Marion didn’t reply. She looked around the room and smiled to herself as if remembering something Maggie had long forgotten. She patted Maggie’s legs under the duvet.
‘I’m worried about you, love. I’m worried that all this is too much for you right now. To have the pressure of this place on your shoulders so soon after you and Christian have broken up … You always convince the world you’re so strong, but we’d all understand, you know, if you wanted a break. After all, the pressure’s off with the bank, and if you wanted to travel for a few weeks maybe––’
Maggie cut across her mum. ‘I think I’ve travelled enough, don’t you?’ she said, sounding petulant and accusing. Maggie regretted her words instantly. ‘I’m sorry, Mum. It’s just that travelling is the last thing I need to do. I need to be here, focusing on this place. It’s all that’s keeping me going!’ Maggie tried to make it sound like a joke, but she knew her mother must have heard the same desperate edge in her voice that she had.
‘Maggie …’ Marion paused, trying to collect her thoughts. ‘I know that I’ve made you angry a lot of the time. I know you think I haven’t been there for you, haven’t been the right kind of mum for you.’
Maggie shifted uncomfortably and looked longingly at the door.
‘You have!’ she said, hopeful that the conversation might end right there.
‘No, no, I haven’t,’ Marion persisted, and Maggie sighed inwardly. ‘My own mum, your nanna, was the old-fashioned kind of mum. She created this world of order and rules for me and I – well, I hated every minute of it. As soon as I was old enough I wanted to get out there, get out of endless rows of identical houses filled with identical families. I couldn’t wait to get out of school and explore the world.’
Marion smiled wistfully. ‘It seemed like it was a different place then, Maggie, it seemed new and full of optimism. We really believed, your father and I, that we could change things, make the world a better place. That we stood a fighting chance. I gave you and Jim the childhood I wanted for myself. I thought if you two had the freedom to find your own path you’d both be better people for it, I thought you’d be happier than I was as a child. I know how much you hated it when we travelled, and I know how disappointed you were with The Fleur when we first arrived. I should have tried to talk to you then, but I thought you’d find your own way to happiness.’
Maggie rolled her eyes and, seeing her, Marion flinched.
‘You felt,’ she continued, ‘that I should have been there for you more as a child and maybe I should have been, because … because then maybe you’d talk to me now when you’re so very unhappy. Maybe we’d be friends now instead of just … relations. I got it wrong, Maggie. I’m sorry.’ Marion picked up Maggie’s hand. ‘I’m so sorry that I let you down, but I’ve always loved you, every moment – please remember that.’
Maggie withdrew her fingers, set the mug of tea on the floor and got out of bed.
‘Mum!’ she said awkwardly, trying to contain the sudden fury her mother had inspired, ‘I’m fine, really fine! Honestly, what’s brought all this on?’ She opened the lid of her suitcase and looked for something to wear, secretly wishing she could climb into it and zip it shut behind her.
‘I heard you crying when you came in last night. We all did. You were crying for a long time, Maggie. Sobbing. You don’t seem fine …’ Marion’s face was a picture of dismay. ‘I wish you’d talk to me, sweetheart. I wish you’d let me help you.’
Maggie shut her suitcase lid with a bang, and hastily pulled on her jeans and a vest top.
‘Look, I’m fine, OK, I’m fine. I’ve never needed you to help me before, and I don’t need it now. I’m very grateful that you had me back here and I’m really glad to be able to help with The Fleur. Really glad. But let’s not pretend we’re best friends, OK? Just because I’m here now, Mum, I don’t expect anything more from you than usual. You don’t owe me anything, least of all your pity.’
Maggie picked up her bag and keys and headed down the dusty corridor, down the dark stairs, and through the empty bar. Only when she was out on the street did she pause for breath and wonder where her anger had come from. And who, really, she was angry with. Pushing her disquiet to the back of her mind, she started walking.
If she had stayed a moment longer she would have seen Marion’s periwinkle-blue eyes fill with tears.
Sarah was not best pleased.
‘This is not a picnic,’ she said again, despondently.
‘Yes it is!’ Sam said excitedly. ‘It is!’
