She forgave them, though. They were sad and for some reason missed her annoying sister. Nobody could turn back the clock, so all she could do now was be the best daughter they could wish for, better than the daughter they imagined cry-baby Sheila would have been.
Margaret stood and continued unpacking the candles. If paying penance for a crime others said she’d committed was the way back to her parents’ hearts, so be it. As she stacked the boxes, Margaret vowed from that day on she would dedicate her life to making them happy and proud, glad to have a daughter like her, Mother’s Little Helper, Daddy’s Perfect Moonbeam. Their one and only.
6
Margaret checked her watch. Four hours before she had to collect Herbert from the prison in Nottingham. It was a ninety-minute drive but she wanted to set off early and be there well before he was released. It would be strange, being alone in the car with him after making do with holding hands across a table in the visiting hall, fitting everything into an hour. He would need time to adjust and so would she. Margaret had never lived with anyone before apart from her parents. She had never slept in the same bed, or anything else, but tonight was the night.
The mere thought of what lay ahead made her cheeks burn red and her heart race while other parts of her body reacted accordingly. It was really happening and not just her vivid imagination. She’d been lost in a fantasy land but now she was, at last, getting her happy ending.
* * *
Once thirteen-year-old Margaret had made her vow, understanding how others perceived her and the enormity of her responsibility to her parents, she retreated inwardly and created a safe haven where only three people existed. The flat above the shop was home, her parents became her orbit and she circled their periphery, looking on, desperate for love and approval. Margaret’s sole mission was to please, wipe sadness from their lives, atone for their sins, anything to get them back again. She needed nobody else.
At sixteen she left school with satisfactory qualifications and went straight to working full-time in the shop. Father had branched out and bought a little van which took him off to do odd jobs like fixing locks and putting up shelves. He looked much happier, getting out and about and now Margaret was there to run the shop, her father was free to roam. Hearing him whistling and seeing his cheery wave as he drove away pleased Margaret immensely.
Mother was a harder nut to crack. Being bad with her nerves she rarely went out and simply refused to work in the shop, so spent her days upstairs fussing and fretting. The only place she found comfort was in church. Margaret was an altar girl, helped out at events, aspired to being a Sunday school teacher and when she sang in the church choir every hymn was for her mother who smiled back from her pew, looking proud. This also pleased Margaret immensely.
Nobody knew the effort all of it took, the strain of having two faces. On the outside she was a good daughter, never putting a foot out of place, regularly receiving praise from satisfied customers and impressed parishioners. Margaret didn’t smoke and drink and get into trouble, or fraternise with boys, or dress in garish fashions, or cut and dye her hair like other girls. She was demure and devout, decent and dedicated.
But a teenager cannot survive on sacramental bread alone so behind her bedroom door, Margaret threw off her dowdy rags and immersed herself in make-believe. Films, magazines, books, they were her escape. Each night she would sit in front of the mirror, copying the styles in her glossies, reciting lines fromGreaseas she gazed at her reflection‘tell me about it, stud’. And unlike the other girls who got cheated on and dumped by bad lads, in Margaret’s world there was always a happy ending like Danny and Sandy’s. Her dreamboats were loyal and handsome, perfect.
By the time she was eighteen, with her old head screwed firmly on young shoulders, Margaret was princess of her own castle, upstairs and down. Some may have said it was too much responsibility whereas Margaret accepted the challenge with gusto when her father left her to run the shop. Meantime, he tootled across the Pennines in his sign-written van that said, ‘Got a leak, I’ll take a peek,’ and on the back doors, ‘All cisterns go!’
Mother hated it and said he was pathetic. Father loved it and ignored her jibe as he loaded up and raced off out of the village on a mission. Margaret wasn’t sure if it was a mission to unblock someone’s loo; or to escape the confines of Tibbs Hardware and her mother.
Time passed by, and on a couple of occasions Margaret allowed her worlds to collide when art mirrored life. In some ways she was just like Baby and shouldn’t be put in a corner, so at twenty-three years of age she stepped out from behind the counter and went on her first date.
She’d finally accepted the repeated offer of an Early Bird Meal at the Little Chef with Ian, a travelling salesman who her father approved of. He always looked smart, wasn’t too bad looking if you overlooked his lazy eye and flaky skin. Father said Ian had prospects but hadn’t elaborated. This puzzled Margaret slightly seeing as Ian actually got the bus everywhere and lived at a B&B in Sheffield. She only went out with Ian once. He was nothing like Patrick Swayze. When he took off his overcoat he had a slightly musty smell, and he chewed his food noisily, and drank pale ale. The whole evening was depressing – like Ian. The icing on the cake was when he expected her to go Dutch.
