Maggsie McNaughton's Second Chance

by Frances Maynard

  The ambulance was out in the street for ages. I was stuck by the lift because people kept asking me questions. A posh woman wanted to know if I was OK. She had a black jacket on, fitted, and high heels. Said she was from HR. That meant Human Resources, she said, which meant staff. Blimey. Scandinavian Solutions was sounding posher and posher. A grey-haired man from Maintenance turned up to peer into the lift and ask me what had happened. Another man asked the same, a manager, he said, although he was wearing jeans and a shirt that had so many flowers on it, it might as well have been a blouse.

  Then it was the police. I was used to them asking me questions. But not them being polite about it. Calling me Miss McNaughton instead of Maggsie.

  One of the ambulance people came back. There was an awful hollow feeling in my gut. I didn’t want him telling me the lad had snuffed it. Don’t know why, because he was a stranger, but there you are.

  He wasn’t dead. In fact, he was coming to, though his left leg was badly burnt where the electric had gone through it. The ambulance man had dreadlocks, tied back. He reckoned the lad had tripped and fallen on the exposed wire. ‘If it had gone anywhere near his heart, he’d have been a goner.’ He said I’d done all the right things. Could even have saved his life. ‘Cool head in a crisis,’ he said, eyebrows raised, nodding at me.

  Saved his life. All the right things. It was like he was talking about someone else. I hadn’t done nothing. All I’d done was have a ruddy good go at what I thought was a corpse with a broom. They were all looking at me now. Smiling. Even the police. I wanted to turn round, look behind me for the person they were talking about.

  The manager, the one in jeans, shook my hand. The only other bigwig who’d done that had been a prison governor. And it hadn’t been to say well done, but to get me to agree to a behaviour contract. The manager smiled. ‘Very lucky you were there.’ Even started them off clapping. I kept my arms folded. Didn’t smile. They could be having a laugh. This isn’t me, you silly whatsits, I wanted to say. I got a record, I can’t hardly read or write, my family don’t want to know me.

  My first day at work, I hadn’t even started work, and all this was happening. Was it real? Was someone playing a practical joke? Was someone off the telly going to spring out and say I’d been taken for a mug? Made me feel dizzy.

  ‘Go and have a sit-down, love,’ the maintenance man said. His hair was thinning – well, gone at the front.

  I mimed smoking – couldn’t get my words out – and he showed me to the stairs. Yeah, smoking was right at the top of the building. I might not have had much education but I was an expert on some things.

  Finally got my fag. I was nearly climbing the walls by then. I had to climb, five flights of stairs, as it was. The smoking area was a bench behind a little fence in the roof garden. A garden on a roof! They got some funny ideas in London.

  I had a couple of rollies in my baccy tin already made, which was a blessing, seeing as my hands were trembling. (It was long-term thinking, actually. What they got excited about on the courses, inside.) I took a deep drag. Saw the lad’s chubby face. His eyes tight shut. Cool head in a crisis, I heard again. I’d have written that down if I could.

  Weird doing something right for once. Hard to get my brain round people being pleased with me, being treated like someone important. Being clapped! Be good to tell my sister Nella that one day. She always thought she was a cut above. I shut my eyes. Only trouble was now they’d think I was like that all the time. Talk about Imposter Syndrome. (I’d read about that in Woman’s World. On the problem page, with Enid nodding and listening. I’d stumbled over the words; syndrome was a bugger with that ‘y’ turning up where you wouldn’t expect it.)

  I was still all over the place. I took a deep drag on my rollie – it was a skinny one to make my baccy last – then I put it out and stood up. Looked over the edge of the building at London stretched out all around. Skyscrapers, all shapes and sizes, buildings, that looked like they were made of glass, shining and twinkling, dark churches with pointy roofs. It was a whole new world. It was like looking at another planet, to be honest. One where I didn’t belong.

  I felt shaky again going back down the stairs. Just get this one day over and done with, Maggsie. Tomorrow you can head off.

  ‘I had given you up.’ A black woman was frying eggs in a huge pan. She had bright green eyeshadow and hair braided on top of her head. Always doing each other’s hair the black girls were, inside.

  ‘There was a—’ I began.

