Making Marion (9 page)

I found a spare bench and ate my sandwich opposite an enormous, ancient tree: the Major Oak, where Robin Hood supposedly hid from the evil Sheriff of Nottingham. It formed the backdrop to my father's photograph. Except that now, the tree's giant branches were held up by posts and metal supports – a protective fence preventing tourists getting close enough to touch it. In the photograph the boy called Daniel leaned with one hand propped against the gnarled trunk. I watched the tree, wishing I could do the same.

A loud trumpet blast made me jump. The crowd turned their heads toward the sound of shouting from the forest to one side of us, and out of the trees galloped two horses, with several men running alongside them. The rider of the first horse called out.

“All hail the Sheriff of Nottingham!”

There were murmurings and a few laughs. One of the men on foot, who were all dressed as soldiers, pointed his massive sword at a man at the front of the crowd.

“Bow before your lord or face the consequences, peasant!”

The man, grinning to the people either side of him, bent over and tipped his baseball cap.

“All of you!” the first man on the horse hollered. “Hail your Sheriff!”

Most of the visitors made some sort of gesture, either a quick nod of the head or, for the bigger show-offs, a more flamboyant bow. I huddled on my picnic bench and kept still.

The second man on horseback, dressed in black and silver, nudged his horse over to where I sat. He wore a large velvet hat tipped over half his face. He swung one leg over the side of the horse and jumped down to the ground, right in front of me. I
gripped the empty sandwich wrapper in my fist. A shadow fell over the bench as the Sheriff stepped closer. The crowd watched all this, silent except for the occasional catcall or whistle. They thought it was part of the entertainment. I was in the preliminary stages of an anxiety attack.

“Pray tell – ” the Sheriff spoke in a pretend medieval lord's accent – “what beautiful maiden is this, who doth scorn me, the Sheriff of Notting-ham, by refusing to bow? Name yourself!”

Oh no. The voice belonged to Jake. I wriggled on my seat, and tried to find his eyes underneath the shadow of the stupid hat so that he would see my terror and leave me alone.

He drew a frighteningly realistic looking sword with a dramatic swish and poked the tip about two inches from the pulse that pounded in my throat.

“Your name.”

“Jake, please…” I whispered, while the crowd listened in, transfixed.

“Your name,” he shouted. “Or shall we throw her in the stocks?”

This got a mixture of cheers and boos. The stocks were all the way over on the other side of the field. Right then I would rather he kill me with that sword than drag me across the clearing and place me in the stocks. But a drawbridge had slammed across my voice box. As the crowd grew noisier, I panicked my way through my mute busters. Jake tipped back his hat with his free arm and peered at me.

“Come on,” he murmured out of the side of his mouth. “I can't back down now. Just tell me your name, give me a bow and I'll move on to the next bit.”

I forced a tiny whistle of air up through my throat. “Marion,” I mouthed, waiting for the earth to open up and swallow me whole. It was much easier to bow my head forwards toward his feet. The hard part would be pulling myself up again.

Jake heaved a sigh of relief and put one hand on my shoulder. “Sorry. Didn't mean to embarrass you,” he mumbled, smiling ruefully.

Calling out to his men, he took the reins of the horse now nibbling on the grass behind him. “She yields! Onwards, men! We have a foul outlaw to lay hold of this night.”

But one of his men must have had supersonic hearing. Either that or he could read lips. Or was just mean.

“With all due respect, my lord, have you lost your mind?”

Jake snapped around. His eyes flashed.

“Did you not hear that this is none other than the Maid Marion? This is the lady who has stolen the heart of that dastardly fiend, Hood. Surely this would be a perfect opportunity to ensnare the evil criminal and rid ourselves of him once and for all?”

A murmur rippled through the spectators. A voice called out: “Tie her to a tree and use her as bait.”

I saw who had shouted and wanted to rip out her hair one pink strand at a time.

Jake hesitated. The crowd liked this idea. Again, they thought it was all part of the show. A chant rose up. “Tie her to a tree! Tie her to a tree!”

I braced myself, shifting back as far as I could on the bench. Weren't the people supposed to be on Robin Hood's side? Jake twisted around to find his men gathering closer. They began urging him to give the visitors what they wanted.

Jake bent down and took hold of one of my wrists. His touch was light but I flinched anyway, yanking my arm away.

“Look. It's only for fun. Robin's due here any second – he's probably waiting in the woods watching us already. I'll just walk you over to the tree and wrap some rope around, okay?”

