A month or two before her fortieth birthday it struck her that she hadn’t had a period in a while. She couldn’t remember how long, but it must have been at least eight weeks. With her birthday looming, she wondered if it was premature menopause. When she consulted the doctor, he did a test and phoned her a few days later with the news. She was ten weeks pregnant. Maggie could barely contain her elation. After assuming she was infertile, she was now expecting a baby. Impulsively she phoned the smartest restaurant in town and booked for dinner. Then she called Josh at the uni and said she was taking him out for a meal.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.’
She caught her breath. He was planning to ask her to marry him. An early fortieth birthday present. What perfect timing. A proposal and then a baby. Perhaps they could even fit in the wedding before the baby arrived. She closed the shop for an hour and raced up to the hairdresser’s to have her long hair shampooed and blow-dried. Then, using her discount, she bought a black crushed-velvet dress she had been coveting since it had first arrived from the supplier.
That night Josh drank beer and Maggie orange juice. She wondered if he would twig to the reason she wasn’t drinking alcohol, but he didn’t seem to notice. She was sure he would pop the question after the main course – that’s what they did in the movies – and she was right. As soon as the plates were cleared, he reached across the table and took her hand.
‘Mags, there’s something important I need to ask you.’
Her pulse was racing so fast she wondered if it might harm the baby.
‘I’ve noticed that you’ve been unhappy with the way we’ve been living. You’ve never complained, but I’ve known it in my heart. It’s true, isn’t it?’
It was an unusual way to begin a proposal, but she nodded in response.
‘I’ve thought long and hard about how to make things better.’
Isn’t it obvious? Just ask me to be Mrs Josh Houghton.
‘And I think it’s because you feel trapped. Trapped in the relationship, and in this town.’
She swallowed hard. This wasn’t sounding like a proposal at all.
‘And I think it would be selfish of me to try to hold on to you. It’s time for you to spread your wings and make your own life.’
Had he pinched that line from a song? It was the worst kind of cliché. Was Josh Houghton telling her to piss off? And was he making it sound as though he was acting in her best interest? Was this how he fired staff at the university when he had to make them redundant? Anger was welling up inside her, threatening to spill out, black and vile. But she composed herself and spoke calmly and quietly: ‘What exactly are you saying, Josh?’
‘I think our relationship has run its course, Mags. I can’t give you what you really want, which is marriage and kids.’
‘Surely you want a family one day?’
‘Call me selfish, but I think kids just get in the way.’
Kevin
Six-thirty, and Danielle still hadn’t turned up. Kevin had finished his lemon, lime and bitters and was considering whether to order a beer. After all, he didn’t need to be on his guard now that she wasn’t coming. Not more than one drink, though. He didn’t like the side-effects of alcohol. Things became blurred, inhibitions crumbled, edges lost their definition, frameworks that he had spent years establishing could disintegrate further with every sip. And anarchy threatened. The one time he had gotten really drunk, it had changed his life.
He felt a gentle pressure on his arm and turned to see Danielle. Her hair was glossier than before and her low-necked dress revealed a cleavage which looked even more generous than he remembered.
‘Hi, Kevin.’ She kissed him on the cheek, as if they were old friends. He felt a blush rising up his neck.
‘Sorry I’m late. The meeting ran overtime. I sent you a text.’
Kevin looked at his phone. There it was, embellished with a smiley face. ‘No problem,’ he said. He could still feel the wetness of her lips on his skin.
‘What are you drinking?’ he asked.
‘I’ll have a Mojito, please.’
Kevin had to lean forward to hear her. It was difficult enough making small talk without having to cope with background noise.
‘A Mohican and a lemon, lime and bitters,’ he told the bartender. Then to Danielle: ‘I like your dress.’ After he said it, he replayed the words in his head. Had he said ‘dress’ or ‘breasts’?
When he heard ‘Thank you. It’s new’, he gave an inward sigh of relief.
‘Have you caught any celebrity tax cheats this week, Kevin?’
‘No, but we’re closing in on someone famous.’
