by Moran, Beth
“Goodnight, David.” I spoke softly, so he couldn’t catch my words, or the longing, the pain and the wonder they carried with them. He didn’t need to hear. He knew. Be careful, heart!
Maggie was in bed, face turned towards the wall, pretending to be asleep.
“Come on. Let’s do this now, otherwise neither of us will get much rest.”
No response.
“Maggie.”
She knew that tone of voice. Rolling over, Maggie opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling, her bored mask on.
“You’re not supposed to come in my room without my permission.”
“Would that rule still apply if you were dying of some terrible disease? Or if your wardrobe had toppled over and you were trapped underneath it? What about if the room was on fire?”
“Yes.”
“Throwing eggs at cars forfeits that right.”
“I’m not sorry.”
“Will you be sorry if the police come round? Or do you expect me to lie to them?”
She shrugged.
“That was a really, really stupid thing to do, Maggie. I get that you’re mad at me; that it was a shock and you think it’s too soon for me to go out with someone. But that is between you and me, not him. You should have talked to me about it.”
“And that would have stopped you going out with him?”
“Maybe. Quite possibly. But you have to understand. This was a thank you dinner, not a date, or the start of a relationship. His mother was supposed to be there. I wouldn’t have gone, otherwise. And it won’t be happening again, believe me.”
“So you aren’t going to get a boyfriend.”
“I’m not looking for a boyfriend. But I’m thirty-three. I’ve got a long time to be on my own while you’re off enjoying the world. I can’t promise I won’t ever meet someone.”
Maggie let the tears roll down the sides of her face. “I know I’m being selfish. I know you haven’t forgotten Dad, and you aren’t going to meet some loser and go off and start a new family I’m not really part of. I know all that. But I’m scared. Every single thing in my life has changed, and that’s not your fault, and not all of it is even bad, but I feel like I’m just starting to get my head together and now this. I can’t cope with it. I’m sorry. I can’t.”
“Oh, Maggie. I’m the one who should be sorry. You’re not selfish. I’m an idiot. Come here.”
She sat up, and for the first time in a long time, she let me hold my baby girl.
“I’m still trying to figure out how to do this – be a responsible adult, and a mum, without Dad here to tell me when I’m being stupid. I’m sorry. And I promise you, I will not be going out on any more evenings like that one. I won’t do anything you aren’t comfortable with.”
We talked some more, wiped each other’s faces, and laughed at what an awful man Carl was. But there was a serious issue to be dealt with. Honestly? I didn’t want Maggie to know how concerned I felt about Carl’s reaction to the mess on his car. I had no idea what to do if he came around knocking on people’s doors in the morning. I’d been brought up to believe you owned up to your mistakes, and tried to put them right where you could. But what if that meant putting a child in a harmful situation? Carl hadn’t been specific about how he would teach the weasel a lesson, and I couldn’t believe he would hurt Maggie physically, but I had a horrible picture in my head of the way he’d wrecked the bucket. The uncontrolled fury was unnerving. I did not want to subject my fragile daughter to that.
It was another restless night. Trying to convince myself Carl would have calmed down by the morning, probably see the funny side of the whole thing or brush it off as not worth bothering about. Remembering the look on his face. Worrying about what to do.
Thinking about David.
I didn’t know which man scared me the most.
One thing was clear. For now, my heart belonged to Maggie.
Chapter Fourteen
The following morning, I woke to find the house quiet. Discovering Maggie’s bed empty at ten o’clock on a Sunday morning would have sent me into a panic had I not seen the note from Mum:
Seth is playing the drums at Oak Hill this morning and has promised to give Maggie a twiddle of his drumsticks if she comes along. There is a pumpkin waiting to be peeled, diced and roasted, once you have caught up on your sleep.
M xxx
My sneaky mother had removed Maggie from potential trouble this morning. No doubt she would find her somewhere else to be for the rest of the day. Possibly until the egg situation had been resolved. I showered and poured half a cup of coffee onto the ants’ nest in my stomach. I was hacking at the pumpkin when the doorbell rang.
I freaked out for a couple of minutes, vegetable knife in hand, hoping that by the time I’d decided whether to answer the door whoever it was would have already gone.
“Aah!” Gasping, I skidded back six feet as a head appeared at the kitchen window. The window at the side of the house, behind the locked garden gate.
Backed up against the dishwasher, still brandishing the knife, I looked again.
It was Carl. He smiled and waved, pointing at my oh-so-funny reaction to his creepy face.
Accidentally forgetting to put the knife down, I opened the back door, not quite wide enough for him to enter.
“Hi, Ruth.” He whipped one arm out from behind his back, awkwardly because it was holding a fruit basket. A large fruit basket. I could see, at first glance, two pineapples and a melon in among the rest of the items. “An apology.”
“Um. There’s no need, really.” I leaned out to take the basket, but Carl moved it out of reach.
“It’s actually incredibly heavy. Who knew fruit could weigh so much? I’ll put it straight down on your table.”
In the light of day, it seemed ridiculous not to let this lovely looking man wearing smart chinos and a neatly ironed shirt come in to put a gift on the kitchen table. What is it about a doctor that makes it hard to disagree with whatever they say? I stepped back, opening the door wide, and he followed me in.
