The Misadventures of Margaret Finch, page 12
‘Are you all right?’ James says. ‘You look deep in thought.’
‘Suddenly rather tired, that’s all.’
He turns and lifts the lid of the piano. ‘Perhaps you should keep this music for your own collection? Do you play?’
‘Me? No. I tried when I was a child. But I didn’t have a talent for it.’
‘I don’t believe that! I bet you were good at anything you put your mind to.’ He is laughing softly. Is he mocking her?
As she watches him arrange the sheets on the piano’s stand, her own fingers are stretching out. Mother used to make her do warm-up exercises before every lesson. At first Margaret had been keen to go. Learning to read the notes had come easily enough but her progress was slow when it came to the performance. Still, Mother persevered. The new piano she had bought for the front room was not going to play itself, and wouldn’t it be nice if she played some suitable music to entertain her father’s managers from the bank when they came for drinks at Christmas?
‘Would you like to play for us now, darling?’ Mother called across the room to her, while giving each of the adults a top-up from the decanter she had bought for the occasion. Margaret sat; centred herself on the piano stool; lifted the brackets on the stand to secure the music; wiped her hands on the front of her dress. She could do this. She had practised for an hour every night after school. ‘Für Elise’, chosen by her teacher because it was easy enough for her to master, the tune so familiar that she could play it without looking at the music. She brought her fingers to rest on the first keys of the piece. Right hand: E, D sharp, B. Left hand ready to leap across the F, C, F of the third bar. As soon as she started to play, the room fell silent. She could feel them watching her. Could feel Mother’s gaze. Relying on her to impress the guests; every beat counting out the money spent on lessons; every note a test of Margaret’s gratitude. Little finger on E, she stretched out her hand to hit the octave above. But she grazed the note beside it, pressing hard enough to strike the string. Clumsy, Margaret. There was a laugh behind her and she felt someone step forward. Someone by her side. Again she missed a note. The piece too well-known for anyone to doubt that she was failing. ‘Perhaps you could try something else, darling,’ Mother said, her voice loud enough for the rest of the room to hear. ‘Play the other one.’
Margaret reached out and put the second piece of music on the stand. A minuet in G major. But when she tried to read them, the notes made no sense. She tried to arrange her fingers on the keys but didn’t know where to start. ‘For goodness’ sake!’ Mother was no longer speaking loudly enough for everyone to hear. And Margaret found her hands were moving without instruction. She was hammering the keys with her two index fingers. Hammering them as hard as she could. The first tune she had ever learnt. The one Grandad had taught her. The one her mother used to play.
A hand came down and shut the lid on the keys, almost trapping Margaret’s fingers. ‘That’s enough,’ Mother said. ‘I think you’d better go up to your bedroom.’
Sitting on the landing, she could hear the guests leave one by one. Could hear the clink of empty glasses as they were carried on a tray into the kitchen.
‘“Chopsticks”?’ she heard Mother say. ‘“Chopsticks”, William!’
‘I’m sure she didn’t mean to—’
‘She wanted to embarrass me. She can’t let me have anything nice for myself.’
‘Just high spirits, my love …’
‘High spirits? And whose fault is that? She needs discipline. I know grandparents dote on children. And what with … well … I’m sure it was hard. But they let her run wild. No manners. No idea of the right way of—’
‘There was nowhere else for her to go.’
‘Yes, but that was then. I’m here now. And I can’t cope with her, William.’
‘I’m sure a few more piano—’
‘You’re not listening! I don’t know what to do with her. I’ve tried. But there is something not quite right …’
‘She’ll grow out of it.’
‘But she’s not growing out of it, is she? And I’m fed up of being undermined. I’m her mother now.’
Margaret never saw her grandparents after that day. She looks down at her hands now, and realises they are clenched into fists. ‘It was my stepmother who wanted me to play.’ She says it softly, to James’s back, and he turns to look at her.
‘I didn’t realise … Your real mother …?’
‘She died when I was three.’
‘I’m so sorry, Margaret.’
