Maggie

by Marie Maxwell

  ‘Nope. I just told him you’d have his guts for garters if you caught him so much as looking at the flower beds the wrong way!’

  ‘Quite right too.’ She paused. ‘I’ve just been having a chat with our Maggie. I think I may be getting somewhere at last. She came to see me, and she didn’t rant and rave quite as much.’

  ‘Any resolutions?’

  ‘Not really. I tried to persuade her to come with me to meet my ma and your Betty.’

  ‘Is that a good idea if she’s going back to Melton?’

  ‘She’s not going back to Melton, Johnnie, how many times? Not, not, not!’

  ‘Isn’t that for us all to decide?’

  ‘No, it’s not, because it’s not an option. We are not going to send her off to the vicarage, and that’s it.’

  ‘But I’ve spoken to Mrs Hobart again …’

  ‘Well, then you can unspeak to her. She’s not going, and that’s that. We’re going to get through this as a family – no buts, no Hobarts, no nothing.’

  Fifteen

  ‘Maggie … Maggie? Can you hear me? Andy’s on the phone.’

  Maggie jumped up from her bed when she heard Johnnie bellowing. She switched her wireless off and, barefoot, ran out of her bedroom across the landing and down to the ground floor, pushing past Johnnie who was still standing halfway up by the turn of the stairs.

  ‘Blimey, you must be keen to move that quick.’ Johnnie smiled, but Maggie didn’t look at him and unusually didn’t bother with a smart response; it had been so long since she’d heard from Andy that she’d started to think he had dumped her and, equally as important, that her budding singing career was over before it had even begun.

  She snatched the phone up. ‘Hello?’ she said cautiously, aware as always that Johnnie was listening to her. She was just grateful he hadn’t been down in the office and able to listen in on the extension.

  ‘Maggie, I’ve got good news. Can you talk?’

  ‘Sort of, but not really …’ she replied in a whisper, looking up the stairs and seeing Johnnie’s legs still on the same stair he had been standing on when she’d run past him. ‘I was wondering when you’d ring. I thought you’d forgotten me.’ She stretched the cord of the telephone as far as it would go across the hall from the telephone table and turned to face the corner of the entrance hall on the opposite side to the stairs. It was as far away as she could get from Johnnie.

  ‘It’s just been so busy,’ Andy continued, speaking quickly. ‘Dad has such a lot going on, and I’m really having to work the hours to help him out. But I don’t mind because he always works so hard. I have to do the same. We’ve got a lot of new acts. And now I’ve got to get back to Melton because Mum’s got a party tonight. It’s all so busy in this industry. Oh, and I’ve got a car. Dad bought it for me, but it’s going to stay in Melton. I don’t need it in town.’

  Maggie didn’t really want to hear any more about how hard he was working or how wonderful his dad was; she wanted to know about herself. ‘Any other news? Anything about you know what?’ Maggie asked cautiously when Andy paused for breath.

  ‘Yes, but I need to talk to you properly in private when you can talk back! I tell you what, get yourself to a phone box and ring me at the Manor House tonight. Reverse the charges. Eight o’clock. I’ll be back by then.’

  ‘OK, but I’m …’ She tried to respond to tell him she wasn’t sure what time she could get out of the house as she’d promised to stay in for dinner, but the tone coming down the line told her he’d already put the receiver down.

  ‘Everything alright, Mags?’ Johnnie asked as he got to the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You weren’t on the phone long …’

  ‘He’s working. It was just a quick call.’

  ‘It’s impressive that he works so hard at his age.’ Johnnie smiled. ‘How about you invite him down here for dinner on Sunday? Or maybe sometime over Christmas. Any time, doesn’t have to be formal. I’d like to get to know him. Ruby liked him, and she got on well with his mother. What do you think?’

  Maggie thought for a moment, unsure if Johnnie was leading her into a trap. Whenever she thought about it in depth, which she tried very hard not to do, she was always surprised that it was Johnnie who was proving to be the most hostile towards her. He had always been the jovial big brother whose company she enjoyed, but now it felt as if he was constantly behind her, trying to catch her out.

