As part of my Business Enterprise Allowance I was doing a day course in bookkeeping (not dependent upon obtaining the remittance, but I thought what could be more useful for a lady of enterprise). The lady who was conducting the course whose name was Nancy and possibly Williams was wearing a rather lovely pencil skirt, and it proved rather too distracting to focus on balance sheets and ledgers as I began to sketch an accompanying hat for Nancy. I’ve still got the doodle book somewhere. Guy, at some point, who was sitting next to me, began to doodle flowers around Nancy… We went to the pub afterwards and, after all the others had left, had become a little tipsy.
Guy was a rather shy – scruffy-looking chap in a collarless shirt that hung out of the back of his rather saggy hidden trouser bottom, which made him, I suppose, rather like a defrocked priest going at the communion wine. Guy described himself as a poet, a writer of ephemera. He was – I understood – starting out on the Circuit and had a little pocket notebook, from which he started reading me some of his poems and with which he wanted to go to press on the back of his enterprise allowance. Suddenly, we started kissing. I suppose that was my fault – or as Magnus might say, my default. We were – as I have said – a little tipsy, but no more. – I never told Magnus, but I thought if we never got to second base, it wasn’t exactly cheating, was it?
After the course, I did not hear anything from Guy, and honestly did not expect to. London – for me in those days – was a busy place. And if you weren’t busy, no one – as I kept telling Magnus – would pay the bills. Not that Magnus seemed to mind. In fact, he made no secret of the fact that he rather enjoyed being the kept man. It suited his sense of amour propre and his natural proclivity to unwind with a whimper or as I used to think of it, a glass of whine. You may wonder what on earth I was doing with Magnus. The truth was, Magnus was my weakness. Besides, he was an excellent conversationalist, and – something that has always impressed me – extremely well-read. I rather enjoyed his louche, idle intelligence. For a man he was unusually sensitive to one’s moods. He had an uncanny ability to recognise when – after a long day stooped over the Singer – one might be craving bubble bath, reiki stones or chocolate.
Out of the blue, Guy got back in touch. He had managed – through that circuitous route of friends of friends – to get tickets for Jools Holland. Magnus, of course, was baffled. Bafflement, as I would say, was Magnus’s default (in the way flirting – without kissing – was supposed to be mine.)
“Why’s he getting us tickets?”
“He likes us.”
“But I don’t know him.”
“Honestly, Magnus, can’t you just relax. It’s a freebie.”
“Well, that’s alright then, isn’t it,” said Magnus. “It’s a freebie. Ergo, we must go.”
And so we went. Even if he was a little suspicious, Magnus (I believe) thoroughly enjoyed it. Jools Holland did his Jools Holland thing – tinkering on his piano, while the band ripped through their repertoire, and Magnus broke sweat with Guy and I bopping around him.
After the concert we had all became very touchy feely; Guy had vowed to stay in touch, and in fact was as good as his word. He came down to the market the following week and brought his friend Miguel who he introduced as a Chilean film director. Miguel hastened to correct him. It was, in fact, his father who was the film director. He was merely a part-time actor, but he had come to London – at his father’s urging – they were exiles in Madrid – to study something in the sector.
I remember I was half-asleep and still feeling a little groggy from a bottle of wine Magnus and I’d polished off the night before. (Magnus had become a most excellent cook of roasted half poussin). One of the perks of being a market trader was having oodles of cash in hand. And it usually was a very fine bottle of wine – invariably agonised over by Magnus – from the High Street off-license and not the Indian corner shop where I tended to pop. Maureen – who I shall explain promptly – used to say if he would spend half the creative energy over choosing his wines as he did over his finals Magnus would go far. At least further than the destined third-class degree. (To his credit, years later, I learnt through a mutual friend of his younger sister, Magnus ended up with a two one and a successful career in legal academia).
