Margot
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The following short story is an extract from I Hope You’re Happy by Marni Appleton, published by The Indigo Press.
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Margot and I have been friends since we were eleven, when we wore jumpers two sizes too big and fat little ties which were supposedly cool. We phoned each other most nights. We often ran out of things to say, but it wasn’t a problem. We would lie on our separate beds in our separate houses and listen to each other breathing. Friendship meant something different to us then. When I see her now, my insides slide as though I’ve taken a step and left my body behind. We hug. She smells strange, earthy and sweet at the same time.
You look well, Margot says.
Oh, so do you, I say. It’s been so long.
We haven’t seen each other in years. I offer her a cigarette, but she’s given up. I light up anyway, take a long drag and watch as my smoke drifts across the table towards her, the way her face shifts ever so slightly. We discuss work, the weather, things we’ve seen on Facebook. That’s how I found out about her engagement. I sent her my congratulations and she suggested we catch up. I couldn’t say no. Margot shows me her ring. It is as big and sparkly and green as it was in the pictures. Like my eyes, she says, without a trace of irony.
I wonder if the old Margot is trapped somewhere inside this one. I imagine her head banging against a ribcage, thud, thud, thud.
So beautiful, I say.
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Back then, I was the pretty one. But wasn’t me who decided. The boys did – those strange creatures with authority on our appearances. They decided who was nerdy or cool, lesbian or fuckable, pretty or ugly. There was no space in between. Our own ideas about ourselves flitted about uselessly but didn’t land anywhere; created an uncertainty that left us borderless, undefined. But I had it easier than Margot. I was the pretty one because she wasn’t. She was so pale she was practically see-through, the shifting dark mass of her organs almost visible beneath her skin.
We loved playing brides. Funny to think of that now. Sometimes we sneaked into Margot’s mother’s room to try on her huge, frothy dress when we were home alone. Margot standing in front of the full-length mirror, one nipple poking out of the sweetheart neckline. We used to make collages of our dream weddings. We’d spend hours trawling through magazines and catalogues, our scissors scraping around each chosen image, the remainder collapsing onto the floor. It was such a treat when we got given a new copy of Brides or You and Your Wedding. One time, Margot’s mother gave me a bumper edition of Elle Wedding and I thought I would faint with delight. I believed I had it all mapped out. I just had to wait until I was grown up for a man to come along and choose me to be his wife. I couldn’t wait to be loved like that.
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Margot’s voice is soft and even, a line running across a screen. I burn the tip of my tongue on my coffee, press the sore point against the back of my teeth. Everything becomes sharper. I keep nodding, on and on, like a dog stuck on a car dashboard.
You should come and stay with us! Margot says, clasping her hands together. The inflamed skin on her knuckles splits open, red and livid. You’ll come for a weekend, won’t you?
She looks like a girl again, eyes wide like that. I hesitate for a split second – and I say yes. Of course I do.
Margot becomes more animated, and I feel warm, like I’ve done a good thing. She chatters on about venues, vows, flowers. She can’t wait for me to see the house. It really is beautiful, she says. I feel like all my dreams are coming true.
I don’t say I’m happy for you. I am curious about her life. I want to meet the man who has chosen her until death do them part. I want to understand how their lives work like that, side by side.
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My boyfriend refuses to come with me. I knew he would.
But you hate Margot, he says, lolling on the sofa, watching some mind-numbing reality programme. Girls in bikinis, a sun-spun pool. Sky so blue it’s practically neon.
She’s my oldest friend, I say.
But you hate her.
I think about saying please, asking again in a cutesy voice, but he’d sulk all weekend and generally be a dick about it.
I do not hate her, I say. He grunts. My body flares momentarily with rage. I squeeze my left hand tightly in my right.
You’ve outgrown each other, he says from the back of his head. Let it go.
I watch his face side-on in the flickering light and wonder what it must be like to be inside his head. Sometimes I fantasize about scraping his eyes out with a pen.
Go if you want to, he says. But I’m not coming with you.
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The night before I’m due to go to Margot’s I fall asleep on the sofa with the television on. I dream of one thing, then another, grand cinematic scenes that change abruptly, leaving me reeling. First, I’m sweating, juddering, burningly itchy everywhere. I reach up to scratch my scalp and to my sick horror something comes away, lumps stuck under my finger-nails. Something sticky and grey, shining in the moonlight. My stomach slips, swoops. I realize it’s my brain, coming out of my skull. Then black. I’m lying down. Maybe I’m in bed. No, not my bed. A bed. Margot, smiling down at me. Long red hair trailing across my chest. There is a blinding light behind her head, so bright it hurts to look at. It darkens her face; I can’t make it out properly. But I know it’s her. I can tell. I can smell her. I can see her teeth in the blackness, glinting.
