The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot

Back in 2014, New Nurse kicks off her shoes, sits on Lenni’s bed, and asks about her notebook. Lenni explains that she’s writing the story of her life, which now includes explanations of the paintings that she and Margot are creating together. New Nurse produces two lollipops, one for Lenni and for one herself. She confides to Lenni that she used to keep a diary but says that it was rather dull since it mostly described the trouble she got into. New Nurse asks if she’s in Lenni’s notebook, but Lenni says no because she knows that the nurse will want to read what she has written if she tells her the truth.

In another of Margot’s recollections, in 1941, when she was 10 years old, World War II was raging, and people rationed food and water. Two soldiers built an air raid shelter in the family’s backyard. One evening, the air raid siren went off, and Margot and her mother hurried to the shelter. Margot’s grandmother was already inside. Thinking that she was the only person at home, she was in the act of relieving herself into a bucket when her relatives entered the shelter. Seeing the stern woman flushed with embarrassment made Margot and her mother laugh.

The narrative returns to 2014. Lenni engages Arthur in a conversation about forgiveness. Her Sunday school education left her with an incomplete understanding of the Bible, but she knows forgiveness is an important part of Christianity. Arthur sees forgiveness as something that brings lasting good, but Lenni argues that she might not live long enough to achieve such hindsight and is therefore tempted toward revenge. Arthur knows that Lenni has already forgiven him, so he asks whom she wants to avenge herself upon. Lenni declines to talk about this person, saying that she hasn’t “seen her in years” (78). Instead, Lenni tells Arthur about the art room, Margot, and their plan for the 100 paintings. Arthur promises to pray that Margot and Lenni live long enough to complete their project.

Margot tells Lenni a story from 1946, when she was 15 years old. Her father survived the war but returns home a changed man. In the middle of the night, he thought that a bomb broke through a window. Obeying the “muscle memory of the trenches” (80), he leaped on top of the object to shield his wife and daughter from the blast. In reality, the object was a slipper. Her father’s screams woke Margot, and she found her father huddled on the floor and her mother watching him in silence.

Lenni recalls a time in Sweden in 2002, when she was five. She heard someone preparing a meal in the middle of the night. She wasn’t scared until she realized that the person making the ruckus wasn’t an intruder but rather her mother. Lenni’s father came downstairs and looked at his wife as though she was “someone far out in the ocean who couldn’t swim” (83). For almost a year, her mother’s “crashing and chopping and sizzling” (83) in the kitchen was a nightly occurrence. Each morning, Lenni’s father carried her downstairs, where her mother had prepared an enormous breakfast. Lenni’s mother never joined them at the table. Instead, she stared out the kitchen window. Eventually, Lenni’s mother went to a doctor, and her husband and child found her asleep at an empty table one morning. Lenni’s father told her that she needed to forgive her mother, that her mother might not be sick anymore, and that her mother loved her.

Margot recounts a story from 1949. Johnny, the slim young man she met on the train to Edinburgh, was a 20-year-old apprentice at a glassworks. He took her on her first date when she was 18. He brought her a corsage because Margot told him that no boy had ever given her flowers. The night of their second date, Johnny’s brother, Thomas, knocked on Margot’s door. She briefly mistook him for Johnny, and Johnny didn’t appreciate Thomas’s joke. Johnny kissed Margot even though her mother was standing right behind her, and Margot was too embarrassed to look at her mother when she left with Johnny for their date.

In May 1951, Margot is 20, and she and Johnny told her mother that they were engaged. Her mother rarely smiled anymore, but the news brought her joy. Margot’s mother began planning for the ceremony and complimented the engagement ring, a “gold band” with “a small square emerald” (90) that had belonged to Johnny’s mother. Margot’s father already knew about the engagement because Johnny asked him for Margot’s hand. Margot’s father had what’s known as “combat stress reaction” (91). He couldn’t bear to leave the house and had a vacant stare. His condition led Margot’s grandmother to retreat back to her own home. Margot felt guilty about leaving her mother alone with her father even though she felt like this was the natural pattern of life. Her friend, Christabel, was already married and living in Australia.

