told me whether or not his father languished in prison. It struck me suddenly that Edward never mentioned his family, was reluctant to do so. Was he ashamed of them, or were they too being forcibly kept by the government, in the north perhaps? The intonation of Edward’s speech automatically led me to believe he was from a northern county.

  Squeaks of feminine laughter suggested that somewhere one of the Romeos played: it was not Barry, he was too busy. I turned lazily to examine the cause: that idol of the bathing belles and matrons alike, Barry’s mate. He was the object of many a lingering glance, a figure which had even dazzled Paula and occasioned her to breathe the facts over a midnight coffee. The description had held both Jane and me spellbound, and had inflicted Jane with the decision to spend a day by the sea when she could find time, for she did not care for the beach. Jane had now taken up dressmaking, for which she had quite a flair, and orders were piling up, so that the sound of a sewing machine buzzing all hours had added to her and our confusions. A seamstress with a mouthful of pins and a tape measure round her neck in no way blended with the starched efficiency of a hospital nurse, or the allure of black chiffon.

  I looked around for Nelson: he was sublimely content, floating unconcernedly out to sea, lying back on a wooden float as if he was in bed. Barry was shouting at him, words of warning to which it was certain he turned a deaf ear.

  Eventually the tide, sweeping up the beach with a ruffle of angry sound, swept us before it, and soon there was no beach. Like misplaced persons we were searching the promenade for a patch of privacy, and the day was gone; the sun sneaking away behind the hill and the slow trail of departing people made even Nelson think of home. Feeling that we had not spent our day in vain we helped Barry to stack his floats, the last job of the day, gathered up our wet things and returned home to see what that had to offer.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The flutter of Mother’s silk gown in the bay window of the drawing room suggested to me that she watched for our return, but it was not Mother and Mrs Greenfield taking tea in the window, as I had first suspected, but Mother and Mrs Budden. They were discussing babies, I supposed, or horoscopes, which seemed to preoccupy a lot of women. My own led me to believe, at least for today, that the future lay before me a clear path of sheer delight. I wondered if the children were home from their outing.

  The door opened before we reached it, to the unusual sound of Mother speaking first.

  ‘A disaster has struck the place,’ she declared tragically, as if the house had collapsed and she was breaking the news from the top of a heap of rubble.

  We stared at Mother in surprise. It wasn’t like her to indulge in exhibitions we agreed, exchanging glances as she jostled us in with silent signs of warning to shut the door behind us with careful, noiseless precision. Mrs Budden sat on the wide window seat in the attitude of a collapsed jelly. This surely then was Doomsday!

  ‘By Jove,’ Barry said breathlessly. ‘Not another crisis, I hope?’

  ‘I had better tell you the worst,’ said Mother.

  ‘It’s Harriet,’ the green jelly interrupted, in a voice of outrage, giving way to tears, unable to wait for Mother’s announcement.

  ‘Harriet?’ we exclaimed.

  ‘You know, that woman upstairs with grey hair, a saint-like face and a mole on the left cheek,’ Mother explained, as if we were a pack of imbeciles.

  ‘Not our Harriet Amelia Greenfield?’ I questioned, spinning out the words as though announcing her entry at a royal function. I noticed with some amusement and not a little trepidation that Harriet was now ‘that woman’, whereas before she had been a sweet soul, worthy of special attention and that unbelievably Mother was sharpening her claws.

  ‘That’s just it,’ Mother declared with hauteur. ‘We have all been misled, I fear, for she is – I hate to say it, dear, it sounds so bad – quite potty.’

  There were further cries of disbelief.

  ‘One doesn’t want to spread false rumours,’ she went on, ‘but we have had a most illuminating and alarming day.’

  There was complete agreement from the figure in the window seat, who resettled herself in a more comfortable position of endurance. The thought was impossible: all my dreams of Harriet tottered and collapsed.

  ‘Yes, I am afraid so – mad a
s a hatter,’ and Mother settled down to tell her story to what at first was a silent and paralysed audience. She hurried over her words and peered anxiously in the direction of Harriet’s room as if expecting her to appear through the wall with the Sword of Damocles in her hand.

  ‘Edward and I were having a warm beverage together, and discussing the best method of approach to that Malayan recipe that Roger was having a bit of difficulty with – it would keep going into a solid ball even when it was watched – when suddenly there was a deafening knock at the door. Not a usual normal knock, mind …’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ I said with long-suffering understanding. ‘The sort of noise Nelson makes when he wants to be noticed.’ Nelson smarted at my jibe.

