The blonde was playing ‘Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off ’ as Seb wandered off to get the bill. I checked my reflection quickly in the back of a dessert-spoon. Slightly flushed with drink, my hair was ruffled and my eyes were bright and wide with excitement and – there was no other word for it – lust. I hadn’t had such a nice night in –
Seb sat back down and smiled at me and I felt like he’d just read my thoughts. My mobile bleeped with Alex’s voicemail message. ‘Sorry,’ I murmured again, and this time I opened the text.
One word:
WHORE
.
Just that, brutal and harsh.
Shakily I checked the number, but it wasn’t Alex’s. I didn’t recognise it. I hesitated as the waiter brought Seb the card-machine, and then, taking a deep breath, I called the number. It went straight to an automated voicemail. Seb was finishing up now and handing the man some notes extravagantly, and I was feeling horribly flustered. I put the phone away, my hands suddenly clammy with fear.
‘Okay, we’re all paid up. Shall we go?’
‘Sure.’ I stood quickly, my heart pounding, my face suddenly tight. ‘Thank you so much for a lovely meal.’
‘Thank
you
for such lovely company.’ Seb came round to help me with my coat. Then he looked closely at me. ‘Are you all right, Maggie?’
‘I’m fine,’ I said in a small voice.
‘You don’t look fine.’
‘I am, really.’
‘Are you sure?’
I felt poised on a precipice. The text
must
be from Alex – and I was damned if I was going to let him ruin my night. He’d ruined far too many before. But I couldn’t tell Seb the truth, drawing him into a situation I didn’t yet understand myself. It
was too early to involve him in such ugliness. With a tangible effort, I pulled myself together.
‘I’m fine, really, Seb. I think I just need some fresh air, that’s all.’
He took my hand and led me through the restaurant and his touch reassured me, calming my nerves. I felt glad that I was with him, happy and proud, happy in a way I hadn’t been in such a long time. And then outside Seb looked down at me – he wasn’t so much taller and his eyes were burning into mine, and he took the two ends of my scarf and pulled me gently forward till we could be no nearer. I realised I was pretty drunk now and I was glad to lean into him. He cupped my face in his hands, and then he said my name.
‘Maggie.’ He whispered it like it was a strange, foreign word, staring at me like he wanted to drink me in, and then finally he leaned down and kissed me – and for a moment I felt bewildered. I hadn’t kissed another man since Alex, since I’d fallen so violently in love with Alex – and Seb was so very different: smooth where Alex was scraped and scarred, his smell of aftershave and soap not builder’s dust, his lips not chapped like Alex’s always were. And then I stared at that small scar, and as Seb kissed me again I shook off all thoughts of Alex; I forgot about my ex and melted into this other man.
The freezing air wrapped round us, the streetlight shone on us like we were centre-stage and I forgot the stinking alley we clung together in and the drunken revellers catcalling from the other side of the road. I felt quite giddy with booze and lust and I realised just how badly I wanted this man, how badly I wanted him to take me home and make me forget, to undress me slowly. And I was just wondering whether it was very bad form to demand that he did so immediately when he stopped kissing me for a minute and stepped back.
‘Jesus, Maggie.’ He looked, for the first time since I’d met him, less self-possessed than normal, his breathing slightly ragged, his
dark eyes almost fierce. He pushed his hair back out of his eyes. ‘I don’t know what it is exactly about you, but you do something very odd to me.’
‘Odd?’ I tried to control my own breathing a bit. ‘That sounds a bit scary.’
‘To my head, I mean.’
‘Just to your head?’ I looked up at him from under my lashes and he smiled.
‘No, not just my head. Most definitely not just my head, Maggie. Shall we get out of here?’
And he pulled me against him now and kissed me harder than before, more urgently, and I felt myself spin into the vortex of desire and drink that meant I didn’t care whether nice girls did or didn’t on the first date, I was most definitely about to.
