Did the Moon Smile?

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Moondrift
Moondrift
2,277 Followers

Then as if Mark had been doing his own share of viewing he said in a rather artificially cheerful voice, "Well, darling, you look as lovely as ever."

Margot was all too aware that the ravages of the previous evening were still with her, so she said, "Don't be bloody stupid Mark, and you didn't seem to think that when you left me."

"Oh, come on sweetheart, its water under the bridge now. Look, I got a couple of bottles of wine, let's have a drink."

At the word drink Margot felt her stomach make a threatening lurch. "I won't, but you can if you like."

"Oh, well, okay. Just thought it'd be nice for us to have a drink together for old time's sake."

By now they were seated in the lounge, Mark on the settee with his arm stretched along it rather as if he expected Margot to drop into it. Instead she seated herself in an armchair. She decided to let things ride for a while to see where Mark was heading. She was almost certain he hadn't come down all the way from up north just for a chat.

Mark began a fairly inconsequential conversation, enquiring what she'd been "up to," for the last couple of years. Margot told him nothing about the university and Alex, and answered vaguely, Oh, just this and that."

Mark went on to ask about old friends and acquaintances, and how the town was going along. Margot kept the conversational pot boiling as best she could.

After a while they sat down to eat the cold chicken and some sort of mushy salad that Mark had brought. He had drunk his way through the first bottle of wine, and was now starting on the second.

They didn't bother to clear up after they'd eaten, but went back to the lounge. Mark had reached the alcoholic sentimental stage by now.

"You know, darling, I do miss the old days. You know, you and I together going out to friends, and they coming here."

"Well, I suppose you can't have everything Mark. You've got your new woman and..."

Mark suddenly snapped out, "Margot, I want to come back."

Margot had already worked out that something like this was on the way, but effected some surprise.

"You what?"

"I want to come home darling; I want to be with you again."

"Do you really?"

Mark, getting increasingly inebriated, did not catch the fine nuance of Margot's acid tone of voice.

I've always loved you, you know that. It was all a terrible mistake...I was just flattered that a young...I just lost my head...can you forgive me?"

In those first few hours after Mark had left her it was something like this situation she had visualized. He would come back to her and beg forgiveness.

He went on, "It would be just like it was before, we..."

"What's happened to the other love of your life, Mark?"

"Oh, bloody hopeless, we argued and fought all the time...she spent...she was so unreasonable...'I want this, I want that...' and..."

"Drop it Mark; what's really happened?"

Mark suddenly became very crestfallen. "She's gone off with some other guy."

"Gone off the soak him for all she can get and then go on to another one?"

"I suppose so...something like that...I've been a bloody..."

"Fool? Yes you have, Mark."

"I didn't know when I was well off."

"No."

"You'll let me come back...to you...?"

Margot was sorely tempted to say yes, but knew if she did she would regret it. The hurt had gone too deep, her pride savagely wounded. Mark might make all sort of promises now, but what of the future. He may have learned his lesson...but if some other dolly bird came along?

"No Mark, you've come too late. Eighteen months ago...even twelve months ago, and I might have said 'yes', but not now.

"But I..."

"There's no but about it Mark. I've begun to shape up my life without you, and eventually I think it will be a life I shall enjoy. If that's all you've come for, then you might as well go now."

"My God, Margot, you've become hard. Once you would have..."

"Yes Mark. Once I would have...would have packed for you, scrubbed for you, cooked for you and made love with you because I thought I had your fidelity and love, but not now. I learned how to be hard from a good teacher, you."

"But you can't just let all the things we had together go like this, you..."

"You could, Mark, so why not me?"

"We all make mistakes."

"Yes, we do, and you made a bloody big one Mark when you thought you could just come crawling back because your money grubbing female tossed you over for another wallet. You don't want to come back for me, not as I am now. I'm not the jolly old loving wife longing to do your bidding anymore. You want to come crawling back because your feeling lonely and horny, but I'm not just a cunt, Mark, and I'm not simply a loving little housewife any more. You asked your question, I've given you my answer, so now you'd better go."

Mark was now down to the bottom of the second bottle of wine, and Margot saw his face redden with anger.

