‘Why not?’
Maggie decided she’d said enough for one day. ‘Can we talk about you now instead of me?’
Dolly laughed. ‘All right. I’ll leave you alone. We’ll do my life tomorrow.’
‘You want me to come back so soon?’
‘You have anything better to do?’
‘No. I’d like to come back. You’re sure you don’t want to fire me first?’
‘Not today. I’ll ring and tell Giselle —’
‘Gabriel.’
‘Whatever his name is, I’ll tell him you’re not as bad as I first thought.’
‘Can I get you anything else before I go? A cool drink? More oxygen?’
Dolly waved her hand at her. ‘Get out. Before you overstay your welcome. Stop blaming yourself about that man. And start being truthful to yourself. You wanted to leave London. All you have to do now is decide what you want to do next.’
There was nothing to say to that. She was right.
It was now even steamier outside. It would have been cooler to take the subway but Maggie wanted to walk. She needed to think about everything Dolly had said. She’d got so much of it wrong, of course. Hadn’t she?
Maggie made her way down Tenth Avenue, sticking close to the buildings, trying to get some shade at least. She found herself near a small park, and went in through the gate. There wasn’t much in the way of greenery. It was more a dog run, with two areas marked out, one for small dogs, one for large dogs. There weren’t many takers for either. It was too hot for hounds as well as humans today. She spotted an empty bench in a corner by the fence, shaded by a spindly tree. She took a seat, leaned her head back and looked up through the covering of leaves at the office buildings all around her. She imagined herself inside one of them, in her corporate clothing, at her computer, going through pages of figures, meeting with company directors. Feeling confident. Comfortable.
Claustrophobic.
Dolly was right. She’d had enough of that job, that life, London and Angus. She had wanted to change it all months before she did. What had stopped her? Thoughts of her family? Fear of their reaction? They would have been worried, Maggie knew. That wasn’t how she behaved. They were used to her succeeding, impressing and achieving. Not turning her back on everything.
She had been relieved to have an excuse not to go to Donegal this year. Not because she didn’t want to see everyone. She loved her family. She loved those gatherings. But she hadn’t been ready for their questions, not en masse. It had been hard enough on the phone with each of them. What was she going to do next? Was she sure she’d made the right decision? All these questions asked out of love and concern, she knew that, but overwhelming all the same.
‘They all treat you like you’re their little toy,’ Angus had said once, after a stream of calls from her mother and aunts about something as simple as her latest haircut. ‘Why don’t they mind their own business?’
She’d defended them vigorously. But maybe he’d had a point?
‘You don’t have one mother, you’ve got four of them. Just because you lived with them when you were little doesn’t mean they have ownership rights. Say no, occasionally, Maggie.’
She hadn’t wanted to. She liked hearing their opinions and advice. Didn’t she?
She rubbed at her nose. She knew she didn’t regret leaving her job. She regretted the circumstances, but deep down, right deep down, had she been secretly grateful for being handed a simple exit? If she had handed in her resignation without a dramatic reason like that, there would have been uproar: from her employers, her family, Angus. From her aunts particularly. Without that terrible day happening, she might have let it drift on with Angus even longer.
It was uncomfortable to think this way. She much preferred feeling she was the wronged woman, painting Angus as the villain.
‘I would have ended it with him soon, anyway, I know I would have,’ she said out loud. She ignored a puzzled look from an elderly man walking past her.
There was a message from Gabriel waiting for her when she got back to her apartment, asking how she’d got on with Dolly. She called him back straightaway.
‘We got on great today. I liked her.’
‘You liked her? She must have decided she liked you too.’
‘I don’t want to get too carried away. She tolerated me, let’s say.’
‘So you’re happy to keep seeing her?’
‘She’s asked me to go back again tomorrow.’
‘And you’re going? So soon? Good luck. I’ll make a note on your file for Mom. You’ll get two gold stars after this.’
