Making Marion

by Beth Moran

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” I muttered, making a quick exit.

  Locking myself into a cubicle in the ladies, I collapsed onto the seat and tried to work out how I could get Jake to back off. I scrunched my eyelids together, refusing to cry. It was fine. Jake was my friend. He would be more embarrassed than anything.

  Someone banged on the door, yelling at me to hurry up. I left, and spotting an open fire exit I stepped outside to phone for a taxi. Before the call connected a hand grabbed me. I dropped the phone.

  “Jake!” My phone had split open on the concrete surface of the car park. I bent down to pick up the pieces. Jake shoved his hands under my arms and jerked me back up.

  “Who are you phoning?” His face was right in mine, eyes burning, skin clammy with sweat.

  “A taxi. I’m not feeling great. I think I need to go home.”

  “What? It’s not midnight yet. You can’t go now.” He smiled, waving an unsteady hand at the sky.

  “I know, but I’m really not feeling well. I’m not going to be much fun.”

  “Oh, come on.” He leaned forwards, propping himself up on the wall beside me. I backed away, but hit another wall. I was boxed in.

  Jake started stroking my hair. I could smell his hot breath: beer and whisky and something sour that I didn’t recognize. “You’re lovely, Marion. I think about you all the time – about what it would be like to kiss you.”

  “Jake! I said I’m not well. Don’t do this now.” I wasn’t lying. My skull was being hammered from the inside. I thought I might throw up.

  He lifted his other hand to the wall, trapping me between his arms. Bending forward to kiss me, his lips pressed hard against mine, his tongue forcing its way inside my mouth.

  Please, don’t.

  Lost in blinding panic, I was fifteen years old again and tied up in Ballydown woods. It was no longer brick scraping my back but the gnarled bark of an oak tree. I could smell the wet peat and Declan’s rank sweat. My body had shut down. The only scream was the soundless cries from the girl inside my throat. Hands gripped my ribcage, working to push up my top. When the freezing cold air hit the skin on my stomach I came to.

  It’s Jake. It isn’t him. Move! You are not tied up. YOU ARE NOT TIED UP.

  I brought my knee up, hard, between Jake’s legs. He twisted to the side and relaxed his grip enough for me to get both my hands on his chest and push. He stumbled, losing his balance. I pushed again, harder, furious.

  He lurched to the side, his head smacking off the wall next to us. “What are you playing at?”

  I was already moving away from the wall, gearing up to run. He stretched out his hand to grab hold of me, and I whirled away from his grasp.

  There was a shout, a screech, a loud thud. Everything went black.

  I woke up enveloped in the softest quilt, patterns of light filtering through shutters scattered across the wall beside the bed. The room was large, although warm from a lit fire that crackled and popped in the stillness. I could see a white iron bedstead, a white vanity unit and chest of drawers, along with a bedside table and armchair. The walls were papered in soft pink, and I had the surreal feeling of having been transported back in time while I slept.

  A clock on the table said ten to two. Judging by the light, this was afternoon not early morning. Sluggish and disorientated, it took me a while to bring to mind where I was, and what had happened. The Hall. Of course. I vaguely remembered Ginger helping me into soft pyjamas, washing the scrapes on my back and leaving me with hot tea and ibuprofen. My head still ached, but only noticeably so when I touched it. I could feel bruises on my shoulders and back, and discovered more on my legs and hips, starkly purple against the ivory skin.

  I lay in bed for a long time. When my tears had dried up, I swung my feet onto the polished floor. Cautiously lifting my body out of the bed, I slipped on the pair of fleecy slippers someone had left out for me, and the towelling robe I found hanging on the back of the door. I wanted to stay in this cocoon forever, but I needed to empty my bladder and, more urgently in my mind right then, I had to find out what had happened to Jake.

  After gratefully locating the bathroom, I limped down the back staircase to the kitchen, where I found Sunny making soup. He said nothing, but brought me a mug of hot tea and some toast, resting one hand gently on my shoulder for a moment before going back to his chopping. I sipped the tea to soothe my throat, leaving the toast. Once I had finished, Sunny wiped his hands on his apron and sat down opposite me.

