The Misadventures of Margaret Finch, page 10
She stands and tries to find a way to the ladies’, eventually discovering a doorway next to the bar: cracked green tiles arranged like brickwork on the walls and a stained sink that may have been white when it was first installed. Pushing against the cubicle door, she finds it gives too readily and she falls forward, her elbow knocking into the wall. She tries to focus on the writing on the cistern, but can’t.
Attempting to pull her underwear down, she feels a warmth spreading down her leg. It is too late. Somewhere, at the very back of her mind, she’s aware that her normal self will be disappointed in her. As if there is a version waiting at home, sitting in judgement. The thought amuses her. That Margaret would not like her gripping the sides of the toilet seat with both hands. Goodness knows when it was last cleaned. But she fears she will fall off if she doesn’t.
If only she could make the cubicle stop spinning. She tries to move her head in the opposite direction to still it. But her neck is too tired. She lets it rest, leaning her cheek against the wall. With her eyes closed she can still feel the twists and turns but at least she doesn’t have to watch them.
‘You going to be in there much longer?’
Margaret’s eyes fly open and it takes her a moment to realise where she is. She manages to get to her feet but trips on the wet knickers around her ankles. She tries to pull them up again but they stick to her legs. She can’t wear them now; the dampness might soak through to her dress, and people would see what she has done.
‘Open up, will you?’
She takes them off, balls them up in her fist, looks for a place to hide them, but there’s nowhere in this cubicle. If she tries to flush them the toilet might block, might overflow. So she stuffs them into her handbag instead.
‘I’m coming!’
On the other side of the door, she finds the two waitresses. One of them is raven-haired and much more attractive, the other trying to compensate with make-up.
‘It’s her!’ says the one with all the lipstick. ‘The vicar’s woman. Come on, love … you can tell us …’
Margaret can’t catch her shifting thoughts, can’t work out what it is she is supposed to be telling them. Has she got some information to impart? A report to file? ‘I’m not sure what …’
‘Friend of yours, is he?’ One of the women drops her voice. Margaret is having trouble telling which is which. ‘Is he … you know …?’
Raven-haired says something, lips forming words with exaggerated movement as if she is shouting them but Margaret can’t hear any sound coming out. The workers call it hee-hawing, or see-sawing, or something like that. They do it in the mills, mouthing messages to each other across the clatter of the looms. Mee-mawing – that’s it.
‘… a dirty old man?’ Lipstick Woman says in a loud whisper, exercising her jaw as if chewing on a particularly tough piece of meat. ‘No smoke without fire. We won’t tell, will we, Nelly?’
The other woman shakes her head and leans closer.
‘I’m … not in a position to say with any certainty either way,’ Margaret says.
‘No need to be like that, we were only asking!’
Raven-haired and Lipstick share words Margaret can’t decipher, then disappear into the cubicle together, leaving her wondering how she failed to respond in an appropriate manner, what it was exactly that they expected her to say.
Fighting her way back through the pub she tries to remember which direction to go. It seems twice as busy as it was a few minutes ago. She can’t see a doorway, can’t see above all these heads. The atmosphere is thick with smoke and the heat of so many bodies. But with each step she feels the brush of something between her legs. The air against her bare skin, so cold that it makes her shiver.
‘Are you alreet?’ says an old woman who looks like she is wearing a hair net.
‘Definitely,’ Margaret nods, lifting a forefinger as though she is testing the direction of the wind. ‘I just need to …’ The woman is wearing a hair net. Margaret can’t help staring at it. Does she realise she has left the house with it on her head? ‘I just need to …’ Extraordinary. She is wearing slippers too.
Suddenly Davidson is beside her, taking her arm. It is a relief to let him take her weight. ‘Are you quite well?’ he says.
‘She’s canned,’ says the old woman with a chuckle. ‘Look at her. She can hardly stand up straight!’
‘I’ll walk you home,’ Davidson says.
‘No—’
‘I insist. Where do you live?’