After that she decided to focus on the shop, reorganising, restocking, retreating further into herself with every year. Thankfully Margaret found great comfort and friendship in the church because there, the good women of the parish embraced her as one of their own. They invited her for tea, to the knitting circle, and their own version of the village jam and Jerusalem brigade.
Not just that, the vicar relied on her to help with all the things the older committee members couldn’t manage. Yes, she’d entertained the notion, and had he looked remotely like Father Ralph inThe Thorn Birds, she would have done a Meggie and laid herself profligate at his feet, letting him have his wicked way with her. As it was, he resembled Benny Hill and told corny jokes to rival Tony Blackburn.
Life trundled on. That was the best way to describe it. Mother was becoming a trial. She was moody and aggressive, saying spiteful things to Margaret – when she could remember who she was. Sometimes Mother thought Sheila had made her bed and her breakfast. It infuriated Margaret as much as it hurt her, yet she soldiered on, telling herself it was just Mother’s grief and guilt.
It was at the church jamboree that Margaret had her second dalliance, with a scout leader named Kevin, but it wasn’t to be. Thirty-five years old and never been kissed, Margaret was mildly hopeful that she soon would be and while she’d sorted dishcloths into colour-coordinated piles, reminded herself that knights on stallions rarely rescued fair maidens, not in Elkdale anyway. Perhaps it was time she stopped her fanciful dreaming and settled for a man with a woggle, hairy knees and beige shorts.
Sadly tragedy struck and ended their fledgling courtship when Kevin’s motorbike took a slippery bend on the Snake Pass and went over the edge. At the funeral Margaret quite enjoyed playing the heartbroken girlfriend as she listened to the sombre words of Benny Hill the vicar, and the Scouts murdering ‘Morning has Broken’ on their recorders. Nobody knew that in her head Kevin was Steve McQueen, leather-clad astride his motorbike, racing through the clouds up to heaven.
Margaret knew her mother was failing fast so when she got the call from home, interrupting her Christian retreat in Belgium, she rushed back to help. There was nothing for it, a nursing home beckoned because Mother was lost to them, wandering aimlessly around the flat, wiping food and whatever she could get her hands on around the bathtub, weeping as she muttered and cursed.
Two years, that was how long poor Mother hung on in. Margaret visited her religiously, desperate for some flicker of recognition or thanks for being Mother’s Little Helper. On the day she departed, Margaret was by her side, her father opposite, both holding a hand. Then as if she suddenly emerged from the fog, Mother opened her eyes and smiled.
Turning her head to Margaret, her face lit up, eyes bright, she said, ‘Oh, Sheila, you’ve been such a good girl for Mummy. Thank you, my darling. What would I do without you?’
The slap of the words caused Margaret’s body to tremble as Mother’s body went limp. Margaret knew it was over, and she was glad.
After that they went on as normal and at least her father showed immense gratitude. He would give Margaret a peck on the cheek as he left on a call-out and he enjoyed the dinners she prepared for them in the evening. Then he’d be gone again, down to the pub or to the bowls club, leaving her to watch a video alone. Two days short of her thirty-seventh birthday she was working in the shop, as always, when two policemen came in. She knew immediately from their demeanour that her father was gone.
He’d dropped dead on the job, not fixing a gutter or mending a wobbly door catch, oh no! Margaret’s father really had died on the job, on top of Mrs Jameson while her husband was driving down the M1 in his articulated truck. The shame of it. And of courseeveryoneknew, Chinese whispers spreading poison. Margaret was mortified.
At the reading of the will Margaret was unsurprised to find out she was sole heir. While she was intent on keeping the shop open – after all it wasn’t like she had many other options, she knew she could no longer live upstairs in the flat. It had become a mausoleum and her servitude was at an end. Which was why she used a lump of her parents’ substantial savings and bought her home. All hers, a little nest and perhaps one day, she would find someone to share it with.
On the 17thDecember2005 – yes, she remembered the day so vividly – the shop bell jingled and a rather nice-looking chap walked in. He was looking for some turpentine and a few other bits and bobs. By the time he’d left with his purchases, Margaret knew all about him. His name was Herbert, he was a bookkeeper, he’d recently moved to the village, was off to the cinema that evening to watchPride and Prejudice(which she was stupid enough to say she’d already seen) and would be attending church that very Sunday. Most important of all, Margaret knew without a shadow of a doubt that he was the one, the man she had been waiting for all her life.
* * *
Moving over to the chest of drawers, Margaret pulled open the third drawer down and cast her eyes on the contents. The mere sight of neatly folded lace underwear, harlot red and wicked black, sent blood rushing and the throbbing began. How she’d evolved from that shy shopkeeper Herbert first met. He had opened a door, showed her she could be the kind of woman men desired, that other women envied. He’d unleashed her devil.
