‘Give me twenty pence,’ she demanded, and he coughed up speedily. She stuck it in the payphone on the bar and waited for the owner of the local cab firm to answer.
‘Tariq? Hi there, it’s Maggie from The Fleur. Yeah, I’m at The Fleur now. Yeah. Anyway, listen, I’ve got Sarah here, a bit worse for wear. Are there any of you lot brave enough to take her home?’ Maggie laughed. ‘Excellent, I’ll see you in ten minutes then.’ She hung up and looked at Falcon, who was now crouching down by her friend.
‘There’s no need,’ he said. ‘I can walk her home. I don’t mind, least I can do.’
Maggie shook her head. ‘Mate, does it look like she can walk?’ she said, and Falcon had to agree. ‘Besides, even if you are a nice bloke, what kind of friend would I be if I let her go off into the night with a man she’s just met when she’s in that state?’
Falcon had to agree again. ‘I see your point,’ he conceded, and brushed a strand of hair from Sarah’s sweaty face. ‘Sarah? Sarah?’ he said. Sarah opened one unfocused eye. ‘Cheers then, for … er … everything. You’re a really great bird.’
Sarah furrowed her brows, as if she was giving the matter some serious thought. Then, out of the pit of her stomach, a large growl began steadily to build. Before it could reach its crescendo, however, two large retches forced Sarah to sit upright in her chair, and she vented a stream of dark vomit that filled the room with the stench of acrid house red. Falcon was covered in the splatter. Sarah was snoring peacefully once more, her brow now smooth and carefree.
‘Oh fuck!’ Maggie clapped a hand over her mouth, stifling her laughter. After all, the big pink-haired man with piercings might not think it was so funny. ‘She’ll be mortified when she remembers this,’ she told him, suspecting it was a lie.
‘No worries.’ Falcon said, but his face was wrought with dismay. He headed off to the gents to sponge himself down, and realising that Sarah wasn’t going anywhere yet, Maggie cancelled her cab.
‘You’re so going to regret this in the morning,’ she’d told Sarah as Falcon carried her upstairs to the sitting room. Maggie had put a bowl, two panadol and a pint of water within easy reach of the sofa, and set her own alarm clock to make sure that Sarah got home, showered and conscious, possibly in that order, in time to open the salon and greet Becca after her pyjama party. Something she’d eventually achieved by the skin of both of their teeth.
She’d been impressed that, despite the vomit incident, Falcon had stayed to help her clear up not only the mess in the bar but a broken glass in the ladies. As she let him out, he’d stopped and shaken his head.
‘She’ll be all right, will she? Sarah, I mean. About tonight?’ He’d shifted from one foot to the other. ‘I like her and everything, but I don’t really want a girlfriend, you see …’
Maggie’s laughter had shocked Falcon. ‘Don’t worry, mate,’ she’d told him. ‘Sarah’s got the original heart of ice. Better men than you have failed to thaw it.’
Falcon had looked at her for a moment, clearly trying to decide whether or not to be offended. ‘Nice one,’ he’d said eventually, and Maggie had bolted the door behind him.
Maybe in the end, she thought as she sipped the last of her coffee, the whole damn thing was just an endless series of merry-go-rounds.
Her phone jumped into life and began to vibrate across the polished surface, dislodging a pile of papers, including her list, enough so that they scattered on to the floor.
‘Oh fuck!’ Maggie swore earnestly as she tried to grab the papers and answer the phone at the same time.
‘Carmen?’
Maggie froze, her arm outstretched towards the floor as she bent over in her chair. She took a breath and straightened up, unconsciously flicking her hair out of her face as she composed herself.
‘Louise! Hi!’ She tried to sound pleased to hear from the girl as she scrambled to remember exactly what she had told her the last time they’d talked. She closed her eyes. It was only two days ago but it felt like a lifetime.
‘Gosh,’ Louise’s brightness sounded brittle. ‘I didn’t know mobiles could get a signal halfway across the world these days. That’s amazing!’ She laughed a high, hollow laugh. ‘I was just going to leave you a message to call me when you got back. I put together some quotes for your for the opening on the new bar …’
Maggie was confused. ‘Got back?’ she said, just as she remembered her Australia lie.