Punters were beginning to come through the market, and I still had not put anything out. Guy and particularly Miguel, who seemed to have far more energy than I did, helped me set up the stall. Then, because they had been so kind and I was in an appreciative mood, I went off to get us some beers.
By the time I got back (and paid Our Jamie two weeks’ rent), they’d sold one of the wide-brimmed hats. I could not have been more pleased. They were old stock, and I was trying to get rid of them, anyway.
But where was Guy?
Miguel shrugged.
At this point I was a little confused by Miguel. Partly because I did not understand why he had not left with Guy; but then it became apparent that Miguel was equally baffled by Guy’s disappearing act. Whatever happened to Guy, I sincerely hope he completed his book of poems and marginalia. Miguel, who was another kettle of fish, had no intention of leaving; in fact, he was making a study of the market, by which I assumed he meant documentary.
Amid the challenges of Miguel’s stilted English, we sold two more cloche hats when Magnus showed up in a shower of late morning bonhomie. We were in an undercover part of the market, so there was no risk of the hats getting wet. In his effusiveness – and perhaps his delight at having a genuine Latin American part-time actor with film producing father – Magnus challenged Miguel to a game of chess, and went to fetch the pieces and board we kept in the boot of the mini.
Magnus and Miguel played by the stall until the rush came on, as it usually did, in the middle of the afternoon, and someone knocked over the board, which was just as well for Magnus because Miguel (as he later confided to me) was about to take his Queen. But not as it turned out in that moment for there was a waif who wanted to see herself in a lilac cloche. Miguel smiled and held up the mirror while Magnus pinned on the rose that had fallen off the band. It really was a bit of a tight squeeze around the aisle when the rush was on, and I had been caught over the way talking to Mig about chakras no doubt, spaceships and Islamic geometric design. I was relieved, because I could see they were getting on. And it was never easy to get Magnus on board with another male.
The market at the end of the day was still heaving, and I was quite fed up with it. But we had to get the car up to put the stock away. Although Magnus could not drive, he decided to come with me for moral support – and perhaps if I was lucky – to direct traffic which he usually did by plonking himself in the middle of the way with his hands en poche, in the manner of a disgruntled pocket billiard player, while Miguel stayed by the stall. When we got back, having battled our way to a choice little spot up by the Cutty Sark, Miguel had sold two of the old cloches. They were in a sandy yellow felt that had been knocking around the stall for months.
“Miguel’s rather good at this,” declared Magnus. “Why don’t you take him on, Mary?”
Which is how, honestly, through no manufacture of my own, the idea came about.
However – and there always seemed to be one of those at this juncture of my life, I did not take Miguel up on it straight away. This was because I became embroiled in one of Magnus’s tortured, weekly self-examinations. These self-examinations of Magnus were both mental as well as physical. There were both comic and pathetic to watch. One was always waiting for the moment when his sense of unworthiness would scrape the barrel, and he would stare obsessively in the mirror at the drooping membrum virile. Magnus was rather well-endowed, but that did not stop him; in the end, he became so frustrated – by now we were in the middle of the week – and his notebooks remained on the desk unclosed and unannotated -that he left, much to my relief, for his mother’s.…
Which brings us to the following Saturday: it had been an interminably slow morning, and I was trying to learn how to juggle with some of the balls from Terry’s stall next door. I have always wanted to be a juggler, or what Terry would insist as calling a petty jongleur (Terry had a nice line in post-Marxist theory), but I think that will be for another life. But I was so concentrating on my balls I did not see Miguel as he came through the market and whipped one of the balls from my hand.
The game now grew rather diverting, as we tried to juggle the balls between us, various punters ducking our efforts, until we found ourselves collapsing in hysterics when one of the balls landed in the basket being carried by a young punter. The lady punter was clutching a lapdog who had become enchanted with one of my hats.
In the throes of high amusement Miguel asked me where Magnus was, so I told him.
