by Fiona Harper
Claire stopped, but didn’t turn round.
His voice came closer when he spoke again and she could tell he was standing right behind her. ‘I’m staying with Pete at the moment and after that … Well, I can always rent it out, find something else for myself. I’m hardly there much of the time as it is anyway.’
Claire straightened and started moving again. ‘Do what you want,’ she said. ‘It has no effect on me either way.’
He didn’t follow her this time. Claire knew. Not because she glanced over her shoulder to look, but because the air at her back grew colder and colder the further she walked away from him.
Good riddance, she thought to herself as she headed to her car. The sooner he vacated his flat the better, then she’d never have to think of him again.
Chapter Forty-Four
My Kinda Love
Despite what Dominic had said about staying with his friend, Claire remained at Maggs’s house until the weekend. While she’d been able to wash her meagre collection of clothes, there were other things she needed from her flat. It was time to go home. She couldn’t stay at Maggs’s forever.
Since Gran had owned the flat outright and had left it to Claire in her will, she supposed she could rent it out, but she didn’t want to leave it. She didn’t want someone new, someone who’d never known her gran, to come in and wipe away all those memories.
She came downstairs for breakfast on Saturday morning and told Maggs of her decision.
‘Good,’ Maggs said. ‘I’ll get my bathroom back to myself.’ Then her smile faded. ‘It’ll be very quiet here when you’re gone.’
Claire nodded. She knew that. She’d always thought of Maggs as a bit of a loner, but in the few days she’d been staying here Maggs had hardly let her out of her sight, insisting she cook for Claire too so they ate meals together, suggesting things they could watch on TV or board games they could play. Maggs was lonelier than she’d thought. Just as well the reverse blackmail attempt of getting Maggs to go out with George had finally paid off.
‘So …’ she said, smiling her best I’m-trying-not-to-be-nosy smile. ‘How was your date with George last night?’ They’d gone out for an early dinner at a local carvery and then on to see a film.
‘Food was okay, film was crap,’ Maggs replied, as she filled the teapot and set it in the middle of the breakfast table.
That wasn’t what Claire had been asking and Maggs knew it.
‘I meant, how did it go with George?’
Maggs set out the teacups and poured the tea, taking her time over every little bit of the job. When there was nothing else left to do she sat down and looked at Claire. ‘I wish I could like him that way, but I don’t.’
Disappointment washed over Claire.
‘Don’t look at me like that,’ Maggs said grumpily, as she plopped two sugar cubes into her tea and stirred.
Claire hadn’t been aware she’d been looking at Maggs like anything.
‘I could pretend there’s more there than there is, but in the end it wouldn’t be fair to either of us. George wants to be devoted to someone, and after a while I think I’d find that a little …’
‘Wonderful?’ Claire said hopefully.
Maggs gave her a look. ‘Irritating.’
‘Sounds nice to me,’ Claire murmured. How she had a man knocking down her door to be devoted to her, someone who cared more about making her happy than making himself happy. For a while she hadn’t thought men like that actually existed. George was a nice reminder that they did, even if they were rare specimens. Mind you, in all his sixty-five years George hadn’t found one woman who deserved all that devotion – apart from the silver screen version of Doris – so maybe men were just as screwed as women when it came to finding the perfect partner.
Claire looked at Maggs. She knew she had to bring something up that neither of them wanted to talk about, but with the hope of George no longer on the horizon, she couldn’t put it off any longer. ‘So what are you going to do? You know the answer isn’t in that little silver hip flask of yours, don’t you?’
Maggs went very still. ‘Ah, so you’ve noticed that, have you?’
Claire nodded. ‘More and more frequently in the last couple of months. Maggs? I’m worried about you.’
Instead of telling her to shut up and mind her own business, which was the reaction Claire had expected, Maggs just nodded sadly. ‘I’ve started to be worried about me too. It was just that a little tipple helped blur the edges on the nights when this tiny house still seemed too empty, or when I was out in a crowd and aware of the hole at my side.’
Claire swallowed a lump in her throat. She knew how hard it was to lose someone you’d been close to your whole life, how the ache never quite seemed to go away. Losing her best friend less than two years after losing her husband must have hit Maggs hard.
Claire was going to reach out and touch Maggs’s hand, but Maggs suddenly stood up and got very busy cutting bread. Only when there was a little toast rack full of even, browned triangles did she sit down and stop moving.
She took a breath and paused, as if she was gearing up to saying something. ‘It’s not a proper problem yet,’ she said, and glanced up at Claire, ‘but I think I have to admit it could grow into one. If I let it.’
This time Claire did reach out and cover her hand. ‘You know I’m here for you if ever you need me.’
Maggs patted Claire’s hand in a way that reminded her of her grandmother. ‘I know that, but you’re a young woman. You’ve got your own life to lead.’
Claire took a crisp triangle of toast from the rack. ‘I know but …’
‘But nothing. I’m not letting you move in here with me and become old and crusty before your time.’
Claire started to laugh. ‘Maggs, you are definitely not old and crusty!’
Maggs stole the butter dish just as Claire was reaching for it. ‘Yes, I am,’ she said, with a defiant twinkle in her eye. ‘And don’t you forget it. Besides, I stayed up last night after my date with George thinking, and I’ve come up with a plan.’