No, it was not okay. However, I was way beyond speech. I looked at Jake and my eyes must have screamed at him not to do this. But I was one girl who had dented his pride. Behind him, a dozen men with swords and a mob high on candyfloss and Friar Tuck's home brew stood watching. He took hold of my hands, gently enough that they still had room to quake inside his grip, and led me over to the Major Oak. I would get to touch it after all.

When I was nine years old, on holiday for the third time, my delightful cousin Declan had tied me up and trapped me in the coal bunker. I was there for six hours before Uncle Keith found me.

When I was eleven, he enlisted the help of Benny to tie me up again. This time they left me in the woods overnight.

I was thirteen, and wearing my first teen-sized bra, when he tied me to a tree and decided to unleash all of his hate and his evil, angry poison on a girl who would not tell of his crimes. My bra was ruined, but I decided it suited me better that way. I patched it up and carried on wearing it, wishing that my life could be held together with just a needle and a reel of cotton.

The next time Declan tied me up, someone found us. That someone beat Declan until he needed to spend three weeks in hospital. He made sure that Declan never came near me again. That is why, ten years later, when that someone pushed a diamond ring onto my finger it was harder than it should have been to take it off.

As Jake coiled the thick, twisty snake of rope around my body, some sort of long-buried survival mechanism kicked in. I began to fight. Jake's handsome face was gone. All I could see were the shiny, gleeful eyes of my cousin. I kicked and bucked and hollered. I think I may have spat.

Gasping, frantic, with the desperate instinct of a wounded animal, I wrestled my way out of the hands that seized me, and fled back toward the shadows of the forest.

Twenty strides in, a pair of hands reached out from behind a tree and grabbed my shoulders. I screamed. The hands flipped me around, pressing my face against a leather-clad chest, stifling the sound. I found myself pulled behind the huge trunk, lost in panic and frantic fear. A muffled voice spoke just above my ear. “Calm down. You're safe. I've got you.”

I couldn't calm down. A volcano of buried emotions had erupted. I pushed and wriggled, and tried to twist my head from side to side. I scratched at his wrists, stamped the heel of my trainer down on
his foot. For a long time he let me fight, repeating his words over and over again.

“You're safe. Calm down. Just breathe.”

Finally, spent, I stopped struggling. He loosened his grip.

“Are you going to scream?”

I shook my head.

He let go of my arms. I stepped away, keeping my head angled to watch him as my body bent double, gulping in air.

It was Robin Hood. I could tell by the outfit, which was an exact copy of the one that Daniel had worn. The bottom half of his face was covered in a dark scarf. His hood was pulled forwards, leaving the rest of his features hidden in shadow.

“Better?”

I nodded, too drained to feel embarrassed.

“You just had a panic attack.”

“I know.” I shrugged, standing upright, wiping my trembling hands across my face. “A thing happened to me once. I guess I'm not over it yet.”

“Well –” Robin Hood's voice was grim from behind his scarf – “not many people would have enjoyed being caught on the wrong end of Jake's overinflated ego.” He shook his head. “He's a fool. He should be banned from volunteering.”

“Maybe.” I remembered the look of confusion and hurt on Jake's face when I raked my nails down his cheek. “Do you think jumping out from behind trees and grabbing women is any better?”

“For the evil Sheriff of Nottingham? Absolutely not. For Robin Hood? Most women in this forest dream about having me wrap my arms around them.”

He tipped his hood back so that I could see his eyes for the first time, and winked at me, disappearing into the trees.
Darn.
Those eyes. Twilight in the forest.

I tramped back through the greenery, avoiding the paths, hoping I was moving in the direction of the exit. I still had the photograph in the back pocket of my jeans, but I had left my bag by the picnic
bench. I didn't go back for it, trusting that Jake or one of the market traders would have kept it safe for me.

Jake.
Now we had a reason to make working together even more awkward. I would have to tell Scarlett. Except she was bound to know what had happened already. I pondered what advice she might give about dealing with the situation. Apologize, forgive, get over it, move on. I could do that. Jake wasn't to know the scars I still bore from Declan's attentions.

I reached the visitor's centre and tidied myself up in the toilets. Finding my car, I managed to hold it together until I saw my bag on the passenger seat. Somebody must have made pretty good time to get there before me. My purse and keys were still inside. Opening up my purse to check if all the money was still there, I found a tightly folded piece of paper squashed in with my loose change. A note: “FORGET HIM!”

I climbed out of my car, closed the door, ripped the paper into a hundred thousand tiny pieces and chucked them into the air like rotten confetti. I was back in my car and out of the car park before the last swirling, spinning fragment hit the ground.

