Whatever Happened to Margo?

by Margaret Durrell

  Nelson knocked with great reserve, as though entering a room of sickness; so different from the usual succession of noisy thumps. He wore a Dutch apron draped about his vast middle and begged politely to borrow six eggs – he was making his mother a birthday cake, he told us solemnly, as she would be thirty-five tomorrow. Pleased at a firm little audience of admirers, he entered willingly into the discussion of Barry’s future, like an old man who had been through it all before. Placing a stout fatherly arm about the drooping woolly figure, he told him in a sagacious voice that he felt sure he would make good in the end. And he personally had the greatest faith in his ability. Then, collecting up his six eggs from the kitchen, he left with the lordly air of a royal chef: I wondered idly if the girls in green were also missing Nelson, with his frantic wolf whistles that sent them into a flutter of delight. Could Nelson’s acquiescence to a church sermon be just a pose for our benefit to hide a more significant situation as yet unrevealed, I wondered, suddenly suspicious – again, time would tell, no doubt.

  I followed Nelson out, picking up a thick sweater hanging across a chair as I went; leaving the vibrant atmosphere of friendly argument punctuated by the rich chuckle of Gerald and the rolling high-pitched noise of Edward. Barry’s laughter at the moment, only managed with great difficulty, had the hollow note of an empty can; Jane, not having the capacity for deep laughter, occasionally made a strangled noise worthy of an hysterical Pekingese. I hoped that Gerald would not be so carried away by his own enthusiasm that he would forget that he was putting the children to bed and attending to their bedtime wants, for I was going to take the first steps out into the jazzy world of my two lodgers upstairs and sweat out a night of hot music.

  Only one light burned in the hall – the other was missing. Harriet, a grey mouse, rustled past us down the stairs and averted her face without a greeting, closing the front door with the usual disturbing protest. Mrs Budden, sneaking a look from a scarcely open door, nervously whispered for less noise because the baby slumbered; a pig-like vibrato told us that it was not only the baby who took a nap. Across the way, lifting the atmosphere created by a frightened Mrs Budden, a pleasant singing voice trilled from the bathroom. A rich smell of luxury bath-oils filled the length of the corridor, making it clear that Paula was refreshing herself extravagantly after a tiring day’s work of sales talk.

  I passed from the scent of apple-blossom into the earthy upheaval of the men’s room. They were gathering up their instruments with accustomed movements, polishing a dull spot and arranging their gear with tender concern. I watched the two men with deep interest: thoughts far removed from those of a commercial landlady. They were vastly different in character, yet perfectly harmonized, bonded together in this common obsession. Which was the stronger basic character? I was biased of course, for Roger’s swarthy oriental-featured face, passively gloomy, attracted me not at all; though for some he personified male attraction. He had grown away from Madga now, leaving her floundering like a bird with a broken wing, and again sought his woman, almost ruthlessly, but still with a gloomy disinterested air as if he did not really enjoy it. I wondered about the first wife, a neurotic by all his accounts, but then human nature tended to slander a discarded love.

  My thoughts were not allowed to linger on the fascinating intricacies of Roger’s life, as Andy, with a glance at the clock, suggested that we should be going, with the boyish eagerness of an anticipated pleasure.

  ‘Art thou coming now?’ he questioned softly, picking up his trombone and smiling with his eyes. I nodded without a word, feeling as though a sudden midnight noise had jolted me to watchful wakefulness; an emotion which I am sure Mrs Briggs would have placed in the category of ‘them’s only pitfalls’, or perhaps the scarlet wonderings of a Jezebel.

  ‘Yes, we had better get going,’ Roger remarked, while I noticed the difference in the two voices: the toneless cultured smoothness of Roger and Andy’s, deep, yet almost rough.

  We left the room together, and fumbled our way to the stairs as I cursed Harriet audibly, for the darkness meant that yet another electric lightbulb had to be found before someone fell and broke a limb.

