The flower show seems to have taken it out of Lillian. Maggie’s not sure what has happened on the drive home, but returning to the house has seen a cloud descend over her grandmother. She declines Maggie’s offer of supper and retires to bed with a cup of tea and her medication. Maggie tucks her in, straightening the blankets.
‘We lived in separate worlds,’ says Lillian.
Maggie looks up from the end of her bed, puzzled. ‘Who did?’
‘All the things he loved about me were the things that kept me from him. He could never see that.’ Lillian gazes into the empty hearth. ‘But he was so wonderful with Helena that day.’
Maggie frowns. She hasn’t heard Lillian mention her late sister in years.
‘I wish I had known then to be braver – to at least try.’
‘You are brave, Gran. One of the bravest people I know.’ It’s true, Maggie thinks. The only time she has ever seen her grandmother cry was on learning of Helena’s death. Lillian had always been the very definition of stoic.
Lillian shakes her head. ‘We should have left that day. Left and never looked back.’
Maggie doesn’t know what to say to this. She senses Lillian has wandered again into distant memories, so she waits with her a while longer, quietly tidying the room, lighting lamps and pulling the curtains shut. By the time she has finished, Lillian is close to sleep. ‘Good night,’ she says, leaning over to kiss her forehead. ‘Thank you for making me go to the show today.’
Upstairs in her own room, the silence of the house settles around her. Maggie sits on the bed and looks around at the mess of her youth scattered about the room: the tangle of scarves draped over the dressing table, her favourite leather jacket hanging on the back of the door, a cluster of discarded boots and shoes spilling from the wardrobe, a basket of old lipsticks and eyeshadows on the windowsill, the photo montage tacked to a gilt-framed mirror over the fireplace.
One image in particular draws her eye. Bonfire Night a few years ago. She and Gus stand together at the village tennis court, their faces pressed close, smiling into the camera lens. Maggie wears a red wool hat, her hair long and loose around her shoulders with Gus beside her, his arm around her, their noses and cheeks glowing in the cold air. It had been taken the autumn after she’d finished art college when she’d returned to Cloud Green for Lillian’s birthday – a quiet November day, with the two of them playing cards and sharing a slightly disastrous cake Maggie had baked herself. As the evening had drawn in, they’d switched on the television and Lillian had sat nodding off in her chair until Maggie’s phone had beeped.
Why aren’t you at the fireworks? Get yourself down here. There’s free booze!
Lillian hadn’t seemed to mind at all. ‘I do like those boys. Go and enjoy yourself.’
Maggie had cycled to the tennis courts where the milling crowds awaited the display. She’d seen Gus almost straight away. ‘Hello, stranger,’ she’d said, pushing through the throng to get to him.
Gus had wrapped her in a hug. ‘I knew the free booze would get you down here.’
‘No Will?’ she’d asked, looking around.
‘Not tonight. He’s got some big legal project on that’s keeping him in London.’
She’d tried not to mind that she only had one of the Mortimer boys for the night, focusing instead on Gus and how lovely it was to see him again.
‘Are you cold?’ he’d asked. ‘You’re shivering.’ Before she could answer, he was pulling off his woollen scarf and tying it around her neck.
‘You’ll freeze,’ she’d protested.
‘I’ll be fine.’
She’d buried her face in the scarf, breathing in the indefinable scent of Gus. ‘It’s nice. I might have to pinch it off you.’
‘It looks good on you,’ he’d said, and although he was smiling, there was a look in his eyes that had made her glance away.
They’d stayed together for the fireworks, drinking warm cider and mingling with friends and neighbours. She’d insisted on giving the scarf back, but a little later, when he’d noticed her shivering again, he’d stood behind her, and wrapped her in his arms, drawing her close as they watched the fireworks explode across the night sky, Maggie acutely aware of him at her back, the pressure of him drawing her into him. It had felt good and safe.
As the fireworks had built towards a final crescendo, as small children had laughed and squealed around them, writing their names with sparklers in the air, he’d spun her around, and though his face was cast in darkness, she’d seen his eyes fixed intently on hers. Her smile had faltered. Did this mean what she thought it did? Gus . . . and her? But then there was no more time for thinking because his face was leaning in towards hers, so close his features blurred and then his lips touched hers – warm and firm – their first kiss: soft and tentative, the taste of spiced cider mingling with the scent of smoke and autumn leaves.
She’d pulled away, her eyes asking him the question she couldn’t quite say out loud and he’d shrugged and let out a soft laugh. ‘What can I say? I fancy the pants off you, Maggie Oberon. Have done for ages.’