‘You have?’
Maggs nodded. ‘I think I know exactly where I can find my Mr Right, and you’re going to come and help me pick him.’
*
After breakfast, Maggs commanded use of her personal chariot and chauffeur – aka Claire and her Fiat – and instructed that she should be driven to an unspecified destination. She just kept her referring to an old battered A–Z on her lap and told Claire when to turn right or left or go straight on.
Claire listened to the instructions with one half of her brain, but with the other half she was trying to work out what on earth Maggs was up to. Had her friend gone senile overnight? Should she call a doctor? And when she wasn’t worrying about Maggs, she was cooking up scenarios about what finding ‘Mr Right’ might mean.
Not long after they’d crossed Blackfriars Bridge, Maggs suddenly said, ‘Before you move out, I need to tell you about my visit with your father.’
Claire kept her expression neutral. ‘Do you really have to?’ That was another man she really didn’t want to think about.
Maggs nodded. ‘Yes. I think I do.’
Claire sighed. She knew she might as well let Maggs spit it out. She’d only keep badgering her about it if she didn’t. ‘Go on, then.’
Maggs frowned. ‘He looked so different … Not the man I remembered at all.’
‘I know.’
‘And that wasn’t the only thing that was different, either.’ She shifted in her seat to face Claire more fully, even though Claire was staring straight ahead, keeping her eyes on the road and following Maggs’s intermittent directions. ‘Left here.’
They paused as Claire navigated her way through a busy junction, and then Maggs carried on talking.
‘Do you know, that after your father was six, I never saw him cry ever again?’
Claire shook her head. No, she hadn’t known that. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know it now.
‘Y
our grandfather was responsible for that. The bastard was always quite proud of himself for beating it out of his son. I was actually quite glad when he got run over by that bus in 1976. I think him dying set Laurie free from a miserable marriage.’
Claire paused and let a car through in the middle of a street crowded with parked cars. ‘And this is what you talked about, is it?’ She wasn’t really in the mood for a trip down memory lane, and would rather this conversation was over as quickly as possible.
‘Oh, no,’ Maggs said, shaking her head, as if that should have been obvious. ‘In fact, we didn’t speak at all.’
Claire shot a glance at her passenger. They hadn’t? Then what on earth was this all about, this big secret Maggs needed to tell her so badly?
‘That was the thing,’ Maggs said softly, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was about to say. ‘When I marched into that room to give him a piece of my mind, he was hunched up and facing the window …’
Yup, thought Claire. That was pretty much the way she’d left him.
‘… and he was crying.’
A horn blared, and Claire realised she just cut someone up quite badly. She made a ‘sorry’ face and waved a hand to apologise. She couldn’t quite work out what Maggs had just said.
‘He was …?’
‘Crying,’ Maggs repeated. ‘And he wasn’t too pleased about me catching him at it, either. I just thought you ought to know. Maybe your visit affected him more than you thought.’
‘Thanks,’ Claire said. But she wasn’t sure she did want to know. What good did it do? What was the point of him having feelings after all if he was too much of a coward to let them out? It wouldn’t change the way he’d treated her, would it? Even if a tiny part of him did really love her, did really feel sorry about how he’d treated the people in his life, he was too proud, or too scared, to show it.
Thankfully, Maggs told her they should now look for a parking space. She found a spot in a rather industriallooking back road in Battersea and then Maggs led her a short distance to their destination.
It was only as Claire saw the famous blue logo with a dog wrapped around a cat that she realised where they were. She blinked and looked again. Battersea Dogs & Cats Home? This was so not what she’d been expecting.
Maggs just gave her a smug smile and led the way inside.
‘I’ve been looking online,’ she explained, as they were led back to the kennels, ‘and there’s someone I’d like you to meet. He’s called—’ She suddenly stopped and looked at the name tag on an enclosure. ‘Oh!’
‘What?’ Claire said, frowning.
‘Well, this isn’t the dog I came here to see,’ Maggs replied, ‘but look …’
Claire did look. The name tag said ‘Barney’. And inside the enclosure was a medium-sized dog with a curly mass of chocolate-coloured fur.
‘Hello, boy,’ Maggs said, bending down. The little dog tilted its head and looked at her. After a couple of moments’ thought, it trotted towards her and sniffed her hand. Maggs looked up at Claire and smiled. ‘Barney … like Frank Sinatra in Young At Heart, Laurie’s favourite. I think it’s fate.’
‘I think it’s going to eat you out of house and home and leave hair on your couch,’ Claire said. ‘Maggs, are you really sure about this? Don’t you need some time to think about it?’
Maggs stood up. Barney stayed where he was and watched her, wagging his tail. ‘Actually, I’ve been thinking about it for a while now. I just hadn’t got round to doing anything about it, but after last night it all just sort of came together in my head.’ She bent down again and scratched between Barney’s ears. He closed his eyes and leaned into her hand.
As much as Claire was still reeling from the surprise, she had to admit they did make an adorable pair. Doris, with all the animal rehoming charity work, would certainly approve.