We went back to my flat – it was nearer and it felt like there was no time to waste. Seb had let his driver go earlier so we got a black cab across the river, across London Bridge, kissing all the way back until I felt like a teenager, like I was going to explode into Tom and Jerry stars, and then the cab dropped us among the debris of the wooden crates and cabbage leaves and old coffee cups which was Borough Market on a Monday night, and by now I was desperate to have him near me, in me, his bare flesh against mine. Most of all I was desperate to stop thinking. We slammed up against the door as I fumbled with the keys and we were in the stairwell, tearing at each other’s clothes. Seb pushed me against the wall, unbuttoning my jeans, pushing up my top, and I was shaking with desire now and pulling at his shirt and he was groaning my name and we didn’t make it to the bedroom but did it right there on the velvet sofa, which had been very expensive once but had definitely seen better days.
Afterwards I wrapped myself in the silk throw from the armchair and lit a cigarette, smiling shyly at my new lover. ‘I’m not normally so forward, you know.’
‘It is the twenty-first century, babe. Come here, why don’t you.’ He patted the sofa where he still sprawled, his shirt unbuttoned. He hadn’t even got his trousers off, we’d been so frantic. His body was good, toned and lean, his olive skin so smooth I was tempted to lick it like an ice-cream. But I lay on the other end of the sofa and he lifted my feet and put them in his lap. Suddenly self-conscious, I froze as he traced the livid scar on my left foot with one finger.
‘What’s this from?’ He frowned. ‘It looks new.’
I hid behind the smoke from my cigarette. ‘It is quite. I had a – I was in an accident.’
‘What kind of accident?’
‘A crash. It was a – a coach crash.’
‘Recently?’
‘Yes. Pretty recent.’
He looked at me. ‘Not the M4 one? When the horses got out?’
I nodded bleakly. I still couldn’t bear to talk about it really, not even to someone I’d just had sex with.
Seb leaned down and kissed my foot softly. ‘Poor baby.’
I shivered.
‘Is it still sore?’ He looked worried.
I shrugged. ‘Not the scar, not really. It’s more inside, like deep inside my foot.’ I killed my cigarette in the ashtray. ‘And it’s weird, you know, but I’m sure it hurts more when it rains.’
Seb pulled me towards me until I straddled him, and slid his hands under the silk, cupping my breast, breathing gently on my neck until I squirmed with pleasure.
‘Let me see if I can take your mind off it, shall I?’ He lowered his head and my last sane thought was poor Digby. I must let him in very soon.
In the morning I woke up on the sofa to the smell of fresh coffee and the jolly twittering of breakfast radio. Blinking against the light, I couldn’t think where I was – until Seb appeared in the
kitchen doorway, shirt still unbuttoned, coffee-cup in hand. I stared at him for a second, feeling confounded; as if he wasn’t the person I’d expected to see. As if Alex might step up behind him and come and get his coffee.
‘Morning, beautiful.’
I blushed. ‘Hello.’ I yawned widely, hiding behind my hand. ‘God, what time is it?’
‘About eight. I didn’t want to wake you before – you looked so peaceful.’
Oh Lord. And ridiculous, no doubt – sleep-soaked and tufty-haired and panda-eyed, still wrapped in an old throw.
‘Coffee?’
‘Oh, yes please.’ Considering the level of intimacy we’d achieved last night, I felt absurdly shy. Digby pattered out behind Seb, wagging his tail happily; a welcome distraction. ‘Aha. I see you’ve met.’
‘Yeah, I let him in from the roof terrace. Poor thing, he was very glad to see me.’
‘Oh God, Digby. Sorry, darling.’ The dog jumped up on the sofa and slobbered all over me as Seb handed me a cup of steaming black coffee. I was too shy to ask for milk.
‘Thank you.’
