The Goodmans

by Clare Ashton

  Jude was definitely going to kill him.

  Chapter 18.

  Well, that was another mess attended to. Maggie brushed her hands together, wiping away the mud that had originated from the mouth of her youngest nephew. The two boys had resumed their play by the river, now with a greater understanding of what constituted a nutritious snack and that their aunt was fond of irony. But not that fond.

  Ah, that must be Celia arriving. The sound of the street was audible for a moment as was Richard’s gentle baritone encouraging someone inside.

  Eli was larking around the piano, twirling his beloved to amuse her. Selene enjoyed his entertainment while elegant all in white today, the contrast sharp between her wardrobe, flawless complexion and raven hair. She looked so beautiful it made Maggie’s heart ache. She caught him sometimes, gazing at Selene, mesmerised by the curve of her pale lips and the dark pools of her eyes, the line of inky eyelashes so neat they looked painted.

  Maggie prayed to the universe that Selene didn’t break her son’s heart. Because she could. Maggie had never seen him so besotted. It was alarming, seeing his heart engaged and vulnerable. Maggie could almost feel what it was like to open up to that intensity of love only to have it ripped away. She winced and averted her eyes.

  But there was Abby at the piano blushing about something. Always the one to make Maggie’s heart light again. That Eli must be plaguing her. The boy was rotten at times, despite the inspiration for his play being their deep fondness for each other. There, the blushes were subsiding. Look how radiant she was. Maggie sighed. If only Abby would meet people. She could have been married several times over by now. Jude was holding her leg bless her, buoying her friend. And Jude looked happier for it. She was listening in earnest to what Abby said, staring at her lips, to make out the words above Eli’s din no doubt.

  Yes, Celia and Richard were back.

  “Hello, Mother.”

  Celia hobbled in and Maggie greeted her with a kiss on each cheek.

  “Hello, dear,” Celia replied. She gave a sad smile. “You never did give up that habit did you?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Kissing twice, like the Parisians.”

  “Oh,” it was Maggie’s turn if not to blush then to feel anxiety flutter in her chest. “It’s because Selene’s here,” Maggie stuttered. “Slipping into our guest’s habits.”

  Celia eyed her over her glasses. “Must be that.”

  “Must be that,” Maggie echoed. “And Eli of course. He’s picked up the habit.”

  “Indeed,” Celia responded. “So like you.”

  Her mother squeezed Maggie’s arm then took a seat at the dining table behind Abby and Jude. The two girls greeted Celia with affection and it warmed Maggie through to see the regard they held for her mother, even if it didn’t always extend to her.

  Richard shuffled in beside her. He too looked content, his hands slung in his pockets and a smile on his face. The house was filled with Maggie’s nearest and dearest, her mother still in one piece, her husband at her side, newly engaged son with the love of his life. It was a pity about Bill, and Jude’s heart bleeding all over the floor, but even she seemed remarkably better. She had colour in her face as she turned back to the piano and Abby. What was she peering down at so intently? Something in front of Abby. She must be engrossed in a tricky chord progression.

  Maggie clapped her hands together. “This is nice. In fact, this calls for a celebration,” she said, looking up at Richard. “I think we have a couple of bottles of Prosecco left from the party. Let’s open them.”

  “Why not?” Richard shrugged.

  “Yes, let’s celebrate.” Maggie swept towards the kitchen, her step lighter and more joyful than it had been in days. It was a good day. It was turning into a very good day.

  She was about to enter the kitchen when something caught her eye – a fluttering of white through the hallway window. She ambled closer and squinted up high. Something extensively white with a stripe of red hung from Barbara Petty’s window. As recognition dawned on Maggie, volcanic fury rumbled.

  “There’s a fucking George Cross next door,” she growled, clenching her fists by her sides.

  “What’s that, dear?” Richard’s amiable voice reached her ears.

  “That bloody woman has put up an English flag in place of the Union Jack.”

  She could hear Richard’s chuckling approach from behind, then he appeared at her side.

  “So she has.” He was beaming with amusement. “I wonder it took her so long.”

