The Perfectly Imperfect Woman

by Milly Johnson

  She was aware of his eyes, his lovely blue eyes trained on her, waiting for her to respond. She didn’t because she knew he couldn’t mend her. She was beyond repair.

  He reached for her hand and took it between both his own and felt it trembling like an injured bird. ‘I think I’ve loved you from the first moment I saw you. I know you can’t say the same because of the brown sticky-out teeth and I don’t really look good in hessian.’

  She laughed and she felt her eyes sting and she blinked hard because she didn’t want to cry.

  ‘I see you and my mood lifts, you walk away from me and it sinks.’

  She pulled her hand from his because it felt too good.

  ‘Tell me what is it that stands between us, Marnie, please.’

  ‘There’s nothing.’

  ‘You’re a terrible liar,’ he said. ‘There can be nothing so bad that—’

  ‘There is,’ she insisted.

  ‘Marnie, tell me. This is killing me.’

  Don’t. A kind voice inside her urged. He is yours. Let him love you. And she felt that voice despair when the words moved up her throat and into her mouth and were then released into the air.

  ‘We went to the best school in the area, my sister and I. All girls. Not a fee-paying one but really good,’ began Marnie. ‘There was an English teacher there, Mr Trent, married with a young son, all the girls fancied him. Me included. I was thirteen and we were reading Wuthering Heights and he was my own personal Heathcliff in my imagination. He offered to give me extra lessons after school because I was “bright”, he said. I didn’t think I was, really. There was one girl in my class destined for Oxbridge but she didn’t get extra lessons. Still, it was something to tell my mum that I’d been selected. I thought I’d impress her with that.’ She stalled, gauging Herv’s reaction, waiting for his mind to gallop ahead and for that look of revulsion to appear on his face, but found only that he was listening carefully.

  ‘You can probably guess what happened. Plain girl full of new sexual hormones, handsome teacher giving her attention she’s never had, knowing all the right things to say, looking into her eyes as he reads poetry. I thought I was being loved, not groomed. It only happened twice. I didn’t like it. I knew it was wrong . . . it hurt, I felt sick. He said that was natural the first time and it would be better after, but it wasn’t. Textbook stuff, I was special, he said. He’d never felt that way about anyone before. I didn’t want to go to any more lessons after that. I told Mum that he’d stopped them, she wasn’t surprised. She put my weight gain down to comfort eating because I’d been dropped. I put my weight gain down to comfort eating because I felt ashamed. I didn’t know I was pregnant until I went into labour. Three months after my fourteenth birthday.’

  Herv’s eyes were on the ground now, his hands knitted tightly together.

  ‘I didn’t know what was happening to me. I thought I was dying. It was the school holidays and I was arguing with Mum about something when the pains came from nowhere. She thought I was putting it on until my waters broke.’

  Her voice gave up and she had to cough to clear away the frog that seemed to have taken residence there.

  ‘I gave birth to a beautiful tiny little girl. She had to go straight into special care because she was so early. Mum said I couldn’t keep her. She said that even if I didn’t sign her over to be adopted, she’d be taken away anyway. She told me all sorts of lies and I was fourteen and confused and believed them all and she wouldn’t let anyone give me any alternative. Mum said what sort of life would she have with a schoolgirl mother and a father who was already married? I’d ruin hers as well as everyone else’s. So I let her go and then I found out that I could have kept her, I could have gone into a home and let social services help us but it was too late by then. One of the nurses took a polaroid of her and Mum found it and tore it up because she said I had to forget her, but I never did, how beautiful she was, how perfect. And on the sixth of August, the day of Emelie’s funeral, she would have had her eighteenth birthday. She would be a woman, a grown-up.’

  Marnie sensed Herv getting up from the seat and she thought he would start walking away but then she felt his arms around her, pulling her to her feet, holding her tightly.

  He was talking into her hair, words in his native language, words she didn’t understand but she knew that they were tender, loving.

