scary mary’s and the mess of the mechanics
When I arrived at Mary’s the house appeared deserted. There were no lights on. The curtains were all drawn, and Len’s car wasn’t there. The front door was on the latch so I let myself in and called out for Mary.
No response.
I wandered down the garden to the garage where Len kept his old cars and found Mary head first in the engine of an old white Ford Capri.
‘I couldn’t help myself, Kate,’ she said, peering out over the bonnet. ‘It’s been sat in here for weeks, sat in this garage, him tinkering away every night, never fixing the bloody thing. And I thought, I can do that. I know what’s wrong with it. So when he went to do his post round yesterday I came down and I had a go. Thirty minutes later the car started, for the first time in seven months. But I couldn’t stop there, I started tuning and fine-tuning and then I started changing the oil, the air filter, looking at how the carburettor turned over. Before I knew it, it was as good as new.’
There had been a transformation in Mary. While she still snacked on Quality Street and occasionally warmed her breastbone with mugs of tea she also moved expertly from one side of a car engine to the other. She was focused. She was capable. She was a mechanic.
‘Mary, that’s really great. Congratulations. I bet Jefferson would be impressed. You should call him and tell him.’ Mary looked up from the engine.
‘You are a genius, Kate. Jefferson could put the car back to how it was. I’m going to call him right away.’
‘Mary, wait! What’s going on? Why would you want Jefferson to break the fixed car?’
‘Kate, if my Len came back and the car suddenly started working it would be a bit of a mystery, but knowing Len he’d accept the car fixed itself. But if he comes back to find new spark plugs, clean oil, all the pistons replaced, how could I explain it? So I wanted you to put it back to how it was. If you could do whatever it was you did to that Skoda it would keep my Len busy for the next six months.’
‘I did exactly what the instructions told me!’ I said defensively. ‘It’s not my fault the car was misdiagnosed before the lesson.’ Mechanics can be a cliquey judgemental bunch.
‘Kate, my love, just get some overalls on and get under the car, please. And why isn’t Peter Parker here?’
But before I could put my engine-destroying hands on the poor car and open up about the strange events at Hyde Park and at Peter’s apartment I spotted a smiling Len tottering down the garden towards the garage.
‘Er … Mary … we might have a small problem …’
‘Oh, goodness me, Len’s home—’ Mary shoved a toffee Quality Street in her mouth and started manically chewing. She crossed her chest then looked skyward. ‘Dear Lord, this really is your moment to shine, your moment to prove to me without a doubt that you exist because we are still on very shaky ground after the lack of a lottery jackpot win and my second cousin Janet’s breast cancer.’
Len opened the garage door and stepped inside.
‘Well, hello, love! Hello, little Kate! What are you two doing out here? You been showing Kate my handiwork? Kate, you can’t imagine how hard this one’s been. I’ve been working on it for months and the old girl still won’t come back to life. I keep saying to Mary it’s like the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz. I just need to find out where its heart is.’ He beamed at me and wandered over to his wooden workbench, hung up his jacket and started picking up some tools. ‘Now where are my overalls?’ he muttered to himself, patting his pockets absent-mindedly as he scanned the garage, his eyes stopping on Mary. ‘Mary, love, why have you got those on? You’re not going to get your good clothes dirty just by being in here.’ He chuckled and rolled his eyes at me. Then he saw Mary’s hands; dirty, oil-covered. ‘Mary? What have you been doing, love? Did you accidentally drop something in the car?’ He walked towards the car and peered into the engine. ‘Whatever it is I am sure we can find—’ The new parts she’d fitted sparkled like Christmas lights against the ancient dirt on the old engine.
‘Mary, what is this? What’s going on?’
‘Kate,’ Mary said very quietly, ‘I think you should leave.’
Len looked from me in my clean and normal clothes to oil-covered Mary, confusion engulfing his smiling face like fast-moving storm clouds covering the sun. I back-stepped my way out of the garage and pulled the door closed behind me. Then I ran back up the garden to the house as fast as my little legs would carry me. Just as I reached the back door I heard the engine of the car roar into life.
