Claire almost missed her stop on the bus journey home. She’d been staring out of the window, so she really should have noticed where she was, but she had to push her way off the double-decker at the last moment, gaining herself a few tuts and dirty looks from the other passengers.
However, when she got to her front door, she discovered she had no desire whatsoever to go inside. She stood there, remembering it had once belonged to someone else, someone she’d loved very much. Emptiness radiated from behind the closed door.
She would have phoned Candy or Peggy for a pep talk, but Candy was probably rushing round cooking the kids’ dinner or ferrying them to after-school clubs, and Peggy was out doing a proposal at the London Eye that evening.
In the end, Claire dipped inside her flat for a few seconds, where she dropped off her work bag and picked up the flowers and chocolates she’d discovered on her doorstep the previous morning. She hadn’t lied in her note to the suddenly – and rather strangely – solicitous Mr Arden. She did know someone who needed cheering up. She transferred her purse, phone and keys into smaller handbag, picked the gifts up and set off for Maggs’s house.
She decided to walk. It would be a shame to be stuck inside the car on an evening like this. An inauspicious morning had cleared into yet another glorious afternoon. Besides, parking in Maggs’s road was a nightmare and she’d probably have to find a space five minutes’ walk away as it was. The whole journey on foot from her flat would probably only take double that, and she liked walking through the streets of Highbury and Islington.
It wasn’t long before she was knocking on Maggs’s front door, ready to flourish her gifts. When Maggs opened it, she looked first at Claire and then at the flowers and the Hotel Chocolat gift bag. ‘What’s all this in aid of?’ she asked, but Claire saw the warmth in her eyes as she stepped past her into the house.
‘It’s most odd,’ she said, as she headed through to the kitchen. She put the bouquet and chocolates on the table and started to fill the kettle. ‘My downstairs neighbour has suddenly turned over a new leaf. I haven’t heard a peep out of him for a week, his bike has been noticeably absent from the hallway and he keeps leaving me presents.’
‘Nice flowers,’ Maggs said, as she peered into the tissue in cellophane. ‘Don’t you want them?’
Claire shook her head. ‘They’re very pretty, but I can’t help feeling there’s something fishy going on, that he’s being too nice. Keeping them feels as if I’m agreeing with that, falling for it. I’d be much more comfortable to see them going to a good home.’
Maggs reached for the kitchen scissors and sliced expertly through the wrapping, saving the little sachet of flower food. She shook her head. ‘You’re far too suspicious for a girl your age,’ she said.
Claire rested her bottom against the kitchen counter and watched the old furred-up kettle start to jiggle and groan as the water began to boil. ‘I’m not suspicious. I’m just realistic,’ she replied. ‘Not sure the leopard downstairs can change his spots, that’s all.’
Maggs fetched a cut-glass vase from a bottom cupboard and placed it on the table. ‘Maybe that last note of yours did the trick and made him see what a first-class prat he was being.’
Claire pressed her lips together and thought for a moment. ‘Maybe,’ she said, nodding. ‘Maybe I should give Mr Arden the benefit of the doubt. That’s what Doris would do, wouldn’t she?’
Maggs nodded. ‘Probably.’
Claire nodded again. Somehow, through all that she’d been through, Doris hadn’t lost her faith in human nature. Somehow, it had helped her stay strong. Claire didn’t really understand that. She just kept seeing the stupid, pointless, selfish things people did to each other and it made her cross. Really cross. But she was fed up being angry and sad at the world. It didn’t make her any happier. So she’d tried to take a leaf out of her idol’s book, change her outlook; she was sure that was the root of her problem.
Maggs started arranging the flowers in the vase, cutting the stems at an angle. She nodded at the now quiet kettle. Claire blinked. She hadn’t even noticed it had finished doing its job. Taking Maggs’s silent cue, she pulled two mugs from the cupboard and made them both a cup of tea.
