Whatever Happened to Margo?

by Margaret Durrell

  Even Nelson’s mother, usually so remote, blossomed forth unbelievably, charmed by his good looks and his gentle but manly ways. She made early-morning tea for him, carrying it reverently to his door, blushing like a teenager at the sound of his well-bred voice bidding her to enter. Nelson, taking an instant dislike to his mother’s charmer, referred to him rudely as ‘the gaffer’, and thought up every possible device to inflict discomfort. For once Nelson had a solid block of male humanity behind him; for my male lodgers, in a unanimous body, detested the newcomer and smouldering tempers were fanned into spiteful sarcasm as they watched the simpering adulations of their wilting womenfolk. But Percival was impervious to male criticism. He treated them all as jolly good fellows, with hearty backslapping and friendliness that made his victims grind their teeth.

  Weekend morning slumbers were disturbed by the sound of a broom energetically stirring the dust on the front path and the air vibrated with a tenor thrashing its way through an Ivor Novello musical as Percy reorganized the garden with deplorable good health, talked sweetly to old ladies on their way to church or shopping and tickled Pekingese in what some people would call a sickening way.

  Percy’s career was somewhat remote. He spent long hours in his room, or sporting himself with great decorum with the ladies of the house. His explanation was that he was an ex-school teacher, but working on a thesis at this moment, and the government gave him a grant so as to enable him to have complete freedom with his work. I felt that with the old school blazer, a badge blazing colour with a Latin motto, we could not doubt him. When I tentatively enquired for the rent on several occasions he replied discreetly, in a tone that indicated the suggestion of rent was in really bad taste and that at any moment the post would bring the much-awaited bundle of money, and I, apologizing profusely at my lack of taste, retired back to an unsuspecting waiting game.

  Disintegration swept the house as the weeks passed. Gerald, openly hostile, stormed out with his box of reptiles under his arm, stating that in his opinion Percival was a lecherous-looking swine, and he preferred the unpolluted atmosphere of Manchester Zoo to the ordeal of having to sit around and listen to a pack of perfectly nauseating silly women drooling on about an over-affected, greasy-haired Romeo, and what Mother and I and any other fatuous female saw in him he couldn’t imagine. Mother, highly indignant, fell to defend her prize lodger, saying hotly that words like ‘ponce’ should never be uttered and, in any case, Gerald had no business taking away a man’s character like that as she had so often told both him and Leslie (whose disparaging descriptions were even worse than Gerald’s). She turned to Edward to uphold her, but Edward, whose bad humour was now bubbling up like an acid bath, came out with words that forced Mother to seclusion. And the storm grew.

  Barry, discovering Paula supplying the ‘loafer’ with hand cream and hair lotion, aided and abetted by Jane, threatened to write to the Education Authorities about what he called the misuse of government grants. Roger and Andy, testing the newcomer out, to find that sickly Ivor Novello songs were all he could aspire to, dismissed him as a moronic, unmusical bounder. Mr Budden, catching Mrs Budden in her pink kimono entertaining Percy to a quiet tea party, did not wait for explanations but gave her such a backhander that I was, as head of the house, forced to intervene at the cries and soothe the tears of Mrs Budden and Mr Budden’s temper; while Percival, behaving like a martyr, moved over to Jane’s room for sympathy.

  Then I began to feel a little uneasy by the repeated absence of rent, and was swayed by the men’s animosity, feeling that my friendship with Andy might snap under the strain if I continued in the wholehearted support of Percival. Just suppose the men were right, and the fellow was the living image of all the uncomplimentary remarks that had been so rudely uttered about him? What a fool I should look as landlady. My wavering suspicions were instantly dispelled by the sudden picture of Percival carrying Mrs Williams’ washing out for hanging, which took me completely off my guard, and I found myself shamefaced, dismissing the disturbing thoughts, until the passing of the postman again empty-handed made my optimism of rent sink dismally.

