Margot & Me Read online

  Pleased to have made new acquaintances, I said my goodbyes. As I wove my way through the crowds to find Glynis and Ivor’s stall, Andrew patted me on the shoulder. He was red-faced and out of breath from chasing me. ‘You didn’t believe all that nonsense, did you?’ he said. ‘What Bryn said. About the water spirits.’

  ‘No! Of course not! Did you?’

  ‘No! But listen,’ he said gravely. ‘I shouldn’t be saying this really – he’s been kind enough to show me around and all – but just be careful around Bryn. He’s no gentleman.’

  I couldn’t help but admire his quiet chivalry. ‘I didn’t for one second think he was. But thank you, Andrew.’ He bowed his head with a slight nod. ‘Good day. Pleasure to meet you.’

  ‘You too, Margot. Thank God there’s a few of us now.’ We shared a knowing smile and he headed off to rejoin the others.

  I spent the rest of the afternoon helping Glynis at the stall. It was clear she was popular in the village, although she wasn’t nearly as prim or well groomed as most of the housewives. When I mentioned most people seemed very friendly, she retorted, ‘Oh, I dread to think what they really say about us. Half of them say Ivor should have gone marching off even with his hand, but as long as we get them milk and butter I dare say they won’t say anything to my face.’

  Just as we were shutting up, Reg came over with his host family – one of the surgeons from the infirmary and his wife. ‘Hello,’ I said. ‘I see you’ve lost Bryn.’ Reg smiled but said nothing. ‘Although between you and me, I think Bess would like to get to know you better.’

  ‘Bess is a really nice gal,’ he said shyly. I couldn’t tell if he was blushing with his dark skin.

  ‘Londoner?’ I asked.

  ‘Battersea,’ he told me.

  ‘Oh. I’m just the other side of the river, in Kensington.’ There might only be a river separating us, but it means we live in different Londons, different worlds.

  ‘Very nice!’ His smile was magnetic. ‘Bit different out here, eh?’

  ‘You’re not wrong, Reg,’ I said with a sigh. ‘But we’ll get by.’

  ‘We ain’t got much choice, do we?’ He said it with a weariness older than his years.

  ‘When did you get here? Has it been terribly difficult?’

  ‘September. It ain’t been easy, no. But I suppose it’ll be a lot worse next year when I go off to serve our country, won’t it, miss?’

  ‘Crikey, just Margot, please.’

  Dr Armistead concluded his business with Glynis. ‘Come along, Reg. Don’t bother the young lady.’

  ‘He wasn’t,’ I snapped at once. ‘Not in the slightest.’

  ‘Nice to meet you, Margot.’ He leaned over the stall and repeated what Andrew had said. ‘It’s good to have another Londoner in town.’

  ‘Join us tomorrow if you can. I know Bess would love it if you could.’ I smiled, gave his hand a firm shake and bid him farewell.

  It started to snow as we arrived back at the farm. Soft, feathery flakes swirled and drifted up against the crumbling perimeter walls of the pastures. Soon the valley was white and pristine and I felt further than ever from London.

  From my bedroom window I can see the forest, bare branches now silvered and frozen. I confess I opened the window earlier and listened a moment for the ‘voices’ Bryn spoke of. The night was as silent as the grave. Beautiful, but lonely. I cursed my nagging curiosity. Perhaps it was the conversation with Reg, but for the first time I can feel the bruise of homesickness under my ribs. I shall finish for tonight and write a letter to Mother, smother it with exclamation marks, tell her how happy I am and how wonderful everything is.

  Chapter 8

  Somehow it’s gone midnight and I’m still awake. I’m desperate to read on, but if I don’t get some beauty sleep, tomorrow I’m going to look heroin-chic in the worst possible way. No one wants that. Not even Kate Moss.

  I think about doing what Margot did, opening the window and listening to the forest, but, if I’m honest, I’m scared I’d hear something I couldn’t explain.

  My alarm goes off at six thirty, half an hour earlier than I’d need to be up if I wasn’t feeding Peanut, and pure spite for Margot powers me out of bed. I’m so not a morning person. After I’ve showered – not even bothering to wash my hair – I go downstairs to find that Margot is already fully dressed and preparing breakfast. ‘You’ll be late if you’re not careful,’ she says.