  “Are you ready for the running of the gauntlet?”

  I nodded. I wanted it over with so I could go back home. I would have simply walked back in Ginger’s pyjamas, except that I knew they would come after me, and the thought of this invading my caravan was unbearable.

  “Are you sure, now, Marion? You should be eating first.”

  I took a bite of toast, which made it about three inches down my oesophagus before I threw up.

  An hour later, just after sunset, I tried again. Having managed a few bites of a cheese sandwich, washed down with more sweet tea and ibuprofen, I sat with Katarina and waited for the lord and lady of the house.

  I don’t know if it was upper-class English reserve, or unusual wisdom and sensitivity, but – God bless them – Ginger and Archie got through the next two hours without tears, touching, flapping or fuss.

  Did I want to contact the police about Jake?

  No, I did not.

  Did I want them to speak to Scarlett?

  I couldn’t see any way around that. But, as ridiculous as it sounds, I didn’t want Jake to lose his job.

  “What happened to him?”

  Ginger looked steadily at me across the table. “Archie took Jake home.”

  “How many people know?”

  “Everybody knows you were hit by a van in the car park. Only us, Sunny, Katarina and Reuben know it was something more serious than too much to drink that sent you spinning into the path of the van.”

  My head seemed too heavy for my neck. I propped it up on my hands, letting my hair fall in front of my face. “It wasn’t anything more serious. That’s all it was.”

  “That’s all it was?” Reuben’s rough hand tipped up my chin, so my hair slipped to the side. He stalked away, returning a minute later with a mirror that he had taken from the cloakroom wall. He shoved the mirror in front of my face so that I had no option but to see.

  I closed my eyes, too late. Angry to be crying again.

  He slammed his hand on the table-top. “I saw you with him, Marion. You need to tell Brenda what that scum did.”

  “Sit down, Reuben.” Ginger spoke softly, but she meant it.

  “There’s nothing to tell.”

  Was that true?

  “So what happens next time he gets drunk and does nothing again – to some other poor girl?”

  I pressed my hands against the ache in my chest, sure the growing pressure would crack my ribs.

  “Jake isn’t a monster. Believe me. I would know.”

  “So what, you do nothing? Let him get away with it?”

  I shook my head, too battered to argue.

  Archie moved his chair next to mine. “You are absolutely sure you don’t want us to contact the police?”

  I nodded. Rightly or wrongly, I was sure.

  “Okay. Well, whatever happened, I spoke to Jake this morning. He is going to stop drinking and attend counselling for his other issues.”

  Reuben shook his head in disbelief. “Do you really think, even if he could stop drinking, it would make a difference? You’re either the kind of animal who is capable of this, or you aren’t.”

  Archie levelled his gaze at his son. “You’re wrong. Alcoholism and depression are fearful compatriots. Separately and alone they can cause noble men to do terrible things. Together, unchecked, they can destroy any trace of the decent man that once was. If Jake will accept help now, after this first fall, he has a good chance of recovery. This can become the wake-up call to snatch him ba
ck from the brink of a very slippery slope to hell.”

  “How can you be so sure? How do you know you aren’t kidding yourself?”

  Archie sat, back straight, shoulders squared. Ginger extended her arm and took hold of his hand.

  “Because I have been that man.”

  Reuben became very still.

  “When your brother… When we lost Henry, I entered a very dark time in my life. I don’t need to describe it, or who I became. But by the grace of God, and the astounding love of your mother, herself suffering beyond what any woman should have to bear, I was able to find restoration before any permanent damage was done. Your mother chose to forgive, and to believe. If Marion can offer that same hope to Jake, I am prepared to stand with them.”

  “You’re assuming Jake is going to go along with this.”

  “Yes.”

  “And if not?”

  Archie frowned. “Then God help him.”

  I pushed my chair back and levered myself up. “Please! Nothing happened. Jake tried to kiss me, I pulled away, and didn’t see the van. Can’t we let it go? Forget about it?”

