One Day in May - Catherine Alliott [166]
‘Good luck, Maggie.’ I said it softly, into the dusk.
I realized I was walking home, heading down some very familiar streets, which I hadn’t intended to do, and not pausing to ring Sally or Alex. But I didn’t feel like Sally now. Didn’t feel like sitting in a bar with single women, having just a little too much to drink, going home poorer and slightly worse for wear. I didn’t know what I wanted, or if I did, I certainly wasn’t disclosing it to myself. Home it was, then.
As I turned the corner and started down my road, trying to keep my thoughts at bay, I saw a figure emerging from the passageway that ran alongside the house, where Seffy kept his bike. I stopped in shock. Then walked on. Oh, of course, it was Christian. He’d been watering my plants whilst I’d been living in sin on the other side of town. He smiled: raised his hand when he saw me.
‘You no supposed to be here!’ he called.
‘I know,’ I said when I’d reached him, kissing his papery cheeks. ‘But I popped in on Maggie for a chat. Haven’t seen her for a while. This is a treat, Christian.’ I raised my game for him: it was a relief to do so. ‘You are such a star to do my plants, particularly when they’re so pathetic. How are you?’
‘Ah, you know, I survive. One day they find a cure for arthritis, no doubt, but until then,’ he shrugged, ‘like your plants, pathetic. And you with your shiny new lover? You flourish?’
‘Oh, yes, I flourish.’ I walked smartly up the path. ‘Are you coming in?’
Christian and I had talked long and hard when I’d popped in to see him last week: about Seffy, about what I’d done, and about how he, Christian, had always suspected, so it was odd that I couldn’t quite look him in the eye, I thought as I fumbled now for my keys. I’d laid myself bare to pretty much everyone: everyone had had a jolly good peer into my soul, but Christian had almost been the hardest. Perhaps because he’d helped me so much back then, when Seffy was a baby. I felt I’d betrayed his trust.
‘Well, for a moment maybe, but only to show you the terrible state your roses in.’
‘Roses?’ I flashed him a grin. ‘Didn’t know I had any.’
Christian despaired at my garden, pointing out that although he watered it, it was no earthly good if I didn’t dead-head, prune or weed. We walked through the musty, closed-up house, with its stifling smell, and out the other side via the French windows to the sorry patch of lawn and straggly flowerbeds at the back.
‘Dismal!’ He groaned, shoulders sagging dramatically, hands raised to the heavens. ‘Neglected! No form!’
‘I know,’ I laughed. ‘But actually, Christian,’ I hesitated, ‘it’ll be someone else’s problem soon. Hal and I are moving to Notting Hill.’
‘Ah?’ He turned. ‘He propose?’
I smiled. Christian, sweetly old-fashioned, wasn’t at all sure about cohabiting.
‘Not exactly. He asked if I’d spend the rest of my days with him.’
‘Same thing. And you say?’
‘I say… said, that I was honoured. And very flattered. But I asked… if I could have a bit more time.’ I thought back to us standing there on the stone bridge, the river rushing beneath us, both Hal’s hands holding mine. ‘I said I thought I needed some space, after all the Seffy business.’
‘And he say?’
‘He was very understanding. Said he completely understood, wouldn’t rush things. Was happy for us just to be together. Which we are.’
‘And when he ask you again?’
‘He may not.’
‘He will.’
I licked my lips. ‘I’ll say yes.’
I was surprised to hear myself say it. But I knew Christian was right, knew a life-time contract was what Hal wanted.
‘You accept because you feel you owe it to him? To everyone? To Seffy, your family? To yourself even? To not be problem any