‘I’m really sorry, but I’ve got to get going.’ He was buttoning up his shirt now. ‘I’ve got a meeting about publicity for
Twelfth
Night
on the other side of town at ten, and I really should get changed first.’ Slipping his jacket on, he bent to lace his shoes. ‘Turning up in Armani might get everyone’s backs up, don’t you think?’ Seb grinned that crooked smile at me. ‘Thanks for a great evening.’ He planted a kiss on my neck that made me squirm rather like I had last night. ‘I’ll call you, okay?’
‘Okay.’ This was all going too fast for me and my poor befuddled brain. I was barely awake yet, and feeling quite peculiar – which may or may not have been the hangover. Seb winked at me from the top of the metal stairs I’d always hated, stairs Alex
had designed in a fit of modernism and insisted on; and then he was gone.
With a nasty twinge, I realised I would mind if I never heard from Seb again. I scooped Digby up in my arms, waiting for the door to slam downstairs. I’d mind – but, conversely, I also felt a bit dirty: like I’d just let myself down. I wasn’t ready for this yet; these feelings, this man. I stuck my face in the dog’s soft back. ‘Oh God, Dig. What have I gone and done now?’
A buzz at the intercom was followed by another two short sharp bursts; a voice calling my name urgently. ‘Maggie.’
Perhaps Seb couldn’t bear to leave after all. I pushed up from the sofa and limped over to the intercom, smiling to myself despite my sore foot, always most stiff in the mornings. ‘What have you forgotten, silly?’
‘You’d better come down here. Quickly.’ His tone was insistent enough to make me drag on my jeans and rush down the stairs, Digby barking behind me. I tore open the door to reveal a troubled-looking Seb standing on the pavement. He held a hand out to me. ‘Maggie.’
A man unpacking crates of flaming clementines from a van opposite glanced across and then stopped in his tracks. I turned. Violent red letters defaced the pale green door, the paint running like dried blood towards the floor. I had to step away to read what they spelled; to read the letters that spelled out the words:
MEDDLING WHORE
.
Unconsciously I stepped back in horror, knocking into something by my feet. I glanced down. There, propped against the wall by the front door, made out of hideous white chrysanthemums tightly knit together, was a large wreath. A funeral wreath that said: ‘
DAUGHTER
’.
‘You can drop me here, thanks.’ I took a deep breath and swung down from the cab, squeezing through the gap between a silver Merc and the monstrous maroon Bentley parked outside the imperious Belgravia house. I stopped for a moment, gazing up at the glossy white pillars, the huge black number shiny in the glass above the solid oak door, the sash windows like unblinking eyes amid the russet creeper hanging shaggy as a beard. It was a house that screamed ‘old money’ but was lying; a house every bit as arrogant as its owner. I’d hoped I’d never set foot here again.
Turning the collar of my coat up in search of protection, I shot up the stairs before I lost my nerve. The wrought-iron gargoyle set into the enormous door-knocker sneered down at me.
‘And you can sod off,’ I muttered, before pounding him hard.
An hour ago I’d stood outside my flat staring at those bald words scrawled across my own front door, at that horrible wreath, utterly incongruous before the cosy cake-shop where iced confections in the luminous window proclaimed ‘
Happy
Birthday
’ and ‘
Congratulations
’; the shop Alex had once commissioned to make me a ‘
Can’t Get Enough of You
’ cake on a weekend where we didn’t get out of bed. I had stared and stared at the wreath until Seb had taken my hand very gently, and slipped his arm around me.
‘All right?’ He kissed the top of my head.
‘Been better actually, you know.’ I was shivering with cold and distress, aware that we were attracting attention in the street now. The van driver’s eyes were practically popping out of his head as he dropped a crate; the clementines rolled like small missiles into the road, nearly bringing down an old lady who was trundling past.
‘Shame.’ She shook her head sadly at the wreath, and trundled on.
‘Let’s go inside, shall we?’ Gently Seb propelled me towards the doorway. ‘It’s freezing out here. You can call the police upstairs.’
I shook my head vehemently. ‘No police. Not yet.’
Seb frowned. ‘Why not?’