‘No, darling, a multipack of Hula-hoops and four cans of coke is not a picnic. You just think it is because Aunty M has given you a can of hyperactivity for breakfast. I know, why don’t you go and work some of it off on the climbing frame?’
Sam whooped with simple joy and raced at speed over to the children’s play area. Sarah looked at Maggie over the top of her sunglasses. ‘Please tell me again why we are having our picnic at nine-thirty in the morning? Without a blanket, or a basket, or any proper refreshment? Without so much as a pic or a nic?’
Becca giggled and rolled her eyes. ‘Because Aunty M is bonkers, Mum, and for some reason you always seem to go along with her.’ She fitted her set of headphones over her ears and went through the small selection of CDs she’d brought with her.
‘Out of the mouth of girls with “babe! written on their T-shirts …’ Sarah said pointedly. ‘One minute I’m in bed thanking the Lord God for my one day of rest and that Sam is still sleeping, and the next you’re banging my door down, shouting like a demented banshee and demanding we go out straightaway. Not in an hour, not in ten minutes, not after we’ve been to the shops, but now. It’s not really what I had in mind, mate.’
Maggie looked apologetic. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I had a huge argument with my mum. Well, I argued and she just sat there looking all pathetic. She just drives me crazy, trying to be all caring and sharing now, thirty years too late! And last night – well, last night I went out for a drink with Pete and he accidentally kissed me and it me made me go all strange and now I don’t know …’
‘What?’ Becca ripped the headphones off her ears and stared at Maggie. ‘You kissed Pete? You did?’ She looked appalled and Maggie winced. She’d forgotten that Becca was in love with Pete, and she’d rather hoped that Becca had forgotten too. She also didn’t like the look of utter disbelief on Becca’s face that it was possible that Pete should stoop so low as to kiss frumpy old her.
‘I thought you were listening to Christina Aguilera!’ Maggie looked at Sarah. ‘It’s a long story, but basically we were talking about what life might be like if we didn’t still love Stella and Christian, and he flipped a coin and it came up tails but then he kissed me anyway and it’s made me go all crazy.’
Sarah looked at her. ‘Well, you told me you were over Christian, so what’s the problem? The guy’s so-called fiancée doesn’t appreciate him or she’d be here, not thousands of miles away. Go for it. I would in a heartbeat!’
Becca howled.
‘Mum! That is so disgusting!’ she protested. ‘Pete doesn’t want to snog either of you two old bags. He wants a younger woman, someone like me.’
‘Not if he doesn’t want to get arrested, he doesn’t,’ Sarah said sternly. ‘Now shush. Go and help Sam on the climbing frame or something.’ All three of them looked over at Sam, who had hooked up with another boy from school and turned the slide into an Alton Towers ride. He was having a sugar-fuelled whale of a time, and the last thing he needed was Becca cramping his style. ‘Or listen to your music, very loudly. Maggie and I are talking.’
Becca huffed and pouted as she put her headphones back on and made a point of showing her mum she was turning up the volume.
‘Any other mother would take an interest in their daughter, not encourage her to rupture her eardrums,’ she grumbled as she picked up Sarah’s copy of Company and, distancing herself a few feet from the adults, lay on her back and began searching the problem pages, holding the
magazine above her to shade her from the sun.
Sarah waited for a few moments and then said. ‘Oooh, look, there’s Justin Timberlake! Naked!’ Becca didn’t so much as flinch.
‘Right, now we can talk, she’s off in la-la land. So like I said, you are over Christian, he is over you, and you like this Pete bloke and he seems to like you. He’s fit, you’re not bad for your age. Why not go for it?’
Maggie drew her knees up under her chin and drew a figure of eight in the grass. It was only a little further up the park that she and Pete had sat on the ridge of the hill and gazed at the stars. The evening had seemed so innocent at the time; now the memory throbbed with resonance.
‘I lied, sort of,’ she said.
Sarah let her head drop to the ground with an audible thud.
‘I knew it! Lied about which part?’ she asked, looking up at the sky.