  ‘Hell, what a stink!’ Roger broke out, as Paula revealed herself, a statue in red velvet; the heavy smell of crushed blossoms drenched us. A housecoat and the perfume of which, being a woman, I thoroughly approved. She and I exchanged light words to Roger’s aspersions about over-scented females. Paula’s haughty retort was drowned by Mr Budden’s sudden roar for silence and from Nelson’s room a smell of burning had brought Edward galloping up to investigate; his phobia outweighed any other emotions through the winter months and I felt that summer must be a lean time for this submerged passion.

  I soothed him quickly, reminding him that Nelson was venturing into the realms of cake-making, but Edward, disbelieving my theory, said no cake-maker ever produced a smell like that, even an amateur and he flung himself at the door demanding to be let in.

  Laughingly, we left him arguing with an indignant cook, shut the front door on the uproar and made our way out beneath the inky sky, a dark mantle, where the first stars, like fairy lights, spread above our heads. Two figures, ministering angels, home from a long shift at the hospital, hailed us merrily. I advised them to join the throng busy arranging Barry’s salvation and, linking my arm through Andy’s in a gesture of gay affection, I experienced a moment of supreme contentment as we threaded our way crisply towards the town’s nightlife. Being a landlady had its moments.

  Then we were in a new haunt, a room below ground level, scarcely lit, enveloped by a stifling fog of smoky perspiration and brassy noise, as a white band beat a hot rhythm, trespassing the path of the negro in a vain attempt to capture the secrets of the original. For the most part they looked a seedy bunch, their sweating faces pallid shifting masks in the gloom; before them jiving couples twisted to keep the beat. Clinging against the wall, standing crowds rocked, appreciatively moaned and applauded wildly.

  I found myself alone, for Roger and Andy, fighting their way through the crowd towards the nucleus of sound, were now strangers, melting into a mood in which I played no part. Feeling very much alone and forgotten, I edged my way shyly forward, shuffling like a cripple through the tightly packed audience, manoeuvred back and forth by enthusiastic bodies stamping in ecstasy, and shouting ‘great, great’, as the clarinet wandered sweetly into a lonely riff, and died as the drums, breaking the spell, rolled like a burst of thunder. There was a roar of approval.

  Then Andy was up there playing, and the growl of his trombone split the other sounds. Pride stirred me, excitingly now for the first time I heard the hidden melody. So this was what it was all about, this was the thing that had touched so many, compellingly ruthless, to fire the imagination.

  I was so close I could have touched Andy: his damp body stripped, shirtless, loosely swaying, moved me sweetly. Involuntarily I put my hand out to regain contact, and stopped: he did not need me now, I thought, a little stunned, and a twinge of jealousy rose mercilessly. I felt hot and sticky and alone for a sickening moment, but the trombone spun an enticing golden sound, and the music that was a religion to some seduced me, caught me up in a rolling wave of intoxication. I found myself applauding with the rest through my silent tears.

  The hours stilled. Night slipped away unnoticed. The crowds disappeared listlessly, and we returned home with the dark before dawn to another world of still sleeping shadows. I was subdued, troubled, walking alone, trying vainly to collect myself and step back from the brink to safety, with the harsh question nagging, could I endure the one solitary thing that now divided me from completeness with Andy, immersed in this demanding musical barrier that few women, I realized, however hard they tried, could ever really cross? We were in love, but would I survive, I wondered doubtfully, at this moment fighting to save myself the bitter experience of an affection that could surely only play a second fiddle to a trombone.

  Fortunately if one lives close to the lives of other people one is n
ot allowed to smoulder alone indefinitely and I found myself quickly drawn back into the fold of my household, my own problems tempered down and softened in consequence. For who could wallow in self-pity for long with Harriet at the door, or a pitiful Barry bemoaning his disastrous career and Nelson proclaiming openly now that he was in love with the last girl in the lime-green crocodile – a suet pudding with golden curls and blue eyes – and church reform was buried for ever?

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Waking up like a sleep-walker to the needs of my lodgers, I found the major problem of Barry’s career was temporarily solved. He was now on the dole, much more cheerful, and writing away enthusiastically for jobs; letters to which the more literary types amongst us added a word or two, or gave our references willingly. He kept his best suit carefully pressed for the summons which surely, by the law of averages, would not be deprived him, filled in his football coupons and wandered from room to room once more absorbing himself in his uneasy private life, which the promises of the beach had dimmed a little.

