Making Marion (26 page)

“Bye, Marion. I'll probably not see you again, but for what it's worth it was nice knowing you. The best woman won in the end.”

She smiled, striding off up the path to where she'd parked her shiny little car. I looked around for another chicken to kick. The wheelbarrow had to do instead. She wasn't going to see me again? How quickly did she plan on getting rid of us if Grace agreed to let Fisher have the campsite?

I spent half an hour taking my bad mood out on the dandelions before calming down enough to go and find out what Erica had said to Grace.

Grace and Valerie were sunbathing in the meadow. Fat bees feasted on the daisies all around their blanket. I sat down on the grass beside them.

“Hi, Marion. Did you know that ninety-nine-point-eight per cent of the mass of the solar system is made up of the sun?”

“No, I didn't. How are you doing, Valerie?”

“Did you know that when the person who loves you most in the whole world has been murdered by brain tentacles that made a big blood-blob get stuck in her lung and squish her heart until it stopped
beating, your own heart actually aches, like the tentacles have got it too?”

“I did know that. But, did you know that one of the ways to help ease the ache is to focus on the positive things you can feel, that can drown it out for a while? Like sunshine on your skin, or the sound of a beautiful piece of music, or a cup of tea that is just the right temperature?”

“Does the ache ever go away?”

“Yes. It gets worse for a while, and then it begins to turn sweeter, like a strawberry becoming ripe.”

“Okay.”

“Grace, I saw Erica leaving. She said she had some business proposition to make to you, about the campsite.”

Grace tugged the headphones out of her ears and sat up. “About the campsite? No. She was talking about college.”

“Oh. What did she say then?” She was talking about college? Then why wouldn't she be seeing me again?

“You know my shoes have been selling really well? When Erica's boss tried to get her to take her old job back, she said she only would if they agreed to sponsor me through college. Like a scholarship. And then I have to come and work for them for a couple of years when I'm finished.” Grace flushed, her voice a mixture of pride and embarrassment.

“Have to come and work for them or
get
to go and work for them? I can't believe it. No, that's not true. You are amazingly talented. I'm not surprised at all. Are you going to do it?”

She shrugged. “Erica said the only thing I had to decide was whether or not I wanted to tie myself down to working for them for two years. She thinks by the time I graduate I might have some better offers. She was really nice about my shoes.”

“And it's not as if you need the money. Your dad would probably offer you a job too, if you asked him. Has he seen how talented you are?”

Grace shook her head. “I'm not working for him. At the moment, I don't really want anything from him.”

“You have some big decisions to make.”

Grace smiled, but it crumpled at one side. “So what would Mum's lesson on all this be?”

I stretched out on my back, feeling the prickle of the grass on my bare legs and shoulders. “I can't do the accent.”

Valerie poked me. “You have to at least try.”

“Right. Here goes. Scarlett's lesson in choosin' whether to sell your soul to corporate bloodsuckers, take your low-life daddy's guilt money, or go it alone, stand on your own two gorgeous feet and believe in yourself enough to make it. Life is hard enough, sugar. When someone offers you a helpin' hand, say ‘Thank you very much', take it, and be grateful. If people recognize how darn brilliant you are, why not spend a little time workin' with them and learnin' from some experts? You might know how to make a fine pair of shoes, but let's face it, you know diddly squat about runnin' a business. You can learn the hard way, through messin' up a thousand times, or take a bit of wise advice and learn from those who actually know somethin' about what they're doin'. You might even pick up some style tips that don't involve stickin' pins in your face, or dressin' to make your complexion look as if you are digestin' rotten meat.

“And as for your daddy's money. Take it. Use it. It's too late for him to screw you up, spoil you or buy your affection. You can forgive him and still be wise enough not to trust him.”

I stopped. Valerie and Grace were clutching each other, rolling about on the blanket. Grace managed to stop laughing for long enough to say, “I'm sorry, Marion, I couldn't understand any of that. But I'm sure Mum would approve, whatever you said. Can you try again, without the accent? What was that meant to be? A cross between Australian and Japanese?”

“No!” Valerie squealed. “Do the accent! Do the accent!”

“I refuse to stay here and be bullied.” I stood up, a weight falling off my shoulders at the sight of them laughing. I nudged Grace's calf with my toe before I left. “Let me know what you decide.”

