Marjorie lowered the lid on the disabled toilet and sat down. She covered her face with her arms and bawled. But she knew she wasn’t just crying for what had happened with Dora.
She’d forgotten what Dr Baxley had said about taking a moment before speaking out against other people’s ideals. She knew she’d dealt with Dora in the same way Oliver dealt with things all his life – blustering in where her opinion (and his opinion) was not sought. Marjorie wished she’d found a way to deal with Oliver over the years. If she’d succeeded, her relationships, going forward, wouldn’t have been as difficult as they were now. It seemed as though life threw up harsh consequences, whatever she did. Tutting at herself, Marjorie realised she hadn’t given it a moment’s thought as to why Dora might have felt she needed to use Botox or other methods in order to look younger and prettier. And yet I use make-up every day to enhance my own looks, she thought. The only difference between their decisions had simply been that Dora had chosen a drastic course of action to enhance her looks, which, unfortunately, hadn’t worked out for the best. But by Dora’s own admission she was already rectifying that problem. Yet Marjorie had stepped in critically, before she’d even known what was what, to judge poor Dora the way she’d seen fit. Why oh why hadn’t she stopped herself from speaking out, like she managed to do with Stacy last week?
Marjorie shook her head. ‘I’m a fool and I was wrong. I didn’t know the full story.’
Before Marjorie had met Gracie’s new boyfriend, Steven, she’d been ready to judge that situation too quickly and critically, she realised now. Gracie had told her Steven was wonderful but Marjorie had needed to find that out for herself. Marjorie had even been wary about his job title, which had sounded made-up to her. He was a quantity surveyor.
‘A what?’ Marjorie had said.
‘Basically, he works out construction costs for building projects,’ Gracie had explained.
Steven had been very polite and respectful of her daughter, on the afternoon she’d invited him and Gracie to join her for lunch. Gracie told her how she’d seen him at the station, always getting on another train to go elsewhere. Their eyes had met and they’d both smiled. Then she’d been in the station café earlier than usual one morning and suddenly there he was. He’d approached her and told her how he’d seen her on the platform and had always wanted to speak to her but didn’t know how to start the conversation. They’d laughed, Gracie said, because they’d both been thinking the same thing. Steven had been holding Gracie’s hand as she’d told the tale of how they’d met and Marjorie had seen the sincerity and love in his eyes. And then she’d known as instinctively as her daughter had, after meeting him that first time, that he was ‘The One’ for her lovely Gracie. Somehow, it seemed not to matter that they’d only been dating each other a few weeks. Marjorie just knew something felt right about their relationship.
Everybody’s situation was different, Marjorie realised, although people were basically the same. Lots of things were going on around her at that moment; lots of things and lots of situations she was learning from, even though she was still getting so much of it wrong.
But she’d understood something about herself today.
It hurt where Dora had just prodded her and it felt like the nudge she needed to instil in herself that, from today, she really was going to learn to keep her thoughts to herself. She’d make no more comments that could be misconstrued; no more giving people ‘friendly advice, for their own good’. Clearly they saw their own situations differently to Marjorie and she had to learn to leave people to their own devices and let them make their own decisions about what was right or wrong for them. It didn’t matter how things turned out for the people she’d been trying to help. Their actions were the only ones that counted to them. They’d always only do what they saw fit; rightly or wrongly. That’s how life was. She understood that now.
Marjorie sniffed, miserably, and then got some toilet paper and blew her nose.
***
Stacy had told the others she’d go and see if there was anything she could do to help Marjorie. So she stood outside the disabled toilet, waiting for Marjorie’s sobs to subside as she knew they would eventually.
She leant on the wall with her arms folded.
She could see that people were so complicated. They had lots of problems. Dora had already admitted that perhaps she’d treated the older woman a little harshly but then she’d already had her own mother going on about the Botox injections not working out for her. Eva had said she couldn’t believe two older women were having a bust-up in the community centre for no particularly good reason at all and said she’d needed to have a ‘stern’ conversation with them before they went home today.
Stacy’d had enough of her own rows of late too. Perhaps she’d been very naïve when she invited both her parents and Peter and Marvin to lunch that day. She’d hoped it might bring them all together because she knew how discriminatory her father was. She cringed at the thought of how it all went horribly and embarrassingly wrong on that score.
Her father had seen Marvin put his arm around Peter and he’d gone mad. He’d yelled at everyone – yes, all of them – saying that no one knew how to conduct their lives any more and it was high time they had someone back in power like Enoch Powell (whoever he was) who stood no nonsense. Then he said he was going to wait in the car for his wife and that she’d better not be long or he’d leave without her.
Luckily, her mother had ignored him and told everyone she was staying and that they were going to enjoy their meal and catch up with everybody’s news.
‘Don’t worry about it, Mum-to-be,’ Marvin had said. ‘We get this sort of thing a lot. Shouldn’t be any discrimination these days but that’s how life still is sometimes. We’re going to get married either way and we’ll invite you all to the wedding. Whether Dad-to-be comes or not is up to him but you’ll all be welcome!’
Stacy loved Marvin. He made everything seem better. And at least she’d reconnected with her brother again. She’d been invited to their place, the following weekend, and she was really looking forward to that. But she’d been disgusted at her father. Luckily he’d waited for her mum but, apparently, they’d had strong words afterwards.
Stacy could no longer hear Marjorie’s cries but she could hear water running and Marjorie talking to herself now. She wondered whether to knock or just wait until she came out. Knowing everybody was waiting for some response in the art room, she had just lifted her hand to knock when the door suddenly opened and there was Marjorie with a rather red face.
‘Um. Hi, Marjorie. You okay now?’
Stacy had made Marjorie jump, standing in the doorway like that.
‘Eva wants to talk to you. Well, not just you. But she wanted me to come and get you anyway,’ Stacy began.
‘Yes, well I’m not coming back into class, love. I just want to go home now, thank you.’
‘That won’t be happening for the moment,’ said Eva, striding up to Marjorie. ‘Dora’s confessed to her role in all this and so I’d like you to come back in so we can just have a quick chat.’
Reluctantly Marjorie walked between Eva and Stacy back to the room where Michael was chatting to Raymond and Dora was sat looking very sorry for herself. Dora was the first one to speak, however.
‘Okay I’ll say sorry to prodding you like that but I got mad at what you said.’
‘Thank you, Dora,’ said Eva. ‘Well, everyone. This situation got a little out of hand today and this is why I say to leave all your worries at the door when you come in here. Life is shitty enough without bringing it into class with you. The whole idea, here, is to give you some time out from all that crap. Not indulge in it further. So have you learned anything today, Marjorie, apart from how to draw with a blindfold on?’
Marjorie managed a little smile. ‘I’ve given myself a strong talking-to, so you don’t have to.’
‘Well, that’s good. Now is there anything else you want to say, Marjorie?’
‘I’d like to explain myself to Dora. Well, to you all in fact. I think sometimes we forget that other people have problems too, different problems, even though we’re all basically the same. We’re all looking for love and acceptance in life. Some of us have never had that, you see.’
‘Ah,’ said Eva. ‘Right well, I can see this is going to get a bit deep and the class has all but ended, now. So why don’t you have a little chat amongst yourselves and see if you can all come out of it a lot friendlier than you have been today? You can use the canteen if you wish. But I do need to get cleaned up in here.’
‘Very tactful,’ said Raymond smiling. ‘See you next time then, Eva. Bye, Michael. You coming next time? I could do with you evening the numbers out.’
‘Sure, pops. See you next time,’ said Michael.