  “She was probably waiting for it to be delivered from bloody Amazon,” Maggie fumed. “Her lovely George Cross, symbol of a great country, made in China and delivered to her door by Hungarians.”

  “Is this about our Welsh builders?”

  “Of course it is.”

  “I suppose it may be national pride.”

  “National pride! It’s fucking protectionism. We’re a rich nation but we’re too selfish to feed everyone here, let alone the millions we take advantage of in other countries. You should have seen her ranting at the poor fellow frozen in the lane.”

  “Ah, well, you know my response to that. Where do you stop? When you’ve given away everything?”

  “That’s not an excuse to do nothing,” Maggie barked. “For fuck’s sake. The George bloody Cross. Her generosity doesn’t even extend across the border to Wales.” Maggie was livid and had no intention of restraining a drop of it. “We’ve fucked off Europe. We’ve fucked the environment. We fuck those we invite here then decades later tell them this isn’t their home. This idiotic, superior island mentality when our great nation can’t even feed itself from its own farmland, it has its priorities so ludicrously arse end around.”

  Richard looked at her with familiar resignation.

  “Well it’s bloody true,” Maggie snapped. “We’ve well and truly fucked the world for our kids. I hope they can save themselves, as well as us.” She looked Richard up and down with disdain for his rationalised apathy. “National pride my arse. I’ve a good mind to hoist a pair of Celia’s knickers in response. That would be a much better representation of our great sovereign nation. Underpants. Great frilly knickers.”

  And as she said the words, her resolve strengthened.

  “Maggie,” Richard groaned.

  She could hear his despair but that would not deter her. She was already rifling through Celia’s hospital bag.

  “Maggie, how is that going to help the situation?”

  “Do you mean relations with our beloved neighbour, or the state of the nation?”

  “Either and both.”

  “Not a jot. But it’s going to be immensely satisfying.” She glared at him in defiance and thrust an expansive pair of bloomers into the air, complete with lacy trim.

  Richard dipped his head in resignation. “This will escalate.”

  “Good. I’ll use your Y-fronts next,” Maggie replied, then she turned on her heel and marched out the door.

  “National bloody pride,” she muttered as she stormed to the external stairs that spiralled up to Richard’s attic. “What have we got to be fucking proud of?” she said, stamping out every word with a clang on the iron steps. “George fucking Cross. This will bloody show her.”

  Maggie looked about for a suitable post for her alternative symbol of national pride and her eyes caught the metal bracket supporting a hanging basket of garish pansies. Perfect. Maggie draped the voluminous knickers over the brackets which unfortunately, oh her heart bled, obscured the dainty flowers. God she hated pansies. The whole arrangement had been a gift to Richard from Caroline, which made the whole underwear exercise that bit more satisfying. Maggie put her hands on her hips and sighed out a white cloud of happiness.

  “Better. And two birds with one stone,” she chuckled. Or at least one pair of baggy knickers. She couldn’t wait for Barbara Petty to feast her eyes on that.

  She turned to descend the stairs with pride, stomping her satisfaction on ev
ery step. She paused when she spotted a figure in the street.

  A woman dressed in a long black coat, whose elegance would have caught the attention of anyone discerning enough to look past youth as the only beauty, was passing the house. She sauntered at a pace which suggested searching for somewhere or something. She glanced at the neighbours then at Maggie’s front door and stopped.

  The woman stared, her face pale and anxious concern twitching in her cheeks. She fidgeted with her black leather gloves, pulling at the finger tips as if to remove them, then nervously tugging them back down over her sleeve. Her gaze swept across the house frontage, taking in the burning red leaves of creeper, perhaps the size and elegant Georgian style of the house, wondering at the lives of the people within, until she too stopped, her eyes alighting on Maggie.

  Her whole demeanour shifted. Gone was any hesitancy. Her anxiety disappeared beneath a wave of attitude which swept up her body. Her cheeks creased into mocking amusement and her pursed lips threw out a challenge before she even said a word.

