One Day in May

by Catherine Alliott

  Hal ran me home later in his groovy convertible car. I was wrapped in an overcoat he’d lent me against the wind, a silk scarf around my neck, my right hand huge and bandaged. There’d been a bit of an incident. During pudding – plums in red wine left by the housekeeper, delicious, naturally – Hal had taken a phone call; clearly work as he mentioned a merger, or a takeover, and also mouthed ‘Excuse me’ as he left the table. He’d withdrawn down some steps to the lawn below. I’d watched as he’d paced up and down, talking. Tall, broad, one hand in his pocket, against a background of purple hills under a starry sky, head bent: he’d looked… important. That was the word. I’d toyed with my plums. Drank some more wine, thoughtful.

  On he’d talked and, after a bit, I’d gone to the loo. On the way back, eyes swivelling as I drank in the perfect house, I couldn’t help looking at the photo of Céline again as I passed. Only this time, I picked it up. The frame, old cherry wood, had collapsed, come to pieces in my hands, the glass slipping out like a guillotine blade. It smashed in pieces on the floor. Horrified, I swung round, but Hal was still pacing about in the gloom. I’d crouched hastily to pick up the bits, and one large shard had sliced my hand quite badly, right down to the quick. I’m not good at blood.

  Moments later, Hal was back and I was trying not to faint. Unable even to stagger to the loo, I was kneeling on the floor, moaning and swaying. There was a fair bit of blood as I’d attempted to stanch the flow with my other hand, so it looked as if I’d attempted suicide. Slit my wrists.

  Hal had hoisted me to a sitting position in a ticking-covered chair, put my head between my knees, held my hand in the air and talked to me in a voice one normally reserves for the educationally subnormal. When I’d recovered sufficiently so as not to pass out, he took me to the bathroom and washed and bandaged me, whilst I apologized profusely for breaking his frame. He insisted it couldn’t matter less, that it was ancient, and I explained that I’d gone back for a second look because I’d recognized Céline’s top. Had an identical one at home, which I’d bought in Primark – no, Paris! – which was quite a coincidence, I’d thought. Hal had accepted this explanation as if it were watertight, but as I’d glanced in the bathroom mirror, I’d seen his face as he wrapped my finger: handsome, composed. And also, the face of a middle-aged woman. Flushed, mascara smudged, eyes overbright, looking as if she’d been at the sherry.

  When he dropped me at my hotel in the square, the lights were twinkling in the trees above and people were still drinking on the terrace outside. I wondered if I should ask him in for a nightcap. Wondered if I could claw back some ground, some dignity. Have a serious discussion about Simone de Beauvoir over a pastis. But just as I was about to suggest it, he was hailed by a corpulent Frenchman drinking on the terrace.

  ‘Alors – Hal!’

  Plucking his brandy glass, he came swaying down the steps to shake Hal’s hand over my head. I tried to look alert and interested, but after a while, felt silly sitting there as they talked across me, even though Hal had introduced me. So I got out. Hal immediately shunted into first gear and shot me an apologetic but grateful smile, clearly keen to escape the garrulous Frenchman.

  ‘Night, Hal,’ I called. ‘Thanks so much!’

  ‘Night, Hattie.’ And off he drove.

  I watched him go with a bright smile and a cheerfully raised hand for the benefit of his rear-view mirror. But as I turned, my smiled faded instantly and I felt indescribably heavy.

  Odd, life, wasn’t it, I thought as I went slowly up the steps to the terrace. He’d clearly sought me out, tracked me down. Yet now – unsurprisingly, since I’d turned into a woman who lectured on dog shit and hormone replacement therapy, smashed up his home and bled all over his floor – he couldn’t wait to get away.

  As I went inside, feeling a little bit worse for wear, I raised my bandaged hand wearily to Monique and the clutch of antique dealers propping up the bar. Despite Porcelain Pierre’s entreaty for me to join them, I declined, although it was undoubtedly where I belonged. With Madame Alain and the other singles. I’d slot in seamlessly as they drank the night away.

