by Daisy Waugh
‘Oh, shh,’ says Fawzia, putting a hand on Maude’s arm, and another on her husband’s shoulder. ‘Both of you. Maude –’ She looks at Maude; ever ageless, Maude thinks, with her smooth golden skin, her calm, kind eyes – and beautiful still. ‘We are thankful to you, of course. Ahmed – stop fussing. Hurry now, and get in the van. You are wasting time.’
He does as he’s told, though not without adding a final grumpy, ‘You should have sent Horatio,’ as he heaves himself in. Fawzia chivvies the children in behind him, glances at Maude and rolls her eyes. Maude feels a rush of gratitude for her, and of love, and a need, highly inappropriate under such urgent circumstances, to melt into tears there and then, and confide everything to her – all her petty troubles. Fawzia is unusually strong and wise. ‘God,’ Maude says suddenly. ‘God. It’s so lovely to see you all…Even you, Ahmed.’
‘Yes, yes, I’m sure.’ His voice is muffled from his hiding place behind one of the sofas, but she can hear that he is smiling. ‘It’s very nice to see you too. Hurry now. Start the engine. If we hang about here any longer we’ll be arrested before the journey even begins.’
TRAVELLING ALONE
The girl in the checkpoint kiosk takes Maude’s passport with a small, automatic smile. Looks briefly into Maude’s eyes, and then, with a quick tilt of the head, glances across her, at the empty passenger seat. Maude’s heartbeat thumps so hard it throbs in her ears, and she doesn’t hear what the girl says.
‘I’m sorry. What?’
Another little smile. ‘Just you, is it, today?’
‘Just me? Oh, yes. Absolutely. Just me, worst luck.’ Maude grimaces; woman-to-woman. ‘Actually, I was hoping I could fob this little job off on the husband. My husband, that is! But he said he had to work. Of course. As usual. Husbands, eh? Always seem to have work on when there’s a job to be done. Know what I mean?’ The girl, Maude notices suddenly, looks barely old enough for a school disco. ‘No. Probably not. Are you married? You look far too young. Well, anyway. Don’t rush into it! That’s my advice. Marry for love but be careful who you love. That’s what my mother used to tell me. Good advice. I should have listened to it!’
‘No dogs? Cats?’
‘What? Well we’ve got two children. I want a third one. A baby number three. I don’t think it’s quite a family with only two children. But Horatio – that’s my husband. You can probably see. I’ve got him under next of kin. At the back, is it? I forget with these new passports…’ Distantly Maude hears a shuffling behind her head and then a small hand reaches out under the driver’s seat and pinches her, hard, on the ankle. Maude gives a little scream. And shuts up. At last.
‘Are you all right?’ the girls asks her. She’s frowning now. Holding on to the passport, leaning forward, on the point of standing up.
Maude breathes. Forces herself to breathe. Slowly. The fingers of the small hand underneath the driver’s seat continue to pinch her and the sharp pain helps her to refocus. She looks at the girl. ‘I’m fine,’ she says. And raises her eyebrows. ‘I’m sorry. Just a bit nervous about the crossing.’
The girl says, ‘Taking a lot of stuff over, are you? What have you got back there, then?’
‘Old furniture, mostly,’ Maude says. ‘For the holiday house. We finally emptied out the loft at home!’
The girl looks at her and slowly, thoughtfully, hands Maude’s passport back through the window.
‘Thanks. Thank you very much.’
‘Have a good trip.’
‘I will. Thank you!’ The little fingers release her ankle, at last, and Maude moves her foot to the clutch. Or tries to. She has so much adrenalin pumping through her it takes a couple of attempts before her foot finally finds the pedal, and for her leg to find the strength to push it down. ‘Ooops!…Crikey! I shouldn’t be let loose on this thing, should I? Anyway, thanks again!’
Maude has left a picnic supper in the back of the van: some cheese and lettuce sandwiches, ready-made from Tesco’s, some plain crisps, Mars Bars, water and orange juice, since none of them drinks alcohol. She parks the van, winds down the window half an inch and gets out, resisting the temptation to wish her cargo good night. She makes her way upstairs. To the bar again. Tonight, she has no intention of getting drunk. None at all. She still has the customs in France to get through, and it’s vital she keeps a clear head.
