Chapter Text
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments; love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
Shakespeare, Sonnet CXVI
Margaret avoided her own eyes in the mirror as she pinned up her chestnut hair. Seeing the marks of exhaustion on her face would only add another dimension to her malaise. She had known that a social work career would be difficult, but she hadn’t expected the kind of soul-weariness that had crept in— clogging her lungs, or so it seemed, as she often felt that she couldn’t take a full breath. Sometimes, she dreamt about the people on her caseload dying and woke in anguish.
As she drove toward the tenement house, the color of the air seemed to reflect the shading of her thoughts. Factories spewed smoke and litter fluttered across the pavement in a sudden wind.
She took in a breath and set her jaw as if stepping into a boxing ring before getting out of her car and opening the front door of the building. Some of the men on the first floor loitered in the hall smoking cigarettes and staring at her silently. Having discovered through experience that ignoring men could antagonise them, she said a quick hello as she made her way toward the stairs.
The stairs always made her uneasy because it would be difficult to escape if someone accosted her there. Today they were thankfully empty.
On the third floor, she found flat 305 and knocked a number of times before the door was opened at last by a slight man with deep-set eyes and ginger hair. “Oh, hello,” he said tonelessly. “Come in.”
“Hello, Mr. Boucher.”
“Call me John.”
Margaret stepped into a cramped room strewn with children’s toys. From the din of high-pitched voices and sound effects in the next room, she guessed that the children were occupied watching TV. John’s wife, Caroline, was sitting at the kitchen counter with a cigarette and a dazed expression.
“How have things been this past month?” Margaret said in a bright tone, forcing her lips into an encouraging smile.
“I got the sack. Those union eejits made threats against anyone who would break the strike, so I stayed away, and where are they now? Their big talk won’t feed my kids.”
“You were put in an impossible situation,” Margaret said sympathetically, but John threw his head back as though her pity scalded him. “I can help you with the welfare paperwork,” she continued, recognizing her mistake and adopting a businesslike tone.
The next hour passed with a fair approximation of cordiality. Caroline drifted in and out of the room with such a blank look that Margaret wondered if she were using. When spoken to directly, however, Caroline’s expression sharpened and she looked at Margaret with a tight, artificial smile. Margaret’s heart sank as she saw herself reflected back in Caroline’s eyes as a member of some faceless establishment sent to surveil and condescend to them.
Sometimes she wished that she really were as unfeeling as the people on her caseload seemed to think. In reality, her heart broke for them again and again. In the past, she had seen herself as a no-nonsense pragmatist. Scratch the pragmatist and watch the idealist bleed, she thought wryly. Idealism wasn’t quite the right word for her response to the people she worked with, though. It was far more intimate than idealism. Sometimes, it felt like love. Her favorite professor had encouraged her to love the people she worked with. Experiencing that love felt like both the saving grace of the job and its greatest liability. How long could she continue, feeling as she did? How long could she continue if she did not feel as she did?
She shook herself slightly and refocused on the form she was reviewing with John. Before she left, she knew that she would need to assess risk with him because of his past suicide attempts. She would also need to see the children.
With these tasks completed, she exited the apartment with a dazed expression that rivaled Caroline’s. She was satisfied that the children were in no immediate danger, but the family was clearly on the edge. They would either stabilize or decompensate in the coming months, and she could do little to fix their course with the paltry resources available.
Outside, she noticed a rainbow in the eastern sky, shimmering incongruously over the smokestacks. As she drove back to her office, her phone vibrated with a text from Henry. Her stomach tightened. She wished she hadn’t agreed to the date, but Edith had been so excited to reintroduce the two of them, and she was flattered that he had come all this way to see her.
By the time she got home, there was just enough time to dress for dinner. She threw on a purple shirt-dress and a scarf with delicately embroidered flowers. With concealer to hide the shadows under her eyes and lipstick to accentuate her full lips, she was satisfied with her appearance, but she felt a weighted dullness in her limbs.
When she arrived at the restaurant, Henry was already there. He greeted her with a kiss on the cheek, and she saw his eyes discreetly run up and down her body. The sensation made her uneasy.
“It’s wonderful to see you,” he said.
