Making Marion (3 page)

Help!

“I haven't been invited. I don't have anything to bring. I'm pretty tired.”

“I'm inviting you. And you won't be expected to bring anything. There's always far too much anyway. Come on.” He gestured with his head over toward the staff caravans. “Just stay for a beer and a burger.”

I hesitated, not sure how to say that sitting around feeling obliged to make small talk with a bunch of people I don't know, who all happen to know each other, while pretending to enjoy it, is in my top ten list of things to avoid at all costs.

“I'll come and knock for you at eight.” He strode off, pushing the barrow with practised ease.

I
t was that moment every Ballydown girl has been dreaming about her whole life. My dress too tight, my heels too high, my hair forced against its will to three times its usual volume, I was swaying awkwardly in the middle of the dance floor when the cheesy ballad screeched to a stop. A hush fell over the crowd. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Auntie Jean clutching hold of my mother's arm, tissue at the ready. My mother did not require a tissue.

The man in front of me dropped smoothly to one knee. For a brief second I wondered if he had been practising in front of the mirror. He gripped my hand, which was damp with nerves, and squeezed it reassuringly. I was not reassured. He lifted up his other hand. The ring held between his thumb and index finger sparkled, dazzling. I couldn't imagine where he had found the money to pay for it. He cleared his throat. I tried to ignore the lace on the dress I did not choose myself, scratching beneath my arm. The catch of the town, my gorgeous, newly qualified doctor boyfriend, in front of all our family and all his friends – just about everyone I had ever known – asked me the question. Well, sort of.

“Marion. You've been so patient waiting for me all these years. Putting up with long shifts and all those nights alone when I had to study. But we finally got here, and on this special night, when we celebrate the result of all that hard work and sacrifice, I want to make it official and let everybody know that you are still the one for me. I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with you by my side.”

If that speech made me sound as if I had spent seven years while he attended medical school sitting about on my growing backside picking out wallpaper patterns, then it was pretty much spot on. Except I couldn't be bothered to pick out wallpaper. I did pick my nails.

He wriggled the ring onto my finger, and the place erupted with the sound of cheers, whistles and Bruno Mars crooning “I think I wanna marry you” in a rare Ballydown foray into the twenty-first century. My future in-laws rushed over to smother us in hugs, vodka-soaked kisses and manly slaps on the back, and the rest of the party soon followed them. I was left spinning in a whirl of congratulations. Someone shoved a glass of bubbles in my hand, and my Uncle Danny tried to pick me up and spin me around before realizing that he was far too old and drunk to get me off the ground. I smiled, and said thank you a hundred times, until my cheeks ached with lies told and words swallowed back with cheap wine.

Nobody noticed that I hadn't said yes.

At eight-fifteen, I handed over my hastily assembled pasta salad to Scarlett, who received it with unwarranted grace. Particularly considering I had put it together using ingredients found in the caravan kitchen, which she had paid for. Having been introduced to two other people and promptly forgotten their names, I perched awkwardly on a plastic chair trying to fade into the background. It's my party trick.

Jake took command of the barbeque, a vast brick construction along one side of the meadow Scarlett had fenced off to form her garden. Trees surrounded us, and just out of sight I could hear a stream cascading into the lake. Scarlett busied herself fetching glasses, and plates of salad and buttery potatoes. Chicken breasts and fat ribs sizzled over coals. She batted away my offer of help. I am sure she knew I would prefer to hide in the kitchen, but decided I should mingle instead.

“Katarina, Sunny – did you know Marion is from Northern Ireland? Didn't you go to Ireland one time?”

“Ooooh yes!” Katarina was a huge, Viking, forty-ish woman with pale red hair rippling down her back. She stood six feet tall (at least) and her circumference couldn't have been far off that. Barely covered by a strapless mini-dress, she displayed the type of pillowy breasts grown men sob into.

“Come sit! Come sit!” She yanked over my chair – with me on it – and leaned forwards, thrusting eight inches of freckly cleavage under my nose.

“Sunny! Fetch Marion a drink!”