  I could not rejoice in any way for Harriet, for though we had also discussed her needs with endless energy there seemed to be no clear solution for her mental disturbance. Gerald, after spending some time dashing between Barry’s troubles and Harriet’s, following the trail of electric lightbulbs without success, gave the latter up as a lost cause, convinced that she was in that curious state that some women seem to get into after the age of forty. He was agreed with heartily by all those who had not the slightest idea what the symptoms of a woman of over forty were: the over-forties remained silent.

  ‘Either you will have to have her forcibly removed or we shall have to go on wearing a martyr’s crown until she drops dead, and hope that your nerves and everybody else’s will stand the strain,’ Gerald remarked, exasperated and disappointed that the brown bag which Edward discovered secreted in the dustbin after dark by Harriet held an empty bottle of cough syrup and not incriminating glass.

  ‘The latter is to be our fate,’ I declared apologetically. I couldn’t give her notice, for she continued to pay rent meticulously and took great care that her rent book was in order. Sometimes she seemed to want to reach us, reminding me of a trapped wild bird frantic to escape, for so often the angry shouting seemed to be seeking attention, bemoaning desperate states of health and lack of care but she withdrew immediately into sullen refusal when a face turned to her in friendly impatience. I waited with some interest for Mother’s next visit, to see what effect it would have on our wayward Harriet and if the epistles would start again.

  Gerald, confident that he was a sobering influence and that in Groddeck lay all the answers, even if not immediately accessible, watched over us tenderly, rather as though he was privileged to watch the birth of some rare mammal. He was constantly advising me on the best ways of handling humanity and securing any rent overdue. He taught Nelson the rudiments of biology, played the women with charming unconcern, ate garlic and outdid everybody else’s smells and pored over his reptiles in equal rapture to his other activities. Then, following the subject closest to his heart, like Jane he returned inevitably to the core of his interest, persuading us into lengthy expeditions to the countryside, regardless of the icy weather, to find that suitable estate in which to start a zoo. I found myself following eagerly, for I watched with open concern a furry thing follow the reptiles to the kitchen and Nelson wishing that he had mice to sell for fodder again.

  Once more we retraced the old familiar roads, cut by frosty threads of startling whiteness. We found the large mansion still empty. We paced the sunken garden, a pillage of dead leaves and greeny dampness, until hippos wallowed comfortably before our eyes. The sun shone as our visions transferred themselves into an animal paradise, only to be brought back to cold reality; a north wind that broke the silence to rustling wilderness, with the very big governing factor, lack of sufficient money, which even the ingenious ideas of my brother, the lodgers, or Nelson’s mercenary brain could not overcome.

  One week we returned home from such a venture of hectic searching, Gerald, Andy, Nelson and the children, with Jane and Blanche now tolerating each other in a common cause, their mutual regard for Gerald. We were a chilly band of mortals once more glad to get back to the warmth of our hearths, for it was October now. We envied the more courageous members who had refused to come with us.

  Mrs Budden’s baby, Alfred, coddled in his luxurious black pram, was parked in the hall and bellowing mightily; he stopped when he saw us swarming in, blue and panting, our breath patterned by a white mist, lifting a big red face to give us a reproachful greeting from sodden eyes. ‘Little beast’ – it was a nasal comment from Edward, who welcomed our return in the hall with an enquiry as to whether or not our day had been blessed, not only with a suitable property but with a cheap one. He had been unable to accompany us, though willing in spirit he added hypocritically, for he was nursing his first cold of the winter in a bad-tempered way; a blue nose sniffling into a large hankie soaked in eucalyptus, and swearing he had caught a dose of something from Judy who had collapsed and retired to her bed the night before. Edward’s nasal grumblings sent Blanche up to see how her room-mate was faring after a day of neglect, while I, ignoring Edward’s terse comments, now smiled at the baby in a completely motherly way.

  ‘He’s got a face just like ’is bleeding father – and I wouldn’t trust ’im an inch either.’ Nelson was examining the baby with extreme distaste.

