Making Marion (8 page)

“Do you want some help clearing up?”

“No. Thank you.” I whispered.
Go!

“Okay. Well, I'll see you around.” He turned and looked me right in the eyes, catching me there for a second before I could drop my gaze. His eyes were deep blue, with flecks of silver. The colour of twilight in the forest.

Suddenly he grinned. “I'm looking forward to it.”

He jogged down the steps, past my caravan into the trees beyond. I dashed out and whipped my front door shut, scrabbling through my bag for the keys to lock it. As I cleaned up myself and the rest of the mess, I felt, unaccountably, as flappy and flustered as the chickens.

If any man did ever get to see me naked in broad daylight for a second time, I maybe wouldn't mind so much if he looked at me with eyes the colour of twilight in the forest.

 

I had nothing left to take to Fire Night. It had grown late by the time I was ready to leave, and I felt tempted to simply draw my curtains and curl up under the covers to have my own little pity party for one instead. But, with a knock on my window, Valerie's voice called out: “Where are you, Marion? I was worried about you. We're ready to start eating and you aren't there yet. Are you all right?”

I grabbed my bag, unlocking the door.

“Yes, I'm coming. I had a bit of an accident, but I'm fine. It just took a while to tidy up.”

“Six thousand people are hurt every year either tripping up over their trousers, or falling down the stairs while pulling them up.”

“Oh. Well, good job we don't have any stairs then.”

“Yes. Did you know you have a feather stuck to the back of your head?” Valerie reached up and plucked it off, blowing it away before taking hold of my hand. She jiggled and tugged me along to her garden, chattering the whole time about nothing much. That girl lifted my spirits more than she could possibly know. I felt entirely comfortable again by the time I reached the barbeque; maybe even a tiny bit confident. Until I saw how many people – and, more specifically, who – had come to the party.

His name was Reuben. He hadn't been joking about owning the land where Pettigrew and I came to grief.

He introduced me properly to Lord and Lady Hatherstone – his parents. I managed a stammered hello, although they seemed perfectly at ease with the whole situation.

“Oh, none of that lord and lady twaddle! They only call us that to wind us up.” Lady Hatherstone whacked me on the back. “I think we are a little beyond formalities, all things considered. Don't you?”

She winked. I wondered if your cheeks could get so hot they burst into flames. Her husband tipped back his round, bald head and roared. “Ha! That's one way of putting it. No, we are Archie and Ginger to our friends, and anyone who has seen us déshabillé had better be a friend, not an enemy!”

Reuben glanced at me, raising one eyebrow. A panic attack began swimming at the edge of my vision. He turned back to his mum and dad, shaking his head. “Please don't tell me Marion has had to see you two at it. When are you going to learn to get a room? One with a lock on the door?”

“Oh, grow up, darling! Marion didn't mind. It's happened to all of us at one time or another!”

Ginger and Archie wafted off to another corner of the meadow, leaving me standing with Reuben, desperately trying to think of an excuse to walk away, if only my brain would stop buzzing enough to let me think.

He cleared his throat and ran his hand through his dark hair a couple of times.

“Well. Looks like we're even.”

I froze, horrified.

Reuben grimaced. “Sorry. I take that back. No comparison…”

At that moment, Jake sauntered over, just to crank up the tension further. He slung one arm round my shoulder, beer bottle dangling from the end of it.

“Reuben,” Jake nodded, in a macho, chin-jutting sort of way.

“Jake,” Reuben smiled, sticking his hands in his pockets. He got the message. If Jake were a cat, he would have sprayed his urine on me about now.

“So – where's Erica?”

Reuben rolled his shoulders. As if Jake's hot, heavy arm was annoying him as much as it was me. “Working. She'll be here for the festival.” He glanced at his own bottle. “I'm getting a top up. See you later, Jake. Marion.” Reuben walked off toward the picnic table laden with drinks, pausing to take Katarina's empty glass from her as he went.

