Margot & Me Page 2

  Margot busies herself with building a fire in the fireplace. I’ve never lived anywhere with an open fire and find myself entranced, watching her place the kindling into the hearth and stacks logs up around it. ‘Are you mad?’ she says to Mum. ‘I can’t think of anything worse than slowly drying out like a raisin with all the other ex-pats. I’ve been looking forward to this for thirty years at that newspaper. Ha! Would you look at that!’ She sets fire to a rolled-up sheet of the newspaper she dedicated her life to and touches it to the kindling. ‘Poetic.’

  I already know the answer, but I ask anyway. ‘Do you have the Internet yet?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  When did she leave the paper? I guess they wouldn’t have had even basic dial-up back then. ‘Like the World Wide Web? It connects your computer to the telephone so you can send people messages.’

  Margot laughs heartily. ‘I know what it is, Felicity. I’m not senile. I don’t have a computer. If I never see another one of those infernal things it’ll be too soon.’

  ‘I … I brought my laptop …’

  ‘Fliss,’ Mum says with finality, ‘we’ll sort all that stuff out later. Can we just get settled in, please?’

  It’s worrying how Mum still goes from awake to exhausted in a matter of minutes. Her face is suddenly grey. ‘Sorry,’ I say.

  ‘You won’t have long to be bored, Felicity. There’s always plenty to do on the farm, and you start school on Monday.’

  I look to Mum. Plenty to do on the farm? Do I look like Little Bo Peep? Also … Monday? I was told I could have some time to settle in. ‘On Monday …?’

  Margot replies as abruptly as ever. ‘Yes. What are you waiting for? You’ve already lost a week. Can’t have you missing great chunks of your education – you did quite enough of that while your mother was in hospital.’

  Panic flutters in my stomach. ‘I just thought …’

  ‘Fliss, it’s for the best,’ Mum puts in. ‘We need to get you back into a routine.’

  ‘But I don’t even have a uniform yet.’

  Margot sits back in her armchair and smiles a cruel smile. ‘You can buy the uniform from the school. They’ve said you can go in civvies for the first day. All taken care of, my dear, all taken care of. With your mother so sick, I imagine it’s been a while since anyone told you no, Felicity Baker. Well, that stops now. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes.’ In that moment, something red hot burns in my heart and what I understand is that I actually hate her. I guess, in this case, the farmhouse missed the Wicked Witch by a couple of inches.

  Every night, before bed, I brush my hair with a sturdy tortoiseshell paddle. A hundred strokes. It was how I learned to count to a hundred. Oh, my hair is my thing, let it go. Naturally mahogany brown, it used to skim my bottom, but I had it taken midway down my back when that became a bit little-girlish. Also, Zoë Hinckley once told me I was dipping the ends in poop bacteria every time I sat on a toilet seat.

  I spend the rest of the evening organising my new room into some semblance of a space I can exist in. For now, I don’t suppose there’s much I can do about the hideous wallpaper. It’s like a hallucinogenic seventies Pucci nightmare, and it’s a safe bet Margot hasn’t redecorated since she bought the farm. As predicted, about half of my clothes will have to squat in Mum’s wardrobe.

  Edgar – Mum’s handsome old bear – sits on my pillow. On my bedside table I’ve placed my framed photo of Dad. I know it sounds like totally awful, but I don’t think I actually remember him. I don’t think I ever remembered him. He was knocked off his bike outside Euston station and killed when I was three. Every once in a while I have a flash of something … his beard … a piggyback … but I honestly don’t know if they’re actual memories or memories of photographs I’ve grown up with. This photo shows us at London Zoo, me – all rosy red cheeks and gappy teeth – gleefully perched on Dad’s shoulders, with a giraffe eating leaves in the background. How can I not remember that? I look so happy.

  I’ve hung my portrait of the other Margot, Margot Fonteyn, over my bed. The best ballerina of all time ever. In the photograph, from the 1958 ballet Ondine, she’s en pointe, skirts billowing behind her. Fingers outstretched and elegant. She’s perfection. It also covers a chunk of the wallpaper. I’m not one for putting posters all over my walls though; I think that’s cheap and nasty.

  There’s a brusque knock on my door and Margot barges in. She leaves a salmon-pink hot-water bottle at the foot of my bed and looks at the hairbrush in my hand with disdain. ‘Vanity,’ she says simply, and leaves. I close my eyes. So this is how it’s going to be. Well, I’m certainly not going to give her a reaction, if that’s what she’s after.