Beneath his smile there had been uncertainty. She could read it on his face. They both knew that with that one kiss everything was on the line: their friendship and their future hanging in the balance.
She had wanted to stop the clocks, or better still, rewind them a minute or two. She’d wanted to pause everything and take a moment to think about the cliff’s edge they stood upon. With one kiss they would move their relationship into new territory. Their friendship of three could become a pairing of two. The comfortable dynamic they’d spent years building and nurturing would be destabilised, propelled onto new and uncertain ground. Surely there was too much to risk?
But time hadn’t stopped. The clocks had kept ticking. Somewhere overhead a last firework had exploded and, faced with a split-second decision, Maggie had done what she did best in moments of uncertainty: she hadn’t thought at all but had leapt, both feet first, pulling him towards her by his lapels and kissing him back. Gus – sweet, funny Gus. The one who had been there for her over the years, when her mother had not been. The one who had picked her up every time her father had let her down. Gus who had been constant and present and dependable – unlike the family she was supposed to be able to rely upon. How could it not be right?
The cardboard boxes stacked against the bedroom wall loom at her from the shadows. She could swear they are growing in size, the longer she ignores them. ‘Well all right then,’ she says to herself. Perhaps her present mood is exactly right for a little self-flagellation. With a heavy sigh, she stands and lifts the first box down.
Gus has taped it well and it takes several attempts to wrestle it open. Inside, she finds the items a haphazard jumble, as if he couldn’t throw them into the carton fast enough. She pulls out books and jewellery, photos and ornaments, a favourite velvet cushion that had once sat on their sofa and the quirky collection of antique eggcups she’d taken from the kitchen at Cloudesley and displayed on a windowsill of their north London flat. He’s thrown in a couple of half-filled sketch pads and her box of charcoals. She feels a little stung at the inclusion of a framed watercolour of Primrose Hill, a gift she had painted and given him one birthday, the return of which only seems to emphasise his need to scour every trace of her from his life. At the very bottom, below a couple of her crumpled sweaters, lies a single red rose, a wooden stem and its petals glued pieces of shiny, red fabric. She pulls the artificial flower up into the light and stares at it.
She can trace the moment she knew their relationship was doomed, to that one red rose and the night they’d gone to meet Gus’s best friend from school. She’d been fighting a headache and mild nausea all day and the last thing she’d felt like was a night of tacos and margaritas, but Gus had coaxed and cajoled her, telling her the night had been arranged specially so that they might meet his friend’s new girlfriend. In the end she’d rallied.
The four had met at a noisy Mexican restaurant in Covent Garden and from the moment she and Gus had slid into their side of the padded booth, Maggie had known it was going to be a disaster. Her nausea had only grown as they’d listened to the happy new couple narrate, through irritating fits of giggles, how they’d met on a dating app, watching their overzealous displays of affection, their snuggling and whispers, their endless touching and kissing, seemingly oblivious to the discomfort of their dinner companions sitting opposite. They might as well have not bothered to come for all the attention they were paying them, Maggie had thought, turning to Gus and rolling her eyes at him. He’d smiled back at her and reached for her hand, before pulling her in for a kiss. Instinctively she’d leaned back, not wanting to play that charade and as he’d frowned, the hurt evident in his eyes, she had known: it wasn’t right. They weren’t right.
They had only been together a couple of years, but she didn’t feel giddy with butterflies every time he reached for her. She didn’t look forward to the moment he walked through the door in the evening. She didn’t even feel that bothered when he went away on his business trips. The truth was staring her right there in the face, cast in stark relief by the overbearing romance playing out opposite them: she and Gus were best mates. Best mates who found themselves living together and who once in a while shagged each other. It wasn’t breath-stealing, heart-pounding, passionate love. It was a mistake.
An elderly woman had approached the booth with a basket of red fabric roses. ‘Don’t waste your money,’ she’d warned Gus under her breath, but seeming to have something to prove in the face of his friends’ amorous display, Gus had reached into his wallet and given the grateful woman ten pounds.
‘It’s not a waste,’ he’d said, presenting her with the tacky rose. ‘Not for you.’
Later that night, she’d turned away from him in bed. ‘Sorry. I’m not in the mood. I still don’t feel well.’ In the morning, she’d called in sick from her waitressing shift at the restaurant. ‘A day at home won’t hurt,’ Gus had said, regarding her with concern from the bedroom door as he’d adjusted his tie. ‘You don’t seem yourself and they won’t thank you for dragging yourself in and making their customers ill.’