  ‘I’d ruin a man’s marriage, his career, his family if I told, Mum said, but there had been rumours in the school and the police came to see me and . . . Oh God, I felt so guilty after I said his name. He was sacked, prosecuted. His wife left him. We moved away, to another town and another school and she never forgave me for the mess. Then I found out he’d done it before. In a private school. He’d had to leave but they’d hushed it up to avoid the scandal and sent him on his way with a good reference. The girl wrote to me but I didn’t find the letter until after Mum died. She’d kept it from me.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ said Herv, holding her tighter. ‘Kjære jenta mi.’ Oh my darling.

  Her legs were shaking, she sat back down before she fell.

  ‘I try not to think of her, but I do. What if she was adopted by a woman like Judith and has been unhappy all her life?’

  ‘More likely a couple who have loved her as if she were the most precious child in the world. Like my parents loved me,’ he smiled. ‘Marnie, you were especially unlucky.’

  ‘What if she’s turned out like me, Herv?’

  He didn’t leave a beat before he answered. ‘Then I think that it’s not such a bad thing. Obviously without all the hang-ups.’ And Marnie couldn’t help the blurt of laughter that escaped her.

  Herv sat down beside her, put his arm around her and pulled her close. The moon had sunk into a quilt of clouds; Time for bed, the sky said. Time to sleep for a final time in your old life and waken in a new one.

  ‘You are the perfect man,’ said Marnie. ‘You really are.’ He was way out of her league, not the other way around.

  ‘Whaat?’ said Herv, throwing his head back and giving a hoot of incredulity at that. ‘Anyway, Lilian once said to me that perfection was an imperfection in itself.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘I have no idea, she was . . . gæren.’ And he rotated his finger near his temple to indicate that Lilian was slightly bonkers, but he was smiling and it made Marnie smile too. Imperfection personified, that’s what Lilian’s father had labelled her. And he was right, because she was the most perfectly imperfect woman Marnie had ever met. The mother she had grown in her heart.

  ‘My God, Marnie, look at that,’ said Herv. ‘What the . . . ?’

  A light in the gallery window of the manor claimed their attention. A pink dot hovering. But it couldn’t be? Because Emelie was the Pink Lady, wasn’t she?

  They sat mesmerised, watching the light bounce in gentle arcs from left to right.

  ‘You’ll be living with a ghost after all,’ chuckled Herv as it halted for a long moment and then melted into the darkness.

  ‘I don’t mind,’ said Marnie. ‘I can learn to share.’

  ‘Can you?’ asked Herv. ‘Can you learn to share yourself with me then?’

  Marnie turned to him, saw the tenuous smile on his mouth, pinned there by hope. His hand rose to brush against her cheek, such a gentle touch yet she felt the reverberations shoot all the way down to her fingers and toes and beyond as if they were too big and powerful to stay within the confines of her skin. His head bent towards hers, tentatively, expecting her to edge away at any moment, but she didn’t. As he placed his lips softly on hers, she felt a warmth bloom in her heart as if his love was slipping between the many breaks and cracks in it, gluing it back together, mending it like liquid gold.

  Kintsugi.

  Her lips pressing back against his answered the question perfectly.

  THE UPDATED HISTORY OF WYCHWELL

  Author’s Note

  At the other end of Yorkshire, Denby Dale has its crowd-drawing giant
pie. Wychwell now has its crowd-drawing giant cheesecake. Brainchild of the present Lady of the Manor, Miss Marnie Salt, the Wychwell cheesecake even overtook the popularity of the May Queen, who this year is Mrs Una Price.

  It would be no exaggeration to say that this May Day fair was attended by more people than in the previous ten years put together. Entry was prohibited to anyone not in medieval dress, which could be rented at the entrance for a very small fee. Visitors included two Richard the Lionhearts, a Geoffrey Chaucer (Vicar Lionel Temple) a Lady Godiva, in a flesh-coloured bodystocking, complete with real horse, and a coven of witches and their cats. Even Miss Salt’s greyhound, Lady, joined in the festivities with a Maid Marian headdress.

  Alas last year’s May Queen Miss Ruby Sweetman, now Mrs Ruby Beswick, was absent as she is on honeymoon in Italy.

  The well, despite its grisly history, has been reconstructed to its, we hope, original form. A small log cabin has been erected nearby (The Witchery) as a museum telling the (much-edited) story of the village and its history.

