Margot's Secrets Read online

  Margot’s Secrets

  Margot’s Secrets

  by

  Don Boyd

  Published by Ziji Publishing

  www.zijipublishing.com

  Distributed by Turnaround Distribution Services Ltd.

  Telephone 020 8829 3000

  Copyright © Don Boyd 2010

  The right of Don Boyd to be identified as the author of this work

  has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the

  Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

  stored in a retrieval sytem, or transmitted in any form or by any

  means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,

  without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  ISBN: 978-0-9554051-5-0

  Printed and bound in the UK by CPI Mackays, Chatham, ME5 8TD

  To Hilary Boyd

  PROLOGUE

  THE MARTYRDOM OF SAINT EULALIA

  A Videogram for the internet created by Domatilla Milliken and Paolo Lorca.

  (Screenwriter’s note: The shooting style in digital video will pay crude homage to the great American film experimentalists of the 1950’s and 1960’s who worked isolated from any commercial infrastructure).

  Title Card:

  “I want to die from longing, and never live in boredom.

  I want there to be in the depth of my soul, a hunger for

  love and beauty.”

  Khalil Gibran ‘Love Letters in the Sand’

  EXTERIOR. DAY. BARCELONA. DAWN

  Images of mediaeval Barcelona culled from the city as it is now. The Cathedral interior. Some shots in the Barri Gotic area of the old city – its ancient streets, its old churches and squares. Nothing modern. All mediaeval or later. And in the Jewish quarter – its cramped houses, and a synagogue.

  Walls. Stone. Statues. Paintings. Gargoyles.

  All of these images form a patchwork which will be integrated into the text of this story of our Catalan heroine, Saint Eulalia.

  TILLY is sitting outside the Segrada Familia, Antoni Gaudi’s great unfinished modernista celebration of Catholicism.

  The camera circles around the body of this young woman. A close up – her strawberry blonde curls hug her face which is photographed in the style of a Pre-Raphaelite painting.

  TILLY (VOICE OVER)

  This is my story. This is the story of Eulalia. She is my spirit.

  She was I and I am she. I live through her and she lived in

  the certain knowledge that within centuries she would live through

  me. She died for me and I will die for her…

  * * *

  Chapter One

  Sunday mornings in early Spring were usually spent lazily rustling up brunch for friends on the terrace of their Montjuic apartment with its magnificent view of Barcelona’s harbour and its old city. Margot’s American culinary roots and her husband Archie’s quirky British breakfast obsessions were creatively integrated with the Catalan delicacies they ferreted out from stalls at the Mercat de la Boqueria off Las Ramblas. But on that Sunday, St. George’s Day, April 23rd, the English ex-patriot community were celebrating their patron saint with an exclusive lunch to honour Eusebio Casals, a renowned Catalan artist. This annual event was traditionally just a good excuse for a raucous alcoholic binge and some light-hearted jingoistic patriotism – hardly reasons to cancel a treasured weekly ritual. But Archie’s status as an eminent professor at the university and a fine art consultant for Sotheby’s made it obligatory, yet he was grumpy at the prospect.

  “Why don’t you go on your own, darling? I’ll be perfectly happy moping around here.”

  Still in his huge, ruby red dressing gown, Archie was immersed in the Sunday newspapers. Like a Pasha in the library of a nineteenth century oriental Palace, he was clearly bemused at the thought of abandoning the cosy four walls of their large drawing room with its leather-bound first editions and his two beloved, original Pre-Raphaelite oil paintings. A light Mediterranean breeze wafted across from the French windows – this was Archie’s taste of paradise. But Margot was shy socially and very reluctant to attend parties on her own. She was determined to muster some enthusiasm from her entrenched husband.

  “Don’t be such a curmudgeon!”

