Martyrdom

They took her to the water, the wind blowing in their faces. This was the authority of King Charles II being enforced: bringing those obstinate Presbyterians to heel. Young Margaret could smell the salt of the sea, near her home on the Solway, where she had lived her eighteen years. It was so familiar. The tide ran strongly here.

     Elaine was struggling. She had had this problem before leaving school, her knowledge that she was too fat. No-one else could see it: no-one else cared. She alone could diagnose and cure it. She was proud of that, sometimes. She was a psychology student, after all.

     Young Margaret was led down onto the estuary of the Solway, with the elder Margaret. They would not let the King have his way. Who were they, to stand up to him? ‘Only women,’ said one soldier, laughing as he tied the elder Margaret to the stake. The tide was out, but already it was starting to turn. Even the soldiers feared it.

     Elaine had to face facts. She had to get in shape, join the gym. Living in halls, she stole ice-cream from another girl on the same floor. Elaine knew she was doing her a favour. She never bought that kind of food herself, never. Too many calories. No-one saw her coming out of the toilet at midnight, wiping her mouth. Her friends would ask her why her throat was so sore the next day, and she would just shrug and say, ‘I’ve got a frog in my throat,’ and banish all thoughts of cream cakes. Until later.

     Young Margaret watched the tide coming in. All her life, she had lived here near the Solway, where her parents had taught her about God. The elder Margaret’s clothes were catching in the rising tide, getting heavier. She was singing the Psalms. The soldiers watched from the safe distance of the bank.

     Elaine was enjoying the term. She was learning, she was taking exercise, she had nice new clothes. The midnight episodes were occasional abnormalities, under her control. No-one knew what she did. It was only right she edit out the excess. She had to measure up, practice what she learned. She wanted to be the best.

     The elder Margaret was not singing now. Young Margaret could just see her grey hair, bobbing above the water, further down the estuary. She was already in another world. The water made its own song, lapping at her feet.

     Elaine was good with problems, good with ideas. She listened to her friends, cared about them, studied them, analysed them. She was pleased with her progress, pleased at everything going so well at sunny Stirling University. Her clothes were great, her face was not too bad… but there was still the need for discipline, sometimes.

     Margaret felt the tug of the water around her waist. It was cold, a penetrating chill to the bone. She was tied firm to the stake, hands lashed to her sides. She was losing the feeling in her hands. The tide tugged at her. She would never have a husband, never know what it was to bring forth a child. The water was coming for her, coloured all shades of grey. She could not see the other Margaret’s head now. She had had her chance. Young Margaret would not, in her turn, recant, not let the Presbyterian Kirk be run by lairds or by the King, by none other than her Lord Jesus. She knew whom she had believed.

     The autumn semester was getting on. Elaine was happy. Her grades were not what she had hoped for at the start, but they were good enough. She would get there. But how could she practise as a psychologist if she was fundamentally too fat?  She had to show by example, she was strong and disciplined. She kept on top of things. And still, her wicked face did not show the benefits of her hard, hard work. She knew the boys did not want her as she was. Sure, one had asked her out, but he could not be serious. He would have to wait until she was better. Much better.

     Margaret felt the pressure on her chest. The tide was a lover, folding her closer and closer. ‘Strong bulls of Bashan me surround.’ That came back to her, from the Psalms. The soldiers watched. They had been shouting earlier, now they were silent. Not out of respect, just watching. Waiting. Their time was coming. Hers was slipping away. The sands of time were sinking beneath her feet, long gone stone cold. The cold was seeping into her every fibre, but she still fought to hold onto praise, her personal victory, her dignity. She heard the Psalms in the water.

     Elaine found it harder to hold a pen in class. She collapsed in her last exam of the semester, held in the indoor tennis court, symbol of all she aspired to. She was rushed to hospital in an ambulance, a saline drip in her arm. She looked up at it, thought of the bubbles floating in it like lemonade, pumping fat into her arm. She screamed, and ripped it out. The paramedic held her arm and tried to replace it. It was so hard to find a vein in that stick-like, scarecrow arm.

     Margaret held her chin up. She looked calmly at the soldiers. She was above them in every way that mattered. The tide was coming, the force of nature having its way. Her long, bedraggled hair was floating behind her like a train. In years to come, one of these soldiers would die of thirst. Margaret looked up, up, at the hills beyond her home. ‘I to the hills will lift mine eyes. From whence doth come mine aid?’