The narrative returns to 2014. Father Arthur nearly chokes on his egg and cress sandwich when Lenni bursts into his office. The room is sparsely decorated with a picture of Jesus, a photograph of a dog, and—to Lenni’s surprise—“a photograph of himself with other people” (92). They chat about cars, and Lenni speculates whether Jesus would drive a car if he came back.

On September 1, 1951, when Margot was 21, she married Johnathan Edward Docherty. Some of Johnny’s interest and charm wore off as Margot became more familiar with him. Sometimes, she felt as though she could see right through him, and other times she felt as if he merely reflected her own emotions. She also had to contend with her mother-in-law, who insisted that she accompany the family to church every Sunday. Margot became pregnant in 1952 but kept the pregnancy a secret until Christmas. Johnny embraced her and then insisted that they go tell his mother the news at once.

When Lenni was seven, in February 2004, she moved from Örebro, Sweden, to Glasgow, Scotland. Lenni’s father recorded Lenni’s mother waving goodbye to their house, but Lenni refused to do the same. The home movie picked up with the family waiting in the airport. Lenni’s mother looked “almost translucent” (98) as she slept in a chair and held Lenni’s hand as she cried. The next clip showed Lenni tightly hugging her toy pig, Benni, as the plane took off, and her father assured her, “It’ll be okay, pickle” (98). Next, Lenni’s father recorded a tour of their new home. A week later, he recorded Lenni coming home from her first day of school. She proudly showed off her new school uniform, and her father enthusiastically noted that she was smiling. He asked whether she made friends at school, but the video ended before she gave her answer.

On May 11, 1953, Margot’s son was born. Johnny and 22-year-old Margot named their child David George (or Davey for short). Margot’s mother brought her yellow carnations. Margot’s father was in “a voluntary treatment center for men with shell shock” (100), and Margot felt mingled guilt and relief at his absence. Margot felt a “celestial” love for her son and her mother. Johnny took photos of their newborn son. As the last picture was taken, Davey’s yellow hat popped off because it was too small for him. Margot still carries this photograph.

In 2011, 14-year-old Lenni attended a party with “the group of girls who let [her] hang around with them” (103), and a boy kissed her. The kiss was nothing like how she imagined her first kiss, which she always envisioned taking place under a tree while she was barefoot. To make at least part of her imaginings true, Lenni walked home from the party barefoot. Her mother was asleep at the table, and the “ghosts under her eyes” had “started haunting her again” since she divorced Lenni’s father (104). As Lenni cleaned up her mother’s dishes, she told the slumbering woman about her first kiss and how she thought it would mean something.

On Troon Beach in Scotland, in November 1956, Johnny asked 25-year-old Margot to walk with him even though it was sleeting. Through tears, he told her that he was leaving her because “[h]e had your eyes” (108).

The narrative returns to 2014. Lenni imagines herself on the beach consoling the 25-year-old Margot. Not yet grasping the implications of Margot’s story, Lenni asks where the baby was.

Once again, Lenni startles Arthur by slipping into the chapel. Lenni encourages him to take piano lessons after he retires, but he’d prefer to learn to ride a motorcycle. Lenni updates Arthur on her and Margot’s progress toward their goal, saying that they’ve completed 15 of the paintings. She also shares that she slightly regrets suggesting the project due to Margot’s skill with a brush and that she’s writing down the stories to make up for her “lack of artistic talent” (112). When Arthur asks what Margot’s like, Lenni answers that her friend is “like nobody [she has] met before” (112). After a pause, she adds that she thinks Margot lost a child.

On December 3, 1953, 22-year-old Margot was at St. James Hospital in Glasgow, and the doctor said that Davey had just hours left to live because of a heart condition. The nurses searched in vain for Johnny. Not knowing how to say goodbye to her son, Margot instead told him a story about what his life would be like. In her story, he grew up healthy and happy, owned a grocery store, married, and had three children. Margot kissed her son’s cheek over and over, promising to love him “[f]or the rest of [her] days and more” (116). She succumbed to sleep, and Davey was dead when she awakened.

The narrative returns to 2014. Lenni hears voices telling her to remain calm. The speakers are unidentified, and Lenni lies in bed, unable to respond.