‘You’re not going to tell me who it is, are you?’
‘You might read about it in a few months’ time.’ Then he remembered he should ask Danielle about her own job. ‘How was your week?’
She launched into a story about a difficult client, but most of it was drowned out by music blaring from a loudspeaker above the bar.
‘Let’s find somewhere quieter,’ he said, when it appeared the story was over.
‘Good. Then we can get to know each other.’
He found an empty table in an adjoining room, buzzing with chatter, but thankfully music-free. He pulled out a chair for her, waited until she was seated and then took a seat himself, readjusting his glasses as he did so.
‘Have you ever thought of wearing contact lenses?’ she asked.
He didn’t know what to say. He owned a pair of contacts, but rarely wore them. His glasses were part of him, like a talisman. They made him feel safe.
Then she reached over and removed the glasses. ‘I knew it. You have lovely eyes.’
The room was out of focus. He felt dizzy. ‘I need my glasses.’
‘Sorry.’ She placed them in his hand.
‘Well, I suppose it’s time to go,’ Kevin said, noting they had both finished their drinks. ‘I’ll walk you to the station.’
She started to laugh. ‘You’re such a kidder, Kevin. Now, where are we going for dinner?’
They ate in a little French place a block away from Kelly’s. She prattled on about all kinds of things and he didn’t have to say much at all, which suited him just fine.
‘I like your dry sense of humour, Kevin,’ she said. ‘Like when you ordered a Mohican. Even the waiter thought it was funny.’
What was funny about Mohicans? They were a tribe of Indians immortalised by James Fenimore Cooper. Wasn’t that the name of the drink? Or was it something else? He would look it up on the net as soon as he got home.
‘You remind me of Clark Kent when he isn’t being Superman,’ Danni continued. ‘You just pretend to be a mild-mannered guy, when you’re really a different person underneath the suit.’
Kevin gulped and concentrated on eating his dessert. He was relieved when the waiter brought the bill.
Afterwards they walked to the railway station, where he accompanied her to platform one. As her train pulled in, she turned and kissed him. The tip of her tongue played in the hollow between his lips. Then, just as they heard ‘Stand clear, doors closing’, she jumped on the train. The doors slid closed and the train started with a jolt, heading into the darkness of the tunnel. Once it was gone, Kevin made his way down the stairs and up the other side to wait for his own train. He could easily have caught the same one as Danni and changed at Central. That would have given him another ten minutes with her, but he was really quite relieved to be on his own again.
Trivia Night
Maggie
They were a quarter of the way through the season – and things were getting serious. Like the coach of a football team, Edward gave his Dreamers a pep talk, reminding them that if they weren’t in the top three by the end of tonight’s match, there would be little hope of ever catching up.
Then the Professor announced a science and technology round to start the evening. There would be a bonus of two extra points for any team achievi
ng a perfect score.
‘Oh no,’ said Maggie. ‘I’m hopeless at science.’
‘Me too,’ said Carole.
The first question was: Which part of the body is affected by Lady Windermere syndrome?
Everyone at table ten turned towards Edward.
‘I don’t know,’ he said impatiently. ‘I’m a public servant, not an expert on syndromes named after literary characters.’
Then they turned to Kevin.
‘Medical matters make me queasy,’ he said.
‘Let’s be logical about this,’ Maggie said. ‘What is Lady Windermere best known for?’
‘Her fan,’ Carole replied. ‘But what would that have to do with a disease?’
‘Maybe she was experiencing hot flushes,’ Mei Zhen ventured, ‘and needed to fan herself.’
‘Menopause isn’t a disease,’ Maggie said more curtly than she’d intended. ‘And it’s not a syndrome either. It’s a natural progression in a woman’s life.’
‘Well, you’d know about that,’ Edward muttered.
Maggie glowered at him.
‘Maybe she had a cough and tried to conceal it with her fan,’ Ash suggested.
‘So it might be something to do with the chest,’ Mei Zhen posited. ‘What do you think, Kevin?’
