Finding Margo

by Susanne O'Leary

The room quickly filled with people. Only a few minutes after Milady and Margo had sat down, the lights dimmed, the music changed from classical to modern, and the show started. Margo stared open mouthed as, illuminated by spotlights, the models, dressed in shimmering garments, glided onto the floor and started to walk in time to the pulsating South American beat. Their complexions glowing, their bodies flawless, they moved with catlike suppleness, as if walking on air. It was like a dream, a mirage, and Margo felt her pulses beat faster at the sights and sounds. She couldn’t take her eyes off the beautiful creatures and the exquisite clothes, the shapes, colours, and textures. Silk, tweed, and chiffon in amazing shades swirled in front of her eyes like a kaleidoscope. She glanced briefly at Milady, who, with a business-like air, was taking notes and muttering to herself. 'Non,” she would mumble, “pas pour moi” or “pas mal, peut-être, parfait.”

  As suddenly as it had started, the show came to an end. Margo blinked as the music stopped, the lights came on again, and the applause rang out.

  “Oh my God,” she said, clapping her hands till they ached, “that was—”

  “Not bad,” Milady said, standing up, “not bad at all.” She quickly pushed through the crowd with Margo, still mesmerised, at her heels and swiftly descended the stairs, swept through the lobby, and pushed the entrance doors open.

  “It has stopped raining. Thank God.”

  “But—” Margo started as they walked into the street. “Aren’t you going to buy anything?”

  Milady stared at her blankly. “Buy? At those prices? Of course not. I have taken extensive notes. Now, I’m going to give them to my couturier, and she will run the items up in no time at all.” She nodded, looking satisfied. “Now, apart from accessories, I’m all set up for the rentrée and the winter season. We can go to the country.”

  “The country?”

  “Yes,” Milady said impatiently. “The country. Our château.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  “You didn’t think I was going to stay in Paris in August?” Milady asked incredulously, as if it was some kind of crime.

  “No, I suppose not. So, when—”

  “We’re leaving as soon as I’m ready. Probably Saturday.”

  “We? You mean—?”

  “Yes, you too, of course. I need you there. Plenty of things to do. But now I have to go. You must go back to the apartment and start packing.”

  “Pack?” Margo laughed. “That won’t take me long.”

  “Not for you,” Milady snapped impatiently. “For me. You have to pack my clothes. Everything I’ll need for the country.”

  “Right,” Margo said. “But what—? I mean, how—?”

  “There’s a list in the drawer of my bedside table. It’s stuck into my big leather diary. The suitcases are in the basement. Ask Justine to bring them up.”

  “All right, Milady.”

  “Good. I’ll be home at around six. See you then.” Milady turned around and scanned the street. “Taxi!’ she yelled, raising her arm. A black cab came to a screeching halt beside her. Milady climbed in, slammed the door shut and stuck her head out the window. “Don’t forget to walk Milou,” she said before the taxi took off.

  Margo looked on as the taxi disappeared into the heaving traffic. She turned around and walked straight into someone going in the opposite direction.

  “Oh, pardon,” she said, trying to catch her breath. “Je—” She stopped as she saw who it was and nearly stopped breathing. “Fiona,” she whispered as they stared at each other.

  “M–Ma–Margo,” Fiona stammered. “Oh my God! It is you. Then Rufus was right.”

  “Rufus?”

  “Yes. He said he had seen you. And we thought he was making it up. We thought you had gone back to London. I told Alan, I was sure—” Fiona paused for breath. Without warning, she suddenly grabbed Margo by the arms in a tight grip. “Christ, Margo what are you doing here? I couldn’t believe it when I spotted you inside. I thought I was dreaming. Then I told myself it was somebody else. But here you are. Where have you been? Where did you go when you ran away? Why were you in there with—with that woman? And what have you done to your hair?”

  “Please,” Margo said, peeling Fiona’s hands away from her arms. “Stop shouting.”

  “I’m not shouting,” Fiona said. “I’m just in shock, that’s all.”

