Making Marion

by Beth Moran

  Jake laughed at my excuses until they were a quivering, pathetic blob of lies.

  “Do you want me to call them for you? Find out if any of them are Morris?”

  Yes. No. Yes. But that would be just another cop out… so…

  “No. I’ll do it… I just need to psyche myself up first, get in the right mindset.”

  He laughed again, not unkindly.

  Scarlett floated past, carrying a platter of salmon decorated with lemon wedges and what I now knew to be dill.

  “Okay, so here’s the lesson in makin’ yourself do somethin’ you don’t want to do, instead of lettin’ it hover over your head like a giant spider wavin’ its hairy legs and snappin’ its poisonous fangs as it dangles on the end of its web.” She handed the plate to Valerie, waving her over to where Samuel tended the barbeque, and put her hands either side of my shoulders.

  “Oh, for your own sake, just do it, Marion! Don’t stop, think, debate, imagine. Do not bargain with yourself! Never negotiate! Right now, this minute, today. No questions, excuses or waitin’ ’til a more convenient time. Don’t worry or witter about what may or may not happen. Do not allow the possibility of uncomfortable consequences to be a reason not to do what needs to be done! Tell yourself you are strong, capable and confident. Because underneath all that wibblin’ and waverin’ you are. And I will tell you this. Life is too short and too sweet to waste any of it puttin’ things off. Why would you think so little of yourself that you would let another day – another hour – pass by with the big ugly shadow of a spider hangin’ over your head? I can promise you that whatever it is, it is better done so you can get dealin’ with the consequences than frettin’ about what they might be. Pull up your socks, take a deep breath, and just do it.”

  Monday evening, I closed my curtains, pulled up my socks, whizzed through my mute busters and just did it.

  Nine phone calls later I was nauseous, exhausted and ready for a very big piece of cake. It had got harder, not easier, with each conversation. Six of the numbers were a straightforward “no”; they weren’t Morris Middleton and they weren’t related to Morris Middleton. No, they hadn’t heard of Morris Middleton. No, they hadn’t ever been involved with organizing the Robin Hood Festival. No, they didn’t know Daniel Miller… and who was this again? One number rang and rang until I hung up. Two were answerphone messages. I left my name and number and asked them to call me back.

  So that was that. I would retry the three numbers that hadn’t answered another day. Probably.

  Friday came. Ada and May returned, and I was on duty at reception. Nine women, including Valerie, received the attentions of those magic scissors. Ada told her incredible stories, and every time May glowered at me, killer rays shot out of her beady eyes and zapped at my self-esteem. Valerie swished her new choppy blonde cut and waved at me. “Come on, Marion! I’ll sit on the desk. Come and have a cut. Your hairstyle is rubbish.”

  It was. My hair was a nest of rubbish. I smiled and shook my head. “No thanks. Maybe next time.”

  The Peace and Pigs’ high season officially finished in mid-September. All but the die-hard campers packed up and left, though the caravans would remain full with pre-school children and older couples right through until November. Grace was back in sixth form, and Valerie had a part-time course at a local college for adults with learning disabilities. That left me tackling monster chickens, cleaning duties and the three phone numbers in my back pocket.

  The last Sunday in September, Fire Night moved up to the Hall for the Hatherstone Harvest Supper. Following tradition, the villagers arrived at dusk carrying pots of steaming stews and soups along with potatoes baked to the perfect combination of crisp shells and fluffy centres. Every child came bearing an armful of wood for the fire – sticks from the garden or broken pieces of unwanted furniture.

  Valerie and I spent the afternoon stringing red and orange bunting between the rafters of the big barn. We entwined white fairy lights around the beams and pillars, placing vases of late summer flowers along the rows of trestle tables lining the edges of the room. At one end Jake joined another guitarist, a drummer and a fiddler as they set up amplifiers and trailed wires about. Scarlett and Ginger had laboured as Sunny’s kitchen assistants for the past two days, and by the time the guests arrived the tables creaked under the weight of apple tarts glistening with caramelized sugar, towers of crisp meringues stuffed with cream and berries, and dozens more pies, strudels and cakes in keeping with the season. As usual, Grace had disappeared.

