Page 11 of Statistically Speaking
“Ooh, he’s lovely,”she’d said, staring at the screen.“I’d give him ten out of ten on Dick Advisor!”
Every now and then, Margie says something so funny and so rude that I can easily imagine her all those years ago, centerstage in a life that was full of fun and laughter. She’s still center stage really—it’s just that she has a much-reduced audience.
This evening, as we sit together, she seems slightly less bubbly than usual. There are tones of regret in her voice, in the way she talks about Katie, and about her own past life.
I can tell already, without her saying anything, that she doesn’t want me to leave. I’m not quite sure when this happened but, sneakily, I have started to care about that a lot—I can’t bear the thought of going upstairs and imagining her down here, sad and alone.
I’d been planning on a quick visit, in and out to check up on her, but something in the way she is behaving has me on low-level alert.
“I was going to go to the new yoga class at the leisure center,” I reply, “but I’m not sure I can be bothered now I’m sitting still. It’s been a busy day, and I’m thinking Bill is the only downward dog I need tonight.”
She looks at me, her eyes narrowing slightly as though she’s searching for evidence of a lie. I manage to hide any regret I might have been feeling, and we sit quietly together, listening to the shrieks of the gulls and the sound of the sea as the tide comes in. It’s peaceful here, as the light fades and the remnants of the day slip into the far horizon. A few dog walkers, the occasional cyclist, nothing more.
“So, our Matty called me this afternoon,” she says after a while. Matty is her son, who does something complicated in shipping that neither of us understands.
“Oh, right—how is he? The kids okay?”
“Great, yes. But he wanted to tell me they’re going away for Christmas this year—Barbados, I think he said. It’ll be lovely, I’m sure.”
It will be lovely, I think—for Matt and his family. Not for Margie, who looks forward to Christmas with the enthusiasm of a toddler because she gets the chance to see them all. Matty usually drives up to collect her and she spends a week down south, gets to see his twins, Lucy and Luke—six years old now—open their presents, gets to have her Christmas dinner in their big house, and gets to be at the heart of family life for a little while. Having that taken away from her will have been a huge blow, and explains why she seems so deflated.
“I see. How do you feel about that?”
There is a bit of a breeze rolling in from the waterfront, and it whips her wispy gray-blond hair up into a flurry. She swipes at it with her fingers, and I notice they are red and swollen.
“Won’t lie, hon, I’m a bit disappointed. He said they’ll organize something else, maybe bring me down for the twins’ birthdays in January instead. So that’ll be nice. I just—well. I’m feeling a bit sorry for myself, I suppose.”
“I think you’re allowed,” I say, reaching out to touch her shoulder. I’m not one of life’s natural caregivers, but Margie has a place in my heart—somewhere between mother and friend—and I am sad to see her so down.
“I’m letting myself off, just for tonight. I have a lot to be grateful for, I know that. Matty and his family are all healthy. I have Bill. I have my garden. I even have this mysterious redhead who lives upstairs and spends time with this silly old woman when she should be out having fun.”
“Hey, this is my idea of fun! And why don’t we make it even more fun and crack open the whisky?”
Her eyes go big and round, and she nods enthusiastically. She starts to struggle to her feet, but I tell her to rest andgo fetch the bottle myself. She keeps it in what she calls her “naughty cupboard,” and I bring out a box of Thorntons chocolates at the same time.
I splash us both a generous dollop of booze into our tea and put the box on the little tile-topped table that sits between us.
I raise my mug and we clink, both exclaiming, “Cheers!” and laughing.
I don’t try to distract her or make her talk it through—Margie doesn’t need any encouraging on that front, I’ve learned, and she will speak when she is ready. Instead, we watch the changing light filtering through the clouds, the first hint of the moon shining on the water.
“I’ve been thinking about life,” she says eventually, after our tea has cooled and the box has been raided. There were sixteen truffles to start with, and only ten remain.
“Oh no—should I call an ambulance?” I say, making her smile.
“Get away with you, cheeky mare,” she snaps back. “I’m serious. Almost.”
“Go on, then—what are your revelations for the day?”
“Well, I was thinking about all the roles we play. We start off as somebody’s child. Then maybe we become somebody’s wife, somebody’s mother. Somebody’s grandmother. Somebody’s father, or brother, or best friend. We define ourselves so much by our relationships, don’t we? Then when it all gets stripped away—when there’s a divorce, or a death, or people just move on—we’re left bare. Left as the scraps. And sometimes that feels hard, seeing yourself as the scraps. As the leftover bits of other people’s lives, the bits they don’t need anymore.”
A seagull, white and plump, has come to land on the fence, and Bill lets out a low growl that sees it flap away. Margie is looking at me, waiting for a reply. I have no idea what to say to her—how to make her feel better. How to make myself feel better, as a black cloak of discontent falls soft and cloying around my shoulders.
I realize that some of what she says is true, and I realize that I am none of the things on her list, not really. I have been within touching distance of those roles but never really filled them. It’s all been very messed up, and I have had to create my own role. I am me, I am Gemma, and I have always told myself that that is enough. Perhaps, truthfully, I have always simply believed that that is all I deserve.
As I ponder Margie’s words, an edge of doubt creeps in—doubt that makes me wonder if I’m actually an understudy in my own life story. If my own fears and regrets—about giving up my baby, about never having any more children, about seeing even a date with Karim as dangerous, and ultimately about eventually turning into my own mother—add up to more than the rest of me. If the things I haven’t had, haven’t been, equal more than the things I do have and am. It is a horrible thought.
“I don’t know, Margie,” I say sadly. “I suppose I just try not to think about things too hard. Being deep and meaningful never ends well for me. All I can say is that I don’t see you as scraps, not at all. And, anyway, the leftovers are sometimes the very best part of a meal.”
