River Deep

by Rowan Coleman

  He looked at her and picked up her hand.

  ‘Maggie, will you come back to me?’

  The fridge kicked in, its humming breaking the silence of the room. Maggie sat back in her chair and went over everything he had just said, checking that she hadn’t imagined it. And then she thanked God that sometime in the last few days she had realised she didn’t love him any more, and hadn’t for a long time before Louise – because otherwise right now she’d be dying of a broken heart.

  ‘Are you joking?’ she said finally, aware that the anger that had so long evaded her had crept into her voice. ‘Are you actually kidding me?’ Maggie’s laugh was harsh and hard-edged. ‘You come in here and you say, “Oh well, Maggie, I’m totally crazy about this other woman, oh yes I love her, but you’re ever so good at filing and I really can’t cope with feeling guilty so I think we should give it another go. I care about you, Maggie, not as much as I totally love my new girlfriend, mind you, but she’s not so good at negotiating with suppliers, so why don’t we get back together? Is that what you’re saying?’

  Christian pushed his chair back a little in surprise.

  ‘No, no. I’m trying to say––’

  ‘That we can’t throw what we had away?’ Maggie asked him.

  ‘Yes, exactly …’ Christian stumbled over his words.

  ‘It’s too late, Christian. It’s too late. You threw it away the day you decided to go to bed with Louise. Maybe you didn’t think you’d fall for her, maybe you just wanted a bit on the side, but either way, you threw it away then, and to be honest, I think both of us had been destroying it in little bits and pieces for months. We couldn’t go back, even if it wasn’t as clear as bloody day that you love her and want to be with her, and I certainly don’t want to go back for reasons of practicality or because you can’t sleep at night. Jesus, how desperate do you think I am?’

  ‘But I thought you said …’

  ‘Yes, I did say it, and I did want you back at first, before I realised that you were right. We weren’t lovers any more, not really. We might have had all the moves, but it was all so routine, so … joyless. And we weren’t even that good at being friends towards the end. I hardly saw you, and if I think about it, I didn’t actually miss you, not until after you were seeing her when I supposed I must have known something was going on. I was shocked, Christian, that you left me. Shocked out of my routine and my safe, predictable life. Hurt and desperate and a bit mental. But I’ve had time now. Even if you weren’t madly in love with Louise, I still wouldn’t want you back. I don’t love you any more.’

  Maggie panicked as she wondered for a second if that were actually true, but then her heart resurfaced from the depths of her stomach and she felt sure again.

  ‘And you don’t love me, so let’s just put it behind us and move on. And as for your terrible guilt, what about Louise? How were you going to live with the guilt of leaving her? Or hadn’t you thought that far ahead. Look, you go back to Louise, and I’ll get on with my life, and we’ll both pretend we never had this conversation, OK?’

  Maggie was alarmed to see a large tear tracking down Christian’s face and her voice softened.

  ‘What? What is it? Come on, babe, you know I’m right, don’t you? Louise will make you a hundred times happier than I could,’ she told him, still feeling slightly out of sync with the unreality of the situation.

  Christian looked at her with bloodshot eyes.

  ‘Yeah, I know. I know you’re right, but I … I already told Louise I was going back to you.’ He broke into a sob. ‘Oh fuck, Maggie, what have I done! I’ve been such a bloody idiot. This thing’s just tied me up in knots and I couldn’t see what was right any more. Oh God, I’ve lost her!’

  Maggie thought for a moment, trying to see through the mess that was piling up around her.

  ‘It’s OK, it’s OK, babe. Do you know where she is?’ she asked him.

  ‘Back at her flat, I suppose,’ Christian said. ‘In London.’

  ‘Well then, just go. Go to her and tell her what an idiot you’ve been. Tell her what you told me, and then tell her you realised that you’d give up everything to be with her, because that’s how you feel isn’t it?’

  Christian looked at her. ‘Yes, I think it is, Maggie. I think it is, and I’m terrified that she won’t feel the same.’