  She continued with a charming barrage of witty repartee and affectionate mockery from the bathroom where she was luxuriating in an extravagant pseudo-Victorian bathtub, submerged in bubbles. All of it fell on deaf ears. Archie was buried in the magazine section of the Catalan equivalent of the National Enquirer. In exasperation, she reminded him that his favourite young god-daughter, Tilly, would be there with her boyfriend Paolo, the artist’s stepson.

  “You know how much she makes you laugh.”

  He was still unmoved. “I suppose Tilly is an exception. She’s special. But the rest of that crew are all so insufferably smug. Spoilt brats; they seem to stay out of all the turmoil, whatever murky happens to the rest of us. They remind me of the reasons why I would never want to live in England again.”

  Margot wasn’t letting him off the hook.

  “They’re not so bad - they probably think the same of us! I’m sure that we’re going to have some fun. I thought you liked Eusebio… Stay grumpy, if you must… or you can come and have a swim in the lovely pool, or talk to Robert… flirt with Stella. They’ll be there.”

  Archie was not impressed.

  “Stella is staying in London this weekend – since her bank went bust, she’s had to work a little harder for her bonus. I ‘phoned Robert to tell him that our brunch here was off today. Eusebio doesn’t count, he’s a Catalan. But you’re quite right,” he sighed, “I do love seeing Tilly and Paolo. They make me laugh. Teenage love can conquer all. How old is she now? Eighteen?”

  Margot knew that she had finally won the day as Archie shuffled off to change out of his striped flannel pyjamas, muttering to himself about the handicaps of marrying a woman twenty-five years younger than him. Margot giggled like a naughty schoolgirl as she waddled over to him and planted some soap suds on his forehead.

  They really had no alternative but to forego their usual Sunday luxuries and make their way down from the Montjuic. They walked across Barcelona’s harbour towards the Arts, a tall, post-modern tower dwarfing Frank Gehry’s copper and steel lattice Fish sculpture, which playfully overlooks the Mediterranean Sea. It was a magnificent spring morning and the sandy white beach glistened in the sunshine. The palm-lined promenade was already full of skinny kids in multi-coloured tee-shirts on roller blades and skateboards. Neither Margot nor Archie were in the mood to talk much, which suited Margot who was now lost in thought. She was going to come across some of her clients at the party – an inevitable occupational hazard in the small, close-knit, English-speaking community which defined their social life. She tried not to rationalise the tenuous nature of these public encounters. Even Archie would have found it difficult to identify who were her ‘patients’, as she called them, although he would probably have been able to hazard a good guess. She discouraged anything except the slightest of innocuous banter with her clients, particularly at large social gatherings, and Archie was sensitive enough to notice this nuance and respect it. Only Tilly and Paolo, also clients, had been able to break through her professional barrier.

  She was also feeling a little vulnerable and lonely. Although she was very popular amongst Archie’s university friends, she had no pals of her own age in Barcelona who might have an inkling of her way of life in her home state of California, and who could provide a more frivolous balance to the heavy academia of her husband’s coterie. As much as she adored Archi
e and her new life in one of Europe’s great cities, she was beginning to yearn for some of that easy-going, intimate banter that had been the feature of all her peer group friendships at home in La Jolla during the few years she had lived there after college. She had tried e-mails and video phone lines to establish communication with her cultural past, but they proved poor substitutes for the real thing. She missed frivolous chit-chat sessions over cocktails in the evening, and longed for an indulgent milkshake gossip after the yoga class. For all his other considerable qualities, Archie was no substitute for a girlfriend or confidante of her own age.

  None of this had been helped by one over-riding problem: for nearly a year now, she had also been inadvertently denied one of the essential aspects of all qualified practising psychotherapists – regular sessions with a supervisor. At the time that Archie had come into her life, Margot had felt no further need for a regular supplement to the intensive analysis she had undergone during her training, but she knew that however professionally qualified she was, there would always be a need for a mentor from within the psychological arena. Very much for this reason, the Institute that gave her the necessary qualification to practise insisted on providing supervisors to monitor the work in progress of all their members. Margot had resisted their imposition at first. She hadn’t rated the reputations of any of the therapists fielded towards her and turned them all down. But she then had a stroke of luck; Marie-Christine Traille, the only supervisor prescribed by the Institute living in Barcelona, turned out to be extraordinary. She was a wonderful and wise French woman whom Margot had met coincidentally at an American Psychological Association junket when she had first arrived in Barcelona.