‘Mary!!!’ was the last thing I heard as I sprinted away. I prayed to God (the lottery-withholding one) that Mary’s imagination was as capable and fast-thinking as her mechanical mind.
the objectionables
I arrived back in the office to find Federico in the boardroom interviewing yet more Love-Stolen Dreams candidates. Jenny had rather obstructively arranged this particular meeting with a group of women we liked to call ‘The Objectionables’. Because while these women would go as far as admitting they had unfulfilled dreams and ambitions, they resolutely refused to connect them to love. One such woman was Annie.
‘Look, I work hard,’ Annie asserted from the tip of the vicious heart. ‘I am in an office all day with people, but I am away from the people I love. So after work I’m not going to choose to do something alone. I want to spend time with my friends and my boyfriend. Any dreams I’m not currently pursuing are just down to a lack of time.’
‘You see …?’ Jenny Sullivan said smugly. ‘There is no story. Love isn’t taking anything from anyone and I don’t know what the bloody hell Chad is going to say when you two try and make this into an engaging and entertaining feature. Fire you both, I think, and about time.’
I couldn’t believe that trying to help Jenny Sullivan was the tiny gust of wind that had sent the house of cards that is my friendship with Peter Parker tumbling to the ground.
‘Because the fact is,’ Annie continued, ‘I don’t know anyone interested in clothes design. None of my friends want to learn to knit, or pattern cut, and my boyfriend would actually weep if I made him come to the cobbler course I saw advertised last week. These are things I’d have to do alone, so I choose to put them on the back burner.’ She crossed her arms and beamed at Jenny, who beamed back.
‘You are very smart, Annie.’ Federico nodded. ‘Very smart. I hope that boyfriend of yours can see the catch he has in you, the big fish on his hook, the 200lb salmon gasping for air as it’s taken out of the pool of life and left to die. So when will you put them on the front burner?’ He put his spectacles on (heavy dark frame, obviously no lenses in them) and blinked his eyes several times as if refocusing. Refocusing on what I didn’t know. There was only pure air between him and Annie, the 200lb dying salmon fish.
‘Well—’ Annie looked anxiously over to Jenny ‘—I don’t have an official plan. But maybe when I have kids? I’ll be at home for at least the first 6–12 months so I’ll probably take some courses then. Or maybe when I retire? When I retire I will do more.’ Annie had just turned thirty.
‘When you have kids or when you retire …’ Federico was frowning and scribbling furiously in a notebook. ‘And what if your husband doesn’t want to do these things, Annie-pants—may I call you Annie-pants? What if you don’t have time when you have kids, which, sorry to burst air bubbles, Annie-pants, you won’t. What if you reach retirement age and your husband says, “No, Annie. No! I don’t want to learn how to hand-knit jumpers and double-stitch curtain hems. I want to sit around and fart and touch myself and play golf.” What if you don’t reach retirement age? What about that? You never know, Annie-pants. You just never know. And then of course you might get divorced. What is the statistic? Is it one in three marriages that end in divorce?’
‘It’s one in two,’ I corrected him.
‘One in two, Annie-pants! One in two! That’s a coin flip, Annie-pants. That’s a freakin coin flip! Although this is all a moot point because your form here says that you ar
e not yet married, which means we are talking theoretically about the man you live with out of wedlock. Which brings us back to you being alone, doesn’t it, yes it does, and you having to get over the fact that you need to start doing some of these things now even if it means occasionally being alone. Otherwise you may never do any of these things at all.’
‘I guess … I just …’ Her bottom lip was trembling. Federico continued regardless.
‘And you say that you don’t want to be alone after working all day, isn’t that right, Annie-pants? But what exactly are you doing post 6 p.m.? Are you and your boyfriend at home doing hobbies together? Are you constructing great structures from clay or perfecting the art of Kama Sutra? Are you engaging in stimulating conversation? What happens at your house of joy from 6 p.m. onwards? Because whatever it is, Annie-pants, I want a part of that action, yes, I frickin do!’
‘I, er … well, I am at home. We are at home. Mostly watching TV. It relaxes me.’