  ‘Well, you are here now. Put on an overall.’ She pointed to some kind of store cupboard in the corner. ‘Wash your hands and help me with these breakfasts.’ She didn’t say her name and she didn’t ask mine.

  That kind of thing happened to me all the time. I just had to walk through a door and things unravelled. People didn’t listen. Anger, no, firmness, began to boil. Saw myself pushing her braided head into her frying pan. I breathed out, silently counted to six. Getting worked up makes you breathe in too much; it’s the out bit that reduces the adren . . . something.

  I took off my denim jacket. I never felt right without it on – it put me at a disadvantage. Took an overall from a pile on a shelf. It hung off me like something draping a coat-stand. The black woman listed what I was supposed to do. Stack and unload the industrial dishwasher, I heard. I had my arms crossed and a scowl on, only she didn’t notice. Then the high-heeled woman from HR arrived and put her-in-charge – Primrose, her name was – in the picture. Rested her hand on my shoulder. Called me a very modest young lady. I looked at her, eyes narrowed, in case she was taking the mick. But, no, she was serious. Modest young lady was a first. Nella, who didn’t have no time for me, would have wet herself laughing.

  ‘I am sorry!’ This Primrose put down her spatula and gave me a hug. She had a big white smile. Then she asked a big hulking guy lurking about, not saying much, foreign, I think, to make me a cup of tea. TJ, he said his name was. Too Jigantic, I thought. (It was a while before I found out it was spelt with a ‘g’.) He smiled when I said four sugars, and his teeth were crooked and stained, only not as bad as mine. I didn’t smile back. I didn’t like big men. Dougie was big, and Dad before him. That pair would put you off for life. It was only Mum that went for great looming blokes.

  Primrose had a huge backside. She swayed off to turn over a load of sausages. Then she put her hands together right there by the oven and shut her eyes: ‘Dear Lord above, fill that poor injured soul with your healing light.’ TJ, coming past with a trolley full of crockery, crossed himself. God botherers, the pair of them. Some of the girls inside used to do the same. Crossing themselves was supposed to show they were telling the truth. But if you need a sign to back up what you’re saying, then you’re probably lying.

  So there I was, in a posh building, in London, being waited on – being apologized to, even. Like someone had made a mistake somewhere. I’d have given my eye teeth for Nella to see me – whatever they were. (Actually, I wouldn’t. I had enough gaps as it was. Nobody would want my eye teeth anyway.) This is what being Nella must feel like, I thought. People smiling at you, saying nice things, not telling you off, or laughing. Yeah, I’d always said Nella was dull and boring, but I could get quite into it, actually.

  Modest young lady. Made me laugh, that did.

  Scandinavian Solutions (‘Scanda,’ TJ put in, ‘for shorter’) staff got their meals free, so they shovelled food down all the time. Weird food. Black bread that looked like it had been down a coal hole, raw fish, brightly coloured veg that should never have been in a salad. I wasn’t too keen on cooking myself. Like Mum that way. She’d never done much more than egg and chips. ‘I know my limits,’ she used to say. I wasn’t so sure about that, looking back. She didn’t with men.

  The washing-up never stopped. No time to think, hardly. I spent all day scraping dirty crockery and stacking and unstacking the dishwasher. Nice how everything came out the other end, clean and dry and shiny. I got into the rhythm of it. Could do it easy.
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  I was exhausted by the time I got back to the house. You ever carried a stack of plates? Heavier than you’d think. I’d have arms like Popeye – like Dougie, who was a bricklayer – soon. The backs of my legs ached from standing. My hair smelt of chips from the deep-fat fryer.

  I warmed up some soup and put a pilchard on a saucer. Yesterday Audrey had come a bit closer and only dodged away when I tried to stroke her head.

  Ruby poked her head round the kitchen door. ‘How did it go?’

  ‘Alright,’ I got out, and a thumbs-up sign. Ruby gave me one back. Both thumbs.

  After I’d eaten my soup I went upstairs and crawled into bed. My eyes closed soon as my head hit the pillow.