It was not easy to convey to Miguel – and not just because of Miguel’s limited English or my olé Spanish – the complexity of feelings I had about Magnus and Maureen. Regardless, I tried my best to give a sense of their uncensorable relationship: mother and son. Friends would say I was not naturally given to getting on with other women, but I had always had a perfectly decent relationship with Maureen. The only problem was Magnus had an even better relationship with his mother. They were on the phone to each other morning, noon and night. Sometimes even during the night. If I ever got waylaid by Maureen, the conversation would inevitably focus on Magnus. Maureen could agonise on Magnus almost as much as Magnus could agonise on Magnus.
As you can see, I can still fashion a fairly acerbic Magnus-Maureen critique. It must have been one of these I was in the middle of when I caught Miguel’s expression. He had one of these wispy little beards that were not entirely fashionable then. Suddenly I could not contain myself, and nor could Miguel.
“Oh, confound it!” I said. “Let’s shut up shop and go to the pub.”
Miguel looked at me confused.
“It’s November. No one ever buys anything in November. Besides, I have a proposition to make you, for which I think we will need lubrication.”
“What about Mig’s stall?”
“What about it?”
It was then I clicked; next to Mig’s Moroccan pots were a collection of leather broaches that one often saw in the hands of South American street sellers; Miguel, I realised, was going into the market business, not documentaries.
Thus, it began: our conspiracy of work and play as the month of December kicked off, and everything – as usual – intensified for Christmas. I needed to make stock, and Miguel promised to look after my stall for the next few Saturdays as well. Miguel would pop over to pick up the large duffle bag of hats; sometimes he would stay for Magnus’ hot espresso, or the mate that he kept in a pouch at his belt.
I was also planning to do another market up in north London, on Fridays. Miguel, I thought, could do the market at St Martin’s in the Field.
They were a funny little lot up at St Martin’s in the Field. Brian was a little gnome of a man in a tracksuit and his ginger-haired younger wife, Tracey. Tracey was a high flyer in a merchant bank, but she used to bring Brian bags of donuts and potted plants for their window boxes. And then there was Frank, of course, with all those young girls who used to cluck around his stall. “Like bees to a honey pot,” he would say, rubbing his mittens and scrunching up his nose like some Fagin manqué. I loved Frank, but I am not sure Frank knew what to make of me. Did any of them ever? I wonder. At any rate, I think Miguel rather enjoyed it; it was ‘character’ in the way that the boulevard cafes might be in Madrid.
Which was in stark contrast to my experience in the North London Market. -There, I have even blanked the name of the street upon which it thrived! The truth was, I thought it was posy, and I did not want to be there, and nor did my clients. My clients wer not posy. They were just sweet little girls who wanted to pretend they were sitting by the Seine with a group of gentlemen in Seurat bathing suits.
All this I tried to explain to Miguel who smiled and pinched me affectionately on the cheek.
“Do you want to come to Brick Lane tomorrow?” I asked.
“Why not?” he said. “I will play the tourist.”
“No, you won’t,” I said. “You will play my assistant and stern-faced beard scratcher.”
The following day, in Brick Lane, we went to buy crushed velvet from the Hassidic Jews. We bought some colourful sweets from an Indian restaurant. By the time we had bought up all the crushed velvet in stock, it was dark. We went to a pub down by the river, and sipped our pints of London Pride. As we walked outside, the moon was full above us; we walked back to my mini holding hands.
The scene was set up to be rather romantic. In fact, I was beginning to wonder which of us was playing the part when I saw Miguel’s dark eyebrow raised at me.
“Mary,” he said in that stilted way I found so charming, “why do you not leave him?”
“I can’t,” I replied, “at least, not yet.”
“I don’t know,” he went on. “It is getting difficult for me. I don’t like to play a role.”
“What role, prey?” I inquired.
“The role I think you give to me – that of the agent provocateur.”
“The agent provocateur,” I re-joined, “since when did I turn you into this political conniver.”
“I am not a very good agent provocateur,” he returned. “But I like Magnus.”
“So do I, but I also like you.”