‘Well, when I saw you on Friday I hadn’t given up on Christian. I hoped that when he’d thought about it he’d realise he wanted me and not Louise, so I lied about that. And then Pete and I went for the walk and we seemed to understand each other. We seemed to know perfectly how each of us felt. We sort of decided to help each other out …’ Skipping the part about Louise, Maggie told Sarah, through gritted teeth and half-closed eyes, about their plan to go to The Drinking Den, ending with the kiss and its confusing aftermath. ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time,’ she finished.
Sarah remained stock-still and silent, her eyes hidden behind her shades.
‘Are you still awake?’ Maggie asked eventually.
‘Yes, but I’m just tying to think of something to say to you that won’t wreck our friendship for ever,’ Sarah said mildly. ‘Give me a moment, OK?’
Maggie rocked on her heels and watched Sam and his friend swoop in and out of the swings, their arms outstretched like wings. Becca had dropped her magazine over her face completely. Her chest rose and fell evenly: she was probably asleep.
Sarah sat up.
‘OK,’ she said in an even tone, removing her sunglasses. ‘Maggie, I love you. God knows why I do, but I do. I don’t want to see you hurt and I don’t want to hurt you, but Maggie, you’ve let things go too far, much too far. I don’t know, maybe it was all those years playing prim housewife and secretary to that arsehole you’re supposed to love but in any case now you’ve gone to the other extreme and it’s because I love you that I’m telling you this.
‘One: When are you going to get over yourself about your mum? Jesus Christ, don’t you know how lucky you are to have a mum that cared for you so much she turned her whole life upside down to try and make you happy? She stood by, smiling on as you did your own sweet thing, and she was always there for you. Wasn’t it your mum who found the cash when you got into debt at university? Wasn’t it your parents who stood there with tears of pride in their eyes when you graduated? Wasn’t it them that took you back in without a second’s thought when, after years of more of less ignoring them, you needed their help? Think about it – you knew they’d take you back in; you didn’t even have to ask them. I’m serious, Maggie. I’d do anything to have a mum that cared for me like yours does. You’ve got to stop being so selfish and start seeing everything you’ve got!’
Maggie opened her mouth and closed it again; she could see Sarah hadn’t finished, not by a long way.
‘Do you know how much I’d have loved to have gone to university? To have had all the years you’ve had to find out about yourself, to find what you really want from life? I didn’t have the choice. I scrimped and saved and I built up my business from scratch. I’m proud of it and I’m proud of my kids, but you, you get your business dropped into your lap and you treat it like it’s a consolation prize––’
‘Now that’s not fair––’ Maggie tried to stop Sarah in full flow.
‘Shut up, I’m talking. Right, Two. You and Christian. Maggie, you never loved him, I could have told you that from day one. Actually I did tell you that, but you didn’t listen to me then, and you haven’t listened to me now. You liked his security, you liked his rules, you liked him ordering you about and telling you what to think. You wanted him to turn you into the automaton that he did, and then when he got bored of your simpering servitude and upped and left you you were surprised! I’ve tried to be there for you, Maggie, I’ve tried to support your stupid plans one after the other. “It’s just a phase,” I thought. “She’ll get over it – the stalking, the whining, the out-and-out idiocy.” ’ Sarah looked disgusted. ‘I really thought you were moving on, and then – and then – you tell me that you and Pete, who must be as stupid as he’s good-looking, cook up some ridiculous plan to make Christian jealous! I mean, let’s look at the facts, shall we? You are lying on the grass under the stars with the best-looking bloke within a fifty-mile radius, and you’re talking about getting Christian back! Christian who, at that moment, was probably shagging his new bird––’
‘Actually he––’
‘Shut up. Maggie, Christian doesn’t love you. You don’t love Christian. If you’ve got even a ghost of chance to make it with someone else, then you should at least try. You shouldn’t throw all your chances of happiness away on some hopeless dream that will never come true. Trust me.’
Maggie laughed, and Sarah looked as if she’d been slapped in the face.