  Maggie felt a tiny pull at the corner of her heart, wishing for one split second that it could have been her and Christian. That they could have been happy, and that she had never had to take up stalking or double agent spying or kissing Pete for the wrong reasons and getting stuck with the memory. But it wasn’t her, and she was mostly glad about it. In a few weeks more she was fairly sure she would be all glad.

  ‘Come on, Christian, just go. Go to her and work it out. You can do it. Don’t ask me how, but I just think that … well, I just think that Louise loves you as much as you love her. Call it women’s intuition. I’m sure she’ll be really happy once you’ve explained it all.’

  Standing up, Christian went to the sink and splashed water on his face.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’m going.’ He turned to look at her. ‘I meant what I said, Maggie, about how important you are in my life and how much I hated to hurt you.’

  Maggie nodded an acknowledgement.

  ‘I know, and you were a total shit, but I suppose in the end it’s not how it happened, just that it did. And I think it was the right thing to happen, I really do.’ Maggie shrugged. ‘And for what it’s worth, it does mean something that you came back to try and make things right. Even if it was for all the wrong reasons and in the wrong way. I still think we’ll have each other when this has settled down. Just differently.’

  Christian nodded, and, bending down, he grazed his lips against her cheek.

  ‘I’ll see you,’ he said, and left her again, for good this time.

  Maggie sat back in the kitchen chair, tipping it up on its back legs and rocking it as she listened to the hum of the fridge and the ticking of the kitchen clock. Tomorrow, even this old table would be gone and the new stainless steel chef’s kitchen would be fitted. It was as if her old life had had its own deadline by which everything had to be changed for ever. The old pub was already gone, and now Christian was too. She just hoped he would manage to work it out with Louise, though if he did, it wouldn’t be long before their paths would cross again and she’d have to come clean about Carmen. Maggie sucked in her cheeks.

  ‘Ouch,’ she said out loud. Imagine the humiliation. The ringing of her mobile startled her as it always seemed to these days, and she reached into her pocket fully expecting it to be Sarah calling to lambaste her. But the display read ‘Home’, which meant her old home, Christian’s flat. She’d never got round to changing it. How did he get there so quickly? He must have really floored the car.

  ‘I told you to speak to her!’ she exclaimed as she pressed the receiver button. It was one thing being all magnanimous about him going off with Louise but another thing entirely if he expected her to step in as relationship counsellor.

  ‘Hi, Maggie,’ Louise said. Maggie paused in confusion. Oh flip, she thought, Louise must still be at the flat and Christian’s gone chasing all the way to London after her. She must want to talk to Carmen about Christian. Never mind, she’d just talk to her for a bit now. Calm her down and then phone Christian’s mobile and tell him to turn round.

  ‘Hi! Louise, sorry about that, I was just telling my brother to get a move on with … er … something. So how are you?’

  Louise laughed, and Maggie decided she was a little drunk.

  ‘Well, Maggie, it started out pretty shit, but it’s getting better the more of this bottle of wine I drink. So is he with you?’

  Maggie furrowed her brow. It had been a long day and a difficult one, but the sense that something was very, very wrong was gradually beginning to dawn on her.

  ‘Is who with me?’ she asked.

  Louise clicked her tongue loudly. ‘Jesus, considering what a siren
you must be, you’re a bit slow on the uptake, aren’t you? Is Christian with you, Maggie?’

  It finally clicked. Louise had not been calling Maggie Carmen. Louise was calling her Maggie. Louise knew, and Louise was seriously pissed off.

  ‘Oh shit,’ Maggie said. ‘No, he’s not here, because he’s––’

  ‘Good.’ There was a pause and Maggie heard Louise swallow loudly. ‘Because I want you to come over here now, OK? I think we’ve got one or two things to talk about, don’t you?’

  Maggie felt her stomach twist and contort with dread.