  I woke at six Tuesday morning. Strange coming to, remembering I’d saved a young lad’s life the day before. Or his leg, at least. That I’d done all the right things. Kept going over it in my mind. And what might have happened. That awful barbecue smell and the robot voice nagging about the lift doors. I could have been electrocuted. If I hadn’t managed to roll him over he could have lost his leg. Could have died if he’d fallen different.

  People had been nice yesterday, but today they’d turn on me. Bound to. They’d realize what I was like. Or I’d break something, or there’d be stuff I couldn’t read, or I’d lose it with someone treating me disrespectful.

  Well, I still had my thumb, didn’t I? Still had a gob on me. I could still do a runner, hitch back up north.

  But it was OK. No worse on the tube than yesterday. In a way it was better. I was still squashed and a couple of guys in suits chatted over the top of my head, but it didn’t get to me as much. Not now I was someone who’d done all the right things. Kept a cool head in a crisis. Make a good tattoo, that. I’ve got tattoos, everyone inside’s got them, but none with writing on. Modest young lady on the other arm? No, maybe not. Didn’t sound hard enough.

  I overheard some people in the breakfast queue saying I was the person who’d rescued that poor man in the lift. They looked over, said it proper respectful. And I could work the dishwasher same as yesterday. Primrose asked me to do things. Sang churchy-sounding songs while she stirred stuff. Kept giving me little fried bits of things, crusts of pastry, a left-over sausage. Put more flesh on your bones, she said. I got through a lot of tit-bits. I didn’t eat breakfast, but if I did I could have stopped bothering.

  Make the most of it, Maggsie, I told myself, trudging up to the roof garden with my baccy tin mid-morning. Because it ain’t likely to last.

  TJ and I had our break at the same time. He was a smoker too so we had to share the bench. I sat right at the end. Looked at the skyscrapers. I always gave big men a wide berth. He was on his mobile, jabbering away, in Polish I think, because he was Polish, and not looking too happy at what the person back in Poland was saying.

  6

  Woman’s World, 17 January 2018

  The Joy of Flowers

  There was a pile of calendars in Reception. Free ones you could just take. I picked one up. A picture of the spindly furniture or boring china Scanda made for each month. Prefer a bit of pattern myself. And padding.

  I don’t know why I wanted a calendar. Never had one before. I hung it from the handle of my wardrobe door. January’s chair looked like a load of scaffolding. Tricky word to spell, January. And why it had to have a capital letter, I didn’t know.

  I ticked off all of 2018 up to today. Three days I’d done at work now. Never managed that before. Even longer since I’d, well, since I’d had a drink. Because I used to like a drink. Alcohol, I mean. Booze. You might have already guessed that. Bound to be clever, aren’t you, if you can read a book?

  Say if I could stick at the job? And at the not drinking. Say if I could stick at both for the whole year? Tick off all the days? That would be something to crow about. Something to tell Nella and Mum. If I was ever back in touch. Modest young lady. I’d love to get that one in.

  ‘Don’t count your chickens,’ Nan used to say. Yeah. I hung the calendar back up.

  On Friday there was a square white envelope propped up on the dishwasher. It had my name on it.

  Uh-oh. I hung up my jacket. Apart from Christmas or my birthday, envelopes were bad news. My heart thumped. Was Scanda getting rid of me? Or asking for some sort of qualification? I knew things couldn’t last.

  ‘Good morning, Maggsie.’ TJ was carrying some giant tins of tomatoes in from the storeroom. He put them down and gave me a big wide smile. He was always smiling. Apart from when he was on the phone to Poland. Made him look simple, if you asked me. Plus he was always around. Took up too much space. When he had a cup of tea you could hardly see the cup for his paw around it.

  Primrose pointed to the sink. She was beaming and all. Alright for them. ‘Something there for you, child.’

  I looked over. A huge bunch of flowers. I mean, huge – the size of a bush, practically. Orange flowers, yellow ones, purple. Like a paint-box. All done up in fancy paper and cellophane and a big pink bow. ‘What do you mean, for me?’ I frowned. Wondered, like I’d done on Monday, if it was some kind of trick.

  TJ lifted a little white card Sellotaped to the paper. ‘To Marguerite,’ he read out. ‘Is you, Maggsie?’

  I nodded. Stared. Who’d send me flowers?