  “All right, all right. Keep your hair on. Calm down. I’m here, I’m all right, and now I have to go. Goodbye.” Margo backed away from Fiona and started to turn around. But Fiona grabbed her again.

  “Don’t walk away like that,” she ordered. “I want an explanation. I want to know—”

  “Leave me alone.” Margo tore away from Fiona and started to walk very quickly towards the Metro station. But Fiona pulled Margo by the arm again. “Stop,” she ordered. “You owe me an explanation, you know, after what you—”

  Margo stopped and glared at Fiona. “No, I don’t,” she said with feeling. “I don’t owe you or anyone else anything.”

  “Don’t be so bloody selfish,” Fiona snapped. “I don’t know what’s got into you, but I wish you’d stop and consider what you’re doing to everybody.”

  “Everybody?”

  “Yes. To Alan, for a start. He keeps calling us. He’s back in London now, you know, and it’s very hard for him to manage without you.”

  “I bet.” Margo smiled grimly.

  “He’s had to hire a temp.”

  “Poor baby.”

  “You must go back to him, Margo.”

  “I can’t. I’m not ready.”

  “What do you mean?” Fiona asked, looking near tears. “Please, couldn’t you try and—for my sake, at least?”

  Margo stared at Fiona. “For your sake? What has all of this got to do with you?”

  Fiona turned her head and seemed suddenly very interested in the Dior shop window. “Nothing, really,” she mumbled, staring at a display of handbags. “I just—it’s just upsetting, that’s all.”

  “That’s very sweet of you, but I wish you’d stop being upset and forget about me. I’m fine, I have a very interesting job and—”

  Fiona looked up from the window display. “Job? You have a job?”

  “Yup,” Margo said proudly.

  “Doing what?”

  “Lap dancing,” Margo said. “A whole new career.”

  “Very funny. Come on, Margo, tell me the truth.” Fiona hitched the strap of her handbag higher on her thin shoulder.

  “I’m not going to tell you anything, so you can stop asking all these questions. I’m fine, that’s all I’m going to say, absolutely fine.”

  “And you won’t reconsider—?”

  “Not for the moment, no.”

  “But you will eventually?”

  Margo shrugged. “Who knows? Que sera, sera and all that.”

  “But you’ll think about it?”

  “I might. But not at the moment.”

  “OK,” Fiona said, her voice flat. “I suppose there’s no point talking to you then. I’ll tell Alan. He’ll be relieved to hear you’re all right.” Without saying goodbye, she turned and started to walk away.

  Margo felt a stab of guilt. “Fiona,” she called after her. “I’m sorry. I’ll get in touch when—”

  But Fiona kept on walking, wobbling slightly on her impossibly high heels.

  ***

  The apartment was quiet when Margo let herself in. She looked around the kitchen and the laundry room, and except for Milou snoring in his basket, there was no sign of life. But when Margo strained her ears, she could hear the faint sound of a radio from behind the closed door of Justine’s room just off the kitchen. She must be having her afternoon snooze. Margo consulted her watch. Five o’clock. I’d better have a look at that list, and then I must walk Milou and get the evening paper. Milady wanted me to pick up some stationery for those thank-you letters and... Mentally ticking off the list in her head, she went into Milady’s bedroom, walked to the bedside table, and started to pull
out the drawer. It was stuck. She pulled a little harder, and suddenly, the drawer came unstuck and flew out, crashing to the floor, scattering the contents on the carpet.

  “Oh, bloody hell,” Margo muttered as she sank to her knees and began to pick everything up. “Why does she have to cram everything in like this?” She picked up a fat leather diary with bits of paper stuck between the pages, a small hairbrush, two postcards, a packet of paper handkerchiefs, and a stack of letters that had escaped from the blue ribbon that had been tied carelessly around them. Margo glanced briefly at the letter at the top of the pile, which hadn’t been put into its envelope.

  “Mon amour,” she read. Oh God, love letters. From the old count, probably. Despite herself, Margo, still sitting on the floor, continued to read the letter, written in a very old-fashioned, precise copperplate hand.