Still sweaty from the long walk home, Maggie showered and changed into fresh clothes. The rest of the day stretched out in front of her. Talking to Gabriel had reminded her that she didn’t actually have any friends here. If something were to happen to her, in fact, who would know? Who would come looking for her? Days could go by without anyone phoning, or if they did and got the machine, they might think she was just away on a day trip or lying low. She wondered if there was the equivalent of Rent-a-Grandchild for someone her age. Rent-a-Friend. Perhaps she could suggest it to Dora. Perhaps she could suggest it to Gabriel? Ring and ask him out for a drink?
No, she’d go and buy some fruit and vegetables, make a healthy salad and maybe go for a swim. Practical, day-to-day things. Self-reliant things. That’s what this whole New York stay was about, after all. Being independent.
It was when she was at the checkout of the supermarket across the road that she realised her purse was missing. She had an awkward minute with the woman at the cash register, realising she’d have to put everything back. She retraced her steps. It wasn’t at the deli counter. It wasn’t in the shopping cart. She returned to her apartment. It wasn’t anywhere there, either. It was as she stood in the middle of the room that she remembered. She’d taken it out to show Dolly the family photo. She could picture exactly where she’d left it. Damn.
She rang Dolly’s number first. No answer. It just went straight to the answering machine. She could picture Dolly in the middle of a crossword puzzle, ignoring it. Maggie had nothing else to do. She decided she might as well go and collect it now. Surprise Dolly with a second visit in the one day.
Her subway ticket was in her purse. It meant another long, hot walk back to Dolly’s street. Up the five flights of stairs again. Down the corridor. She knocked at the door. No answer. She knocked again. ‘Dolly?’
Still no answer.
‘Dolly?’
She tried the door. It should have been locked. The security chain should have been across it. It opened.
She knocked again. ‘Dolly?’
Dolly was there, sitting in her chair. Her arms were on her lap, her head lolling forward. Maggie didn’t need to check her pulse to know she was dead.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
It was after six by the time Maggie was back home in Greenwich Village. She had stayed in Dolly’s apartment, sitting beside her body, until the emergency workers arrived in response to her phone call. She explained who she was and why she was there. There’d have to be a post-mortem, they told Maggie, but it seemed straightforward. No suspicious signs. Heart failure, from what they could tell.
‘Good thing you’re forgetful,’ one of the men said, picking up her purse and handing it over to her.
‘Did you know her for long?’ one of the police officers asked as they walked down the corridor together.
‘Just a few weeks.’ She explained the situation. ‘She always used to fire me. Tell me not to visit her again. Except today she didn’t. She asked me to come back.’
‘Maybe she knew.’
Maggie stared up at him. ‘Do you think people do know?’
A shrug. ‘I don’t think so. Would we all live such messy lives if we knew our time was almost up?’
His words stayed with Maggie as she left Dolly’s apartment building, joined the crowds on the pavement and down into the muggy scent of the subway. She stared across at her fellow
passengers on the train, averting her gaze if anyone made eye contact, staring instead at their reflections in the dark windows. If there was a way of knowing they were going to die – if they had even the smallest inkling – what would all these people do? she wondered. What would she do? She knew the answer straightaway. Run to her mother, to Tadpole, to her aunts and surround herself with them, as quickly as she could.
She was coming up out of the subway when she realised she hadn’t rung the Rent-a-Grandchild office. It seemed urgent to let them know. She took out her mobile phone and dialled the number. It was after hours. She wasn’t surprised to get the answering machine.
‘Dora, Gabriel, it’s Maggie Faraday. I’ve just left Dolly Leeson’s house.’ She paused. ‘Dolly died this afternoon.’ She briefly explained what had happened. ‘I called the ambulance. And the police. They’ve taken care of everything.’ She couldn’t think of anything else to say after that, so she hung up.