I squeezed his hand and he laughed.
“Now who is the agent provocateur?”
“We can both be agent provocateurs,” I said.
Miguel laughed again as he clasped and swung my hand.
“In my country one can risk one’s life for such acts.”
Was that the point we kissed? Reader, I confess it was. I will stress again: it was nothing serious – just a piece of what Guy might have described as whimsy or ephemera. Perhaps we had – in the interim – stumbled from first to second base. Besides, I did enjoy the way Miguel put his hand on my breasts, brushing them lightly before cupping them more firmly and then brushing them again until I pushed his hand away. But, as before, with Guy, – cross my heart and hope to die, we never got to third. It still wasn’t cheating, was it?
In the build up to Christmas, with Miguel’s help, I made stacks of cash – not as much, of course, as Frank did with his honey pot. Miguel’s leather broaches did not do so well either; but he was happy with what I topped him up with. But it was more than enough to keep us in crushed velvet and bottle of fine wine till the spring. Then, I began to fantasize I could open a shop, and having opened a shop I could close it again and go on a year-long sabbatical around Latin America with Miguel. Such were my pipe dreams!
The Greenwich market was closed over the Christmas weekend. Miguel had flown back to Madrid to be with his family. Magnus had already gone on to Maureen’s Suffolk abode. By the time I got home from the dreaded North London Market I was absolutely shattered, and fell asleep in my market rags.
When I woke up on Christmas Day, the phone was ringing.
“Mary, where are you?”
“Oh, Magnus,” I said, “I am so awfully sorry. I over-slept. And it’s bloody freezing.”
Magnus was suddenly concerned.
“Is it cold in the flat?”
“I must have forgotten to put the heating on.”
“Oh, Magnus,” I said, as I stood up and staggered towards the cupboard with the thermostat, “I think I’m coming down with something.”
“You will wrap up, Mary.”
I could hear Maureen in the background. It did not make any difference; I realised I had a temperature; I collapsed back into bed.
My flu must have been catching; Magnus phoned me up from Mother’s to inform me he was also in bed. We could barely mumble into the telephone.
After two days my bug passed, but Magnus was still in bed in Suffolk.
What I am about to relate did not happen at Christmas but a few weeks later, and yet I still associate it in a continuum from Christmas because Magnus was again – though not suffering unless you call studying a kind of sufferance – in Suffolk at Maureen’s.
It had begun to freeze over. The basin pipes in the bedroom were blocked.
I woke up to see snow on the ground. I switched on the radio to hear how the bombers were going in. Yes, snow was on the ground, and there was icy excitement in the air. Just for a moment I thought:
What if they launch a missile? – Any minute you could see all of London in rubble and smoke.
Since the TV was on the blink, and I had not seen anything of the war, I could only imagine it through the commentary I heard that morning.
“Mary,” said Magnus down the phone, “I hardly think Saddam Hussein can hit us from here.”
“No, Magnus. Of course, he can’t. It was just the idea.”
“Logically,” Magnus went on as if his usual capacity for irony over politics had failed him, “he does not stand a chance. The coalition of the willing will give him a bloody nose.”
I gave up trying to explain to Magnus my sense of impending doom.
“How is your sore throat?”
“I’m wearing your scarf.”
“When will you be home?”
“I don’t know. I’ll give you a ring tomorrow.”
Miguel had gone up to North London to do the market I could no longer bear to do; I picked him from the station.
“How did it go?”
“Very slow.”
He handed me the money belt and we put the stock in the boot. “I’m bloody freezing,” he said as if finally getting used to English idiom.
“I’ll soon warm you up.”
I put on the heating, but it had never worked very well and the car windows steamed up. As I drove, I had to open the windows so we could see out. – We skidded down one of the side streets that takes you up the hill past Greenwich Park onto the Heath. Suddenly it looked as though the Yorkshire Moors had come to London, and my heart would miss a beat. For there was something quite delicious about the thought that I was about to embark on an affair with my stilted Latino.
