Chapter 8: Margot
I watched Barry, the previous owner and now best customer of The Seagull’s Nest bar, search for his lost drink.
“Time to shift, Margot,” Daddy said.
I was ready to leave.
“Where you off to now?” Barry asked, his round belly resting against the slop tray as he topped up his glass from the beer pump.
“To pay a fine, my friend. To pay a fine.” Daddy eased himself off the tall barstool and struggled his arms into the straps of his rucksack.
“Ta-taa, Margot,” Barry said. His mouth smiled but his eyes looked dazed.
I stared at the horizontal damp mark, low on his shirt. A dark blob on the yellow material, as though his over-stretched navel had started to leak beer.
Barry slugged from his glass, paused, and belched a wheat-smelling spray over me. “You ’ere tomorra to watch the boat race?” he asked.
“No real point,” Daddy answered. “Be around afterward, when it dies down a bit, for a quiet glass of Duval, though.”
A reddening started at Barry’s ears. In a weakened voice, he said, “Yeah, well… I’ll see ya then, then.” As the flush spread to his cheeks, he hid his face behind his glass. He tipped back his head and emptied the drink into his mouth. Examining the empty glass, he wiped his chin with the back of a wrist. “What’s this ‘fine’ then?” he asked, his voice jovial again.
“Books, Barry,” Daddy said. “Library books. A week late, my friend.”
Daddy and I shuffled to the door.
“You a reader then, Frank?” Barry asked, and he barked out a surprised laugh.
Daddy paused in the doorway and half turned. “See you tomorrow, Barry.”
“Yeah… okay, Frank.” Barry’s voice had taken on the tremor again.
We closed the door behind us. Daddy didn’t see it. I did. A box. Not big. On the ground, abandoned between a pretty-looking bungalow and a row of multi-coloured beach huts.
The parcel had writing on. But Daddy was the reader, and he was going to walk right past it. I reached for it and snapped it up.
“Margot, what’s wrong?” Daddy said.
I said nothing and immediately regretted the tug on his arm. I had the box.
It’s not a complicated undertaking, carrying a box, but it is a significant one. At least, for me it is. Almost instinctive. The ability to carry things home. For the family. For Daddy. People do take it for granted. They drop items in a handled bag, or in a trolley. Or, like Daddy and his overdue library books, in a rucksack. Carrying is easy for these people. For me, it can be tricky. I’m still only small and there are size limits. I struggle with things that are too big, or too little. The box was close to my upper limit but the weight was comfortable. I distracted myself with these thoughts as Daddy stepped us off the kerb into the path of a faded-red van.
Brakes squealed. Rubber tires rubbed over asphalt, marking it black. The van juddered to a halt and threw the heat from its engine over us. It smelled of diesel and burnt oil. The putrid smell of overheated brake linings caused me to retch. The package slipped my grip and rolled, in a jerky tumble, under the front of the van. A horn screamed in my ear, I flinched my head away.
“Jesus, Margot!” Daddy shouted. His arm shook.
The driver covered his head with his hands and glared at Daddy. The rage in the driver’s eyes told me the words he mouthed were angry, scalding. He didn’t know it was my fault. He didn’t know I was to blame for almost getting Daddy annihilated by a postal delivery van. The man peered over his steering wheel and waved us on.
I dipped to retrieve the parcel, and Daddy and I strutted through the smells to the pavement. I glanced back at the van driver.
He wound down his window. “You should bleedin’ look where…” His shout tailed off.
Daddy paused and turned. “I’m sorry.”
The van drove away.
“Come on, Margot.” Daddy and I walked on, safe on the pavement.
Chasing and fetching. That’s another thing I enjoy. Jenny plays that with me but Daddy doesn’t.
“What happened there, Margot?” Daddy asked.
I tucked my chin into my chest, forlorn, and said nothing.
“You’re a good girl, Margot. You know that don’t you?” Daddy had forgiven me already.
We weaved through the sights and the smells of the town and the people. I held onto the package but made sure I concentrated on our journey, keeping my feet level with Daddy’s. A small colony of white and grey seagulls strutted on the path in front of a busy chip shop, lured by its vinegary smells. Further along, Cecil, the baker, pumped the sweet scent of baking buns from his ovens into the High Street. I swallowed back the build-up of saliva in my mouth as I didn’t want to make the parcel wet.
At the library, Daddy and I ascended the steps towards the revolving doors. The steps were easy for us, revolving doors presented a challenge. We had to be cautious.
Daddy waved his white stick into an empty compartment. “Seems clear, Margot. After you.”
I stepped forward. Daddy shuffled behind.
A youth inside the library yelled at us “Wait!” He rushed the door.
I tried to back up but my harness jammed against Daddy. A door swung towards me, clattering the side of my head, knocking the box from my grip.
Daddy pulled me clear and flicked his stick ahead of the revolving door. The stick jolted the door as it jammed against the frame.
The youth crashed against the glass window, his forehead leaving a greasy stain.
My parcel was visible through the stick-wide gap.
The youth snarled at Daddy.
I wondered would I ever reach my parcel again.
“What you doing, young man?” Mrs Kully, the Head Librarian, strode towards the door. “Out you come. Have you no manners?” She tilted at her middle and swung an arm in front of her. “Come out now!”
The youth tutted and rocked back his head.
“Now!” Mrs Kully said, still leaning.
The youth shoved a second time to free the door. As the doors unwound, my parcel was pushed back to me.
“Mr Frank,” Mrs Kully called. “It is safe to enter now, Mr Frank. My sincere apologies.”
Daddy and I joined the package in the vacant compartment and we inched our way around, into the library.
“I see Margot has brought me a present, Mr Frank,” Mrs Kully said, laughing and bending over fully to scrunch my ears.
Daddy didn’t like me being petted when I was in-harness, working, but he said nothing to Mrs Kully.
Through her spice-fragranced fingers, I noticed the youth push out through the door.
“Mr Frank, I am sorry about that. James comes here to access the internet. He is looking for a job but I really do think he will need to learn some good old-fashioned manners before anyone will be foolhardy enough to pay him a wage.” Her head glided from side to side as she spoke.
“It’s not a problem, Mrs Kully,” Daddy said. “And I agree with you about the manners.” He slid the straps off his arms. “I’ve come to pay my fine, Mrs Kully. I have overdue books.” He groped inside the rucksack.
“And I was hoping you had come to deliver me a present,” Mrs Kully said, smiling.
“Sorry?”
“The parcel…That Margot is carrying in her mouth,” Mrs Kully said. “I was joking with you that I hoped it was a present for me.”
“I’m not aware…Margot?” Daddy tugged on my slip collar. The links rattled through the loop.
I dropped the parcel.
Mrs Kully picked it up.
I tucked my tail under me.
“It says it’s to ‘Dad’,” she read.
I pricked up my ears. My Daddy?
“Margot must have picked it up off the street. Where on earth did she…?”
“You mean it is not yours, Mr Frank?”
“Not at all, Mrs Kully. I can’t imagine…Margot?”
At the first jangle of the links, I stooped my head and flatte
ned my ears.
“It has an address, Mr Frank,” Mrs Kully said, her tone reassuring. “I will see that our postman gets it tomorrow, he will know what to do with it. He calls here every day around this time in his big red van. You have just missed bumping into him.”
***