‘Encouraged him? So, if I had – which I haven’t – would that excuse his behaviour? You just don’t want to believe it. He has an obsession with me. Like an addiction.’
Kristo looked at her sceptically. ‘So, what? He stares at you or makes comments —’
‘You have no idea the countless times I’ve looked up and seen him, or his car, nearby. At the supermarket, outside the girls’ school … whenever I had a routine, he made sure that he was there. Watching me. You remember I used to go and have a facial once a month? I turned up one day and they said it had already been paid for – by my brother-in-law. I never went back. He wants me to believe that he’s watching me constantly, so he leaves little clues. He calls me and leaves messages. He wants you to believe he and I are in a relationship.’
She could see Kristo was shaken. ‘So why didn’t you tell me? It makes no sense.’
‘What am I going to say? “I saw Nico in the supermarket. He paid for my facial. He’s following me.” There is no way you would have believed me, and you know it. You would have dismissed it as nothing.’
He stared back at her stubbornly but she knew he was listening now.
‘And if you don’t back me on this, our marriage is on the line. I’m not putting up with it any more. If I have to get a restraining order, I will. Kristo, I’m afraid of him.’
Kristo got up and put his mug in the sink. He stood at the bench and stared out the window silently for a long time. Finally, he said, ‘I believe you.’
‘You do?’ Maggie felt faint with relief. She wanted to burst into tears but held herself in check. There was more work to be done.
He sat down opposite her, his face creased with guilt and remorse. ‘I knew he was hot for you right from the start. I saw the way he looked at you. After we got married, I didn’t really think about it. He had his own girlfriends, then he married Effie. But one Christmas I saw it again. The girls were still little; about a year after Kal died.’ Tears welled in his eyes, as they did whenever Kal’s name was mentioned. ‘I saw him looking you over … and you know what? I thought what a lucky bastard I was, because you were mine. But when you were away, and then he disappeared, and you asked where he was … and I found out you were taking money from the company, I put it all together and I thought you were leaving me for him. It was sending me crazy.’
‘I knew if I told you, you wouldn’t believe me. Or if you did, you’d kill him.’
‘I’ll tell you what else … shit!’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘He wanted me to think that! He left about a week after you did. He deliberately didn’t say where he was going … I would like to kill him. He’s lucky I’m too sick.’ He flopped back in his chair defeatedly.
Maggie smiled and put her hand over his. ‘You’ll be back in the saddle soon, tiger. This is just a setback, not the end of you. I think he sensed we were in trouble and wanted to bring it to a head.’
‘We’re not in trouble. I’m going to sort this out, Mag. I promise. The end of us would be the end of me. I mean it. I don’t want to lose you.’
‘There’s something else. I’ve made some decisions.’
He sighed and folded his arms high on his chest, his mouth a stubborn line. ‘Yeah? I don’t know if I can deal with much more.’
‘I want to sell our share in the company. I want us to get out.’
‘Nah … nope … not happening. Because of Nico? I’ll just tell him. He can’t come in the house. He can’t come anywhere near you. I will deal with him, I promise. You know what? If he doesn’t back off, we will get a restraining order. I’m dead serious about this.’
‘Thank you. You can’t even imagine how relieved I am. But, it’s not that. The business is too big for us now. It’s too stressful. We don’t need to be doing this at this time of our lives. We can sell out our share to the boys —’
‘What if they don’t want to buy it?’
‘They will, but we could also sell our share to another party. We can either retire, or we could start something smaller. You and me, just one project at a time. Like when we started.’
‘And if I don’t agree?’ He looked like a man in front of a firing squad.
‘You don’t have to agree. You can continue as you are … but without me in the business. I’m resigning.’
‘I don’t like ultimatums. You were the one who said they’re bad business practice. Now you’re doing it.’
‘Kristo, I have a job without a salary, or a shareholding. For years I’ve been asking myself how I let that happen. But how did you let that happen? Well, now it’s too late. I don’t want any of those things any more. The company needs to find a new financial controller – and you’ll be paying the best part of a hundred grand a year for one.’