‘It’s a reasonable possibility.’
‘So, are we all happy if I write “lungs”?’ Maggie asked.
‘Better than leaving it blank,’ said Carole.
The next question was, What do you call an area on the earth’s surface where tectonic plates slip under each other as they converge?
‘I know this one,’ Maggie said, writing it down and passing it round for the others to see. She had learnt it was advisable not to say the answer aloud, in case other teams were eavesdropping.
‘Those scientists have a sense of humour, don’t they?’ Mei Zhen remarked when she saw the answer.
‘I didn’t think they were so risqué,’ Ash added.
Finally they passed it to Kevin, who looked for a moment, then took his pen, scratched out Maggie’s answer and wrote something else.
‘What are you doing, Kevin?’ Maggie asked. ‘I know I’m right.’
She snatched the answer sheet from him. But as she read the words ‘subduction zone’, she began to blush because the answer she had scribbled down so quickly was different by one syllable – ‘seduction zone’.
‘You shouldn’t joke around like that, Maggie,’ Edward hissed. ‘It could have cost us a point.’
Maggie squirmed. It wasn’t a joke at all. More like a Freudian slip. Damn that Josh Houghton. She had only seen his image on the internet, and he had already reasserted his place in her subconscious – or perhaps he’d never left.
‘Thanks for correcting my answer, Kevin,’ Maggie said at interval. ‘I don’t know why I wrote something so silly.’
‘I’m glad to hear you didn’t do it on purpose,’ Kevin replied. ‘Trivia is a serious business.’
Maggie smiled to herself. As far as she was concerned, the trivia nights were just a bit of fun – except for the times when Edward put pressure on her to come up with an answer. But for Kevin, trivia wasn’t simply a pleasant pastime punctuated by moments of stress. His approach was deadly serious, as if he were a contestant in a quiz show with a huge television audience and a million dollar prize.
After interval Maggie was heading back into the auditorium when she saw Teddy and the other Dreamers coming off the stage. Quickly she ducked behind a column, waiting for them to return to the table. When she took a peek, Edward and Carole had stopped only a metre away from her. Then she overheard Edward say, ‘I wonder what’s happening out in the seduction zone? Those two hurried off like they couldn’t wait.’
‘Have you ever thought they might just be friends?’
‘Two middle-aged lonely hearts. I don’t think so.’
Maggie swallowed hard. How dare he refer to her as a lonely heart?
‘Do you think he’s a virgin?’
‘That’s none of our business, Edward.’
‘At any rate, she’s too old for him.’
‘It’s only a few years’ difference. That’s nothing these days. Besides, women live longer than men.’
‘Next week one of us should follow them to their hiding place and find out what they’re up to.’
‘Shut up, Edward.’
‘You know what happens in the seduction zone, don’t you, Carole? Those plates grinding back and forth.’
Maggie could feel her anger boiling up. She looked around the column just in time to see Carole giving Edward a sharp slap on the arm.
Before the final round the Professor announced that next week’s competition would have a movie theme. Five bonus points for the best-dressed team and four rounds of movie questions.
Edward gave Maggie a nudge. ‘That’s your specialty, Maggie May.’
Maggie scowled at Edward.
‘Is that May with a “y” or an “e”?’ Kevin queried. ‘If it’s M-A-E, that’s a Liverpool folk song arranged and recorded by the Beatles.’
‘I was thinking of the Rod Stewart version,’ Edward replied, turning towards Maggie. ‘About the older woman and the younger man.’
‘That’s the one with the “y”,’ said Kevin. ‘Released in 1971.’
Bloody hell, Kevin, thought Maggie. Don’t you realise Edward’s having a dig at the two of us?
‘What are you going to wear, Maggie?’ Mei Zhen asked, deftly changing the subject.
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Why don’t we come up with a theme?’ Carole said.
‘Science fiction movies?’ Ash suggested.
‘Everybody will do that,’ Edward replied.
‘How about 1930s?’ Maggie asked. ‘Glamour, gangsters, private eyes.’