  Reuben left the room, slamming the door behind him. I then registered the bandage on his right hand.

  “His hand?”

  Katarina sat back and lifted her palms in the air. “Oh yes, Marion, did you not see? Jake will have black eyes and a breaking nose to go along with his sore head today.”

  I insisted on going home. Archie drove me as I was, still dressed in the pyjamas under a borrowed coat, the bag containing my washed clothes on the back seat. I shoved them, still in the bag, to the back of one of the cupboards.

  In the caravan, Archie made me yet another cup of tea, which I left untouched on the table beside an uneaten piece of cake. He left soon after. With the door locked and every curtain closed, I stepped into the shower. I stayed there, my tears intermingling with the spray, until I couldn’t stand up any longer. Pulling on my own jogging bottoms and sweatshirt, I fell into bed, knowing from experience that even though my bones sagged with exhaustion, I would not sleep that night.

  I allowed myself three days of blurry, tear-streaked wallowing. I ate nothing but chocolate and the soup Katarina brought in a flask, poured out into a bowl and threatened to spoon-feed me if I didn’t take it myself. I lay in bed, on the sofa, curled up on the bottom of the shower. I said nothing, thought about everything, watched with fascination as my bruises turned black, then green. I forgave Jake. I forgave myself for trusting him. I read my ridiculous New Year’s resolution and decided to keep it. On the 5th January, I looked in the mirror at my brutal complexion and laughed.

  “Get over yourself, Marion. You were groped. It happens to women every day, all over the world. So it brought back some foul memories? Just be grateful it wasn’t anything close to what you had to deal with before. You know he’s gone for good. Jake is not the monster. Just a rubbish date.”

  I was seventeen when Declan was arrested for attempting to rape his twelve-year-old next-door neighbour. He hadn’t realized her daddy, a lorry driver rumoured to have spent several years transporting unmentionable items for a paramilitary organization in Belfast, was working nights that week. Declan broke into the kitchen where Anna Malone was eating a slice of pizza for her lunch. He grabbed her and held a knife to her neck while he communicated his intentions. As he pushed her to the ground, Anna grabbed the edge of the red and white checked tablecloth upon which rested her plate, a glass of orange squash and a heavy metal oven tray she had cooked the pizza on. She managed to bring the whole lot crashing to the ground.

  Anna’s father, a man who slept the fragile sleep of a part-time terrorist, woke up. Declan had a broken arm, three broken ribs and a punctured lung on his admittance to custody. Two nights later, while I agonized about whether I should speak to the police or not, an unknown intruder sneaked into his hospital room – somehow, mysteriously, avoiding the watchful eye of the police guard – and stabbed a fillet knife into his heart.

  It was yet another tragedy to befall my mess of a family. The collective view of the town was that Declan had “always been a queer one”. Auntie Paula and Uncle Keith moved across town, then to County Claire, and finally Queensland in Australia, trying to escape Declan’s ghost. His younger brother, Benny, dealt with the situation by joining the police.

  The evening after Declan’s death, Eamonn found me in the woods. He sat down on the log next to me. Without saying anything, he kissed me then, for the first time.

  Later, I wouldn’t hold his hand as we walked back through the town.

  “It’s weird, isn’t it? Do you feel weird?”

  I nodded. I felt like running into the sea until it reached above my head, and then keeping walking until I couldn’t walk any more.

  “Don’t blame yourself, Marion.”

  I ignored that stupid comment.

  “Well, if you’re to blame, then I am too. I’m more to blame than you are. I could’ve actually said something.”

  We had reached the end of my road, where Eamonn usually said goodbye so we could both avoid my mother’s barbs. I leaned against the wall there.

  “It wasn’t just once.”

  Eamonn shrugged. “I figured that much.”

  “I knew what he was. What if there were others, Eamonn? It’s been two years. Who’s it been for the last two years?”

  He kicked at a stone on the pavement. “If you had told somebody, it would have been your word against his.”

  I knew this. And back then I had no words with which to stand against him.