  Instead, I climbed the stairs to bed, glimpsing my face in the long landing mirror: tight-lipped, preoccupied now. It occurred to me I’d blown it. Blown what? What was there to blow? Something unformed, about having unwittingly laid some ghost of Hal’s to rest, sprang confusingly to mind. Something about how he could now, unencumbered by any wistful niggling doubts, get on with the serious business of marrying his beautiful young fiancée. But as I say, it was a hazy and ultimately rather arrogant thought, I decided. Giving myself a little shake, I put the key in the door and let myself into my single room to go to bed.

  18

  Maggie rang the following morning, as I was getting dressed. At least, I’d got to the underwear stage, but since today was a holiday – no fairs until the one further south in Fréjus next week – I was taking a leisurely attitude to the business of starting the day.

  ‘So how’s it going?’ she demanded, but then Maggie did rather demand.

  ‘Fine. I did pretty well yesterday, actually.’ I snuggled back under the duvet, smugly aware that I had a few coups under my belt. ‘Two lovely balloon-backed chairs for 42 Westgate Terrace, an entire set of Regency dining chairs for Lisson Grove, which completely match their Georgian table so she’s going to be thrilled, and some fab mirrors for Laura. Oh – plus, an enormous armoire for their playroom, which I thought could house all the old board games that are strewn around. I thought we could make that room much more of a cool teenage sitting room? Like a den? There’s also a really nice coffee table made from old tea chests, which I couldn’t resist. You’re going to be thrilled.’

  ‘Good, good.’ She sounded far from thrilled. Distant and tense, in fact.

  I frowned into the phone. ‘Maggie? Are you all right?’

  ‘Bloody awful, as it happens. Henry and I…’ At which point she burst into tears.

  ‘Maggie?’ I sat bolt upright, clutching the duvet. Maggie didn’t do tears. Not like me, who filled up if I was told it looked like rain: her upper lip was so stiff it was in danger of petrifying.

  Eventually there was a fair amount of throat-clearing and snuffling and then: ‘Split up,’ she croaked. ‘It’s over.’

  ‘Oh.’

  I was shocked, but not too shocked. Maggie and Henry had a precarious, and obviously clandestine relationship, which was doomed to failure. On the other hand, it had lasted nine years.

  ‘Oh, Maggie, I’m so sorry.’

  There was a pause as she got herself together. Then: ‘Probably for the best,’ she managed gruffly. ‘I mean, as you always say, where’s it going, apart from his way?’

  ‘Still incredibly painful,’ I sympathized softly. And I didn’t want to take the blame for anything. ‘What happened? What did he say?’

  She sighed. Took a deep breath. ‘He didn’t. I did.’

  ‘You finished it?’

  ‘Not quite. But I gave him an ultimatum.’

  ‘Ah.’ Something she’d been threatening to do for years, but had never quite got round to.

  ‘After I came off the phone to you the other day, I felt so wretched. A trip we’d been planning for weeks… my best friend, my business, my livelihood… and I just drop it. Drop everything. I wasn’t proud of myself, I can tell you.’

  I didn’t say anything.

  ‘So when he came round that evening, arms full of flowers, champagne, huge beaming smile, I just couldn’t raise my game. And always, always when he’s appeared before I’ve been able to, because I’m so thrilled to see him, and nothing else matters. Everything else is usually irrelevant, except him.’

  ‘But not this time?’

  ‘No. I told him I couldn’t go on letting people down, letting myself down, feeling small and used and convenient, that it wasn’t very nice and would he please mind telling me whether he ever truly intended to leave his wife. He sat down heavily and put the flowers on the floor, almost as if he were
laying them on a grave, and said no, he never would. That she’d given him too much to be left – three children, a home, the ability to follow his glittering career – that he couldn’t abandon her now.’

  ‘Did he ever intend to?’ I wondered aloud, thinking Maggie too had given a lot.

  ‘I asked him that. He said, truly, in the beginning, when he was so in love with me – yes; said he wrestled with it daily, didn’t see how he could live without me. But as the years went by…’

  He realized he could. Maggie had become a habit, a routine. No longer fresh and exciting: she, in a way, had become a wife. His second one. But because she didn’t come with children and a home, she’d been much easier to shed. I wondered if it had even been a relief.