‘Remember what your gran used to say?’ Maggs asked, as she put a pale pink rose amongst the eucalyptus and laurel twigs in the vase.
Claire nodded as she placed Maggs’s mug on the table. ‘People are like icebergs – there’s always more beneath the surface than you realise.’
Maggs held her gaze for a couple of seconds then went back to arranging the flowers. ‘That’s right. So, while your Mr Arden is puzzling you at the moment, there’s an explanation for it. You just don’t know it yet.’
Claire took a sip of her tea. ‘I suppose that makes sense.’
‘And it might be a less nefarious reason than you suspect.’
Claire didn’t say anything, so Maggs glanced over her shoulder at her.
‘Maybe,’ Claire finally admitted, but the syllables felt as if they’d been dragged from behind her teeth. She shook her head and made a dismissive noise. ‘Ignore me. I’m just in a bad mood because I’d met someone nice and I’d thought he liked me too. Seems I was wrong about him. So maybe – and I’m still saying it’s a stretch – maybe I’m wrong about Mr Nightmare From Downstairs too.’
Maggs stopped what she was doing. ‘Do tell!’
‘Well, I suppose the whole bike thing could have been a misunderstanding—’
Maggs shooed away her answer with an impatient hand. ‘Not that! About the other thing! The other man … Was it this rich fellow who took you to that party?’
Claire shook her head. ‘It would be easier if it was. I don’t think Doug would ever surprise or disappoint me. But, no, it was someone else at the party.’
‘Go on.’
‘Well, he came into the shop today, asked for my help booking a holiday.’
Maggs blinked. ‘And that’s a bad thing? It might just have been an excuse to see you again.’
Claire let out a huge sigh. ‘Yes. I thought so too at first, but then he said he’d come to me because of the sort of holidays I specialised in booking. Turns out he has a girlfriend. One he’s very keen to impress, by the sounds of it.’
‘Ah,’ Maggs said.
Claire nodded. ‘I know. You should have heard the way he talked about her too.’ She sighed again. ‘Oh, well. I should have taken Gran’s advice, shouldn’t I, and looked a little deeper? I’d have probably read the signals if I’d been paying proper attention, not getting all caught up in the way his eyes crinkle at the edges when he smiles.’
Maggs nodded sagely. ‘The smile. It’ll do it to you every time. That’s how Sid won me over, you know. I told him I wasn’t interested, but he just kept coming around, smiling that smile of his at me, and before I knew it I was trotting down the aisle!’
Claire smiled. ‘It worked out okay in the end, though, didn’t it?’
Maggs gave her a weak smile back. ‘Yes. Yes it did.’
‘I don’t know what it is. I know you say I’m suspicious – and I suppose I am – but never when it comes to love. It’s like I’m colour-blind, except only I’m man-blind. I have no depth perception where they’re concerned. I mean, look at Philip.’
Maggs walked over and rubbed her arm. ‘We were all fooled by Philip. Don’t you fret about him. Everyone’s got a secret side, Claire. Even you. Even me.’
An image of Maggs’s hip flask, shiny and secret, flashed through Claire’s mind. She started to think she should be more worried about that than she’d allowed herself to be. How had she missed that? How had she not seen what was building in front of her nose?
Maggs nodded to herself as she walked back over to the table and got going with the flowers again. ‘And you can’t know everything about a person when you first meet them. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to work it all out.’
‘That’s what makes it all so difficult. The whole thing’s such a risk. I thought I was ready to try again, but … after this … maybe I’m not.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ Maggs said, sounding much more like her usual self. ‘At least you know you need to look deeper. Knowing the problem is half the solution.’ As she finished speaking, her eyes fell on Claire’s handbag. ‘And there’s another thing you’re obviously ready to look below the surface of.’
‘What do you mean?’ Claire asked, but then she saw the corner of a crumpled envelope sticking out of the side pocket and she knew exactly what Maggs meant. She put her mug down and shook her head from side to side. ‘No. You’ve got it wrong. I haven’t read it. I haven’t even looked at it since you gave it to me that night. It’s just been sitting there forgotten in that handbag. It doesn’t mean anything.’
