Golden Hour (31 page)

“No, I didn't. I said someone I could love more.”

“Same difference.”

“No, it's not, Jo. The difference is, I already love Andrew.”

“So why was he crying?”

Suddenly Maggie wants to end this. Whatever Jo says from now on is only going to make her feel a whole lot worse. Which she's going to feel anyway.

“Let's just leave it for now, okay? I'm a bit gob-smacked, if you want to know. Anyway, I've got to the car.”

“Please, Mags. You've got to believe me. It was nothing.”

“Right. It was nothing. I'll call you.”

She ends the call and gets into her car.

The traffic moves slowly up Station Street, and at the right
turn onto West Street there's a long hold up, which means cars are backed up all the way from the roundabout on the bypass. She turns on the radio and listens to the six o'clock news. Nick Griffin has been banned from a palace garden party. His deputy Andrew Bron attended, but spoke to no one except his daughter Emma. Maggie listens as she idles in traffic but hears nothing. For the moment she has stopped thinking. Jo's revelation has paralyzed her.

It turns out there's been an accident on the A27 and the road is down to one lane. Maggie switches to Classic FM and gets most of the slow movement of Bruch's Violin Concerto. The plaintive strains of the violin make her feel that everything's slipping away from her, far away, into a past that contains all happiness, and is now out of reach.

The crawl of traffic releases her at last onto the Edenfield turning, and down the narrow lane to her rented refuge. All is as she left it, the familiar little rooms welcoming her back. The message light is flashing on the phone. For a moment she thinks it must be Andrew, but he never calls her on her land line. She plays the message. It's Laura Broad, reminding her about dinner on Saturday night.

“Just checking that you've remembered, and that there's nothing you and Andrew don't eat.”

Is that a good enough pretext to call Andrew? Hi, Andrew, it's Maggie. Laura Broad wants to know if there's anything you don't eat. I want to know if there's anyone you don't fuck.

That's when she discovers how angry she feels. But she's not even sure she's allowed to be angry. That's what's so shit about all this. It's her own fault.

Piss or get off the pot.

How could Jo do this? She's supposed to be my friend, for God's sake. You just don't do it. Even if me and Andrew had
decided to break up, you don't do it. You wait till everyone's moved on, and that takes months. There should be an official mourning period for relationships, like the Victorians had for bereavements. A year wearing only black and not going out to parties and quite definitely not fucking other people, most of all your friends. Then it's over and you can start again.

How long has Jo had her sticky little paws out for Andrew? Didn't take her long to make her move. Like all of twenty-four hours. So she's lonely and desperate but she's
supposed to be my friend
and you don't do that. It's wrong. End of story.

And just what did Andrew think he was doing? No wonder he hasn't called. One minute he's going to live with me, the next minute he's going to bed with Jo.

There's no way she can go through the Conservation Area appraisal material. She dumps the papers on her work table, turns on the television to make a noise, and gets herself a vodka and orange. Long on the vodka. They got pissed, now it's my turn. The TV is tuned to More 4 because the last time she watched it was to catch a repeat of
Grand Designs
. Now it's
Deal or No Deal
, which is perfect for her current mood because it's so completely lacking in anything that requires her attention.

She drifts about the kitchen drinking her vodka and orange, wondering what to make herself for supper, not thinking about Andrew. She goes into the bathroom to have a pee and there's Andrew's wash things on the shelf by the basin, and it's like a smack in the face.

Don't leave me.

This is ridiculous. He wants to move in and I'm all give-me-space. He has a fling with Jo and I'm never-leave-me. It's worse than ridiculous, it's shameful.

She makes herself remember how much he irritated her at the fête. How relieved she was when she waved him off on the
train back to London. But while she remembers each moment perfectly, the feelings seem to have changed. It's as if someone has sneaked into her memories and repainted all the colors. She can see him by her side at the fête, laying his bet on one of the runners in the sheep race, and all she can think is how sweet it was of him to play along with the nonsensical pretense of competition. Then there's the way he told her about his unexpected inheritance, saying it was to be “a nice surprise.” It strikes her now how loving and generous that was. And when she said she wanted to be on her own, he didn't sulk or make her feel guilty. He just went.

