Sadie’s latest card to Maggie had arrived on time as usual, a week before her birthday. The current parish priest, Father Huang, had delivered it to the house. He wouldn’t answer any questions about where Sadie’s card had come from or if he had spoken to her recently.
‘We have to respect her privacy,’ he said.
They’d all been frustrated by the priests’ secrecy over the years, but as Leo had said, if Sadie didn’t want to be in contact with them beyond the annual card to Maggie, there was nothing they could do about it.
They had gone on without her. That had been the surprising part of all this. Life had continued. Having Maggie in their midst had made it easier. She’d been a distraction, a focal point and a delight. Clementine was the first to admit she was biased, but there was something special about Maggie. There always had been, ever since she was a child.
Clementine thought she knew her daughter intimately, yet Maggie constantly managed to surprise her. That’s what astounded Clementine about motherhood. Maggie was completely her own person. She had her own distinct personality. Her own attitudes. Her own brain. Clementine saw elements of herself in Maggie. Not just the physical likeness – they also had a similar approach (an obsession, Miranda called it) to study. There was also quite a lot of her father David in her. His colouring. His intelligence as well.
Not that Maggie or Clementine saw much of him these days. He was living in Perth with his wife and family now. He had four other children. Maggie had met them and it was all very civilised, but there had never been and would never be a close bond between them. He had helped them out financially for several years, until Leo’s increasing success with his inventions had made his contribution unnecessary. He still sent Maggie a birthday card each year, as she sent David and his family Christmas cards. Beyond that, it was as if he didn’t really exist. Clementine’s intuition the day she discovered she was pregnant had proved true.
She had spoken to Maggie about him occasionally. Checked she was all right about David; that she wasn’t hurt not to see him more often.
‘Should I be?’ Maggie had asked. ‘I know who he is. I know where he is. That’s enough, isn’t it? If I need to know any male things, I can ask Tadpole, can’t I?’
‘Well, yes,’ Clementine said, taken aback.
Juliet had laughed at her later. ‘You’re the queen of being sensible. You can’t be surprised when your daughter turns out the same way.’
Clementine couldn’t claim complete credit for Maggie’s upbringing. As hard as it had been to admit at the time, Clementine knew that Sadie had been like a second mother to Maggie in her first five years. Juliet, Miranda and Eliza had helped guide her out of childhood, through her teenage years and now into adulthood. After what had happened with Sadie, Clementine had been so wary to let her out of her sight at first, but the arrangement worked beautifully for all of them, Maggie especially. She blossomed under everyone’s attention.
‘It’s no wonder she’s as wonderful as she is,’ Leo had remarked once. ‘She’s a hothouse child, that’s why. Like one of those rare orchids that is watched twenty-four hours a day and has a dozen gardeners caring for it.’
It hadn’t just been her aunts spoiling Maggie. Leo had doted on her. He filled her head with stories of inventors. By the time she was a teenager, Maggie knew about the origins of electricity, and could have done lecture tours about Michael Faraday, the inventor of the electric motor and a distant relative, Leo insisted. It was Leo who heard about the maths competitions. It was Leo who drove Maggie all over the State to enter them. No one was prouder than he was when she won them. He built a new shelf in the living room to hold all the trophies she kept bringing home. He also put up the industrial-sized noticeboard in the kitchen to hold the newspaper articles and photos.
‘You’re lucky she’s not beautiful as well as smart or she’d be the world’s most annoying child,’ Miranda had remarked one day.
Clementine took offence at the time, declaring that of course Maggie was beautiful. She later admitted to herself that Miranda had a point. Maggie wasn’t conventionally pretty. There was something special about her, though. The bright expression, the dark eyes, the strong eyebrows, the big smile, the slight figure, even her fairy-folk ears, which had resisted all of Clementine’s attempts to hide them over the years. Maggie herself had a love–hate relationship with them. At the age of seventeen and in her first year at university, Maggie had declared they were her best feature and got a perky haircut that showed them off. She spent the next few years getting even quirkier haircuts, more suited to the lead singer of an alternative band than a top-of-the-class mathematics student. She started dressing to suit the look as well: vintage dresses, heavy Doc Marten boots, antique jewellery.
‘You’re like My Fair Lady played back to front,’ Miranda declared in disgust one visit when Maggie arrived dressed in a 1960s-style purple shift dress, dark tights and knee-high boots. She also had three earrings in her left ear and two in her right ear. ‘I do all I can to make you into a lady and you turn into this?’
Maggie became more conservative when she began working in the business world. She started wearing expensive Italian boots. She still shopped in small boutiques and vintage clothing stores, though. On the surface her clothes were conservative – shirts, skirts and jackets. It was only on closer inspection the unusual details emerged – ragged hems, appliquéd flowers and handmade fabrics. She kept her hair short – neat and tidy at first glance, up close the quirky fringe or barely noticeable coloured highlights giving it character. She still fidgeted with it, though, tugging at strands and covering her ears. Eliza had told her off about it once. ‘You’re too old to do that now, Maggie.’ Eliza had never been the most light-hearted of them, and the older she got, the more serious she’d become.
