Whatever Happened to Margo?

by Margaret Durrell

  ‘’Ere I come, and ’ere I stay. I’m not budging,’ said the bailiff, as if the safety of the world depended on his immovable ability.

  ‘Where’s my cheque book?’ I demanded angrily to the waiting crowd. Eager hands found it for me, and with a flourish of writing I dismissed him and his sordid intentions, and turned indoors in dignified retreat, only to be warned by telephone that Magda had disappeared while awaiting the ambulance to take her to hospital and if she arrived at my door, the worried voice said, I was to hold her and ring for help. Fortunately we heard no more.

  The next day, while I was still recovering from the shock of Magda and the bailiff, Mrs Williams, who clung to her beliefs and taking Percival his usual cup of tea, shattered us all by announcing that he had disappeared; lock, stock, but without his wireless. Her mournful declarations and our cries of disbelief were soon followed by the police. The truth was out!

  Mother’s young gentleman was a young man of many energetic roles, who it seemed kept one step ahead of the law. He had a wife and children somewhere in the north; he was wanted for alimony, larceny and fraud (and he had just escaped bigamy, I thought bitterly, by the skin of his teeth).

  The news spread about the house at great speed and the women mourned together while a slow grin of malicious delight spread from man to man. Mother, extremely downcast, kept repeating: ‘And I thought he was such a gentleman – but only at first, of course,’ she excused herself. ‘After that odious live scene I began to have severe doubts, but I did not want to cause false alarm.’

  Having digested fully the escapades of Percy – it took time, for this was my first fraud – I remembered the wireless: at least he had one honest inclination. I rushed upstairs to claim it and to examine my room, half afraid that my investigations might uncover something even more sinister. I opened the door of Percy’s room and entered a little apprehensively. The room was in order and the wireless was there, but alas, stamped clearly on the back, were the words ‘For Hire’.

  ‘Gerald’s right, he’s a thieving swine!’ I shouted.

  ‘I told you so,’ came Edward’s pleased voice behind me. ‘The fellow was an irrepressible rogue.’

  I opened the cupboard gingerly, and a pile of unwashed milk bottles fell out and sprawled across the carpet. Sadly I closed the door. Edward put a comforting arm about me, and together we went down to Mother and a delegation who were sitting as if it were the day of judgment and the gates of heaven were closed to them.

  Edward, though sad at my loss, could not contain his glee at the unmasking of the impostor, and left us to discuss the situation with his equally gleeful compatriots. Passing Harriet moping on the stairs, her face hidden in her hands and a shawl dangling about her shoes, he paused for a moment to sympathize, then at the suggestion that something might be missing from her room she perked up, the old glint returned to her eyes and she stood up hurriedly and vanished up the stairs.

  ‘I must say,’ I turned to Mother, ‘Edward does seem to have got the hang of coping with Harriet.’

  ‘He has proved himself to be a trustworthy and good man,’ Mother declared. Then her thoughts returned to Percy and she went on: ‘You know Margo, I can’t help wondering how all the other landladies in Bournemouth get on?’

  As we didn’t know any other landladies, except Mrs Briggs who would never have allowed such a thing to happen over her threshold, we could make no comparisons.

  ‘But this is the first really bad case, isn’t it?’

  ‘Well, yes,’ Mother agreed unwillingly, ‘if you don’t take into account Harriet’s peculiarities and the smugglers, though I can understand them smuggling in a pet and all that sort of thing. But this out-and-out deception of Percival’s is beyond me … I can’t think what went wrong.’

  ‘The trouble is, Mother, you are still influenced by my horoscope.’

  Mother’s face changed expression. ‘And I don’t think much of your daily paper either,’ she went on, reminded of our false prophecy. ‘I think you should write a note to say that your forecast by the stars was entirely wrong.’

  ‘I shall change my paper,’ I said, grinning. ‘I know what – I can always start an advice bureau if all else fails!’ I was delighted at my sudden brainwave. ‘Advise the lovelorn or sex starved, or …’

  ‘I hardly think, dear,’ Mother interrupted coldly, ‘that drunk or sober, you are the person to give advice.’

  ‘Well, I think I am,’ I argued stubbornly. ‘Half my life is spent sorting out my lodgers’ lives, anyway, so I might as well stick an official board up and get paid for it.’