  Maggie surreptitiously looked at him through her long, mascara-coated eyelashes; Johnnie Riordan was tall and broad and, as he leaned casually against the banister, she still found it hard to reconcile that the good-looking young man was actually her birth father and that she was really his daughter, the daughter he didn’t want around.

  It was obvious he loved all three of his sons unconditionally, she could see that whenever he was with them, and he was a really good father to them, but he just didn’t treat her in the same way. She felt she was the outsider; neither his sister nor his daughter, just an intruder into the neat Riordan family, the disruptive cuckoo in the already settled nest.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said after a few moments. ‘I’ll ask him, but he’s always working. His father runs this big business in London, a show-business agency, and Andy has to be there nearly all the time, especially as he’s going to take it all over one day. He’s the only child, so he gets the lot.’ She was about to add ‘unlike me’, but for once she kept her counsel.

  ‘Ah yes. The great Jack Blythe, Lord of the Manor; I’ve heard a lot about him, not all of it good, I might add. Seems he’s a bit of a wheeler-dealer is our Jack,’ Johnnie said with a slight frown.

  The critical undertone in his voice put Maggie on alert, and she immediately wondered what he meant, if maybe Jeanette had said something about the record she’d made in the booth. Suddenly, she was scratching around in her head to try and remember what she’d said to Jeanette. ‘What do you mean? He’s a respectable businessman. He’s really rich, and he’s got a huge place in London as well as the Manor House,’ she said defensively.

  ‘I didn’t know you’d met him.’ Johnnie looked at her quizzically. ‘I thought you’d only met the fabulous mother and mad aunt.’

  ‘I don’t have to meet him to know he’s alright. Andy’s told me all about him. He really looks up to his dad, everyone does.’

  Johnnie opened his mouth as if to say something more, and then stopped.

  ‘Go on, tell me what you mean, what have you heard?’ Maggie asked, trying her best not to be too confrontational.

  ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter, you know what village gossip is like. Even the Pope would have to prove himself ten times over to be accepted in Melton. You ask Andy if he wants to come to visit and meet us properly. He can come to dinner one Sunday while we’re still in the quiet season and we’re not rushing round like idiots.’

  Again he smiled, and again she wondered why Johnnie Riordan was being so nice all of a sudden. She hoped it wasn’t because he was thinking of trying to send her to the Manor House instead of the vicarage.

  ‘OK, I’ll think about it; it’ll depend if he’s got time.’ Maggie shrugged, feigning uninterest, while at the same time desperately wanting to ask Johnnie what he meant.

  That evening she sneaked out of the house while Ruby was playing monopoly with the boys and Johnnie was safely ensconced in his office hideaway and ran across to the phone box on the opposite side of the road. She didn’t want questions, and she didn’t want them seeing her going to the phone box when there a phone indoors.

  Andy answered the phone almost immediately. ‘Guess what? Dad’s got a job for you as a backing singer, after Christmas he said, and he said you can have one of the bedsits downstairs rent free until you earn enough to pay for it. I told you he was the best, didn’t I? You can get away from Southend forever, this is your big chance, so long as you don’t actually let on to him that the guardians don’t know about it. He can only turn a blind eye if he doesn’t know
for sure you signed it yourself!’

  For a few moments Maggie didn’t know what to say. It was everything she wanted, all she had thought about since the moment Andy had taken her record off to London with him, and she could feel her excitement levels rising, but along with it came apprehension. The idea of running off to London and living in a bedsit was very scary for a sixteen year old who had led a very closeted life up until just a few months before.

  ‘Do you know anything else about it? Backing who? And where? Is it in London?’

  ‘I haven’t got all the details, but it’s a good start, and Dad thinks you might be good enough to make a proper record. He just wants to see how you perform live first. It’ll be fab, Maggie, really fab. After Christmas, OK?’

  ‘OK …’ Maggie said, trying to sound enthusiastic despite the feeling of fear which suddenly enveloped her. ‘Which day?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. I’ll be in Melton over Christmas, so I’ll let you know when I’m going to be back in London. Now, what else has been happening with you?’ Andy asked, but before she could answer he simply carried on telling her all about himself and his father. As he always did.