‘Any other demands?’ asked Kristo irritably. ‘Do I have any say at all?’
‘Up until now you’ve had all the say, and you’ve had everyone’s back but mine. I’m not trying to break your balls. I’m trying to even things up.’
‘What about Mum?’ he said sulkily. ‘Does she have to go too?’
Maggie had thought a lot about Yia-yiá over the past few days. She tried to imagine what it must be like to spend almost all your adult life in a country you didn’t really understand. Never being able to properly communicate with anyone outside immediate family and a few friends. Never having access to books, or television, or movies. Maggie realised she didn’t really know Yia-yiá at all. She only knew the knotty, gnarly, spiky bits that were visible on the surface, but that wasn’t all of her. The language barrier would always be there. It wasn’t true to say Yia-yiá never complained, because she loved to complain, but she did cope with a lot. All she truly wanted was to see her sons and grandchildren and feed them and be loved by them. That wasn’t too much to ask.
‘I would like your mother to stay. But there’s two conditions.’
Kristo grimaced, clearly worried about what was coming next.
‘The first is that I’d like to invite Theía Agnes to come and live with us here too. She can sell her house, pay the bank and whatever she ends up with is a nest egg. We’ll look after her. She’s your mother’s only friend in the world and they should enjoy their last years together.’
Kristo smiled with relief. ‘Sure, easy. We can set the other bedroom up for her. Mum will love that. Wait. What’s the other condition?’
‘Don’t let your mother badmouth me. You’ve encouraged her by ignoring it. If she says something about me, even if it’s in Greek and I can’t understand it, I want you to step up. If you hear her criticising me to Theía Agnes, tell her it’s not on. It’s not fair.’
Kristo did not like to tell his mother off. It didn’t feel right to him and he’d do anything to avoid it. He tried pushing back. ‘It feels like this is a dictatorship, and you’re taking control. Your feminist friends put all these ideas in your head. I have to do what you say or you’re going to bugger off.’
‘Do you really think respect is a feminist idea? Come on. I’ve had your back all these years, I want you to have mine now.’ Maggie reached across the table and took his hand. ‘Kris, when I was away, I nearly drowned. If my friends hadn’t saved me, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion. You’d be making one hundred per cent of the decisions around here. I’m coming back from that and I have nothing to lose. When I left, I was completely miserable and I couldn’t see a way out. Now I do. And things will be better for both of us.’
Kristo was silent for a while. ‘Yeah, I get it. We’ve both had a scare. I guess there is something in that. A message of some sort.’
Maggie got up and went around the table to him. He pushed his chair back and she sat on his lap and cradled his face in her hands. ‘We’re going to be grandparents. Let’s enjoy it, together, the way we never had time to enjoy the girls. Take some time for ourselves. And each other.’
Maggie kissed him tenderly, and as his arms encircled her, she felt that same softening that she had experienced all those years ago.
Chapter Twenty-one
It was only when she was settled on the train from Stansted that Fran began to look forward to getting home. It was a classic English summer’s day, and she pictured her flat awash with sunshine. Gigi would be pleased to see her and, hopefully, Louis would be there to welcome her as promised.
She opened her front door to be met by Gigi squalling, frantic with hunger. The anticipated sunshine had arrived to reveal a month’s worth of dust, and many of her plants were half dead from neglect or overwatering. There was no sign of the man himself but evidence of his occupation everywhere: the grubby sheets of the unmade bed, the clothes scattered on the floor and the sink full of dishes. Her fragile good spirits evaporated and she burst into tears.
Fran picked up Gigi and carried her to the kitchen, apologising for all she had suffered. The indignity of starvation. As suspected, all the cat food had gone, and there was nothing to eat for either of them. It broke her heart to leave the distraught cat behind and rush down to the supermarket.