  As would be expected of an eminent Freudian, she had unpicked Margot’s childhood with such clarity. Many of the anxieties she had been harbouring about her marriage to a man the same age as her father had been to a large extent mollified by Marie Christine’s perceptive worldliness. Fluent in English and sensitive to Margot’s ‘fish out of water’ tendencies, she had helped Margot navigate the treacherous waters of European vocal cynicism about America’s damaged cultural and political status, particularly in the wake of the war in Iraq, which had been so vilified in Spain. In university circles she had been shocked by the incessant jibes about the country she loved in spite of its flaws, and her sessions with her therapist had bolstered her self-confidence in this treacherous, hurtful arena. Just as important to her, Marie-Christine had also been helping her understand her role with her ex-patriot clients. Immensely well read and informed, she had encouraged Margot’s natural brilliance with her own witty brand of intelligent rigour. Her influence had provided Margot with a strong humanistic balance to the often stifling analytical process and this had prevented her carrying around her clients’ illnesses hour by hour, a tendency when she had first started practising professionally.

  Finally, Marie-Christine became her ‘best friend’, the confidante she had longed for. Their meetings had often been conducted away from the stuffiness of an office or consulting room and as such she had been the perfect tour-guide. One week they would amble around the exquisite mediaeval frescoes at the MNAC and sip frappoccino in the Picasso museum. Another week they would hang out in the dives in the heart of the Raval, and eat butifarra and white beans at the counter of Pollo Ricco, one of the cheapest restaurants in the world. Margot would tease Marie-Christine with the notion that she must have been Mrs Thomas Cook in a previous life. And of course, Margot could discuss all those secrets she couldn’t begin to share with Archie, in the absolute knowledge that they were safely harboured.

  But Marie-Christine had developed breast cancer six months ago and had retired to her home town in the Languedoc with her husband, to try to fight it off. When they said goodbye to each other on the very beach she was now ambling past on her way to the Arts with Archie, Marie-Christine, a devout Catholic, had given Margot a tiny silver cross she had owned since childhood. Margot thought then that she would never talk to her again, let alone see her, knowing that her friend would become too ill to continue even the slightest telephone relationship.

  She had failed to find a suitable replacement. Qualified therapists are required to have supervisors who monitor their work. In desperation, Margot had tried a couple of ‘long distance’ internet replacements but the efforts of electronic conferencing communication had been frustrating and impersonal. The only woman she had vaguely connected with lived in Boston, and had announced that she was taking a sabbatical. This compounded Margot’s feelings of isolation and emotional vulnerability: nobody else could fill the spiritual void created by this cruel separation from Marie-Christine. Even Archie’s eccentric, almost paternal encouragement, which usually helped her sustain her rigorous professional commitment to her clients, had its limits.

  As they made their way up from the beach to the raised garden terrace at the back of the hotel, which had been bedecked with the red crossed flags of St George, Margot took Archie’s hand and clung to him like a frightened schoolgirl.

  “I love you, Archie darling.”

  Chattering throngs of ex-patriots epitomised one of her greatest anxieties: that a client of hers, or worse still the husband or wife of one of her clients, might confront her with an embarrassing public manifestation of secrets they had only shared with her in the privacy of her consulting studio. This heightened her professional paranoia and weakened her characteristically robust social skills. She liked to get out to meet people and have fun but there was always that lingering knowledge that if she came across a client, she might ruin months of careful psychological rehabilitation with a careless slip of the tongue. For this reason, at parties she liked to use Archie as a protective shield. He understood and enjoyed the sensual flirtatiousness she used at moments like this when the easy-going luxury they enjoyed within the private, protected world of their domestic life evaporated in the public arena. Margot’s beauty had always been a source of pride for Archie and he wore it elegantly. Her public displays of physical affection contributed to his self-confidence.