  ‘Sh! quiet! Not before the children,’ Mother said with agitation at the sound of Nelson careering indoors followed by Nicholas and Gerry.

  ‘It’s God’s truth,’ Nelson gasped excitedly and obviously impressed, ‘that Percy is a bleedin’ thief an’ abortionist? An’ do rabbits breed like flies? ’Cause me an’ me mates are thinking of keepin’ some?’

  ‘Yes, to the second question, and yes – almost – to the first, but the word is bigamist,’ I answered dizzily, ‘and the final answer is No. See what I mean?’ I turned to Mother.

  ‘Don’t disillusion the children,’ Mother remarked, and turned to embrace her grandchildren.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Jane, who was behaving as though a major operation was afoot, exchanged her sloping ceilings and the warmth of the eaves for another room, one which she maintained still held the fascinating aroma of a tragedy – Percy’s. I was unable to share her spiritual liaison with Percy’s ghost. Having removed the dirty milk bottles and returned the wireless to the rental people, I now found that Percy’s personality dissolved into nothing: the strawberry-blonde and her retinue of children we had never seen again.

  Mother, undaunted by her previous experience in the precarious field of a landlady, resettled in our midst for twenty-four hours to re-let Jane’s more spacious quarters to a dilapidated pyramid of a woman and her son, a gangling youth with a crooked mouth who roamed the house aimlessly in a melancholy air of detachment undisturbed by the busy fingers of his mother practising millinery to the exclusion of all else, and her spasmodic appearance in her fantastic creations with the sweeping confidence of a Dior model.

  Christmas greeted us with the soft sparkle of light snow; the sun as yellow as a young chick and fires crackling up at the first match to keep a sensitive Edward on the alert and the excited noise of the young, determined to live a full Christmas. Christmas spirit is infectious, and we dawdled into a pleasurable and lazy day, but as usual after every calm, chaos seemed to follow.

  In this instance it was the new lodger. The listless, limping boy was lapsed into a last deathly coma of a chronic epileptic, laying bare his secret; plunging us in a cold horrified moment to the hectic activities of an emergency ward. Edward and Nelson conspiratorially stated that they were not surprised, they had long since had their suspicions, and a furious Harriet proclaimed loudly that she considered the scene an exhibition of thoroughly bad taste created by that weird boy Robin to gain attention. The sight of the much coveted ambulance arriving sent her scuttling off her soapbox to remove electric lightbulbs as a reprisal, making Robin’s last journey of descent, slung in a blanket, down narrow attic stairs and round dark corners, a terrifying feat of acrobatic manoeuvres and crude noises.

  We shed a tear of pity, not for Robin, strangely, but for the silent white-faced woman behind. Robin was buried in a shroud of gloom with a single mourner. There were no flowers. Then it was a new year, and he was forgotten by all except his mother and mine, who swore that on her visits she felt his spiritual presence about the place with friendly oppressiveness.

  Another short period of calm, then once again I was dislodged from complacency into a disturbing element of familiar things on the change. Roger’s decision and preparation to travel to London for fresh studies in the artistic world; Edward talking about cheap villas in Spain; Harriet disappearing as quietly as she had arrived – one frosty morning – a w
eek’s rent pushed beneath the door to pay her debts. No one saw her go.

  Jane, settling into the life of a full-time seamstress, forgot her other hobbies, submerged in pins, patterns, material and machine needles. A new Barry, unusually gay with the definite promise of a remunerative career, united with a jubilant Paula, glamorous and untarnished now, all past predicaments forgotten.

  There were the more gloomy prospects of the Buddens with a new large and bawling baby: Mrs Budden’s rapidly increasing size left us in no doubt.

  Gerald, off on safari and busy packing would undoubtedly return with a load of animals guaranteed to disrupt my life and that of the rest of the town.

  Then the final blow of change: Mrs Williams and Nelson leaving. Mrs Williams announced her intentions breaking the news by intimate confidences – her first.

  ‘We’re goin’ ’ome,’ she murmured, apologizing for her action. ‘Of course we’re truly sorry to go. Nelson’s been so ’appy ’ere – enjoyed ’imself ’e ’as,’ a tender smile illuminated the eyes and spread the mouth up sweetly. ‘Yer understand dearie, ’ome to ’ome like.’