  Maggie stood on the stairs for the longest moment, gaping in unrestrained and very much apparent shock.

  “Hello, Maggie,” the woman said, the Rive Gauche Parisian evident in those two words. “I wondered if you’d recognise me.”

  Maggie gripped the rail as she trembled down the stairs. She took uncertain steps to the street, her world no longer the predictable territory it had been moments ago. She stopped a safe metre away from the woman and stared.

  It was impossible Maggie would forget that face, that incredible face of her nemesis, Juliette Bonhomme. The slim neck and sculpted jaw. The proud cheekbones and lips, which curled in a smile. The smoky eyes, dark with makeup and sheer attitude. Her look could burn through to the iciest maiden. Her raven hair was swept back and, damn it if it didn’t gall Maggie, her face although no longer turgid with youth was svelte. The inevitable changes with time had only accentuated her beauty and lent her features more distinction.

  “Not recognise you,” Maggie spat. If nothing else that Parisian accent would have given her away in a syllable. She would have had Maggie at “hell”. “What the fuck are you doing here?” Maggie said, cold shock now rapidly thawing to fire.

  The woman’s smile turned more defiant. “I was passing,” she offered, the French inflection massaging the phrase into a purr.

  Maggie felt the past intrude with a sickening chill, but fury burned at the edges.

  “This is a quaint English town you have found. And so welcoming too.” Juliette eyed the George Cross fluttering high above and Maggie’s offering which sagged opposite.

  Of all the times for Juliette Bonhomme to appear. Of all the fucking times. Hanging out her mother’s underpants in protest of the neighbour’s xenophobia. And here Maggie was prepared to indulge in a little Francophobia of her own. She hated Juliette, with every ounce of her being. The fury that had thawed her shock was well and truly burning now. She was almost tempted to defend Mrs Petty and her sodding George Cross she detested this woman so much.

  “It’s a wonderful town,” Maggie growled. “Not perfect by any means. Show me a place that is.”

  Juliette tilted her head. The action displayed her beautiful pale neck to more advantage. How the hell had she stayed so beautiful? This Gauloise chain-smoking, Claret-swilling French woman who looked spectacular. The bloody French and their fucking, buggering, sodding she didn’t know what. But Maggie would bet good money Juliette did frigging yoga. Hummus-eating frigging yoga, with blueberries on the side.

  “Perfection? Non,” Juliette replied, “but I hope other places would have a warmer welcome.”

  This was infuriating. Maggie would have ranted in perpetuity about this very fact with anyone other than this woman. She felt as if she would explode at the contradictory urges.

  “Well, if you don’t like it,” Maggie said, her chin rising, “you can move on. Go back to your pretty French villages.”

  Fuck. Had she told Juliette to go back home? Shit. This woman brought out the worst in her. It wasn’t even her own worst. She’d thrown someone else’s at her.

  “I plan to,” Juliette responded, her face flat with hidden emotion. “I’m just passing through out of curiosity. I didn’t come to talk to you Maggie.”

  Maggie spun around, suddenly aware she’d been away from the house a while. Juliette Bonhomme was the last person she wanted to introduce to her family. The absolute last. Panic and guilt crept up her back and crawled over her shoulders. No-one peered from the window at least.

  “I’m glad you’ve found a place,” Juliette said, the sensual fluidity of her voice now frosty and clipped. “And a life that suits you.”

  Those flames leapt higher. “Yes, I did. I was extremely lucky. And warm welcome or not, I love this town and many of its inhabitants, from the vicar to the kids at the school to Mrs Malady the old cleaning lady. I picked the best possible place to bring up my children.” She threw the words at Juliette along with daggers.

  Juliette was disarmed for a moment, then shrugged with dismissal. “So changed. Defiant and radical Margaret, now middle-aged and languishing in middle England. How lovely.”

  “I haven’t changed.” Maggie wasn’t languishing. She was still radical and defiant.

  Juliette nodded towards the top of the steps. “Putting up knickers as a protest. How pathetic.”

  Shit. She did have a point. Which made Maggie burn more.

