by Ina Disguise
mixed feelings. “What did she really want? Was she just lonely? She decided, at length that this was an extension of her current project. Announcing your eccentricity to the public and then seeing how it went when you announced it in person. Yes, she thought, perhaps it was this that inspired her. At least it was a night off from crying over other people’s spilt milk. She was still unable to fathom why her mother had bothered having her at all, since her siblings, unhelpful, spiteful people who constantly complained, were considered so superior to her whilst she single-handedly earned their inheritance. Maybe she was looking for an escape route? Twenty years ago to the day, she had been living with an alcoholic in an extremely upmarket hotel in Somerset. Could it be that she actually preferred that monotonous uncertainty? At least she hadn’t had to worry about the next attack from her siblings back then.
On arrival, Margaret noted that Malcolm appeared to be sober and had shaved his beard off. Wow, she thought, I would appear to be of some importance, for once. He was probably doing something else that required relative smartness, she surmised. She experienced a wave of inexplicable nervousness and was relieved when he announced his urgent need to make phone calls. She sighed with contentment as she looked at the well fed seagulls and misty grey sea as she consumed several cups of tea in her hotel room.
An hour or so later, Margaret made her way down the dark staircase, noting that another guest had attempted to fix the broken light that she herself had attempted to mend a few days earlier. She could tell by the way the antique chair had been dragged out next to the perilous bannister. Good luck with that, she thought as she remembered the strobe lighting effect that putting a light bulb in had produced, and the uncherished steak knife that lurked in the out of date fuse box. This made her feel a lot better. There is a peculiar comfort in broken things if you happen to like fixing them. She visualised the Mermaid Hotel with appropriately applied sticking plasters, and smiled.
Ringing the bellpush at reception, Margaret saw that Malcolm was considerably more relaxed and was relieved. She realised, of course, that a good half gallon of alcohol had been involved in the meantime, but at least she wasn’t upsetting him anymore. He made her some tea, and they proceeded to the lounge.
Margaret introduced herself as a former Michelin level chef. Malcolm immediately assumed the role of crusty old patron of the arts and asked whether she perhaps wanted to get back into it again?
“I don’t think so, no?” Margaret looked confused. “I thought I would just ask your opinion of a property we’ve found.” Margaret had decided that talking about her love of property repair might be a good way of steering the conversation in the vague general direction she optimistically hoped to go in.
Malcolm, still confused and assuming that he was in a paternalist role, did his best to look kind, interested and intelligent, spreading himself across his tartan wing chair, chosen for its fatherly qualities.
Already exasperated, Margaret explained the extensive structural work required on the property, its inconvenient location and the nature of the problems with her grasping, irrational and unhelpful family. “I am only five years younger than you, by the way Malcolm.”
Malcolm seized on the opportunity to talk about something he understood. “I’m a mess, yes. At least I know I’m an alcoholic. I can see it in other people, you know. They deny it but I know I’m a wanker. Playing cricket on the beach etc. My last girlfriend was a pisshead too.”
“Booze is boring.” Margaret shut down that line of the conversation. She wasn’t really there to wave a teetotal flag. What would be the point? Boozehounds are boozehounds.
Malcolm swiftly moved on to the safer issue of property. “Ah a wee but an’ ben for you and yer mither.” Malcolm visibly shrivelled in the seat as he retreated into the role of bitter old man, sniggering.
“Um, no. Since the stroke, mother needs something slightly post-Georgian. She doesn’t take corners terribly well.” Margaret did her best to remain pleasant and firm despite the attempted slight. “There is a large flat just down the road I could turn over. It would sell better.” Margaret had hoped to bring this line of chat towards the matter of the hotel.
“No love lost with your relatives then.” Malcolm did not appear to understand the problems, logistical, legal or seriously unpleasant that Margaret had carefully outlined. In typical boozer fashion, he struggled to put full stops on the conversation where there were none. Margaret was aware of becoming impatient. He followed this up with a comparison of inheritances, with no basis in terms of facts. He was apparently missing out on the family castle. Jesus, thought Margaret, this dude is a bit tacky.
“Now Malcolm, class is a funny thing. My parents were working, my siblings are from their ‘yuppie oik’ period, and I have more in common with the seriously posh Scottish gentleman across the road than with any of them. And they had the private education too, I went to a scruff school. Their values are very poor.” Margaret successfully diverted the mean-spirited Malcolm away from obsessing about parental demise. “So, what do you think then? Low ceiling price Dumfries, or easy to sell Anstruther?”
“Oh Dumfries, yes buy that one. Weegies hate the east coast. They come here, buy houses because they love the summer. Winter comes and they are cold and bored. This is MY area. I’m from here. Fucking Weegies.”
Margaret had heard about this phenomenon before. People who lived outside Glasgow seemed to believe that Glaswegians had some sort of superiority complex that as far as she knew, did not exist. Andi had once been bitterly asked what Glaswegians call Aberdonians, and had replied that she didn’t remember calling them anything? I see, Margaret thought, if we move to the East Coast we will get thought of as ‘Weegie bastards.’ Turn up for the books, she thought. I certainly wasn’t expecting to find the evidently well-heeled Malcolm to be a spiteful, small minded twat? It was the booze, she reasoned, the slow toxic self-depreciation. Just as well she had brought the vitamins.
“Well, I’m terribly sorry, I have to go now.” Malcolm got up to leave. “It would be different if there was a bottle of wine or whisky, but I have to go.”
“Thank you so much, Malcolm.” Margaret made her way out to the car to get her recovery kit for Malcolm. She would just leave it behind the desk, she reasoned, and say nothing. She couldn’t be bothered explaining why. B complex vitamins for his nerves, zinc for his ailing general health, and bacteria chocolate that she had recently discovered for his digestion. When she had placed this, she fired an email off to Andi. “Shambolic rich pisshead. Why do people like this waste so much, and not even in a fun way?”
She had gone there with the intention of making a fool of herself, probably not in the way Malcolm had expected, and felt quite vindicated. Margaret wondered how many times she had done something nice for someone that did not understand or value it. It was part of her oddness that this did not seem to matter, but at least she had spared herself a great deal of work this time.
The waitress in the morning appeared to believe it had been some sort of failed booty call, and pounced on Margaret as she returned her key to reception. “Do you want to see Malcolm?”
“No, no.” Margaret frowned, then realising what was being analysed. “Not yet.”
Breakfast was, as usual, excellent, and Margaret drove back to Glasgow feeling she had done the right thing. Odd, but efficient. You didn’t expect that level of mean-spirited immaturity in the well off, she thought, but Margaret had been amongst sufficiently elite crowds to know that it wasn’t all that unusual. She had learned in the course of her many lives, that people varied in pretty much the same way no matter what their income bracket. She was quite glad to be outside all that with her over generous eccentricity and bizarrely inefficient work ethic.
“There will never be another Tim, unfortunately.” Margaret sighed. “And I wouldn’t inflict my family on him for the world.” Andi and Margaret were passing his architectural gem house on their way back from shopping.
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nbsp; “Just see if you can talk him into letting me oil his grooves.” Andi laughed “I’d love to help you with that.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it. Tim’s panelling is not to be trifled with.” Margaret assumed her aghast expression. “We could get married and wave at each other from across the road. That might work, if the family were somehow eradicated by a mysterious random event of some sort. I don’t think that’s going to happen though, and I’m rather ancient.” Margaret slumped in the driving seat. “I’ve wasted my life on family scum and trying to please people that aren’t worth pleasing. I suppose the modern way is to leave your mother and father in a house they can’t handle, ill or not. The big mistake in modern terms, is caring about anything, in fact.”
www.inadisguise.com 2014