‘Just because. It’s nothing, I’m sure.’ I started up the stairs, my mind ticking over furiously. ‘What are they going to do about it anyway?’
‘Er – find out who did it?’
‘It’s just some random nutter, Seb.’
‘Oh really? Doesn’t look particularly random to me. And what do you mean “not yet”?’ He looked at me closely. ‘You know who did this, don’t you?’
‘No.’ I flopped onto a kitchen chair, my voice tight and strained. Digby placed his front paws on my knee and stared up at me beseechingly. ‘I really hope not anyway.’
Seb switched the kettle on. ‘So who
might
it be?’
Shakily I stroked Digby’s head. ‘Fine guard-dog you are, mate.’
‘Maggie,’ Seb’s voice was urgent, ‘whoever it is, and you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to – well, it isn’t good, is it?’
‘No, obviously. But I don’t know who did it.’ Like a monstrous worm a horrible thought was inching into my consciousness. ‘I wish I did.’
‘So call the police then. Otherwise I will.’
The police. Other than a brief statement after the crash, I hadn’t encountered the police since – since the summer. My lost summer. My stomach heaved; I stood up quickly. ‘Sorry. Excuse me –’
In the bathroom I stood queasily over the basin until I felt a little better. My reflection showed a ghostly white face, my freckles livid against my pallor, my eyes round and glassy blue with fear.
‘Maggie?’ Seb was outside the door.
‘I’m fine, really.’ But my voice came out a whisper. I felt hunted.
‘Maggie, please, let me in. I’m worried about you.’
I smoothed my maddened hair down as if it would soothe my nerves, and sprayed some perfume on. My hands were still shaking; it was a bit like having the DTs. The summer flashed through my head again. Oh God. I plucked open the bathroom door and tried to smile at Seb.
‘Great first date, eh? At least someone’s warned you what I’m
really
like.’
‘Don’t be silly.’ Seb pulled me towards him and hugged me. ‘It’s obviously bollocks. I don’t believe a word of it.’
I tried to concentrate. ‘You don’t believe either of them, you mean,’ I joked, but my mind was racing now; things slotting together neatly like cards in a dealer’s pack.
‘What?’
I couldn’t say them. ‘Either of
those
two words.’
Seb played along gallantly. ‘No, I don’t believe
either
of them. And you know, perhaps –’ he held me away from him for a second and searched my face with something like hope, ‘perhaps they’ve got the wrong house?’
I thought of the lilies, the car outside Bel’s party, the text last night.
Hardly the Virgin Mary
.
‘Maybe,’ I said brightly. ‘Maybe they have.’
* * *
At Malcolm’s house I had apparently arrived at the most inopportune moment – in the middle of a family brunch. Most peculiar for a Tuesday morning in November, and definitely most unorthodox for this dysfunctional family.
The housekeeper, one of Malcolm’s many ostentations, a flat-faced Filipino woman who always looked terrified, led me into what Barbara termed the drawing room. (Malcolm’s wife Barbara, Alex’s mother, was the only class in this marriage.)
There was no Alex, but the rest of the family were huddled around a groaning drinks-table at the far end of the showy room, all thick pile carpet and polished dark furniture, expensive dull paintings of stags in the glen and stony-faced women in pink crinolines clutching hairy lapdogs. Were we meant to think they were Malcolm’s ancestry, I’d always wondered, because they sure as hell weren’t. I lingered in the corner, trying to fade into the frightfully tasteful William Morris wallpaper, until Malcolm greeted me as if he’d actually been expecting me. In fact, I could have sworn he looked almost excited as he kissed me heartily on both cheeks.
Behind Malcolm was the silver-framed photo of Alex as a lanky boy, proudly holding a cricket bat, his hair on end as usual, his white jumper much too big, his younger brother Tom grinning behind him, both missing a few teeth – the photo we’d had framed for Barbara’s sixtieth. I winced at the memory of the night that was slowly seeping back into my consciousness – the night it all went wrong.