  By eight-thirty, all the two hundred or so guests had found a drink and gathered with mock solemnity around the enormous pile of wood. Archie guided Katarina’s eldest boy, Lucas, as he carefully placed his bunch of sticks at the bottom of the bonfire, before turning to salute the crowd.

  “People of Hatherstone!” he called out, standing nobly in a green and brown tweedy suit. “Thank you one and all for your contributions to the one hundred and sixty-ninth Hatherstone Hall Harvest Supper and Fire Night! Now, if you would be so kind, may I ask for your participation and cooperation in one more very important thing? That is – ” and here he paused for dramatic effect, twisting his head from side to side as he scanned the crowd, until Ginger shouted, “Oh, get on with it, do!”

  “That is – for each and every one of you to have a rollicking good time!”

  A cheer went up, glasses chinked and small children skipped about. Archie lit the fire with a flourish, and Fire Night began.

  Each and every one of us did indeed have a rollicking good time.

  Squashed in next to some of the locals I recognized from the village, I ate my supper. I saw Jo from the café, and the usual gaggle of market traders. It helped that everybody already knew me. The trick was remembering who I had actually met before, and who just knew of me through the local grapevine.

  When I had done enough chatting, I listened, and drank, by which time the floor had filled with dancers, so I had a go at that as well. It might seem strange that a socially inept, ridiculously shy person, with what might be classed as self-esteem issues, would dance in front of a whole load of people, most of them strangers. But, aha! I have learned that dancing is an excellent way to avoid conversation. And if I pretend that I am enjoying myself hard enough, sometimes I actually do.

  When the band took a break, I grabbed a glass of punch and found a spare bale of hay to flop down onto. Jake joined me. For once, he was drinking coke instead of beer.

  “Having a good time?”

  I thought about it, realizing with much less surprise than I would have felt a month ago, that I was.

  “Yes. I love your band.”

  “You’re a pretty good dancer. Your moves inspired me.”

  “No, I’m not. But it’s nice to be able to keep dancing for more than one song without getting out of breath.”

  “So you didn’t used to dance much back home? I’d have thought you’d be well into those Irish jigs.”

  “No.” I picked at a loose piece of straw poking into my leg, trying not to think about the last party I had been to. I couldn’t help noticing, peeking out from behind the big splatter of guilt, how different this evening had been compared to then. How different I was now, compared to the floppy, feeble mouse at my engagement party.

  “How’s the mystery solving going? Made any more progress?” Jake lowered his eyebrows at me. “Tell me you have called all the Middletons on the list.”

  “Yes! And called back the ones who didn’t answer the first time. I’ve spoken to all of them except for one, who never answers. So I’m at a bit of a dead end. I’ve tried the library and asked everybody I can think of locally if they recognize the photo.” I frowned, pulling on another stem of straw. “I sometimes get the impression somebody knows something, but they aren’t telling me. Maybe because I’m new here.”

  “Have you asked Ada?” Jake nodded his head across to where she perched on a stool, dressed in pink silk, a cluster of listeners leaning forward to catch the full spectacl
e of her storytelling. “She’s lived here at least twenty years. Or May? She might remember.”

  I had to wait a while before Ada took leave of her audience to visit the “room of refreshment and relief”. The ladies got to use the bathrooms in the main house, while the men made do with the outbuilding and the hedge, so I hovered in the hallway until she came out.

  “Why hello, Marion.” Ada cast a swift, appraising glance over my hair, which I had at least washed and brushed for the party. It had started out in a neat plait, but become slightly dishevelled during the dancing. I felt some knots untangle under the sheer power of her gaze. Tension buzzed as Ada restrained her hands from grabbing hold of my head and giving it a good sorting out. “Are you enjoying the party?”

  “Yes, thanks. You look magnificent, Ada.”