  I finish my hundred strokes and pop down the landing to wish Mum goodnight. I find her already sleeping, propped up by cushions. She’s passed out while reading, the latest Jilly Cooper resting in her lap. She’s so bony, I have no trouble laying her flat and she doesn’t stir. I put the bookmark in her book so she doesn’t lose her place, kiss her on the forehead and turn out the lamp. I’ve put her to bed like this a hundred times.

  Downstairs, I hear Margot clattering pots and pans in the kitchen. Although it’s still early, I’d rather stick a compass in my eye than hang out with her, so I decide to call it an early night. After my double bed back home, the bed is so small, no room to roll around and get comfy. I’m scared I’ll fall out. I’m sure I once read about a girl who rolled out of bed in her sleep and actually died. I lie awake for what feels like hours. I hear Margot come to bed and switch the landing light off. My heart is in my throat and I’m alert, hardly able to close my eyes. It takes me a while to work out what’s wrong.

  It’s too quiet. Way too quiet and way too dark.

  The night is the thickest oil-slick black. I can’t see anything and I’m panicking. No amber glow from city street lights, too cloudy for the moon. No wailing sirens or all-night pizza delivery men zipping past my bedroom on scooters.

  I don’t like it.

  Oh, this is ridiculous! I’m behaving like a two-year-old. Scared of the dark! It’s horrible though; I can’t see past the end of my nose. I can’t take it. I get out of bed and fumble, arms out, to where I think I put my CD player. I flick it on to the radio and swivel the tuner. Eventually I come to a local station and there’s a phone-in called Late-Night Love. People can ring up and dedicate a song to their wife or boyfriend or whatever.

  ‘And the next request,’ says a woman with a voice suitable for only late-night radio or sex chat lines, ‘comes from Ian in Swansea. He’d like to dedicate this song to Candice. Sorry for all the late nights, he says, I’ll make it up to you in Benidorm. It’s “If You Leave Me Now” by Chicago …’

  Perfect. The song starts and I turn the volume low, so only I can hear it. I return to bed, focusing on the dim blue glow coming from the display. I clutch Edgar to my chest and let love-song lyrics fill my head, waiting for my eyelids to go heavy.

  Chapter 2

  I don’t know why I’m surprised that the shower’s rubbish, but the water pressure is about as effective as a thirsty kitten licking my head. Washing my hair is going to take hours. Worse still, the bathtub is hardly big enough to stretch out in. I suppose at least there is a bath.

  My favourite indulgence is a piping hot bath with a cool flannel across my forehead. I don’t know where I got the idea from, but there’s nothing quite like it for making me feel like queen of the goddamn world. I can’t imagine ever feeling very regal in here. Everything, and I mean everything, in the poky room is avocado green, right down to the furry toilet-seat cover.

  My new mantra: It’s only six months.

  That said, I suspect I’ll make peace with the scrambled eggs and bacon that greet me when I go downstairs. Mum is already at the rustic wooden table in the kitchen, Margot flitting around her like a hummingbird, pouring tea from the teapot. ‘Come along, Felicity, you’re not at a bed and breakfast. It’ll go cold.’

  ‘It’s Sunday,’ I say, takin
g my place at the table. ‘And it took about an hour to get my hair wet.’

  ‘Fliss …’ Mum warns. She looks brighter today for a good night’s sleep.

  ‘Thanks for the eggs,’ I say quickly.

  ‘Fresh from the hens this morning. Tea?’

  ‘Please.’ Margot pours me a mug and I notice the spout of the teapot is chipped. None of the mugs match, but there’s a jug for milk and a bowl of sugar cubes already laid out. While Mum’s been sick, breakfast has been Pop-Tarts or a hasty Müller Rice. I could get used to this, although I won’t give Margot the satisfaction of knowing I’m impressed with anything this farm has to offer.

  Curiosity gets the better of me and, after I’ve helped Mum do the washing-up, I decide to explore. After all, I’ve never lived on a farm before – who has? – and you never know, Keanu Reeves might be waiting on his combine harvester.

  I leave through the front door, past the Land Rover parked in the middle of a courtyard. The rain has stopped for now although there are some big, bad boss clouds rolling in over the hills. There’s so much sky here, uninterrupted by tower blocks or aeroplane snail trails. The air smells squeaky clean, rinsed by the overnight downpour. London doesn’t smell like this – mineral-water fresh. OK, I can learn to live a few months without black bogies, I guess.