  ‘How’s Melton?’ she asked, when there was a gap in the conversation.

  ‘Oh, Christ, it’s as boring as ever. You’re lucky to be out of here. I hate the place. If it wasn’t for Mum I’d never come here. Compared to life in London it’s all so childish. I mean, who has a tennis clubhouse as the centre of entertainment?’

  Maggie made the right noises, but all she could think was how much she used to love the tennis club – before she met Andy Blythe, before the accident and before the bombshell.

  Just the thought of it made her feel so homesick she wanted to cry.

  ‘I’m going to have to go. They don’t know I’m out.’

  ‘Just think, once you live in London on your own you’ll be able to do whatever you like, especially if you can get your hands on your inheritance first!’ He paused. ‘You are still trying to get access to it, aren’t you? Dad says you need a solicitor.’

  ‘Of course I’m trying, but no luck so far. I may have to have a conversation with fatman.’

  ‘I think you should; it’s not right. Even Dad says it’s not right. It’s your house in Melton, and that fatman is obviously in on it with them.’

  ‘I don’t know. I just want to get away. The inheritance can wait! I mean, I’ll get it eventually …’

  ‘Only if they haven’t spent the lot by then.’

  By the time she got back to the house, Maggie’s brain was in a whirl of confusion, but amid it all she wished she hadn’t told Andy the information she’d found out about the inheritance and how much it was actually worth.

  ‘You know, there’s something bugging me,’ Johnnie said when he and Ruby were alone in the sitting room later that evening. ‘I was listening to Maggie on the phone earlier, and it was an odd conversation, even though I only heard one side. Something dodgy’s going on with that Blythe family and Maggie, and I can’t put my finger on it.’

  ‘They seem nice enough, and Maggie’s going to be guarded if she’s talking to Andy and knows you’re listening in; you shouldn’t do that, you know …’ Ruby said without looking up from her book. She was curled up in one of the pair of old leather wingback chairs they’d brought back from the hotel when it was refurbished. They were old-fashioned but comfortable, and the boys always fought over them with Martin, the strongest, usually winning the battle to sit in one on his own with Paul and Russell having to share the other. Now the boys were in bed, so Ruby and Johnnie had got them to themselves.

  ‘I wasn’t hiding. She knew I was there. I answered the phone and called her down!’ He laughed. ‘But seriously, there’s this niggle in the back of my brain that something is going on that we don’t know about. I know dodgy when I see it, I’ve done dodgy and beyond in my time, and I can smell trouble a mile off. Something’s not right in the Blythe family. We need to get the Blythe boy down here so I can find out. I suggested Maggie invite him.’

  ‘And did you tell her that if he comes you’re going to lock him in the cellar and interrogate him?’ Ruby sighed and rolled her eyes.

  This time she looked up, and Johnnie could see he’d got her full attention at last. ‘Not quite, but I don’t fall for all this Blythe entrepreneur stuff. It’s a con, I bet. I’ve done similar myself – I was an entrepreneur, if you remember – and you can’t pull the wool over my eyes with big houses and fancy London offices. Something isn’t right, and I can see Maggie getting sucked in. She falls for all the guff that boy tells her about his father, and she thinks the mother was sent down from heaven—’

  ‘Well, they did buy the Manor House in Melton,’ Ruby interrupted. ‘That must have cost a pretty penny, and Eunice always looks a million dollars. Her clothes certainly aren’t run up on a Singer in the back room; she looks like a beauty queen!’

  ‘I’ve heard rumours.’ Johnnie frowned. ‘I know Melton is a village and rumours are part of life there, but there’s usually a grain of truth in them. I may take a drive up there to have an ask around.’

  ‘You’d better not be thinking about the Hobarts again.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Rubes.’ Johnnie sighed. ‘We’ve been over that one. I’ll shelve it for the moment, especially as there seems to be a bit of truce between her and the boys. Maggie’s making a bit of an effort, and I don’t want to rock the boat, but I still think we need to check it all out. Don’t you have to go and see old Herbie again? And we do need to check the house is OK.’