Jake bent his head closer to mine. I could smell the alcohol on his breath. “Erica is Reuben's girlfriend.” Of course she is. “Her parents own the campsite land, live in one of the new houses on the edge of Hatherstone. She rents a flat in Nottingham, 'cos she's got some fancy job with a chain of designer shops, and the head office is in the Lace Market. Reuben is supposed to be finally popping the question at the festival next week. Sealing the deal. Don't know what he's waiting for. Erica's a fox.”

I had nothing to say to that. I was too weak and too stupid to remove Jake's tentacle arm for no better reason than not wanting the arm of a rude, drunk, presumptuous man pressing down on my shoulders no matter how strong and muscular that arm might be or how good looking the man on the end of it. I did not want the whole of the Peace and Pigs, plus numerous guests, to imagine something going on between us. I especially did not want Jake to think that. Let alone Grace.

I pretended I needed the toilet.

Scarlett found me, much later on, hovering in her kitchen moving dirty pots from one side of the room to another.

“Okay?”

“Yes, I'm fine. Just thought I'd better help out a bit since I didn't bring anything to share.”

“Well, that's very kind of you.” She crinkled her eyes at me. “And there was me thinkin' you were hidin' from Jake. Don't judge him too harshly tonight. He had a very uncomfortable conversation with Grace today, followed by the news that his mother has been denied parole again. He don't know whether to celebrate or drown his sorrows, but either way he'll only hate himself more in the mornin'.”

“I didn't know his mum was in prison.”

“Well, it ain't a secret round here, but it ain't exactly the kind of thing you share with the girl you're tryin' to impress, either.”

“So – do all your employees come from tough family situations?”

Scarlett wiped her hands on her apron. “I don't know, sugar. Do they?”

I turned and began scraping leftovers into a goody bag for the chickens. “I'm not very good at parties.”

“Most people aren't. That's why I have 'em every week, so we can get used to 'em. This is about the busiest it gets, though. With the festival comin' up we always have extra.”

“The Robin Hood Festival?”

“Absolutely! It's the highlight of the Peace and Pigs year. We'll be full to the brim those three days; but on the last day – the Sunday – reception is closed and all employees must attend the festivities. It's in everyone's contract.”

My breath got stuck somewhere behind my diaphragm. I thought about the photograph, and my head swam. All I could do was nod.

Scarlett gently took the plate out of my hand, and put it with the rest of the pile on the draining board. “This isn't your job tonight. You are going to listen and put into practice Scarlett's lesson in survivin' party minglin'.

“One: never forget Scarlett's Lesson Number One.”

I smiled. It wasn't hard in the warmth of Scarlett's kitchen.

“Two: find someone who looks as lost and lonely as you feel, walk right up to them and ask them how they're doin'. Listen to their answer and respond accordingly. Ask intelligent, thoughtful questions, and keep goin'. If you can't see anyone lookin' lost and lonely, look harder. If you can't think of an intelligent question, ask 'em what they like to do and go from there. Never,
never
ask somebody, ‘What do you do?' It's dumb and rude to think that anyone can answer that question adequately by recitin' a job title, and most of us are far more interestin' than that. These days, goodness knows, enough people are spendin' every moment searchin' high and low for any kind of work, worryin' about how they're gonna pay the bills or buy their kids that mobile phone they want so they don't get laughed at in the playground. They cry, wring their hands in despair and work their butts off tryin' to scrimp and save on every penny, meanwhile prayin' it will be enough to prevent the big fat bank manager from bootin' them out of the house they spent years makin' into a precious home for their family. Before he jets off to spend his big fat bankin' bonus on yet another luxury holiday to erase all that stress he gets makin' so much money off poor hard-workin' everyday folks.

“So don't ask 'em what job they do. Lift your head, look 'em in the eye, remember you are as worthwhile a human bein' as anybody else, with a unique story to share. Three: don't ramble, moan, bitch, gossip, drink too much or agree with somebody just to seem nice when you think they are talkin' outta their patoot. Got it?”

