River Deep (17 page)

Louise led the conversation with an edge of mild terror, and Maggie felt for her. If Christian found out about this, the derision, not to mention the recriminations, would be endless, like when Maggie had once ordered thirty-two boxes of pak choi cabbage instead of king prawns. She’d never lived that down.

Louise fidgeted. ‘Normally, I can’t go thirty minutes without my caffeine fix!’ she giggled.

Maggie noticed her smooth skirt first and then her hair, before adjusting the neck of her shirt. After she had performed these ritualistic movements she experienced a moment’s stillness before going through the whole thing again.

‘So where have you come from then?’ Maggie asked her. Christian had said, but she’d not been that interested at the time. Some small place in Oxfordshire, wasn’t it?

‘Cheltenham. I was working at an events management company out there. When I came for this interview, to be honest I didn’t think I stood a chance! I had all the wrong kinds of experience. But, well, Christian and I just clicked.’ Louise giggled again. ‘In more ways than one!’

Maggie giggled back, quietly alarmed at how easy it was for her to separate her mixed emotions into two piles, one labelled ‘violent angst for later’ and the other ‘cool and calculating for now’.

‘Oh, so your boss is your boyfriend!’ Maggie laughed, grinding her teeth. ‘Smart move!’

Louise dipped her chin before looking out of the window.

‘Well, yeah. I don’t know if it was such a smart move,’ she said uncertainly. ‘But Christian’s just so … he’s got this really forceful personality, you know?’

Maggie nodded vigorously. ‘Yes, I know!’ she said with vehement conviction. Louise looked confused. ‘The type, I mean. I know the type,’ Maggie amended quickly. ‘My ex was
exactly
the same.’

‘And, well,’ Louise continued, ‘he made all the moves. He came on to me, really strong and determined. And I have to tell you coming from him it was kind of sexy.’

She sipped her coke thoughtfully and offered it to Maggie.

‘It was messy, though. After we’d been together for a couple of months I found out he had a girlfriend through one of our suppliers. He’d been with her for years. I wouldn’t normally touch a more or less married man in a million years, but I was hooked by then. We had a huge row, but it just seemed impossible to walk away. From Christian, from my job. If it all fell through now I’d have nowhere to go back to. Well, I would, but it’d feel like failing. I feel bad about it, though, I really do.’

Maggie stifled the laugh of bitter recrimination that had blossomed on her tongue and managed instead to utter an all-purpose ‘Mmm?’

‘But in the end, he actually left her for me! Which is amazing, isn’t it? It’s never supposed to end like that for us other women.’

Louise’s smile did seem genuinely surprised and delighted. Maggie struggled hard to hate her.

‘Why should you be surprised? I mean, look at you. You’re beautiful. I shouldn’t imagine that many women could compete with that!’ Maggie said, taking a deliberate gulp of the warm drink and feeling the bubbles burst at the back of her throat.

‘Oh thank you, but I always wish I was more like … you. You know, all elegant and smooth instead of all these lumps and bumps. And to think some women pay thousand of pounds for the hassle of carrying these things around!’ Louise patted her chest lightly. ‘Anyhow, I’d be happy as a pig on clover, but …’ she paused and lowered her voice … ‘I shouldn’t really tell you this, I mean, you’re a prospective client and everything but, well, as we’re locked in an office …’

Maggie leaned a little closer to her, mirroring her gestures.

‘You can tell me, I won’t tell a soul,’ she whispered before sitting back in her chair. After all, if no one could hear them shouting for help, Louise could shout the details of her stolen personal life from the rooftops and no one would notice.

‘Well, the thing is, this ex, Maggie her name was. He still talks about her all the time.’

Maggie sat up suddenly in her chair. ‘He does?’ she said, sounding far too interested. ‘I mean, does he?’

‘Yeah. I mean, I know that she was really involved in the planning of the new office until she decided to pack it in, but it’s not just even work stuff. If we see a film he’s already seen with her, he’ll say something like, “Oh, I remember the time Maggie and I blah blah blah.” Or if I suggest a place to go on holiday, it’ll be “Oh no, I’ve been there before with Maggie”, or “Maggie used to say …” Maybe not as blunt as that, but he obviously still thinks about her a lot and admires her. I feel sort of like a poor relation, you know? I’m sure I can never live up to this woman.’ Louise gulped back the rest of the coke. ‘In actual fact I feel like I’m living on borrowed time …’

Maggie curtailed her triumphant grin as she realized that Louise’s eyes were filled with tears. Instinctively she squeezed her hand.