She usually says ‘it’s all right’ to spare the other person’s feelings or to avoid her own. Instead, she says ‘me too’. There’s a moment of silence, then she nods at the piano: ‘Are you going to give it a whirl then?’
He bows, flicks imaginary coat tails and takes a seat. Exactly like Lawrence Wright did, when Margaret stood in the music booth, when she felt lighter somehow. Floating like paper as it fell from the sky. ‘I wish you’d seen the plane,’ she says. ‘It was wonderful. Quite wonderful.’
‘I wish I had too.’ His voice is quiet. ‘Another time perhaps.’
‘Another time.’
Her mother would have liked this man. She wants to tell him, but the words won’t come: it’s as if she has already used up all the ones she knows. Though the moment seems to linger, she cannot keep up, cannot articulate the way she feels, and then the moment has passed and the emotion with it. She feels so tired. So drained. As dog-eared as the pages of music.
James flexes his fingers and begins to play, and she sinks back into the chair, listening as he works out the melody with his right hand and chords with his left. Sometimes, when she stays late to type reports upstairs, she hears him playing, laughing to himself as he sings the latest hit. Very occasionally she has heard him singing more softly to a sentimental song by Al Bowlly. And it leaves her feeling she is doing something she shouldn’t, listening to something private. Though she is paid to eavesdrop on other people’s lives, there is an intimacy in this. So she always leaves quietly so he will not realise she was ever there to bear witness.
But now here she is, sitting just behind him. Every part of his body animated as he plays, tentatively at first then growing in speed and confidence. The back of his head bobbing as his hands leap across the keys from little finger to thumb; his knees bouncing as his feet beat out the rhythm beneath. She knew he would appreciate the music. Watching him enjoy it stirs something akin to pleasure in herself. Pleasure that his enthusiasm is prompted by something she has done. It is warm in his office and the tempo of the song is soothing; her eyes struggle to stay open. James begins to sing along to his own accompaniment and she wonders if he has forgotten he is not alone. That she is in the room. That she is watching. Whether he has forgotten her altogether, like Davidson did in the pub last night. Or whether he just doesn’t mind her being there.
He makes it to the end of the song and calls to her over his shoulder: ‘Aren’t you going to join in, Margaret?’
But she has fallen asleep in his chair.
17
Margaret wakes slowly, hiding behind closed eyes, pulling the covers around her chin. The blanket feels strange, as though it is holding her down. It is silky where it brushes her bare neck, but when she frees her arms to rearrange it from the outside, she finds the texture rough beneath her fingertips. Trying to make sense of such extremes of sensation, she strokes her thumb and forefinger along the edge, and discovers a line of buttons. There’s a smell of pipe tobacco and menthol that’s comforting. Her father used to smoke a pipe. He used to let her tap out the spent tobacco and refill it. And she would always take her time, knowing that she had his full attention, careful not to spill a single strand.
It takes some coaxing to persuade her eyes to open, still heavy with sleep. There’s a feeble light, dusk falling outside. It is dark enough to need a lamp to see the corners of the room, but she can make it all out in an instant. Glass cases filled with novelties; shelves stacked with different brands of chopped meat; a desk strewn with toys and copies of the Radio Times. But she doesn’t have the energy to disapprove of the disorder. Her mind has only one thought: what have I done? The lid of the piano is still open, the sheets of paper still creased upon the stand. She brought the music, he started playing the piano and then … then she must have fallen asleep right in front of him. In front of her manager. And before that – she flinches to remember – she was talking about her family. She was talking about her mother.
She sits up suddenly in the chair and the blanket starts to slip down. It is an overcoat. Not her own. It must be James’s but how did she end up with it wrapped around her? Did he cover her with it as she slept? Thank goodness he was not here to see her wake. She should go before he comes back but she lingers, still not quite able to shake off the fug of sleep or the weight of the coat She has the feeling she would be cold without it, so she allows herself a moment longer in its company, bending her knees to bring her entire body beneath it, shivering as the lining caresses her skin. Pipe smoke and menthol. That must be what he smells of, up close. Now she thinks of it, it is not surprising. He bought a tin of Uncle Joe’s Mint Balls because he liked the advertisement (red and blue with a picture of a smiling man who she assumes to be Uncle Joe himself) and quickly developed a taste for them. He once offered her one. ‘The tin says they “keep you all aglow”!’ he said. She wanted to point out that they weren’t balls at all, but oblate spheroids, slightly squashed, like the Earth. She wanted to say that if the name itself was misleading, she doubted very much whether the slogan would live up to its promise. But she just shook her head instead and watched as he popped another into his mouth: ‘You don’t know what you’re missing, Margaret!’