‘Oh, you mean from Australia!’ Both women spoke at the same time.
‘I didn’t go,’ Maggie said simply. ‘There was, er … a crisis at work, and it all got cancelled at the last minute. It’s been busy, busy, busy or I would have called! But thanks for that, the quotes, I mean.’ Maggie felt guilty. Here was Louise, doing her best to get much needed new business that would never materialise. ‘How are you?’ she rushed on, hoping to distract Louise from any more business talk. Fortunately – or maybe not – Louise had something else on her mind.
‘Terrible,’ she said, trying to laugh, but it turned into a sob and a rush of jumbled words instead. ‘Oh God, I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m calling you, I mean, I didn’t even think you’d be here! It’s just that I told everyone at home that things were going so well for me here, bragged a bit about Christian, you know? It’s just that telling them how awful I feel, even Mum, would be so … so … I just can’t, not now. Not until I know there’s no hope. The thought of going back to Cheltenham with my tail between my legs would be awful. I made such a big fuss about going off to London …’
Louise took a much needed breath.
‘… And you just seemed to know exactly how I felt. Do you mind me calling you? I’m so glad you haven’t gone. I know we don’t really know each other that well, but you’re the first woman who’s been kind to me since I got here.’
Maggie waited for any further additions to Louise’s monologue before allowing herself a moment to ingest all that Louise had just said. For the first time since she had engineered her meeting with Louise she was beginning to get the sense that there was more to her than just pretty packaging. She was quite a bit younger than Maggie, and, despite her beauty, vulnerable and easily bruised. She was scared stiff of losing the one thing that Maggie wanted more than anything, and she was panicking. It was the kind of panic that would turn Christian right off her, Maggie knew. She also knew that as much as she wanted Christian, she didn’t want to deliberately hurt Louise any more, not now that she knew she was human, a real person, and not some pneumatic automaton. An idea, straight out of Maggie’s recent school of ideas based on folly and impulse, sprang into her head. Maybe she could persuade her to leave Christian of her own accord. That would be much better. Better for Louise, better for Maggie, and much, much better for Carmen, whose nerves were in serious tatters.
‘It’s OK,’ Maggie said, cautiously optimistic about Plan B. ‘Of course we’re friends. Calm down and tell me what’s happened.’ Maggie made an attempt at nonchalance. ‘Has Christian said something?’ She heard Louise blow her nose on the other end of the phone.
‘Not exactly,’ she began. ‘You know he was due to go out on this business meeting last night? Well, he told me he’d come back to my place in Southwark, you know, near the office. We never go back to “their” flat in St Albans, I’ve never even seen it. I told him he didn’t have to, I knew he was going back to St Albans for the meeting and he might as well stay as his place, but no, he said he’d come back to mine, said he’d be here before midnight and that I should “wait up” for him, if you know what I mean? I was so pleased, I felt that if he wanted to see me that badly he must really like me, you know?’
Maggie chewed her lip anxiously.
‘And?’ she prompted.
‘And midnight came and went and then one and two and three, and at four I gave up ringing his mobile and just fell asleep on the sofa. The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes this morning was him sitting in the armchair opposite me, still in the same clothes, a five o’clock shadow on his
face.’
Maggie gripped her chair, feeling an uneasy, tilting sense of déjà vu. Apart from anything else she had parted from Christian at no later than nine o’clock. Where had he been all night?
‘Inconsiderate bastard. What did he say?’ Maggie asked, appalled for more than one reason.
‘He said he’d been for a walk and a think.’
Maggie’s heart skipped a beat. A walk? And a think? A walk and a think where? Had he seen her and Pete lying in the grass holding hands? She didn’t know how to feel about the prospect, because although she wanted Christian to think she might have someone, she didn’t want him to give up on her.
‘A walk where!’ she found herself demanding petulantly, in exactly the kind of tone that would drive Christian bonkers. She couldn’t help it.