  “And your ma, Marion. She wouldn’t have backed you up.”

  “She’d have blamed me. Probably called me a slut with a guilty conscience.”

  Eamonn rested his hands gently either side of my face. “You had enough going on. You did what you could.”

  My laugh was bitter. “And what was that?”

  “You survived. Which, considering the circumstances, was pretty impressive.”

  I pushed off from the wall and made to go. Eamonn grabbed my hand, and began to move with me.

  “What are you doing? Let go. She’ll see.”

  He stared straight ahead, carried on walking. “I’m seeing my girlfriend to her door.”

  Eamonn was no fool. He knew by picking that day, of all days, the last thing I thought about before I went to bed was not murder, or attempted rape, or wrists bleeding from burning ropes, or a ruined bra. It was the soft lips and gentle smile of Eamonn Brown. My boyfriend.

  Scarlett came to see me a couple of days after she returned to England. I’d spent the day spreading mulch over the flowerbeds, and now stood at the kitchen sink, scrubbing away the dirt lodged under my nails.

  “Hey, Marion! I brought dinner.” She placed a dish of lasagne on my tiny table, scooping out two portions while I poured juice into glasses and chopped cucumber and peppers to make salad.

  We ate in silence for a while. I knew what was coming.

  “I hear you are expectin’ me not to fire Jake’s ass, or to fire my shotgun at it, either.”

  I put down my fork. “You have a gun?”

  “Keep eatin’ while you talk, Marion. This might take a while and Scarlett’s Sunshine Lasagne is too good to let it go cold.”

  “How is he?”

  “Oh, I knew you’d be worryin’ about him! He’s crawlin’ with self-loathin’, not sleepin’. But I hear he’s not had a drink since New Year’s Eve. That’s what, two weeks? It’s a start. Archie’s been lookin’ out for him, arranged some support group in Mansfield for him to go see.” She fixed her all-seeing eye on mine. “Can you tell me straight what happened? The Peace and Pigs is a place of second, third and thousandth chances, but I will boot his backside right outta here if this was anything more than a lost, angry young boy with a perception pickled in alcohol. And I mean it about shootin’ him.”

  “I don’t know. I’m terrified of making this into something it wasn’t. But I’m just as scared of being one of those women who all
ows this stuff to go on by not speaking out.”

  We spoke for a long time. Eventually Scarlett called Brenda for an off-the-record conversation. We talked some more, and finally reached a first step forwards. Scarlett would contact Samuel in the morning, to ask if he would agree to hire Jake for now. If nothing else, it would give us time to think. Before she left, Scarlett asked if I would mind hearing her lesson on surviving “sweaty, fumbly fingers that squiggle their fungussy way into places they are not welcome and have no right to be”. I didn’t mind. It was not Jake’s fingers I was thinking about.

  “You’re doin’ it, honey. Just keep on at it.”

  That was it?

  “You know it is never your fault, not something you did, or said, or wore. And you know not all men think they can push women around. Actually, most don’t. I know you know there is nothing shameful here, or spoiled. It happened. It sucked. Sometimes you might need to talk it over, or cry, or kick a chicken. It’ll make you a little wary of every man, but that ain’t always a bad thing, as long as you can figure out how to move past it. Keep your chin up, and keep on keepin’ on. Find a bunch of great women – and men – open a flashy box of chocolates and laugh with them so hard your diaphragm don’t know what hit it.”

  Scarlett pulled up one side of her mouth. Her eyes were deep pools of sadness. “What else can you do?”

  Once my bruises had faded through green and yellow to a faint smudge, I took Pettigrew and cycled to Hatherstone. Jake was shocked when I rang his buzzer, but what was he going to do? Leave me standing on the doorstep?

  He looked as bad as Scarlett had said. Even worse than I expected. His eyes couldn’t keep still, and his knee jerked up and down as he sat on the sofa facing me.

  He cringed. “I don’t know how to say anything that won’t sound like worthless excuses.”

  “Say it anyway.”

  He rubbed his hands over his hair, hanging greasy and unkempt below his collar.