‘You’re giving up men for a dog?’ she asked.
Maggs just smiled. ‘Yup.’
And she looked so happy that Claire couldn’t quite decide whether she was the craziest person she knew or the sanest. The way things had been going in her own love life, maybe she should try it.
Chapter Forty-Five
The Game of Broken Hearts
Maggs was so happy to start the rehoming process for Barney that Claire couldn’t help getting caught up in the excitement. He really was a sweet little dog. She just hoped Maggs knew what she was letting herself in for. Once they got back to her house, Claire gathered together her belongings, shoved them in her little red case, then clumped it down the stairs and left it in Maggs’s hallway.
‘Well, that’s me ready then,’ she said to Maggs when she found her in the kitchen.
Maggs, who had been washing up, dried her hands with a tea towel. ‘As much as it’s been lovely to have you here, we both know you need to go back and face things … face him.’
‘Oh, I’m not going to face him,’ Claire said breezily. ‘I’m going to cut him out, not think about him any more. Besides, he said he was going to go and stay at a friend’s.’
‘Did he? That was very nice of him.’
Claire snorted. ‘Who knows whether he was telling the truth. Every word that comes out of his mouth is a lie.’
Maggs looked as if she was going to say something, but in the end she just shook her head and put her tea towel down and followed Claire out of the kitchen and into the hallway, where Claire picked up her case. Maggs stood with her hand on the door jamb as Claire trundled her case down the path. She stopped at the gate and looked back.
‘Just remember,’ Maggs said, her beady eyes boring into Claire, ‘not every man is like your father – or even like that Philip.’
‘Can I just remind you of what you said back at the dogs’ home?’
Maggs gave her a questioning and innocent look.
‘You don’t seem to be too interested in giving men a second chance,’ Claire said. ‘You know, you ought to give practising what you preach a chance some time!’
Then again, maybe she wouldn’t be Maggs if she did.
‘That was different,’ Maggs replied, crossing her arms.
‘How?’
She shook her head. ‘I did give George and I a second chance. We took a good hard look at what was under the surface of our friendship and found there was nothing there. It wouldn’t have been fair to either of us to pretend otherwise.’
‘Well, there’s nothing there for me and Dominic either.’
Dominic. That was the first time she’d said his name out loud. His real name.
Maggs just gave her a disbelieving look and waved her off as she drove away.
When Claire got back to her flat, she stood at the gate, looking up the path. She had that weird ‘familiar but not familiar’ sensation, that feeling you get when you’ve just come back from holiday and you know you’re home, but it takes twenty-four hours or so before it feels that way.
She chose to carry her case up the path, not wanting to announce her arrival any more than necessary. Once on the front step, she pulled her keys from her bag and opened the locks. The old heavy wooden door swung open.
The hallway was bare. Quiet. Everything was perfectly in place, which in itself was odd. Not a stray piece of junk mail, not a takeaway leaflet to be seen. It seemed emptier than usual and Claire fought the feeling that the bike that wasn’t propped up against the wall was missing.
Her flat was just how she left it. There was a magazine on the floor in front of the sofa, some unopened mail she’d dumped on the kitchen table and had forgotten and her peace lily looked in desperate need of a drink. Once she’d attended to that, she put her case on the bed and started to unpack, throwing the contents into different piles – clothes for washing, toiletries to go back in the bathroom, shoes for the wardrobe – and then, when she was finished, she stood in the middle of her flat and listened to the silence.
She sighed and rubbed her hands over her face. How was it possible to miss him when she hated him so much?
&nbs
p; It was only as she crossed from the bedroom into the kitchen and glanced down the hallway to her front door – something she’d actively avoided doing since she got back, just in case she was tempted to look out for him – that she realised it hadn’t shut properly, that it had bounced open again. She walked down and pushed it closed and, as she did, she saw a single white envelope on the mat.
A shiver ran up her spine. She recognised that handwriting. And there was no stamp, no postmark. There was only one person it could have come from.
Only this time it wasn’t a scrumpled scrap of paper or a reused envelope that held his note. It was a beautiful envelope in a vintage sage green, long and elegant, the kind of stationery Claire would usually kill to get her hands on.
She bent to pick it up and found her hands were shaking.
She walked, just staring at it, until she got to her kitchen and then she sat on one of the chairs that surrounded her little square table and stared at it some more. Finally, something delicate inside her snapped and she gently tore it open along one edge.
The paper that fell out was just as beautiful, and he’d written in ink, deep indigo ink. The kind of ink that should always fill a fountain pen, because that precise colour made everything that came out of it seem important. She held her breath as she read:
Dear Claire,
This is the last note I will send you. You don’t want to talk and, after what I did, I don’t blame you for that. I was stupid and short-sighted, but I want you to know that I really didn’t set out to deceive you. I know you may not believe that, but it’s the truth.
I have to confess, it would have been easier to come clean if a) I wasn’t so good at letting my big mouth dig me an even deeper hole and b) I hadn’t liked you quite so much. And I did like you, Claire. I still do. And it had nothing to do with your knickers and everything to do with the brave, kind, resourceful woman I’ve come to know you are. You are every bit as captivating and sexy and funny as Doris Day.