“Looks like you’re busy. It smells fantastic.” He paused and looked around, a wistful look in his blue eyes. “It’s been ages since I had a proper Sunday dinner. Not worth doing, really, when you’re on your own, is it? Especially when I’ve been on call the night before.”
“You could always invite your mum.”
“Nah. She’s not much of a cook, to be honest.”
I didn’t bother pointing out what I actually meant.
“Anyway. I really am sorry for losing it last night. I fully admit I’m completely over the top when it comes to the car. Not a great way to end our first evening together.” He grimaced. “Maybe an apple can make it up to you?”
He picked out an apple from the side of the basket, and handed it to me. Tied on to the stalk was an envelope. Very hesitantly, I took the apple.
“Go on, open it.”
Slowly – hoping my parents would arrive back before finishing – I opened the envelope and took out the contents. Two theatre tickets. To see Romeo and Juliet performed in a village hall a few miles away.
Carl waggled his eyebrows at me. “Thursday night. Best seats in the house.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you. But I can’t. I’m sorry.”
“Are you busy?” He frowned. “What about if I could get a different day? It’s only running for a week, and Friday and Saturday are sold out. I could try the matinee.”
“No. It’s not that.” This was horrible. Enough reason in itself to never go on a date again. Why did nobody warn me about this?
Right. Be assertive, Ruth. Be clear as well as kind. Leave no room for doubt.
“It was very nice of you to take me out for dinner, to thank me for looking after your mum, but that’s all it was. I’m sorry if I gave you the impression it could become more than that. I’m really not in a position to start dating at the moment. Sorry.”
Silence hung in the kitchen.
I tried to hand b
ack the tickets. Carl held up his hands, playful now. “I understand. I came on too strong. I apologize – again. But it doesn’t have to be an official date. I’ve got the tickets now. It’s supposed to be a great production. We might as well go along as friends. Come on. I’ll even let you drive.”
“I don’t think…”
“When’s the last time you went to the theatre, Ruth, with a friend?” Serious, intense starey Carl now. I was getting edgy again.
“No. I’m sorry. My daughter isn’t ready for me to go out with a man. Even as friends.”
“Then don’t tell her. You can’t let a kid rule your life, Ruth. You deserve to be happy too. Have some fun.”
“That may be true, but I don’t hide things from her. And the truth is, I can’t be happy if she’s not. That’s not her fault; it’s called being a parent. Thank you for the fruit. I have some things I need to do now.”
In the end, I got him to leave by agreeing to keep the tickets. Maybe I could persuade my parents to go together. I chopped at the remains of the pumpkin with hot, flustered cheeks. Sheesh.
Mum waltzed in a minute later.
“Was that him? He does look a lot juicier in the daylight – a lot less like a bull with a bee up his nose. Did you run him off?”
“Eventually. It took some doing. He’s over the egg, and gave me these.” I nodded at the fruit and the tickets.
“Goodness gracious! Still, that’ll be the last of him, hopefully. I liked that bucket!”
I was indulging in a sorely needed Sunday afternoon snooze, face down in my own dribble, dreaming of watermelons, when Mum rapped on my bedroom door. “RUTH!” she mock-whispered. “Another young man is here to see you.”
“What?” I rubbed the sleep off my face and tried to heave myself upwards.
Mum opened the door and came in. “A good one this time! David Carrington is on the doorstep. Isn’t that superb?”
Yanking my curtains open, she handed me a hairbrush and clapped a few times in glee.
“You never liked me being friends with David.” I tugged, half-heartedly, at the bush on top of my head.
“Poppycock! I always loved David. A fine young man. It wasn’t his fault his father had to hand him off to those stony housekeepers. All things considered, he’s turned out splendidly.”
“You banned me from playing with him at least every other month.”
She snorted. “It’s not good for a girl to only have one friend. Especially when that takes her away from spending time with her family.”
“Spending time dancing in her family’s shows, you mean.”
“I feared he would break your heart. And I was right. But that’s all in the past. It would be rude not to say hello. And, incidentally, he’s looking pretty darn scrummy. And single.”
Single? I wondered what Ana Luisa thought about that.
“Mum, I’ve promised Maggie I won’t get involved with anyone yet. She got really upset about Carl. It would make things a lot easier for both of us if you shelved this topic for a few decades. Please.”
“Oh, stop waffling, Ruth. Come on downstairs. You can’t leave an award-winning children’s television presenter lingering in the hall!”
Seeing him this time, I was prepared, so the punch to my guts was therefore that much less forceful. He grinned. “Hi, Ruth. Are you coming out to play?”
“My mum won’t let me play with stinky boys. They mess up my clothes and get my knees all dirty.”
He raised his eyebrows at me. “Been out to play already, then?”
Oh, man. My shirt was buttoned up wrong, leaving three inches of bare skin at the top of my jeans on one side. I felt my cheeks flood with colour.
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“Are you coming out? I’m going hunting for conkers in the Spinney.”