But the adrenalin, slowly subsiding, makes her throw back that first glass of whisky without even noticing. She’s been too nervous to eat all day, and by the time she’s downed her second glass of whisky she’s already feeling a little hazy. Hazy enough, brave enough, to try Horatio again. She dials his number, not at all certain what she’ll say when he picks up, but needing to say something, anyway. Longing to hear his voice.
It’s evening. Len and Murray should have gone home, so she calls the landline first. Engaged. She waits a couple of minutes, tries again. Still engaged. So she calls Horatio’s mobile. It’s switched off. She hangs up. Tries the landline again. Engaged. The mobile. Off. Landline, engaged. Mobile. Off. Off. Off. Finally, she leaves a message.
‘Heck. It’s me. I don’t really know…what you’re playing at right now. I don’t. Why are you avoiding me like this? I know we need to talk but I don’t think…’ She sighs. Drunker than she thought, already. ‘Anyway. God, I don’t know. I don’t know why I’m even leaving this message. Everything’s going according to plan, in case you’re interested. Which you obviously aren’t. Ahmed and Fawzia and the three children,’ she glances around her. No one is within earshot but she drops her voice to a half-whisper anyway, ‘are in the back of the van. I left them torches and sleeping bags and a disgusting supper. Poor sods. I really don’t envy them. Ahmed’s furious because I came instead of you, of course. Big surprise there. But otherwise everything’s fine. Got through English customs fine. Now we’ve just got the French side. It’s going to be OK. It’s going to be fine,’ she says, talking more to herself than to him. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow some time. Inshallah, as our friends would say. Inshallah. Call me, will you? When you can. But not too late. I’m exhausted. I think I’m going to turn in pretty soon…So. Anyway. Good night. I can’t imagine why your mobile has been switched off all day. Don’t you care what’s happened to me? Give a goodnight kiss to Emma, won’t you? From me.’ And she hangs up, furious with herself for failing to resist that last comment. She needs, she decides, to get something to eat. Slowly, she stands up to search out the cafeteria.
‘Maude?’
She doesn’t hear it the first time.
‘…Maude?’
She turns, vaguely confused at the sound of his voice, and sees a man she hasn’t set eyes on for seventeen years, not since he waved her goodbye at Heathrow Airport, and she held him like she never wanted to let him go, and she was sick with fear at what lay ahead. She’d been on her way to Kenya, and her two years doing VSO. They had sworn they would wait for each other. But perhaps even then, when they were clasping hold of each other and she seemed incapable of letting go – perhaps even then they had both known it would never survive the two-year separation. It didn’t. Six months later they had both met someone else. Their Dear Johns crossed in the post. And that was it. What with one thing and another they never even spoke again.
‘Max?…Max!’
‘…Ha!’ He strides towards her and throws his arms around her, squeezes her as if nothing has changed – as if the seventeen years apart signify nothing to either of them. She puts her arms around his waist, and it’s wonderful how familiar it feels. How he still smells the same.
‘You look – You seem –’ She laughs, pulls away. ‘I can’t believe it…Such a wonderful, amazing…What are you doing here? Of all places! You look great, by the way. Really –’ And he does, too. Maude has always tended to go for the same type: Max, like Horatio, is tall, lean, good-looking in a preppy, professorish kind of way. He’s aged well. Just like Horatio.
‘So do you, Maude. You look exactly the same! Exactly the same.’
&
nbsp; ‘Oh! I wish!’
‘But you do. You look – So. Anyway – What’s happened to you? Christ! It’s so nice to see you…What are you doing?’ he adds, looking politely over her shoulder. ‘I mean, right now? Perhaps we could have a drink?’
‘Actually I was just going to get something to eat…’
‘Well – I’ll join you. If you’ll let me. I’m on my own, I’m afraid…Are you – Or, that is –’
‘Same here. On my own. Husband and two children at home, though,’ she adds quickly.
‘Ah! Yes.’ He seems relieved. ‘Yes. Same here. Wife and two kids. At home…Actually, I’ve got a van full of furniture in the hold. Do they call it a hold, on ships? Or is that just aeroplanes?’
‘I think so.’
‘Yes. I think so. By the way, Maude. Never put a dog on an aeroplane. In the hold. Not unless you really hate it.’