‘She wouldn’t know a good joke if it came up and laughed in her face,’ Miranda said once.
Clementine wondered what the weeks in New York had done to Maggie’s dress sense. She hadn’t sent any photos yet. There had been occasional phone calls and texts and a couple of postcards. She rarely went into detail about what she was doing there. She’d made it clear – nicely but firmly – that she wanted to be left alone. They’d all had to respect her wishes.
Clementine looked up at the clock and did a quick calculation of the time difference between Hobart and New York. There were only a few hours each day when they could call each other and this wasn’t the right time. She shut her eyes, brought a picture of Maggie to mind instead and sent her what she could only describe as a beam of love. It wasn’t something she would ever admit to her sisters, but Clementine often sent what she thought of as ESP messages to Maggie. It made sense to Clementine. Maggie was in her mind so much it seemed like a logical step, almost a possibility. She could be immersed in the most detailed research, far away in Antarctica or alone on an isolated island, and yet thoughts of her daughter were only ever the smallest of distances away. She would get sudden flashes about Maggie, images and memories of her weaving in and out of her other thoughts. How could she describe it? A spiritual link, a bond, the equivalent of an emotional umbilical cord? It didn’t matter if there were thousands of kilometres between them. It didn’t matter that Maggie was now an adult, facing her own problems and making her own decisions. The connection between them was still as strong.
She’d never wanted another child. She’d had several relationships since David, but nothing too serious. She was seeing someone at the moment, a fellow scientist called Peter whom she’d worked with in Antarctica. The isolation down there led to many a fling, Clementine had noticed. But it didn’t look like lasting their return to real life. He was already getting too serious.
‘You’re married to your work, Clementine,’ a previous boyfriend once said. It was true. She already had everything she wanted in her life. Maggie. Her family. Her work.
Especially her work. She pulled her thoughts back to the matter at hand. In four months’ time she’d be on board the ship
to Antarctica. Two weeks after that she’d be back at the station, at the very bottom of the world. She couldn’t wait. She loved it there. It was fascinating and nerve-wracking at the same time. Not unlike motherhood, she realised.
She turned the CD of Beethoven up even louder and returned to her list-making.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The temperature in the corner office on the fifth floor of a glass building in Dublin’s Dame Street was reaching uncomfortable levels. After three weeks of wet, grey summer weather, Ireland had switched to blue skies and sunshine. The insurance company that owned the office building made record profits but none of it was directed towards efficient airconditioning.
Sadie Faraday reached across the desk, turned off her noisy fan, switched off her computer, then leaned back and stretched. It had been a long week. She’d put out a tender for a new advertising agency the previous month and had spent the past three days listening to pitches from the companies on the shortlist. So many promises, so much enthusiasm, so many sets of whitened teeth gleaming at her from the end of the boardroom table.
‘You’re the market leader in your field. Your company name is known all over the country,’ the first agency had said. ‘It’s time to tell your story. Add the personal touch.’
‘We’ve done the research and your number one asset is your reputation,’ the second agency said. ‘We want to highlight that.’
The third agency had presented something so artistic, so obscure and a million miles away from what the company actually did that Sadie found it difficult to keep a straight face. What on earth did bluebirds in a tree have to do with a company whose business was cleaning pubs and restaurants?
She’d promised them all she’d have her decision made by Tuesday the following week. It would mean a weekend looking over the submissions again, but she didn’t mind. She didn’t have anything else planned.
The calendar on the pinboard beside her caught her eye. It featured colourful photographs of beaches all over the world. The July picture showed an exotic scene from Barbados. Sadie did what she should have done before today. She tore the page off the calendar. She was a week early, but it made her feel better to do it. August was always a much easier month to look at than July.
‘Anyone alive in here or has the heat killed you too?’
She turned at the sound of the voice. It was Dennis, the head accountant. He’d been with the company since the early days. Sadie had interviewed him for the position herself. He was carrying his briefcase and light jacket.
‘The poor weather can’t win in this country,’ Sadie said. ‘It’s either too wet or too hot. Aren’t you ever satisfied?’
‘Of course not. If we didn’t have the weather, what would we talk about? We’re all heading to the pub for a few celebratory pints. Want to come?’
‘What’s the occasion?’
‘Lorna’s thirtieth birthday.’
‘I thought her birthday wasn’t until December.’
‘It’s not. We’re getting in some early practice.’
Sadie grinned. ‘I’ll meet you there. I just need to make a call first.’
‘I’ll order you one. Glass of chilled white wine?’
‘Perfect, thanks.’ As Dennis shut the door, she dialled the number. It went straight to an answering machine. She left a message. ‘Darling, it’s me. Just to let you know a few of us are going for a drink after work, so I’ll be home a little later. There’s a chicken salad in the fridge if you want to get started before me. See you soon. I love you.’
She pulled the dustcover over her screen, turned her phone to voicemail, picked up her handbag and left the office for the day. The door, with her name plate, Sally O’Toole, Managing Director, slammed shut behind her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The phone started ringing just as Maggie reached the door to her apartment. By the time she realised it was her phone, juggled the shopping she was carrying, found her bag and extricated the key, it was too late. The ringing had stopped.