  “Why, thank you! You know, I’m a great believer that what’s on the inside counts.” She paused, smoothing a non-existent wrinkle in her dress. “And I think maybe you feel the same way. But once you have spent some time working on the gift which is the inner you, there is nothing wrong with giving a little attention to the wrapping.” Ada smiled, and her eyes twinkled. “I can see you are learning to respect yourself, girl. You’ll be ready for me soon enough.”

  We began to walk back through the hall toward the party.

  “Ada, can I ask you something?”

  “Fire away, girl. What’s on your mind?”

  I paused in the grandiose entrance hall, and Ada, realizing that this wasn’t merely a simple question relating to hair care, suggested we take a seat on a dark blue sofa beneath the staircase.

  “I’m trying to find out about my dad, who I think might once have lived around here. All I have to go on is this.” I pulled out the photograph from its zipped sanctuary in the inner compartment of my bag, Ada rising above commenting on the excruciating blooper of bringing my everyday bag to a party.

  She scrutinized the photograph, crunching up her bright eyes to tiny wrinkles. “He looks familiar. But if I do know him, I haven’t seen this boy for a very long time. When was the picture taken?”

  “Sometime in the early eighties, I think. But my dad moved to Ireland before I was born, so you wouldn’t have seen him for at least twenty-seven years.”

  “The Robin Hood Festival. It must have just been starting then.” Ada snapped her head up. “You need to speak to Morris.”

  “Morris Middleton?”

  “Yes.” She narrowed one eye. “Or have you already spoken to him?”

  “No. But I did call every M. Middleton in the phone book.”

  “Oh no, girl. Morris won’t answer his phone. He doesn’t hold with modern technology. He only has a phone line because his daughter insisted on putting it in, but he won’t answer.”

  “So how can I get hold of him?”

  “I’ll take you to him.” Ada folded her hands neatly in her pink silk lap and fluttered her eyelashes at me. “In return for an hour with your hair sometime.”

  I looked at Ada. She pursed her lips and lifted one perfect eyebrow. She was right. It was time.

  “Done!”

  By one o’clock in the morning the band were packing up, and most of the partygoers had weaved and wobbled their way back down the drive to the village. I stood at the sink washing up while Grace dried, which was fine. I felt ready for some silence, and its stony quality left me unfazed.

  Scarlett tapped in, the only person in the whole grounds still wearing six-inch heels.

  “Marion, honey, will you take some of this pie?”

  “Yes, thanks.”

  “Rhubarb, apple, apple and rhubarb, blackberry, apple and… oh, no, actually that one’s all done. Peach, pumpkin…”

  “Any is great. They are all a million times better than the supermarket pies I grew up on.”

  “Your mama don’t make her own pie?” Scarlett must have had too much wine. She never asked personal questions.

  “No. Her cookery style mostly involved taking frozen food out of packets and putting it in the oven. Though she did make Irish stew. And cheese on toast.”

  “Well, honey! That ain’t cookin’. How did you learn? Did you teach yourself, or have a grandma do it?”

  I concentrated on scrubbing the large pan floating in the sink. “No, not really.”

  “So how did you learn?”

  I shrugged.

  “You can’t cook, can you?”

  I shook my head.

  “You can’t cook anything, can you?” Scarlett clapped her hands together. She was definitely on the squiffy side. “That’s it! That’s the answer! I’ve been rackin’ my brains thinkin’ about how we are gonna finally get your petals to open up so that the world can see what pretty colours you are hidin’ inside yourself. Everybody needs an outlet of creative expression to creatively express themselves, and I knew we would find yours eventually. Sunny!”

  Sunny appeared, hefting a saucepan that had probably, when full, weighed more than he did. “Yes?”

  “Marion needs cookin’ lessons, Sunny. As soon as possible!”

  Sunny glanced down at the small red-headed boy clinging on to his leg. He swung to the side, revealing his two-year-old daughter clinging, half asleep, to his back like a bush baby.