‘He didn’t say. Just a walk. To think. I asked what about, but he said that he couldn’t talk about it with me yet because he hadn’t finished thinking. And of course, Carmen, well, I thought he was with her, with Maggie. I mean, what do you think? He had to be, didn’t he? I played it really cool, though, because he totally went off on one before when I tried to get him to talk. So I didn’t say anything. I just said, “OK, if you want to talk about it I’m here.” I thought, well, even if he was with her, he came back to me, right? That has to mean something, right? I’m not giving him up with out a fight. Right?’
For a briefly liberating and instantly forgotten moment, Maggie wondered what two fantastic young women like Louise and herself were doing fussing over a man like Christian who didn’t know a good thing when he’d got it, and had to go on “walks” to “think” when it should have been patently obvious to him what he needed? And then she remembered that she loved him and that she didn’t have a choice in the matter. Neither, by the sound of it, did Louise.
‘Um, right,’ Maggie said, her brain on serious overload.
‘Oh Carmen,’ Louise’s sigh was heartbreaking. ‘Are you around tonight, this afternoon? Christian’s gone out – more thinking, I gather – but he said he’d take me out later to talk. I’d love to see you, you know. You can help me form a strategy. Which part of London do you live in? Perhaps I can come to you? Carmen?’
Maggie realised she’d not been listening.
‘Oh. Er, no, I live miles away from you. How about I meet you in Soho for a coffee?’
She quickly rearranged her day. She’d have to put back her planning work until tomorrow, and call Pete and tell him she’d meet him at the café she’d arranged to meet Louise at instead of at the station. She was careful to give herself at least half an hour’s clear space between Louise departing and Pete arriving – she’d need time to adjust her persona – it was hard being a double-double agent, if that’s what you called it.
‘Oh, I’d love that, thank you! Thank you!’
Maggie glossed over how grateful Louise seemed and arranged to meet her at a café she knew and hung up the call. She had a feeling she would never need to fly to Australia, as pretty soon she would have dug herself a hole big enough to get there by foot. That would cheer Pete up, at least.
What was she up to? she asked herself silently.
‘What you up to, then?’
Maggie jumped out of her skin, knocking her cup on to the floor. She looked on in dismay as the dregs of her coffee were soaked up by her list of suppliers. Sheila stood over her as she retrieved the soggy bits of paper, her arms crossed beneath her breasts and her mouth set in a thin, lipsticked line. Maggie began to clear her work away, avoiding Sheila’s eye.
‘I’m just trying to get started on sorting this place out, She! But if it’s not one thing it’s … another.’ She looked meaningfully at her phone and then hopefully at Sheila. She had not fooled her.
‘You don’t fool me, lady,’ Sheila confirmed briskly. ‘Who was that on the phone? You’re up to something. I’ve always known when you’re up to something, like that time when you stole entire boxes of crisps out of the cellar to flog to the other kids at school …’
‘That was Jim!’ Maggie protested, but Sheila went on regardless.
‘Listen, I know it’s something to do with Christian and I just want to say this.’ She paused and took a breath. ‘I am showing a lot of faith in you, giving you the money to sort this place out. Now I’m not doing it because I want to see you beholden to me, so don’t think that I am. I’m doing it to give you a chance to make the most of your abilities. I know you’re a grown woman and you’ll do what you will as far as your “love” life is concerned. But I’m asking you, for my sake, not to throw this chance away. Because it’s the chance that I never got, that I never got to give to my baby. And I want you to make it more than anything, OK? It’ll mean that something good came out of that marriage, at any rate. It’ll mean that I’ve achieved something.’
Maggie dumped her papers in one pile and hugged Sheila’s unrelenting body.
‘I’m sorry, Sheila,’ she said. ‘I promise you I will get this right, whatever happens with Christian.’ She fished out her soggy To Do list and showed it to Sheila. ‘Look, I’m going out to all these industry suppliers on Monday to do costing for the kitchen, and I’ve got a friend who works in interiors coming in for a chat on Tuesday to get some ideas going. I’m engaging an accountant, and once the finance is in place I’ll settle the outstanding invoices. See?’ Maggie took Sheila’s hand. ‘I won’t let you down, I promise. Nobody’s ever shown the kind of faith in me that you have. And anyway, you have achieved something in this life – you’ve always been here for me. Maybe you don’t think that’s very much, but I do, and I love you for it.’