But then came the finishing touch to round off my day, just in case it hadn't been rubbish enough. I don't believe in luck or fate. The reason bad things come in threes is because after the first two you are so stressed out, fed up, exhausted and distracted, thinking about ropes, crowds, crusty minstrels, pink hair and notes, to look where you are going. Your head hangs so low, you stop paying attention to the road in front of you, or, in this case, the person who steps out in front of you.

I ran over Maid Marion.

I was crawling along the road leading out of the car park, alongside a steady stream of visitors ambling in the opposite direction. The ridiculously tall, attractive woman bounced off my bumper and landed in the arms of the man who was behind her. One of quite a few men. The look on his face reminded me of when a ball flies into the crowd at a football match and someone catches it.

I climbed out of the car. Not quite as quickly as I should have done but, to be fair, much faster than I wanted to. The woman's hat had fallen off, revealing thick blonde hair.

“I am so sorry. Are you okay? Shall I call an ambulance?”

A small girl in an outlaw costume pointed her bow and arrow at me. “You ran over Maid Marion. Robin's gonna get you for this.”

The woman delicately prised herself out of the man's arms. “No, I'm fine, honestly. I wasn't looking where I was going. Really; all my fault. I should be the one apologizing. I only hope I didn't dent your car.”

We looked at the car. It was impossible to tell which of the dents, if any, had been caused by today's accident.

“I bet she's working for the Sheriff. Traitor!” The same girl spoke again.

I was beyond arguing. My victim had to step in to defend me.

“No, no. It was an accident, I'm sure. Wasn't it?”

“She's probably jealous. Look at her. She doesn't even have a flower in her hair. And she's fat.”

How bad would it look if I just jumped into my car and drove away? I breathed for a moment.

“Can I take you to a medic? Is there a first aid tent somewhere?”

“I don't think so!” the man who had caught her said. “We'll take her. Make sure she gets there safely.”

Marion's groupies began shuffling away, forming a protective circle around her. She limped gracefully, if that was possible. Like a bruised flower or a butterfly with a damaged wing. Smiling the whole time.

“Oh, thank you; you are so kind. No, I don't need you to carry me. I'm sure I can manage. Really, it was only a scrape.”

I hurried after them, handing the other, superior Marion a scrap of paper with my name and phone number on it. “Here, just in case you need to contact me. And I am really, really sorry.”

She scanned the paper. “Oh. You're Marion.”

This caused a murmur about concussion, and delirium setting in. The groupies shrank the circle closer. Maid Marion bent close to me, still smiling, and whispered, “I'm Erica, Reuben's girlfriend. He's told me
all
about you.”

I thought about Reuben stroking that perfect glossy hair while gazing into those perfect blue eyes on top of perfect long, skinny legs and telling her all about me, and broken bicycle brakes, and ninja chickens.

I went home, and after eating an entire coconut cake climbed under my duvet, planning on staying there for a very long time.

T
he day after the festival, a huge bunch of pink and white roses was delivered to my caravan door, with a note saying: “Sorry. I'm an idiot. Please forgive me. Jake.”

I found him hammering nails into a fence supposed to prevent Little Johnny escaping: a token gesture for insurance purposes. In reality, Little Johnny did exactly as he pleased, wherever he felt like doing it. Jake banged at the nails with as much enthusiasm as he might use to build his own coffin. I tapped him on the shoulder, making him slip and hit himself with the hammer.

“Sorry!”

He jerked around, biting back his curse when he saw who it was.

“Don't be.” He held out the hammer. “Here – take a swing. I deserve it.”

I ignored the gesture, instead waving my hand toward his face where three angry red lines scored down his cheek. “I think I did enough damage yesterday.”

Jake grasped hold of my hand. “I am really, really sorry, Marion. I never meant to upset you.” He grimaced. “I was actually trying to impress you. But now you know the truth: I am a complete loser.”

“Woah. Don't start feeling sorry for yourself. That will get you nowhere.” I pulled my hand back and folded my arms. “Anyway. Thank you for the flowers. And I accept your apology. I have issues with ropes that you weren't to know about. Let's just forget it ever happened.”

“Whatever you say.” Jake grinned at me, crinkling up his eyes. “And for the record, I'm going along with whatever you say from now on. You were fierce, Marion. You should be a cage fighter. Or one of those ultimate wrestlers. Remind me never to startle you in a dark alleyway.”

“Do you have a computer?”

“What?” He frowned at my interruption.

“I need to use a computer, with internet access. Can I borrow yours?”

“Yeah, sure. Anytime. No problem.”

“Thanks. Are you off this Thursday?”

“Yes.”

“Okay if I come over around two?”

Jake thought for a moment. “No. I'm busy then. It will have to be later. Come at six, and stay for dinner.”

