The Betrayers
I taught your little Alfie to play cards! Grandma Pauline announced cheerfully.
Why? asked exhausted Marigold, fresh from her shiftAlfie had only just turned six.
Well, how else will he join in when he visits folks and they sit down for a game? the grandmother explained. Hell keep everyone company! All for good society, as they say!
It made senseshed been raised under deep socialism, where cards and dominoes were the height of leisure. And this wasnt now, but smack in the middle of the last centurys stagnant years. So, deal the cards and play the hand!
Granny Pauline had come to mind the great-grandson, baby Oliver. Alfie hovered nearby, despising nursery school. The boy was plenty independenthouse key around his neck, lunch in a thermosperfectly normal back then. These days, some couldnt wean their grown men off the teat.
The estate wasnt half-bad eithercozy, enclosed on all sides by blocks of flats. There was even a ping-pong table and a decent playground with swings and a sandpit.
And in one of those blocks stood the shop *The Beacon*, which, alongside lamps and sconces, somehow sold furniture.
Furniture is heavy. Unloading it didnt exactly inspire joy.
So children often brought home new words for their parentswords starting with B, P, or S: *Mum, what does mean?*
They called them *beacon-reflecting* words.
But those were small downsides next to the big upsidekids playing out in the estate were safe. The movers even kept an eye on them!
Marigold had married firstfallen for a classmate and ended up pregnant. Later, her mother-in-law, who worked at a nursery, took the boy during the week, letting Marigold finish medical school. After graduation, both she and her husband became GPsback when job placements still existed.
Pretty Rosalind didnt marry until twenty-fivelate by the standards of the time.
The sisters couldnt have been more differentquick, slim, dark-haired Marigold was the polar opposite of slow, plump, fair Rosalind. Yet both were strikingblack and white, not just contrast but two halves of a whole.
People often asked about their father*Are you sure hes the same man?*
Not sure at all! the sisters would snap, though they got on like a house on fire.
Dad had died long ago. Mum had moved on, leaving the flat to her grown daughters while she started anew elsewhere. She dodged questions deftly*Why dyou need to know? Course hes the same! The very same!*
Until twenty-four, Rosalind toyed with men as she pleasedher heart still asleep, though shed had her flings, of course.
She met her future husband at a party a few years after schoolhe was a friend of an old classmate, Charlie Simmons.
Rosalind even agreed to a date with Peter. But she came back bitterly disappointed.
You wouldnt believe how *common* he is! Rosalind fumed. Guess what he asked me?
What? Marigold held her breathit mustve been scandalous for Rosalind to be this cross.
*Did I wear warm knickers!* Can you imagine? The horror! She wrinkled her nose at the memory. Ugh, how *vulgar!*
Yes, the suitorthree years older and quite taken with herhad merely fretted over her health, asking if shed put on woolly underwear. Everyone wore them back then, and the temperature had dipped below freezing.
Nothing improperjust concern for silly little Rosalind. But youth is harsh in its judgments. So poor Peter, knickers and all, was rejected.
He only reappeared in her life seven years later. By then, Rosalind had picked through her admirers and remained alonestill sharing the two-bed flat with Marigolds family.
Suddenly, all her suitors had vanished. It dawned on her after New Yearsleft uninvited, shed spent the holiday with her sisters lot.
Then Marigold found a needle tucked in Rosalinds blanket. Someone had hexed hera love charm, a curse, or worse!
Rosalind had plenty of girlfriends who often slept overthe flat was near the Tube, handy for uni and later work.
The needle was pulled out, and soon after, Rosalind bumped into Peter*fate*, surely! She couldnt refuse destiny now!
And when he asked about warm knickers again*imagine, so thoughtful!*it sounded different this time. Rosalind agreed to marry Peter, now a maths PhD.
The groom moved straight into the flat, marking his arrival with a fancy new enamel kettle and a sofa.
But weve already got a kettle, Marigold said. Why another?
Thats *yours*, the mathematician said. This ones *ours*.
For the first time, a rift openedPeters kettle was nicer, pricier.