‘You are watching TV?’ He squeaked the word TV in such a way it set my teeth on edge.
‘Yes.’ Her response was more of a whisper.
‘Five nights a week?’
‘Yes. Although Tuesdays I sometimes do Pilates.’
‘So, to sum up, you do less because you have a boyfriend and you want to devote time to him. But you will do more apart from him, as and when you become more committed to him?’
‘Yes, it’s a choice, to delay things—my choice.’
‘So would you do more if you were single?’
‘I’d have more time,’ she said, looking at me, as if I were the Goddess of Time, as if I had a ruddy great clock around my neck and a sign on my head that said Single and Time Rich.
‘Annie-pants, I want to play a game with you, can I? I want you to imagine that you are going to spend the rest of your life totally alone. Are you imagining this lonely existence?’
‘Yes,’ she breathed, dabbing her eyes.
‘Is there anything at all that might take your mind off the horrific endlessly black loneliness? What could you do with your day? What consumes you and engages you so much that you could forget for a few seconds about your lonely life of solitude? Is there anything, anything at all?’
‘Well … I really like clothes, and shopping. So spending every day designing and making clothes, or shopping for them, that would probably stop me thinking about my boyfriend. Stop me thinking about anything actually.’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ Jenny snapped before storming out of the boardroom.
‘Maybe I could open a shop selling clothes?’ Annie-pants said excitedly. ‘Then I’d have to buy the clothes for the shop and make clothes for the shop and people would come to the shop and we’d talk about clothes. So that would be great, really great, if I was going to be alone for the rest of my life.’
‘Annie-pants, I am so happy I am literally about to pee my pants. That is your Love-Stolen Dream. You are going to be the next Alexander McQueen. No sudden depression-induced suicide though, Annie-pants. Long live you and your suicideless life. Sooooo, would you consider spending one evening a week taking a short course in clothes design, or pattern cutting, or fashion buying? You’d still be home before 10 p.m. to watch TV with your dreary boyfriend who, FYI, you should not have moved in with before he proposed. You can Skyplus any TV shows you don’t want to miss and I promise absence makes the heart grow fonder. Your boyfriend will find you more interesting if you have eyes for something other than him, even if it is buttons and haberdashery.’
‘Well, that would be really nice because sometimes I don’t feel like my boyfriend really sees me, you know, he doesn’t always notice I am there, even though I’m there, the whole time …’
‘Annie-pants, don’t even start with semi-invisibility. There is a certain someone who may or may not work in this office who has the ability to see right through me. And not in a spiritually connected way, no, in an “I’m totally oblivious to your existence” kind of way. So Thursday nights works for you? Loosie!!’ he screamed out of the boardroom door. ‘Loosie, find a Thursday night course close to where Annie lives or works. Annie, please send us an update in five weeks’ time, less than 2,000 words, more than 500 and understand that it will be rewritten by one of the writers here but will of course remain in first person so that all our readers think you’ve written it. Next!!!!!!’ he yelled as a confused-looking Annie was escorted out by Loosie.
‘That’s quite a system you’ve got going on,’ I said, sitting myself next to him.
‘Kat-kins, Chad told me to find LSDs to write about and that is what I am doing. I am uncovering their ambitions and putting them on the road to happiness, which is what you wanted, is it not?’
‘But don’t you ever wonder why they are not on the road to happiness in the first place? Aren’t you getting tired of discovering woman after woman after woman making the same mistakes? And some of them aren’t even grateful.’ I was thinking specifically about Jenny. ‘Some of them don’t even want to change their lives for the better. And if someone already knows what makes them happy why are they sitting at home watching TV?’
‘Kat-kins, I’m not sure what’s going on with you and your angsty, angry energy right now. I’m not sure I care. And I don’t know what’s going on with women in general. I’m not sure I care about that either. In answer to the last of your gazillion questions I suspect the women think they have a lack of time, like Annie, or a lack of money, like Leah, or maybe there is lack of inspiration, like me? Or maybe, just maybe, the road to ultimate happiness is actually the TV? Seriously, Kate, what’s with the unending list of questions? You spurt questions like a first-year medical student who has just been asked to perform her first appendectomy. Do I look like an Attending on Grey’s Anatomy? Do I look like a handsome, highly trained medical professional with a complicated and intriguing personal life?’ He wanted me to say yes and deliberately put his glasses back on. ‘I am on a quest, Kate, your bloody love quest, to take back what love stole, not to find out why love nicked it all in the first place, or, more to the point, why we all ruddy well gave it up.’