I spotted Serena draped around a rather flushed Tom, and with a sinking heart I recognised the gleam in Malcolm’s eye. He was obviously anticipating a scrap.
‘Drink, Maggie?’ Malcolm held up a jug of Bucks Fizz, beady eyes glinting.
‘Don’t mind if I do, thanks,’ I said pleasantly. My adrenaline levels were already so high I was practically flying. ‘So, this is a first, isn’t it?’ I accepted a glass. ‘Brunch. What’s the occasion?’
‘Oh, you know, old girl.’ He clinked my glass with his, his East-End drawl as gravelly as ever. ‘My merger with Stebsons, Barbara getting out of hospital, of course.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know. Is she all right?’ I turned to smile at his wife, a smile she returned warmly. Poor mild-mannered woman, I’d always thought, married to the crude Malcolm. Squashed by him.
‘She’s fine, love, just fine.’ He considered me mildly over his drink as Alex came through the door, looking as shambolic as ever despite a shirt and tie. A badly tied tie. ‘Oh, and of course we’re toasting Alexander. Off to Glasgow –
and
engaged.’ Malcolm clapped his son on the shoulder. ‘Just need a baby now, Alexander, eh? Complete the trio.’
I choked on my Bucks Fizz.
‘Piss off, Pa,’ Alex said tiredly. He didn’t look like someone celebrating anything. He looked exhausted and lifeless. ‘Do you need a bang on the back, Maggie?’
I shook my head vehemently.
‘I’m not being rude – but what are you doing here?’ Alex loosened his tie as I recovered myself.
‘You weren’t answering your phone so I rang your office.’ I couldn’t look at him. ‘They said you were here.’
Serena swiftly uncoiled herself from Tom, who was looking rather dazed, his poor girlfriend Clarissa utterly terrified and as horsey as ever in the corner by the canapés. Serena wafted across the room to drape herself round the other brother now, her dress frighteningly low-cut for this time of day, the powder-pink of her silk bra just peeping through the sheer fabric. She raised one curved eyebrow at me.
‘Maxine.’
‘Maggie, actually,’ I said pleasantly. Her ring finger was still bare. I tore my eyes away. ‘Hi there, Selina.’
Alex grinned. Then he saw my face and stopped.
‘I need to talk to you, Alex.’ I drained my glass.
‘We’re kind of busy right now, aren’t we, Allie darling?’ Serena said, inspecting her perfect manicure.
‘Yes, well,’ I put my glass on the polished sideboard where it left a wet ring, ‘sorry about that. I just need a quick word with Allie darling,’ I smiled amiably at her, ‘about why he keeps ringing me.’
Serena shot me a look that could have felled me on a different day.
‘Oh dear. I am sorry,’ said Malcolm, looking absolutely anything but. ‘You been a naughty boy again, Alexander?’
Alex chewed his thumbnail, showing no vestige of emotion. His father brandished the jug again, his bushy brows practically dancing with delight. ‘Top-up anyone?’
Barbara joined us now, clad in beige Jaeger, her limp fair hair only accentuating her washed-out appearance, her opulent tones a direct contrast to her husband’s.
‘Hello there, Maggie. Lovely to see you. Are you well?’ She adjusted her large, owl-like glasses. ‘Serena, do come and see the piccies of the house in Provence. They’ve come out so well. I’m really pleased.’ She linked her arm expertly through the girl’s silk-clad one and guided her away, Serena’s skinny back bristling, unable to resist Barbara’s charm.
Alex swigged his drink and raised an eyebrow at me. ‘So?’
‘Nice glass of vodka?’ I asked sweetly. I knew his tricks.
‘Water, actually,’ he said shortly. ‘Let’s go next door.’
‘I don’t believe you, Alex.’ I paced the room in front of him, pacing until I thought I’d wear a hole in the marble floor. I couldn’t stop, couldn’t stand still. Round and round the conservatory I went, like a panther I’d once seen in a zoo: maddened by my enforced entrapment. ‘This is a complete waste of time. Just admit it.’