Right now, she does not want to go anywhere, do anything. She would like to stay here curled up under this coat in the dark. But the thought that he might come back and find her compels her to move. She stands, folds the overcoat in half and places it carefully on the back of the chair. Just like Davidson did in the pub last night. The thought brings a fresh wave of shame. His talk of private investigators was not paranoid delusion, his suspicions perfectly reasonable. Though his accusations were ill-founded, she feels as guilty as if they were true.
Turning to leave, her foot knocks against something on the floor by the chair. It’s a plate. On it is a bag of crisps, and tucked beneath it is a note.
SUMMAT FOR YOUR TEA.
DIDN’T LIKE FOR’T WAKE YOU.
James
She chokes on a surfeit of emotion, a rising sound, both sob and laugh: the realisation that James took the time to provide sustenance for her; the thought that he is a man for whom a bag of crisps constitutes a meal. He chose to call it tea rather than supper and, though it is impossible to tell from a written message, she imagines he was smiling as he committed it to paper (in what she can’t help noticing is a shockingly untidy hand). The brand of crisps, Smith’s, was one of his obsessions a few weeks ago. Goodness knows how much salt he ingested, taking out the little blue twist inside, tipping it into the bag and shaking it up. It was inevitably damp and clogged together, but James delighted in the ritual. He even wore a blue enamel badge with the logo on it for a week or so. She supposes he had found a bag here in his office and left it out for her as an afterthought. But it was still a thought – after or otherwise.
She could write ‘thank you’ on the back of his note for him to find when he returns, but she picks it up and puts it in her pocket, finding a scrap of paper amongst the chaos of his desk to use instead. ‘Thank you’ seems insufficient in the circumstances but she cannot think what else to say. It is only a bag of crisps after all. She mustn’t get carried away. Make herself look foolish.
Shutting the front door behind her, she takes the back roads to Maude’s. At home in Northampton, she would never dream of eating on the street. Mother would be horrified at the thought of her doing anything so common, but there are very few people around to witness it. Besides, food will do her good after the unpleasantness with her stomach earlier. She hasn’t had a thing to eat since last night and she feels hollowed out, desperate to fill the empty space inside her. As predicted, the salt inside the blue twist of paper has coagulated into one large lump and she is forced to stop and rub it between thumb and forefinger to crush it into smaller flakes. The crisps themselves are not crisp at all, but every mouthful is greeted by a grateful growl from her stomach (something else that would make Mother tut in disgust). She feels a small thrill of transgression. Rebellion. When a couple emerge from a side road and walk towards her, she doesn’t hide the pack away. And once they’ve passed, she licks her fingers to taste the grains of salt clinging there. With such behaviour, she might pass as a local. Mother would be disgusted. But James would be proud.
It is the time of the evening that is neither one thing nor the other: too light for the lamps to be lit, too dark to see much more than contrast and shadow. She always thinks of Blackpool in the feminine, as one might a ship. A fallen woman whose face is painted with clashing colours. Sometimes, at the blush of sunset, her streets bathed in a tender glow like candlelight, she looks almost beautiful. But when the sun disappears into the sea, she seems to pine and pale and, stripped of her war-paint, the cracks start to show and she is quick to hide her true face behind night’s curtain.
Hands still greasy, Margaret manages with some difficulty to knock on the front door. Maude appears almost instantly.
‘Miss Finch.’
‘Mrs Crankshaw.’
‘Lucky I caught you.’ Luck had nothing to do with it; she has probably been haunting the front window, waiting to pounce. ‘Are you all right? You look jiggered!’
‘I’m fine. Thank you.’
