In a display of solidarity not seen since her days in hospital, Meg’s parents descended on her once she told them about the Everetts’ latest letter and the airline ticket.
They arrived in separate cars, the Golf and the Range Rover, but stood together on the doorstep with uniformly worried looks.
‘Is this a deputation?’ she asked.
They did not find it funny. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Just a joke. You’d better come in.’
She made tea while her father studied the letters and the ticket with a forensic frown. ‘You’re seriously telling me you’re going to go and see these people?’
‘I’m seriously thinking about it, yes,’ she said as she poured for them.
‘This is crazy,’ he protested. ‘What if you land yourself in trouble? What if they want to harm you?’
‘Harm me? Don’t be ridiculous, Dad. What do you think – that they’re serial killers or something?’
‘How do you know they’re not?’
She laughed. ‘Come on. They’re Paul Everett’s mother and father, two grieving parents. You’ve read the letters. What do you think?’
‘But you don’t know anything about them,’ her mother told her.
‘That’s the whole point, isn’t it? I want to find out more. No, what am I talking about – more. I want to find out anything – anything I can.’
‘But what do you think it will achieve?’ her father asked her. He left his tea untouched.
‘I’m not entirely sure. But you’re not the one who has to live with this every day, this awful emptiness. Fair enough, OK, I grant you that this mightn’t make any difference but I’ve got to go, I have to meet them. Surely you understand?’
‘Well, I don’t think you should,’ Gloria said and turned away from her as if it was her last word on the subject. She folded her arms and stood staring out into Truesdale Street. ‘I don’t know what you’re up to these days. Working as a waitress. Now this. You must be mad.’
‘That’s always a possibility,’ Meg said with a dark glance at her mother’s back. She sipped her tea, trying to swallow her annoyance with it, and suddenly a memory came to her.
Each time that happened she felt uplifted. It signalled a new achievement, even when the memory was an unhappy one, as this one was now.
She had had a pen-pal once, when she was about fourteen, a girl from near Lake Como in northern Italy, to whom she had been writing for at least a year. The girl had invited her to come and stay one summer but Meg’s mother had refused to let her go: ‘They’re foreigners. You don’t know what sort of people they are.’
Meg had never written back. She had not been able to bring herself to say that she couldn’t come. The girl’s letters stopped.
Meg wondered what had become of her. Sixteen years ago.
‘You’d just go and see them and then come back?’ Her father’s voice returned her to the present. He was looking for assurance.
‘A couple of days, that’s all.’ Determination was needed. ‘Look, Dad, I don’t want to be rude but I’m not asking your permission. I thought I’d fill you both in on what’s going on. I knew you’d be interested – concerned, too, I understand that. If I decide to go it’ll be my decision but I didn’t want to set off on this without letting you know.’
‘You’re in my prayers every night,’ Gloria said, turning from the window. ‘Why do you insist on worrying us like this?’
Emotional blackmail. Her mother had always been expert in its use.
‘What do you want me to do, sit here and wither away? If I just sat here all day, never did anything, you wouldn’t have to worry, would you?’
‘Wait a minute,’ Sam said. ‘Let’s calm down.’
‘This man you’re seeing,’ Gloria said. ‘Has he anything to do with this?’
‘No, of course not. And I’m not seeing him now anyway.’
‘Oh?’ Her mother raised an eyebrow and the curiosity in her eyes had a cruel glint.
Instantly Meg regretted that she had given her an opening. ‘And I don’t want to discuss it either.’
Her father gave a resigned sigh and dropped the ticket onto the kitchen table. ‘I don’t suppose there’s a lot we can do to stop you.’
‘I don’t want you to try to stop me,’ Meg said. ‘I want you to understand how I feel. I want you to support me.’
‘Support you? Of course we support you. What do you think we’ve been doing?’
He said it irritably, as if she was being stupid, and the words blew on the spark of anger which her mother had already succeeded in igniting.
‘I’m not sure any more,’ Meg said. ‘You think that because you’ve done all this to the house and left me with a bit of money in the bank that you’re supporting me and, to that extent, of course you are and I’m very grateful. But where’s the emotional support, Dad? The sort that I give you when you need it? You see, the thing is, you confuse support with having some sort of control over me. That’s not support. Oh you might not mean it, but that’s the way it is.’ She gestured to the room. ‘This house. Look at me. I’m a prisoner here. A prisoner of your generosity. I’m even driving around in a car which you’ve provided. I’ve lost my independence as well as my memory. Sometimes I think I’m losing my mind.’
‘Now hold on a minute,’ her father said. ‘I’ve tried to do my best for you.’
‘Don’t be so ungrateful,’ Gloria chided. ‘You have a lot to be thankful for. Thankful to the Lord.’
Meg turned her way. ‘And you, Mum. So you pray for me every night, do you? Well, I don’t know why you bother. Let’s be honest – as far as you’re concerned, I’m an embarrassment and an inconvenience.’
‘Don’t talk to your mother like that.’
‘But it’s true. While I was in a coma, she could play the part of the bereaved parent, robbed of her only child, even though I wasn’t actually dead. Not technically.’
‘Look, that’s enough,’ her father said.
‘No, Dad, I’m going to finish this.’ For a second she was aware of how Elizabeth had described the old Meg, a woman who spoke her mind, regardless of the consequences.
She faced her mother. ‘And then, when I regained consciousness, I wouldn’t play the game. You tried to bamboozle me with your pastor friend but I wasn’t having any of it. I had the strength to resist, thank God – if you don’t mind me using the expression. I would have been a terrific little trophy for you, Mum, wouldn’t I? Another ornament for your church friends to come and admire.’
