The Misadventures of Margaret Finch, page 15
James comes to the door. He looks serious when he greets her, jaw set. Margaret risks a fleeting look at his eyes, but he has already turned from the door and is walking into his office. ‘Are you better?’ He sits at his desk and motions for her to take the armchair. Oh God, the armchair where she fell asleep. She had hoped to get through this without drawing attention to how much of a fool she made of herself. But now, here she is, recreating the circumstances of her indignity.
‘Margaret?’ He has the tone of a kindly parent talking to a child, as if she might be about to doze again.
‘Yes. I’m quite well now. Thank you.’
‘That’s good to hear.’
She thinks he looks genuinely relieved but knows she cannot trust her own judgement.
‘I was growing quite concerned. But I didn’t … well I wasn’t sure it was my place to—’
‘Bad stomach,’ she says. ‘Not sure what caused it. But I’m over the worst.’
‘That’s good to hear.’ He has already said that. He is repeating himself. Going through the motions. Working up to telling her that her employment has been terminated. They both look at the floor. Margaret concentrates on a dent in the parquet, and wonders if he is staring at the same spot.
‘Thank you for the crisps,’ she says, to fill the silence so there is no space for him to say what he is going to. She doesn’t want to lose this job. She is getting somewhere, thanks to Harold. She finally has the chance to prove the other researchers wrong, to prove Mother wrong.
‘The crisps. Oh yes. When you dropped off.’ He pushes back a strand of greased hair that has fallen forwards. ‘You looked very peaceful.’
He is being polite again. She has thought about this, frantically, every night since and is perfectly convinced that she must have looked monstrous: slack-mouthed and snoring. There is no way he could ever find a woman attractive after seeing her like that. Not that he would have done anyway. Not that she would want him to. Though she can’t imagine women are exactly queuing up to be courted by him, but that doesn’t matter when you are a man does it? You still get to do the choosing.
The conversation has stalled again and she tries desperately to think of something to keep it moving. ‘The twist of salt is always soggy, don’t you find?’ What a pointless thing to say. She should let him get it over with. It’s the least she can do. It’s not his fault she is late with her report. Surely he is going to get cross with her now, or, at the very least, frustrated. She knows, because that’s how she feels about herself most of the time. But she pretends to glance around the room so that she can take in his face for a moment, and is surprised to find a smile there.
‘Soggy, yes!’ He sits forward in his chair, rubs his open palms back and forth on the tops of his legs. ‘I’d estimate at least seven out of ten bags are disappointing in that regard. I’ve opened them sometimes to find a lump as dense as a sugar cube. I suppose it must depend on the conditions when they pack the bags.’
‘Humidity and such.’
‘Exactly!’
‘So, what do you do?’
‘With what?’
‘The lumps?’
‘Oh, I keep them in the paper and crush them between my fingers. Well forefinger and thumb to be precise …’
She wants to tell him how much she admires him. Most men she has met are obsessed with appearance; not in the way that women are, not in the way that would make them wear a girdle or dye their hair. Women are concerned with taming their own bodies but men are determined to control other people’s perceptions of their minds; every man a walking self-portrait which emphasises their strength, their wisdom and their power. And it must be exhausting, that inability to be wrong. But James is different. He doesn’t appear to care how odd he seems to other people. Either that or he doesn’t realise. But whichever it is, she thinks his lack of self-awareness a blessing. How liberating it must be to be comfortable in one’s own skin.
He is still explaining, at length, how he salvages the salt: ‘… but that is not particularly successful either. So, circumstances allowing, I hack at them with a teaspoon to make them into grains again. More time-consuming than you might imagine. But worth the investment. Crisps without salt are just—’
‘Fried potatoes,’ she says. They look up at the same moment, and this time she doesn’t move her eyes away.
‘Margaret, there is something I’d like to talk to you about.’
‘I know,’ she says, resigned to what is coming, and determined to make it easier for both of them. He will probably ask her to hand in her notice so she can leave with some semblance of dignity. ‘I appreciate it.’
‘I’m so glad. Like I said, I wasn’t sure it was my place but I’m concerned about you. None of us has seen you in several days and you’ve not filed any reports.’
‘My stomach bug was … I’ve fallen behind. It’s been difficult to concentrate—’
‘I know, Margaret. And I hope I’m not speaking out of turn here. But I think there may be more to it than that.’
Oh God. She cannot hold his gaze. Does he know about the morphine? She has been so careful. Her medicine. If it wasn’t for that she wouldn’t have been able to work at all. ‘I’ve been putting together a larger report,’ she says. ‘Working very long hours, as it happens. I didn’t mention it because it was a delicate situation. I didn’t want it to fall through.’
‘That’s what I was getting at,’ he says, gently. ‘Working day and night? Your dedication is commendable, Margaret. But you’re going to be exhausted. You were exhausted. And you’ve made yourself ill. You fell asleep right there in that chair.’