Nice Andrew, Jo calls him. Nice to Jo too, it turns out. Maggie is bewildered by the power of this one item of information to alter all her perceptions. It turns out that Andrew is not nice after all. Nice men do not fuck their girlfriend's best friend.

So why do I feel betrayed by Jo, but not by Andrew?

Because I've been treating him badly. Because I've been keeping him on a string while I decide if I want him or not. But I never said I didn't want him. I just wanted to be sure.

Deal or No Deal
gives way to yet another repeat of
Grand Designs
. She watches the entire program, drinking more vodka and orange. She still hasn't decided what she wants to eat. The truth is she's not hungry. The house in the program is in Devon and is being built with a traditional oak frame. As always, Maggie is gripped by the drama of creating a home, even though every beat of the story has been laid down in advance. It begins with the bright-eyed dream, which is presented to the viewers in the form of an animated diagram. Then come problems with materials and weather. Then the money runs out. Then at last the happy ending, when Kevin McCloud visits the completed home, and there are flowers on the tables. The property equivalent of the romantic love story.

Maggie rises from the sofa at last, thinking she might make herself a little scrambled egg, and finds that the vodka has affected her balance. She sits down again. She picks up the remote, switches off the television, puts the remote down on the shelf by the phone. This dislodges a memory. Someone rang. Who was that?

She plays the phone message again. Laura Broad thinks she and Andrew are still a couple, and still coming to dinner on Saturday. She must be put in the picture.

Maggie dials slowly, working out what to say. Laura answers the phone herself.

“Laura, I just got your message. About Saturday. I'm really sorry, but it looks like we won't be able to make it.”

To her surprise, Laura puts up some resistance.

“Are you sure? I was so looking forward to talking to Andrew about his first editions. Could you maybe come for just a drink?”

“No, well, it's not so simple.” Maggie can feel the vodka eroding her social inhibitions. “The fact is, Andrew and I are going through a bit of a crisis just now.”

Why am I saying this? Laura Broad doesn't need to know.

“Oh, that's different,” says Laura. “You're let off. There's nothing worse than having to put on a happy face in public.”

She says this in such a friendly sympathetic voice that Maggie is caught unawares. She realizes all at once how desperate she is for someone to talk to.

“It's not so easy even in private,” she says.

Then to her horror she bursts into tears.

“Sorry,” she says, snuffling down the phone. “I'm fine, really. Sorry.”

She hangs up quickly, before she makes an even bigger fool of herself. What on earth will Laura think?

That I'm unhappy. And it's true.

Dazed with vodka and emotion, Maggie sets about making herself scrambled eggs on toast, even though she doesn't want it. It's a matter of self-respect. She's appalled at her collapse. She refuses to sit on the sofa and cry. Life must go on.

The doorbell rings. At half-past eight in the evening?

“Who is it?” she calls through the door.

“Laura.”

And there she is, in the last light of the day, looking so warm and lovely that Maggie wants to hug her.

“Solidarity,” says Laura. “You sounded like you needed company.”

“Oh, Laura. I'm so embarrassed. I'm fine, really.”

“You don't have to be embarrassed, I'm probably old enough to be your mother. God, that is depressing.”

Maggie laughs. “You'd better come in,” she says.

The truth is she does want company. She does want to talk to somebody. And Laura Broad, who she talked to for a whole train journey, who's old enough to be her mother, is the somebody on offer.

“Can I get you something? Tea? Vodka?”

“No,” says Laura. “Nothing at all. I never want to eat or drink again. We've been in London and had a huge tea, then Henry insisted he had to have supper. I've left him clearing up. He doesn't even know I've gone. He'll ring in ten minutes, you'll see, all grumpy, demanding to know where I am.”

“So we've got ten minutes.”

“We've got as long as we want.”

