Despite what Dominic had said about staying with his friend, Claire remained at Maggs’s house until the weekend. While she’d been able to wash her meagre collection of clothes, there were other things she needed from her flat. It was time to go home. She couldn’t stay at Maggs’s forever.
Since Gran had owned the flat outright and had left it to Claire in her will, she supposed she could rent it out, but she didn’t want to leave it. She didn’t want someone new, someone who’d never known her gran, to come in and wipe away all those memories.
She came downstairs for breakfast on Saturday morning and told Maggs of her decision.
‘Good,’ Maggs said. ‘I’ll get my bathroom back to myself.’ Then her smile faded. ‘It’ll be very quiet here when you’re gone.’
Claire nodded. She knew that. She’d always thought of Maggs as a bit of a loner, but in the few days she’d been staying here Maggs had hardly let her out of her sight, insisting she cook for Claire too so they ate meals together, suggesting things they could watch on TV or board games they could play. Maggs was lonelier than she’d thought. Just as well the reverse blackmail attempt of getting Maggs to go out with George had finally paid off.
‘So …’ she said, smiling her best I’m-trying-not-to-be-nosy smile. ‘How was your date with George last night?’ They’d gone out for an early dinner at a local carvery and then on to see a film.
‘Food was okay, film was crap,’ Maggs replied, as she filled the teapot and set it in the middle of the breakfast table.
That wasn’t what Claire had been asking and Maggs knew it.
‘I meant, how did it go with George?’
Maggs set out the teacups and poured the tea, taking her time over every little bit of the job. When there was nothing else left to do she sat down and looked at Claire. ‘I wish I could like him that way, but I don’t.’
Disappointment washed over Claire.
‘Don’t look at me like that,’ Maggs said grumpily, as she plopped two sugar cubes into her tea and stirred.
Claire hadn’t been aware she’d been looking at Maggs like anything.
‘I could pretend there’s more there than there is, but in the end it wouldn’t be fair to either of us. George wants to be devoted to someone, and after a while I think I’d find that a little …’
‘Wonderful?’ Claire said hopefully.
Maggs gave her a look. ‘Irritating.’
‘Sounds nice to me,’ Claire murmured. How she had a man knocking down her door to be devoted to her, someone who cared more about making her happy than making himself happy. For a while she hadn’t thought men like that actually existed. George was a nice reminder that they did, even if they were rare specimens. Mind you, in all his sixty-five years George hadn’t found one woman who deserved all that devotion – apart from the silver screen version of Doris – so maybe men were just as screwed as women when it came to finding the perfect partner.
Claire looked at Maggs. She knew she had to bring something up that neither of them wanted to talk about, but with the hope of George no longer on the horizon, she couldn’t put it off any longer. ‘So what are you going to do? You know the answer isn’t in that little silver hip flask of yours, don’t you?’
Maggs went very still. ‘Ah, so you’ve noticed that, have you?’
Claire nodded. ‘More and more frequently in the last couple of months. Maggs? I’m worried about you.’
Instead of telling her to shut up and mind her own business, which was the reaction Claire had expected, Maggs just nodded sadly. ‘I’ve started to be worried about me too. It was just that a little tipple helped blur the edges on the nights when this tiny house still seemed too empty, or when I was out in a crowd and aware of the hole at my side.’
Claire swallowed a lump in her throat. She knew how hard it was to lose someone you’d been close to your whole life, how the ache never quite seemed to go away. Losing her best friend less than two years after losing her husband must have hit Maggs hard.
Claire was going to reach out and touch Maggs’s hand, but Maggs suddenly stood up and got very busy cutting bread. Only when there was a little toast rack full of even, browned triangles did she sit down and stop moving.
She took a breath and paused, as if she was gearing up to saying something. ‘It’s not a proper problem yet,’ she said, and glanced up at Claire, ‘but I think I have to admit it could grow into one. If I let it.’
This time Claire did reach out and cover her hand. ‘You know I’m here for you if ever you need me.’
Maggs patted Claire’s hand in a way that reminded her of her grandmother. ‘I know that, but you’re a young woman. You’ve got your own life to lead.’
Claire took a crisp triangle of toast from the rack. ‘I know but …’
‘But nothing. I’m not letting you move in here with me and become old and crusty before your time.’
Claire started to laugh. ‘Maggs, you are definitely not old and crusty!’
Maggs stole the butter dish just as Claire was reaching for it. ‘Yes, I am,’ she said, with a defiant twinkle in her eye. ‘And don’t you forget it. Besides, I stayed up last night after my date with George thinking, and I’ve come up with a plan.’
‘You have?’
Maggs nodded. ‘I think I know exactly where I can find my Mr Right, and you’re going to come and help me pick him.’
*
After breakfast, Maggs commanded use of her personal chariot and chauffeur – aka Claire and her Fiat – and instructed that she should be driven to an unspecified destination. She just kept her referring to an old battered A–Z on her lap and told Claire when to turn right or left or go straight on.