  ‘Has he?’ I smiled, letting a mocking note of disbelief creep into my voice as I remembered a dazed Mr Budden, Edward’s face distorted in the apoplexy of a blue rage, a black notebook stuffed with slanderous secrets, in the pages of which I felt sure none of us had failed to feature, along with coffins and other memories. The remaining relics, a pebble-dashed corner, still cratered but no longer pebbled, were all living signs of Nelson’s enjoyment. But the portrait of a true comedian without artifice enticed me to the winning post.

  ‘We shall miss him,’ I said impulsively and found to my surprise the statement was true. ‘Perhaps he could visit us sometimes?’ It was a dangerous suggestion, considering everything.

  ‘Nelson would love that, I’m sure,’ the answer was both pleased and doubtful. ‘We don’t want to go reely, it’s so peaceful ’ere,’ she hesitated, fishing for a suitable phrase to illustrate her disclosures.

  Peaceful? It was my turn to be doubtful.

  ‘But it’s ’im, see, me ’ubby … ’As an ’old on me, ’e ’as even at a distance.’

  ‘Has he?’ I asked, filled with a sudden hopeful and vulgar curiosity for there was still the ghost of prison to lay.

  ‘Matrimonial bonds,’ the explanation was tinged with regretful submission. For Mrs Williams the loyalties of convention were hard to break. ‘Marriage is not all ’oney for some,’ her mouth dropped.

  ‘I know,’ I agreed feelingly, thinking of the pregnant martyr upstairs.

  ‘Yer see, me ’ubby likes ’is drink, and ’is women – a violent man ’e can be. It’s ’is temper, see. ’E administers a back ’and at the slightest provocation,’ she added tellingly to my intent ear. ‘But I’m not saying naught against ’im, mind,’ she hastened to assure me. ‘’E’s a fine figure of a man for all that, it’s just sometimes ’e goes too far, ’e reely does.’

  ‘Does he?’ I enquired hospitably.

  ‘I told ’im so often, violence doesn’t pay, me lad, and you’ll lift your ’and once too often …’

  ‘And did he?’

  ‘’E did. And paid the penalty.’ It was a statement without malice. ‘Mucked up the ’ouse, ’e did and all – blood all over the place!’ A gruelling shadow of disappointment leapt to her face: ‘Broke me best crocks … But ’e’s promised to reform.’ Doubtful reflection crept into the quiet voice, obviously not quite satisfied with his promise. Her faith in her partner was apparently a little shaky.

  ‘But who did he do?’ I asked, unable to bear the suspense, for Mrs Williams bore no visible scars from broken crockery and Nelson was untouched by his father’s hand, I felt sure.

  ‘Assault, nearly murder it were,’ she reminisced sadly.

  I exclaimed loudly, producing a gasp of sufficient respect.

  ‘Yep, ups with me best plate and brings it down over ’er ’ead. “There” ’e said, “take that ya naggin’ ol’ cow”, most ungentlemanly ’e were, twenty stitches she ’ad, and the blood made me ’eave; spouted like one of ’em fountains in Trafalgar Square, near killed ’er ’e did. ’E never could stand the naggin’ sort, mind.’

  ‘Was this the other woman?’ I enquired, suitably awed at her fate.

  ‘No, me Ma, dearie. ’E never treated ’is women like that, proper posh ’e is with them,’ it was an envious reflection. ‘Shows off like, puts ’is best foot forward, a proper Nelson ’e is.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ I agreed. There was an undertone of amusement in my voice, which I tried to conceal under the dramatic circumstances, for I felt this to be an understatement.

  Dragging a crumbled and grimy letter from the seclusion of her mauve cardigan, she unfolded it carefully and read me the few lines of complete illiteracy, ending with an exaggerated endearment and a promise of such magnitude that Mr Williams was obviously going to spend the rest of his life doing penance ‘outside’.

  ‘Learnt ’is lesson, ’e ’as, by now I expect,’ she observed rereading the golden promise, and hid the mauled letter away again.

  ‘I’m so glad for your sake. You must keep him to his promises, mustn’t you?’ How, would be her problem!

  She nodded determinedly, but I could still see the small flicker of doubt clouding the lustreless pale eyes. ‘Things will be different when we get ’ome this time, I’m sure.’ She was hungry now for my confirmation.

  ‘Of course they will,’ I agreed warmly. ‘You’ll be like a couple of old lovebirds, I’m sure.’

  She looked really pleased. ‘Do ya really think so?’