“Um.”

“Good. Now go make some friends.”

I
was on my first holiday at Auntie Paula's house. Except even then I knew holidays should be far away, not just past the Post Office. And you don't have to go to school. And they are actually fun. Auntie Paula told me I was on holiday because she didn't want to say, out loud, the truth that Ma was locked up in the hospital for crazy people having electricity zapped into her brain until her eyes span round. I knew this because my cousin Declan told me.

In a town of typically large Catholic families, Declan was the only boy in his class with his own bedroom. This status symbol somehow made up for him being mean and spoiled, and smelling of old chip fat from his parents' fish van. Now that I had come to stay while the doctors drilled holes in Ma's head to stop her eating her own fingers, Declan had to share with his five-year-old brother, Benny. Benny woke Declan every morning at five-thirty by jumping on his bed, yelling. He broke Declan's model of a zillion-pound Lamborghini, and scribbled on his Italia '90 Republic of Ireland football cards. Declan hated Benny, but he blamed me.

The second day of my holiday, he picked his nose and wiped the snot on my battered cod. Two days later he smeared dirt in my underwear so Auntie Paula thought I had messed myself. He didn't even try to be sneaky about it. He knew I couldn't tell anyone.

Frustrated at my continued silence, my aunt took me to see Father Francis. She figured that when all else fails, you had better
try God. I hadn't been to mass since my daddy had gone, but I remembered Father Francis. He had a moustache. I liked watching it waffle up and down when he talked. His voice was soft and slow, and he always shook my hand and called me Miss Marion. He was my daddy's friend. Four times after the funeral he came round and knocked on our door, but the first two times Ma ignored it. The third time she opened the door, threw the dirty dish water over him, and screamed at my daddy's friend: “Get lost, you lying hypocrite. Go on back to your land of make believe.” The fourth time she phoned the police.

Mrs Dunn, the housekeeper, showed us into a room with fat, flowery sofas and an entire wall of shelving units crammed with books. Above a worn desk was a noticeboard covered in photographs. Radiant brides with their arms flung around grinning grooms. Babies in christening gowns, older children in smart suits and first communion dresses. Anniversaries, birthday parties, graduation pictures. And squeezed in between all these smiles and hats were dozens of cards of thanks and good wishes to Father Francis, who had cheered on every morsel of good news, and wept with every loss that touched his beloved parish.

Auntie Paula sat up straight and tucked her solid brown bag behind crossed ankles. I was wearing my best dress. Like all my clothes, it had got too small and I kept trying to stretch the skirt to cover a bit more of my skinny legs. When Father Francis came in, carrying a tray with a teapot and mugs and a sticky brown cake, Auntie Paula stood up. She nodded and smiled at the priest, and then suddenly remembered she had to ask Mrs Dunn about the next month's cleaning rota.

Father Francis waited for her to leave, then cut an enormous slice of cake and handed it to me. I took a bite, but the chewed-up crumbs stuck in my throat, blocked by the traffic jam of words. He sipped his tea and smiled at me. His moustache smiled too.

“How are you, Miss Marion? I haven't seen you in a while. We've missed you at mass, and Sunday club.”

I drank some tea to force the cake down.

“That's okay if you don't feel like talking. Do you mind if I tell you a story?”

I shook my head. I didn't mind. Stories were my favourite thing.

“Many years ago, when I was still a young man and not long a priest, I used to go fishing at the lake behind the Mullans' farm. Only on this particular occasion, I didn't know that two very naughty boys, who shall remain unnamed, had protested against my telling their mammies when I found wee Carla Bragg locked in the church cellar.”

My mouth twitched. Carla Bragg was now the captain of the women's rugby team. There were rumours that when the men's team were short she donned a thin disguise and played for them. They always won those particular matches.