‘Stop it,’ her father snapped. ‘How dare you talk like that? Have you any idea of the disgrace you brought us?’
The words were sudden and unexpected and sharply painful. She knew her mother felt this way. But not her father.
‘Yes, disgrace,’ he said when he saw that he had shocked her. ‘Since home truths are on the agenda, maybe you should hear a few yourself. Have you any idea what it was like for your mother and me? All those stories in the papers and on TV. A murdered man up to here in booze and cocaine. And you, drunk, in the middle of it. We were devastated, of course we were, that you’d been hurt so badly and then when you didn’t regain consciousness, God it was terrible. But you’ve no idea what the rest of it was like. The whispers when I came into a room. The fake smiles. The business deals that suddenly weren’t there any more because nobody wanted to get involved with me, not when my daughter was tied up with some kind of drugs scandal. Who knows, maybe her father’s mixed up in it, too – that’s the way their minds worked. And if Malone Group hadn’t come along when they did, with a most generous offer, well, it’s anybody’s guess what might have happened.’ He paused and took a deep breath and seemed to rein in his anger.
‘Yes, we felt ashamed. I’m sorry I had to say it like that but I can’t take it back. Maybe we shouldn’t have felt like we did but that’s the truth of it. We were at a low ebb, Meg.’ He looked at Gloria. ‘Whatever you may think of your mother’s religious beliefs, at least she had that to sustain her. It was more than I had.’
Her mother had a handkerchief out. ‘Why are you like this?’ Her voice quivered. She stared at Meg as if she did not know her and then blew her nose loudly.
‘Try not to get upset, Gloria,’ Sam said.
Meg looked at them. Her mother’s tears. Her father’s hurt. It was like watching a performance. But she was unmoved by it this time and did not feel its emotional pull.
Her father shot her a glance as her mother continued to sob. ‘None of this was necessary,’ he said.
‘No, probably not,’ she said. ‘But it’s done now, isn’t it?’
‘Sweetheart, you know we’re just thinking of you.’ His tone was softer.
‘Of course.’ She gave him a smile without any warmth in it.
At about eleven a.m. the following day she was at work, taking dishes into the kitchen to be washed. The mid-morning coffee rush was always frantic for half an hour or so.
When she went back on to the floor, she saw that more customers had come in. A man and a woman had taken a seat at the window. The woman was black-haired, fifty, bleak-faced. The man had his back to her.
Bronagh was serving someone else so Meg walked over to them.
‘Now,’ she said, ‘can I take your order?’
She looked into the face of Liam Maginnis.
He blinked, startled, then pushed back his chair loudly and stood up. At the sound, Bronagh looked over.
‘Good Lord,’ he said, then gave a nervous laugh. ‘What a surprise. I didn’t expect to see you here.’ He smiled. ‘How are you?’
She smiled back. ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘Fine.’
‘And what . . . are you working here?’
Part-time. It gives me something to do.’
The dark-haired woman was staring, her eyes narrow. Bronagh was listening. Maginnis looked as if he did not know what to say ‘Great,’ he said, then recovered himself. ‘Oh, I’m sorry – Meg – Meg Winter, this is my wife Denise.’
‘Pleased to meet you,’ the woman said, although she did not look it. Her eyes flickered towards her husband for a second, demanding more.
‘Meg was a patient of mine,’ he explained. ‘You remember. She’d been in a coma.’
The woman’s eyes widened. ‘Oh yes. The woman in a coma. Of course.’ She gave Meg a more comprehensive appraisal. ‘But I thought you were a doctor. Why on earth are you working in here, doing this sort of thing?’
‘I’m joining in with the world. You meet all sorts of people here.’
They stared at each other in mutual dislike. Meg wondered how Maginnis had ever landed himself with someone like this.
‘Well, you look very well, if I may say so,’ Maginnis said, sitting again, not noticing the look the two women had exchanged. ‘It’s wonderful to see you. I heard that you’d been back to see the staff. That was very nice of you. But you should have called on me.’
‘I didn’t want to bother you. I thought you’d be too busy.’
‘Never too busy to see you,’ he said.
His wife gave him a sharp glance. ‘Look, Liam, if we don’t order something soon, I’m going to have to go.’
‘Of course, dear. What would you like?’
Two days later, two men came in.
Bronagh served them, her face white. One of them had a big square bag that he put on the floor beside his table.
Meg was certain they were watching her. Then, as she passed, one of them said: ‘Excuse me, are you Miss Winter?’
She said yes before she realised.
The second man had taken a camera out of the bag and he suddenly started taking pictures of her as she stood there.
‘We’re from the Sunday World,’ the first one said. ‘I wonder if we could have a word with you.’
‘I don’t think so,’ she said and headed for the kitchen. There was a back door.
She passed Bronagh and gave her a look that could kill. She should have seen this corning.
‘I’m sorry,’ Bronagh said, ‘I mentioned something about you to a friend the other night. I didn’t think—’
‘Forget it,’ Meg said.
Werner came out of his little office.
‘You better dig out your ‘help-wanted’ sign,’ Meg said, untying her apron and handing it to him. ‘I quit.’
They got a good enough picture to put it on their front page that Sunday.
With it there were a lot of quotes from her, all a work of imagination. There were remarks from Bronagh and Werner, too, but she had no way of knowing whether they were any more real.
She felt betrayed and under surveillance. She even found herself glancing over her shoulder from time to time. She thought of Dan and wondered what he was doing.
But she thought of the Everetts as well. America, and the welcome of strangers, was becoming more inviting by the minute.