Sunny resembled a beanpole version of his wife, only younger. He brought me a glass of water (with ice and lemon for the poor, hot girl) and I braced myself to negotiate the minefield of small talk. Fortunately, Katarina seemed happy to chat about herself, one of those conversationalists who only part way through one story remember another, and then realize it makes sense only if they digress into a different story for explanation. Like panning for gold, here and there a flash of useful information gleamed among the mountain of words. I did manage to piece together that Katarina worked as the groundswoman at Hatherstone Hall, while Sunny balanced working part-time as housekeeper with taking care of their three children.

At one point, Katarina called out in a different language – it sounded like something Scandinavian – and three tiny people with hair the actual colour of carrots appeared from a clump of bushes at the far end of the meadow by the water, all of them plastered in mud. Literally, they were walking mud pies in mud shorts and T-shirts. Bright teeth glinting in unapologetic smiles, they scampered up to their parents. It was hard not to flinch away from the dripping, splattering mass of skinny arms and legs. It was harder still to decide whether to laugh, or join with Katarina in her frown of disbelief.

“What is this?” She held up both hands in surrender, sending quivers undulating through her rolls of flab. “What is the explanation
for my darling children being exchanged for the scariest, most dangerous looking mud monsters? What are you doing here? And what have you done with my beautiful, clean children?”

They wriggled with laughter. The smallest child tried to climb on her mother's knee, leaving two smeary handprints of dirt on her leg.

“No, no! I will not have this! My knee is not for nasty, squelchy blobs of dirt. Then my nice, spotless little girl and boys will no longer want to sit there. Go away and don't come back. And tell my precious, immaculate, good children that if they want any pudding they must return in ten minutes.”

The children exchanged glances.

“Ten minutes. Not a second more. Or no pudding. Be sure to tell them this message now, won't you?”

They nodded that they would tell them, and dashed back in the direction they had appeared from.

Katarina huffed. “See, this is what happens when a man is left in charge. My children are roaming free like wild animals. Looking for every possible means of making mischief with no thought of the consequences. What shall become of them, Marion?”

At this point, Sunny returned with another piece of chicken for his wife. I couldn't understand any of the rapid words that flew between them. But when they had finished, Sunny grinned and sat back down on the grass, shrugging his shoulders. Katarina tutted and tossed her hair, but no translator was necessary to interpret the twitch at the corner of her mouth as she grabbed her husband's head and wiped her knee on his cheek.

Ten minutes later, three children came charging out of the bushes. Not a speck of dirt remained on their skin. They had solved the problem of their filthy clothes by leaving them behind, including the girl's nappy. Sunny made origami pants out of paper napkins and tied tea-towel cloaks around their necks while each of his offspring ate giant bowls of ice-cream, without letting a single drip end up anywhere but in their mouths. He then retrieved the
clothes and kissed Katarina soundly on the lips. I sat there, watching all this, amazed and bewildered that no cross words, no slaps on bare behinds, no threats or tears or whining had occurred.

I decided I liked Sunny. And Katarina. Their attitude rocked. I was actually – maybe – possibly enjoying myself.

A short while later we heard a car pull up on the other side of Scarlett's caravan, then the sound of a door slamming followed by the screech of wheels accelerating off way over the five miles per hour campsite speed limit. Valerie appeared, a wispy husk of the girl I had met that morning. It looked as if the real Valerie had shed her skin, and this was the old, dead exo-skeleton drifting into the garden.

“Oh, honey!” Scarlett put down a bowl of bread and was next to her foster daughter in three strides. She wrapped herself around the Valerie-shell and buried her face in her hair. For a long, long time they stood there. Scarlett poured out love into that girl like sunshine onto the water. I have never seen two people stand so together and so still for so long. Jake flipped chops and swigged from his beer bottle behind them.

Katarina leaned over to me and whispered, loudly enough for the family on the other side of the lake to hear: “First Sunday of the month. Valerie visits her mother. It is not good! She sucks all hope and happiness right out of her own child. Drains all the good feelings and the knowing that she is smart and beautiful and loved – drains them right out! Gone! To feed her own despair and pathetic failure. But Scarlett knows that strong arms can rebuild a shattered heart. Valerie remembers who she is again – watch!”

