As she was sitting there listening to all of this, she imagined how the nasty woman would like it if something really awful happened to the baby. Perhaps a speeding car might hit little Charlie’s pushchair while she was crossing the road? Marion’s flush of pleasure was soon replaced by an unpleasant afterburn. It isn’t right to blame the child; he can’t help what his mother is like. Perhaps he will grow up to hate her. “I couldn’t abide by my mother, you know, such a rude overbearing woman.” Then the woman in the linen dress would die alone in some dingy retirement home wondering why her son never came to visit.
Working at one of the desks in the room was a man in his thirties who, according to his name tag, was in fact the manager of the whole store. As he typed at his computer his face assumed a pleasant smile. He was quite handsome in a soft, rumpled sort of way. He had a double chin and slightly receding brown hair. She noticed he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. Marion knew, of course, that this hardly affected her, but she did not like the idea of him being lonely, of going back to some small, bare flat and perhaps reheating one of the large variety of frozen meals sold by the supermarket (that he would be able to buy at a discount as a perk of his job); though perhaps bachelorhood might be preferable to being burdened with some overbearing wife like the woman who was now standing in the corridor shouting.
She quite liked just sitting there while he worked. It reminded her of visiting her father at the warehouse when she was a child, crayoning or turning the pages of a book while he sat at his desk writing checks or making phone calls. She enjoyed feeling as though she was part of something without any demands being made of her.
“Can I get you coffee or a water or anything?” the store manager asked her politely.
“Oh, I’m all right, thank you. That is very kind of you, though,” replied Marion.
Marion judged from his manner and voice that he was university educated. She wondered what would happen if she got up and tried to leave. Would the handsome, youngish manager try to restrain her?
Then they heard the woman outside exclaim:
“If you don’t have that crazy fat bitch arrested, I will have you fired and sue this bloody shop for negligence!”
At this point the manager glanced at Marion and gave a little shrug. Marion felt a flush of joy. This gesture let her know that they were allies, coconspirators against the awful woman.
Then the assistant manager, who had been standing outside the room listening to the woman’s complaints, came into the office looking weary. She was a heavy woman in her fifties. Her hands were bedecked with gaudy rings that seemed painfully tight for her thick fingers. Wiping a sheen of sweat from her flushed face, she looked at Marion, then turned to the manager and shook her head. All her gestures seemed exaggerated as if she were performing in a comic play. The manager swiveled round in his chair and leaned back with his hands behind his head in a relaxed manner. The office was so cramped that his outstretched leg brushed against Marion’s shin, making her flesh tingle.
“Do you really want me to call the police over this, Jeff?” said the woman in a strong Northport accent.
“I think we can sort it out ourselves, don’t you, Linda? This lady hardly seems a threat to me. Perhaps it was an accident, who can say. What if she apologized and offered to pay for the garment to be dry-cleaned?”
Linda looked at Marion with an expression of pantomime sternness.
“Would you be prepared to do that?”
“Of course, that seems reasonable, but how much ought I pay—?”
Marion took a wad of notes from her worn purse. Mother had always told her to carry a bit of spare cash in case of emergencies, and this, she supposed, was an emergency. Linda and Jeff were clearly quite surprised by the amount she held in her hand.
“You must have a couple of thousand quid in there, love. What if someone stole it?” asked Linda, her brows raised and eyeballs bulging.
“Well, I suppose if they did, I could just get some more out from the bank,” Marion replied.
Jeff and Linda exchanged looks that Marion did not quite understand.
“Tell you what, dear, give us a couple of hundred, and I’ll see what she says,” said Linda.
Marion handed over the money. A few minutes later Linda returned and said that although the woman had accepted her money, she did not want her apology, and Marion was free to go. Marion realized suddenly that she was sorry the little drama had ended so soon and that she would have to leave this office and the company of Jeff the store manager.
? ? ?
IT WAS DIFFICULT to chat with Mother, as even the blandest subjects might upset her. “White carnations make me think of Uncle Tom lying in that hospital bed while the tumor ate him alive,” she would complain if flowers were mentioned. Or if someone said they were packing to go on holiday, she would announce: “Suitcases remind me of all those poor Jews being sent off to the camps, they used to show films of their luggage piled up, packed ready to go off to their deaths.” And the conversation would be brought to a juddering halt.
Dad wasn’t much of a talker either. If someone started chatting to him, he usually picked up a newspaper or switched on the television in defense. Since her parents spent most of their married life in frigid silence, it seemed odd that after Dad’s death, Mother should become obsessed with the idea of communicating with his spirit, even insisting that Marion accompany her to weekly sessions of a spiritualist congregation at Northport Cultural Centre. The hall was let out to all different kinds of groups and societies, and each Thursday as the spiritualists arrived they would be met by Lycra-clothed women chugging water from plastic bottles and wiping hair from their sweaty faces after the “Trim and Tone” sessions.
Marion loved these evenings. For once she felt young and lively compared to the stale, misshapen souls who went along because the only people who ever loved them now resided on what was referred to as the “other side.” Toothless Mr. Bevan had been devastated by the loss of his mother despite the fact she had lasted to the age of ninety-seven, and he would gasp as if stuck by a dagger each time someone made reference to her favorite type of cakes, which happened to be coconut macaroons.
Bea King was an actress who regularly appeared as an extra in pub scenes of soap operas or the jury of legal dramas. She always wore long colorful caftans, and her face was surrounded by a vapor of red frizzy hair. Dark crusts of stage makeup gathered in the lines above her mouth when she dragged from her cigarette and talked about her only son, Michael, the product of a brief fling with a Nigerian jazz drummer, who had died of a heroin overdose.