  Doesn’t the woman sleep? Perhaps she’s a cyborg. That’d certainly explain why she’s so dead inside. I imagine grabbing the frying pan off the hob, whacking her around the head and seeing cogs and wires spring out of her eyes.

  ‘I have plenty of time.’ I make a great show of getting Peanut’s breakfast ready.

  It’s cold outside, the first real nip of winter, so I bundle Peanut into my arms and carry him back through into the kitchen. He’s getting wriggly; holding him while heating his bottle is a mission and a half. ‘You should be able to feed him from a bowl after the weekend I would have thought,’ Margot says, not even turning from the stove to face me.

  ‘But still on the milk?’ I sit at the table and Peanut hungrily takes the bottle.

  ‘Yes. For the first month, and then he’ll be on to feed and water.’

  ‘You hear that, Peanut? You’re gonna be fine! You’re gonna grow up big and strong.’

  Margot plonks the chipped teapot into the centre of the table and returns to her frying pan. ‘And before long it’ll be time to take him and the other piglets to the auction mart.’

  I’m so intent on feeding the piglet, it takes me a second to process what she’s just said. ‘What?’

  ‘To sell them,’ she says matter-of-factly. ‘For meat.’

  ‘You sell them?’

  Margot smiles and I swear there’s cruelty in it, almost serial-killer-level glee. Oh, she’s been working towards this grand reveal, I can tell. ‘Of course. It’s a farm, Felicity. I don’t raise animals as pets! I take them to market and sell them! How do you think farms work? Where do you think the bacon you’ve guzzled for breakfast every morning has come from?’

  Oh God, I’ve been eating Peanut’s siblings. I feel like a cannibal.

  ‘I did warn you,’ she goes on. ‘I told you not to give him a name, told you not to get attached, but you wouldn’t listen, would you? Oh no, Felicity knows best.’

  I look at the adorable baby in my arms and then to the sizzling pan of his relatives a metre away. I swear Peanut actually bats his lashes at me. ‘You can’t sell him.’ My voice sounds bubblegum pink and babyish. Margot has cornered me into being the airhead she thinks I am.

  ‘I have to. There’s only room for two adult pigs. I’m not going to get into a discussion about it. I know how to run my farm, thank you very much.’

  Peanut looks up at me with big, sad eyes. I know baby animals are designed this way to stop you from killing them, and boy is it working. ‘Please, Margot, not Peanut.’

  Another callous smile. ‘Oh, is that how it works? So it’s quite acceptable to kill and eat animals, just as long as they’re not cute and helpless. What a glorious double standard!’

  ‘Look!’ I snap, too tired to even try being polite any more. ‘What do you want me to say? That I’m a clueless little idiot who doesn’t know anything about anything? OK, fine, I am! I admit it! But please don’t kill Peanut!’

  Mum pops her head around the door. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Margot’s going to kill Peanut!’

  ‘Margot isn’t doing anything of the sort,’ Margot says. ‘I’m explaining to Felicity how I run the farm and that all the livestock will be sold at auction in due course.’

  ‘Oh, Mum,’ my mum says wearily, supporting herself against the door frame. ‘Just let her keep her sodding pig.’

  Margot looks like she’s going to bite her lip for a moment, but then lets rip regardless. ‘Oh, well, that explains rather a lot. Clearly Felicity is a girl used to getting her own way in the pursuit of an easy l
ife. I note she’s been more than happy to eat my former piglets.’

  ‘Well, what if I don’t?’ I offer quickly. ‘What if I give up?’

  ‘Fliss, don’t be ridiculous.’ Mum slides herself onto a chair at the table. She looks like she’s hardly slept, eyes like a panda’s.

  ‘Well, why not? I don’t even eat that much meat,’ I lie. From nowhere, the image of a forlorn-looking Chicken McNugget waving me farewell pops into my head.

  ‘You’d give up meat to save the life of one little runt?’

  ‘Yes. If you promise I can keep him.’

  Margot laughs. ‘Very well. You have a deal. Now for the terms: it’s all meat, not just pork.’

  ‘Fine. What about milk and eggs?’

  ‘That’s up to your conscience.’

  I can’t give up cheese. I’d wither and die. ‘I’ll think about it,’ I fib again.

  ‘You’ll cave,’ Margot says with cat-and-cream smugness. ‘A whiff of crispy bacon or roast chicken and you’ll give in.’