She was right. Valerie grew three inches inside that hug. By the time Scarlett let her go, she was bouncing again. Scarlett sent her off to check there were enough napkins, and only then did she allow the cost of loving Valerie back to life pass across her face. Scarlett closed her eyes, briefly, and let her shoulders sag, just half an inch, for a couple of seconds. Then she tipped up her chin and shook off the pain with a flick of blonde curls.

I didn't know why I had worried so much about coming to the party. Whether Scarlett had briefed everyone beforehand, or they were just used to strangers coming and going, I didn't figure out. But no one asked me anything about home, or my previous life, or how on earth I ended up working at the Peace and Pigs when all I wanted was directions to the visitor centre – the one I still hadn't visited.

Grace stomped in about nine o'clock, tightening the muscles along her mother's jaw. She grabbed a beer and plonked herself down on a chair next to Jake. Over on the other side of the meadow Katarina raised her eyebrows at Scarlett.

“I know, Katarina, I know. But it's just one beer and she'll be eighteen in five months. To be honest with you I'm more concerned about where she's been since ten this mornin'. A supervised drink I can deal with. Drugs in the woods with grown men – that's what bothers me.”

“No! Is she at this again? I still say she is not too old for a good walloping across her alternatively dressed backside! Are you working her hard enough, Scarlett?”

“Oh, she works hard enough. And I honestly don't know what she's getting up to any more. She promised me what happened before was a one-time thing. I don't think I can really follow her, can I? When I was her age I lived on my own in the city, workin' three jobs to save up for my plane ticket outta there. I just wish she could still talk to me.”

“She is very angry with you, Scarlett.”

Scarlett sighed, and shook her head. “I know. She's angry with the whole world. But that don't make her daddy into a man worth knowin'. And as long as I live and breathe I will spare her that heartache.”

At that point, another man joined us, tall and broad, wearing workman's boots with worn jeans and a faded checked shirt. His hair and beard shone pure white, and his face gleamed as brown as polished walnut. Moving with the confident ease of a man who
knows and likes himself, he bent and kissed each of the women in turn – except me. He reached out and took my hand instead, introducing himself as Samuel T. Waters.

“So, are you here for the summer?” He settled down on a tree stump, stretching out long, straight legs in front of him. “Or maybe longer?”

“Yes. I think so.” I hesitated. “I'm not really sure…”

“Oh ho! A lady of mystery!”

“She's only been here two days, Samuel,” Scarlett scolded.

“Ah yes, but does she know that you and your campsite of peace and pigs are irresistible, dear Scarlett?” He winked at me. “I would move in here myself if the big boss-woman would employ me, but she refuses to give me a job. Says I'm a shoddy worker. I tried getting her to marry me instead, but she won't have it. Says I'm too tall to live in a caravan. Ah, Marion, just look at her. Wouldn't it be worth a crick in the neck, waking up to that glorious vision of womanhood every morning?”

“Will you behave yourself?” Scarlett stood up and swept over to the food table. “Now, for mercy's sake plug that ridiculous mouth of yours with some chicken before I have to turn the hose on you.”

When the shadows had settled into every corner and the piles of food had been reduced to scrapings and bones, as the air hummed with crickets and the breeze called for our cardigans, Fire Night began in earnest. Jake and Samuel built up the fire in its pit. Grace, I noticed, hovered in Jake's shadow. Valerie brought out skewers and bags of marshmallows, with mugs of thick, steaming chocolate or rich coffee. Sunny told me there were usually more musicians at Fire Night but, being August, they'd gone on holiday elsewhere. Still, Jake had brought his guitar and sang songs we all knew well enough to join in with. We sang until our voices croaked and Jake's fingers blistered. Katarina thumped time with a stick on a wooden crate, and Valerie danced with Samuel. If we had replaced the forest with the dark walls of a pub, and the fragrance of coffee and wood smoke with Guinness and cigarettes, I could have been back home.