"You bloody bitch," he snarled. After all I did for you...married you when you fooled me into thinking you were pregnant...gave you a good home...provided for you...and..."

"That's enough, Mark," said Margot quietly. "I gave one man a black eye last night and I was drunk at the time. I'm sober now, and I could probably do a lot better."

"It was you...the motel...that man..."

"Yes, it was me, Mark, and after your insulting remarks I'm ripe to hand out another black eye or two, so piss off."

She knew very well that Mark was no Bronte, and that he could flatten her with no trouble, but he backed off and contented himself with spitting venom as he left."

"You cow, you bloody bitch. You'll live to regret this, you'll see...I'll...stop sending you money...I'll make sure you..."

"You do that Mark; just you do that, and then see what you get. I'm not the naïve little fool you left, I've learned a lot, I've had to, so just you go ahead and we'll see who's the loser."

Mark said no more. Margot slammed the door behind him and in a few seconds heard his car start and roar tyre squealing out of the drive.

"Hurrah for Christmas Day," she murmured weakly.

Chapter 10. Music of Love.

She did not want to go back to bed; she was sick of the bed. It was there she had loved and there she had wept for a lost love. It had seen too much of her pain and at that moment she thought she would never be able to sleep in it again.

She stretched out on the settee and gazed up at the ceiling. She began to feel that her pride had betrayed her. She could have had Mark back. They might have picked up something of their old life. Even if it was not exactly what had been, she...they would have had something.

The years ahead seemed to stare her in the face. The long...probably lonely years...Alex...my s...no, he too would be gone some day. Off he would go to whatever career called him. He would go and she would be alone again.

What had happened at the party seemed as nothing to what might lie ahead for her. The hangover was now no more than a lingering memory. That horrible man's sperm was washed from her vagina.

He had said he had had the little operation and as long as he wasn't lying ...dear God, suppose he was diseased? Suppose he went around doing what he did to her to lots of women, he could be carrying something.

Suppose he was lying about his vasectomy? Even now it could be starting in her womb...but no...in all those years she had not been able to get pregnant with Mark, so why now?

She felt a shiver run through her. In typical Margot fashion she began to doubt herself. Suppose...was she still being punished for some unknown sin? Was some malicious deity still playing with her...her life?

She snapped out of her depressing revere. "I do have a life before me. When the university studies are over I can sell up here and move elsewhere. I could get work, make new friends, and above all never let a man get through to me again, whether I'm drunk or sober."

She rose and went into the kitchen and cleared up the mess of the meal she had had with Mark. She gathered the two empty wine bottles and stood weighing them in her hands.

"A little alcohol can elicit a lot of truth," she thought; then heard her own thoughts. "I was drunk last night; was what happened to me really what I wanted deep down? No...not with that man, never." She could vaguely remember trying to resist. No, it had not been what she wanted and if ever she did want sex again it would be with someone...who?

Margot shrugged and took the two bottles out to the bottle collection container. She couldn't think any more.

The television did not appeal to her and she felt too weary read. She turned on the radio and music throbbed from it. It was not exactly jolly Christmas music. She felt she knew the piece by couldn't place it. She lay down, listening.

Violins wept as bass strings groaned deep as if the whole world was one great heart break. French horns added their plaintive note. It was as if the composer had stood at the door of the world and looked across a scene of desolation. Yet for all its melancholy the music comforted Margot in a way that more lively and riotous music would not. It was as if she stood holding the composers hand and he was saying, "Yes, it is sad, but beyond is hope. Wait until the next movement."

Margot did not hear the next movement. Feeling that she was no longer alone in her desolate world, she let the music carry her away into bottomless sleep.

Long after Margot remembered that music and knew that it was yet another turning point in her life. Asked to define how it had changed her, she could probably not have said, but she new it had been a moment of transformation.

When she woke the music that had lulled her was long over. A piano was playing a slow slumberous yet pulsating melody. She looked out of the picture window and the moon was hanging low in the sky. In its light she could see the little wavelets ripple towards the shore. She could not hear them but could see the glints of silver as they broke.