It was just a dream, but it’s a relief to find my head in one piece. I glance down at my hands; count my fingers to check they are all there. My eyes burn with sleeplessness, and I wish to god I hadn’t agreed to this.
I take my boyfriend’s car. He’ll be comatose all day anyway. Probably won’t even notice. I turn up the radio to disguise the strange clunking sounds it makes. I try not to think about how many times I’ve asked him to get it checked out. Before long, packed motorways give way to winding country lanes. I could be going anywhere. The motion and exhaustion lull me into a state of peacefulness. I put on my sunglasses and imagine I am going on a solo road trip somewhere exciting, off into the sunset, leaving my life behind.
What will Margot and I talk about? I could ask about her parents. I wonder if Margot still sees them. Family has always been an uncomfortable topic for us both. But Margot’s mum used to look after me when my own mother couldn’t. She never complained. Never said anything about my swollen eyes, my shaky voice. She was always cheerful. Some nights she would wait by the side of my bed until I fell asleep. Sometimes she said it felt like she had two daughters, like Margot and I were sisters. I push it from my mind. That was a long time ago now.
Watching people make fun of her made me feel better about myself.
I miss the entrance to Margot’s drive the first time. I didn’t notice the forest get so dense. Sunlight filters through the leaves and casts everything in a dark, greenish hue, at once calm and inexplicably sad. I smoke before I go in; stare upwards through the branches as though I’ll find something in the distant cracks of blue sky.
Margot’s voice rings out behind me. You made it!
I did, I say.
There is a pause that feels like a lifetime, and in it I regret being here with every inch of my being.
Come in, Margot says. Let me give you the grand tour.
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It turns out that Margot’s fiancé can’t make it tonight. He’s working away, but she hopes he’ll be back in the morning. We can take a walk across the cliffs together.
You can see for miles. It’s beautiful, she says. All that water.
A memory surges: fifteen-year-old Margot on holiday with her parents in Wales. Grey sky, grey rain, so heavy it hurts. She sits down and screams that she won’t go on. We pull our hoods up; wait until she’s done. Her face getting redder and redder. Us watching, silent as walls. I ask Margot it she remembers.
Hmm, she says. That was a long time ago.
But you remember?
I suppose I didn’t like walks as much back then, she says with a chuckle. I love them now though, don’t you? I love being out in nature. Everything smells so fresh. I don’t suppose you get much of a chance in the city though, do you?
No, I say, and take a sip of wine.
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Margot and I didn’t fall out often as teenagers. I never liked confrontation. But when others said things about her, I didn’t defend her the way I know she would have defended me. I didn’t tell her when her period leaked through her knickers and onto her skirt during maths class. I sniggered along with the rest of the class when she stood up to hand in her test. When the boys said she was easy or called her a slag, I didn’t outright agree with them, but I did smile along, sometimes share a quick glance with them. It wasn’t that I didn’t love Margot. I did, desperately, but watching people make fun of her made me feel better about myself. It was one of the only things that did.
Then the boys started saying she let them put their hands down her pants. Margot said it wasn’t true, but one time I saw it happening. Margot’s face blank, bored even, skirt hitched up around her waist. Whichever boy it was had his brow furrowed, a slip of pink tongue sticking out in concentration. Boys used her to learn the female anatomy before moving onto better things. Whenever anyone spoke to her directly about it, I remained still and silent and looked down at my shiny black school shoes with ribbons instead of laces. I loved those shoes. Afterwards, we acted as though nothing had happened, to the point where now I’m not entirely sure how much of it actually happened or whether I made it up. But I do remember the sour pang in my heart when I realized she was lying to me, as clear and as true as anything.
Margot tops up my glass. I decide to ask about it, super-casual.
She shrugs. I mean, yeah. I hooked up with boys when I was a teenager. We all did.
I wonder who ‘all’ is. There was only ever me and Margot. The other girls barely spoke to us, but we liked it that way. We had sleepovers. Just the two of us in the same bed, Margot clinging to me like a limpet. I’d have to peel her warm body off mine so I could get to sleep. We drank undiluted Pimm’s together in the park, made our own fun. We dripped it into each other’s eyes because we’d heard that would get you drunk quicker. I remember the sharp sting, stumbling, howling with laughter, clutching onto each other, a life raft in the spinning world. Flashes of those days come back to me. Pissing in the subway late at night when we thought no one was looking. Smoking weed behind the library with boys from another school. The taste of fire clung to my throat, made me nauseous. Walking home in the dark, Margot crept along the pavements, hiding behind cars, insisting someone was watching us, as they always were.
I ask Margot over dinner. The memories are filling me now. I blurt them out, one after another. I want to remember them, relive them. She looks down at her steak and cuts a precise slice, perfectly pink inside.
I don’t remember it like that, she says. Perhaps it was the vodka in my eyes.
Pimm’s, I think but don’t say. It was Pimm’s.