On her return, she felt calmer and more in control as she watched Gigi ravenously attack a bowl of food. She made some tea, the first in her pretty handpainted mug bought at a gallery in Corfu. It seemed impossible that that faraway world of the trip was only hours earlier, now the new reality was taking over. She sat on the sofa and wondered what to do with herself. It felt as though the earth had shifted, or at least her sense of what her life could be and what it was now. She had thought she would come back with answers, but she hadn’t.
Gigi jumped up and stretched out on the arm of the sofa. She gave Fran a disdainful glance and sharpened her claws on the velour, knowing she wouldn’t be scolded. Fran thought about whether the crimes of plant and cat neglect were sufficient to end a relationship. She couldn’t assess that until she knew if Louis was still around, and suddenly realised that this uncertainty was one of the things that made her continue to cling to the relationship.
The front door flew open, announcing Louis’s arrival. He seemed genuinely shocked to see her, implying that the itinerary was incorrect. As evidence, he showed her the carrier bags in his possession that contained tins of cat food, wine and snacks. He was preparing for her arrival. Normally, she let his typically defensive responses slip by, not wanting to expose his blustering excuses.
‘I didn’t change my flight. The itinerary is correct,’ she said coolly.
‘Let’s not worry about that. You’re here now. That’s what counts. Gimme a hug. Let’s be friends. I missed you, kittycat.’ He sat down beside her on the sofa, pulled her to him and puckered up for a kiss.
She pulled away and had a proper look at him. ‘You look like you’ve been on your own holiday. You didn’t get that tan here.’
‘Just a quick trip to Spain to have a look around. Check out the lay of the land. You know how it is.’
Fran extricated herself from his embrace. She went into the kitchen for a jug of water, a damp cloth and a moment to compose herself. She was almost certain the outcome of this conversation would be that she was sleeping alone tonight, and every night thereafter. She began to work her way around the flat, attending to each plant and wiping down the surfaces. ‘And what did you discover?’
‘It’s hot. Really bloody hot. The food is a bit … spicy. Loads of people can’t speak English.’
Fran had the sense that, even though these were the sorts of things Louis might object to, he was avoiding the real issue. ‘But Barbara likes it there, does she?’
He couldn’t hide his indignation then. ‘You bet. She’s shagging some hairy ex-footballer. Day and night they were at it. Could hardly leave each other alone. Didn’t know where to look, did I.’
Fran smiled. ‘So, she’s found a Spanish lover …’
‘Spanish? He’s from Birmingham. She’s got this huge flat, three bedrooms and terrace and all. Marble floors and whatnot for less than her rent in Clapham. Anyway, two nights there was enough for me.’
In other words, he would have been happy to relocate if the situation had suited him. But it didn’t. ‘So what are your plans now?’ Fran asked.
‘My plans are your plans. What do you say, girl? We throw our lot in with each other?’
‘I can’t help feeling that I’m second prize, Louis. And, as you can imagine, that’s not a nice feeling,’ she said in measured tones.
‘Of course you’re not. It’s just I’m married to Barb. I owe it to her and the family to try to make that work. But it’s bloody clear she doesn’t feel that way.’ He made a show of wiping his hands of Barb, and fixed Fran with what he obviously imagined was a beguiling smile. ‘My home is here, with you. I’ve always told you that.’
‘Have you told Barbara that?’
‘Not yet. I will. She won’t care. Come on, stop all that cleaning up. Come over here and have a cuddle with your old man.’
Against her better judgement, Fran did as she was told. Louis gave her a long kiss. He smelt of stale sweat and his face was rough with whiskers. He slipped his hand under her shirt and caressed her breasts and she felt herself weaken. She was under no illusions that Louis loved her, but he was fond of her and that was probably the best she could hope for at this stage. They made love on the sofa, much to Gigi’s disgust, and Fran wondered if the cat had more insight into the situation than she did.