Go out. With David. Would he notice how my hands trembled when I pulled on my boots? Could he hear the fireworks exploding in my stomach? It would be ten billion times easier to say no. To pull down the shutter and shove him away, back into the soft, dark place deep inside where he couldn’t hurt me again. But he was here. And he was real. And it was too late.
“Can you hang on a minute?”
He smiled. “Take as long as you need.”
I found Maggie in the study, her bonfire-streaked head bent close to my dad’s silver one as they puzzled over a math’s problem on the school website.
“Maggie. Arnold’s son, who I used to be good friends with, has called round, asking if I want to go for a walk. We used to hang around a lot together and…”
“David?” She glanced up at me, unconcerned.
“Yes. He –”
“Lois told me all about you two. It’s cool. I get it. You’ve made a promise and I trust you.”
“Thanks, Maggie. I love you.”
“Whatever.”
We began our walk in silence. There was too much to say, to explain, to ask. I thrummed with the unsaid words I didn’t know how to express. David just strode along, arms swinging, face relaxed, as if merely out on a Sunday afternoon stroll with an old friend.
“Any word from the dinosaur?”
“Words, an overly extravagant fruit basket and two tickets to Romeo and Juliet at Averham. But he does seem to have let the egg thing go. I don’t think he’ll be knocking on your door demanding to search your pantry.”
“So he’s keen, then?”
“Maybe. I’ve told him I’m not interested in a relationship right now.”
We turned off the main street, heading along a footpath that cut between the houses and up some concrete steps onto the track into the Spinney.
“Any relationship? Or a relationship with him?”
David paused at the edge of the narrow track to let me go first, holding back an overgrown bramble with his gloved hand. I waited until I could talk without seeing his face.
“Maggie was more upset than I’d thought about the date. She’s only just beginning to cope with all the upheaval, and I have to put her first. I’ve promised I won’t get involved with anyone until she’s ready.”
My heart wept; a hot, squeezing ache beneath my ribs.
The path widened as we entered the Spinney, no more than a small copse of trees tucked in among the 1970s housing estates, but large and sheltered enough to feel like its own secret world. David moved back to walk alongside me.
“That’s understandable. It’s been twenty-seven years and I’m still not sure I’d be ready for Dad to bring home a woman that wasn’t Mum.”
“But you must have reached a point when you were old enough to have accepted it for his sake.”
“Probably. It’s never been an issue though, as far as I know. I don’t think he remembers what to do any more. If a woman showed any interest he’d probably lock himself in his study until she gave up and found someone else.”
“Did you get to see him last night?”
“Yes. I’d called ahead to let him know I had a couple of days free.”
“And Ana Luisa? She must have been pleased to see you.”
He grinned. My heart wept a little harder.
“Ana Luisa is always pleased to see everybody. If Dad had found someone like that to look after me when I was a kid, my childhood would have been totally different.”
“Yes, but without Mrs Macmillan to drive you out of the house every day you would have slobbed around watching TV and playing Super Mario. And without her wilful neglect, you’d never have learned how to survive in the whole wild world.”
“Remember the time we left the injured stoat in the laundry room?”
“Only it wasn’t quite as injured as we thought; just really, really scared and angry.”
“In all my many travels, I have never seen anything as funny as watching Macmillan when that stoat ran up her trousers.”
Ice broken, we spent close to an hour reminiscing, laughing, joshing, as we picked through the orange and brown leaves for conkers. The past up to, ooh, 12 July 1998
was safe territory.
David didn’t want to play safe.
“What happened, Ruth? You never answered my letters. Or my calls.”
I straightened up, tossing another conker into his open rucksack on the ground beside me, unable to meet his gaze.
“I saw you, that night. With Vanessa Jacobs.”
“What?” He shook his head like he was dodging a fly. “That was nothing. She turned up bladdered and threw herself at me. I pulled her off like the awkward eighteen-year-old science geek I was and spent over an hour trying to get her to stop crying.”
“So the fairy lights, the candles, the blanket and the picnic hamper. The CD playing the sappy love song. That was all a coincidence? You happened to be hanging around under the tree, enjoying a romantic evening for one? Had an extra champagne glass in case one broke?” My voice was beginning to rise. A cork had been unpopped.
“Ruth, what on earth has this got to do with anything, anyway? You were at the dance with that gorilla, Charlie. Which I had to drag out of Lois after you disappeared for the rest of the summer without even telling me. I thought he’d done something to you.”
“I only went with him because you didn’t ask me!”
“You said about a thousand times that you hated school dances. You’d rather sit in the dark under the willow eating stale cheese sandwiches than dress up and have to pretend you were having a good time in front of all the other kids.”
“Well, of course I didn’t mean it!”
“So if you were with Charlie, having such a good time, how did you see me and Vanessa?”
“Because I didn’t have a good time. I had a rubbish time. Charlie only asked me to make Kate jealous. They ended up snogging on the dance floor, leaving me sat by myself like an idiot in Lydia’s old salsa dress. So I came to find you. I just didn’t expect to see you with her. Under our tree.”
David was watching me again, the only movement the rise and fall of his chest. “So you were jealous that someone else was under the tree with me, and decided as a punishment to never speak to me again. I don’t get it, Ruth. You were never petty or vindictive.”