‘I mean, the thing is, Carmen, I really love him, I really do. I don’t know what I’ll do if he leaves me. What would you do?’

Maggie froze for what seemed like an eternity, and for a moment felt the powers of the gods surging through her. Here, at last, she had a chance to shape her own destiny! Or she could just do the decent thing and um and ah and say, ‘Oh, I don’t really know, Louise.’ She looked at Louise’s open face. The problem was that she was much, much nicer than Maggie had expected. She was open and sort of innocent, with average insecurities and worries. Maggie understood what it was like to love Christian so much that you woke up every day with your heart in your mouth afraid that it had all been a dream. She had first-hand experience of how it felt to find out that it was all over. Furthermore, Louise was obviously intimidated by her vision of the distant ex, and that flattered Maggie, which made her warm to Louise just a little bit more. In a different time or place they could probably have been quite good friends.

But when it came down to it, Maggie needed Christian back. She needed him in her life to make the world keep turning, the sun keep rising, her heart keep beating. For the past couple of weeks she’d done a decent job of keeping going, she knew that. But none of it meant anything without Christian there beside her, without him there in her vision of the future. He was essential to her experience, and Louise, however nice she had turned out to be, was not.

‘If I were you I’d force a confrontation,’ Maggie said lightly. ‘Let him see how jealous you are of this other woman and then maybe he’ll see how much he’s hurting you and change. You should just demand that he cuts himself off from the past entirely.’ Maggie smiled sincerely. ‘Put your foot down now or else he’ll never change,’ she finished, knowing how much Christian hated women putting their foot down.

Louise considered the proposition seriously.

‘You’re right, Carmen,’ she said. ‘I definitely will. God it’s been good to talk to a girl again, it really has!’

Suddenly there was a thunderous knocking on the door, making both women jump.

‘Oh, at last, the cavalry!’ Louise giggled. ‘
We’re stuck
,’ she shouted.

‘Right-oh.’ The handle shaft reappeared in the door and a second later the door was open. ‘Must be the cowboy builders,’ the builder said with a wink. ‘I’ll sort it out for you now.’

Louise smiled at him gratefully and followed Maggie out of the office. ‘I don’t suppose you’ll still want that quote, will you?’

Maggie shrugged. Might as well. ‘Oh yes, I’d still be interested,’ she said.

Louise paused at the doorway and looked suddenly shy. ‘Look, I don’t know if you’re going to use Fresh Talent or not, but could we swap numbers, maybe meet up again for a girly drink? We sort of hit it off, don’t you think? I’d love it if we could.’

Maggie imagined herself standing on a forked path where each turning led to a different type of rocky ruin.

‘OK,’ she said finally. ‘Why ever not?’

On his second Friday morning as a tutor, Pete noticed that at last his latest hangover from one of Falcon’s ‘quick bevvies’ seemed to have gone. As he dressed for college, perusing his five tops for a few moments before picking the one that was in least need of a wash, he had to admit he was relieved another week as a tutor was over. Although he knew that in two days’ time he’d have to go through the whole excruciating rigmarole again, for some reason the very fact that this was Friday made him feel like he’d just been handed a reprieve from the death sentence. ‘Imagine how I’d feel,’ he thought, ‘if I didn’t have to go and teach the fuckers at all.’

Pete bundled his dirty laundry under one arm and carried it down to the kitchen with him, hopeful that Angie would lend him some washing powder. If he was really honest about the whole teaching debacle, he was disappointed in himself. He’d imagined enthusing a bunch of bright young things, imparting his knowledge to them in the time-honoured tradition. Like Yoda to Luke Skywalker. He’d imagined them thanking him effusively for giving them the skill and insight they really needed to succeed, maybe mentioning him in an Oscar’s speech or something.

Maybe he hadn’t tried hard enough. Maybe he was taking the whole experience for granted, counting down the days to his interview at Magic Shop which was now only four days away. Today, he decided, he was going to try harder. He was going to get all Robin Williams on their arses and be inspirational. Make them stand on their desks and shout
carpe diem
or something along those lines.