  After a week or so living in a self-torture of suspicion and counter-suspicion and the growing dislike of the sickly adoration of Percival by my own sex, he suddenly produced a fiancée, with four children aged under six. She was a Wagnerian blonde, solid fat vibrating joyfully under tight clothes. A transparent lacy blouse scarcely held the contours of a buxom bosom, her hair was tied back with a black velvet ribbon and she watched Percival with big blue eyes. The episode caused a fresh stir, and his faithful followers found themselves tottering on the brink of disloyalty with shock – readjustment was hard. I heard with alarm the slam of Mrs Greenfield’s door for the first time in weeks: the men were openly jubilant, and Mother and I read the tea leaves trying to fathom out whether or not the future held any further surprises for us. In the coming weeks the blousy lady was a constant visitor, and the love affair began to unsettle even Percival’s most staunch supporters. Harriet went back to moaning that nobody loved her. Even Mother had second thoughts: she and Nelson had been unwitting observers of what she described as an undisciplined and silly love scene – ‘right in the window too, you will really have to have a quiet word with him. It will be putting ideas into the children’s heads if you don’t, though I must say I think he will be an admirable husband and father.’ Nelson, undisturbed, told me he had ‘enjoyed the scene of undiluted raptures.’

  I kept silent about the rent and the five-pound note I had lent him for a desperate need – it was a birthday present from Andy and I was saving it for Christmas, looming up ahead. ‘There is your security,’ and Percival pointed to his wireless, as the money changed hands. Now, I hardly liked to intrude on his privacy and certainly not to mention the sordid business of unpaid debts, while the sound of loving frivolities floated out to all of us and another packet of cigarettes was borrowed and not returned.

  Anyway other problems were brewing up which dimmed my interest temporarily in Percival’s activities. Roger’s past had caught us up. Magda’s private volcano, rumbling a slow warning for so long, finally erupted, dragging me against my will into its thickly flowing lava in a never-to-be-forgotten night when I floundered at the ebbtide of someone else’s doom. I was spending an evening of solitude, browsing over the memorable pages of a much-loved book when I should have been sorting out my rent books, when at a late hour the door burst open and a distraught Magda fell into my arms, plunging me into a mixed story of unfathomable origin.

  Tempered with the shaking of slow incessant tears, a strange confidence in my ability to comprehend and heal, and the pleading urge to remain close, filled me with a nauseous taste of fear as the facts stood blatantly clear, that Magda was ill and needed help. Mental, physical, or both, I was not sure. Disentangling myself from her muscular arms, with a faint revulsion that made me inwardly shudder, I laid the weeping protesting figure on the spare divan and set the kettle for a cup of tea, promising halfheartedly that if she would return to her own lodging house in the morning I would come with the doctor. Silently cursing Roger’s philanderings, I settled down to wait the call of the boiling kettle with gloomy thoughts on what I was sure was going to be an all-night vigil of some magnitude. I thought with concern of the possible loss of my doctor’s good wishes, for he would be getting very tired of professional summonses and we might in the end be forced to have a bugle-call for Harriet, in which the doctor would undoubtedly have to feature. Even before the kettle boiled I heard the welcome noise of sonorous breathing, shuddering to a listless sighing silence, to start again in a mechanical repetition. Throwing a blanket over the sleeper, with cold thankfulness, I stole away back to my book with a restless awareness.

  I heard the stumbling capitulation of a prodigal husband’s return – Mr Budden. He had made a smouldering exit after demanding an answer to the question as to why a piece of steak sold at an exorbitant price should reach his dining table as raw hide: Mrs Budden had had no an
swer. Percival, cheery after obvious amorous entertainment, bid his blonde reluctantly to be gone. Andy hesitated before my door: I let him go in silent longing, for there was always tomorrow. The inquisitive creakings of Harriet’s long dark shadow. With a concert of twanging bed springs the vision of Nelson’s mound in happy slumber blotted out my wakefulness; but only for a moment it seemed.

  I woke to the insistent feel of a hard cheek against mine, the soft rub of stubble growth. For an awkward moment I thought it was Percival, then the voice of Magda crooning to me, mixed with passion and material comparisons, told me otherwise; I was smothered by the clasp of strong arms and a heavy body. Nauseated I shook myself free of these sickly attentions, and leapt up in more haste than any episode in the house had caused me to do so far, to stand in an agitated icy silence. Uncomfortable prickles of shocking distaste, mingling with pity, shook me as I remembered odd remarks of Magda’s, sensuous insinuations, remarks that at the time I had shrugged off lightly with fatuous retaliation. Paula was right, the girl was changing her sex, or something. One thing was certain, she was bordering on a catastrophe in a much more alarming way than Harriet.