She tells him. She is so tired, she tells him. But even as she hears the words, she is unsure whether she is actually speaking them. There is a lag somewhere. A disconnect. And talking over her own thoughts is the voice of Other Margaret, the real one, warning her that it wouldn’t be proper. That she shouldn’t let him know her address. Because the newspapers say he is not a man to be trusted.
‘Stay here.’ He leaves her leaning against the bar and returns to the table for their coats. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, it is time for me to bid you goodnight!’
There’s a cheer and he lifts his arms, as if to embrace the sound. There’s a shout from one of the back tables: ‘Going to see the lady back safe are you?’
‘I’m merely doing my Christian duty!’
She could swear that she sees him wink to the room before he takes her arm and leads her out into the night. It is still warm. Not much cooler out here than it is inside. But it feels good to breathe the fresher air, every step waking her a little, bringing her closer to the usual self who is waiting for her at home.
‘I think you may have drunk rather too much,’ he says. And she thinks she hears a note of accusation in his voice. She is not going to be preached to, even by a man of the cloth. Especially not by a former man of the cloth. She would say so if she could, but as soon as she thinks them the words have fled. She frees herself from his arm and tries to quicken her pace.
‘What’s the matter? Have I offended you in some way?’
‘No.’
‘Then please, just let me see you home.’
She knows what she saw. He winked. And she knows enough about what winks mean to fear that he might have expectations of her. She is not laughing at the thought of Other Margaret now.
‘I’ll be fine.’
‘I know but … Please. I feel responsible … All those people buying drinks. I’ve never been to that one before. I thought I might get away with it … I’m not supposed to fraternise with the customers, you see. They won’t want to pay if they can see me in the pub. But what can I do? I’ll go mad, in that blasted barrel all day.’
They take the backstreets. She tenses at every alleyway and doorway that they pass. Is he going to try to kiss her, touch her? It would be too easy for him. If he reached under her dress, he would find her exposed. He would think she wanted him to. That she had wanted it all along. Shame takes shape in her stomach and she grips on to the pain of its sharp edges.
But they are nearly at her lodgings. If he was going to try to overpower her, surely he would have done it by now. She is getting stronger with every step, strong enough perhaps to fight him off. They pass an elderly man sitting beneath a street lamp, his cap set out on the pavement in front of him, a handwritten sign: ‘Unemployed. Hungry.’ Davidson squats down and presses coins into his hand. ‘Be sure to get yourself some good meals with that. Don’t waste it. You know what I’m saying, don’t you?’ Margaret wonders whether he has made the gesture for her benefit, to impress her with his charity. But he says nothing of it once they walk on. And by the time they turn into her road she feels guilty for having doubted his intentions.
‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Of course,’ he says.
‘Why did you wink when we were leaving the pub?’
‘Wink?’
‘Yes. I saw you. You wanted them to think that we were …’ She is already regretting starting this conversation. She should have prepared a suitable euphemism. She doesn’t want to have to spell it out. ‘You’ve come all the way to Blackpool and then you—’
‘Give the people what they want.’
‘Prove them right.’
‘I keep them guessing. It’s not enough to stand in a pulpit and preach; you’ve got to give them a reason to listen in the first place. And I need the money if I am ever going to appeal and clear my name.’
She is not convinced but is relieved that they have reached her boarding house. She is nearly safe. Though she realises, with some dismay, that Maude will have locked the door by now. She’ll have to wake her: a transgression that will add another charge to this week’s bill. ‘Here we are,’ she says, deciding it is safer to look at him so she can be prepared if he tries to lunge and force a kiss on her.
‘Since we are asking questions,’ he says, ‘I have one for you. Which newspaper is it?’ She sees a wide smile spread across his face, exposing his teeth. She mustn’t stare at those teeth.
‘Newspaper?’
‘Come on, you haven’t told me which one you write for.’