  “This is how I cook, currently. Except usually there is Lucas also, tripping me up as he steals my ingredients to make stink bombs. And once they are in bed, which can be anytime between half past six and eleven, depending on what time Katarina finishes work, there is washing, ironing, dusting, polishing. I am frequently taping my eyes open. If you can wait three years until they are all at school…”

  Scarlett frowned. “Forgive me, Sunny. I forgot you spent your days drowning in a sea of boiling hot chaos. Remind me to tell you about my lesson on how to bring up your kids, instead of letting them bring you down. Now, there must be someone else that we can ask.”

  She grabbed my arm. “Leave that! Leave that! Come with me.”

  She pulled me outside, where we found Reuben watching the last of the bonfire with the remains of the stragglers.

  “Reuben!” Scarlett peered into the shadows. “Is Erica still here?”

  Reuben called her over and she floated up on a puff of air, wrapping her arms around his waist. She wore a yellow sundress with Reuben’s jacket on over the top. Her hair tumbled down around her shoulders, white gold in the moonlight, framing her perfect features like a Greek goddess.

  Scarlett patted my hand. “Don’t you mind too much,” she murmured behind my ear. “I bet she’d swop that hair for your boobs.” She smiled. “Hey, Erica. Marion needs cookin’ lessons. I remember that dinner you cooked last New Year’s at your parents’ place. Pure heaven! Could you maybe spare some time to show her the ropes?”

  Erica lifted her head off Reuben’s chest and scrunched up her nose.

  “I suppose I could. I’m no expert or anything, but it sounds like it might be fun. Although my flat is tiny; we couldn’t do it there. And I don’t suppose her caravan is much better…”

  “Hmmm. What she really needs is a fully equipped kitchen to practise in.”

  Erica unwrapped herself from Reuben, clutching one of his arms while taking hold of Scarlett’s. “Reuben! We could use the Hall!”

  “What?” He glanced over at me. “I don’t think…”

  “It would be perfect. Ginger won’t mind. It gives me another excuse to come over and see you, and we could raid the leftovers from your veg boxes. You could even help us.” Erica rubbed her hand up and down Reuben’s arm. “Reuben is an amazing chef, aren’t you?”

  Reuben didn’t look convinced.

  “Well!” Erica clapped her hands together. “That’s settled, then. You’re free Tuesday, Reubs, aren’t you? Yes. I’m sure you are. Why doesn’t Marion come over around six? Then we can eat what we’ve made for supper!”

  “Wonderful,” Scarlett drawled. She swayed back toward the house, tugging Erica with her.

  Reuben stood and watched them for a few seconds before
turning back to poke the fire. “Do you always let people treat you as if you are invisible?”

  “What?” I jumped. “No, um. Scarlett’s just had a bit too much cider… she never normally would…” My voice trailed off to a mumble. “I don’t mind, really.”

  Reuben looked up in my direction. Even though his eyes were hidden in shadow, I could feel his gaze burning through all the rubbishy excuses. He saw me. And it scared the life out of me.

  On Tuesday evening, at quarter past six, I knocked on the kitchen door of Hatherstone Hall. Erica whipped it open, her eyes gleaming.

  “Marion! Come in! How amazing to see you. We’re all ready to go. Reuben, will you take Marion’s coat? And please see to the dog.”

  Ah, I see. Erica playing at being Lady Hatherstone.

  On one end of the enormous kitchen table sat three carrier bags and several plates, spoons and other kitchen equipment laid out next to them with military precision. Still dressed in his muddy farming gear, a five o’clock shadow sharpened the angles of Reuben’s face. He hung my coat on a hook behind the kitchen door and leaned back against the worktop, folding his arms. His dog, who must have doubled in size since last I saw her, padded across the kitchen tiles to lie on his feet.

  “Hi.” I pulled a face, apologizing for taking over his kitchen.

  “Hi, Marion.” He smiled, resignedly, and I remembered he knew this wasn’t exactly my idea.

  Erica looked at the dog. “Reuben! She can’t stay here. Aren’t you going to put her outside?”

  “She’s fine.”

  “It’s unhygienic, having an animal in a food preparation area.” Erica whisked over to the door and opened it, calling for the dog, Lucy, to come. Lucy didn’t move.