  ‘No, I won’t,’ I say, and I mean it. I’d rather starve than prove her right, the giant shit-witch. I’m beginning to think George had the right idea with the marvellous medicine.

  ‘The second you do, “Peanut” will go to auction with the others.’

  ‘What is wrong with you?’ I snarl.

  ‘Fliss!’ Mum snaps.

  I just don’t get it. I spent all last night reading about a funny, smart girl who, if she went to my school, I’d want to be friends with. ‘Like what happened to you? You weren’t always such a cow!’

  ‘Felicity. To your room, right now!’ Mum slams her hand on the table, making the cups rattle. ‘You do not talk to your elders that way!’

  I stand and hand Peanut to Mum. Margot takes hold of my arm as I prepare to storm out of the kitchen. ‘How on earth would you know what I used to be like?’

  Damn. I try to remember what I said, but I can’t. Did I give too much away about the diary? ‘Well, I don’t,’ I back-pedal. ‘I just mean I don’t believe you’ve always been so mean – otherwise Grandad would never have married you, would he?’

  She relaxes her grip on my arm. ‘You know, Felicity, I could almost feel sorry for you. I remember, you know. Believe it or not, I remember what it’s like to be your age, to think you know it all. How exhausting that is.’

  ‘I don’t think I know it all.’

  ‘Yes, you do. You think I’m old and out of touch, and that you’re the first person to ever feel the way you feel.’ She makes a great show of serving the now frazzled bacon onto a plate. ‘Schools give you knowledge and you mistake it for experience. Well, experience soon catches up and you’ll realise you knew nothing at all. It makes stepping out into the world a much more intriguing concept. I’d embrace it, if I were you. I’m wise enough now to admit I know nothing at all. I’m making it up as I go along. We all are.’

  If she thinks I’m going to mop up her phony soothsayer act like a sponge, she’s got another thing coming, the pig-murderer. ‘Whatever,’ I say, and slope out of the kitchen.

  By the time we arrive at school, my fury has somewhat subsided thanks to Dewi. We’ve been talking about Party of Five, which I love and he hates, and My So-Called Life, which we both agree was phenomenal. As we step off the bus he blocks my path. ‘What are you doing this weekend?’ he says. ‘Do you need anyone to show you around?’

  Megan, Rhiannon and Cerys are loitering by the entrance to E-Block like those three witches from Macbeth. I take a step away from Dewi. ‘I think Danny Chung is gonna give me a tour.’

  ‘Danny Chung? You know he’s a poofter, don’t you?’

  Did I just hear that right? The slur stops me dead in my tracks. Oh wow. And I thought Dewi was something more than an inbred hill-dweller. ‘Are you kidding me?’

  ‘What? He is, like. Everyone knows.’

  ‘The word is “gay”, and I don’t care whether he is or not; apparently he’s the only person around here with any style or brains.’ I step around Dewi and the distaste on my face should send a pretty clear signal to both him and his townie girlfriend. They deserve each other.

  I head straight for the library, its appeal now fully clear. It’s an oasis in an arid, hostile desert. I’m angry. I’d really thought Dewi was one of the good guys. What a dick. As soon as I push through the library double doors, I’m hit by a wave of fresh coffee. Thom, Mr Deacon, is standing at the counter, percolator jug in hand. ‘Morning!’ he says brightly, ‘Coffee? Decaf of course – I can’t send you to period one twitching.’ I hadn’t remembered quite how handsome he was. This time I try to take a mental Polaroid to keep for later. Everything seems to go hazy, summery and soft-focus, just for a lovely moment.

  Danny, Bronwyn and a couple of others are sat at the tables under the Book Tree. ‘Sure!’ I snap out of it. ‘I made cupcakes!’ I rest the Tupperware container on the front desk so Thom can see my culinary skills.

  ‘You didn’t!’ Danny jumps up and runs over. ‘Oh my God, you’re the best.’

  ‘They’re a fairly unsubtle bribe, I’m afraid. I’m like totally buying your friendship.’

  ‘Consider me bought. Can I have one?’

  ‘Of course!’

  I join the others while Thom pours me a coffee. Today he’s wearing a marl long-sleeved T-shirt that shows off a muscular chest. Around his neck is a wooden bead necklace and I wonder if he’s a surfer or an artist or something in his spare time. I bet he’s in a band, something folksy.