The shopping – and our dinner – was under my seat.
Miguel leaned back to get it.
“What’s this?” he said, pulling out a half-wrapped package.
It was the present from Magnus; I had forgotten all about it.
“Shall we open it?” he said.
I did not laugh but smiled in recognition of my predicament.
“He always buys something like this,” I said. “I don’t have the heart to tell him I don’t find it very attractive.”
It was a lacey green teddy. If it had been black or white, I would have been happy to wear it I suppose. But green has never been a colour that goes with my skin, even if – in those days it must be said – I could carry off any interested party in a Marks and Sparks dressing gown and a pair of fluffy slippers.
I remember I sat on Miguel’s bed and took off my coat. The bed had one of those tiger bedcovers draped over it. Miguel had a bottle of something with a makeshift label. – “It was a Christmas present from my father,” said Miguel.
As he spoke, he turned up his nose.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Nothing. It’s just the sort of thing he always gives me. In fact, it’s excellent palm wine.”
“Didn’t you see him at Christmas?”
“He went skiing with his new girlfriend.”
“What did you do on Christmas Day?”
“I read a book, then I went to bed and thought of you.”
I laughed.
For the evidence was indeed before me.
We retired to the bed and started to take off our clothes. We huddled under the duvet and began to explore each other’s bodies. However, I must confess it: there was something half-hearted about my lovemaking. In spite of being loose from the palm wine, I could not yield up to passion.
A familiar line was running through my head:
For one horrible moment I thought of the nuns, and most particularly the stern face of Mother Keyes that blended with my inner voice:
You hypocrite, Mary! You’re just a hypocrite.
It was not only the castigation of Mother Keyes that unsettled me. Besides, the association of Mother Keyes and sex was hardly strong, but it was a catalyst for a bruising interplay of associations that had me in a faintly nauseous recall of stringy vegetables and lumpy potato smuggled into a cough sweet tin to hide the fact I was not going to eat the revolting food from the lunch monitors (unless I could palm it off on Viv Pelosi who would eat anything).
“I am sorry,” I said, as I sat down in the chair opposite the little gas fire that was burning bluely before us.
Mother Keyes and Magnus were right. I could not deny the sense of hypocrisy I felt in relation to my body’s pleasure.
“You slept with him.”
“I did.”
“Well, was he a good lay?”
Magnus was trying to sound aggressive, but he did not have the personality for aggression unless it was of the passive kind.
“Does it matter?”
“Well, it matters to me.”
“Anyway,” I said, “I thought you liked playing chess with Miguel.”
“He took my Queen,” said Magnus in a hoarse voice.
We talked for hours. Magnus could not figure it out. He talked for hours with Maureen, and still could not figure it out, so I left them to it and went to bed. When I woke up, the phone was ringing. I looked round for Magnus, but he wasn’t in bed. In fact, he wasn’t in the flat.
There was a message in the kitchen, scrawled on the back of a bill that I had yet to pay.
“Gone home to die,” it read, or some of that ilk.
The knowledge left me quite frantic. I was running out of the Christmas stock. I realised would need to make more hats. I realised I would have to get on with it if I was going to have any hats for the markets I was planning to do in January. There was nothing for it. I sat down at the Singer, and worked all afternoon running up and down seams. Part of me was still thinking about Magnus, and what a naughty girl I had been to him. Part of me was also not guilty – and quite enjoying it all. Don’t be ridiculous, I kept telling a combination of Mother Keyes and Viv Pelosi, you’re not a hypocrite. You’re a young woman with natural proclivities. You like your body and want to enjoy it.
The phone rang, but I ignored it.
The phone rang a second time, but again I ignored it.
The third time Magnus left a message, but I could not be bothered to listen to it.
Saddam’s scuds had landed in no man’s land.
Finally, I picked up the phone and began to dial the number.
“Miguel,” I said, “would you mind if I come and have some more of your palm wine?”