  The village headcount has increased to more than double what it was the previous year. New residents have settled in well and footfall to the Wych Arms and Plum Corner stores and post office is much improved. The Maid of Cheesecake tearoom is extremely popular. The cheesecakes are made by our own Miss Salt (with a little help from Cilla, Griff and hopefully – when she is home from Edinburgh University – Zoe Oldroyd). The cheesecakes (quote from the press) ‘have that extra little secret ingredient that makes them special, yet Miss Salt refuses to disclose exactly what it is’. But then, what is Wychwell without a secret or two in reserve?

  The coffers of the estate are richer by one and a half million pounds, thanks to the ex-Mrs Sutton, now Mrs Hilary Fosse, who has never publicly disclosed (by mutual agreement) where she found her inspiration for the fabulously successful Country Manors novels. Seven to date and one Hollywood film in the can.

  The old Dearman coat of arms may stand but the motto has been changed.

  In Imperfectione Perfectio Est

  A wonderful innovation for there truly is perfection in imperfection.

  Miss Emelie Tibbs left us, in manuscript form, the full story of her rather beautiful relationship with the previous Lady of the Manor, Miss Lilian Dearman. That and some of her wonderful, poignant poetical works make up the next chapter, though it will by no means be the last.

  I, Lionel Temple, will be delighted to add to it after the wedding of Miss Salt and Mr Herv Gunnarsen next month (December) and then in March when Master Gunnarsen is due to be born.

  I foresee quite a few more chapters in this History of Wychwell book. Maybe – looking forward (we hope) – some even fit for public consumption.

  Revd Lionel Temple. 30 November 2017.

  Acknowledgements

  As always, I have a few people to thank because getting a book to you is a team effort. I’m just a cog in a big engine.

  To my fantastic agent Lizzy Kremer at David Higham Associates and the team there – especially Alice, Olivia, Margaux, Guilia, Maddalena, Harriet and Brian (who hands the cash over). And my smashing publishing team at Simon & Schuster – Ian, Suzanne, SJ, Jo, Emma, Dawn, Dom, Joe, Jess, Rich et al. And the fantastic Sally Partington, my copyeditor. Working with you, Sal, is my favourite part of the whole process.

  Thank you Raimonda and Chris at the New York Cheesecake Company in Barnsley for giving me the idea to include cheesecakes in my next book while sampling their delicious wares. You really are masters at what you do.

  And my new friends up in Ayr – The Handmade Cheesecake Company www.handmadecheesecakes.co.uk. Yes, folks, you can have them posted to you!

  Thank you to my friends both in the profession and out of it who keep me (mostly) sane. Especially Maggie Birkin who sent me a copy of an article about the sale of the North Yorkshire village of West Heslerton and said it might make good subject matter.

  Thank you to the very lovely Yvonne Staley who adopts rescue greyhounds and introduced me to Leon, Holly, Fran, Dancer, Storm and Jenny. Greyhounds are fabulous dogs, lazy and affectionate and there are so many of them needing a good home. Yvonne would like to recommend Northumberland Greyhound Rescue http://northumberlandgreyhoundrescue.org.uk, but there are many of these beautiful creatures stuck in other centres . . . so do go and rescue one.

  Thank you to Rita Elvea Berntsen for all the Norwegian bits. And for rescuing me from almost having Herv sing the Scooby Doo theme in Danish. Rita – you are magnificent.

  And if you are wondering who I had in mind when writing my hero . . . you should check out Lasse Matberg on the Internet. Then you’ll realise why the chapters with Norwegian Herv in were quite joyous to write.

  Thank you to my readers who send me their lovely missives and keep me in the job.

  And thank you to my family. Without them, I would never have found the path hidden in the undergrowth, that led me to this bloody brilliant career.

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  Prologue

  The previous September

  They took a day off and went with her because in the three million years they’d all been friends, it was the first time Helen had ever asked them a favour. That was how Elizabeth came to end up carrying a picnic basket in a grassy middle of nowhere, watching one of her two best friends wriggling out of her drawers and about to sit on the giant appendage of a club-bearing man carved into an alien county hillside.

