“Well, get him to make them somewhere else. Just think of the extra money a lodger would bring. You could go on holiday somewhere fabulous. That reminds me: I must show you the picture of the villa.”
Marion made agreeable noises while Judith showed pictures of a resort that she and Greg had visited recently on their holiday to Turkey. Not having her glasses on, all she saw was a blur of swimming-pool blue and scorching sunshine as Judith’s phone was waved before her eyes.
The phone rang again. This time the noise was shriller and less frivolous than before.
“That’s Greg again, texting about some earthenware cats we’re having delivered. They really are quite charming, all one-off pieces. The woman who makes them served five years in prison for prostitution and drug dealing—that’s where she learned her craft.”
She paused, perhaps to assess if Marion was shocked.
“Anyway, it’s a fascinating story. You should come in and have a look, Marion, might be your sort of thing.”
Then Judith began picking up things from the table, even though Marion’s tiny cup of espresso was still half full.
“I hate to rush you off. We really should do this more often—oh, before I forget . . .” Judith’s mouth, now the dull maroon of overcooked meat, tightened. “. . . there was one small thing I needed to ask you. You know that large sycamore at the end of your garden? Well, several of its branches are overhanging my wall, and I think it might be diseased. You really ought to get it cut down. If you like, I could give you the name of a man.”
A weight pressed against Marion’s heart. She had played around the sycamore tree as a child, believing fairies lived inside the trunk and the spinning seeds were their discarded wings. At the same time she was afraid of saying no. Judith could get so angry when she didn’t get what she wanted. Her words came out in a stuttering confusion.
“I don’t really—the sycamore—diseased—but—but are you sure? Perhaps—”
Judith’s sharp tone sliced through Marion’s mumbling.
“Yes, Marion, it clearly needs to be cut down. That ugly old thing is rotten through and through. Also it blocks all the light from my gazebo.”
Marion pulled the raincoat hood back over her head as if it had suddenly started pouring with rain inside Judith’s hallway.
“I suppose you’re right, but I don’t know. I’ll have to ask John about it.”
“Make sure you do as soon as possible and get it dealt with before something awful happens.”
When she reached the refuge of her own hallway, Marion pulled the raincoat off, and then threw it down on top of a pile of old scientific magazines. She went straight into the kitchen and looked out the window. To her, the tree was a kindly old man spreading out his arms in welcome. It was impossible to believe it could be dangerous, yet why would Judith make such a fuss otherwise?
Marion filled the kettle to make a cup of sweet tea that would wash away the bitter taste left by lunch. John was right, the only reason Judith had asked her over was because she wanted the tree cut down. And all that talk about falling in love. Didn’t she realize that of course Marion wanted affection and romance just as much as anyone else? While other people went around having things happen to them—getting married, having children, getting divorced, then married again to someone else—it seemed she was fated to just drift through life without being touched or touching anything else.
She realized this was probably down to her looks. Her face wasn’t hideous, but it seemed unable to hold anyone’s attention longer than, say, a brick or tree stump. Plain women got husbands, but they tended to be the pushy kind. If she had been more forthright, she might have got herself a man, but she hated to impose on anyone. That was how she had been brought up; not to force her needs or opinions on anyone else. Wait for them to come to you, Mother always said, only no one did. She already knew that her life had been a disappointment by most people’s standards. For Judith to point this out seemed unnecessarily mean.
Marion knelt down on her hands and knees and then took a battered tin from the cupboard. On the lid was a picture of a ruined castle surrounded by lush green foliage. She put her fingernails under the edge of the lid, and the tin opened with a satisfying metallic pop. Inside was a shiny brown Dundee cake covered with almonds. Picking up the cake with her bare hands, she began to break off big, crumbly lumps and then ram them into her mouth.
That lunch of nasty green things wouldn’t have satisfied a flea, thought Marion, reveling in the feeling of solid, sweet cake filling her mouth and stomach.
As she was sitting on the floor chewing mouthfuls of cake, she imagined something bad happening to Judith; perhaps she would be wrongly accused of a crime and forced to go to Marion for help.
“You were the only one I could turn to, Marion,” Judith would say penitently. “Even Greg has turned his back on me.”
“I will do all I can to help you,” Marion would say with a noble expression on her face.
And then Judith would go down on her knees and weep with gratitude. When Judith was finally proven innocent, they would stand outside the courtroom to be interviewed by TV cameras.
Judith would say, “I’d like to thank my good friend Marion Zetland for standing by me in this time of difficulty. And I just want to say I’m sorry for being such a bitch to her in the past.” Then she would take hold of Marion’s hand and raise it into the air.
After eating over a quarter of the cake, Marion began to feel disgusted with herself. She knew she at least ought to cut it into slices and eat from a plate while sitting at the table, but she had no more control than if someone else were shoving food into her mouth, so she kept on eating more and more until it was all gone.