‘I can’t believe that you, ice queen Sarah Mortimer, have just come out with all that crap! What do you know about being in love? You haven’t been in love since we were at school, and that was probably just a crush that got out of hand. You don’t even know what it feels like to really feel for a person, to really care. I’m sorry, Sarah, I’ve been a fool, I know I have – but you! You can’t talk to me about love! When was the last time you were in love?’
Sarah’s jaw tightened and Maggie was shocked to see tears standing in her eyes.
‘I’ve been in love,’ she said, her voice tightly strung. ‘Of course I have. I was so in love with Aidan—’ Sarah glanced over at Becca’s prone form and lowered her voice to a hoarse and angry whisper, ‘I gave him everything I had, all that love I was never able to show my parents, all of that and all of me. Every day, every week, every year for years after he left, all I thought about was him. At first I waited, and then I wished, and then I knew. I knew he was never coming back for me. I practically killed myself trying to make that pain stop. And whenever I start feeling like that again, I remember what it felt like to be left by him. I still think about him, Maggie, I still feel the pain of it all. That’s why I’ve never got close to anyone in all these years, because they all walk out on you in the end, and I’m never, never going through that again. I know exactly what love is about. Aidan wasn’t playing some game like you and your idiotic friend. He’s not popped off on holiday or experimenting with someone else. He went – for good. And he’ll never come back, and I’m left behind in this … this empty, useless bloody shell for the rest of my life. Because he’s gone.’
Maggie shook her head in disbelief. ‘That’s not true,’ she said. ‘How can that be true? If it was I’d have known about it, I’d have seen it.’
Sarah lowered her eyes. ‘You might have if you’d looked. Maybe if you hadn’t been off at university or wrapped up in Christian and the business. Or chasing around on one of your ridiculous episodes. If you’d asked me I’d have told you. But you never did.’
‘Oh Sarah.’ Maggie reached out to touch her friend’s bare arm. Even in the heat of the morning her skin was ice cold. ‘I … I just don’t know what to say to you. You always seem so in control, and I just … thought you were happy, that’s all. I thought you wanted to be on your own. Oh Sarah.’
Maggie put her arms around Sarah’s stiff shoulders and tried to hug her.
‘If that’s how you feel, we could find him,’ Maggie told her. ‘I’m sure we could. He might be on Friends Reunited or some other kind of website – it’s amazing what you can do these days. It’s a risk, I know, but you hear about these people getting back together af
ter years apart, don’t you?
Sarah shook her head and removed Maggie’s arms. She looked at Becca, who had rolled on to her side with her back to them.
‘I don’t want to find him. It’s not him I miss any more, it’s the optimism and trust that went with him. Anyway, I don’t need to find him,’ she said, her voice still a whisper. ‘I know where he is. He’s in Boston. He’s working for some export company in the legal department. He’s got a wife and two kids. He saw Stephen Mills from our class on the plane back home one time. He asked him about me and Stephen told him, about the salon and about Becca and Sam. I suppose he got home and did the maths and wondered about Becca. He wrote to me. About two years ago now. Well, actually he wrote to my mum first of all, but she just wrote “not known at this address” on it and sent it back. Then he wrote to my nanna, and she gave me the letter. He told me he’d written before, all those years ago, and that I never replied. I suppose my mum didn’t bother returning those letters. He asked me if Becca was his daughter. He said if she was, he was sorry that he’d left me to go through it alone and that he would have come back, he would have tried to be there for me. He said he thought I didn’t want to know him any more. He said if she was, he’d really like to meet her to get to know her. He’d really like to be a father to her.’
Maggie looked at Becca’s sleeping back. At some point her redundant headphones had fallen on to the grass beside her.
‘But if you knew, why didn’t you tell her?’ she whispered, nodding at Becca.
Sarah dropped her head into her hands and ran her fingers through her hair. ‘Because … because I couldn’t bear it, Maggie. I couldn’t bear the thought of him wanting her and not me, and I was so scared that she’d leave me for good. I know I was wrong, but …’
‘You bitch.’ Becca was sitting bolt upright, staring at her mum with the kind of fury that no child should know. ‘You stupid, selfish, fucking bitch. How could you. HOW COULD YOU?’
River Deep Page 24