  “It is only a few hours since we said ‘goodbye’ but it feels like years, even though I can still feel your lips on mine, your arms around me, your soft breasts against my skin, and your long, long legs wrapped around me. I know you were worried we would be discovered, but for me, the risk of discovery only makes our rendezvous more exciting.” What? Margo thought. The risk of—is that right? She looked at the text again. Le risque de decouverte – yes, that’s what it means. The risk of discovery. Not her husband then. She must have had a lover. The dirty trollop. But when, and who? Margo looked at the date at the top of the page. April 1969. What age would Milady have been? In her late twenties or very early thirties at the most. And her husband? Fascinated, Margo read on. “I know you are worried that our liaison will damage my political career, but I do not think there is any need for concern. We are so very careful, and nobody seems to suspect anything when I leave for ‘my evening walk’, and they all remark on how refreshed I look when I come back. You see, my little one, our love helps me cope with the stress of my position and makes me forget all the problems, if only for a short while. So you are doing a lot for your country without realising it. I adore you even more now than when we first met and you are even more beautiful.

  “Goodbye for now, mon chou. I kiss your eyes, your mouth, your beautiful breasts. All my love. Vive la France,

  Your loving J-J.

  All her own problems forgotten, Margo sat on the floor staring at the letter, trying to imagine who Milady’s lover had been – someone in politics and in high office, obviously. She looked at the other letters but feeling suddenly guilty about snooping, stacked them all together, put the letter she had read on the top, re-tied the ribbon, and put everything back into the drawer except the diary. She leafed through it and found the list she had been looking for. She sat down on the antique chaise longue by the window and glanced through the neatly typed list. Summer wardrobe for the country, it said. And then a long list. There was everything a well-dressed woman could possibly need for an extended stay at a country house, and Margo smiled to herself as she pictured her own small holdall with just an extra sweater and a change of underwear she brought with her when she stayed at someone’s country cottage. But this list was endless. Apart from a lot of different kinds of underwear, Milady seemed to require a small truckload of clothes to see her through a few weeks’ stay at her country residence.

  “Three suits,” Margo muttered, “blue linen, cream cotton and green silk, three pairs of casual cotton trousers, two pairs of silk ditto, one black, one white, two bathing suits, one sundress, dinner dresses; the long cream Valentino, and two short, the black Chanel and grey silk ditto, the navy Yves St Laurent, the black beaded Galliano.” The list went on and on and Margo groaned to herself as she thought of first finding, then packing it all to be ready by Saturday. It’s already Wednesday, she thought. I’ll have to get my skates on if... She looked up as the door opened and Milady came in.

  “Oh. Marguerite,” she said as she dropped her handbag on the bed and pulled off her gloves. “You found the list then.”

  “Yes. I’m just going through it. And I was just about to go and ask Justine—”

  “Good. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to shower and change.”

  Realising she had been dismissed, Margo rose from the day bed and walked to the door. “By the way,” she said as an afterthought, “I meant to ask you—”

  Milady turned around. “Yes?”

  “Um, I know this might not be any of my business, but the other night, when I came back from my day off—” Margo paused, trying to think of how to ask the question without sounding nosy.

  Milady looked at her expectantly. “When you came back—?”

  “When I went up in the lift, I saw someone at the front door. No, the back door, I mean. A woman. She went into the apartment. This apartment.”

  “A woman? Justine, you mean?”

  “No.” Margo shook her head. “Not Justine. Definitely not. This woman was tall and slim and blonde. She wore a red dress.”

  “I really don’t know what on earth you’re talking about.” Milady sounded bored. “You must have mixed up the apartments.”

  “No, I’m sure I didn’t. This floor is the only one with only one front door, and the others—”

  “I really don’t know what you mean or what you think you saw,” Milady interrupted, a hint of annoyance in her voice. “And I don’t know what it has to do with me. I would prefer if you would do what you’re supposed to do instead of standing here asking questions.”

  Margo gave up. “Very well, Milady,” she murmured and left the room.

  ***

  The air was cold and damp and smelled of mildew and rotting leaves. Margo shivered slightly as she followed Justine through the maize of corridors in the basement on their way to the storage room to get Milady’s suitcases. “I was wondering,” she started.