  “So where do you live?” Maggie challenged. “Which noble town is blessed with the presence of Juliette Bonhomme?”

  “Paris,” Juliette said, with a glance down before resuming her defiant stare.

  “Good,” Maggie retorted. Juliette hated Paris. Sterile, barren in its perfection, a grey monstrosity she’d called it. How apt she’d ended up there.

  “Actually, I grew to love it again.”

  Oh fuck off. She wasn’t even going to give Maggie that satisfaction.

  Maggie again peeked round at the windows. No-one searched for her, but it would only be a matter of time.

  “Well,” Maggie said. “How pleasant to catch up.” She didn’t mean a single word and the look Juliette returned suggested she was well aware too.

  “I will bid you good day,” Maggie said. “I hope your stay in Ludbury is short, for all our sakes.”

  She turned on her heel, a move she adored, and stamped up the garden steps, her footing more sure in furious exit than her trepidatious approach towards Juliette had been.

  “Maggie?”

  “What?” Maggie snarled, more annoyed that her dramatic exit had been curtailed than anything else.

  “I didn’t mean our first meeting to be so antagonistic.”

  “It comes as no surprise to me that it was.”

  “I understand,” Juliette replied, a little softer, “Perhaps next time, now we’ve seen each other, will be better.”

  “I very much doubt it.”

  “At least, I will try,” Juliette said, approaching the steps.

  “I owe you no such kindness.”

  “I know.”

  “I think we’ve both said more than enough. I want you to leave.”

  Juliette paused and bowed her head. “I thought you’d react this way.”

  “Leave, Juliette,” Maggie growled. “Now you know where I live, you can avoid this place forever.”

  “But I can’t.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  Juliette took a deep breath. “I’m Selene’s mother.”

  A thousand thoughts, a thousand images, must have flashed through Maggie’s mind in the moment that followed. Memories, poignant and painful. Hopes for a rosy future, burning up in flames. Meadows of flowers that inspired beautiful young women to dance among their blooms, razed to the ground. She turned, her mouth agape, eyes wider than two very English saucers and responded in the only way Maggie could.

  “You are fucking kidding me.”

  Chapter 19.

  It all made horrible sense. Those inky eye
s of Selene’s and their mirror in Juliette. The serene elegance of both. It was sickeningly infuriating, but it did make sense.

  “Why didn’t someone say? Do they know?” Maggie gasped.

  “Non. They are not aware of our past.”

  And the day had been going so well.

  Oh God. Maggie felt the whole weight of their situation, then it jumped up and down on her for good measure. Oh shitting God.

  Maggie’s fury kindled inside again. “So you thought you’d turn up, out of the blue, and announce we’re to be related.”

  Juliette smirked. “Ironic, is it not? But no, I did not intend meeting you today.”

  “Then what are you doing here?”

  “I wanted to know more about your son and where he grew up,” she paused, as if to gather herself, “and at some point, talk to you.”

  “You could have phoned.”

  “Indeed. That would have been my next step.”

  “Or written.”

  “And that subsequently when you slammed down the phone.”

  “I wouldn’t have…” Yes, she would. She’d have slammed down the phone then thrown it across the room.

  “So call,” Maggie snapped. “And find a way to have as little as possible to do with me.”

  “D’accord,” Juliette said icily. “I was prepared to make an effort for the sake of my daughter and your son. But if that’s what you want.”

  “How considerate of you,” Maggie snarled. “I think we both know less is best. Beyond the wedding day, we don’t need to meet again.”

  “Perhaps you’re right.”

  The front door creaked open behind Maggie.

  “Juliette?”

  Oh no. It was Maggie’s effusive darling son.

  “Juliette!” Eli cried as he bounded down the steps. He threw his arms around Juliette and held her tight. She closed her eyes and smiled, returning his affection. The bitch.

  “I didn’t know you were going to visit.”

  Juliette shrugged. “I have a little holiday for travelling and I thought it time to return to England.”

  Eli faced Maggie, his arm still around Juliette. “This is Selene’s mother.”