One Day in May - Catherine Alliott [81]
‘Maggie, is Henry with you?’
There was a shocked silence. Then: ‘How did you know?’ she hissed. No sign of a blocked nose now.
‘I can tell. Why didn’t you just say, “Look, Henry’s appeared out of the blue, he’s back from New York, can I join you down there?” ’
‘Sorry,’ she said, chastened. Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘His wife’s gone to her sister’s for a week. I was going to ring back later and tell you, I just didn’t want…’
Henry to hear her say it. Because for all her scorn of the Lucinda Carrs of this world, Maggie’s life was equally poised on the whims and caprices of a man. A phone call from Henry could have her life veering off in a completely different direction, away from her career, her friends, her commitments. Henry rendered her permanently pivotal.
‘I wasn’t going to lie to you, I promise,’ she hissed, clearly having fled to the sanctuary of the bathroom now. I heard a door close. ‘But I didn’t want him to think I was dropping everything just because he’s back.’
‘Which you are.’
‘Hattie…’ she sighed, and implicit in that sigh was: you know.
I did know. Had heard all her arguments. About how she only got to see him about twice a month, about how every moment was precious, but that one day, all their moments would be precious, because they’d be together for ever. He’d leave his wife for her. And yes of course she felt guilty about deceiving another woman, but Henry had fallen out of love with Davina years ago, and who, after all, deserved her loyalty? This woman she didn’t know, or Henry, the man she loved? We’d sit for hours in the shop, cradling coffees, analysing the relationship this way and that: Maggie trotting out clichés about not being able to choose who one fell in love with and only having one life, me trotting out ones about how Henry was never going to leave his wife and was having his cake and eating it with two women at his beck and call. But as her face collapsed, I’d be kinder. Agree that it was terribly painful all round. Difficult for everyone. And after all, who was I to moralize? Hadn’t I once fallen in love with someone I had no right to fall in love with?
I wondered too if she really would have told me the truth, or if in fact she knew that what she was doing was so desperate, she wasn’t sure even her best friend would understand? I did, though. I knew how nothing else mattered. How everything became irrelevant. How you’d let friends and family down, drop everything to be with the object of desire, and yes, feel ashamed, but still hurtle on towards that bright, blinding white light, trampling everything and everyone in its path.
‘Be careful,’ I warned her, as I’d warned her a million times before.
‘Oh I will!’ she exulted, knowing this was the green light to her white one. Knowing, by not being angry, I’d given her the nod of friendship and complicity. That I’d somehow condoned it.
‘And I’ll see you in a week or so, I promise. Meanwhile, I thought I’d work on your sister’s place?’
‘Meanwhile?’
‘Well, obviously Henry has to go to work in the day.’ Ah, right. Not wall-to-wall bonking then. ‘So I thought I’d pop down on a daily basis and see how Rod and Kenny are getting on.’
These, our two wonderfully capable, experienced workmen, who’d been with us for years, and whom we’d installed at the Abbey, knowing once briefed, they’d need no guidance whatsoever. I frowned. Then it dawned. Christian was lined up to take care of the shop, a job he loved occasionally, looked forward to, in fact. Now his wife had died, it got him out of his flat, made him feel useful, which he surely was. He’d be bitterly disappointed to hear the plans had changed. So yes, Maggie’s love affair, without this frantic damage limitation, could have had a devastating domino effect. And of course she couldn’t just sit at home and wait for Henry while Christian minded the shop. Even Maggie at fever pitch had pride. Where could she go?
‘You say “pop down”,’ I said slowly, ‘but Little Crandon’s hardly down the road.’
‘Oh, it’s only an hour or so,’ she said breezily. ‘I don’t mind.’
‘OK. So… d’you