The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot, Marianne Cronin [top fiction books of all time txt] 📗

Lenni,’ he said, ‘I can’t imagine Jesus behind the wheel of a car. It just seems odd.’

‘But when he comes back, if he comes back, won’t he want to drive anywhere?’

‘I—’

‘I suppose he can just ask for lifts. Nobody would turn Jesus down.’

I drew the I on the blind and then turned.

‘But then, what if they don’t know he’s Jesus because he’s dressed up like an old beggar woman, and then nobody helps him because nobody picks up hitch-hikers any more and he’s just stuck on the M1 for hours? And then the more bedraggled he looks with that beard and everything, the more he resembles a homeless man. And then he just starts walking and the police pick him up because they think he’s a drug addict. Then when they try to put him in rehab, he’s telling them, you know, “I’m the Son of God.” But nobody believes him, because why would they? And he gets put in a detention centre with a load of other people all claiming to be Jesus and nobody can tell who the real one is.’

A small crumb of bread had got stuck in the corner of Father Arthur’s mouth. He wiped it off. ‘Why would Jesus be dressed up like an old beggar woman?’

‘To see if people are really kind or if they’re just being nice to him because he’s Jesus.’

‘And he’d need to be dressed up as an old woman to find that out?’

‘Yes, and then he gives them a rose if they’re good.’

‘Isn’t that the plot from Beauty and the Beast?’

‘Hey, you’re the priest, you tell me.’

The First Winter

Church Street, Glasgow, December 1952

Margot Docherty is Twenty-One Years Old

JONATHAN EDWARD DOCHERTY and I were married at 12.30 p.m. on the first day of September 1951 on shaking knees and with a borrowed ring. My mother had cried for all the wrong reasons. And then we’d moved into a tiny tenement off Church Street.

I was working in a department store and Johnny’s apprenticeship had led to a job at Dutton’s – a glassmakers that specialized in windows and mirrors, which made perfect sense because Johnny was both a window and a mirror to me. Sometimes, I felt I could see right through him, and other times, when I looked for Johnny, or at Johnny, all I could really see was a reflection of myself.

He was still tall, still slender, still thoughtful, but he was different to me now that I knew how his mouth hung open when he was drifting off to sleep. Now I knew the one song he would whistle over and over again. He was less interesting to me now that I knew he could sit with me for hours and not say a word. He was less charming now that I’d seen him swearing when he couldn’t screw the living-room lightbulb back into its casing. He was sillier to me now that I’d seen him in church on Sundays in his odd-fitting suit, his hair combed into a side parting, kicking his brother Thomas in the shins for stealing his hymnal.

Johnny’s mother insisted the whole family went to church every Sunday: Johnny’s mother, his aunt, Thomas, Johnny and me. We would always have the same pew, the one on the right next to the statue of Baby Jesus in the arms of Mary. We would have to be seated by 8.20 in order to secure it for the nine o’clock service.

For our first wedding anniversary, he saved up for an overnight train trip in the Highlands. We’d packed a picnic to have beside the loch, and while we’d set off on our trip a twosome, we’d returned home a trio. Everything was happening as it was supposed to. I was married and there was going to be a child.

I didn’t tell Johnny until December. In fact, I didn’t tell him at all. I let the dress tell him. A white dress with sailboats stitched on the hem. It was silk and soft and delicate. Perfect for a girl or a boy. On Christmas Eve, as I folded it inside the tissue paper and then carefully placed the package inside the box, I began to feel sad that the baby and I were about to lose the confidence of each other’s existence. In all the world, only I knew my baby existed. And to my baby, I was the whole world. Every sound and sense of his was mine.

On the morning of the twenty-fifth, Johnny pulled back the tissue paper and stared at the inside of the box. I thought I could see him smiling, I thought I could see excitement, but that might have only been a reflection of my own feelings.

So, the baby and I waited for his response. In the end, he put down the white dress, came over to me and scooped me up in his arms. He told me it was wonderful and then insisted we put our coats on and go round to tell his mother.

Lenni Moves to Glasgow

Örebro to Glasgow, February 2004

Lenni Pettersson is Seven Years Old

THERE’S A VIDEO of this, too.

I’m standing beside my mother in a pair of dinosaur pyjamas with a coat on over the top. In one hand is my beanbag pig, Benni, and in the other is my passport, which I was allowed to be in charge of on the trip on account of how I was now a big girl.

‘Wave bye to the house, Lenni!’ my father says from behind the camera.

I do it half-heartedly.

‘Say, “Bye, house!”’ he tells me.

At this point I stare at the video camera.

My mother crouches beside me, puts her arm around my squishy coat and joins in.

‘Hej då huset!’ We wave at the locked front door.

Then, the camera follows us as we all climb into the back of the taxi. The driver seems harassed by the wait. My father passes the