‘Thanks for that.’ She smiles, remembering how he always used to jump from one subject to the other and then back again: full of handy hints and useful information. ‘You haven’t changed.’
‘I bloody well hope I have! It’s been almost twenty years.’
‘No, not quite…We were twenty-one.’
A pause, involuntary, as their minds stray back…It’s Max who snaps out of it first. ‘We’ve just bought a little holiday house in the Languedoc. They’re all out there now. Claire and the children. In a completely empty house. Waiting for me to bring over as much cheap crap as possible, to fill the place up.’ He sighs. ‘But I’ve just discovered there’s a bloody IKEA in Bordeaux.’
She laughs. ‘I’m surprised I didn’t spot you in the ferry queue. Don’t they put all the vans together?’
‘Mmm? Ah! So it was you! That’s funny. I saw a youngish woman driving a van. Right behind me. Is it dark green?’
‘Yes. It is.’
‘Exactly. I glimpsed you. In the mirror. And I thought – Actually, if you want to know, I thought, bloody hell. Why can’t Claire see that? Attractive women are perfectly capable of doing boring jobs like van driving. Perfectly bloody capable. But Claire seems to think not.’
‘Well. She’s probably doing a lot of other boring jobs you’d be perfectly bloody capable of doing yourself, Max,’ answers Maude. ‘When was the last time you saw a “youngish” man like yourself scrubbing the kitchen floor, for example?’
Max guffaws. ‘Claire! Scrubbing a kitchen floor? Fat chance. No, she’s a dreadful slut, my darling wife,’ he comments, without chagrin. ‘Not that it matters in the slightest. So am I. As you probably remember…So, anyway. I’ve got a lot of IKEA furniture in the back of my van, which I could have bought in Bordeaux and saved myself the ferry ride. What have you got in the back of yours?’
‘Mine? Oh. Nothing.’
‘Nothing?’
‘…Much. Nothing much. Stuff for the house. Shall we go and eat?’
Since they’ve found each other they decide to give the cafeteria a miss and go to the restaurant instead. They order oysters, and then, in a moment of exuberance, Max suggests they order champagne, to celebrate their reunion. ‘Come on, Cleo,’ he says – reverting unwittingly to the old nickname – one he hasn’t used and she hasn’t heard since the day they parted. It startles them both for a half-beat, and they look at one another more boldly. The years between them; the slutty wives, faithless husbands, the dirty nappies, the stowaways in the backs of vans – all of it peels away. They are together, alone. Older, wiser, sadder, married – but alone. The last time they met they were lovers. They smile at each other, the old smiles – recognise the glint in each other’s eyes: ‘…What do you say?’
‘…to the champagne?’
He just laughs. ‘Actually…Yes.’
‘…I’m – By the way…’ she says. ‘By the way I’m really…very happily married.’
‘…That’s all right then. So am I…’
‘…Good…’
‘…Good…’
The mixture of whisky and champagne on an empty, nervous stomach makes Maude fairly drunk fairly quickly. As she staggers up the wobbly steps towards the deck for a late-night stroll beneath the stars, Max offers her a steadying arm. He chortles.
‘I think you’re a bit drunker than I am, Cleo. Are you all right?’
‘Never been better,’ she says adamantly. Pushing back thoughts of Horatio and the children. Of Ahmed and Fawzia crammed into the van downstairs. What would Ahmed think, she wonders, childishly gleeful, if he could see me now? ‘Are you still smoking, Max?’
‘Of course I am.’
She hasn’t smoked for nearly six years. Not since she was pregnant with Superman.
‘Good for you. Well done for holding out.’ They’re leaning against the railing, and it’s cold out on deck. He has his arm tight around her shoulders.
She glances up at him. ‘God, d’you know – I would love a cigarette!’
It makes him laugh. ‘I must say, Cleo,’ he murmurs to her, ‘it’s bloody nice to see you again.’