  ‘Perhaps is young man in lift. To say thank you. Card may say.’ TJ fetched the envelope from the dishwasher.

  I folded my arms. No way was I going to try to read something with them watching. I’d just open it. The card was heavy, expensive. A picture of some cats in a circle, each holding up a little notice that said thank you. I could read that. They were looking. ‘Yeah, it is from him.’ I took it into the storeroom.

  Three lines, big writing. I traced the words with my finger. Took me a while to make it out. He was thanking me for saving his life. Asking me to visit him in hospital. I breathed in deep thinking about that. The rest of it was names and addresses.

  I asked Primrose to read them. I didn’t tell her why. I said it was because I didn’t have my glasses with me. Which was true seeing as I don’t wear glasses.

  Primrose took the card gently like I’d gone into the cupboard because I’d been overcome with emotion. That wasn’t something I went in for. It was another thing that could put you at a disadvantage.

  Jack, the lad’s name was. He was in Saint George’s Hospital.

  I ask you, how can St say Saint? A lot of words were like that. A secret code I wasn’t in on.

  Visiting him. My gut churned. He, Jack, would have bigged me up in his mind. Be expecting some willowy blonde, someone like that receptionist. Then find out I wasn’t nothing special after all. I put his card back in the envelope. Plus there was having to find my way somewhere new.

  I went over to the sink. They were lovely flowers. Like you saw TV stars being given when they’d won something. Nobody had ever given me flowers before. I wished I could keep them all fresh and posh-looking like they were now to show Nella one day. I had to turn away for a second, which was ridiculous. Flowers are supposed to make you happy.

  Primrose squeezed my arm. I went over and switched on the dishwasher quick in case she put her hands together and brought in the dear Lord again. It was me who’d saved Jack.

  The flowers were heavy to carry home, well, back to the house. I had them on my lap on the tube and I could hardly see over the top. Had to go through the front door sideways.

  I hadn’t told anyone at the house about Jack. Hadn’t had a chance. Each night I’d just warmed up my soup, fished out Audrey’s pilchard and gone to bed. But now I met Ruby wheeling her bike through the hall, ready to go home. She fussed about her bike. Kept it locked up in Audrey’s shed. Called it her trusty steed, whatever that meant.

  She squealed at my flowers. Squealed more when I told her why I’d got them. Called me a star. (A little star, which took away from it a bit.)

  I went to get a vase. Juicy Lucy was in the kitchen. She was always cooking. Mostly veg she’d got from the market, marked down at the e
nd of the day. Weird veg, some of it. Things I’d never seen before. Not sure she knew what some of them were either.

  ‘Where you get those, Maggsie?’ She looked up from the chopping board. She had long hair, dark, with a blue bit at the front. When she had enough money she was going to have the whole lot done. ‘Your boyfriend?’

  ‘Not bloody likely.’ There was only one vase and it was much too small so I used a plastic jug. The wrapping paper hid the measuring marks down the side. Men were a waste of space. (You may think different. If you are a man.)

  Juice’s mouth dropped open when I told her. Said it was like something off the telly. She’d have gone to pieces, she said. She was right: she probably would have.

  I staggered to the stairs with the jug. Big Shirl came out of her room, blocking the hallway. She wasn’t called Big Shirl for nothing. She looked at the flowers, head on one side. Whistled. Didn’t look the type that could whistle. ‘A good fifty pounds those must have cost.’ She jabbed me with her elbow, cackling. ‘Was you worth it, Maggsie?’

  I looked at her frosty. Ruby, stuffing her curly hair into a cycling helmet, filled her in. Big Shirl nodded like it was the sort of thing she heard every day. Brought in about her having a grandson around the same age as Jack. She paused like she was expecting one of us to say you don’t look old enough, Shirl, only neither of us did. Then off she went again. All the flowers she’d had from satisfied customers, red roses every Valentine’s Day from a retired judge, on and on. ‘Excuse me,’ I said, ever so polite, because I was still in a good mood, and heaved the flowers upstairs.

  The jug only just fitted on the window sill. I pulled the blind down so the flowers wouldn’t get chilled and eased some purple ones out from a tangle of leaves. There was a lovely fresh smell, like Granda’s greenhouse where he’d grown his tomatoes.