Claire listened to the instructions with one half of her brain, but with the other half she was trying to work out what on earth Maggs was up to. Had her friend gone senile overnight? Should she call a doctor? And when she wasn’t worrying about Maggs, she was cooking up scenarios about what finding ‘Mr Right’ might mean.
Not long after they’d crossed Blackfriars Bridge, Maggs suddenly said, ‘Before you move out, I need to tell you about my visit with your father.’
Claire kept her expression neutral. ‘Do you really have to?’ That was another man she really didn’t want to think about.
Maggs nodded. ‘Yes. I think I do.’
Claire sighed. She knew she might as well let Maggs spit it out. She’d only keep badgering her about it if she didn’t. ‘Go on, then.’
Maggs frowned. ‘He looked so different … Not the man I remembered at all.’
‘I know.’
‘And that wasn’t the only thing that was different, either.’ She shifted in her seat to face Claire more fully, even though Claire was staring straight ahead, keeping her eyes on the road and following Maggs’s intermittent directions. ‘Left here.’
They paused as Claire navigated her way through a busy junction, and then Maggs carried on talking.
‘Do you know, that after your father was six, I never saw him cry ever again?’
Claire shook her head. No, she hadn’t known that. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know it now.
‘Your grandfather was responsible for that. The bastard was always quite proud of himself for beating it out of his son. I was actually quite glad when he got run over by that bus in 1976. I think him dying set Laurie free from a miserable marriage.’
Claire paused and let a car through in the middle of a street crowded with parked cars. ‘And this is what you talked about, is it?’ She wasn’t really in the mood for a trip down memory lane, and would rather this conversation was over as quickly as possible.
‘Oh, no,’ Maggs said, shaking her head, as if that should have been obvious. ‘In fact, we didn’t speak at all.’
Claire shot a glance at her passenger. They hadn’t? Then what on earth was this all about, this big secret Maggs needed to tell her so badly?
‘That was the thing,’ Maggs said softly, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was about to say. ‘When I marched into that room to give him a piece of my mind, he was hunched up and facing the window …’
Yup, thought Claire. That was pretty much the way she’d left him.
‘… and he was crying.’
A horn blared, and Claire realised she just cut someone up quite badly. She made a ‘sorry’ face and waved a hand to apologise. She couldn’t quite work out what Maggs had just said.
‘He was …?’
‘Crying,’ Maggs repeated. ‘And he wasn’t too pleased about me catching him at it, either. I just thought you ought to know. Maybe your visit affected him more than you thought.’
‘Thanks,’ Claire said. But she wasn’t sure she did want to know. What good did it do? What was the point of him having feelings after all if he was too much of a coward to let them out? It wouldn’t change the way he’d treated her, would it? Even if a tiny part of him did really love her, did really feel sorry about how he’d treated the people in his life, he was too proud, or too scared, to show it.
Thankfully, Maggs told her they should now look for a parking space. She found a spot in a rather industriallooking back road in Battersea and then Maggs led her a short distance to their destination.
It was only as Claire saw the famous blue logo with a dog wrapped around a cat that she realised where they were. She blinked and looked again. Battersea Dogs & Cats Home? This was so not what she’d been expecting.
Maggs just gave her a smug smile and led the way inside.
‘I’ve been looking online,’ she explained, as they were led back to the kennels, ‘and there’s someone I’d like you to meet. He’s called—’ She suddenly stopped and looked at the name tag on an enclosure. ‘Oh!’
‘What?’ Claire said, frowning.
‘Well, this isn’t the dog I came here to see,’ Maggs replied, ‘but look …’
Claire did look. The name tag said ‘Barney’. And inside the enclosure was a medium-sized dog with a curly mass of chocolate-coloured fur.
‘Hello, boy,’ Maggs said, bending down. The little dog tilted its head and looked at her. After a couple of moments’ thought, it trotted towards her and sniffed her hand. Maggs looked up at Claire and smiled. ‘Barney … like Frank Sinatra in Young At Heart, Laurie’s favourite. I think it’s fate.’
‘I think it’s going to eat you out of house and home and leave hair on your couch,’ Claire said. ‘Maggs, are you really sure about this? Don’t you need some time to think about it?’
Maggs stood up. Barney stayed where he was and watched her, wagging his tail. ‘Actually, I’ve been thinking about it for a while now. I just hadn’t got round to doing anything about it, but after last night it all just sort of came together in my head.’ She bent down again and scratched between Barney’s ears. He closed his eyes and leaned into her hand.
As much as Claire was still reeling from the surprise, she had to admit they did make an adorable pair. Doris, with all the animal rehoming charity work, would certainly approve.
‘You’re giving up men for a dog?’ she asked.
Maggs just smiled. ‘Yup.’
And she looked so happy that Claire couldn’t quite decide whether she was the craziest person she knew or the sanest. The way things had been going in her own love life, maybe she should try it.