  ‘Look, Louise, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I really am. I know I’ve been a cow, and I promise you I never meant for it to get so out of hand, but, well, if you just wait to speak to Christian then …’

  ‘YOU WILL GET OVER HERE NOW!’ Louise shouted, and Maggie backed away from her own phone before taking a deep breath. Finally all of her cows or crows or whatever the fuck they were were coming home to roost. There was nothing else for it but to face the music. Just hopefully not in person.

  ‘Look, Louise, I’m sorry, but I really don’t know what good it will do if I come over there now. Because Christian and I have talked things over and he is trying––’

  ‘I’ll tell you what good it will do, shall I, Maggie? It’ll give you the chance to apologise to me before these twenty paracetamol and half a bottle of wine that I’ve had kick in and I’m dead.’

  Maggie felt all the breath get sucked out of her lungs.

  ‘What?’ she managed to say.

  ‘You heard me. You’ve taken my boyfriend, you’ve probably taken my job. You’ve abused my trust, and when I thought you were a friend, my only friend in this fucking hideous world, you were lying to me, using me to get him back. Destroying me. Well, congratulations. I’m finishing the job off for you. You’ve won.’

  Maggie gripped the edge of the kitchen table. Oh shit. Louise was serious.

  ‘Louise.’ Maggie tried to stay calm. ‘Louise please, just put the phone down and call an ambulance.’

  ‘Are you coming?’ Louise replied.

  Maggie watched her knuckles blanch and whiten as her grip increased its pressure.

  ‘Louise, you don’t need to do this. Christian still loves you, he still wants you. He’s just left here to find you! Please just call an ambulance now.’

  ‘No. You get here now. I want to talk to you.’

  The line went dead, and when Maggie called it back it was engaged. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck!’ she said as she grabbed her bag. ‘You stupid fucking bitch, Maggie!’ She whirled out of the kitchen, knocking the chair over as she did, and ran through the old bar and into the pool room bar.

  ‘Jim!’ She grabbed her brother’s am. ‘Have you been drinking tonight?’ Jim raised both his hands and shook his head.

  ‘No, gov, honest!’ He looked at Sheila rolling his eyes.

  ‘Good. I need you to drive me over to Christian’s flat.’

  Jim looked at her as if she’d finally lost the plot.

  ‘What? He was just here. What happened anyway, did you guys get it back on?’ he said, pouring a pint for Falcon.

  ‘No! No, it’s not to see him.’ Maggie spoke in an urgent whisper. ‘It’s for his new girlfriend. She thinks we’re getting back together, but we’re not. He loves her, not me, and I love …’ Maggie glanced at Falcon, who was clearly listening in. ‘I care about someone else. And now she’s decided to take a lot of pills and it’s all my fault. I have to get there.’

  Jim set the pint down and took her by the shoulders.

  ‘Maggie, are you sure? She sounds a bit crazy, don’t you think? I mean, why would she phone up Chris’s ex to have a go at you and blame you? She doesn’t even know you …’

  Maggie shook him off and headed for the door.

  ‘Look, it’s a long story all right, but it is my fault. I have to go. Are you driving me or not?’

  Jim looked at Sheila, who nodded and picked up his car keys.

  ‘All right,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘All right, I’m coming.’

  Maggie left Jim waiting in the car as she dug into the bottom of her bag and found the flat key that she had never got around to giving back. She took the beige carpeted stairs up to the apartment two at a time, almost tripping over the potted palm that stood to the left of the flat’s front door. She knocked on the flat door but then let herself in anyway. She didn’t have time to wait – for all she knew Louise could be unconscious by now.

  She wasn’t, though. She was sitting on the sofa in white linen pyjamas, her feet up, a glass of wine in her hand. She looked serene, Maggie thought, for someone suicidal – although bitterly, icy cold in her demeanour. Maggie cringed inwardly. She had done this. She had made this happen. She had started something that maybe she couldn’t stop, that maybe could end as badly as anything could end, and all because of her own ridiculous idiocy over what had turned out to be a pointless obsession.

  ‘You came, then,’ Louise said with a brittle smile. ‘Do sit down.’