Maggs put down the large fluffy thistle head she was holding and turned to face Claire. ‘It doesn’t mean anything that you’ve been carrying his letter round for the last two weeks?’
‘No.’ Claire frowned. ‘Don’t look at me like that. It doesn’t.’
‘There’s more going on below the surface in everyone, Claire. Even you.’
Claire picked up her tea again and sipped it, welcoming the scalding liquid down her throat. All the while she peered at Maggs over the rim of her mug. ‘Not everything has a meaning. Some things, yes, but not everything. Not that. It’s just I haven’t used this handbag since that night. I haven’t even thought about it – about him. Not really.’
‘Then there’s probably a reason for that too.’
Claire looked away. ‘Now you’re just being awkward.’
‘No,’ said Maggs, and the rustle of leaves told Claire she’d gone back to arranging the flowers. ‘You could have thrown it away or put in a drawer out of sight. But you didn’t. Why don’t you just read it?’
Claire kept looking at the back door, at the blurry green shapes moving in the evening sunshine behind the textured glass. ‘I don’t want to. I told you that.’
Maggs’s voice lowered, lost its ever-present edge. ‘Laurie would have wanted you to.’
Claire snapped her head round to look at Maggs. ‘You don’t know that.’
Maggs nodded. ‘I do. I was her best friend, remember. She could tell me things that were too painful and raw to discuss with family. He ran out on her too, when he left. Hardly even sent a Christmas card, although she tried to stay in contact. She always hoped he’d come back one day, older, wiser, ready to be part of your family again.’
Claire felt her eyes fill. It made her cross. ‘I didn’t know that.’
‘She didn’t ever get that chance to repair what had gone wrong,’ Maggs said. ‘But you have that chance. You can do it for her.’
On the outside Claire stayed very still. Nobody would have guessed that a million conflicting emotions were rushing through her at that moment like an electricity current. Nobody but Maggs.
She felt her lips form into a sneer as the next words left her mouth. ‘Then I hate him for that too. For not coming back sooner. For breaking his mother’s heart.’
Maggs snorted softly. ‘Must admit, I don’t much like him, either. But you know what your grandmother was like. She never stopped hoping, never stopped believing in people, even when everyone else gave up on them. If what she prayed for all those years has finally come to pass, I just think it’s a shame to waste this chance.’
Claire inhaled then exhaled heavily. ‘Is that why you’re so keen on me doing it? On reading it?’
Maggs nodded. ‘Yes. For Laurie. But also for you.’
Claire was so surprised she let out a little huff of a laugh. ‘For me?’
‘I see how lonely you are.’ Claire started to shake her head, but Maggs continued, ‘I see it, because I know what it feels like.’ She paused to give Claire a meaningful look. ‘But I had a life full of love and happiness with Sid before that happened. You’ve hardly even begun yours yet and you’re intent on cutting yourself off from love.’
Claire felt as if a big hole had opened up inside her and she was teetering on the edge of it. She kept very still, just in case. ‘I’m trying not to be like that. I really am.’
Maggs’s serious expression thawed a little. ‘I know.’
They spent the next few minutes in silence. Maggs finished arranging the flowers and Claire just watched her, hypnotised. Better that, than delving too far into what Maggs had just said.
Maggs placed the vase on the wide windowsill behind the kitchen table. ‘He was a lot like you as a child, you know.’
It took Claire a few seconds to work out who Maggs was talking about. ‘My father?’ That seemed hardly believable. He’d been made of steel – wrapped up in a deceptively charming coating, to be sure, but made of steel all the same. She’d been neither as a child. Too cowed to be strong. Too shy to be charming.
‘He was optimistic and kind. Sensitive.’
Claire shook her head slowly. ‘I can’t believe that.’