“Their protest took the form of a hole in my boat – tiny enough to make sure I reached the very middle of the lake before I noticed water seeping in to fill the bottom. I tried to scoop it out with one hand and row closer to shore with the other, but as a clever girl like you knows, you cannot row with one hand. You just go round and round in circles. Now, the lake wasn't all that deep, and I could swim well enough, but what I haven't told you is that on this particular afternoon I had to conduct the funeral of James Herbert Hamilton Moore. The late husband of Miriam Hamilton Moore.”

I sat up in my chair. Miriam Hamilton Moore was the snootiest, bossiest, pickiest woman in Ballydown. I hadn't known she had ever been married. I felt a moment of pity for James Herbert.

“I had been a little bit foolish, Marion. I only had an hour or so until I had to be getting myself ready, and by the time I had rowed myself round and round in circles for a while, I had maybe time to change, but certainly not to shower stinky brown lake water out of my hair. Besides, there was a six-foot, iron-jawed old pike living in the lake in those days. I didn't fancy him nipping at my trousers as I swam past.

“So I was stuck in the middle of the lake in a sinking ship, with no way out that didn't involve me turning up to conduct a respectable man's funeral smothered in mud and whatever else you might find floating about in that water. I prayed a heartfelt prayer, I can tell you, asking God to forgive my reckless decision to fish on a funeral day, and to help me to forgive those two monkeys who right then I felt like sticking on the end of my fishing rod to use as pike-bait. And asking him to send me an angel to get me out of there dry. And just at that moment, a young man whom I had never set eyes on before appeared at the far side of the water. Seeing my difficulty, he called across to ask what my problem was. And so I told him. Do you know what that young man did, Miss Marion?”

I shook my head. What did he do?

“He pulled off his trousers and his jumper, and his shoes. He plunged into that freezing cold, murky lake in just his underwear and he swam through the pouring rain out to my boat, now eight inches deep in water. He climbed in with me, and while I bailed, he rowed us to shore. His arms were so strong, his pull on the oars so swift, that I didn't have to change more than my socks. And Miriam Hamilton Moore was none the wiser.

“Do you know who that angel was, Marion?”

I thought I did.

“Your da was a good man in every sense of the word. A great man. He was my best friend, and I miss him every day. I feel angry some days, and bewildered on others. Sometimes I just feel so very sad. But I am always glad to have had the honour of knowing him.”

Father Francis told more stories about my father, and for that hour I forgot about cancer, and mothers who smash plates against the kitchen wall. I stopped thinking about fat cousins with glittery eyes who spat in my lunchbox and laughed as they walked away. For the first time in over a year, I forgot to feel scared or alone.

I remembered Father Francis as I stood, clutching the brown envelope, while crowds of visitors jostled past me toward the entrance of the Robin Hood Festival. My father was a great man, loved by good people. There could be nothing to fear from discovering the truth about someone who dived into a freezing lake to rescue a stranger from getting wet trousers. So he once had a different name, a past no one was allowed to probe. A secret family he never saw, or even mentioned. I knew how he felt.

It felt surreal, wandering down the forest path toward the visitor centre. I had dreamed of coming here for months. I'd imagined the people, hordes of children wearing green hats or garlands of plastic flowers, waving swords and aiming arrows. I had pictured the medieval encampment, the stalls of crafts, and the jesters and bards. But I could never have predicted walking right up to the first person I saw who looked vaguely something to do with the festival and showing them the picture of my da under the Major Oak in a Robin Hood costume.

The man looked at me and wrinkled his brow. “What's this then?”

I wrestled briefly but fiercely with the mute child who hides in my windpipe.

“I was wondering if you might recognize this picture, or be able to tell me anything about it.”

“Oh, right. It looks quite old.” He squinted through his glasses (did they have glasses in Robin Hood's day?). “When was it taken?”

“I think between 1979 and '84. That's all I know, except for what it says on the back.”