‘Only you looked the worse for wear last night. Good thing I waited up.’
‘It was.’
‘And you didn’t make it down for breakfast this morning.’ She says all this as if it is news to Margaret.
‘I’m fine.’
‘I said as much to your gentleman friend …’ She pauses and her head twitches from side to side, like a bird sizing up a worm. ‘Came calling about an hour ago.’
Margaret concentrates on staying very still, so as not to betray any reaction. She can’t understand it. Why would James come looking for her here when he must have just left her in his office? How long was she asleep for?
‘I said I couldn’t help. I told him: “Truth is I haven’t seen her. She left without making her bed.” “Very unlike her” – I told him that an’all.’
What else did she tell him? Margaret can feel salt and grease lying heavy in her stomach. She has to get upstairs in case she is taken ill again.
‘He were here quite a while. Very polite he was. Very impressed with my lodgings. He asked to borrow a pen and paper to write you a note.’ Another one? ‘Quite a charmer. Asked me all about myself. And whether there was a Mr Crankshaw …’ She brings her hand up to fix the back of her hair. ‘Like I said – a proper gentleman. But I were surprised when I took a good look at him in daylight. He’s a little old for you.’
‘He’s not. We’re not …’ Wait, old? He can’t be more than thirty-five.
‘I’d have thought he’d be better suited to a woman more my age. And I shouldn’t say it – but those teeth!’ Davidson. Not James. Maude is talking about Davidson.
Margaret really is going to be ill again. There’s a sharp pain in her stomach as though the crisps she has just eaten are scratching her from the inside. But her landlady does not appear to have noticed. ‘Gat-toothed, my mother would have called him. You know what that’s a sign of.’ Margaret doesn’t. ‘It means his appetites are …’ She drops her voice to a whisper. ‘You know …’ She still doesn’t. ‘Means he’s a randy old bugger!’ She shakes her head but is grinning at the same time and Margaret can’t work out whether Maude considers these ‘appetites’ to be a blessing or a curse. She doesn’t want to think about it.
‘Now you mention it, I am still feeling under the weather. I’m going to go and have a lie-down.’ She has to pass Maude to make it up the stairs.
‘All right, Miss Finch. Don’t forget your note.’
Miss Finch,
I politely request that you desist in following me. If you see me again, please do not attempt to make conversation. I may be a forgiving man, but I am not a fool.
Mr Harold Davidson, Rector (former)
18
The irony is not lost on her. Directly above a billboard which advertises ‘The Starving Rector of Stiffkey: imprisoned day and night’ is a smaller sign in the window of a boarding house, offering bed, breakfast and dinner. It was reading about his new protest in this morning’s newspaper that has made her decide to come and see him. Since she read his note, she has struggled with the overwhelming urge to set him straight. To her it is a question of order. She cannot accept that this sordid version of herself exists, even in someone else’s imagination. More than that, his accusations have tainted her own thoughts. Her observations are for science, for understanding, for the betterment of the less fortunate in society, but now, when she takes out her pencil and notepad to record a conversation, she feels like a voyeur. And by the end of the day her head is full of other people’s words, with other people’s lives. She wishes they would fly from her in sleep, that when her head hits the pillow they would empty from her thoughts, compelled by gravity to pour from her ear. But she is increasingly finding that every overheard secret leaves a trace, every discovered betrayal a bruise.
For days, she has tried to convince herself that she would be justified in contacting him, but his note was very clear and she didn’t feel, in all conscience, that she could disobey his wishes. That changed the instant she saw news of his latest act. Surely the fact that he is risking his life by starving himself makes it her moral duty to do so now? She has seen similar performances before, variations on the same theme: a young woman self-imprisoned to raise money for her invalid sister, newlyweds who spend their honeymoon separated in neighbouring boxes ‘without the sustenance of either food or love’. There are always volunteers desperate enough to sign up for the stunt: prize money of £150 offered to those who can survive twenty days with only a quart of water and 150 cigarettes. But she is shocked that Davidson has become one of them, that he has sunk to new depths. And she cannot bear the thought that he considers her to be one of the conspirators who has driven him to such an act.