A
s we geared up for the busy season, I spent every spare moment making plans and getting things ready to open phase one of the rescue plan: the outside snack bar. I met up with Vanessa, the ex-restaurant manager with twins, a couple of times. She was desperate to find some project to give her a break from double nappies and feeds. Her maternity leave had nearly finished, and she was interested in working somewhere closer to home, with shorter hours and less pressure than a Michelin-starred restaurant. The only trouble was, as yet I had no way to pay her – not until we started making money, and maybe not even then.

I worked my way through organizing permits and licences, calculating costs and creating lists of equipment, until there was nothing else I could do without actually spending money. I made an appointment at the bank. They were very kind, and dreadfully sorry, but unfortunately due to the current financial climate they couldn't help me. I went to a different bank. They sneered at me for wasting their time. By the fourth “no” I felt ready to sell the contents of my caravan just to make enough cash to get started.

I wondered what Big Johnny would think about his daughter's home and business being run into the ground by overpriced rents. I wondered if he would consider changing the name on that enormous cheque to the Peace and Pigs Holiday Park, and if he did, if that would make Grace feel able to accept it. I wondered how I could even think about asking her to put the money into
an idea that no bank in Nottinghamshire would consider backing.

Working every minute of the long summer days, too busy to think, it was only once I fell into bed each night that the challenges of learning to live with my mother floated up to the surface. For the first few weeks she had been in the forest, I couldn't think beyond the fierce desire for her to leave. Then, as Scarlett worsened, I knew we needed her here, so I just wanted her to stay out of my way until it felt reasonable to ask her to go. But things had changed with the loss of Scarlett and the brief appearance of Big Johnny. I had thought a lot about families, and forgiveness, and how refusing to let go of past transgressions hurt the person holding on more than the transgressor.

My mother had found a measure of relief; some way to live in freedom from her terrible previous life. She had a peace about her that I could only dream of. This made me angry and bitter – that she could move on and I still suffered. I knew the key was forgiveness. During her months of treatment, my mother had forgiven herself (and me, although that made me even angrier, that she might even consider I had needed to be absolved of any wrongdoing). Unless I could do the same, I would live with this tension inside, this resentment that fed upon my unresolved emotions. I had to figure out how to forgive her. Not for her sake, but for mine.

Growing up, it had been Father Francis who taught us about forgiveness. We said it every mass during the Lord's Prayer: forgive us as we forgive others. So, as my nights grew increasingly restless and I began to avoid Grace and Valerie in an attempt to stay away from Ma, I decided to turn to what I saw as my only option. I went back to church, and hung around hoping for God, or an angel or something, to tell me how to forgive her. He sent Lara instead.

She wandered over at the end of the service with two mugs of coffee in her hand and slid onto the chair beside mine. “Here. You look like you need some caffeine. Tell me it wasn't my sermon that left you so flat.”

I sipped the hot drink. It was good coffee. “Thanks. I've not been sleeping well.”

“Vanessa mentioned you've been working really hard.”

I had some more coffee.

“So it's not work? In my experience, that means you're worried, you have something on your conscience or you're in love. Tell me to mind my own business, but if you want to chat about it, listening is part of my job.”

I took a deep breath. In, then out. I paused, breathed in and burst out crying.

I cried for what I think might have been several hours. By the time I had finished blubbing, there were only two people left in the church apart from us, and one of those was vacuuming the hall. While I cried, Lara drank her coffee, handed me tissues and very, very quietly prayed for me. Only the more she prayed, the more I cried. Big, loud, snotty sobs. I didn't care that people could hear me, or that my face looked ugly, blotchy and red. Something big inside me needed to come out, and here it was. Like evil toxins or bad bacteria, it leached out of me, until I stopped, and realized I felt not only exhausted, but clean.

“Sorry.” I was hoarse, probably dehydrated.

“No problem. Do you want to talk about it?”

Did I?

“How do you forgive someone who has done something terrible, really awful, that has messed you up for years, or broken you forever, and you know that even if they do ever feel sorry, they will never say it? How do you let that go?”

Lara puffed out a sigh. “That's a big question. I prefer something easier like: What's the meaning of life? Or: Why do children get cancer? Seriously? That is almost impossible. I know I'd be too selfish and stubborn to do it by myself. But when I stand at the front here, and tell people God has forgiven all of the stuff they've ever done wrong, including all the secret, really ugly, nasty bits that we hope nobody ever finds out, I know I haven't got any excuse when he tells me to forgive other people.