‘I like it,’ said Edward. ‘I could come as Al Capone.’
Ash mumbled, ‘That wouldn’t be a stretch.’
Ignoring Ash, Edward asked, ‘What movie was he in, Maggie?’
‘You’re probably thinking of Robert de Niro in The Untouchables. But lots of other actors have played him.’
‘Capone was my age when he died,’ said Kevin.
Everyone looked in his direction.
‘And how old is that?’ Edward asked, although they were all curious to know.
‘Forty-eight.’
Maggie had assumed he was in his early forties – it was the cherubic face and guileless blue eyes. Forty-eight made him only six years younger than she was. Not that she was interested in him in a romantic way. Heaven forbid. There was no place in her life for a romantic entanglement. As for Josh Houghton, her imminent attendance at his seminar was strictly business.
WEEK
FIVE
Maggie
Most mornings before classes began, Maggie would pop into the staff ladies’ room to use the loo and brush her hair. On this particular morning, as she was about to enter a cubicle, another door opened and Mei Zhen emerged, holding a white plastic stick that looked very much like a pregnancy test. When she saw Maggie, she gave a little start.
‘I didn’t hear you come in,’ she said.
‘Thought I’d make a quick visit before the bell rings,’ Maggie said, trying not to look at the item in Mei Zhen’s hand.
‘You might as well know, Maggie. Ash and I are trying to have a baby. You won’t tell anyone, will you?’
‘No, of course not. And I think it’s great,’ Maggie said with an enthusiasm she didn’t really feel. Why was it that other people could have babies – even lesbian couples – and she couldn’t?
‘The result’s negative,’ Ash said, showing her the little window with its single pink line. ‘I’ve been sitting in there for fifteen minutes waiting for the other line to appear. But it didn’t.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Maggie, chiding herself for being selfish.
‘I’m beginning to wonder if there’s something wrong with me.’
‘Have you been tryin
g long?’
‘This is the second cycle.’
‘Well, don’t give up yet. I imagine that most norma– most couples don’t fall pregnant on the first couple of attempts.’
‘Do you think it’s peculiar, Maggie, us trying for a baby?’
‘It’s a natural instinct to want to have a child. And I don’t see why you wouldn’t make great parents.’
‘I wish my own parents felt that way.’
‘Have you told them?’
‘Heavens, no! They’re very traditional. They don’t even know about Ash and me being a couple. They think we’re besties. They still have a vision of their daughter marrying some nice Chinese boy, preferably a doctor.’
‘My mum wanted me to marry a doctor too,’ Maggie said with a laugh.
‘We haven’t told anyone here, Maggie. Not even Carole. We were afraid of how people would react. Most of the staff don’t even know I’m gay. I suspect the principal would have a fit if he found out about us. And can you imagine some of the parents? Not to mention the kids.’
‘People might be kinder than you think. But I do understand why you’re keeping things under wraps. You can trust me.’
‘I know that, Maggie. Some people would have interrogated me about the mechanics of it all. “Who’s the father? How did you do it?” But you didn’t ask.’
‘That’s your business, not mine. Anyway, I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you.’
‘It’s kind of nice that someone else is on our side,’ Mei Zhen said, glancing at the stick one more time, as though another faint line might have magically materialised, before wrapping it in paper towel and disposing of it in the bin.
When they had arrived back at the red brick cottage in Glenview, Josh acted as though the conversation about spreading wings had never happened. Not only that, he actually wanted to make love, even though all she could think about was the fact he had rejected her, if not in those exact words, at least by implication. If she could have left that night, she would have. But she couldn’t just pack a bag and head for the city with nary a backward glance. There were complications – her job at the dress shop, for a start. And she couldn’t leave her furniture and chinaware behind, or her kitchen appliances. She would need to pack everything and arrange a removalist. She had a big problem at the other end too – the tenants in the Harksfield cottage had just re-signed for six months. That meant she would have to stay with her parents and store her furniture until the lease ran out.
The Trivia Man Page 7