  Danny introduces me to a couple more of his friends. A boobalicious girl called Sophie and a gawky beanpole with braces called Robin, who frankly looks like he’s being attacked by puberty. Robin doesn’t say much but happily scoffs down two cupcakes, while Sophie is more cautious. ‘Oh, I shouldn’t really,’ she says, picking at an edge. ‘Mam keeps threatening to send me to a fat camp. Can you imagine, no? How awful would that be?’

  ‘Your mum is a nightmare. You’re not fat,’ Danny says, face now covered in pink icing.

  ‘Is she still on the cabbage soup diet?’ Bronwyn asks, without a hint of irony.

  ‘Oh, that was two diets ago. Since then she’s done this Liz Hurley thing where you move around while you eat, and now she’s not eating carbs or something.’

  ‘She sounds fun!’ I say, trying to become part of the conversation. Bronwyn still seems a little wary.

  ‘You know Curl Up and Dye in town? That’s her salon. She used to run the dance academy over my mum and dad’s shop,’ Danny says. ‘And yes, we have a Chinese takeaway. The Chinese takeaway. Could my life be any worse? No amount of Jean Paul Gaultier covers the odour of MSG.’

  ‘She used to be a dancer on Top of the Pops,’ Sophie adds. ‘She’s tampin’ mad, I swear.’

  ‘What do your mum and dad do?’ Bronwyn asks me.

  ‘My dad is dead,’ I say, before quickly adding, ‘Oh, but he died when I was tiny. I don’t really remember him, to be honest.’

  ‘I’m still sorry, babes,’ Danny says. ‘What about your mum?’

  ‘Oh, she’s fine. She works in TV.’

  ‘No way!’

  ‘Yep. She makes documentaries … Did you see that one about child assassins in Brazil on the BBC a couple of years back?’

  ‘I remember that,’ Bronwyn says, and for the first time I think I’ve earned an ounce of her respect. ‘It was seriously powerful.’

  ‘I’ll tell her!’ I say.

  ‘Cool job!’ Danny adds.

  I decide not to tell them about the cancer. At my old school I got plenty of vicarious sickness benefits – time off, extra time in exams, attention and sympathy from teachers – and it was almost nice to begin with, but it got old pretty quickly. Too many sideways head tilts and understanding nods from people who didn’t understand at all, all the cotton-wool conversations to buffer you should the worst happen. I couldn’t bear being treated like I was made of bone china – I was fine; it was Mum who was sick.

  It wasn’t something I’d planned,
a conscious decision, but I realise now that at this school I don’t want to be Girl With Cancer Mum. I’d rather start afresh. Anyway, Mum is getting better, thank God. Once the drugs are out of her system, she’ll go back to her job in London and everything will be the way it should be.

  The bell sounds and we join the morbid procession to form rooms. ‘Hey,’ I say to Danny, ‘what are you doing at the weekend? I thought, if you weren’t busy, you could me show me around a bit?’

  ‘Of course! God, where to start? So much to see! There’s a derelict mine, some betting shops, the bench where the alcoholics sit …’ He links his arm with mine and we laugh all the way to room E14. It’s the first time I’ve laughed since I arrived in Wales and it feels like a thaw has begun.

  Chapter 9

  I’m so angry about Peanut that I don’t read Margot’s diary for the rest of the week. It’s messing with my head too much. I started reading it to dig up dirt on Margot, not to like her, and if I read the diary that’s in danger of happening. I haven’t touched meat since Wednesday, even at school where I could totally get away with it. No. This is a war of wills, and I’m gonna win.

  It’s Saturday so, after the effing cockerel has finished crowing, I go back to sleep, ignoring Margot clattering around downstairs. I figure Peanut can wait for his breakfast. I pull the duvet over my head and for a few blissful hours pretend I’m back in London. I imagine meeting Tiggy and Marina in Starbucks for lattes and pains au chocolat before we head to Clapham Common or to Oxford Street Topshop.

  When I finally rise at about ten, I pointedly ignore the pile of sausages and bacon in the centre of the kitchen table, instead selecting a fried egg and some toast. Margot observes me over her mug of tea but says nothing. For now, I think we’ve reached a stalemate.

  I take a bath and I’m sorely tempted to read the diary while I soak, but resist and decide to reread The Babysitter instead. By the time I’ve rinsed the conditioner out of my hair (which feels like it takes about four hours) and fed Peanut, it’s time to meet Danny in town.