So how long have you been with your boyfriend now? She looks at me across the table, and I feel the years we’ve spent apart stretching between us like a black hole.
More. Getting caught showing each other our privates in the toilet at school. She must remember Mr Muhammad’s face. She must. His glasses steaming up, the way he turned pink, stuttering. We were put into isolation for two whole weeks and when our parents asked why he simply said, ‘inappropriate behaviour’ and coughed into his handkerchief, refusing to elaborate. Flashing our tits to a stranger to earn ten quid for vodka lemonades at the rugby club. I felt so dirty afterwards I couldn’t sleep. I let Margot hold on to me all night. Stealing mascara and nail varnish from Boots. Almost getting caught but outrunning the security guard, our hands clasped tight the whole way.
You don’t remember any of it?
I don’t remember it like that, no, she says, shoving her steak in her mouth hurriedly as though it’s about to get up and walk off.
I wish love was different.
All of a sudden, I want my boyfriend, more than I have in months. I want to be cuddled like a baby. I want to be tucked in bed, to sleep with the light on. I want to be far away from here. I take a long sip of my wine. Edges soften. I feel myself getting drunk. I think I should go, I say.
Margot looks at me. No! she says. No, don’t go. Oh god. I’ve upset you, haven’t I? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.
No, it’s nothing to do with you, I say. I just don’t feel well. I’ve got this headache.
You’re lying! she says, dropping her cutlery onto her plate with a clang.
I’m not, Margot, I just –
Oh come on, she says. I know it’s been a few years, but bloody hell. I still know you.
My heart starts to clang in my chest like an alarm bell. My breath skips, stutters. No, really, I say. I don’t feel well.
Don’t go, she says, grabbing hold of my wrist. Please. I don’t want to be alone.
Instinctively I snatch my arm back and she collapses onto the floorboards with a thump. She starts to wail, and something cracks inside me.
.
Too much. There’s a reason I forgot those years. Each memory folded, unfolded, smoothed out in a different light. Margot’s breath hot in my ear: I wish you were dead. Margot screaming in some unspecified place, different places. Blame, blame. Rain-soaked hair, dark smudges under her eyes. Margot jumping out in front of my car when I was on my way to a different friend’s house. Her face shivering white in my headlights. Don’t do this to me, she says. I need you. I don’t want to unlock the door, but I do, of course I do. I’m so young, seventeen, eighteen. I don’t know what’s happening. There’s blood all over her arm and it’s so red and she’s telling me she wishes I was dead. And then, and then. She’s holding me, telling me she’ll be okay, and she forgives me this time. Threat hanging in the air like smoke, choking me. When I look in the morning there are bruises up and down my arms, bluish-grey, lilac, mauve, the ghosts of Margot’s fingers. You’re making this all about you, she says, but I’m the one who needs help. Margot’s mum, eyes red, passes me a cup of tea. She doesn’t mean it, she says. She loves you.
I wish love was different. Imagine another life. Imagine a dress. Every night I pray she’ll get better, that she’ll forgive me. Every morning I pray I haven’t done something wrong. I think it is my fault. I think it is normal. I think this is just what it’s like. Slammed doors, hospital wards. Constantly told: she loves you so much, no need to make a fuss. Tears, tears, tears
Please stop, I say. You’re hurting me, Margot.
You’re hurting me more, she says, eyes full of anger, hate even.
There’s a reason I forgot so much.
.
When I wake, it is still dark. I am in Margot’s bed, but we are not touching. I watch her as she breathes beside me. She looks almost peaceful. In, out, in, out. I think: she is just a person, just one person.
I wonder what her fiancé will make of all this, then I get it. Slowly at first, then all at once. This house is beautiful but bare. There are no photographs, no pictures of any kind, very few personal effects. Margot is as much a guest in this house as I am. I walk barefoot across the polished floors, softly softly, onto the main landing. There are so many closed doors. I don’t know which one to choose. I leave them all and take the stairs. I float out of the front door and leave it open. Why not? I take a deep breath of cold air. I am surprised to find there is no voice in my head telling me that it’s all my fault. I stare up at the fuzz of stars beyond the treetops, the clear sky above.
One more. Summer. I’m standing at the edge of the jetty, looking at the rush of green water beneath my feet. All the other children are splashing and laughing, but I’m afraid. What if I sink and drown? What if I get eaten? What if there’s seaweed? I take a step back.
There’s nothing to be afraid of, a voice says behind me.
I turn around and there she is, long red hair dripping down her back, her breasts barely two puckers on the flat board of her chest. She takes my hand and smiles.
You just close your eyes and jump. One, two, three.
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Image credit: Ciaraìn Dowd
Marni Appleton is a writer living in London. She holds a PhD in creative-critical writing from the University of East Anglia. Her writing has been published in literary and academic journals including Banshee, The Tangerine, Contemporary Women’s Writing and Comparative American Studies.
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