I took a deep breath. “Jake, I need to borrow a computer, from a friend. I don't want a date.”

He stuck his hands in his jeans pockets and rocked back on his heels a couple of times. “I know; whatever you say, remember. You're the boss.” His mouth was a straight line but his eyes still crinkled. Hmmm. I needed to use a computer. I would just have to run the gauntlet of Jake's intentions to do it.

 

On Thursday, just after six, I propped Pettigrew, brakes fully repaired thanks to Reuben, against the wall outside Jake's flat before buzzing the intercom. Taking the bike had been a calculated decision. It would be dark by nine o'clock, which gave me a good excuse to leave before then if I wanted to take the shorter route along the forest footpath. I cycled a lot these days. It was cheaper and more pleasant than using my car, and muscle definition was beginning to show along my thighs and upper arms for the first time. It felt amazing being able to ride further and faster as the days went by, without getting out of breath. As a child I had careened between being a grey-skinned bag of bones and an overinflated punching
bag, depending upon whether I had been living with my mother's neglect or Auntie Paula's fish suppers. But I had always been fat, or skinny, or somewhere on my way to one of those. Not strong. And never healthy.

I hitched up my trousers. If I carried on losing weight I would have to do something about the state of my wardrobe. The deliberate layer of protective bagginess was progressing toward bag lady chic. And while I didn't want Jake to open the door, take one look at my outfit and start cooking up plans to wriggle me out of it, I had sprouted a tiny seedling of pride in my appearance. I didn't
loathe
the idea of somebody else noticing the muscles emerging from under my flab.

Jake buzzed me in, meeting me at the top of the steps leading up to his flat. It was pretty much as I had expected: a living area leading to a small, functional kitchen with a two-man table in one corner and a giant-sized television looming over the rest of the room. The decor was straight-down-the-line IKEA. He had no photos, nothing more revealing than a copy of FHM and his guitar propped up against the sofa.

“I like your herbs.” A tray containing five plants filled the kitchen windowsill.

Jake smiled. “Come and look at these then.”

He pointed outside another window, to a flat roof. On here he had at least a dozen large pots containing plants of varying sizes. Some had fruit to identify them: tomatoes and peppers, and what might have been cucumbers or baby courgettes.

“Oh! I love them! I didn't know you could grow all this without a garden.”

Jake pushed up the sash window and I leaned out, inhaling the Mediterranean smell.

“Here.” He leaned past, squeezing me into the corner of the frame, and plucked a cherry tomato from the nearest bush. “Try it.”

“It's nothing like a normal tomato!” It wasn't. It was tomato to the power of ten.

“Wrong.” Jake grinned, pulling the window shut as we moved away. “That's what a normal tomato tastes like. It's those plasticized, chemicalized supermarket freaks that aren't normal.”

“Point taken.”

We made a bit more small talk, then Jake opened up his laptop on the sofa, and clicked onto a search engine. He passed the computer over to me, where I balanced it on my knees. I would have suggested using the table in the kitchen area, but had to keep pretending I hadn't noticed the two large candles and vase of flowers on it.

He excused himself to go and sort out dinner. Heart, stomach and kidneys in my mouth, I began my search.

Forty minutes later, and I was still searching. I had found out some information about this year's Robin Hood Festival, and the previous couple of years, but here the path came to a dead end. Combining the name “Daniel” with words like “Robin Hood” or “Hatherstone” or “Sherwood” proved equally unsuccessful. There were way too many Daniel and Henry Millers online to search through them all, but none were local, and all of them seemed to be still alive. Then, just as Jake announced that the meal was ready, I found a tiny online article from a local newspaper talking about the history of the local Robin Hood enthusiasts' club. It mentioned a man, Morris Middleton, who had been the club secretary since 1972. How many M. Middletons could there be living in the area? The answer, according to Jake's phone book, was nine.

I copied out the numbers, scribbling as fast as possible, and joined Jake at the table. We helped ourselves to pasta and salad. The salad was incredible. I allowed Jake to pour me a small glass of wine.

“Did you find what you needed?”

“Maybe.”

Jake waited. He put down his fork. I squirmed on my IKEA chair. He had let me borrow his computer, even if there had been an ulterior motive. I had to give him something.

“I'm looking for information about my dad. He died when I was seven and I don't know much about his past. I think he came from round here.”

“You must have searched the internet back home? Or don't they have modern technology in the Irish backcountry?”

I laughed. “They do in the library where I work. But… I don't know; I wasn't ready before. And then I had some holiday come up, so I thought why not come and see for myself? Then I would be here to follow up any clues I found online.”

