Scandal On The 8:15

Marjorie checks her bag, then checks it again. She moves aside the sandwiches, the cheese and crackers, the bag of grapes (green, seedless, obviously), she looks under the Tupperware of cut carrots, the tub of hummus. The flask of coffee (milk, no sugar, they are not animals). 

It’s not there. 

Marjorie sits back in her seat and looks out of the window. The world is flying past at speed as the train hurtles through the suburbs, trees blurring together into one long, fuzzy shape (is that the speed? Or is it because she’s forgotten her glasses again?), rooftops jut up at odd angles giving the impression of choppy waves. Marjorie remembers going out on the tinnie with her father when she was little, cray fishing. She would lean over the side and let her hand hover just out of reach, to see if any of the choppy waves would leap up to touch it. 

‘Bum on seat,’ father would bark, ‘I’ve bloody got enough to do without plucking you out of the drink.’ 

Lifetime ago now. Marjorie shakes her head, back to the matter at hand. 

She definitely packed it. Marjorie remembers putting it on top of the hummus especially so she could get it out as soon as they were on the train, a naughty packet of Maltesers to share, because if you can’t be a bit naughty at their age, when can you? 

Anyhow, now the packet is not there. Marjorie zips up her cooler bag carefully (you can’t be too rough with it, or it catches in the lining.) She is thinking, running through the events of the morning. A frown creases her already creased brow and her eyes wander to the seats opposite. Judith sits directly across from her. She catches her eye. Judith does a faint smile and then looks out the window. Strange. Is it Marjorie’s imagination, or does Judith look a little… uncomfortable? Judith helped her put her cooler bag in the boot on the way to the train station. She wouldn’t have tampered with it would she? She wouldn’t have had a little peek inside while Marjorie was folding herself painfully into the back seat, spied the Maltesers and wanted them for herself? 

It’s possible. Judith had told Marjorie last week she couldn’t make the evening stroll because her haemorrhoids were playing up, which would account for her looking uncomfortable. But could this have been an elaborate ruse to throw her off the scent? 

Next to Judith is Sylvia. Sylvia is staring at her shoes, wriggling her toes inside. Marjorie can she them moving under the soft leather, can see her calf muscles tensing and releasing under her sheer stockings. That is guilty behaviour if ever Marjorie has seen it. After all, wasn’t it Sylvia who got caught stealing the Readers Digest from the sunroom back in august? Yes, Marjorie thinks it might have been! There was a big hoo-ha about it, the village was in uproar. Sylvia had had to return them the next day. She had claimed she “thought they were old ones”. Well of course they were old ones, but that’s not to say others wouldn’t mind reading them again, is it? 

Now Marjorie thinks of it, Sylvia met her at her place this morning to save Judith making another stop. Marjorie remembers leaving her in the kitchen with the bags while she nipped to the bathroom for one last wee. Could sylvia have gone through the bags? Seen the Maltesers, “thought they were old ones”? She wouldn’t put it past her, she has an awful sweet tooth. 

On Marjorie’s right sits Joyce. Marjorie turns to watch her, she has fallen asleep again, her mouth lolling open like the dead, only she’s snoring so she’s likely alive. Is she sleeping, or is she bluffing to make her seem innocent? Joyce startles awake suddenly, making a yelping noise which makes Marjorie jump. Could she be so innocent that she’s relaxed enough to have a nap? Or is she exhausted from all the double crossing she’s been doing?! 

Marjorie is fuming now. This is always the way with these ladies, it is always she that is suggesting trips, organising an afternoon tea, putting on a spread. She splashes out as a kind gesture, on a bag of treats that they can all share together, family sized, mind you, cost her over seven dollars, and this is the thanks she gets? Marjorie remembers bitterly that Joyce borrowed a pair of secateurs off her in spring and never returned them. That does it. 

Joyce wipes some drool from the side of her mouth and looks back at Marjorie. 

“What?” she says. “What happened?”  

Marjorie won’t stand for it. She will not be walked over. 

“I think you know very well, what.” 

By the time the four of them get off the train, the pleasant trip to the foreshore has been forgotten. Sylvia is in tears, Joyce has said some colourful curse words that Marjorie has not heard in quite some time, and Judith has stormed off as soon as the doors had opened, her wiry grey hair bouncing away through the crowd. Marjorie has told the girls that enough is enough, and as no one would own up to the Malteser theft, she would be going home alone, and no one should dare come knocking at her flat any time soon.  

Marjorie simply has no time for deceit, none at all. She is pushing eighty, for heaven's sake. If your friends cannot be honest at eighty, are they really your friends? Are you not better off alone? 

What a day out this has been already, Marjorie thinks. It’s barely nine AM, and already the group of friends are dispersed, adrift like four tin boats on a choppy sea. Marjorie crosses the platform to wait on the other side, she certainly won’t be enjoying the sights with the rest of them, she will go straight home. Good riddance. Marjorie puts her hand in her pocket to check her return ticket is there and pulls out instead a family sized bag of Maltesers, melted, obviously.  

Now she comes to think of it, she definitely did put it on top of the humus, but then may have thought it easier access in her pocket. Sometimes the zip catches.