  ‘Hels, are you actually right in your head?’ she asked.

  Janey said nothing but her equal disbelief showed in the dropped-open jaw as Helen stuffed the discarded pants in her handbag and then sat down squarely and triumphantly on Mr Big’s phallic enhancement.

  ‘Now if I had told you what I wanted to do, would you have come?’ she said. ‘I don’t think so! You would have tried to talk me out of it, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Too bloody right I would,’ said Elizabeth, whilst thinking, She’s lost it.

  ‘And this is the something you needed to do that is really, really, really important then?’ Janey asked, her eyebrows raised as far as they could stretch. ‘Dragging us halfway across the bloody country to see a chalk drawing?’

  ‘Aw, come on, we’re here now. Just sit down and have a sandwich,’ said Helen, straight-backed and sitting there as if she was waiting for something extraordinary to happen.

  ‘Where are we, like?’ Janey looked at the surrounding countryside, dominated by the thick white outline of the naked man with the enviable asset. ‘And more to the point – why?’

  ‘Oh, I’m having a sarnie, I’m flaming famished!’ Elizabeth decided. She was almost brain dead with tiredness, even though she had spent most of the long, long journey snoring on the back seat. She threw herself onto the grass next to her knickerless friend and dragged the picnic basket purposefully over. Janey huffed in a ‘can’t beat ’em, join ’em’ sort of way and grudgingly followed suit, muttering something about them all being bonkers.

  ‘He’s an ancient fertility symbol,’ Helen explained.

  ‘I’d never have guessed!’ said Elizabeth, ripping so hungrily into a giant sausage roll that the chalk man almost winced.

  Helen went on, ‘Well, I was watching this programme a couple of weeks ago about how all these women who hadn’t been able to conceive came here as a last resort and sat on his … well, here, for a while, and seventy-eight per cent of them – that’s seventy-eight per cent of them – became pregnant.’

  A dramatic silence ensued in which Helen waited for the others to be impressed.

  ‘Well, I have to say it and I hope you’ll excuse the pun,’ Elizabeth spat through a flurry of pastry flakes, ‘but that is positively the biggest load of bollocks you have ever come out with.’

  Janey laughed derisively at the same time. ‘Oh Hels, come on!’

  ‘I know what it sounds like, that’s why I didn’t tell you where we were coming,’
Helen said, her voice fighting off a wobble, ‘but if I don’t get pregnant soon, I’ll die. I want a baby so, so much. Believe me, you two have it a lot easier not wanting children, but I don’t care who laughs at me any more, I just Want. A. Baby.’ Then she turned her head suddenly skyward, blinking hard, a little ashamed at her outburst but more than that, hurt that they of all people were mocking her.

  Janey and Elizabeth exchanged the slightest of glances but each knew what the other was thinking. She’d always been so light about the fact that she hadn’t caught on. How many times had she led their joking about it? Neither of them had had the slightest idea that her pain ran so deeply.

  Elizabeth plunged her hand into the picnic basket again, in a brave effort to break the heavy silence that had descended upon them like a thick, depressing cloud.

  ‘So, let’s have a good look at this lot. What have you made us then, Hels? What feast have you concocted this time?’

  ‘There’s egg and cress, beef and horseradish, goats’ cheese and tomato …’ Helen began to reel off, dabbing at her eye, trying to make it look as if she had something in it ‘… sausage rolls, spicy scotch eggs, chicken filo parcels, lemon Swiss roll, banoffee tarts, Victoria sponge, crisps, Twiglets, there’s a red hummus and onion dip, strawberries dipped in dark chocolate and there’s some Diet Coke and wine.’

  ‘That all?’ said Elizabeth and Helen blurted out a laugh and the mood was lifted once again.

  Aw bless, thought Elizabeth, as she spotted all the little flags on the sandwiches; everything was homemade. Who the chuff could be bothered making real puff pastry these days but Hels? If she did have kids, their sandwich boxes would be the envy of the school.

  That little thought bubble gave her another taste of her friend’s desperation and how very severe it must be to trick them into travelling so many miles to do something as ridiculous as this. How had she missed this before?