She laughs. No, it’s a giggle. It sounds like it has come from someone else. She is alarmed to note it sounds coquettish. ‘A reporter? Is that what all this has been about?’ It makes sense to her now. ‘I wondered why you were so forthcoming …’ She wants to stop this giggling but the relief is sudden and overwhelming. Her fears that he may have guessed she is part of Mass Observation seem suddenly ridiculous.
‘So, who then?’ Davidson is not laughing. No longer smiling.
‘Who?’
‘Who is paying you?’
‘No one. Not really.’ She must concentrate on what to say, without giving herself away. But her mind is blank. All her thoughts have darted. ‘I just … I’m a researcher.’
‘Researcher – is that what they are calling you now? Why can’t they leave me alone? They got what they wanted—’
‘I’m not sure what you—’
‘Don’t insult my intelligence further. It’s immoral – the Bishop spending Church money on investigators. Money that should be spent on the needy.’
Margaret laughs again. This man is a fantasist. Must be. A moment ago he thought her a reporter and now he has cast her as what? Some sort of detective for hire? This is ludicrous. ‘Surely you don’t believe the Church would—’
‘I must say, it was terribly deceitful of you to pretend you were on my side, make out that you were writing an article about my innocence.’
‘I didn’t say—’
‘You sat there while I told you about myself and all along you—’
‘Now hold on, I—’
‘The other two, in London, at least had the good manners to keep their distance while they followed me. Far more interested in paying off the woman who accused me. Plying her with drinks, buying her clothes. Paying for her lodgings so they could keep an eye on her until the trial.’
‘I have no idea who you’re—’
‘I should have guessed.’ His voice is suddenly calm.
‘But that’s not why I …’ She leans against the front door, suddenly fearing that her legs will hold her up no longer. She tries to formulate the right words to explain but he has already turned and walked away. ‘It’s a misunderstanding.’ She doesn’t hear the footsteps behind the door or the key being turned in the lock and she falls back as it opens. She feels strong arms around her and doesn’t have the strength to flinch or pull away. Instead she surrenders, and allows herself to be helped upstairs to bed, relieved to hear Maude’s consternation about the late hour and the inconvenience of being woken.
15
She wakes late. After nine. Should have been up and out hours ago. Will have missed breakfast. The thought of food turns her stomach. She is still dressed in the clothes of the Margaret of the night before. The Margaret who was unprofessional. What a wasted opportunity. She’d had every advantage to make observations of the drinkers in the pub, but this morning she can remember very few of the details. Some dirty songs. Green tiles. A beggar in the street. She feels the familiar creep, certain that she has embarrassed herself, exposed herself in some way. That she cannot remember the specifics only intensifies the sensation, makes her mind turn over with possibilities. She didn’t close her curtains last night. Didn’t even take off her shoes. And she is naked beneath her dress, she does not need to reach down to confirm it. Never reaches down there unless she has to. Chooses not to think about the frill of flesh between her legs. Has never seen what she looks like. Never wants to. Shame prickles along the length of her body. She remembers that her knickers are balled up in her handbag, and curses her traitorous body.
Davidson walked her home. She can smell his cigar smoke on her clothes. The memory comes back to her so suddenly that she is disorientated. He knew she had been following him. How had she become the one under suspicion? The accused? She must stay away from him from now on. Best that she lets him continue in this fantasy of private investigators and Church conspiracies. At least she can rest assured that he has no idea about Mass Observation. Yes, she can get back to her reports without distraction. But she feels no sense of relief, only unease, a nagging sense of loss that she will never see him again. She should not care for his good opinion of her, but she cannot bear the thought that he thinks her the sort of person who would creep around and spy on him. She was interested, that was all. He was the one who first approached her, who invited her to tea. She wasn’t to know that he had thought she was a reporter.
He is a strange man, of that she is sure, but he has a quality which she cannot put her finger on, something that reaches out and gathers everybody in the room, draws them close, whispers in their ears. In spite of herself, she is full of admiration for his skill at putting others at ease. Even her.