“So you think there might be a mystery to investigate?”

“Aren't all families a mystery?”

Jake looked down. He took a large gulp of wine, muttering under his breath, “No mystery required to be a total disaster.”

I changed the subject.

Dinner was nice, and I could chat easily enough to Jake as long as I didn't meet his eye and could busy myself with eating. But once the meal was finished, awkwardness crept back along with the dusk. I declined a coffee, and got up to leave.

“Thanks so much for letting me use your laptop. And for dinner. You're a really good cook.” I picked up my bag. “Well; work tomorrow. And I've got to bike back. I'd better go.”

Jake stood up. He moved out from around the table so there was nothing between us.

“If you want I could drop you home. I can bring the bike back tomorrow. Then you don't have to rush.”

I glanced across at the empty bottle of wine on the table. Jake had drunk all of it except for one small glass.

“No. Thank you. I've got to go.”

He lifted one hand and gently brushed it against my arm, lowering his voice to almost a whisper. “Stay for a bit.”

I stared at the floor. My face must have been redder than his oh-so-juicy-and-delicious tomato collection.

“Jake…”

“What? We're having a good time, that's all. It's not a date. I'm
behaving myself. Honestly, Marion, I just love being with you. The fact that you are totally gorgeous has nothing to do with it.” He smiled and held his hands up, innocent.

The problem with living for eight years with a boyfriend who treats you like a pigeon he rescued from the side of the road, who never makes you feel special, or beautiful, or interesting, is that you are prone to fall for the first man who comes along and tells you something different. Jake was an expert flatterer. I felt terrified and bamboozled and most definitely flattered. So I did what I do when I don't know what to do. I ran away.

I was fifteen when I took my first steps along the painful, jagged, potholed path out of mutism. Declan lay in a hospital bed with, among other things, a smashed-up face and three broken ribs. Neither I, nor my rescuer, had said anything to anybody. I later heard that Declan had claimed a gang of men from some terrorist organization tried to recruit him, and when he refused they made him pay.
Everybody
saw through this hilarious hogwash. The local police officers, having had the displeasure of dealing with Declan on numerous occasions in the past, would rather have bought a pint for whoever beat him up than arrest them. Many stones were left unturned during the investigation.

But somebody now knew what had been happening to me. And he wasn't prepared to ignore the fact that my silence protected an evil, perverted sicko.

It was easy to find out where I lived.

“Marion!” my mother screeched up the stairs. I came down to find him at the front door. Eamonn Brown. He was a year above me at school. One of the popular kids, son of the local doctor who sent my mother to hospital on several occasions. He had, of course, never spoken to me before.

“Hi.”

I froze. What was he doing here?

“Would you come for a walk?”

My mother smirked as she hovered in the doorway. “Good luck with that.” She curled her lip. “And with her.”

I stepped out of the door, slamming it shut behind me, marching off down the path and down the road until I knew my mother couldn't see me from where she would be peering through a slit in the net curtains.

Eamonn caught up, matching me stride for stride on the outside of the pavement, as nice boys did.

“You have to tell someone.”

I shook my head, quickly. Tell someone what? That my cousin had pinned me down and shoved dirt inside me?

“I don't care if he says it was me that hurt him. He deserved it, and any jury would agree.”

Maybe so. But a trial for GBH would surely put a dampener on Eamonn Brown's plans to follow his father into medicine. I kept walking.

“Okay. Forget that for now. I came to tell you Ma has a job for you.”

What? I turned to look at him for the first time.

“She works at the library.”

I knew she worked at the library. I spent more time in the library than I did at my own house. With the exception of Father Francis's office, it was the only place I felt any peace.

“She says you can start whenever you like, but you'll need to be able to talk to the visitors. She can keep the job open until school breaks up, but then she'll have to offer it elsewhere.”

We walked a little further. Eamonn talked about his school work and his plans to go to Belfast University. He told me where he was going on holiday and that his dad had got him some hours as a porter to earn enough money to buy a computer. How his football team had reached the cup finals. I barely listened. I was thinking and thinking about that job. About enough money to stop being
hungry all the time. About somewhere to go that might become a stepping stone out of here. About Mrs Brown's warm smile and how she always smelled of biscuits. I had seven weeks until the end of school. Seven weeks to heal the girl hiding in my throat.

We circled back and reached my front gate. Eamonn smiled, and nodded goodbye. “See you around then, Marion? I'll tell Ma you'll let her know about the job. Bye.”

I stood and watched him saunter off toward the centre of town. The first boy who had called for me. The first
anyone
who had called for me. My mouth opened and closed again, blowing out a tiny, whispery husk of air. “Bye.”