‘Bloody nice to see you…’
And he kisses her. As she knew he would. And it’s –
Well. Obviously. It’s wonderful. He pulls her closer, or they pull each other closer, and she sort of groans – to drown out all the objections in her head. It seems to work; they stay there, all coiled around one another, wind in their hair, long-forgotten desires for each other – for any other – pumping back into their veins; revelling in the wicked rush. Max, too, half-heartedly fighting back the doubts. Because he does love his slutty wife, as much as Maude loves Horatio. And he needs to tread very carefully with his lovely slutty wife right now, or she won’t be his wife for much longer. It’s just that – try as he might, and he does try – he can never really escape the feeling, when there’s an attractive woman around, that only the present exists. And he hasn’t seen Maude for seventeen years and he’s always kind of wondered…She was lovely then. She still is…
‘Shall we – erm –’ he says. ‘My cabin’s got a sea view. How about yours?’
‘Has it?’
‘It’s very rare, you know. To get a sea view. I had to bribe the stewardess five euros.’
‘That’s a lot.’
‘That’s what I thought.’
‘D’you think you’ll have time to enjoy it?’
‘What?’
‘The sea view.’
‘Oh. Without a doubt…Without a doubt,’ he says again, as if to confirm it, running his hand under her T-shirt, warming her spine. ‘Why? D’you think I wasted my money?’
‘Probably.’ She shrugs. Smiles. ‘…I expect you’d like me to have a look at it, would you? So you can push down the cost-per-gaze.’
‘Well, Cleo. When you put it like that – yes. I think that sounds like pretty solid economics. Tell me – have you made a lot of money since we last met?’ He reaches down and kisses her again. He slides his hand a little higher under the T-shirt. ‘…Shall we go?’
She’s going to nod, to take his hand and follow him, onestep, two-step – but something stops her. Not something – it’s an image, not of her children, not of Ahmed scowling disapproval from the back of the green van, but of Horatio, whom she loves – in spite of everything. ‘Actually, Max,’ she says. ‘Maybe we should just have that cigarette, and call it a night. Don’t you think?’
He blinks, taken aback. Frowns. And takes a small step away from her.
‘Good call, Cleo,’ he says smoothly. ‘Bloody good –’ He pats his pockets, pulls out a packet of cigarettes, and hands her one. ‘Shame…Are you sure? It would have been fun. But you’re quite right, I suppose…’
‘Have you done this before?’ Maude asks him, inhaling on the cigarette and almost choking.
He looks a little shifty. ‘Done what?’
‘I mean, have you cheated on your wife before? Not this, but – I mean – properly?’
‘…Not really…’ he says, looking over her shoulder.
‘Not “really”?’ She laughs, and somehow,
after that, they have nothing much to say to each other. They talk politely for as long as it takes for their cigarettes to burn out. Maude asks whether his children enjoy school, what Claire used to do before she stopped working. Max answers. And then they kiss each other, chastely, on either cheek, catch each other’s eye and laugh a little ruefully at what has – or hasn’t – passed between them. At what might have been. And they head off – Max to his sea view, Maude to her cabin’s minuscule bathroom, where, as soon as the door is closed behind her, she bends over the lavatory and is sick.
Whisky, champagne and oysters. It’s all she’s had all day.
She wants to call home again after that, to hear Horatio’s voice and tell him she loves him, and to make everything good again. But when she dials the landline it’s still engaged. And his mobile is still switched off. She wants to say, ‘I love you, Heck. And I’m sorry. About Max. And I’m coming home. And it’s OK, I can live without any more bloody children. I want us. You. I want everything to be all right.’ But her head is thumping. She feels faint. She imagines Horatio on top of Emma. Underneath Emma. Beside her. All over her. Emma’s plastic tits jutting this way, jutting that, and Horatio thinking they’re for real; and as she listens, for the tenth time that day, to the automated voice on his mobile offering her the opportunity to leave a message, she feels a whole lot of rage filling her up and she can’t think or see or hear properly. ‘Heck, you stupid bastard,’ she begins, starting before the recording tone has even sounded. ‘I’m just putting my fucking life in jeopardy here, smuggling our old friends across international borders. I may wind up in jail. But that’s OK. That’s fine. You just carry on rutting Emma Rankin. If you want to…Carry on fucking! Fuck away! I hope she gets pregnant by it. And I hope it gives you a heart attack.’ Then she hangs up. Calmed, at last. Switches off the mobile. Collapses, fully clothed, onto the bed, and directly falls asleep.
MORNING HAS BROKEN