‘You said it.’ Alex’s fists were clenched in two tight balls of restrained emotion. I stopped for a second and stared at him.
‘You’re lying, I know you are.’
‘For fuck’s sake, Maggie.’ He met my eye, standing upright for once, not slouched as he usually was. ‘I can’t believe you’d think I could stoop so low.’
I laughed – but there was less mirth in this room than in a morgue. ‘I’ve seen you lower, Alex, remember?’
His eyes flared with something unfathomable. ‘That’s not fair, Maggie,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ve been a bit fucked-up maybe – but nothing like this.’
He turned away, leaning his head against the glass, and stared out at the dying garden. The rigid borders of flowers were a little pathetic, just a few Michaelmas daisies and rows of fat-headed chrysanthemums whose number had recently been culled, judging by the bare stalks.
‘Yes, well, life’s not fair, Alex, is it? You spent a lot of time telling me that, I seem to remember.’ I watched a scrawny pigeon attacking the empty husks beneath the bird-feeder in desperation, pecking frantically like they were live things. ‘If it’s not you, who
is
it?’ I felt increasingly desperate, and I tried to push the panic down. ‘Someone’s got it in for me – and I can’t think of anyone apart from you.’
Although that wasn’t entirely true any more. Suspicion seemed to suddenly fit everyone I knew like a snug glove. Perhaps
everybody
hated me. Scrabbling in my bag for my fags, I looked out at the garden again – at those chrysanthemums.
By the time I had tracked down Alex at Malcolm’s house, my pendulum had swung between fear and fury infinite times, and being here now was only compounding my confusion. It felt utterly odd, to get straight out of bed with Seb to find myself threatened so unpleasantly, immediately into this bizarre confrontation with my ex. I stared at Alex and he stared back, his face a mask of indifference.
‘What do you want me to say? I can’t admit to something I didn’t do.’ There was a small arrow-shaped bruise on his forearm. He was always in the wars, Alex; usually alcohol-invoked. ‘It’s
probably some nutter that saw you on TV. You shouldn’t smoke, you know, Maggie.’ He turned away again, biting his nail fervently.
‘Yes, well, needs must.’ I lit a cigarette defiantly, the smoke curling between banana plants and sweet-smelling jasmine towards the glass ceiling. It was warm in here, humid even, but the sky above was dead, utterly devoid of any kind of colour.
I stared at the smoke, at Alex’s long, broad back, and realised I simply didn’t know whether to believe him. He’d always had a strained relationship with the truth, and ultimately I’d stopped trusting him some time ago. He’d told one too many stories, and so now…
Piano music drifted suddenly into the room; a familiar haunting melody whose notes wrapped themselves around me and squeezed painfully. Mendelssohn’s
Song Without Words
. I felt a huge wave of sadness engulf me, infinite misery that this was our reality; that the sum total of my relationship with Alex was being here, now, snarled up in this mess.
‘Turn it off, Alex, please,’ I whispered.
‘What’s wrong with it?’ He turned from the window.
‘For God’s sake.’ I sat clumsily on a bamboo chair. ‘Do you really not remember?’ It felt like someone had just poured concrete into my veins. ‘Did nothing we ever did together, Alex, did
nothing
ever really matter to you?’
‘Of course it bloody did. But why should I remember it?’ He looked unworried still. ‘You know I’m crap with music.’
I thought miserably of Santana and the Kaiser Chiefs and Led Zeppelin, of all the lost iPods that I’d given him as presents that he then left in taxis and buses (‘I’ll get another one, Mag, and I’ll get you one too this time,’ he’d cajole, and he’d tickle my feet, and I’d sigh and forgive him yet again). I remembered the new stereo we’d bought that he’d kicked to bits one night when he was hideously drunk, during a row about Iraq. Ostensibly about
Iraq, anyway. Always believed in things a little too fervently, Alex; always took things too personally when drunk.