He’d left for work and Maggie had remained in bed all morning, nagging doubts about her relationship with Gus merging confusingly with the low-lying nausea gripping her. At one point she’d raced to the bathroom and hung her head over the toilet bowl and it was only as she’d stood again, her gaze fixing on an unopened box of tampons in the medicine cupboard, that a worrying thought had come to her: when exactly had her last period been?
She’d dragged herself to the pharmacy round the corner from the flat and half an hour later she was staring at two thin blue lines on the white plastic stick. Half an hour after that, she was throwing a hastily packed bag into the boot of her car and driving, in a state of blind panic, to the only person she knew she could turn to.
Lillian had been exactly as she had hoped she would be: calm, clear-headed and compassionate. ‘This is not the end of the world, my dear girl. It’s not how it was back in my day. You have choices.’
‘I’m not ready for this, Lillian. I can’t do it.’
Lillian had sat at the kitchen table with Maggie, pushing a cup of tea into her hands and offering her the box of tissues. ‘And what about Gus? What does he want?’
‘He doesn’t know yet. I can’t tell him. I’m not even sure we’re right for each other. To keep this baby would tie us together for the rest of our lives.’
‘The baby . . . Gus. Perhaps they are two separate issues?’ Lillian had suggested gently.
Maggie had sat for a moment, thinking. ‘I’m terrified by the idea of motherhood. It’s not something I think I know how to do . . . not something I think I’m capable of.’
‘And why would you say that?’
Maggie had looked out of the kitchen window, watching a single magpie flittering through the branches of a tall beech tree. When she had turned back to Lillian, she had said something she’d never thought she’d say out loud. ‘I think I need to see her. I think I need to find my mum.’
Lillian had given Maggie a steady look, before reaching out and patting her hand. ‘I imagine it’s very hard to know who you are or what you want to be when you’ve never had the full picture of where you’ve come from.’
Downstairs, the sound of the bell ringing outside the oak front door pulls Maggie from her thoughts and back into the present. She sits very still on the edge of the bed. It is late for unexpected visitors. She is tempted to ignore it, but the bell chimes again and, worried that it will wake Lillian, she heads downstairs and opens the door a crack.
Gus stands on the top step, half-turned away from her as he stares up into the night sky. ‘There’s a huge bat out here,’ he says. ‘Over there above the trees.’ He points. ‘Can you see it?’
Maggie peers out into the darkness but the only thing she can see is the pale crescent moon filtering its milky light behind the swaying beech trees. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’ve been thinking,’ he says, turning back to her. ‘We should talk.’
‘Now?’
He shrugs. ‘Fancy a pint?’
She casts a glance back into the house. ‘Let me check on Lillian first. Do you want to come in?’
‘No,’ he says. ‘I’ll wait here.’
She stands at the door to Lillian’s darkened room listening to her grandmother’s slow breathing, then heads upstairs to retrieve a cardigan. By the time she has returned to the front door she half-expects Gus to have disappeared.
‘There’s only an hour or so before last orders,’ he says. ‘Do you mind if we go to the Swan?’
‘Sure,’ she says lightly, ‘whatever you want.’
It’s a relief to find the pub surprisingly quiet, the sunburned crowds from the flower show having died away, just a few stalwarts propping up the bar. ‘Well, well, if it isn’t Cloud Green’s champion sponge-thrower,’ says Gregory, greeting them from behind the bar. ‘You’ve got quite an arm on you, young lady. We’ll have to get you to try out for the cricket team.’
Maggie manages a weak smile, grateful to see that if anyone is surprised to see her and Gus having a drink together, they are keeping it to themselves. ‘Sorry about that.’
‘Why don’t you find us a seat back there,’ Gus suggests.
She nods and heads for one of the more discreet tables tucked into a nook beside the unlit fire. It is all disconcertingly familiar – the low-beamed ceiling, the wide stone fireplace, the horseshoes hanging on the walls, the sweet scent of beer and fermented apples in the air. She reaches for a beer mat and rips shreds off its corners until Gus returns with two pints. They clink glasses out of habit. Just like old times, she thinks, except neither one of them can quite meet the other’s eye.
‘What made you change your mind?’ she asks, placing her drink back onto the table, picking up the torn beer mat again and flipping it over in her hands.
‘Camilla. She thinks we have unfinished business. She thinks I need to “work through my resentment” if I’m going to move on with her.’
‘Right.’ Maggie swallows. Of course he does. It all sounds perfectly logical. ‘She seems nice,’ she says lightly.
‘She is.’
‘How long have you two been dating?’
‘A few months.’ There’s a defensive note in his voice, a slight tilt to his chin.