Thoughts of the night before are rocks in her stomach, churning, rolling over one another, knocking her from the inside out. Her muscles cramp. She has to get to the toilet but her body is not doing as it is told. It’s as if it is playing dead, lying there on purpose, in protest. She hauls it off the bed, legs shaking, and the pain hits her. She must get to the loo. But she is not sure she will make it. She reaches under the bed for the chamber pot that she has been unable to bring herself to use since the day she moved in. Groping around for it with one hand, she is already lifting her skirt with the other, her fingers finding the cracked edge of the porcelain just in time to drag it out and squat before her body begins to purge itself of the night before. The burn, the smell, the humiliation. Whisky and ginger. Oh God, how many did she have? The weight in her stomach is rising now; the burn reaches her throat. Her brain is pulsing against the inside of her skull so violently that she fears it might swell and crack her thoughts open. She reaches up, parting her hair to check for injury. And even the touch of a fingertip is painful, every strand of hair as raw as an exposed nerve.
Finally, she stands, looking for water to wash her hands, but she did not fill the jug last night. She has to clean herself of the germs that caused this sickness. She must have caught a stomach bug, something nasty from the loo in the pub last night. It wasn’t exactly clean, from what she can remember. She knows what Mother would say: she is lucky she has not caught something before now, living like this. It was inevitable she would be contaminated.
Though the prospect of walking seems impossible, she mustn’t sit down on her bed, knows full well that she would not be able to muster the strength to stand up again. And she needs to get to work. She bends down to retrieve her balled-up knickers from last night, keeping one hand on her head as if it might fall off her shoulders. They are still damp from last night, stained, with a smell of stale ammonia. Tucking them between the layers of piled clothes that are waiting to be washed, she puts on a clean outfit and pulls a brush through her hair; every tentative movement feels like great clumps are being jerked out by the roots. Then she carries the chamber pot to the loo further down the landing, the smell prompting her to empty the remaining contents of her stomach, as well as the pot, into the toilet pan. She washes her hands and splashes cold water on her face.
Downstairs, the breakfast things have disappeared and, to Margaret’s great relief, Maude with them. She had expected to see her landlady standing in the parlour, pretending to flick a duster over the bottles on top of the piano. Maude and her eye-brows. They appear to act quite independently of the rest of her face and are surprisingly nimble considering their proportions. But this morning Margaret has been spared the look Maude reserves for only the highest moral judgements; the look that would have communicated disappointment and dismay about the state she arrived home in. No doubt the lecture will come later, but for now Margaret is grateful that she can leave the house without interrogation.
Slipping out quietly, in case Maude is lurking behind the kitchen door after all, she turns out of the passageway and steps into the sunshine. Screwing up her eyes against the glare, she feels the pull of tender scalp against skull, and walks on, head bowed, towards the nearest parade of shops. A bell announces her arrival as she steps inside the chemist’s, so loud that it greets her more as a warning than a welcome. But she is grateful to retreat into the shop’s low light. Panels of dark wood line the walls; shelves are stacked with boxes of various sizes, rolls of bandage, and safety pins in coiled chains. A woman, who looks to be in her forties, is inspecting a display of perfumed soap and beautifying creams. She lifts a pot to look at the price hidden beneath, glances around, then pretends to read the ingredients. Margaret notes the reverence with which she sets it back down and predicts that she will continue to browse for at least a minute more. To turn and walk out now would make it obvious that she can’t afford the prices here. Though the young man in a white coat behind the counter is paying no attention to her anyway. He is engrossed in a leather-bound book, tapping a pencil against its pages. Margaret can feel every beat as though he is hammering it directly onto her head. Behind him, mirrored glass makes the shelves look twice as deep, and twice as full. She assumes this must be a family business, estimates the décor has not been updated in at least fifty years. This man is perhaps the grandson of the original proprietor. Craning forward across the counter, she tries to read the labels on glass bottles filled with medicines of varying shades of brown. Her sickness has settled into a feeling of unease, deep in her stomach. She imagines the germs inside her multiplying, spreading like weeds, slowly choking her.