  But this should have been some other landlady’s worry, not mine, I grumbled to myself as I stumbled away without a word to the kitchen to put the kettle on again; debating on whether to call upstairs for help, to administer a strong sedative in the manner of Jane, if I could find one. When I returned with three aspirins and a pot of tea, the cause of my anxiety was sleeping soundly. Feeling that the capacity to laugh had left me permanently, I crept stealthily to the shelter of another room, determined that Roger should share the burden of his ex-love at the first possible moment. I fell into a restless sleep, awakening at every sound: in the morning she was gone.

  Reluctantly remembering my promise I rose early and telephoned the doctor, to Percival singing ‘Where the bee sucks, there suck I’, and apologetically explained the situation. As usual he answered in the helpful tolerant voice where his true thoughts were undetectable, and left me with a series of suggestions and the unpalatable job of visiting my patient and awaiting the arrival of a psychiatrist.

  Thankful that I could despatch my children on their way to the seat of learning, I rushed upstairs to call the resident nurse, deciding, in spite of last night’s resolutions, that Roger would hardly be of any use and would most probably cringe from such a drastic encounter, which it would be almost a cruelty to enforce. The sewing machine idle at such an early hour, I found Jane closeted by all the bits that constituted a very full life, sitting before a bright fire and watching with greedy eyes a thick slice of bread darkening to glowing brownness with the aid of a four-pronged fork.

  ‘I am thinking about Percival,’ she told me.

  The black nightdress, bought in those first hectic days of Jane’s transformation, now seemed to me ordinary, in comparison with other events.

  I unfolded the story of my plight, refusing to prolong a discussion on Percival and tear to shreds the strawberry blonde who would one day be his wife. Jane listened with the deep concentration of a Red Indian chief plotting a scalping, as the toast blackened smokily (which would provoke Edward into another voyage of discovery as soon as the smell penetrated below) while the small eyes, curiously naked without their glasses, screwed themselves into pin-points of interest. Dropping the charred bread with careful precision into the hearth, Jane spoke with that slightly superior air of righteousness that could reduce one’s inside to a nagging irritation and a desire to haggle.

  ‘Of course I shall come with you, it’s my job; even if I deplore the basic cause. I well remember a similar case, perfectly ghastly. I was a probationer at the time, three operations, and hey presto!’ She dropped her pose and quickly prepared herself for a journey of mercy, while I gratefully apologized for my rudeness at our last meeting, a difference of opinion over Percival, which had parted us with Jane dangling a threat of notice to my retreating back. She accepted my apology with kindly patronage, her eyes closing to a smug smile behind their lenses once more. I refused Percival’s congenial offer that he should join us and accepted hurried directions from an unrepentant Roger. Together we hurried out across the town, our difference of opinion forgotten.

  Behind the high hedge of laurel and dark scrawny clusters of pine, high before us stood a shadowy building of red brick and small, heavily curtained windows. Somewhere in the interior of boiled cabbage smells and grilled kippers, Magda made her home and waited for us, I thought fearfully, as we climbed the steep incline. The place exceeded Roger’s murky descriptions and was the personification of dreariness, especially reserved for lodging houses. A dank silence slipped out to meet us as we opened the door and stepped inside. A notice told us to ‘close the door and keep quiet’. I wished that I was back home amongst my own noises: the scales ringing from a trombone; Nelson’s small repertoire of song repeated like a cracked disc; even Harriet’s hefty defiance, were all preferable to this silent gloomy dump. With Roger’s directions still clear in mind we made our way almost stealthily through a maze of dark brown paints, up towards a coffin-shaped room on the top floor. My own house, I felt, was a palace in comparison, rich in human elements, big windows, clear paint and bright lights, which Harriet’s darkening hand failed to diminish.