“And the only way I've found that works for me is to make a conscious choice. I say it out loud every day. I forgive them. I choose
to bless them. I hope their life is fantastic and they have peace – and love and success and joy. Usually I start off forcing it through gritted teeth, knowing that what I really want is for them to be placed in the stocks and pelted with dirty nappies until they feel the hurt and humiliation they caused me. But when I say it enough, and I pray for them, and maybe even make myself start doing nice things for them, my heart begins to change. It's like I act and speak as if I have forgiven them, until it becomes true. But it can take a long while. It may happen only a tiny bit at a time.

“Sometimes there are no excuses. People do things that are wrong, even wicked, and they aren't sorry and are never brought to justice as far as we can see. But we can choose to love anyway. Because love wins. And it is always, without exception, better to live with love than with hate.”

Lara scribbled down some Bible verses for me to do with forgiveness. I admitted to not having a Bible, so she gave me one. I thought I might read it next time I was lying awake in the middle of the night. Perhaps it would be so boring and incomprehensible it would send me to sleep.

I tried to say it in the car on the way home – just to see what happened; to say, “Ma, I forgive you for not loving me, for neglecting me, abusing me, starving me, for not being there, for laughing at me, taunting me, blaming me.” I couldn't do it, but I made a start with: “Ma, I forgive you for following me to the Peace and Pigs and making me face these feelings.” I almost meant it.

Before I could change my mind, I invited her for tea that evening. With highly unforeseen consequences. See what happens when you try to do the right thing?

She arrived at six, her brown coat buttoned up tight against the oppressive July heat. The humidity had been building throughout the day as the atmosphere closed in. There would be a storm later on.

I welcomed her, and offered her a drink while the vegetables came to the boil. Broccoli, her favourite, as was the fish pie keeping warm in my little oven.

I served the food, Ma finally remembered to take her coat off and we began to eat. I tried to make conversation. It was like running up the side of a mountain with the weight of a decimated childhood dragging behind me. I told her my plans about serving food at the campsite. She nodded her head and said, “Well, you'll be flat out with all that. I guess I'll be staying a wee while longer then.”

I stopped eating. “There might be a problem with that.”

Ma looked at me, a crease between her eyebrows. She could sense a serious point was about to be spoken aloud – never a welcome prospect in the O'Grady family.

“Can you remember Amanda? Valerie's mum?”

She snorted.

“Before you came, I'd been asking around about Da. She did some stuff – nothing serious, it was stupid really – to try to put me off finding out about him. Which would fit, I guess, if what you said was true, that she killed Henry.”

Ma said nothing. She started scraping at her plate with her fork, even though there were only the tiniest remains of pie on there.

I told her what Amanda had done: about the brick, and the notes, and the spray-paint.

Scrape.

“She slashed my tyres.”

Scraaaape.

“So, if you stay for a while longer, which would be great” (keep saying it until you mean it, Marion), “then I'm worried it might push Amanda to do something really stupid. You did accuse her in public. She threatened to hurt me, remember?” I yanked the plate away to stop her scraping it again. “If you stay, we need to somehow sort this out. You need to tell me what Da said about Henry's death. There are other people involved too: Reuben, and Archie and Ginger. Valerie.”

She stood up, picked her coat up off the sofa and put it on, buttoning it deliberately from top to bottom.

“Thank you for a lovely supper, Marion. I'd better be getting back now.”

She opened the door, and I moved across to block her from leaving.

“Please, Ma. I've lost so much. I need to know this.” I reached out and took hold of her hand, realizing as I did that it was unfamiliar to me, it had been so long since I had held it. “I can't see his face properly any more. Please let me have this piece of him, of his story. Don't leave me wondering what kind of man he really was. I'll never mention it again.”

She looked down at my fingers wrapped firmly around hers, then lifting our hands up, she pressed them against her chest. “You have his hands.” She moved them over to my torso, still gripping tightly. “And his heart.”

We stood for a few moments, for the first time united, not divided, by our shared loss.

“There was a letter. From her. She wrote to him before he left.”

“Well? Do you still have it? What did it say?”

“It's in my caravan.”

“What? You've had it with you all this time?” I struggled to control my temper. If Ma sensed me judging or criticizing her, I'd never get to see the letter.

She shrugged.

“So, can I read it? And Archie and Ginger?”

“If you must.”