Somehow Laura makes it easy for Maggie to talk. Maybe not knowing her helps. Like talking in the dark.

“It's all my own fault,” she says. “You won't be at all sympathetic when you hear.”

So she tells Laura about how nice Andrew is, and how they
planned for him to move in with her, and how she panicked. She tells about the betrayal by her best friend. She tells how she's been crying without really knowing why, or what it is she wants.

“So when this happened with the best friend,” says Laura, “did that make you want Andrew more?”

“Yes,” says Maggie. “Isn't that pathetic? Like a child who doesn't want a toy until another child starts playing with it.”

“It's exactly like that,” says Laura, “but that doesn't make it wrong. Children aren't stupid.”

“But that's not love! You can't have a love affair that only works if the other person's always off cheating on you.”

“No, you can't.”

“You have to love someone for who they are. In themselves. And you have to love them enough.”

“How much is enough?” says Laura.

“That's what I don't know.” Maggie gazes at her in comic dismay. “That's what I can't work out. When do you say, This is it? And when do you say, No, not yet. I'm holding out for more?”

“You know what this is?” says Laura. “This is
Deal or No Deal
.”

Maggie bursts into laughter.

“Well, it is, isn't it?” says Laura. “Either you take the deal on offer, or you hold out for something better. Which may turn out to be something worse.”

“That is so it,” says Maggie. “Oh my God! I'm getting my love life from Noel Edmonds!”

“We all do it,” says Laura. “You're not alone.”

“Yes, I am,” says Maggie. “Other people fall in love. They're crazy about the guy. They know this is the one.”

“How do you think they know that?”

“I don't know. They get lucky. They meet the right man.”

“Do you buy that?” says Laura. “Do you really?”

“You met the right man.”

“Maybe I did. But I didn't know it at the time. I wasn't at all sure I was going to marry him. I thought about it a lot. In the end I said yes because I'd got to a point when I wanted to be married, and he wanted to marry me.”

“You weren't in love?”

“I'd been in love, years before. I had a boyfriend I was crazy about. I would have done anything for him. But he wasn't right for me at all. He was rubbish. I was plain wrong about him. I know that now. And actually Henry, who was never that special, turns out to be the person I love most in all the world.”

“Oh, boy,” says Maggie. “Now I'm all confused.”

“You know what I think's bothering you,” says Laura. “You think there's this huge decision in front of you, and it's all down to you. You think whatever you do there's a fifty percent chance you'll screw up the rest of your life.”

“Yes, that's just what I think.”

“Well, maybe it's not true. Maybe your life doesn't go the way it goes because of all the decisions you make. There's a whole world all round you that's doing its own thing, and we're all being shoved and pushed about whether we like it or not. Maybe we're leaves blown in the wind. We go where we're sent.”

“Leaves blown in the wind?”

“You can fight it or you can go with it.”

Maggie thinks about being a leaf blown in the wind.

“I don't think I can be that fatalistic,” she says. “I'm not saying I wouldn't like to be a leaf blown in the wind. But it's going to have to be one hell of a wind.”

Laura's phone rings.

“Yes, Henry,” she says. “No, Henry. I've run away with a sailor.”

“We're done,” says Maggie, whispering. “I'm okay now.”

“Okay,” says Laura to the phone. “Give me five minutes.”

She gets up out of the sofa with a sigh.

“He didn't believe me about the sailor.”

“Thanks so much for coming round.”

“I've been no use at all.”

“Actually, you've been wonderful.”

And she has. It's not the advice, it's just hearing her own anxieties put into words that someone else hears too. Somehow it makes them seem more bearable.

“Do what you like about Saturday,” says Laura on the doorstep. “I'm doing a saddle of lamb. There's enough for one of you, or both of you, if you want it.”

After she's gone, Maggie returns to the kitchen. Her unmade scrambled eggs are still in the pan. She lights the gas and puts a slice of bread in the toaster. As she stirs the eggs she thinks, I'd better ring Andrew. It doesn't seem like such a terrifying prospect any more. They need to talk.