  ‘Anyway, let me continue,’ said Mother. ‘Edward opened the door, and who should be standing there but that woman,’ she paused in a purely dramatic way, like an actress who has made her entrance and now waits for the applause. Mrs Greenfield, I felt, was now irrevocably cast as ‘that woman’, whose wants in future would be dismissed with a disapproving shrug. ‘She had a shawl wrapped about her head, and looked most odd to say the least.’

  ‘I know,’ said Nelson. ‘Like an Irish peasant – I’ve seen it in films.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Mother, who, I felt, had never seen an Irish peasant, in spite of her ancestry.

  ‘Sounds more Russian to me,’ Barry remarked.

  ‘Perhaps she has Russian ancestors?’ I suggested helpfully.

  ‘Perhaps she is really a he, Russian bod, a spy disguised … Did it ’ave a wig on, did yer notice?’ Nelson was delighted at his suggestion, and the prospect, he knew, that Edward would back him.

  ‘Yes, go on Mother,’ I demanded, silencing Nelson with a look and feeling that the suggestions were on the point of getting ridiculous as usual.

  Mother became all confidential: ‘Well, at first I thought she had joined the local dramatic society and was rehearsing for a play. Then I wondered if she could possibly be going to a fancy dress ball and preparing herself early. Then I noticed she had a knobkerrie in her hand, and I began to think it all a bit queer …’ We all looked concerned at the knobkerrie. ‘However I kept my presence of mind and smiled sweetly as if nothing was wrong, as if it was the most natural thing in the world for an old lady to carry a knobkerrie …’

  ‘Did it ’ave knobs on?’ Nelson interrupted with concerned interest. ‘The knobkerrie, I mean?’

  ‘Silence!’ I roared. ‘Go on, Mother, and don’t leave out any details.’

  Although the family were prone to exaggeration, Mother could usually be relied upon to stick to the strictest truth.

  ‘All I said was “Are you going out?” and Edward started to say “Fancy,” having the same ideas as I had a moment before, and the next thing we knew she was pointing at us threateningly, and shouting “Will you stop talking about me on your radio programme? I can hear you quite plainly!” Poor Edward went as white as a sheet, and we both looked guilty, I know; though we couldn’t have been more innocently employed.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, burying my illusions of Harriet with large clods of dismal earth in acceptance of the tale.

  ‘Are you sure it was a knobkerrie?’ Barry asked, as seriously as if he were making a police enquiry. ‘It seems a strange thing for an old lady to have, quite sinister in fact, I should say.’

  ‘Does it ’ave a round end like a stone-age man’s?’

  ‘Shut up Nelson! Go on Mother.’

  ‘My radio programme, if you please!’ Mother’s voice went on indignantly. ‘As though I was some sort of common entertainer, indulging in vulgar exhibitions. You know I have never broadcasted in my life, and I don’t intend to start now.’ She ended with the defiant toss of her head like a circus pony.

  ‘Of course not,’ I agreed comfortingly. ‘But go on.’

  ‘Well, by now I began to feel decidedly uneasy. I could see there was something drastically wrong, and that she was not going to end the conversation there. Then Edward had the misfortune to laugh – a hollow little laugh, just to elevate the atmosphere, he said, though I’m convinced it was pure nerves. The next thing we knew she had turned on him: “And as for you,” she shouted, “you and your mumbo jumbo, God will punish you in the proper manner, no doubt!” Edward looked quite ill, poor man.’

  ‘Was it his painting or his dancing or …’ I stopped, ‘she referred to,’ I went on, poking fun with sly innocence at Edward.

  Mother was oblivious to the laughter underlying my remark. ‘Now wasn’t that an unkind thing for her to say?’ she reflected sadly. ‘Edward, who wouldn’t hurt a fly, poor soul.’

  ‘Sounds to me like a bad case of schizophrenia,’ Barry announced seriously, airing his knowledge. ‘She needs a spot of pethedrine or something similar – administered in the buttock is the best place, Mrs Durrell. A quick jab and it is all over.’

  ‘Quite.’ Mother agreed as if she already held an hypodermic in her hand.

  ‘Why don’t you two call in Jane,’ I was inclined to laugh. ‘She might have a better idea.’