  ‘I most certainly do,’ I lied. Mrs Williams brimmed with gratitude.

  I pictured the scene clearly; a small house where war consistently raged, fanned by the nagging disapproval of mother-in-law, a stirring disruption in their midst. Mr Williams, uncouth, resentful of his lot, driven on the surge of lusty impulse to dangerous limits, seeking solace and the necessity to build up his manhood again to a swaggering confidence in the reassuring arms of other women, dominating his wife, depicting and despising her weakness, the enduring capacity for everlasting faithfulness, reconciliatory moments of transparent endurance. Nelson would bounce through the wreckage unperturbed, taking for granted the frail woman of steel-like qualities, who endeavoured to smooth turbulent waters with cockney philosophy. It was ‘’ome to ’ome’ with a difference.

  ‘But that’s not the only thing that changed me mind,’ Mrs Williams confided, softening into girlish prettiness, breaking my sordid imaginations of her background.

  ‘Isn’t it?’ I enquired, seeing her as she once had been, young, pretty and gay, before she was whisked away to the nuptial couch on the arms of hopeful illusion. She paused for so long I thought she had decided not to tell me.

  ‘It’s ’im that was upstairs. Ya know, Mr Percy,’ she blurted out, twisting her hands together nervously, a little embarrassed now by her own desire to reveal all. ‘’E advised me, ’e did.’

  I wondered what possible advice that rogue could have given her, sensing with compassion her acute struggle to speak of the departed. I urged her to continue.

  ‘’E was a reel gentleman for all that,’ she ended defensively, as if she had read my uncomplimentary thoughts about Percy. I had forgotten that the Mrs Williamses of this world were beings of tough loyalty.

  ‘You liked Percy, didn’t you?’ I asked, remembering the early-morning tea sessions, feeling a quick and new comradeship towards this careworn woman.

  ‘’E understood me, ’e did, for all his ’oity-toity ways of speaking. ’E got into me ’eart, ’e did.’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed. I understood.

  ‘’E said to me, mightily solemn like a judge – except that ’e were lying back in repose on the divan, “Daisy, me girl” ’e said, “Ya must go back to ya ol’ man. A fellow is lost without a good woman behind him, especially one that makes tea like you do.” ’E spoke to me reel posh.’

  ‘Don’t you like
the others here?’ I asked, wondering if Percy alone had won such wholehearted affection. She answered unhesitatingly.

  ‘Kindness itself,’ she murmured, listing each one, adding a special touch of praise here and there. ‘Mrs Greenfield is a lady, for all that she’s barmy,’ she ended, bracketing her opinion of Harriet with: ‘And your brother, ’e’s a beautiful boy, a reel toff.’

  It was the first time I had heard Gerald described as beautiful. I let that remark go without comment.

  ‘Well dearie, I must go an’ sort me things out; such a lot to do, Nelson’s collected this and that, yer know ’ow it is,’ she explained. ‘Lawks me paws are real mucky,’ she confessed in sudden shame, catching sight of her hands. ‘Not white and posh like Mrs Paula’s.’ We had a moment of envious rapture together over white and slim hands and beautifully manicured nails. ‘’Elped me, she ’as, no end with me looks; proper advice bureau she is,’ Mrs Williams giggled. ‘Given me a special jar of them vitamin creams too, it’s ever so kind of ’er, I must say.’

  I agreed.

  ‘And some ’ints to preserve me looks.’ She patted her worn face. ‘Told me ’ow to get me face fixed too, with all them colours, surprise me ’ubby I will.’ The words were a challenge I agreed. ‘An’ most important, she said, I must never use water on me vulnerable skin parts – that was ’er advice …’

  ‘It’s just a question of spending ten minutes a day,’ I added in the voice of a beauty consultant. I knew the routine well.

  ‘Just fancy, no water an’ only ten minutes an’ yer can emerge lookin’ like ’er!’

  ‘Yes.’ I agreed. I did not contradict her cheerful convictions though I knew that Paula spent all of an hour to get her face on, and water was replaced by an array of most expensive cleansing liquids.

  I stood and watched the shabby figure leave, her head held hopefully high. Hope built on promises: Percy’s attentions and Paula’s creams. I thought of her one shoddy suitcase, and a few faded clothes: her load was a heavy one; her light in life would shine according to her husband’s word, and joy was held in a precarious balance. Somehow I felt I was losing an ally.