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

Lenni Pettersson? Yes, I remember Lenni. The one who miraculously healed and then joined the circus?

I sat back down in my wheelchair. It’s almost impossible to make a bid for freedom in a manual wheelchair when you have the upper body strength of a mosquito, so I couldn’t escape without all three of them noticing. To their credit, they let me go out of the door without trying to stop me.

Halfway down the corridor, I heard the familiar squeak of white canvas trainers behind me.

‘Len,’ she said, and I was impressed that she didn’t hold the handles of the wheelchair and push me herself, but let me struggle on.

‘I’m just going somewhere.’

‘Oh, are you?’ She sounded concerned.

‘Yep.’

‘Anywhere in particular?’

‘Just away from here.’

‘Father Arthur?’

I wheeled on down the corridor. ‘No, remember. He’s gone.’

‘Well, then where are you going?’

‘I just wanted to get away from it.’

‘From your paintings?’

‘From the little funeral you’re having for me in there.’

She didn’t say anything as I reached the end of the corridor and rounded the corner. I got to a set of double doors. New Nurse held them open for me and let me go.

I wheeled around several corners, trying to lose myself. Because if I got legitimately lost, I could stay away from the May Ward for as long as it took me to be found. Just past the phlebotomy lab, I spotted Walter and Else. Side by side in their dressing gowns, walking along very slowly. He had a walker which I hadn’t seen him use before and I wondered if perhaps he had had his surgery on his knee. He said something that made her laugh. So hard that she put her hand on his arm. She looked different laughing. Like she might not be the composed woman she seemed. That she might not be the chic editor of a French magazine, but something else. A mechanic maybe. Someone messier.

They rounded a corner, Walter taking tiny careful steps, without noticing me.

And I thanked the hospital for letting me see them.

Margot and the Sun

MARGOT WAS WEARING a fuzzy purple jumper, and when I came into the Rose Room she wrapped me up in a big hug. Which was exactly what I’d hoped she’d do. She cleared a space on our table and began to paint. Using the thinnest watercolours, she layered orange and red and yellow on top of each other inside a long-stemmed cocktail glass until they were almost bright enough to drink.

Majorca, August 1980

Margot James is Forty-Nine Years Old

I’d never been on a proper holiday and neither had Humphrey. We’d eschewed the idea of a honeymoon until his sister had recommended a hotel in Majorca – telling us both it was time we got some sun.

We didn’t fit in at all. The people by the pool knew what they were doing – they had towels on sunbeds before we’d even made our way down to the restaurant for breakfast. They knew to order three drinks at a time to make the most of the ‘all-inclusive’ system. They knew when to drag their sunbeds to the other side of the pool to get the best of the afternoon sun.

Watching Humphrey try to deal with the cognitive challenge of being in no way cognitively challenged – with just a spy novel I’d bought him in a charity shop and hours of relaxation ahead of him – was wonderfully amusing. As I lay in the sun, feeling that something inside me that had become concrete was beginning to soften, he struggled to get comfortable, to keep himself entertained.

He asked a complete stranger what he thought of the Wellington Observatory while we were waiting in line for our first dinner.

‘Dunno, mate,’ the man had said. ‘Don’t really wear wellies.’

On the first night, we decided to try out the hotel bar. The heat from the day had dissipated with the evening breeze, and if the outdoor bar hadn’t been so full of people, and if there hadn’t been a shaky rendition of ‘Don’t Cry For Me Argentina’ being performed by a hotel rep on the harshly lit stage, we’d have been able to hear the grasshoppers and the sway of the sea.

A sweet-natured couple came to ask if the two empty seats at our table were free. I can’t remember their names now, but we’ll call them Tom and Sue. Humphrey had gestured for them to take the seats, but rather than carry them away, they sat down and joined us. Much to our collective horror.

‘So, do you have kids?’ Sue asked, several questions in to the ice-breaking chit-chat we’d been making over the top of ‘Born To Be Alive’, which was being admirably belted out by a very sunburnt holidaymaker.

I’d opened my mouth to tell Sue the stranger-friendly version of why no, Humphrey and I had no children, but he got there first.

‘Oh, yes,’ Humphrey said. My mouth fell open.

‘Girls,’ he added, ‘two girls.’ And Tom and Sue made the requisite ooh-ing and ahh-ing noises.

I took a sip of my drink so that they’d know not to expect me to speak any time soon.

‘What are their names?’

‘Bette and Marilyn,’ Humphrey said, and I nearly dropped the brightly coloured cocktail I’d accidentally ordered when I’d tried to use Spanish to ask for an orange juice.

‘What unusual names,’ Sue said.

‘We’re both really big film fans,’ Humphrey said, holding his hands up as though he’d just been caught midway through a crime.

Though I tried my best to communicate to him the sentiment Stop pretending our chickens are our children, Humphrey put his hand on my knee and smiled as Tom asked how old our daughters Bette and Marilyn were.

‘They’re both eight,’ Humphrey said.

‘So they’re twins?’ Sue said excitedly.

‘Well, they came together!’ Humphrey laughed.

‘I love twins,’ she said. ‘My grandmother had twins. They say it skips a generation, so if we had kids, they might be twins.’ Sue looked at Tom with such hope that it