Back in her apartment, she showered for a long time, scrubbing her skin hard, using a lot of body lotion afterwards, trying to add another layer of scent and sensation around her, instead of the memories of Dolly’s locked-up flat. About to put on jeans, she heard Dolly’s voice. ‘Why don’t you dress up when you visit me? You’d look much prettier.’
She put on the best of the three dresses she’d brought with her. It was dark red, a simple design, but beautifully cut. She put on pretty silver earrings. Make-up. Lipstick. ‘That’s more like it. If you’ve got it, flaunt it,’ she could imagine Dolly saying.
She needed air. She went across to the windows, opening each of them as wide as she could, opening the door wide as well, letting the hot air into the apartment. She sat out on the balcony. She didn’t smoke but she knew there were cigarettes inside. She scrabbled in the drawers, found the crumpled packet. God knows how old they were, or who they had belonged to. She needed to do something, mark Dolly’s passing in some way. Whiskey would have been better, a big flamboyant slug of Irish whiskey, or a gulp of rough Spanish wine – something Dolly herself would have liked. Maggie had nothing alcoholic and she didn’t have the energy to go out again to buy a bottle of wine. She managed one long drag on the musty tasting cigarette, coughed and put it out before lighting it again and making herself finish it.
She was in the bathroom, cleaning her teeth to get rid of the taste, when the phone rang in the room behind her. She let it ring out. She hadn’t turned the answering machine on again since Gabriel had rung that morning. She’d turn it on soon. Just not yet. Her mobile rang. She let it go to voicemail too, not in the mood to talk. When she checked it a few minutes later, the caller hadn’t left a message.
Nearly thirty minutes passed. She was sitting out on the balcony again, listening to the sounds of a city on a hot night when the apartment intercom rang. She leapt at the sound.
‘Ray?’ Her voice sounded odd, she realised.
‘Hi, Maggie,’ the doorman answered. ‘You have a visitor.’
‘Who is it?’
‘A man called Gabriel.’ He lowered his voice and chuckled. ‘Better than a boy named Sue, I guess.’
‘Gabriel’s downstairs?’
‘Want me to send him up?’
She hesitated. ‘No, I’ll come down.’
She took the lift, staring at herself in the mirrored walls of the small space. The nice dress and the full make-up looked incongruous.
There were a few people in the foyer, two talking to Ray at his desk. On the bench by the window a grey-haired man was sitting. He was dressed in a faded green T-shirt. Jeans. Black runners. He was the only person watching the lift.
Maggie stepped hesitantly towards him. ‘Gabriel?’
‘Maggie?’ He stood up. He was tall. Serious-faced. She realised then the grey hair was premature. He was only in his early thirties. ‘I got your message about Dolly. I called your cell phone and your home number but nobody picked up.’
‘I’m sorry to put you to all this trouble. You didn’t have to come.’
‘I did, actually. Legally. It’s part of the arrangement. If something happens, we need to make sure you’re okay. It’s not fair for you to have to handle it on your own. And I knew Dolly too, remember…’
Her tears came then. She hurriedly wiped them away. ‘Sorry. It’s ridiculous, me carrying on like this. I only met her a few weeks ago.’
‘But she got under your skin.’
‘We got under each other’s skin.’
‘Don’t take it personally. She hated everyone, remember.’
‘But to die on her own like that. Gabriel, what if you hadn’t called me? What if —’
‘Maggie, I did call you. You went back to visit her. So there are no what-ifs.’
But there were. Maggie could picture them all in her mind. Sad, lonely pictures.
‘Maggie, do you want to go and have a drink? We can talk about Dolly, tear her to shreds. Have our revenge.’
She badly wanted a drink. She badly wanted company. She wanted to talk to someone and this kind man was offering all three things. ‘Are you sure? If you’ve got time?’
‘I’m very sure.’ He checked his watch. ‘And yes, I do have time. I have exactly three hours, then I need to go to work.’
‘You’re working tonight?’
He gestured to the bench by the window. A guitar case, covered in stickers. She could read the writing on one of them: Buskers do it in all weather.
