Chapter 21 Margot
Chapter 21
Margot
I’ve been guilt-tripped into this. A five-kilometre walk in aid of one of an endless number of breast cancer charities. It’s not that I don’t believe in the cause; I’m not entirely uncaring. It’s that I’d rather donate than actually have to beg for money like a Big Issue vendor.
‘Wouldn’t it be fun if we did the walk together?’ Liv asked Anna and me a few weeks earlier after announcing her participation.
No, it would be pretty much anything else aside from fun, I wanted to reply. And when I told her I’d check my diary and get back to her, I meant it. I’d get back to her with an excuse, then sponsor her ￡50 and think no more about it until she virtue-signalled her way across Instagram after the event. Then her waterworks flew like a lawn sprinkler as she explained how she was doing it in memory of a dead sister. And who can say no to a dead sister? Well, me, had it just been her and me in the room. But Anna was there too and she’s as malleable as Play-Doh. So of course she said yes, which meant muggins here got roped in.
What’s irritated me the most about this whole debacle is that Liv failed to mention it was a midnight walk. Bloody midnight! In March! Who goes for a walk at midnight in March aside from badgers and sex offenders?
It’s just before 11 p.m. when I leave our en-suite bathroom clad in a shapeless pink sweatshirt that I swear Liv deliberately ordered for me in a larger size (she claims it was a slip of the finger), with the name of a dead woman I’ll never meet emblazoned across the back. But the pièce de résistance is a headband with a light attached to the front.
‘Don’t,’ I warn Nicu when he clocks me in my full regalia. He’s under the bedcovers, smirking. ‘Just don’t.’
My headband suddenly starts flashing like a strobe light.
‘Worst. Rave. Ever,’ he says.
I laugh, despite myself. It’s not often we amuse each other these days. There was a moment last week in which I thought he might be offering me an olive branch. He asked if I wanted to watch him rehearse at a studio in Milton Keynes, and after a little false protestation, I agreed. It was the first time I’d seen him dance for a long, long time.
Seven years after our last dance together on that awful, awful night, producers asked him if he’d consider returning for a new series of Strictly Come Dancing after one of the regulars broke his ankle in rehearsals. The chance to redeem himself in the eyes of the public was worth more to him than the offered wage, so he agreed. The one and only time I asked to come along and support him, they’d saved me a seat right at the very back of the studio. I monitored the cameras shooting the audience’s reaction and they didn’t once focus on my area. I haven’t asked to make a return visit.
As I watched Nicu glide across the dancefloor, I couldn’t help but be reminded of how there is something undeniably attractive about watching a handsome, masculine man move with ease and grace. His body floated and swooped as if he was a part of the song, not accompanying it. Almost as if neither would exist without the other.
‘Come on, your turn, Margot!’ his dance partner Katrina urged, and beckoned me to join my husband.
We hadn’t danced together since our last night on the show, not even at our wedding reception. So we began by looking at each other through the eyes of two nervous teenagers at a school prom, before he took charge. He entwined his fingers through mine, slipped his arm around my waist as ‘We Found Love’ by Rihanna and Calvin Harris blasted from the speakers. I remember when that song was released, and thinking that lyrics had never been more fitting for us as a couple. We had found love in a hopeless place. Then we danced as if we’d never stopped. And as the song came to an end, our moment passed. I left him in the studio, returned to my car and cried. It had been a brief snapshot of who we used to be and who I’m terrified we’ll never be again.
‘God knows what time I’ll be home,’ I say now.
Nicu moves towards me as if to kiss me goodbye. But no, he’s reaching for the remote control from the top of a chest of drawers.
I make my way across the landing. Tommy is sound asleep – he’s always been a boy who loves his bed – while a glimmer of light shines under Frankie’s door. I knock, wait, then open it. She’s typing into her phone and scowls at me. I expect we’ll end the day as we began, in conflict.
‘You know the rules,’ I begin. ‘No phones after nine p.m.’
‘I’m talking,’ she replies, returning her attention to the gadget.
‘To who?’
‘You don’t know them.’
‘That doesn’t answer my question – to who?’
‘Dana.’
‘Who is Dana? A boy or a girl?’
‘They’re neither. Like me.’
I shake my head. ‘I’m not starting this again.’
‘I’m not starting anything. You asked and I answered.’
‘And how do you know this Dana, because I’ve never heard of them .’
‘Through Liv. She’s friends with their parents.’
Why is Liv giving my daughter’s number to people I don’t know, and without my say-so?
‘We were talking about how I identify and how you don’t support me, and she told me about someone she knew who’d recently come out as non-binary,’ Frankie continues. ‘She thought it might be useful for me to chat with someone who understands.’
‘What? When did this happen? What else did you tell her about me?’
‘And there we are,’ Frankie sighs, as if she’s been awaiting this moment. ‘Once again, you turn this around so it becomes about you and how you feel. Not about what I’m going through. I talked, Liv listened. Which is much more than you do.’
I am fuming. What the hell gives Liv the right to talk to my daughter about how she identifies, or about me? And to put her in touch with a stranger without discussing it with me first? I’ve spent enough of my adult life being criticised, dissected, opinionised and judged by strangers and keyboard warriors without it happening on my own doorstep.
‘Turn your phone off and go to sleep,’ I snap, and wait until she does as she’s told before I shut the door with more force than necessary.
And I’m still angry by the time I reach Anna and Liv at the park.