Pete felt his stomach tighten when he imagined this, so he dismissed the thought and instead concentrated on Stella. He still hadn’t heard from her. His seriously flawed plan to impress her with tales of a potential love rival, which had seemed so sane when he was drunk, grew ever more ridiculous as his multiple hangovers gradually receded. Did he think he was in some stupid bloody romantic comedy? The kind that Sandra Bullock was always in, the sort that was all dialogue and no decent effects. Plans like his only worked in the movies, and besides, he wasn’t any good at being devious.

As it turned out, he hadn’t even needed to engineer a meeting with Maggie. He’d bumped into her again on Tuesday, purely coincidentally, in Marks & Spencer. He’d been trying to buy a blouse for his mum’s birthday in his lunch hour (hours, actually – the college job wasn’t all that taxing). He’d cornered an assistant but, for some reason, the more he’d tried to explain what he was after the more she’d turned red and started to sort of, well … tremble.

‘She’s sort of this big.’ Pete gestured vaguely in front of him, wondering if she was having trouble with his accent. ‘And she likes flowery stuff. Stuff with flowers on.’ He waited for the girl to speak. ‘Have you got any flowery stuff?’ he reiterated, but she just stared at him like a rabbit trapped in headlights. He was just about to give up and go and buy some chocolates when Maggie appeared at his shoulder.

‘Hi? Pete?’ She glanced curiously at the tremulous assistant. ‘What
are
you doing?’

Pete sighed with relief. ‘I’m
trying
to buy a blouse for my mum, for her birthday. I thought I’d make a special effort as I won’t be there this year. But I don’t know her size and this young lady seems to be unable to help me.’ Pete caught Maggie repressing a smile. ‘What? Am I being an idiot?’

Maggie shook her head. ‘Only a bit.’

She smiled at the girl, who was edging away, hopeful that she would regain the power of speech when she was out of sight of the most gorgeous bloke she had seen in ages. She just had to tell Maxine, and maybe both of them could have a peak at him through knitwear and casual cotton-mix.

Pete watched her bolt towards a Staff Only exit and cursed himself.

‘She thought I was a flipping trannie, didn’t she?’ he asked Maggie with horror.

Maggie snorted a very unladylike and quite charming laugh.

‘Well, you did look a bit suspicious. What’s she like?’ Maggie asked, thumbing through the racks of clothing. ‘Is she bigger than me, say?’

Pete looked at the top of Maggie’s head.

‘Much,’ he said thinking of his mum’s broad bust and solidly cushioned hips. ‘Like, really much.’

Maggie stopped and smiled up at him, shaking her head.

‘You can’t really guess women’s clothes sizes, Pete. It’s a minefield. If what you give her is too small, she’ll be embarrassed and feel fat, and if what you give is too big, she’ll be mortified that you think she’s that big and feel fat. See what I mean?’

Pete shook his head and then nodded. ‘I don’t think my mum cares either way, but I get your point. I’ll bear it in mind for the future. I’d better buy her some chocolates.’

Maggie laughed at him again, in a friendly sort of way, but he was offended.

‘No, chocolate will melt in the post! Buy her some vouchers. Basically, all a woman ever wants for presents is expensive jewellery and vouchers to her favourite shop. It’s a simple but somehow elusive concept for most men.’

Pete grinned at her.

‘Actually, with Stella it’s just the jewellery.’

And they’d chatted while they stood in the unfeasibly long queue full of old ladies. It must have been pension day. Pete had said something along the lines that this town clearly wasn’t big enough for the both of them as they kept running into each other, and Maggie had said that sometimes this town didn’t feel big enough to swing a cat in. She told Pete that if he stayed here he’d soon find that out. He asked her why she stayed then, and she said because she’d been everywhere else and she wasn’t that fussed. They laughed and chatted and exchanged ‘my mum’s as batty as a fruit cake’ stories. That was until he realised she was holding a five-pack of black thongs in her hands. After that it was she who chatted, while he tried not to look at them. When it was time for them to part, she’d hesitated before saying, ‘Got time for a coffee?’

Pete was unexpectedly pleased at the invitation, and anyway he had another hour before his afternoon lecture, so he’d agreed. Now, as he got ready for work, he smiled at the memory. It had been a laugh, that cup of coffee that had turned into a pint with Maggie. They had talked about Stella and her bloke – Christian, was it? She seemed to know what he was going through, and she’d made him smile and even laugh. Actually, really, really laugh like a demented fool. She was a funny girl, and a nice one. He didn’t think it would be fair to use her to make Stella jealous. At least not now in the sober, more or less reasonable, light of day.