‘Great.’ It sounds insincere and Maggie wishes she could just shut up and let him speak.
‘Are you with anyone?’ he asks, studying her over his glass.
‘No. No, I’m not.’
The silence opens up between them again. Maggie shifts on her chair. ‘I owe you an apology,’ she begins. ‘I’m so sorry about what happened. I’m sorry that I hurt you. I’m sorry for the way I left. You deserved so much better. I’m so ashamed of the way I handled things.’ Gus stares down into his pint. ‘Running away like that . . . I can see how that must have been for you and I’m sorry.’
Gus has been listening quietly, but at this he lifts his head and stares at her, the incredulity written on his face. ‘You know, Maggie, I don’t think you do know how it was for me.’ He glowers at her over his pint and Maggie braces herself.
‘I wasn’t a total idiot, you know. I knew something was wrong. I’d felt you withdrawing from me for weeks, before you took off like that. But when I came home from work and found you gone – not even a note . . .’ He shakes his head. ‘I couldn’t understand it. I phoned Cloudesley and Lillian told me – thank God – that you were there, that you were safe. I wanted to hear your voice. I just needed to know you were OK, but she said you couldn’t speak to me. She told me that you “needed some time”.’ He shakes his head. ‘She was exasperatingly stubborn.’
Maggie nods. ‘I asked her to tell you that. It wasn’t her fault.’
‘Well, I couldn’t understand it. None of it made any sense . . . not until I found the empty pregnancy-test box in the rubbish bin at home.’ Gus is looking at her keenly across the table but Maggie looks away, suddenly unable to hold his eye.
‘As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to return to Cloud Green to fight for you. I rearranged all my work for the week and headed back as soon as I could. I chatted things through with Mum and I asked her for my grandmother’s engagement ring. Everything was so clear in my head.’
Maggie nods, remembering Gus’s surprise arrival at Cloudesley, opening the door to him standing there, hope and expectation written all over his face, a small black jewellery box in his hands.
‘I thought you’d be pleased to see me. I thought my reassurances, my promise to love you and the baby, would be all you’d need to see that we could make it work – that it wasn’t an accident but actually something wonderful – something that would bring us closer together. Instead . . . your face when you saw me . . . I should have known then. You treated my proposal like . . . like . . .’
‘Like an ambush,’ she finishes for him.
Gus stares at her. ‘An ambush? Was that how it felt?’
She nods.
Gus looks at her, aghast. ‘It wasn’t a throwaway gesture. It wasn’t me knee-jerking at the sight of the positive pregnancy test, thinking I should make an honest woman of you. I wanted to marry you. I wanted to start a family.’
Gus slumps into his chair. ‘Jesus, Maggie! It tore me up. You said you’d think about it – sleep on it. You said you’d give me your answer the next morning.’ He gives a bitter laugh. ‘And I suppose you did. Leaving the ring on the porch like that, and just taking off? I guess that was one way to give me your answer.’
‘I’m sorry.’ It comes back to her so clearly, standing outside Damson House in the early-morning sun. She’d held the ring box tightly, staring at the doorbell, unable to press it and face the moment she knew she would break Gus’s heart.
She had sat up late the night before, discussing her fears with Lillian, explaining how trapped she felt at the thought of the baby and Gus’s marriage proposal. ‘What would you do, Gran?’ she’d implored. ‘You had a successful marriage. What advice would you give me?’
She’d been surprised by the look that had flashed across Lillian’s face. ‘No relationship is perfect, Maggie. No love – no matter how great – can be the source of your life’s happiness.’
‘But forty-seven years together . . . the way you cared for Grandfather after his stroke . . . If that isn’t love I don’t know what is.’
‘Love. Duty. There is a marked difference between the two,’ Lillian had said, her voice surprisingly soft.
Maggie had thought for a moment. ‘If I kept the baby . . . if I stayed with Gus . . . do you think that would be love or duty?’
Lillian had studied Maggie carefully. ‘Only you can answer that. But it’s your choice. You have a choice.’
‘Do I?’ She had gazed down at the single glittering diamond set into the platinum band. ‘Now Gus knows, I’m not sure I do.’ She’d sighed. ‘I haven’t even made a dent in my art career – I’m still waitressing at that poxy restaurant. I’ve achieved nothing of what I hoped I would have by now. I’ve been feeling so stalled – so off track. And now this. A baby is sure to keep me from everything I’d hoped for. I can’t help but feel trapped.’
Lillian had reached forward and taken Maggie’s hand. ‘I have some savings. A little rainy-day fund. Call it what you will. I want you to have it. Whatever you decide, it will help you.’