  Ruby stared at her husband. ‘You’re just looking for reasons to get there and ask about the Blythes.’

  ‘Well, of course I am,’ he said with a laugh, ‘but seriously, I think we need to. Maggie is prime for having her heart broken by this boy, and we can’t have that on top of anything else. Can you imagine?’

  ‘You’re probably right on that one, though it’s bound to happen at some time. It always does, to all of us!’ Ruby laughed and winked at her husband. ‘Especially us!’

  ‘OK, I’ll give you that one, but not right now for her, eh? She’s enough of a problem as it is.’

  ‘She’s not the problem; it’s everything that’s happened to her. OK, we’ll arrange to go to Melton, but don’t tell anyone. Promise?’

  ‘Promise! How about one Sunday? Preferably when the boys will all be with Betty and we can bribe Jeanette to come over and keep an eye out for Maggie. You have no idea how much I’d like to get away for a day with you – just you, Rubes. No rowdy boys, no sullen Maggie. We could have lunch out and pretend we’re still teenagers.’

  ‘I dunno about that. Can I just remind you, Mr Riordan, it was a day out at Melton all those years ago when we were teenagers that got us both into so much trouble.’ Maggie smiled and shook her head. ‘If we’d known then what we know now …’

  ‘We wouldn’t be in this mess. I know,’ Johnnie said quickly.

  ‘But, I wouldn’t change any of it. You, Maggie, George and Babs, the boys …’ Ruby stood up and went over to Johnnie; she sat on the arm of his chair and kissed the top of his head. ‘I love you Mr Riordan.’

  ‘And I love you too, Ruby-Rubes. Oh, the arrogance of youth eh?’ Johnnie sighed as he reached up and took her hand. ‘We thought we were so clever that day, bunking off on the train and then getting up to no good on the way home. And that’s what worried me about Maggie and that Andy. Can you imagine the hoo-ha …?’

  ‘Not from us, because we wouldn’t dare, that’d be a bit too hypocritical, but I imagine the Blythes would go bananas!’

  They laughed together, and Johnnie enjoyed the feeling of them being a couple who were in agreement instead of at war as they had been for the past few months. He loved his wife as much as he always had, and from the very first moment, when he’d spotted her walking despondently down the road on her way back to the Blakeley family home after her evacuation was over. Little did he know then the route their relationship would take and the traum
as they would both have to overcome.

  As Ruby went back to her chair and book, Johnnie leant back in his chair and closed his eyes. But he wasn’t dozing; he was trying to analyse his feelings for Maggie, his daughter by birth but not by nurture.

  Deep down he was still convinced that Maggie should be back in Melton where she wanted to be but, knowing that he still had the Hobarts in reserve, he was prepared to wait and see. He had decided that Christmas would be the key, and if Maggie spoilt it for everyone then he knew he would have to overrule his wife, probably for the first time.

  When Ruby had first told him about Maggie, it had been an emotionally charged time. She was five years old and had just been kidnapped, albeit temporarily, by a local who had a vendetta against Ruby. It was all strange and shocking and too much for him to take in at first. He had two small sons by his first wife, and he’d known and understood his paternal feelings towards them, and then suddenly he had a daughter who he wasn’t allowed to acknowledge to anyone because she had been adopted by the Wheatons. She was their daughter, and because of that he had never been able to build a relationship with her other than that of a distant brother.

  After George and Babs Wheaton had both died so unexpectedly and she had come to live with them, he had had no idea how to deal with a teenage girl, let alone one with so many problems, so he’d found it easier to stay at a distance. Ruby, meanwhile, had dived right in and tried too hard. He knew that between them they’d both probably been wrong, but Johnnie still couldn’t see a way to change the brotherly relationship he had had with Maggie Wheaton into one of father and daughter. He just couldn’t do it, and because of that he genuinely thought she would be happier away from the family she didn’t want to be part of.

  ‘You’re off in a trance; where are you?’

  He shook himself back to the room. ‘Not that far away. Just imagining a day out with my wife.’