  On either side of the drive are stables – but Margot doesn’t have any horses. I go over and poke my head through the door and find, quite literally, a pigsty. ‘Oh wow,’ I mutter. The pen is divided in two, I guess to keep the pigs apart. They are HUGE. The male, and he has to be a male, is a russet giant. The smell – wee and hay – isn’t quite as gross as I would have expected.

  At first I don’t even see the piglets. They’re so tiny, suckling on their mother, almost tucked out of sight. ‘Oh my God! Too cute!’ I say to myself.

  ‘You can go in if you want.’ I didn’t even hear Margot approach; I’m going to have to get her a bell to wear around her neck. ‘Just don’t let them out.’

  She’s wearing a wax jacket and wellies, but I’m really not dressed for a pigsty, in my Mary Janes and pinafore dress. That said, I also really want to hold a tiny baby piggy. ‘Can I hold one?’

  ‘You may.’ Margot unlatches the bottom half of the door and I enter, hand over my nose.

  ‘How many piglets are there?’

  ‘Four this time, I think.’

  I count three feeding. ‘There’s only …’ But then I see the smallest piglet I’ve ever seen, no bigger than a guinea pig, near the water trough, half covered by hay.

  ‘Runt,’ Margot says. ‘He won’t make it.’

  ‘No!’ I go to crouch at his side. He comes to as I stroke him. His little body is warm and covered in coarse hair, a lot like a puppy. ‘He’s not dead.’

  ‘Not yet. They always make more than they need and then nature runs its course. Survival of the fittest and all that. The mother won’t waste any energy on him.’

  Refusing to give in, I lift the runt up and carry him to his brothers and sisters. He weighs almost nothing in my hands. ‘Come on, little one. Breakfast time.’ I nestle him up against his mother and will him to drink. He rubs his head sleepily against her, but doesn’t latch on to her teat. He doesn’t even open his eyes.

  ‘I’m telling you, Felicity, there’s nothing can be done. Stop wasting your time on silly things and help me out with your mother.’

  I get to my feet and fix Margot with the steeliest look I can muster; I’m aiming for ‘daytime soap-opera diva bitch’. How dare she … Does she have any idea what the last two years have been like? ‘You know, while you’ve been out here playing Old MacDonald, I was the one cleaning up Mum’s sick and holding her hand in the chemo lounge.’ I say it to hurt her and she looks hurt – just for a second she wilts – but it’s also the truth. ‘She’s better now; she doesn’t need help,’ I finish.

  Margot rediscovers her composure, standing tall. ‘It must have been very trying.’ Not the apology I was hoping for.

  I shrug, saying nothing. Yes, it was ‘trying’. It redefined ‘trying’. But now, thank God, it’s over. I look sadly at the little pig. ‘He’s just a baby. Can’t we help him?’

  She shakes her head. ‘Felicity … it’s the way it goes.’

  I can’t bear to stay and watch a helpless piglet die. I rise and push past Margot. ‘Whatever.’ I’m not going to let her see me cry so try to pass it off as indifference. I take a deep breath and cross the courtyard to find the sheep pen and the goat, but there’s nothing cute to look at over here. I suppose I’ll get lambs in the spring.

  What next? Following the weed-strewn path around the side of the house, I come to the back garden. There are vegetable patches on both sides, separated by a path. Each patch is meticulously labelled: carrots (planted 23/8); radishes; potatoes; cauliflower; parsnips. There are bamboo tepees for peas and beans next to the hen house – a little shed on stilts to protect the chickens, no doubt, from foxes.

  It’s so strange. My memories of Margot are hazy, but they’re hazy because, for most of my childhood, she was working; always buzzing from meetings to lunches to parties. When we went up to Hampstead Heath on a weekend, Grandad would amuse me in the garden while inside Margot was screaming instructions down the phone at her minions back at the newspaper. How did she end up here with mud and manure under her once perfectly manicured fingernails? Grandad died in ’88, almost ten years ago, so it’s probably not a grief thing.