“Thank you— I mean, you too! I’m sorry I’m late.”
“It’s nothing. I know you’re busy being the Florence Nightingale of Milton.”
She laughed. “I’m not a nurse.”
“Yes. Pity they don’t give social workers those uniforms. You would look lovely in one.”
She laughed again and looked down at her hands. She wasn’t used to being flirted with, aside from the crass overtures made on the street and in the tenements. Was that why she felt so uncomfortable?
When their food arrived, she was grateful for the excuse for silence, but it didn’t last long. “How long do you think you’ll live here?” Henry asked, looking around with a scornful smile playing at the edges of his mouth.
“I don’t have any plans to leave.”
“Really?” His eyes sought hers, but she looked down at her plate. “You know, London has plenty of suffering people, too,” he added in an undertone. “You don’t have to be such a saint that you sequester yourself in a place like this.”
“I happen to like the people here,” she said, surprising herself with her own vehemence. “There’s less snobbery here, less hypocrisy.” Fewer people like you, she thought, and was again surprised. She had always thought she liked Henry.
He skillfully turned the conversation to a discussion of his pro bono cases. She would have been impressed if she didn’t detect a certain self-satisfaction in his air. She suspected that his philanthropy was motivated more by self-importance than altruism. The novelty of these negative impressions led her to ask herself whether she was biased or paranoid. Perhaps it was simply her weariness that prompted her to draw the worst conclusions.
When they finished dinner, Henry suggested that they visit the pub across the street. “Dives are always the most fun… although I probably shouldn’t call it that. My American friend got me started,” he laughed.
The pub was, in fact, one of the busiest in Milton. A throbbing bass line from a speaker in the wall was just audible over the noise of the crowd. Margaret felt a number of eyes on her in addition to Henry’s. She was more comfortable in the dim light of the pub than she had been in the restaurant, but a vague disquiet lingered.
When she slid into a booth with her cider, Henry sat down next to her rather than across from her. He made a series of jokes that she only half heard and leaned closer for each punch line. Margaret backed up infinitesimally each time he leaned in, until her retreat was blocked by the wall. Drinking led her to reveal her distaste more obviously, but he was undeterred.
When he was so close that she could feel his breath against her face, she stood up and muttered that she needed to go to the bathroom. He made just enough room for her to brush past him but not enough for her to go by without touching him.
Moving through the pub without him, she immediately felt a sense of lightness and could imagine herself enjoying the evening. The alcohol and happy chaos of the pub had made her a bit faint, though. She ventured to the back of the pub and stepped out the door for a breath of air.
The back of the bar was deserted except for a short man with patchy stubble, glancing back furtively.
“Stephen!” A voice cried out behind her. It was a voice unlike any she had ever heard, primal in its intensity and rich in timbre. A tall figure rushed forward to grab the short man by the collar and shake him. The short man’s expression registered utter terror.
“Stop!” Margaret cried.
The tall man turned toward her without releasing his hold. His keen blue eyes widened as they lit on her face and his mouth opened slightly from the center. He panted out a breath, and his exhale seemed to move both his body and hers. Then his brows contracted, and he spat, “He doesn’t deserve your intervention. Go back inside.”
Margaret was rooted to the spot, though. She groped for words. There was something about this man that eclipsed all thought. Suddenly, she felt an arm around her shoulders. Henry had come out behind her.
At his arrival, both men disappeared around the side of the building, the tall man still dragging the short man by his lapels.
“What happened?” Henry asked, rubbing her arm with a grand performance of concern.
“He's just… terrorizing that poor man.” Margaret gazed after them.
“That’s Milton for you. I’m sorry for taking you to this place.”
“No— no, it’s all right.”
A moment passed in silence. Henry pulled gently on her arm. “It’s time to go back inside.”
Margaret allowed herself to be guided back into the pub, and then into a cab alongside him. When they arrived outside her house, Henry mounted the stairs at her elbow with a smug grin on his face.
Margaret turned toward him slowly and smiled. “Henry, I’m just drunk enough to…”
“What?” Henry asked, looking both insulted and rapaciously expectant.
“To tell you that I don’t like you.”
His face crumpled comically.
“Good night, Henry.” She closed the door in his face.