Sheila squeezed her fingers tightly and blinked. ‘Here, this came this morning.’ She produced an official-looking letter from her trouser pocket. ‘It says the money’ll be transferred by the end of the next week. And I love you and all.’
She threw Maggie one last chastising look for good measure as she prepared to set up the bar.
‘It’s not me I’m worried about you letting down, Mag, it never has been. It’s you letting down yourself I’m worried about.’
Chapter Twenty-two
On her way into town, Maggie stopped by The Sharp End to see if Sarah was still alive. By the look of her – her skin waxen and greasy, her eyes still the colour of claret and her lips drained of all colour – the answer was yes, but barely. The salon door was open and several fans buzzed around the clients. The place was jam-packed and extremely hot. Maggie caught Sarah’s eye and waited as she excused herself from her client.
‘Can’t stop,’ she said, rolling her eyes. ‘Can’t move, speak or breath without wanting to throw up, either. At least the kids are still out. Leanne’s mum’s taken Becca to the flicks, thank God. I couldn’t stand her sermonising on top of all this.’ She gestured at the salon. ‘Thanks, by the way, for looking out for me last night.’
‘That’s what friends do, and it’s nice to have a turn for a change, anyway.’ Maggie gave her a sympathetic smile. ‘Still, you had a good night, though?’
Sarah wrinkled her nose. ‘Did I?’ she asked hesitantly. ‘I remember you coming in and saying you’d binned Christian once and for all, thank God. I remember you slinking off with the fit bloke, you dark horse – must pin you down about that later. I remember snogging Falcon and I remember … no, I don’t. That’s it.’
‘Well, you and Falcon were … you know.’ Maggie paused, aware of the attentive ears of some waiting customers.
‘Did we … you know?’ Sarah asked her.
‘Yeah!’ Maggie was shocked but surprised that her friend could not remember having sex with Falcon. After all, it wasn’t the first time.
‘Oh Christ, I’ll have to go to the chemist. Better not leave it to chance this time, hey?’
Sarah laughed nervously, and Maggie knew she was referring to Sam’s conception after a particularly rowdy night with Marcus, his father. A night which had also started in The Fleur, Maggie remembered, back when it used to have customers, and when Marcus and the
rest of White Watch used to come in for a drink after a shift at the fire station. Sarah had been smitten with his pumped-up muscles and jet-black eyes. She hadn’t expected him to be sweet and sensitive along with it. His romantic side had shocked her considerably, and his constant attempts to be more than just a fling finished them off in the end. When he’d found out about Sam he’d been thrilled to be a father, but gutted that Sarah wouldn’t keep seeing him, let alone marry him. Maggie had always been sad about that. He was a great dad, Becca got on with him and it was clear he wished that Sarah had given him a chance to stay in all of their lives on a more permanent basis. But she wouldn’t have any of it. Just as she would never have had an abortion, she would never have a husband. It was some kind of mad logic that made sense only to her, and which, despite Maggie’s numerous attempts to get her to talk, she would never explain.
‘You should be all right – Maggie dropped a voice to a whisper – ‘I found a used condom in the sink.’
Sarah shook her head and closed her eyes to try and shut out the excruciating embarrassment. Maggie went on in her normal voice, ‘Falcon was worried you’d fall in love with him,’ she smiled.
Sarah clapped her hands over her face and then regarded Maggie through a gap in her fingers. ‘I don’t think I’ll be going there again!’ she said, as if the notion was preposterous.
Maggie laughed. ‘That’s what I said, sort of.’
‘Thanks, mate. Listen, I’m chocka all day. You couldn’t pop into Boots and get me a …’ She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘… a morning-after job, could you? Best to be double-sure.’
Maggie thought of the day’s plans. ‘I could, but I’m going up to London. I won’t be back until late. Will that matter?’ Maggie had never needed to take the morning-after pill.
‘Yeah, I think you can take it within seventy-two hours,’ Sarah said. ‘I mean it’s probably fine, but I don’t want a brummie baby with pink hair in nine months’ time! Two’s more than enough! Right, I’d better get back. Thanks, mate.’
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