  ‘He’s been bellowing all day,’ Edward told us. ‘Made my cold fifty times worse, and I’ve lost all powers of concentration now.’

  ‘Where are the bloody parents?’ Gerald asked, blowing warmth into his hands. ‘That’s what gets me, the parents who have children and then don’t bother with them.’

  Edward gave him a significant look amounting to agreement. Nelson, as usual, caught the look. ‘Sex again,’ he remarked cheerfully, ‘yer can’t get away from it.’

  There was a snigger and Gerald’s hand came out and clouted Nelson across the back of his head, an action which, if my mother had seen it, would have brought a hail of criticism: she considered the head a most vulnerable part of a boy’s anatomy and one that should never be tampered with. He leapt as if he had been hit with a red hot poker, startling Alfred into a fresh uproar.

  ‘That’s what comes of giving him biology lessons,’ I remarked acidly.

  ‘Grannie said you weren’t to do that,’ Gerry rebuked his uncle.

  ‘It’s bad for the brains’ – Nicholas was already making for the inside door, putting a safe distance between himself and any blows that were going, confirming his grandmother’s famous speech on blows to the head.

  Roger, haggard and unshaven, appeared at the top of the stairs. ‘Will somebody strangle that personification of the devil?’ he asked, looking us all over as if expecting a volunteer to step forward. The baby was not popular; it was understandable under the circumstances, for Roger was studying for an important art exam and was absorbed in working on a collection of paintings which seemed to have no connection at all to the titles, and I felt faithlessly that they would not place him very high on the list of modern painters. He opened his mouth to repeat his demand when, to our horror, Mr Budden’s door flew open and he stood before us. An unforgettable figure of aggressiveness, goose pimples and towel, we got a long view of his bandy legs covered in black hair and grotesque pink body accumulating in flabbiness to square ungainly hips and rounded breasts like a woman. Mother was right, but it was not only his legs that were a trifle ugly.

  ‘Anyone want to argue the bloody point?’ he said raising his fist in a pugilistic fashion, his face purple and his eyes standing out of his head.

  Johnny, who had had a wonderful, uninhibited day in Dorset, cocked his leg in sudden fright and christened the big black baby carriage. We fell back, silent and horrified at our indiscretions, now that we were caught. Was there going to be a fight? And if so with whom? It seemed as if there was more than one candidate for a punch up. />
  ‘Oh dear me, time for another dose,’ Edward excused himself weakly, giving a little cough, having been caught in the act of slander and not spoiling for a fight. The baby had stopped crying at his father’s voice and watched the scene with a decidedly cunning eye.

  ‘I thought not,’ Mr Budden sneered, looking us all over as if he contemplated buying from a pile of rotting vegetables. He walked silently like royalty through our uncheering midst, gathered up his child in a clumsy swoop, knocking Alfred’s head against the bannisters as he turned, and marched back up the stairs breathing heavily. Roger melted before the dragon; he was no St George. Alfred started on an automatic protest at his parent’s rough handling, sensed the danger value, and decided silence was a better move, and closed his mouth hurriedly. He was learning fast, even at that age, and he squeezed out two silent and very big tears. With a noise that vibrated through the house and outdid any of Harriet’s, the offended parent closed his door behind him and we heard the beginnings of an intimate family brawl.

  ‘My God, the uncouth sod, give him notice! I told you to do that before, now you see what you’ve done by not listening. We are all going to be victimized by that picture of how not to have a baby,’ Gerald said.

  ‘Quite,’ said Edward from a crack in the door.

  ‘I should ’ave tripped ’em with me foot,’ Nelson suggested, sad at the chance he had missed.

  ‘An absolute beast,’ Jane said, her face pink.

  ‘His legs were interesting, though – all hairy like a caterpillar’s,’ was Gerry’s comparison.

  Johnny, expecting the usual chorus of boisterous yells at the polluting of the mighty pram, cowered waiting punishment and revived delightedly at the unexpected as Nelson bent and patted him gently. ‘Well done,’ he whispered, ‘I couldn’t ’ave done it better meself.’