  Maggie sat opposite her, leaning forward in her desperation to make things right again.

  ‘Look, Louise, you’ve got this all wrong. Christian came round to see me today, yes, but it was clear he was crazy about you, madly in love with you. He thought that by getting back with me he’d be doing the right thing, but I told him that you were the right thing for him …’

  Louise lifted an eyebrow and sipped her wine.

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ she said finally. ‘I think you’re just saying that so I’ll go to the hospital and you’ll be off the hook. And if that’s true, then why did you do it, Carmen? Why did you pretend to be someone else? To be a friend? If you never wanted him back, why did you try and mess up my life? You could have just turned up for a good old-fashioned cat fight and sorted it all out fair and square.’

  Maggie picked up an empty blisterpack of pills that had been lying on the coffee table and looked at it. She just couldn’t believe what was happening.

  ‘When did you take these?’ she asked instead of answering Louise. There’d be time to explain later, but not now.

  ‘About half an hour ago,’ Louise said, her eyes fixed on Maggie’s face, clearly determined not to be deterred or distracted. ‘So tell me why you did it.’

  Maggie shook her head, screaming inwardly with frustration.

  ‘Louise, please, my brother’s downstairs. We could get you to the hospital in ten minutes, please! This is all wrong – you’ve got it all wrong! He loves you! Please. You’re so young, you don’t need to do this, even if Christian had left you, which he hasn’t – look at you, you’re stunning and talented. You shouldn’t throw your life away over a man, or over a stupid desperate old cow like me! I know you want to punish me, I know I deserve it, but what about Christian, what about your mum and dad? They don’t, do they? They don’t deserve it?’

  Maggie thought she saw something waver in Louise’s determination and she pressed on.

  ‘Look, let me get you some salt water to drink, make yourself sick. You know it can damage your liver if you leave it too long. Please let’s just get you to hospital now and we can talk later. You can shout at me, call me all the names you want and I won’t say anything, just so long as I know you’re going to be OK. Please?’

  But Louise’s mouth was set in a brutally firm line.

  ‘No,’ she said with a shrug. ‘Not until you’ve told me why you did it.’

  Maggie shook her head in desperation, trying to form a single succinct sentence out of the weeks and weeks of chaos that had brought her to this moment.

  ‘OK!’ she snapped. ‘I was hurt, OK? I was hurt and I couldn’t believe he had left me. I didn’t really think he meant it. I couldn’t see past what I thought was a perfect relationship. And I wanted to see you, see what you were like, because I thought you couldn’t be good enough for him. And I thought that once I’d seen you I’d know how to beat you. Then … well, then I did see you, and you’re … you. You’re incr
edible, and I think I knew then that I was never going to get him back, but I just couldn’t admit it. I needed to hope that I would, because otherwise I couldn’t see how I was going to carry on.’

  Maggie held out her hands in a gesture of exasperation.

  ‘It seems so ridiculous now, but then, in the middle of it all, it made perfect sense. I did something stupid. It wasn’t meant to go so far, Louise, it just happened. And I didn’t mean for it to carry on, but I was starting to really like you, and I’d more or less decided that I should just give up anyway when Christian took me out for dinner and …’

  Louise sat up abruptly. ‘He took you out for dinner? I knew it! When?’ she asked, narrowing her eyes.

  ‘The night he didn’t come home,’ Maggie said guiltily before adding hurriedly, ‘but he wasn’t with me that night, he really wasn’t, not all of it, I mean. He really didn’t know what he wanted and then, after he went away with you, I thought that, well – that was it. The best girl won. You won. And I was OK. Then he showed up this evening. But Louise – he came into my kitchen telling me he wanted me back whilst waxing lyrical about his new girlfriend – you. I knew then that I’d been beaten fair and square. I know that there’s no going back. He loves you, Louise. I’m not just saying that – the man loves you. Passionately, madly.’

  Although he might not know how much of a mentalist you are, Maggie added to herself, admittedly unfairly. After all, this was all her fault in the first place.