  At the end of the garden there’s a trellis arch, strangled by vines and rose stems. I pass under it and find a whole second garden. It’s overgrown and wild, seemingly forgotten, but it’s beautiful: a secret rose garden, secluded from the rest of the world. I feel very Vogue fashion spread all of a sudden. Thick, creamy roses with velvet petals are starting to die, crinkly brown at the edges, but it looks pretty cool and vintage-y. A broken swing dangles from the apple tree, the ropes as rotten as the apples scattered in the undergrowth. Still, it has potential – there’s even a pretty wrought-iron bench where I could sit and read Cosmo. Midges swirl in the air and a cabbage-white butterfly flutters past my face.

  Imagine if even Margot didn’t know about this, it could be my own private retreat. In the distance I hear the faint chattering of a stream beyond the back wall.

  Carefully, I trample through more weeds and rose bushes and find a rackety old gate. The catch is rusty, but I prise it and force the gate open, wary of nettles and pampas grass almost as tall as I am. The garden backs onto woodland, gently sloping downwards into thick forest. I take a look over my shoulder towards the farmhouse, almost checking it’s not watching. If this were a horror film, I’d be screaming at myself to stay out of the woods, but it’s noon on a Sunday – what’s the worst that can happen?

  I take a couple of steps towards the forest. The trees rustle and shiver. I shiver too. I strain to hear the stream.

  Felicity …

  It sounds nutso, but I swear I can hear my name, very gently, on the breeze.

  Felicity …

  I take another few steps down the path. Gnarly branches twist and coil around each other, forming a wooden mouth ready to swallow me into the woods. Within, the light is thick emerald green. I smell wild garlic (stinky) and honeysuckle (nice).

  Felicity …

  I hear it again. I swear I just heard my name. Goosebumps pop up all over my arms. The voice isn’t menacing – more … enticing.

  I enter the dark of the forest.

  ‘Felicity!’ OK, this time I really do hear my name. I whip my head back and see Margot filling the gateway at the bottom of the garden, hands on hips like a sergeant major. ‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’

  I shrug sheepishly. ‘I just wanted to see the stream.’

  She tuts. ‘Dressed like that? Don’t be absurd – you’ll break your neck. Inside,’ she commands, and I shuffle back up the footpath. Margot halts me at the gate. ‘Don’t ever go into the forest by yourself. It isn’t safe.’ She steers me into the rose
garden.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I ask, thinking about the breathless voice I think I heard.

  ‘Just what I said. Stay out of the forest.’ She says no more, but I’m intrigued. Scared, sure, but intrigued.

  Chapter 3

  I find a giant baby bottle under the sink in the kitchen while cleaning up after dinner. Immediately I think of the tiny piglet. ‘What’s this for?’ I ask.

  Margot peers at me over the top of her half-moon glasses. Her wrinkled hands are covered in grease, tinkering with part of a generator engine. ‘Some of the lambs always need hand-rearing. Why?’

  ‘Can I feed the little piglet?’

  ‘Felicity, there’s no point.’ She rolls her eyes. ‘Once the sow rejects a runt, it’s as good as dead.’

  ‘Please?’

  ‘Oh, Margot, let her try,’ Mum chips in from the dining table. Her wig is a little skew-whiff. I go over and straighten it up for her. ‘What’s the harm in trying?’

  Margot looks like she’s about to protest but bites her tongue. You can’t argue with a cancer victim, even one in remission. ‘Very well, but don’t come crying when it dies.’

  Why does she have to be so brutal all the time? What’s her problem, seriously? ‘I won’t,’ I say defiantly. I grab the bottle and unscrew the lid. ‘OK. Do I just use milk from the fridge?’

  Margot tuts loudly. ‘If you want to bring about his death faster, yes.’

  ‘Margot …’ Mum warns.

  She exhales through her nostrils as if weary and wipes her oily hands on a rag. ‘Pigs can’t digest cow’s milk. You can either milk the sow or use some of the goat’s milk. That’ll do the trick. If you’re serious about this, Felicity, you have to make sure he’s kept warm with a heat lamp and feed him iron to help his immune system.’

  OK, that’s more work than I anticipated, but so what? If I prove my point, it’ll be worth it. ‘Fine. Do you have a heat lamp?’

  While Margot grudgingly goes to find the lamp, I fill the bottle with goat’s milk and head back to the pig pen. As I enter, I worry that the poor little thing will already be dead. Once again I find him shunned by the rest of the piglets, half buried under the sow’s rear. ‘Oh, poor little guy. What mean brothers and sisters you have.’ I tread carefully through the pen to retrieve the sad creature. Ew, gross, my heel sinks into something I can’t see and don’t want to see.