She pressed the button on the answering machine as soon as she got inside. A warm, male American voice filled the room.
‘Hi. This is a message for Maggie Faraday. Maggie, it’s Gabriel West, calling on behalf of Rent-a-Grandchild. Could you call me when you get this message?’
Maggie put down her parcels, found a notebook and pen and rang him back. ‘Gabriel? It’s Maggie Faraday.’
‘That was quick. You carry your answering machine around with you?’
She laughed. ‘If you’d left a longer message, I’d have got there before you hung up.’
‘I’ll make a note of that on your file: “Leave long pauses when speaking to Maggie Faraday’s machine”. So, how are things?’
‘Good. Busy,’ she lied. ‘You’re filling in again?’
‘Mom has a conference in Seattle. Avon ladies of the world unite. She bribed me.’
It was the third time Maggie had spoken to Gabriel, though they hadn’t met face-to-face yet. She usually dealt with his mother. She’d met Isadora West after seeing a leaflet in a café down the street.
New York City – City of Loneliness?
More than 200 000 elderly New Yorkers spend day after day alone, with no visitors and no human contact. Can you help? Please give up just an hour of your time twice a week and help bring the outside world into their lives.
Lonely in New York? Maggie knew only too well how that felt. She would never have thought it possible, but she’d started to want to do more than sightseeing. After six years in full-time work, she didn’t know what to do with herself without a job. She rang the number listed on the leaflet that same afternoon. At eleven o’clock the next morning she found herself in a small office on the second floor of a building in the Flatiron District. It was above an Indian restaurant. Maggie could smell the rich spices through the floorboards.
Across the desk was Isadora ‘but please call me Dora’ West, in her late-fifties, impeccably dressed in a white linen suit, beautifully made-up and with the fastest speaking voice Maggie had ever heard. She gave Maggie a potted history of her company and her own life within a minute of her arrival. As well as the Rent-a-Grandchild project, she ran a thriving Avon agency, a dog-walking business and a window-cleaning enterprise. She had a desk for each, she explained to Maggie. Maggie glanced around. Sure enough, there was a desk in each corner of the room, all four of them impeccably neat, with organised files, different-coloured filing trays and vases of flowers neatly arranged on top.
‘You saw one of my Rent-a-Grandchild leaflets, you said? Good, good. You don’t get paid, you realise that? It’s a public service. I make enough money with my other businesses. Do you know the city well? Have you got references? What experience have you got with older people? When can you start?’
Maggie started to answer but Dora interrupted. ‘They’re just formalities. Don’t look so anxious. You’ll be great, I can tell. I can pick a lunatic a mile away, and you aren’t one. Now, male or female? No, not you, I know you’re female. That skirt you’re wearing is kind of a giveaway. I like it. Good fabric. I like your hair too. You’ve got that kind of asymmetrical quirky look going on. Funky. I meant would you prefer to visit a male or female?’
Maggie was trying to keep up. ‘Female, please.’ She already had a grandfather. It would be good to meet an older lady, hear her advice, her life story, and get her insights.
Dora ticked a box on the form in front of her. ‘Good. I’ve dozens more females than males on my book. They outlive men three to one. Or is it four to one? There’s more of them, anyway.’
Dora had put Maggie to work quickly. She had already visited three clients. The first, a white-haired woman called Lily, with a matching white-haired dog called Lolly, had been so grandmotherly Maggie expected to see apple pies cooling on her windowsill. She lived in a fifth-floor flat overlooking Gramercy Park, had worked as a teacher in an exclusive private school and liked to talk about dead English authors. Maggie enjoyed her twice-weekly visit
s very much and was disappointed when the woman’s grandson in Florida invited her to come and live with him and his family just a month into the arrangement.
Her second lady was an icy-faced German woman called Greta. Unbeknownst to Dora, Greta had also signed up to an agency called Lonely Old European Hearts. She resigned from the Rent-a-Grandchild scheme the day after she met Klaus, an Austrian butcher the same age as her. The two of them moved to Klaus’s daughter’s home in New Jersey three weeks later. Greta sent Maggie a postcard a week after the move, care of Dora’s office.
It was Dora’s son Gabriel who rang to say the postcard had arrived. He introduced himself, explaining that his mother was away for a few days and that he was managing the office in her absence.
Maggie hadn’t talked to anyone yet that day. She was hungry for conversation. Gabriel seemed just as happy to talk. She didn’t tell him she’d been feeling as lonely as the old people. She mentioned what a wonderful service she thought it was and that she liked his mother very much.
‘She likes you too,’ Gabriel said. ‘I’ve got your file in front of me. She’s put a gold star on the front cover. That’s a very good sign.’
‘I don’t know how she manages to run all those businesses at once.’
‘Nor do I. I get very nervous when she’s away. What if I get confused? Sell window-cleaner as the ideal make-up remover? Send one of the dogs to visit a poor lonely old person?’
He was amused by Greta’s postcard. ‘It’s got a picture of a large sauerkraut on the front,’ he told Maggie, ‘and she’s written across it in block letters, “Wish you were Herr.”’
Those Faraday Girls Page 29