‘I’m sorry. I’ll try harder.’
She glances up and finds him staring at her. ‘No, you misunderstand. I think you are working too hard. Putting too much pressure on yourself. I’m not supposed to say this, but you are the best researcher we have, by a long way. And I don’t want to lose you.’ He looks down again. ‘What I mean to say is, the project doesn’t.’
The relief she feels is instant; a surge of joy. She has the overwhelming urge to share it with him somehow. ‘Thank you.’
‘Margaret, I’m under pressure to send the latest chapter of your report to Harrisson and I’m concerned you are being too much of a perfectionist. From what you have said, you have gathered ample data. I need it to be finished by the end of this week.’
It is achievable if she spends the next three days doing nothing else, but she has promised to meet Harold. ‘The other thing I’ve been working on, I—’
‘You can come to that later,’ he says. ‘I just need to get that report to Harrisson. Can you do it?’
‘It’s just … I really think I’m onto something.’
‘Could someone else take that over for you? If I ask one of the others—’
‘No.’ She is not going to let them take the credit.
‘Can I help then?’
How?
‘Just a suggestion …’ he says, ‘but perhaps we could go on a few missions together. I need to take my camera out again anyway. And two heads are better than one. Meet me here first thing tomorrow and we can make a start.’
22
Her standards must be slipping. Margaret barely registers the fact James pours their daily serving of fizzy pop into mugs. On the first occasion, she resisted the urge to go straight to Woolworths to buy him a set of glasses, but the cups (hers decorated with Blackpool Tower, and his with an advertisement for Bovril) have become an integral part of the routine they have settled into. She has become quite partial to dandelion and burdock, and no longer baulks at the sweetness of cream soda.
She is sure to show her face at HQ every day now. With his encouragement, she is able to submit her report on the sale of souvenirs at last. The relief is palpable, for both of them; celebrated with a fish and chip supper in his office, Margaret careful to avoid the addition of pea-wet this time. James is so amused by her account of her previous encounter that he reaches out for her shoulder to steady himself.
The report is forwarded to Harrisson, the panic is over, and they no longer need to combine forces. But neither of them mentions this fact, and the next day she arrives as usual. Having thought she had come so close to losing this job, it is important to look industrious, and James always makes time to ask about her latest findings. Together they consider new areas of study, and sometimes he accompanies her with his camera. At first, she thinks him tense again, almost resentful.
‘Are you sure you have time for this?’ she asks.
‘Yes, it will do me good.’
And it does. At his suggestion, they head for quieter spots, out-of-the-way places – stretches of beach further out of town or cafés away from the seafront – and for an hour or two Margaret feels that she can breathe again. They take long walks, circuitous routes which take them past wasteland where a team of workers are digging deep into the ground. Neither one of them comments on it, not even when the steel supports are lifted in, and the walls are built; not even when the whole thing is covered with earth once more and the newspapers confirm that Hitler has held another rally in Nuremberg. But they both know what it means: the government is building shelters to protect a lucky few if the bombs start to fall.
In James’s company she can push these thoughts away, but alone in her lodgings, they steal back, not into her mind but into her stomach. The days are passing too quickly; only a few more weeks before the summer season comes to an end, and she has still not received any indication that her role will be extended. Mother writes with news that their family doctor in Northampton is looking for a new receptionist. She has put Margaret’s name forward and is already drawing up the terms under which she will move back home: her room is still just as she left it, though she will have to pay the going rate for board and lodgings and invest in outfits befitting such an important role, because Dr Speller has standards to uphold, having a brother who practises on Harley Street.
The letters are conspicuous in their silence on any other matters. There is no mention of the news. Only a cryptic reference to her father having ‘one of his spells’, and the toll it is taking on Mother. Margaret imagines him sitting in his chair, refusing to listen to the wireless or read the newspaper. But for someone like her, the evidence is impossible to ignore: the volume cannot be lowered on the conversations she overhears on the streets outside. There is no way to avoid what’s coming. The only thing she cannot say with any certainty is which might happen first: the country sent to war, or she sent back to her old life. In both cases she is at the mercy of decisions made by men, so many miles away in London. But there is only one of those decisions she can possibly hope to influence.
All she can do is work harder to impress her superiors at Mass Observation. She is grateful for James’s help and his company. His idea to observe how many fathers build sandcastles with their children (compared to mothers) yields some interesting results, and a moderate case of sunburn for both of them. They sit and watch players on the one-armed bandit machines and calculate the rate of wins to losses. But gradually they are drawn back towards the crowds, back towards the Golden Mile, where Harold is still on display.