‘You’re a busker?’
‘One step up. I play in an Irish bar in midtown every Tuesday night.’
‘You don’t sound Irish.’
‘Oh, I do when I need work in an Irish bar. “And here is a song my great-grandfather taught me. Will you join me in ‘The Fields of Athenry’?”’
Maggie smiled. ‘That’s very good. A bit of Dublin, a bit of Belfast.’
‘Not bad for a man who’s never set foot in the place. I watched The Commitments a lot on DVD. Learnt more swear words than I’ll ever be able to use in one lifetime. It was that or The Field over and over again.’ He grinned, switching back to his own accent. ‘I’m also Spanish when the tapas café in the West Village hires me. I’m a walking linguaphone CD. So should we go? Will three hours of drinking be enough for you?’
‘Plenty.’
‘We’ll have to start with whiskey, you realise. In Dolly’s honour.’
‘Irish whiskey?’
‘The very thing.’ A perfect Irish accent again.
She went back up to her apartment and gathered her bag and a jacket. Gabriel was waiting by the front desk when she returned. They walked out into the warm evening together.
Upstairs, in her apartment, her mobile phone started ringing.
At JFK airport, Leo hung up without leaving a message. He tried Maggie’s home number but it just rang out. These young things, too busy with their social lives to even answer a phone call. He’d wanted to check Maggie was there first, not just turn up and surprise her. Now it looked like he had no choice. He just hoped there was a comfortable chair in her lobby. He picked up his suitcase and the briefcase he hadn’t let out of his sight for weeks now, and walked out towards the rank of yellow cabs.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Gabriel took Maggie to a bar he knew well, in the basement of a brownstone building in the West Village. The walls were stone, the chairs and tables wooden. Small chandeliers above the bar sent a muted light through the room, while candles in glasses flickered on the tables. There was soft jazz playing in the background and the murmur of conversation and laughter from the other people there. Gabriel went to the bar and ordered two whiskeys while Maggie found a spare table in the corner.
‘It’s the best they had,’ Gabriel said as he returned with two glasses of honey-coloured liquid. ‘Actually, it’s the only Irish whiskey they had.’
‘Then Dolly can’t complain.’
‘I bet she could,’ he smiled. He lifted his glass. ‘To Dolly.’
‘To Dolly,’ she echoed. They clinked glasses, the
noise musical.
‘In light of the fact we don’t have too many happy memories of her to share, shall we exchange bad memories?’ Gabriel asked. ‘You start. Tell me what names she used to call you.’
Maggie told him about being called a troll and a hobbit. ‘She also called me a whippersnapper once.’
‘Whippersnapper? Very nice. I got called a brat. An ignorant brat at that. A mama’s boy. A good-for-nothing slacker draining our taxes and why didn’t I spend a year or two in the military and see if that would knock some sense into me?’
Maggie smiled. ‘I got told to go back to my own country, to stop taking jobs from Americans.’
‘I was asked if I was gay, and when I told her I wasn’t, she said it looked like I was, dying my hair this fancy-pants grey. And when I told her I didn’t spend any time on it, in fact it suddenly went grey all on its own a few years ago, she told me off and said I should take more care of my personal appearance or I would never get a wife.’
They both took a sip from their drinks, then spoke at exactly the same time.
‘So what brought you to New York?’ Gabriel asked.
‘So how long have you been working as a musician?’ Maggie asked.
They laughed. ‘You first,’ they said in unison again.
‘We’ll toss for it.’ He pulled out a coin. ‘Heads or tails?’
She called heads. It landed on heads. ‘I should be asking you a deep, philosophical question after that lead-in. So how long have you been a musician?’
‘I’m not really a musician. I’m just moonlighting as one at the moment.’
‘What are you really?’
‘A cameraman. News and current affairs, mostly. I trained in a studio, then went out on the road.’
‘But you’re not doing it any more?’
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