The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot

Lenni has a complicated relationship with religion. She sees God as a sort of “cosmic wishing well” who sometimes answers her prayers and sometimes worsens her health (5). She visits the hospital’s chapel only because she wants to explore a new place. She’s escorted by a nurse with bright red hair who’s new to the terminal ward, known as the May Ward, and anxious for reassurance that she’s doing a good job. In the chapel, Lenni meets Father Arthur, a 60-year-old clergyman who’s elated to have a visitor. Arthur responds with patience and amusement to Lenni’s quips and questions about the chapel’s emptiness. Lenni visits the chapel a second time, mentioning that she lived in Sweden before moving to Glasgow and asking Arthur, “Why am I dying?” (12).

Father Arthur tells Lenni that she’s “dying because [she’s] dying,” not as a form of divine punishment but “simply because […] [i]t is a part of your story as much as you are” (15). He explains that death is as much a mystery as life is, and he expresses his regret that he doesn’t have a more satisfying answer for her. Lenni waits a week before returning to the chapel. She expects Arthur to be annoyed by her prodding questions and sarcastic comments, but he’s glad to see her again.

Spotting an old woman in purple slippers rummaging through a recycling bin, Lenni distracts Jacky, the waspish head nurse, while the elderly patient sneaks an envelope out of the bin. The woman winks at Lenni before making her escape.

Lenni begins planning a marketing campaign to bring more patients to the chapel. When she comes to the chapel to unveil her plans, she learns that Arthur will soon retire. The new chaplain offers to listen to her ideas, but she runs away.

In September 2013, a graduate with an art degree becomes the temporary administrative assistant at Glasgow Princess Royal Hospital. She spends months applying for a grant for an art therapy program and preparing the new art room. On the day of the grand opening, her boss takes the credit for all her hard work and fires her. The Temp blunders through the halls with her heart broken and with her head “blurry, stuffed full of emotion” (26). In her haste, she knocks over a teen patient with blond hair and pink pajamas. Unable to shake off the guilt from the accident, The Temp learns the patient’s identity and comes to visit Lenni, bearing “a look of remorse” and “a posy of yellow silk roses” (27).

Lenni is intrigued by The Temp’s descriptions of the art room, but New Nurse needs a doctor’s permission before taking Lenni there. Lenni is wryly amused at their caution, wondering if they’re worried that she’ll be “at risk of disease or infection or rabid wolves gnawing at [her] drip tube” (28). While she waits for an answer, Lenni imagines the art room and its contents. A dry erase board with her name hangs above her bed, and she wants to take a marker from the art room so that she can write her name in permanent ink. New Nurse takes Lenni to the art room later that afternoon. There, she meets Pippa, the art teacher, who allows Lenni to paint the sign for the art room. Lenni decides to name it the Rose Room, and she’s deeply grateful to The Temp.

A group of friends comes to visit one of the other girls in the May Ward, prompting Lenni to reflect on her own loneliness. She had friends at her old school in Glasgow but wasn’t close to them and felt that they “were sweet to tolerate [her] for as long as they did” (35). Lenni passes the time by daydreaming of whitewater rafting. Even in her imaginings, she has no friends.

Father Arthur pays her a visit, apologizing for the anger and disappointment Lenni felt when she met his replacement, Derek. Lenni recites a jumbled version of the prodigal son story. She claims that the moral of the story is that “people love a runaway” (37). She cites Arthur’s visit as proof because he never came to see her when she went to the chapel regularly. Arthur explains that he’ll be at the hospital for several more months, but Lenni suddenly leaves the conversation. She’s often berated for running away but feels that this accusation is unfair because she never attempts to leave the hospital. Lenni goes to the art room, where she and the purple-clad woman recognize one another, to their mutual delight.

Lenni and Margot introduce themselves. Margot is surprised to hear that the teen is dying because Lenni is “so alive” (41). Lenni recalls a memory from her childhood in Örebro, Sweden. When she was a primary student, she was sent to the head teacher’s office. There, she met a peer who was also in trouble, and she felt comforted that she wasn’t alone. Lenni experiences a similar sense of comfort and solidarity when Margot shares that she’s dying too. Pippa is discomfited by their discussion of death and tries to rationalize that the two patients are living rather than dying since their hearts are still beating. Lenni and Margot paint stars. When Lenni writes her name and age on her painting, Margot follows suit. Lenni is 17, and Margot is 83. They hang up their paintings “side by side, the two stars against the dark” (44), and Lenni realizes that their combined age is 100 years.

Several days later, Lenni finds a piece of fruitcake from Margot on her bedside table. She also discovers a note from Arthur reminding her that he’s always available to talk. That afternoon, Lenni receives permission to return to the art room. Three other teens are present for the art class. The teens aren’t wearing pajamas, indicating that their time in the hospital is temporary, and they’re more interested in their phones and chatting with one another than in acknowledging Lenni. Lenni is uncomfortable around her peers, and she asks Pippa to place her in the over-eighties art class next time so that she can spend time with Margot.

With help from Paul the Porter, Lenni locates Margot Macrae’s bed. Lenni asks Margot if dying scares her, but Margot shakes her head and shares a story from when she was 17. In January 1948. Margot’s grandmother arranged a date for her with a boy from her church even though Margot wasn’t religious. Margot cried when she realizes that the boy stood her up, and her only friend, a girl named Christabel, comforted her. Christabel wondered whether the boys they were meant to marry died in the war. To cheer Margot up, she bought them tickets to Edinburgh. On the train, they met a slim young man who listened to the story of Margot’s absent date and casually offered to love her.

The narrative shifts back to 2014. New Nurse comes to take Lenni back to her own room, and Margot promises to continue the story later. Lenni imagines herself boarding the train to Edinburgh in Margot’s memories and drifts into what feels like her first good sleep in years.

During Lenni’s first art class with the octogenarians, Pippa asks the patients to draw one of their happiest memories. Margot creates a beautiful sketch of a baby named Davey. Lenni struggles to think of a subject for her piece and decides to draw a scene from January 11, 1998, her first birthday. As she works on the piece, she tells Margot the story. From home movies, she knows that she sat on her father’s lap and her parents sang to her. In the Swedish birthday song, the celebrants wish the birthday person 100 years of life. The lyrics saddened Lenni once she was old enough to understand them because she felt as though she’d inevitably disappoint her friends and family members by failing to reach a century. However, when she was just one, she was blissfully ignorant of mortality.

In the early hours of the morning, Lenni suddenly has an idea about how she and Margot can celebrate their shared century of life and leave behind some proof of their existence. She makes her way to Margot’s bedside and proposes that they create 100 paintings, one for every year they’ve lived. Margot loves the idea.