‘Did you hear?’ she said, dealing out the cards.
‘Hear what?’
‘We got a new vicar.’
‘Oh,’ I said, carefully. ‘What’s he like?’
‘Dunno,’ she shrugged. ‘Old, I suppose. But the other guy left in a hurry.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah. He had to move out ’cause his house was burned down.’
MARGARET (name)
meaning: ‘a pearl’, ‘the bud of a flower’ or ‘daughter of light’.
Other variants of Margaret are: Maggie, Madge, Marge, Meg, Megan, Rita, Daisy, Greta, Gretel, Gretchen, Magee, Mary, Molly, Meggie, Peggy and Peg.
Once upon a time there was a boy called Hansel and a girl called Gretel. They were the children of a woodcutter. But their father had lost his job and they were very, very poor.
Their mother was a rather wicked lady.
‘We cannot keep these children,’ she said to their father. ‘It is too expensive. We must take them into the middle of the forest and leave them there. I’m sure they’ll be able to survive on their own. Children are very inventive.’
And because the father was bewitched by this woman, he said: ‘Yes, let’s. We’ll make a day of it.’
And so they did. They told Hansel and Gretel that they were going to take them on a picnic in the centre of the forest. The children were very excited; they’d never been on a picnic before.
But that night Hansel and Gretel overheard their parents talking about their plan to abandon them.
‘Hush,’ said the sister. ‘We will take some bread and drop crumbs out behind us so we can follow them all the way home.’
So they pulled pieces of the stale bread between their fingers and let them hit the ground behind them as they walked.
‘Here we are!’ Their mother spread her arms out wide in the middle of the woods. ‘How wonderful. Oh wait, what’s that, over there?’
Hansel and Gretel turned to look and, when they turned back, their parents had gone. It was so quick that Gretel wondered if they’d turned into trees.
‘Where’s the bread?’
But they saw a large blackbird eating the last of the bread they had dropped. So they were stuck.
After wandering through the woods for hours, they saw smoke in the distance. It was coming out of a chimney. The house the chimney was on top of was a strange house. It was made out of gingerbread and honey and cherries and nuts. Hansel’s stomach rumbled.
‘Let’s go and look!’
As they approached the front door, it opened and a lady came out. She was old and looked oddly familiar. She was very happy to see the children.
‘Come on in, my dears,’ she coaxed, and in they went.
But as soon as they were in the house, the woman slammed the door behind them.
Boom!
She grabbed Hansel and turned him into a bird, then threw him in a cage. He squawked in anger. Then the woman turned to Gretel and said she was going to feed her up. She said that she looked too thin. Gretel tried to run, but found her hands and legs were locked in chains. The woman made her sit on the floor, and she force-fed her: pomegranates full and fine
dates and sharp bullaces
rare pears and greengages
damsons and bilberries
currants and gooseberries
bright-fire-like barberries
and Gretel watched her stomach get bigger and bigger and bigger until she thought she was going to burst.
She cradled her stomach like it was the world.
‘Now,’ said the woman, when she had fed Gretel non-stop for four days and four nights. ‘Now you are ready to go in the oven.’
The oven was the mouth of the kitchen. The woman began to sing. ‘Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye. Let’s stuff this little girl into a pie …’
Gretel, her eyes so small in her swollen face, noticed a broom sidling up beside her.
‘Use me!’ it whispered.
So she did. Gretel managed to grab it between her chained-up hands and she waited until the woman had opened the oven and then pushed with all her might, shoving her in the back with the broom. The woman fell into the oven with a bang and a scream.
The smell of burning flesh was overpowering.
The spell was broken.
The cage and chains disappeared. Hansel turned back into a boy, Gretel grabbed his hand and they ran out of the house that was made of gingerbread and honey and cherries and nuts. They ran into the forest, and then all the way home, hope leading the way.
Their father was sitting outside their house in a deckchair, playing solitaire. He was very pleased to see them. He said that their mother had died unexpectedly in the night, and he was extremely sorry that he had tried to abandon them both in the woods.
They all sang and danced and had a big roast supper. Their father sharpened his carving knife for the occasion. They all tucked in.
‘Daddy, what kind of meat is this?’ Gretel asked, a big chunk of it stuck in her teeth.
‘A new kind,’ her father said, calmly cutting it up into very small pieces. ‘Now, don’t forget to eat your greens.’
The man next to me in the gallery has moved on. I can see him looking back at me every so often as though he thinks I’m crazy.
The assistants are beginning to move around the gallery, tapping people on the shoulder, saying that they’re about to close up. That it’s time to go.
Mary is standing by the sink, folding the ironing. She has thirty minutes until her taxi arrives. The taxi that will take her to the clinic. She’s sewn coins into the waistband of her jeans, one-pound coins that line her hips with gold, like a halo. A chastity belt. She’ll also drink two litres of water at the end of the taxi ride, if she can hold it in. That will help. She folds clothes, the bones of her wrists flashing upwards.
‘Hey. How’s it going?’
Mary nearly jumps out of her transparent skin. There is a man sitting at the kitchen table.
She can’t help but notice that his feet are on fire.
‘Who the hell are you? How did you get in here?’
‘Always be prepared, that’s my motto,’ and he holds his hands up in fake surrender.
‘I didn’t hear you break in!’
‘Mary, Mary.’ He flashes her a winning smile. ‘I made myself a spare key. Cuts down on all the divine apparition. You know, sometimes it’s nice to do things the human way. I’m an angel, you see.’
Mary doesn’t know what to say. She doesn’t know whether to call the police. Or perhaps the fire brigade.
Or perhaps she’s just seeing things again.
‘I’ve got an appointment soon, you know,’ she says. ‘So perhaps you should leave.’
But Gabriel doesn’t leave. Mary tries to pretend he isn’t there. She turns back to the ironing and starts singing to herself. ‘Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye, four and twenty blackbirds …’
But then Gabriel begins to sing too: ‘Mary, Mary, quite contrary. How does your garden grow?’
She glares at him but he doesn’t stop.
‘With silver bells and cockle shells and pretty maids all in a row … Do you realise that that’s a song about mass execution?’