style="font-size:15px;"> ‘It’s okay, love. I think this woman probably has a headache or something. I’m sure she wouldn’t have meant to be rude to you otherwise, would you, Marjorie!’ the woman said, glaring at Marjorie.
Marjorie felt flustered. Well, that had all come out wrong! She had wanted the silly young woman to shut up, of course, but she shouldn’t have said anything. She should have simply moved tables when she’d started annoying her – that much was clear. So she mouthed a ‘Sorry’ to everyone on the table and then gathered her tea and cake and moved to a different table – a table where there was just one other little old lady sitting there, eating her cake with a fork, and who seemed much more civilised.
However, whilst Marjorie munched her cake, she suddenly felt tearful. She was sure she didn’t really belong here, amongst these people, despite the delicious chocolate cake. No, this experiment wasn’t working for her. Perhaps she’d persuade Gracie to take her out for proper afternoon tea in an upmarket hotel somewhere instead of having to deal with these unbearable people, here, with their funny ways.
Then to top it all off, Stacy approached her table with two paracetamols in her hand.
‘I’m sorry you’ve got a headache, Marjorie. Here! Take these with a glass of water. You’ll soon feel better!’
Gracie stood, with her hands on her hips – just like she used to do when she was a little girl, trying to stop her mother and father fighting, Marjorie thought wryly.
‘So when this girl approached you, you got up and left. Is that what you’re telling me, Mother? After what you said, which was totally rude and nasty, and then the sweet little thing gave you tablets because she thought you were ill? How can you ever face her again, after that?’
Marjorie didn’t want to row with Gracie today. And it irked her that Gracie used the kind of language that only someone who looked after schoolchildren would use when the students needed reprimanding. Not that Gracie reprimanded anyone at school. She only scolded her mother, which made Marjorie feel like a naughty schoolchild.
‘But she was so annoying; so needy. All her words were tumbling out and running into each other. There was no “off” button. It was like she hadn’t spoken to anyone in years and it was all just dribbling out of her!’
‘So that was enough to make you tell her off? This poor young woman’s manner? I thought the organisers said they wanted you all to make friends with each other?’
Marjorie buried her face in the tea towel she was using to dry their dinner plates.
‘But I don’t want to make friends with all those people down there. They’re a funny bunch of characters. And some of them don’t seem right in the head.’
‘Well, now I’ve heard everything! Have you heard yourself? You’re starting to sound like my father!’
‘Well now you’re talking rubbish. I’m nothing like Oliver,’ Marjorie snapped.
‘But we all know that the abused often become the abusers, Mother,’ Gracie said quietly. ‘You’ve let yourself down at that place and I must say I’m disappointed by your behaviour.’
Marjorie bit back the tears that threatened to overflow. Saddened by her daughter’s comments and unable to justify herself, she stomped out of the kitchen and snatched her coat off the banister, intending to go for a walk to calm herself.
A light drizzle accompanied her down the street. She found a wet bench in the little park nearby, and sat down. A man threw a stick for his dog. The dog kept retrieving it delightedly and running back for the man to throw it again and then they left. Marjorie let her tears stream down her face unchecked whilst no one was around. She sat there deep in thought until the rain matted her hair and she didn’t even flinch when a slow trickle wound its way down her neck.
She didn’t understand herself but, more importantly, she didn’t understand others. Their behaviour was different to hers. Sure, she knew they all had challenging lives; they’d seen and done numerous things and that made them speak and act differently to her. Horses for courses! She’d had a horrid life with Oliver apart from their wondrous gift of her dear Gracie and maybe some of those people at the community centre had lived through horrid lives too. That said, Marjorie could see there was something wrong with Stacy in a way that there was also something wrong with herself; loneliness being at the heart of it. But she couldn’t deal with other people’s problems – didn’t want to deal with other people’s complications – when she didn’t know how to deal with her own problem of coming to terms with what she’d suffered. The isolation, loneliness and fear she’d lived in because of Oliver had been debilitating. She was aware that the way he had treated her was probably the main reason she dealt with other people the way she did.
Because that’s all she had known for so many years.
She didn’t intend to go around hurting people but she expected them to understand when she felt annoyed about things or when she felt justified in pointing things out that needed saying. Problem was, people seemed to easily take offence at her words.
She’d often wondered if she’d spoken to someone in a professional capacity about how Oliver’s terrible behaviour had affected and hurt her over the years, would she have been able to put the past behind her and move forward in a more positive light? She knew that abused people didn’t always become abusers themselves, as Gracie had said.
Part of the problem was that she’d never managed to fathom why Oliver had been so angry towards her. His own mother had never understood it or been able to explain it, when she’d witnessed it first-hand and she’d refused to discuss it with Marjorie – just like Marjorie’s own mother. Perhaps the older generation preferred to sweep things, like that, under the mat.
When she’d sat and conferred with Gracie, years later, they’d realised Oliver’s problems couldn’t have simply stemmed from his stint in the army. Maybe his problems had started before that. Maybe there were things she’d never known about him, before they’d met? She’d known he’d never been a particularly warm and caring soul and even though she’d found out he’d been in prison for grievous bodily harm she just thought that was part and parcel of his ‘macho’ image – something she’d probably been attracted to in the first place, if she was honest. When she’d met him in her late teens he’d seemed exciting in a way that the other boys in her village never were. Of course, Marjorie also realised that preferring men with a ‘bad boy’ image had been many a woman’s downfall.
Or had his problems been the reason he’d left the army in a dubious way?
Marjorie sniffed miserably and tightened her coat around her. The drizzle was starting to make her feel cold. And now that she was thinking about things, she realised she hadn’t been happy for a while.
She felt as though she lived on the outskirts of other people’s lives. Sure, Oliver’s behaviour had initially alienated her from her friends and family. She’d felt so alone back then and she knew her ‘people skills’ were somewhat lacking. And, yes, his manner and the way he’d dealt with everything in his destructive, derogatory way had rubbed off on her, even to the point of her being rude to people, the way she had in the community centre with Raymond and Stacy today. But Marjorie also knew that if she didn’t come to terms with this unsavoury element about herself and do something about her
