Free The Queen's Margarine by Wendy Perriam Page B

she wasn’t dreaming: thick, unruly hair, the colour of ripe straw; wary, long-lashed eyes, somewhere between grey and blue; angular figure with a slight stoop to the shoulders, high cheekbones, narrow face. Yes, all real, all tangible.
    â€˜It’s OK,’ he said, ‘I’ll come back.’
    â€˜You’ll come back?’ she repeated, not daring to believe the fact until she heard it from his lips once more.
    â€˜Yeah. I’ll come back.’
    Wonderingly, she let him in, scared by the elation tingling through her chest; the uproar in her body, ferment in her head.
    â€˜I’ve managed to swap things round, postponed another job. So if you’re in at six this evening, I’ll pop straight round from my last call and …’
    The words she barely heard, too shaken by the fact that he had met her eyes, at last, and his fierce, intense, blue-smouldering stare was piercing to her innermost core, repairing every damaged part – yes, even her broken heart.
    â€˜Thank you, she whispered, ‘ Simon .’

Margarine
CLAREMONT GRANGE
CENTENARY CELEBRATION
    You are cordially invited …
    Â 
    Margery ripped the invitation in half and tossed it into the bin. Never would she set foot in that loathsome place again. The envelope contained a letter – in addition to the gold-bordered card – which she gave a cursory glance. An appeal for a donation, no doubt. No, it merely gave further details of the celebration itself: a picnic lunch, followed by a performance of The Pirates of Penzance , enacted by the current pupils, and then a formal evening dinner, with speeches by the Head and various distinguished alumnae. Hardly an enticing prospect – an amateur production of Gilbert and Sullivan, and endless dreary trumpetings about the school’s superior position in the league tables. About to crumple up the sheet, she suddenly noticed the name at the bottom, typed beneath a bold but illegible signature: Clarissa Scott, née Talbot-Young.
    She stood motionless, heart pounding, all her childhood passion reigniting in a rush, at the sight of that alluring name. She was a child again, a willing slave to the most talented and beauteous creature in the whole of Claremont Grange – a much older girl, completely out of reach, with long golden hair and violet eyes, and a range of different skills: school prefect, hockey captain, editor of the school magazine. If Clarissa Talbot-Young was organizing this event, then she, the once ardent admirer, simply must be there, despite the fact she had deliberately avoided all previous reunions.This was a challenge impossible to ignore; a chance for the lowly servant to wreak her revenge, at last.
    Throughout her years in that hated institution, Clarissa had used her and abused her; accepting every menial service as her natural right and privilege, whilst taunting her unmercifully. Yet, she’d continued to worship her tormentor as a goddess and a queen, glorying in each mortification, as preferable to being ignored. When Queen Clarissa finally left school, aglow with an Oxford scholarship, her plain and podgy skivvy had been inconsolable, actually missing all the drudgery and donkeywork, the constant errands and thankless tasks, performed for that enthralling tyrant.
    She strode into the bedroom, startled by her sudden sense of outrage. For over thirty years, she had banned the school from both memory and thought, yet now it seemed imperative to confront Clarissa in person; tell her loud and clear what a bully and a brute she’d been.
    She began riffling through her wardrobe, intent on finding an outfit for the occasion that would stir no shameful memory of the dumpy, unprepossessing child Clarissa would remember, with her ill-filling uniform (bought always second-hand), and the braces on her teeth. Of course, the goddess would have changed as well: the long golden hair probably short and grey these days; the slender figure