Afterwards, Fran had a shower and made the bed up with fresh sheets. Louis picked up all his clothes and packed the washing in a laundry bag and took it off to the laundromat, without being asked. Fran felt a fleeting sense of optimism for the two of them. All it had needed was for him to make up his mind. And even if his mind had been made up for him, wasn’t it the same thing in the end? She could almost hear Rose and Maggie both disputing this reasoning. But it was different for them. They had a surplus of people in their lives. She had a deficit and couldn’t afford to be careless.
By the time Louis returned from the laundromat, she had the flat back in order and they sat down together with a glass of wine and some crackers and cheese. Louis cheerfully suggested that they go out to the pub for dinner, and Fran was acutely aware of how bleak this first evening would have been on her own. Just her and Gigi. It would be nice to go to the pub together. They might become regulars, and people there would know them as a couple.
‘I did miss you, darlin’ – a whole month,’ Louis told her. ‘Just me and that cat.’ He and the cat exchanged hostile looks. ‘You’ll never believe what’s happened at work. That young lad from head office who came on as manager while Alan was away is now the full-time claims manager. I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard …’ And on he went, giving her a blow-by-blow of everything that had annoyed him since she left.
Fran tried to take an interest in the machinations of the insurance company, but it was a struggle, and it was hard to believe that he wasn’t going to ask her anything about her trip apart from, ‘Have a good time, did yer?’
Thoughts of the last month, the places they travelled and conversations, good and bad, crowded her mind like a movie she had just seen that kept pushing its way back into her imagination. Her thoughts wandered back to the Blue Moon, that harrowing trip through Italy, and to Verona and the time she shared with Sofia on the train; those honeysuckle hours.
She wondered where Sofia was now and if she had settled into her father’s house. That seemed a difficult task to be faced with: the choice to either overlay your parents’ life with yours or discard the remains of their life to establish yourself in their place.
Fran considered whether she could have gone home and lived in the flat after her mother died, although it was never an option, because her stepfather lived there still. She felt her mother’s presence would always have inhabited those rooms, watching everything she did, reminding her of her clumsiness, carelessness and lack of social skills.
There was nothing Fran could do that approached her mother’s level
of competence, and she came to expect that tasks would be snatched from her hands and completed with more efficiency than she could ever hope to achieve. Over time, it made her tentative, hesitant, waiting for the sound of her mother’s exasperated exhalation. It was years before she realised that her aversion to food was a desperate attempt to be less visible. Her malnourishment, at that critical time of puberty, was the true cause of her being ‘petite’. Rose’s friendship had, to some extent, made up for her mother’s poor opinion. Being Rose’s friend was to be a member of an exclusive club, the unbreakable rule being, in Rose’s words, ‘not being a dick’. Listening to Louis going on and on about this upstart from head office, this lad – who was likely in his forties – Fran realised that Louis could never qualify for Rose’s club. He really was a bit of a dick sometimes.
On Monday morning, Fran and Gigi arrived at the shop to find a handwritten sign on the door stating that the business would be shutting its doors after forty years, as Mr Elcombe was apparently retiring. Fran stood in the street and read this sign over and over but it still said the same thing. The shop was closing, not today, but at the end of the month. It seemed incredible that Mr Elcombe had not said anything to her before she went away, but perhaps he didn’t know. Of course he knew. It took him months to plan anything and years to execute it. Even the slightest reorganisation of shelves or creation of new categories was like planning a global summit.
She let herself in and released Gigi, who wandered around the shop checking all her favourite nooks and crannies, stalking the length of the counter and stretching each leg, limbering up for her acrobatic leaps from shelf to shelf.
Mr Elcombe insisted that the front door remain shut, so that they would always hear the bell ding when someone came in. Today, Fran opened it wide and let the precious morning sun inside because it didn’t really matter what Mr Elcombe thought any more. She dragged in the inevitable boxes of scruffy books that people dumped at the door, too lazy to walk to the Oxfam shop at the end of the block. She would not even bother sorting them today, just take them down there herself when she closed up.
Sixty Summers Page 30