His parents were well-off too, unlike Marigolds husband, the *guttersnipe*, as Mum called him behind his back.
Plans were made to swap the two-bed for two one-beds with a top-upno way to do it otherwise. Peters folks promised to help.
Time passed, and Oliver arrived. Rosalind went back to workthe clever mathematician enlisted his own gran, Granny Pauline, to mind the baby.
One day, Marigold came home earlyfeverish, probably from her patients.
Her callsor *call-outs*, as the despicable dispatcher sneeredwere handed to a colleague. *Get well soon, Dr. Marigold!*
The windows were darkprobably everyone asleep.
The flat was a sickbayRosalind had taken leave with poorly Oliver, and James had come down with a mild fever yesterday. Alfie, of course, was always home.
Marigold quietly let herself in and frozeodd noises from within. *God, dont let anything be wrong with the kids!*
Still in her coat, she peeked into the roomin the fading light, six-year-old Alfie and drooling baby Oliver sat on the rug, cards in hand. Alfie was teaching his brother to play *for good society*
Wheres Dad? Marigold asked.
Dad and Aunt Rosie are washing sheets in the bath! Alfie answered, then turned to his brother, who clutched a single cardall his tiny hands could holdand said, Ill leadcover me!
Ah, Granny Paulines lessons had taken root
How long have they been washing? Marigolds heart thudded.
The big hand was on six, now its on nine! clever Alfie replied.
*Fifteen minutes!* Marigold thought. *He never washes that long with me.*
She felt sick*this* was why Rosalind kept stalling the move, the *witch!* Always some daft excusewrong door, too far from the Tube. Now she knew why!
Did Peter know? Unlikelyhis parents wouldve thrashed him senseless. But they were even offering to pay extraclueless, clearly!
Still in her coat, Marigold planted herself outside the bathroom, waiting for *the washing* to finish. Soon, flushed James and Rosalind stumbled out, both stunned:
Youve got call-outswhat are you doing here?
Came to help with the washthought you might struggle! Marigold said sweetly. Well? Youve wrung it *properly*, judging by speed and vigour! Ready to hang, I expect!
Its not what you think! James said. But what *could* he say?
Fine! Marigold smiled. Show me the washing, thenmaybe you can wriggle out!
*Go on, manthink of something! High fever, delirium, and Rosalind cooling you with compresses!*
*No contingency plan, you fools? How careless!*
They just stood there, mute. No plan. Things had been going *so well* till now
Both of youout, Marigold said. Rosalind snatched Oliver, his chubby fist still gripping that one card, and fled.
James sent Alfie out to playstill lightthen tried to talk: *It was madness, love! I only love you! She came onto me!*
*The Italian Job* had been out for yearseveryone knew the lines.
But Marigold, ice-cold, wasnt moved. Shed been cuckolded. Likely for *ages*.
Turned out, *Dad and Aunt Rosie* washed sheets oftenhow *diligent* of them, the *swine*
Soon, Jamesfeverish at 99°Fwas tossed out. Contact with Rosalind was cut to nothing.
Marigold told Peter nothing. If he knew Rosalind cheated, hed divorce her. Then shed be trapped in that two-bed with her hated sister indefinitely.
Rosalind, though, jumped at the first offertwo one-beds, top-up paid.
So after the divorce, Marigold ended up in a tiny flatfour-square-metre kitchen and a *hovel* (the locals term for a combined toilet and bath).
But it was *hers*shabby, but her own!
James crawled back to his parents, clawing for mercy, but the divorce went through.
One evening, Marigoldnow at a different surgerycame home to silence. Alfie was playing.
Hed always been self-sufficient, her Alfie. Perfectly happy alone, though he missed his cousin.
There he sat on the rug. Propped against a chair leg was a giant teddy bear. Before it, fanned out, lay a spread of cardsAlfie teaching his plush friend to play *for good society*
And Marigold heard him murmur fondly, *Teddy, you daft sod, whyd you lead with trumps?*
Cheers, Granny Pauline! And to the *beacon-reflecting* movers at the furniture shop too! You lot not hiccuping over there? We *miss* you
