Feeling sour and overstuffed, Marion dragged herself upstairs to the top floor of the house. The walls of the attic bedroom, where she had slept since she was a child, were covered with faded roses, and little gray bunnies raced in and out of the folds of the curtains that hung at the windows. Against one wall stood a glass-fronted cabinet containing her collection of animal figurines; next to that was a small bookshelf that housed her favorite books: Beatrix Potter: The Complete Tales, The Secret Garden, Ballet Shoes, C. S. Lewis, and the Harry Potter books that John had bought for her a few years ago.
A dusty landscape of assorted items covered the dressing table by the window. There was a bottle of lavender water that smelled like vinegar and rust, but Marion could never have thrown it out because the picture on the label of a peasant girl picking flowers outside a thatched cottage filled her with sweet, achy nostalgia for summers in the country that existed only in her imagination. This and the other perfume bottles had rested on the same spot for so many years, they had burnt circles in the varnish. Behind a box of sun-faded tissues, a bottle of Mum deodorant, and several small containers of things like nasal spray and decongestant was a music box. If you opened the lid, a tiny, crook-backed ballerina with ragged skirts would jerkily turn to “Lara’s Theme” from Doctor Zhivago. The jewelry inside consisted of mostly costume pieces along with yellowish pearls given to her by her mother when she was eighteen.
Marion sat down on the bed. Looking at the half-open, cherrywood wardrobe that had several old fleeces and a pair of gray pajama bottoms spilling out of it, she felt once more the sting of Judith’s comments about her clothes. She only wore things made from soft, stretchy material that did not cut into the plump folds of her body. She was, in fact, rather fond of the dark brown slacks that Judith had been snooty about, though it was true the hem on the left leg had come undone, so it trailed on the floor and got a bit dirty sometimes.
She never thought what clothes might make her more attractive or fashionable; in fact, she never considered how she might appear to other people at all because, in general, people did not look at her. Of course, John might, but in the way that people who have known someone for a very long time look at them; that is, without really seeing at all, their minds having built an impression of one’s appearance over many years of familiarity that is nearly impossible to alter.
On the single bed, all piled on top of one another, were Marion’s friends. She lay down so the soft toys were crammed beneath her body and then hugged them to her breast, pushing her face into their musty fur, feeling the cold hard glass of little eyes pressed against her cheek. There was Ben Blue, a lively little chap, with his cream fur and blue dungarees. Though she loved him, she still felt the hot burn of shame when remembering the time he had fallen out of her satchel in French Conversation and all the other girls had laughed at her for bringing a toy to school at fourteen. Big Woof was a long-legged, doglike creature whose remaining black glass eye was filled with sorrow. She had found him in the Age Concern shop for fifty pence and always sensed there was some tragedy in his past; perhaps the child who once owned him had died. Freddy Fatpaws, a tough guy who picked fights with the others if she didn’t watch him closely, had been found sticking out of Mr. Weinberg’s rubbish bin. Marion had had to sew back together the places where his fur was ripped from being chewed by Mr. Weinberg’s dog.
Marion tried not to have favorites, but if she could only save one from a fire, she would no doubt pick Bettina, a large, silky gray rabbit. She was very proud of her beautiful sky-blue velvet bow and preferred to keep to herself rather than mix with the other toys. Bettina had been given to Marion by her aunt Agnes for Christmas when she was eleven.
That was the year Agnes had come to eat Christmas dinner with the family. Aunt Agnes, who wore fashionable trouser suits and had her blond hair cut in a short fluffy style, was Mother’s younger sister. When she was a child, Marion loved her in that swoony, yearning way little girls reserve for fairy princesses and angels.
Normally they went to the Northport Grand for Christmas dinner, but this year Mother wanted to stay at home because they no longer allowed smoking in the banquet suite, and she “just couldn’t face the thought of sitting amongst all those people in paper hats chewing at once like a herd of cows.” Marion and Aunt Agnes helped Mother to cook the meal, since Mrs. Morrison had Christmas off.
While they worked, the three of them joked around, singing along to Christmas songs on the radio, wearing baubles as earrings, and draping tinsel around their necks; even Mother smiled and laughed, though normally she just rubbed her forehead like she had a headache at any kind of horseplay. Mother and Aunt Agnes showed Marion how to jitterbug, a dance they used to do when they were girls, and the three of them practiced in the middle of the kitchen, grasping one another by the hand and spinning around until John came in, with the expression of someone serving a summons, and said Dad wanted to know if they were likely to be eating before New Year’s Eve or not.
When Agnes set the turkey down on the table with a triumphant “taaa-daa,” Dad glowered as if it were a roasted rat. During the meal he kept moaning about everything: the carrots were overcooked; the meat was dry; the gravy was full of lumps.
Then Aunt Agnes, who was known for speaking her mind, suddenly shouted out, “Go and get fish and chips from the end of the pier, Philip, if you don’t like it.” Marion still remembered that feeling of cold horror when Dad had got up from the table with his fist clenched as though he was about to hit Agnes. Instead, he had thrown a full jug of gravy on the floor, where it smashed, leaving a pool of brown sludge with shards of white porcelain sticking out like monster’s teeth. When Agnes left, Marion had been so devastated that she went out and deliberately ate several of the berries in the garden from the bad bush and ended up having her stomach pumped a second time.
Marion took hold of Bettina and hugged the rabbit tightly to her chest, but soft toys were not enough to comfort her, and she felt bad inside as if the poison berries were again rotting her tummy. Then Neil came into the room and sat on the bed beside her. She felt the weight of his hand as he began to stroke her back, and the bad feeling faded.
“Everything will be all right,” said Neil, because that was what she wanted him to say.
SCHOOL