‘Too sensitive. His father knocked that out of him quick smart.’
Claire stared straight ahead. She didn’t want to think of her father like that. Small. Weak. Trembling behind the lounge door, waiting for her grandfather’s judgement. Judgement that might have been meted out with a switch or a strap.
Maggs came over and leaned on the kitchen counter beside her. Close, but not touching. Only an arm’s length away. Maggs was quite a bit shorter than Claire, so it wasn’t the top of her bottom that rested on the ledge, but the small of her back.
‘You see things differently as an adult from how you understood them as a child,’ she said simply. ‘He became a monster in your mind – a villain – but maybe he’s just a man who’s made mistakes, one who wants a second chance.’
Claire turned her head to look at Maggs, whose jaw was hard and eyes beady.
‘Maybe it’s time to find out?’
Maggs looked back at the handbag, at the scruffy corner to the letter sticking out the pocket. Slowly, Claire walked over to it. She pinched just the corner of it with thumb and forefinger. It slid out easily. She felt as if she’d just crossed some kind of threshold, as if there could be no going back, even though the letter was still as snugly inside the envelope as it had been when she’d arrived.
She felt as if she was in a dream world as she pulled out the folded sheet of paper – nice paper, she noticed – and read it. It was as if another Claire was standing there reading the words and she was floating at the corner of the ceiling, looking down on herself.
Dear Margaret
I don’t know if this letter will reach you, but I have to try. I am looking for Claire, my daughter. I don’t know if you know where she is, or if you remained friends with my mother, but my mother is not the kind to lose friends or family easily. I have learned that one has to be quite determined about it.
Claire stopped reading. She felt her insides boiling, just like the furred-up kettle had only ten minutes earlier, the anger rising to the surface in great bubbles that shook her so hard, she was sure Maggs must feel the reverberations through the kitchen counter.
Maggs had been right. Gran had tried to keep in touch, but he’d rejected her. She closed her eyes. Why would she ever want anything to do with this man? He wasn’t her father. Not really. Just provided some raw DNA to get her going.
‘Don’t stop,’ Maggs said quietly.
Claire looked at her. Her whole jaw trembled as she answered. ‘I’m not sure I can continue.’ She very much wanted it to rip it into confetti and post it piece by piece down the plughole of Maggs’s kitchen sink but, somehow, she managed to focus on it once again.
I know I have made mistakes. I want make amends. It’s the right thing to do. I hope you can find it within you to help.
Yours sincerely,
Martin Bixby
Claire looked up at Maggs, her mouth slightly open. ‘That’s it? You’ve been going on and on at me about reading that?’
Maggs nodded.
Claire didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. ‘It’s nothing,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Less than nothing. “It’s the right thing to do”? What the heck does that mean? No mention of loving me or missing me or even an “I’m sorry”!’ She slammed the letter down on the counter and walked away from it.
Maggs kept her voice quiet and steady. ‘He may not say he’s sorry, but he might mean it. Why else would he get in contact?’
Claire almost laughed. Maggs clearly had been nipping too much of whatever she kept in that hip flask. ‘You’re joking, right?’
‘No.’
They stared at each other.
‘Remember the iceberg, pet. Some people have a hard time saying what they feel. Even if they really, really want to.’
Claire was about to say that wasn’t good enough, but then she noticed the grim set of Maggs’s mouth, flattened out, the muscles drawn tight to prevent even the hint of a wobble. Her eyes were begging Claire to understand.
And Claire did. Maggs had always found it hard to let her feelings be known too. She chided and nagged Claire, but Claire knew she loved her fiercely, just the way she loved Maggs back. It was just a bit of a stretch to think her father was in any way similar.
However, she owed Maggs a lot. At least giving her the benefit of the doubt about this one thing.
‘Okay,’ she said hoarsely, nodding at the finality of what she was saying. ‘Okay. You can tell him you know where I am, but that’s all. We’ll see if he can be bothered to do anything with that.’