  ‘This is definitely it,’ I said, peering at the figure 10. I knocked intrepidly. The reply came immediately: a heavy shuffling of a weighty body in quick movement, and the violent wrenching of a door opening, and Magda was before us. She held a razor to her wet face, and her chin was cut in several places. I felt quite sick, more with the implications than with the sight.

  ‘Go away, I hate you,’ she hissed, her eyes bright with hatred.

  I fell back astounded. Where was the changing lover of last night? I turned to Jane for reassurance. The now brisk attitude of Jane warned me she was going into action.

  ‘Hello, dear,’ she said brightly. ‘Everything all right?’

  Magda turned and gave her the full force of her menacing gaze.

  Downstairs there was knocking, doors opening, voices, and a light tread creaked its way up towards us. The psychiatrist had made his entrance.

  ‘Shall I take over?’ enquired a deep, understanding voice from a figure radiating quiet composure.

  We almost pushed him forward and fled.

  ‘Let’s get back to good old Harriet,’ I sang fatuously to Jane. The thought was like a sweet dream, and we made for home with Jane in full agreement. ‘For after all,’ she said, ‘I am a clinical nurse, not a mental one.’

  I agreed, with a firm resolution that if there was any trouble in future with my tenants’ friends they would have to deal with it on their own – I was most definitely on strike.

  At home we were greeted by a surprising picture of wide dimensions in a bowler hat, sitting in the porch on a kitchen chair, and who I presumed with casual unconcern was a passer-by who had been taken ill and brought in to rest by the kindly hands of one of my tenants – obviously Percival. I passed with a small smile of sympathetic understanding, but behind the closed front door inside the hall a cluster of gossipers told me otherwise.

  ‘There is a bailiff in the porch,’ Edward whispered hoarsely as if death stalked.

  ‘Are we all going to be turned shamefully on to the street?’ Mrs Budden, clutching her child with motherly ferocity, wanted to know, getting ready to give us a piece of her own brand of hysterics.

  I stood amazed, connecting the word bailiff with unpaid bills, furniture forcibly removed and deep shame. It was an experience I had never been through before, but some of my friends had. ‘Who let him in?’ I demanded indignantly. Everybody looked at Percival. ‘Saboteur!’ I shouted to the look of apology. ‘And who gave him a chair?’ Everybody glared at Percival again. Another look of shame followed.

  ‘I tried to keep him out,’ Edward explained, ‘but the fellow was quite determined. Said you hadn’t paid your rates, or something.’

  ‘Indeed!’ I remarked haughtily
, retracing my steps to do battle, amazed at the fellow’s impertinence, my dislike of the local authority mounting.

  The man was still sitting like a cardboard statue, and I was glad that he had not been given a more comfortable chair, as I confronted him with ladylike indignation for an explanation. He was a big man, with a clownish figure not unlike Nelson’s, but his face did not bear the stamp of good-humoured roguishness. The incongruous dusty bowler was as symbolic of his trade as the three balls of a pawnbroker’s sign, and somehow changed the situation back to comedy. The clown lived again for me as I eyed the headgear with appreciation.

  ‘On whose authority are you here?’ I enquired, ready to laugh.

  ‘Town ’all. ’Ere I’ve come, and ’ere I stay: you’ve ’ad your warning about them rates – plenty I’ve no doubt.’

  ‘Are you a real live bailiff?’ I enquired curiously, filled with morbid interest, never having seen the species before, unconsciously letting my opinion of his distasteful job creep into my voice while at the same time showing him my most charming feline smile. Surely somewhere in that soft armour of flesh lay a heart of pure solid gold, susceptible to a woman’s smile.

  ‘Well, I’m not a dead one, I’m sure,’ he remarked. I was discouraged to find that my smile had fallen on a stony surface. I withdrew it immediately, to a look of pity.

  ‘You will get your money in due course, a slight misunderstanding, no doubt,’ I said as I remembered with a sneaking horror the final demand which I had dismissed casually as unimportant.

  ‘’Ere I come, and ’ere I stay,’ the man went on stubbornly.

  ‘I shall write to the Prime Minister and complain,’ I told him grandly, bringing the full fruits of my superior education down on the rounded bowler.

  ‘And my MP,’ I said, wondering who my MP was, while a chorus of suggestions supplied me with at least four different names from different parties.