Loosie marched into the boardroom with my mobile in her hand.
‘Sorry to interrupt what I can only assume is another one of your dreary love-related conversations but your phone has been ringing off the hook. There’s someone called Mary on the line. And FYI, she sounds ODD.’ Lucy thrust the phone in my hand and marched out. I could hear deep breathing on the line.
‘Mary? Is that you?’
‘Oh, good Lord, oh, good Lord and little baby Jesus.’ More heavy breathing.
‘Mary, what’s wrong? Where are you? Is Len with you?’
‘Kate, you need to come to the house. And you need to come now. Meet me in the garage.’ She hung up.
Well, this time I definitely wasn’t going alone.
mary’s house
‘It was in the Daily Mail, Kat-kins, last weekend, last frickin weekend. “Wife Murders” it was called. I swear to God, Kat-kins, if you are taking me to the scene of a crime I will kill you, actually kill you. I learnt a very dangerous life-preserving move from my colonic therapist and I didn’t plan to use it but by God I will, you be sure of that.’ The front door slammed shut behind us. ‘Oh, my God!’ Federico squealed before grabbing hold of me in a bear hug. His head was darting from left to right.
‘It was just the wind, Federico. Please, calm down and let me go.’
‘Over seventy per cent of murders are committed by an acquaintance, Kat-kins,’ he whispered in my ear as we walked down the hallway. ‘Over seventy per cent! And almost all of those are by angry spouses. It was in the Daily Mail, Kat-kins. Last weekend!’
‘I heard you, Federico,’ I said, slowly pushing the lounge door open. I could see cushions all over the floor but still no sign of Mary. ‘Federico, it looks like there has been some sort of kerfuffle in here.’ Kerfuffle is a word I rarely use, but it had been applicable twice today. Everyone seemed to have strange kerfuffle-esque a
ctivities going on in their houses. Well, everyone being Mary and sex-crazed Peter Parker.
‘We could very easily fall into that seventy per cent,’ he said, following me into the lounge, then becoming immediately distracted by a selection of family photos on the walls. ‘Just by being here we are at risk,’ he said, rummaging through Mary’s ornaments. ‘Ooh, look! She’s got a Charles and Diana dinner set! I’d cut off both of my big toes for a Charles and Diana dinner set. And the big toes are the important ones, yes, they are. The other ones are practically redundant, like our appendix, and pubic hair. In a few years we won’t have the other four toes, or the appendix, or pubes. It’s an evolutionary fact. Ooooh, Quality Street. Do you think Mary would mind if I pinched a Strawberry Cream?’
I left him talking to himself in the lounge and walked through the kitchen and down the garden to the garage. There I found Mary. She was sitting on an old wooden chair sipping from a mug. She had an old oily dust sheet wrapped around her and very little else on. There was no sign of Len.
‘Mary?’ I said tentatively, stepping inside. ‘Mary, what’s going on?’
All the doors of the Ford Capri were open and the engine was running. I walked over to the car and switched it off.
‘For the rest of my life I will never forget the sound of that car engine,’ Mary said, looking at me for the first time since I walked in.
‘Mary. Where is Len? What’s going on?’
‘Well, he knows. Len knows. He knows I have been lying to him, he knows I have been secretly training as a mechanic and he knows that I fixed the car.’ She walked over to me and gave me the mug, which was actually filled with some kind of alcohol. She then sat herself in the driver’s seat of the now silent car. I sat beside her. She seemed to be in some sort of dream state.
‘Kate, I never knew it could be like that, you know.’ I didn’t but the passenger seat felt damp and sticky. ‘I never knew that … I didn’t realise that … Kate, people can be so different to how you thought!’
Love Is a Thief Page 14