‘I can’t accept it.’
‘You can and you will. I insist,’ she’d added, with surprising ferocity. ‘No woman in this family will feel trapped in a life she doesn’t want. Not if I can help it. Use the money however you wish. Spend it on baby clothes, or a ticket to Timbuktu . . . or simply leave it in your bank account for a rainy day. I won’t judge you. Just know it’s there, should you need it. Your safety net.’
You have a choice. Lillian’s words had run through her head all night and at first light, she’d risen from her bed and dressed hurriedly, her intention being to talk to Gus face to face. But standing there at the front door, remembering all the moments she had shared with the Mortimer family, knowing what she was about to do, she hadn’t been able to face him – to face any of them. She’d opened the door and left the ring on the shelf above the boot rack, slipping away down the drive and leaving Cloud Green far behind her.
She’s imagined what she put him through a hundred times over, but it’s never been quite as painful as hearing him recount it in his own words. She also knows it will never be as bad as actually living it. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says again, barely a whisper.
‘It wasn’t just me you hurt. I had to tell Mum and Dad what was going on. I’d asked for my grandmother’s ring. I’d told Mum about the baby. Her first grandchild. I had to explain where you were . . . what you’d said . . . why I was such a mess. I had to try and answer their questions when I didn’t even understand myself why you wouldn’t want to keep it. “Why isn’t she here?” they kept asking me. “You must know something?” But I didn’t. I knew nothing, Maggie. Only that I thought you’d loved me.’
‘It must have been terrible.’
Gus nods. ‘So tell me. What happened? What made you walk away? I think you owe me that much of an explanation, at the very least.’
Maggie takes a deep breath. She leans back in her chair and meets his gaze. ‘I went to find my mum.’
Gus does a visible double-take. ‘You what?’
‘I went to see her. I had to talk to her – to know why she left all those years ago. I had to understand why she couldn’t be a mother to me. I had to know if I was like her . . . if I had the same weakness inside me.’
‘And did you find her?’ His voice is soft. Gus has gone very still, watching her intently across the table. ‘Did you get the answers you were looking for?’
Maggie sighs. ‘She wasn’t that hard to find. Her name’s been there in black and white on my birth certificate all these years. A little searching on the internet was all it took to track her down to a small village just outside York.’
‘Go on.’ He leans forward, encouraging her.
‘I honestly didn’t know what she’d do when I knocked at her front door, unannounced. I suppose, from the little I knew of her from Albie’s stories, and the little I remembered, I’d been expecting a glamorous free-spirit of a woman. Someone beautiful, bohemian and bold. I was prepared to forgive a woman who had left us for a bigger, better life. I was ready to accept her decisions, when I saw the wonderful life she had escaped to. And I suppose I hoped that she would find me delightful and surprising and infinitely lovable, and perhaps we would find a way to connect after all these years apart.’
‘But it didn’t play out like that?’
‘No,’ says Maggie flatly. ‘It didn’t play out like that.’
Maggie remembers with a burning shame the look on her mother’s face as she’d opened the front door of a townhouse on the outskirts of the village she had tracked her down to, her expression slowly changing from polite suspicion to undeniable horror as Maggie had shakily introduced herself. ‘Not here,’ she’d hissed, looking back into the house. ‘I can’t talk to you here.’
‘I’ve waited a long time to meet you again,’ Maggie had said, holding her nerve. The woman standing across the threshold in her drab brown sweater and pleated skirt had looked smaller, greyer, somehow so much less than Maggie had ever imagined.
‘There’s a cafe in the village, next to the shop. I’ll meet you there in half an hour,’ and with that she had shut the door in Maggie’s face.
Maggie had ordered a pot of tea and waited at a small, slightly sticky pine table, half-expecting her not to show, but Amanda had scurried in, glancing about the cafe, before sliding into the chair opposite. ‘I’m sorry,’ she’d said. ‘I couldn’t have you at the house.’
‘Right,’ Maggie had said, holding the woman’s eye, suddenly somehow more confident in the face of her obvious discomfort.
‘What do you want?’ Amanda had asked, glancing around the cafe again.
‘Oh, I don’t know. I thought it might be nice to catch up on the last . . . hmmm . . . what is it, twenty-one years? Shoot the breeze. Exchange our news.’
Her mother had had the good grace to look shame-faced, staring down at her lap. ‘How’s your father?’
Maggie shrugs. ‘I wouldn’t know. I haven’t seen him in a while.’
‘Oh. But . . . but you look well?’ Amanda had tried again, hopefully.