The music seemed to meld with moon and sea and all became one. "They shall become one flesh," she thought, then flung the thought away as too beautiful and painful to be borne.

Tears came, but they were not the tears of sorrow, but the tears drawn from her by a beauty too breathtaking to be endured.

She no longer felt alone. She felt herself to be surrounded by a reconciling love that said, "All things pass with time, I have ordained it to be so."

She sat long into the night watching the sea as the moon rose high and then out of her line of vision, yet its radiance still flecked the little silver waves. The peace of the scene found an echo in Margot. She sat on long into the night, bathed in a love so profound, so all embracing, she felt herself to be safe.

At last in the early hours she went to the bed she earlier had told herself she could not sleep in again. She undressed and went naked to bed, folding the covers round her and slept.

Chapter 11. A Baptism of Love.

When she awoke it was to a day with the sun already well above the horizon. The outside world seemed to be calling to her, "Come and see, come and hear."

She dressed and hurried through breakfast and the little cleaning and tidying she had to do. Then she went out onto the patio that overlooked the sea. From where she stood she could not see the beach since it was screened by a line of low scrub that skirted it, but she could hear the voices of children on the beach, and mothers calling them, and the screams of teenagers now released at last from the purgatory of school.

The temperature was climbing towards 35 degrees and looking farther out she could see people swimming and even farther out little yachts tacking back and forth. Small launches lay still in the water as men and a few women, ever hopeful, dropped their lines to lure the weaving and allusive whiting and snapper. One launch cruised slowly up and down in hope of snook.

A lobster fishing boat was returning to the town harbour having gone out to the pots at dawn. A ski boat flashed across the water, the heroic figure on precarious skis creaming behind it.

Margot stood watching and listening for a while, and then abruptly rushed back into the house, undressing as she went. She would join the laughing gabbling sun worshippers on the beach.

Stripped she put on the white bikini that Mark had loved to see her in and that had always turned him on. Often they had gone to the beach and swum together. Some times Mark's need of her had been so urgent that they had to make love before they left for the beach and their swim.

Briefly that memory touched Margot's mind, but she chased it away. She was truly her own woman now and, if as some said, she was beautiful, then the beauty was hers, and she would give it, if ever, only as an act of love and to one she could trust.

Mark had never had to prevail upon her for the act of love and Margot had always been ready for him, but despite the love she had had for him, there had been just the little worm of duty. Now, whoever she gave herself to, she would give as a gift, a total gift with no touch of duty to even distantly mar what at its finest must be the act of two people giving themselves to each other.

But now, on this sun filled day, there was no thought of future sexual unions. Margot flung a towel across her shoulder and made for the beach.

From her house a narrow path ran down through the scrub to the beach. She ran along it to burst out on to the beach.

It was not jammed with people, but they were sprinkled here and there. Mothers drying children with towels or feeding them sandwiches and cakes. Young men whistled as Margot passed and young women silently sneered, envious that one so much older than they should look so lovely and draw the attention of their swains.

Margot smiled at the young male attention she attracted, but she felt no reciprocal attraction. She dropped her towel and ran on into the sea, embracing its coolness as it welcomed her.

Margot let the sea support her for a while, and then with powerful overarm strokes she swam out a hundred metres or thereabouts. She trod water, looking about her at the scene. Other swimmers swam and frolicked near her. She saw children on the beach running towards the water, daring the wavelets to touch them as they ran up the beach again, laughing and screaming.

She felt as if she wanted to embrace the whole world. I'm alive," she thought, "really alive."

Margot dived under the water and hung there for a moment, then burst to the surface again. It was almost an act of ritual cleansing. She felt as if she was renewed, her past miseries and desolation washed away. She was free, finally free.

She swam to the shore to be greeted once more with whistles by the young men and the salacious but covert stares of older men accompanied by their watchful and jealous wives.

Finding her towel she dried herself still watched by longing eyes, then made her way back to the house.

Chapter 12. Light into Dark.

She had only just finished dressing when there was a ring at the front door. She wasn't expecting anyone so she wondered who it could be. Opening the door she as confronted by middle aged man and a young woman.