  “What?” Justine had come to a stop beside a door and taken out her bunch of keys. “What were you wondering now?”

  “Well, it’s about something I saw. Or somebody, to be precise.”

  “Somebody?” Justine swung the heavy door open and switched on the light inside the door.

  Margo forgot what she was going to ask as she stared in awe at the jumble in the storage room. It looked like a very disorganised antique shop. Old chairs and tables, worn rugs, pictures with broken frames, heaps of old velvet and silk curtains, cots, old toys, trunks, leather suitcases with hotel labels, and other assorted items were piled together in ragged heaps, some of the piles nearly toppling over.

  “My God,” she said.

  “I know. Should all be thrown out if you ask me,” Justine grunted as she squeezed her heavy frame inside. “But you were saying?”

  “Oh, it was nothing really,” Margo mumbled as she fingered a deep red velvet curtain. “Lovely material.”

  “Used to hang in the dining room,” Justine said, pushing further in. “Where are those suitcases? Could have sworn I put them—oh, here they are.” She started to pull down a leather suitcase from a pile on top of a chest of drawers.

  “Here. Let me.” Margo took the suitcase and put it on the floor, watching Justine take down the next one. “How many do we need?”

  “Four. She always takes four when she goes to the country.”

  “They are really beautiful,” Margo said as she looked closely at the next one. “Real leather and such workmanship. Look, they were made by Hermès.”

  “So?”

  “Well, you know. It’s not that common to see this kind of luggage these days.”

  “Ah bon?” Justine swung the last case down onto the floor. “We’ll take two each. And you might as well take some of the red velvet. Might make nice curtains for your room if you know how to sew.”

  “Really?” Margo grabbed the curtain and sneezed as a cloud of dust hit her nose. “That’s really kind. I was just thinking I needed to get something better than that broken blind. I’m not very good at sewing, but—”

  “Not much needed. The hooks are still in, see? All you have to do is hook them up on the rail and take them up a little.”

&nbs
p; “Oh, I see. Well that should be—”

  “That rug over there might do you as well,” Justine interrupted, lifting up the corner of a worn needlepoint rug in warms hues of red and pink. “And those tapestry cushions are not really any use to anybody, if you like that sort of thing.”

  “Oh, but they are really darling,” Margo said as she admired the faded roses and bluebells on the cushions. “Thank you. That’s so kind, Justine.”

  “Harumph,” Justine grunted. “Put it all inside the cases, then we can bring it all up in one go.”

  “Good idea.” Margo opened one of the suitcases and proceeded to stuff the red velvet inside. “I’ll start on the curtains straight away.”

  “Why the rush?” Justine asked. “Aren’t you going to the château in a few days?”

  “Yes, I know, but if I improve my room a little bit now, it will be nice to come back to in September.”

  “If we’re all still alive,” Justine said darkly as she helped Margo stuff the last of the curtain into the suitcase.

  Margo looked at her. “What do you mean, if we’re all still alive?”

  “I never take anything for granted,” Justine said. “And the château – it’s a strange place.”

  “Strange? How?” Margo said with a little laugh. Justine was so melodramatic sometimes.

  Justine just shrugged. “You’ll see.”

  “Sounds interesting. I’m looking forward to seeing it and meeting the people who work there. Milady told me there’s a housekeeper and her husband.”

  “Agnès and Bernard,” Justine nodded. “A very nice couple. You’ll like them.”

  “And Milady’s youngest son, what’s he like?”

  “Monsieur Jacques?” There was suddenly a dreamy look in Justine’s eyes. “A nice young man. A little spoiled, a little temperamental, but a real gentleman.”

  “Charming?” Margo asked mischievously.

  Justine coloured slightly. “A nice boy. Always remembers me at Christmas. And he loves animals. Horses and dogs, you know?”

  “He sounds very nice. Can’t wait to meet him.”

  Justine’s expression changed, and she looked sternly at Margo. “You be careful with him, Mademoiselle. He can turn a woman’s head and make a real fool out of her.”