After the documentary, they watched the news. There was a story about one of those hot sandy places where people are always shooting and blowing one another up. They showed a small child who had had one of his legs blown off by a bomb. Marion felt overwhelmed by a sense of pity as the boy stared into the camera with terrified brown eyes. Then she reminded herself that these things happened all the time, people suffered, that was the way of the world, and one had to accept it or go mad from thinking about it.
Then there was a piece about treatment for cancer patients. Marion didn’t like stories about illness; it reminded her of Aunt Agnes dying alone in the hospice. It also made her scared that she would get ill herself and one day die in one of those terrible places. But she watched anyway because John thought the news was important.
When the news was over, John switched off the TV and she began clearing the tea things. As she was about to take the tray through to the kitchen John stopped her.
“Sit down, Marion,” he said. “I want to talk to you about something.” Then he got a serious look on his face. “We will have to make another trip in a couple of weeks. To pick someone up. I’m expecting another visitor.”
For once she stood up to him. Marion said no, she couldn’t take it, not again, her nerves would just fall apart. She wouldn’t go with him to meet another girl. But John was so much better at arguing than she was. He had a clever way of putting things that always made it seem like he was right, whereas trouble addled Marion’s tongue and her words came out jumbled like the ravings of a madwoman.
He had a special feeling about this. From the messages she wrote, he sensed that she could be the right one, the girl who would love him when she got to know him. A girl he might marry, perhaps start a family with. Would his own sister deny him that? He needed to love and to be loved. He insisted that the girl would get suspicious if he turned up to collect her alone. She was more likely to feel safe in the presence of a mature woman. Apart from everything else, he had sent this girl a lot of money, for a passport and for the cost of her journey. All that would be wasted if they didn’t go to pick her up.
But what about the others, wondered Marion, hadn’t he felt the same way about them? And what would happen to them now? They were people, he couldn’t just hoard them away like those broken toasters and radios he never got round to fixing. Instead of answering her, John slipped into one of his dark moods. Each time he came into a room, she felt the temperature drop. Sometimes she caught him staring at her, and Marion would imagine a tiny version of herself trapped in the great dome of his balding head, crazily fleeing from flames and monsters. Bit by bit his moodiness sapped her resistance, each slam of a door or stamp on the stairs making her weaker.
? ? ?
ONE MORNING WHILE she was cleaning the bathroom, she heard a loud crash. The weight of dread she carried at all times got heavier as she made her way downstairs. On the living room floor, in front of the fireplace, were several pieces of broken china. She looked up to the mantelpiece and saw that the glazed white lion with bulging black eyes that had sat in the same spot all of Marion’s life was gone. Mother said it had been made in the Orient nearly a thousand years ago. When she was a child, Marion would stare at the lion for hours, then close her eyes; when she opened them again, she would be certain that its large head had turned slightly or one of its paws had moved.
John had broken it because he knew she loved it. As she gazed at the sharp white shards lying in the hearth she wondered what would be next. The milkmaid figurines with their pink cheeks and tiny rosebud mouths? The crystal jug with silver medallion that bore the arms of George III? It would be impossible to hide them all away from him. Picking up a dagger-shaped piece of china in her hand, she squeezed until a drop of blood oozed from her palm. How could anyone do this? How could he be so cruel?
The next day she found a headless shepherdess lying at the bottom of the stairs, a pale hand still clutching her crook, a baby lamb looking up forlornly at where its mistress’s sweet face used to be. The day after that it was a Japanese vase adorned with the story of two lovers and then the silver teapot with tiger paws dented beyond repair. Each time she found another precious object destroyed she felt like something inside her own body had been smashed.
Mother’s voice echoed in her head:
This is your fault, Marion. This wouldn’t happen if you just agreed to do what John wanted. You shouldn’t upset him. You know what he is like when he gets upset.
But I can’t, Marion insisted. I can’t do it, and I’m upset!
Mother’s only answer was to purse her lips and roll her eyes upwards.
? ? ?
ONE MORNING JOHN came up behind her while she was making tea in the kitchen and picked up the Paddington Bear mug she had used since she was twelve years old.
“All you have to do is sit in the damn car, Marion,” he said. “Even you can manage that, can’t you?”
She accepted that there was no point in trying to stand up to him; he was too strong-minded for her. And he knew that she couldn’t live with being hated. If she did as he said, just sat there and said nothing, waited until it was over, that wouldn’t be so bad, would it? She would do this to make him happy. Anything for a quiet and peaceful life. As soon as she had made the decision to help him, the weight became a little lighter.
“All right,” she declared. “I’ll do it.”
John placed the bear mug down on the work top.
The relief lasted until the night before they were due to pick up the new visitor. Marion lay awake all night, imagining stories on the news about a middle-aged brother and sister luring young foreign women to England then imprisoning them in a cellar. She heard Mother’s voice in her head:
No one cares about these girls. They’ve got nothing. That is why they come to this country. John can help the poor unfortunate things. He can give them an education and protect them from the evil men who want to use them.
But what about their families? she wondered. Someone must miss them and wonder what happens to them?
Their families don’t want them, no one does, replied Mother. Think how lucky you are, Marion, to have been born in England to a good family who took care of you. To have a decent home and financial security.
? ? ?
WHEN JOHN TAPPED on her door at 6:30 a.m., Marion forced herself out of bed and into the chilly bathroom, where silverfish were still slithering around the sink. Her limbs felt cold and strange, as if they didn’t belong to her at all but were attached instead to some stiffening corpse that she was forced to clean and dress. After managing to get herself down to the kitchen, she made a cup of tea and some toast, then sat there unable to eat or drink a mouthful.
John’s appetite was untroubled by nerves. He stuffed eggs, sausage, and bacon into his mouth with one hand while holding the newspaper in the other. He was wearing the black suit and tie that he had worn for Mother’s funeral. Marion, nervously picking at fuzz-berries that decorated the sleeves of her coat, wondered if she should have put on something smarter.