"Mrs. Parker...Mrs. Margot Parker?" the man asked.

"Yes...what..."

"I'm D.S. Holden and this is D.C. Latimer. He held out his warrant card. "Can we talk inside?"

Hesitantly she indicated for them to come in. Apprehensive she took them to the lounge and invited them to sit. For the moment they didn't sit but the man said, "Perhaps you'd like to sit down Mrs. Parker. I'm afraid we have some bad news for you."

Margot sank down into an armchair her uneasiness growing.

"What...what is it?" she whispered.

The man glanced at the girl and she spoke.

"Mrs. Parker, two hours ago your husband's car was found at the foot of the cliffs at Rogues Point. I'm afraid your husband was still in it and he..."

"Was dead," gasped Margot.

"Yes, I'm sorry to have to tell you this but..."

The girl spoke on but Margot caught only snatches of her words.

"Identified him...your name and address...make a cup of tea?"

Margot felt as if her head was a hollow chamber in which words and images echoed – old images that for so long had not been brought to consciousness. She sat blindly only dimly aware of the two police officers. Only thirty minutes ago, even less, she had been filled with the joy of being alive, and now death had come stalking and found her.

She felt a touch on her arm and she found herself dragged back into the present to become aware once more of her surroundings. The girl said, "Tea, Mrs. Parker."

"Th...thank you."

"We don't like to trouble you at a time like this," the sergeant said, "but if you could just answer a couple of questions?"

"Yes, I'll try."

"Do you know where Mr. Parker might have been going?"

"I'm sorry, I don't have...I think I'd better explain. My husband and I were separated...have been for two years."

"I see, so you hadn't seen him to speak to?"

"Well, yes, he came here yesterday."

"Did he seem all right? I mean, not upset or anything?"

"No...well, yes...we had a row before he left."

Her last words to Mark as he made for his car came back to her, "We'll see who's the loser." Her last words to the man she had once loved with so much passion.

"So he could have been upset...angry?"

"Yes...yes he was angry. He'd also drunk a lot of wine."

"I see. Can you tell us where he was living?"

"No, I'm afraid I can't, he never told me."

The two officers glanced at each other and the girl said, "We'd like to find out if there's other's that need informing."

"There was a girl...woman he lived with but she left him."

"Can you tell us who she was?"

Margot gave a bitter little smile, "No, that's something else he never told me, but his parents might know. I'll give you their address and telephone number."

Margot rose and went to the telephone and opening a pad wrote down the details.

Handing the paper to the sergeant she asked, "Can you tell me how it happened?"

"Well, we can't be sure. It's a bit odd really because the road is straight just there and as far as we can tell no other vehicle was involved and there are no skid marks."

"You think he went over the cliff deliberately, don't you?"

"I'm afraid that will be for the coroner to decide, Mrs. Parker."

"Will you be all right?" asked the girl, "Is there anyone you'd like us to contact...a friend or relative to come and be with you?"

"No...no...your very kind, but no, I'll be all right."

"Then if there's nothing more you can tell us..." the sergeant said heavily, "we'll be on our way. Sorry to be the bearers of bad news."

Margot shook hands with them and thanked them for coming to tell her. Why she should thank them for ruining what had been a happy day she wasn't sure, but it seemed the right thing to do.

Alone Margot sat contemplating. There was one person she wanted to have with her, Alex, quite why she wanted him she could not define, and in any case she could hardly contact him and say, "My husbands dead, I want you here."

Margot could not really understand her own feelings. She wondered why she wasn't crying. Despite the hurts Mark had given her, she had never really hated him.

The one thing that troubled her were her last words to him...perhaps the last words he heard in this life and they had been words of anger.

Then came the thoughts of what might have been; those thoughts that come to us unbidden and useless, yet irresistible in their force. "If only."

"If only things had been different." "If only we could have had a child." "If only there had been no money grubbing girl."

Yes, if Margot could hate anyone it was her, the one who had stolen her Mark. But then, Mark was no child to be kidnapped. He had gone of his own volition to be with a fantasy that had gone sour and then tried to come back to the reality that was she, Margot.

Moondrift
Moondrift
2,277 Followers