Maggie had laughed, aware that if this woman thought she looked well with her green-tinged face and the dark circles around her eyes then she truly didn’t know her at all. ‘Thanks. So, you’re married?’
Amanda had nodded. ‘John. He’s a good man. We live our lives under the watchful eye of Our Lord. Faith is everything to him – to us,’ she’d corrected herself. ‘So you see,’ she adds quickly, twisting a spare napkin round and round in her hands, ‘I really can’t have you turning up at the house like that. He doesn’t know.’
‘He doesn’t know about your illegitimate child? The one you abandoned years ago?’
She’d winced again. ‘No.’
‘He wouldn’t like it?’
‘I haven’t told him about . . . about that time of my life.’
‘Isn’t that a little . . . hypocritical? You know, under the watchful eye of Our Lord?’
Amanda had sighed. ‘“We must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ”,’ she’d quoted at her. ‘I put my trust in God. He will be my Judge, when the time comes.’
Maggie had studied her mother, the picture of the woman before her growing a little clearer and a little more disappointing with every passing minute. Amanda had cleared her throat. ‘So . . . was there something you needed?’
‘Just answers.’
‘Answers?’
‘Yes. I can’t help but wonder what makes a mother abandon her own child and never look back. Not once.’
She’d sighed. ‘I know it seems cruel, Maggie, but it was for the best. I met Albie while travelling through Europe. I was a bit of a lost soul, I suppose. He had that old truck he was driving through Spain and he let me hitch along with him.’
Maggie had nodded. ‘I remember that truck. It’s one of the few things I do remember from that time – the rainbow stripes.’
Amanda had nodded, the first glimmer of a smile appearing on her face, before fading just as fast. ‘We grew close and then I fell pregnant – with you. For a while, it seemed as if we might make a go of things.’
‘Only for a while?’
Amanda had shifted in her seat, reaching for a serviette lying on the table in front of her, scrunching it tightly between her fingers. ‘I wasn’t a very . . . stable person. I’d had a difficult upbringing myself. Albie and I were two lost souls. We were dragging each other down. I could see that we were going to fail each other – fail you. I thought it best that I leave. I knew your father came from a wealthy family. I knew he had the resources to look after you properly.’
‘You thought it best a young girl – your own daughter – grow up without her mother? You thought money and a fancy house might make your absence bearable?’ Maggie had studied her, incredulous.
Amanda had eyed her warily. ‘I hoped the sacrifice I made would be in your best interests.’
‘The sacrifice you made?’ Maggie had fought to control her angry laugh. ‘I see.’
‘It was for the best,’ Amanda had said suddenly and vehemently. ‘I returned to England. I found God . . . and John, my husband. He is a pillar of the Church here. He has brought me peace and salvation.’
Maggie had to fight the urge to roll her eyes. ‘Well I’m glad you found your peace.’ She’d thought for a moment. ‘Do you have any other children?’
Amanda had dropped her gaze, still fidgeting with the napkin. ‘Yes. We have three.’
‘Three! I have three half-siblings?’ Maggie had shaken her head in bewilderment. ‘For fuck’s sake.’
Amanda had eyed her nervously. ‘You won’t cause any trouble, will you?’
Maggie had kept her waiting, letting the anger settle like bile in the pit of her stomach. ‘No, Mum,’ she’d added pointedly, saying it just the once, allowing the word to roll off her tongue, ‘don’t worry. I won’t cause any trouble. I won’t be bothering you again.’
She’d stood and left the cafe without a backwards glance at the small, hunched woman sitting at the table, still wringing the ripped serviette in her hands.
‘She wasn’t who I imagined she would be,’ she tells Gus, her voice flat and empty of emotion. ‘She wasn’t the strong, independent woman I’d been imagining all these years, travelling the world, living a life of adventure. It turns out she was simply weak and selfish . . . and afraid. Seems she ran from one kind of life, fearing entrapment, and just exchanged it for another kind of stifled existence: a small, hum-drum life of fear and self-righteousness.’
‘I’m sorry,’ says Gus, softening slightly.
‘Thanks.’ Maggie takes a moment to gather her thoughts. She draws a circular pattern with her fingertip in the condensation on the outside of her pint glass. ‘Seeing her did help, though. It told me that I didn’t ever want to be like her. I didn’t want to bring a child into the world, unprepared and afraid. I didn’t want to inflict that damage on another human being. I didn’t want to repeat the pattern.’
‘So you left your mum in York and . . .’
Maggie nods but can’t look at Gus. ‘I scheduled the abortion the very next day.’