  Mother’s expression squashed the levity in my suggestion. I could hardly believe, did not want to believe, that my paragon of all virtues had fallen so dismally off her pedestal. Could it have been drink, I asked myself, rummaging round for a suitable excuse so that it could be forgotten as a trifling incident. ‘Perhaps she was a little high?’ I suggested hopefully, desperate for a better solution than madness for my star lodger, bringing Harriet up for revision from where they had consigned her.

  ‘No, my dear, she wasn’t drunk, most definitely not. I thought so too at first, but I managed to smell her breath and there were no signs of alcohol on it whatsoever. Edward and I were unanimous on that point.’

  ‘We saw a drunk,’ Nelson remarked chattily, and had to be firmly silenced again.

  ‘Continue, Mother,’ I ordered.

  ‘Well, we both fell against the door and closed it, and have been huddled like refugees before the Gestapo for the rest of the day. Edward had to creep to his room by the back way, if you please, and I have been terrified to go into the hall ever since.’

  ‘Mother,’ I asked sternly, ‘are you sure you have not taken to gross exaggeration?’

  ‘Mrs Budden has now confirmed my worst suspicions.’ Mother spoke in her ‘I am not amused’ tone.

  ‘What happened to you?’ We all turned to the reviving jelly, who was getting ready to take the centre of the scene. It must be serious, for she should be preparing an evening meal for her robust spouse at this hour. Any minute he would return home caked in dust, shouting for attention and food: for why had he wasted seven shillings and sixpence? Not for the sole purpose of free copulation: the working man must be fed!

  The woman choked. ‘It’s dreadful, really dreadful.’ She blossomed with artistic talent at a live audience of sympathetic faces, her immobile face shattered to lines of exaggerated despair. She looked remarkably like her child when deprived of its human nipple. I could hardly wait for the next instalment; the whole house was slowly going mad. Whose turn would it be next, and was it catching?

  Mrs Budden now took up the tale, and Harriet’s misdemeanours unfolded before us in a story of Hitler-like actions, seasoned with cockney criticisms that could only have originated from the belligerent tongue of Mr Budden, and lost no depth with repetition. It appeared that Harriet, like Gerald, also considered she was part owner of my property, to which she added a resentment of trespassers. She made her point quite clear, it seemed, with acid remarks; she rearranged the bathroom and lavatory for her own comfort; removed electric lightbulbs to oblivion, to endanger the lives of those who followed her to these quarters, demonstrating with a series of highly organized bangs to those who did not heed her warnings; she played with the mains and with goodness knows what else to follow … All this had been accumulating over the past few days without my knowledge – it was unbelievable.

  ‘And now,’ the storyteller went on, ‘she keeps saying “you kno
w what’s coming to you.” ’

  Barry and I exchanged glances: yes, we all knew what came to Mrs Budden, but we refrained from mentioning the obvious now. Nelson’s face split to a knowing grin, making it quite clear he had missed nothing.

  ‘It were like a wicked prophecy,’ she went on, blind to our smiles. ‘It makes me that jumpy and twitchy wondering what is coming next. It’s like tempting fate.’

  ‘Don’t worry, dear,’ Barry soothed her with a half smile. ‘I’ll soon get that right. Try this with your cup of char.’ He handed her a brown lozenge. She took it without enthusiasm.

  ‘My ’ubby says either she goes or we go; but where will we find anywhere to go? Mr Budden’s a difficult man, you know,’ and the green jelly wept. We knew that, too.

  Consoling the creature, I escorted her back to her quarters, promising to look into the matter. But what could I do about a senile brain, I asked myself feelingly, as I listened with relief to a lifeless sound from Harriet’s room and returned downstairs to Mother. Nelson and Barry departed after a military consultation, expecting to be attacked at any moment.

  ‘Where is she now?’ I enquired of Mother, ‘there was no sound from her room that I could hear.’

  ‘She must be in her room, I haven’t seen her go out. And let’s hope she stays there.’ Mother was belligerent now, and showing belated signs of battle. I grinned at her.

  ‘It’s madness. We can’t have everybody cowering in various parts of the house just because Harriet appears to be a little bit kinky …’

  Voices in the hall made us both stop and listen fearfully, but it was only Paula and Olwen expanding after an inhibited day of stock phrases.

  ‘The consequences of harbouring a lunatic might be disastrous,’ Mother contemplated.

  I was thinking that I would have enjoyed the spectacle of Mother and Edward fleeing before a knobkerrie. My grin grew larger. We listened again to the arrival of the bricklayer demanding his rights. Mother shuddered: ‘That man!’