  “I’ll stay close but you know how shy I can be.”

  Margot knew that he was probably the least shy man in the room. She laughed away his reply and broke away from his hand to take a couple of glasses of ruby red Cava from the silver tray proffered to them by a uniformed flunky. Sipping the cool bubbly wine, they gingerly edged their way into the throng of people who were hovering around, awaiting the celebrity guest. Coincidentally, St George’s Day is also celebrated in Barcelona, and more enthusiastically than in England – La Diada di Sant Jordi. To symbolise their love and mutual respect for each other, Catalan lovers exchange gifts. Boys give girls red roses, girls give boys a book. And so, rather over-dressed for a Sunday morning, an elite selection of the great, good and the bad of the city’s English-speaking, ex-patriot community were mingling with an equally chic Catalan equivalent. Few of them were paying much attention to the artworks dotted around the immaculate lawn. Only Margot, tall, beautiful, shorthaired and wearing a white tee-shirt with Eusebio’s name hand-painted on the front of it, and Archie, grey-haired and distinguished, were now diligently inspecting each sculpture with any sort of serious aesthetic appreciation.

  Eusebio finally arrived at the entrance to the hotel in a black, open-topped, vintage Porsche. Three liveried men surrounded his car as if royalty had arrived. With an effortless demonstration of physical strength and old-fashioned gallantry, he lifted Tilly out of the back seat while Paolo, a dark-haired Adonis, leapt out to join them. In sharp contrast to Eusebio’s immaculately groomed silver white mane, Tilly’s strawberry blonde ringlets were straggling across her teenage face. She nuzzled into his elegant frame. Her boyfriend Paolo grabbed his stepfather affectionately around the waist, finding Tilly’s hand to hold at the same time. This exotic trio, with infectious joie de vivre, giggled their way into the glass elevator, which whisked them one floor up to the Arts Hotel’s poolside garden terrace.

  Margot was stroking a simple
abstract structure made of mahogany, a subtle cross between a figurative Rodin and one of those bronze abstract statues, which peppered the Soviet Union before it collapsed.

  “Do you think he might give me one of these? Tilly told me that Eusebio needs as much filthy lucre as he can muster. He’s looking for another wife. He once offered to give me a piece in lieu of payment, pleading aristocratic poverty.”

  Archie laughed. “Filthy lucre, indeed! I can just hear the old devil trying to pretend that cash doesn’t matter. The idle rich. Always skint. Go for his throat, if I were you. His work goes at auction for thousands.”

  “I told him that he shouldn’t come to see me if he can’t afford it. He’s one of my oldest clients and I’m American, remember… always after those big bucks! Whisper to him that I rather fancy this piece here for our hall. I’ll offer him a year’s free therapy? He certainly needs it!”

  Archie chuckled infectiously. “There’s my girl. I’ll have a word. Judging by the money dripping from the bods on this terrace right now, if a bomb dropped here and you survived, you would lose most of your best clients. I never know how you get away with hobnobbing with them like this. I can see at least half a dozen of them right now. What’s your secret?”

  “Who wants to fly to London twice a week to see some over-rated Freudian in St. Johns Wood when they can have me? I’m the perfect alternative, cheap at half the price… and very careful to keep what they tell me to myself.”

  Archie laughed at the defensive tone in her voice. “Keep your hair on! I’m only teasing you, darling. They’re lucky to have you, whoever they are.”

  Margot kissed him gently on the lips. “I wish they would hurry up with the speeches and houha. I am dying for one of those waffles over there. Their buffet brunches here are the best.”