Second Chance - Jane Green [84]
‘That’s because he never needed any,’ Holly says, and they both laugh. ‘It is so good to see you. It makes me wonder how I managed without you all these years. You know, you’ve always felt more like my mother than my own mother.’
‘Your other mother, you used to call me.’ Maggie smiles. ‘Do you remember?’
Holly nods and laughs.
‘My heart always went out to you, Holly,’ Maggie says, her face now serious. ‘You seemed so lost in those days. So unhappy.’
‘I did?’ Holly is shocked. Of course, it was how she’d felt inside, but she’d seemed so at home at Maggie and Peter’s, she hadn’t expected them to see it too, had thought she masked it so well.
‘Peter always used to say that you would grow up to be a great beauty.’ Maggie’s eyes grow distant as she reminisces. ‘And although I could see the possibility, I was never sure you were going to fulfil your potential because you were so very awkward in your skin as a teenager. You never looked as if you were comfortable, as if you liked who you were; and I was never certain you were going to be able to claim your self, sit in your skin and be proud of who you are.’
There is a long pause as Maggie enfolds Holly in the warmth of her smile. ‘And of course,’ she continues, ‘look at you. So utterly beautiful and lovely, and finally so very sure of who you are.’
‘Oh God, Maggie. How can you say that? How can you believe that, have so much faith in me when I don’t even have it in myself?’
‘You don’t?’ Maggie frowns. ‘But you do, my darling. I see it all over you.’
‘Maybe in some respects, but there are times when I wake up and have no idea who I am or what I want. Whether this is the life I’m supposed to be living.’
Maggie leans back in her chair and nods. ‘Aaah.’ She smiles finally. ‘This sounds like a mid-life crisis.’
And Holly sits forward, leans towards her, her face now alert. A mid-life crisis. She was joking when she mentioned it to Will. How can she be having a mid-life crisis at thirty-nine? Isn’t it supposed to happen at forty? But a mid-life crisis doesn’t sound wrong. Something about it sounds very right, and if it is, in fact, a mid-life crisis, then there are ways to get beyond it, surely, ways to move on without blowing your life up and watching the pieces land where they may.
‘Do you really think that’s what it might be?’
‘I had one when I was thirty-nine.’ Maggie smiles. ‘Just where you are now. In fact, you were around then. I’m surprised you weren’t aware of something and didn’t pick up on anything, given how perceptive you were.’
‘I was? How old were we?’
‘You and Tom were fifteen. It was soon after you came into the family. An awful time. The things I put poor Peter through, but I understand why I did it, just as I understood it then, although I was in a slightly different situation.’
‘How so?’
‘Remember, I married Peter when I was twenty-three. A child. I married him because I was desperate to be a grown-up, to have a house of my own, children of my own, and it was the only way I could see to do it.’
‘So you weren’t in love with him?’ Holly is hoping to hear her own story, that Maggie will mirror her and Marcus’s story, will give her hope for redemption, for a happy ever after, which she is so certain Maggie has had with Peter.
Maggie frowns. ‘Oh darling, of course I was in love with him. I was madly, hopelessly in love with him. Even when he had those ghastly leg-of-mutton sideburns I thought he was the most handsome, devilish, delicious man I’d ever come across. Don’t ever tell him this, but sometimes my butterflies would be so bad before he came to pick me up at my parents’ house, I’d actually throw up.’
Holly makes a face as she laughs.
‘I adored him. But I married him too young. He was my first serious boyfriend, and we married a year after we met; and I thought I’d never look at another man again for the rest of my life.’
Holly draws a sharp intake of breath. ‘You mean you did?’ Her voice drops to a whisper. ‘Did you have an affair?’
Maggie smiles. ‘No, my sweet girl.