Margaret does not tell James that she spends her evenings at his sideshow after closing time, because she knows he would disapprove of her keeping such long hours. She doesn’t tell him that poring over transcripts of Harold’s trial is the only thing that feels meaningful; the only thing she may have a hope of changing. She makes pages of notes, underlining questions that he might take to his solicitor. She identifies several witnesses who gave character references in his defence. The testimony of his landlady, in particular, chimes with Margaret’s now firm belief that he was naïve about how his kindness might be perceived. She suggests they might persuade some of the other young ladies who he helped to come forward. ‘A good idea,’ he says, ‘but thanks to me, they live respectable lives now. Many of them with husbands and children. I could not ask them to reveal the details of their past profession in such a public forum.’
‘But they could tell people the truth.’
‘I’m sorry, Margaret, but it is out of the question. I gave them my word.’
To get any more than a few hours’ sleep is a rarity. It is as if she doesn’t need it any more, already living two distinct lives: daylight hours spent in one man’s company, after dark in an-other’s.
Harold continues to starve himself for several more days but the stunt is relatively short-lived. Visitor numbers begin to drop again and he is provided with a glass coffin instead, with a placard that warns he will ‘Fast unto Death’ if his appeal is unheeded. Margaret is relieved when the police, acting on the instruction of Blackpool’s mayor, remove him. James reads aloud from the newspaper the next day, describing how Davidson was escorted to the police station clutching a cigar and a Bible. ‘He’s being charged with attempted suicide,’ he says, putting the paper aside to serve the two chocolate bars he has bought for their meeting. Margaret does not mention that she was there when the constables arrived. She had stayed up until 4 a.m. talking with him, beside the coffin, the night before.
On the day of the hearing, she is due to be taking a survey of the percentage of holidaying women who wear stockings and how many brave bare legs. She manages to gather the data while waiting outside the court, arriving three hours early to be sure she will get a seat in the public gallery. But the queue is not nearly as long this time. In her notebook she records the full charge read out by the prosecution: ‘Davidson has been unlawfully fasting with intent to feloniously, wilfully and of malice aforethought kill and murder himself.’ She considers the inclusion of both ‘kill’ and ‘murder’ unnecessary and feels sure that is just the sort of detail James would find amusing. But she can’t tell him, not without giving herself away.
Despite her intentions to make observations on the court proceedings and, in particular, the reaction in the public gallery, she finds herself spending the majority of the hearing watching Harold himself. He is unrepentant, vocal in his hope that his fast will bring the Bishop to his senses, but he looks small as he stands in the dock. Making attempts to entertain the court, he appears defeated. It is the police officer called to the witness stand who inadvertently raises the biggest laugh when he comments on the healthy appetite Harold has shown while in custody. But Margaret does not find it amusing. She is just glad his fast is over before he does himself serious damage.
‘Acquitted!’ James says, popping his head around the doorway as she sits typing the next day. ‘Says here that he has vowed to lie in a coffin made of ice next.’ He draws his arms tightly around his chest as if protecting himself from the cold. And Margaret cannot help but wonder how it would feel if he wrapped them around her instead.
‘You’ll crumple your shirt,’ she says.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘You’ll crease your shirt.’
‘Oh.’ He drops his arms.
Mother’s embraces were rare, brief, and immediately followed by her patting down her dress, then heading straight to the hallway mirror to smooth her hair and reapply her lipstick. Unnecessary fuss, made only if Margaret had slipped and injured her leg, or fallen off her bicycle. She always felt as though Mother was trying to make her smaller somehow; to tuck in her arms and straighten the angles of her elbows. Gripping her firmly enough to stifle her breath and quieten her crying.
She has never understood why adults do it to each other. To her it looks restrictive, possessive. With a man, whom nature has blessed with more physical strength, she could be reduced to nothing. Crushed. It stands to reason that the more parts of your body that are intertwined, the more difficult it must be to extract yourself. That’s why sexual intercourse is so attractive to males: it reduces the female’s ability to flee. You’ve only got to think of the barbed phallus of the cat, she thinks, to see the lengths that nature will go to.
‘They seem to enjoy the suffering,’ James says.
‘Sorry?’
‘The public – they like to see Davidson suffer, don’t they? Starving and freezing. He really will end up killing himself at this rate.’
‘Killing and murdering.’
‘I’m sorry – what?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I was thinking,’ he says. ‘Harrisson wants a report on rides and attractions. How do you fancy a mission to the Pleasure Beach tomorrow?’
23
Her hair won’t behave itself. It used to be as dependable as the rest of her, needing nothing more than a quick comb for her to consider it sufficiently styled, but today it is kicking out on one side. She tries to curl it under with her fingers as she walks. She didn’t have time to tame it: waking to find her head on the desk, opening her eyes to see the keys of her typewriter, and realising she was going to be late. She drank a glass of water without drawing breath, and took a mint ball from James’s office as she dashed out of the front door.