Gus goes still.
‘I’m sorry. I know it wasn’t what you hoped for, but it was the right decision for me. I wasn’t ready. There is still so much I want to do – with my art, with my life. I had the procedure a couple of days later and then I booked a flight, as far away as I could get. I ran away. I thought it would be easier if I just disappeared.’
Gus can’t seem to help his hollow laugh. ‘Easier for me, or easier for you? There was nothing easy for me about what you did, Maggie. Did you even stop to consider the torturous days that came afterwards? Going to bed every night wondering where you were . . . who you were with . . . wondering if that had been the day you’d aborted our baby. And of course, as it always seems to round here, word got out. There was all the whispering and gossip to contend with. All the excruciating sympathy. The whole of Cloud Green seemed to be talking about it. About us. Do you know how that felt?’
She nods but he thumps his fist angrily on the table. Maggie looks around, but no one has noticed. ‘Actually, I don’t think you do. Because you weren’t here. You weren’t the one left to face it all because you had conveniently done a runner, hadn’t you? You were off God knows where, living it up on the other side of the world while I returned to the flat in London and went about slowly and methodically unpicking our life together, trying to ignore your clothes still hanging in my wardrobe, your make-up in my bathroom, all your sketchbooks piled up on the kitchen table, the half-finished paintings in the spare room.’
Maggie’s head droops even lower.
‘I still don’t understand why we couldn’t work through it together. You shut me out. It was cruel. I could only assume there was someone else.’
She hesitates. A face flashes before her eyes but she pushes it away. ‘No. There was no one else.’
‘Well why then, Maggie? Why did you leave me? Were we not worth more than that?’
‘I . . . I . . . it wasn’t right.’
‘What wasn’t right? You and me?’
Maggie nods. ‘We’d been friends since, well, forever. But . . . marriage . . . babies . . .’
‘Yes, Maggie. Marriage. That thing two people do when they love each other.’
‘I did love you, Gus. Just not in the right way. I didn’t realise until it was too late.’
‘What the fuck does that mean?’
‘We fell into a relationship. We got swept up onto a treadmill of expectation – everyone else’s expectation – and we let it lead us. Before we knew it, we’d moved in together. It felt as if we were sleepwalking. We went down a path we probably never should have, and the further we went, the harder it was to turn back. It was so comfortable. So easy. I knew you.’
Gus is staring at her. ‘You never wanted to be with me? It was a mistake, right from the very beginning?’
‘No. Yes. No.’ She sighs with exasperation. She’s imagined trying to explain this to Gus a thousand times, but nothing seems to be coming out right. ‘There was a letter . . .’
‘What letter? I didn’t get a letter. There was nothing from you – no note, no explanation. Just silence.’
‘No, nothing I wrote. Something else.’ She shakes her head in frustration. ‘Look, it doesn’t matter. I realised, too late, that the way I loved you was more . . .’ She hesitates.
‘More what?’
‘More like . . .’
‘Go on.’
‘More like a friend. A brother. Not a lover . . . not a husband.’
Gus’s shoulders sag. He looks down into his beer. ‘Oh.’
‘I’m sorry.’ She stretches out her hand, reaching for the sleeve of his shirt. ‘I never wanted to hurt you.’
‘Don’t.’ He shrugs her off. ‘You could have talked to me. Instead of running off and making the decision on your own; we could have talked about it like adults. Found a way. Even if you didn’t want to be with me, even if you didn’t want to get married, perhaps we could have raised the child, separately but amicably. Did you ever think of that?’
She shakes her head. ‘You arriving with that ring, so elated at the news of the pregnancy,’ she looks down into her pint, ‘it scared the living daylights out of me. You had it all mapped out. You were so certain of everything. But I was terrified of what becoming a mother meant. I couldn’t go through with it. You weren’t supposed to know. No one was supposed to know.’
‘So you were never going to tell me about the pregnancy? You were just going to deal with it yourself, and pretend our baby never existed?’
‘It was my body.’ She looks at him, imploring him to understand.
‘But it was our baby.’ He shakes his head, the anguish evident in his eyes. ‘You took everything away from me – not just our future – but the chance for me to be a father to that child.’
Maggie swallows, shame burning in the pit of her stomach.
‘I really thought you loved me.’
‘I did. I do,’ she corrects. ‘You’re my best friend.’
Gus looks out over the half-empty pub and sighs. ‘Was your best friend. Looking at you now, Maggie, I’m not sure I ever really knew you.’ He drains the last of his beer from his glass. ‘Tell me, how is your glittering career as an artist coming along?’ He eyes her coldly. ‘Have you finished any of the paintings for that exhibition you talked about?’