He turned the photo over. Written on the back in blue pen were the words “Daniel, Robin Hood Festival”. The boy in the picture looked maybe sixteen, maybe twenty. It was slightly blurred, so I couldn't be totally sure it was my da. But if not, it was a very close relative. The image of my father was fading inside my head, to be replaced with only the smells, and the memory of the texture of his stubble, or his dressing gown, on my cheek. But I had spent
hours comparing it with the last photograph taken of him before he got ill, and I had to believe this boy Daniel was the man I called Father. What I wanted to know was why everybody in Ballydown had called him Henry.

The obvious person to ask was my mother. Unless you had met her, of course. Then you would know that even mentioning his name would be a stupid waste of time, likely to end up with you covered in spaghetti bolognaise, or whatever else was near to hand. I threw away four ruined tops before I gave up asking.

“Sorry, duck. I wasn't around back then. Try the minstrel.”

Hidden in the trees I found the minstrel. Under an ornate velvet canopy, surrounded by children squatting on blankets, he looked quite possibly old enough to remember the original Robin Hood. I waited on the fringes of his audience until he had finished his tale, accompanying himself with what I think was a hurdy-gurdy, and then shooed the children away.

He watched me, beetling his bushy eyebrows as I moved toward the blankets. I coughed at the blockage in my throat.

“Can I just – ”

He held up his hand, palm facing me, like a policeman stopping traffic, then turned and lit a cigarette. He took a couple of long slow drags, eyes closed, and puffed the smoke out into the trees. I opened my mouth to speak again, but he grimaced and held up his hand, not bothering to open his eyes. Taking another drag, he pulled a flask out of his medieval tunic and tipped it to his mouth, wiping his sleeve across his face once he had finished drinking.

The minstrel opened his eyes and sighed. “What?”

“Well, I was just wondering, if you don't mind…”

“I'm on a break. Get to the point.”

“Do you recognize this man?” I rushed out the words, thrusting the photograph forward so that it didn't matter if he could understand my accent or not.

He flicked his eyes down for the tiniest of seconds, long enough for his pupils to contract. “No.”

“Are you sure? If you could just have another look, maybe you will recognize something else about the photo.”

“I said no.” The minstrel stared up at the sky without blinking. Now that I was finally here, something in me refused to be intimidated.

“I'm trying to find out when this photo was taken. Do you know anything about the festival in the eighties? Who played Robin Hood those years? Or anyone who might know something that could help me?”

He scratched at his stubble with yellowed fingertips. “I can't help you.”

“Please. I think this man might be my father. I just want to find out who he was.”

“I said I can't help. Drop it. Go home.”

Not “can't”; won't,
I thought as I walked away.

I spent the rest of the morning asking around, but the majority of the volunteers and entertainers were either too young or not around back then. The sting of the minstrel's rebuttal lodged in my mind, puncturing my initial enthusiasm. I decided to take a break for lunch, convinced that the one person who could actually help me, for some reason wouldn't.

I bought myself a sandwich and wandered through the woods to find somewhere quiet to sit, eventually winding up back at the main event area. Here a dozen old-style craft stalls, and demonstrations of the different aspects of medieval life, ranged around a currently empty main stage. I recognized some of the market traders from Hatherstone, including the man who had sold me a postcard. He smiled and introduced himself as Jimbo. Next to him, glaring like a two-fingered salute to all the attempts at authentic history, was the woman with pink hair.

I took a few minutes to pass around the photo. It sparked a complicated discussion about everybody they had ever known called Daniel, but they concluded that all those Daniels were the wrong age, the wrong size or too ugly to be the young man in the picture.
A couple of older traders did admit he seemed vaguely familiar, so I gave them the phone number of the Peace and Pigs, and asked them to call if they remembered anything else. They seemed interested enough in helping me, but once home, I wouldn't be sitting around waiting for the phone to ring.