Maggie hangs her head.
‘Just as I thought. You’re all talk, Maggie. Talk and empty promises. You can’t see a single damn thing through, can you?’
She can’t answer him. She is too ashamed.
‘Come on,’ he says, standing so fast his chair scrapes horribly across the flagstone floor. ‘I’ve heard enough. I’ll take you home.’
They drive back to Cloudesley in silence, Maggie wilting in the passenger seat with her hands thrust deep into her cardigan pockets. Now that they’ve spoken, it seems clear that it is far too late for bridges to be built and Maggie longs to be free of the oppressive atmosphere of the car, certain Gus can’t wait for her to be gone either. But as they round the final corner, Gus slows the car and leans forward over the steering wheel. ‘Hello,’ he says. ‘What’s going on here?’
Maggie looks up, startled to see the house lit up, lights blazing at every ground-floor window. Her gaze falls upon the dusty Land Rover parked at an angle in front of the house. ‘Albie,’ she says.
Gus pulls up alongside the car. ‘Wow. So now he’s back. Quite the family reunion.’ He keeps the engine running but she can feel his glance sliding in her direction. ‘What does he want?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Can’t be anything good.’
Maggie feels a flicker of resentment ignite in her belly. She knows Gus is right, but she can’t help feeling defensive of her father. It’s a default setting she has when it comes to Albie. She hesitates, one hand on the door catch. ‘Goodbye, Gus,’ she says.
‘Bye, Maggie. Take care,’ he adds, indicating Albie’s car with a jerk of his head.
She nods. ‘I will.’
It feels like a long walk up to the front door, the car engine idling and Gus’s gaze following her, waiting – ever the gentleman – to ensure her safe return home. Entering through the front door, the sound of the car turning on the drive, she drops her keys onto the tarnished silver plate sitting on the console and calls out, ‘Hello?’
The only response is her greeting echoing back at her. She walks from room to room, noting that doors that were shut now stand thrown open, lights blazing in each room as she passes, dust sheets glowing white under the glare. Further along the corridor, she can see light slanting onto the parquet floor from the library. She pushes on the door and finds Albie standing across the room, his back to her, his feet bare and a brandy glass in one hand as he rifles through the drawers of a walnut bureau.
‘Hello, Dad. Looking for something?’
Albie spins round, his lined face weathered brown and framed by a mop of shaggy, white hair, quickly morphing from surprise to delight at the sight of her. ‘Maggie, my love. I didn’t hear you return.’ He smiles and opens his arms, inviting her into his embrace.
She hesitates, battling the sudden flurry of emotion: relief and excitement mixing with anger and rejection too. She hates herself for wanting to run over and throw herself into his outstretched arms. He can’t just walk in here and make everything all right with a smile and a hug.
Albie doesn’t appear to notice her turmoil. He walks towards her, arms still held wide and draws her into his embrace.
Maggie holds herself rigid and closes her eyes, willing herself to resist; but the scent of him – aftershave, the faintest tang of tobacco, the sweet brandy on his breath – brings a rush of weakness. After her confrontation with Gus, it’s all she can do not to burst into tears there in her father’s arms.
‘My darling girl,’ he says. ‘I’m glad to see you.’
She opens her eyes, blinking back tears, and fixes on the faded pattern woven into the carpet beneath her trainers; a blood-red flower motif repeated over and over, petals splaying in ever-increasing circles. ‘I’m glad to see you, too,’ she says, the words leaving her mouth before she’s even realised it’s the truth. There are questions burning on the tip of her tongue: where has he been? Why hasn’t he been here for Lillian? And what is he looking for? But she resists, stoppering her questions and recriminations. Not now, she thinks. There is time.
‘Are you all right?’ he asks, eyeing her carefully. ‘You look like hell.’
‘Thanks,’ she says. ‘I’ve had a bit on my plate.’
Albie ruffles her hair. ‘Well your old dad’s back now. How about you pour us another one of these,’ he suggests, waving his almost empty glass at her, ‘and you can tell me everything that’s been going on.’
She eyes him for a moment. Is she really going to let him do this? Is she really going to let him through her defences again?
She sighs. ‘Come on,’ she says, turning for the kitchen. She’s sick of feeling so lonely. She’s sick of facing this fight on her own. Besides, Lillian said it herself, didn’t she? Just like Albie. Why fight biology?
‘There’s a bottle of very expensive Scotch in the other room,’ she says over her shoulder. ‘Want to help me sink it?’