  ‘I almost think it was a relief,’ she said, disconcerting me. ‘Henry’s a kind man. He’d never have hurt me if I hadn’t instigated it, but when I asked him to choose, I swear I saw a cloud lift from his eyes. And the awful thing is, Hattie, I think I’ve known that for a while.’

  ‘That he wanted out?’

  ‘Yes. But knew he’d never do it. So I suppose I knew, as I paced the flat, waiting for him to arrive with his flowers and champagne, what the answer would be. And I know I’ve just burst into tears to you, and Lord knows I’ve been crying on and off for two days now, but actually, honestly, deep down…’

  ‘You know it’s right.’

  There was a heavy silence.

  ‘I’ll miss him.’

  ‘Of course you’ll miss him.’

  ‘I feel so bereft.’

  ‘But you’re not bereft, Maggie.’ I could feel her wobbling again. ‘You’ve got so much. A shop, a career, friends—’

  ‘No, don’t count them,’ she implored, interrupting me. ‘My blessings. I know what I’ve got, and believe me, it doesn’t add up to a great deal. I’ve got no husband, no children, and at forty-four, never will have now. I’m scared, Hattie. I look into the future and see a great big void.’

  ‘Well, no children maybe, but the husband – a man… For heaven’s sake, Maggie, there’ll be others!’

  ‘But I had a man,’ she said sadly. ‘One I loved. I had Henry. I don’t want others.’

  ‘He wasn’t yours. You never had him, Maggie. He didn’t belong to you.’

  ‘I know.’ She sighed. ‘And I always felt bad about that, Hattie, you know? Knew I was deceiving and robbing Davina.’ I’d never heard her say her name before: only ‘the neurotic’ or ‘the stick insect’. ‘But I’ve been robbed too.’

  I swallowed. I’d always felt that. That Henry had taken her best years. No – not her best years, but her last chance to have a family, at any rate. She’d met him when she was thirty-five: still gorgeous, not beautiful but very foxy and sexy – endless legs – and he was undoubtedly a terribly attractive older man. Handsome, wealthy, well connected, he was known to his set as Golden Balls on account of everything he touched: but not Maggie, it seemed. Because although she’d played the part of the glamorous girlfriend perfectly, she secretly wanted to be a wife. She would have married Étienne and had his children, and she would have married Henry and had his too, if he’d let her. But she’d been coerced into a different role: bundled from pillar to post, so that the girl who looked like she was in complete control really wasn’t.

  ‘Anyway,’ she went on in something more like her normal tone, ‘I’ll be fine. Life goes on, and any other cliché you care to mention. And your sister’s been sweet. I’m embarrassed to say I had a sob on her shoulder yesterday.’

  ‘Oh – is that where you are?’

  ‘Yes, I came down yesterday to see how Rod and Kenny were getting on, and she made me stay the night.’

  ‘Oh, good!’ Yes she would. Laura was kind like that. ‘You told her?’

  ‘I had a breakdown in the downstairs loo, which she overheard. She battered on the door until I came out. Forced me to spill the beans. I think she was a bit shocked.’

  Not about Henry – she knew all about that – but that someone she regarded as a real toughie and was secretly scared of – just as Maggie was rather scared of Laura with her perfect life – should dissolve and open up to her. ‘I always think she looks down on me,’ Laura would hiss nervously whenever she came to the shop, as Maggie slipped haughtily away. I believe they envied and feared one another in equal measure.

  ‘In fact your whole family have been wonderful,’ Maggie remarked. ‘Your mother has obviously already married me off to the local squire down here, who’s about sixty, according to Laura, shaking her head across the table at me and mouthing “No”.’

  ‘Mum’s there!’

  ‘Oh, the entire clan. And under the circumstances, we had a very jolly dinner last night. Your father tells me, eyeing me firmly, that there’s a lot to be said for the single life.’

  I laughed.

  ‘As does Kit, who’s divine, incidentally. I can’t think why you’ve kept him tucked away.’

  ‘He tucks himself away,’ I said quickly.

  A lot of women – and men – had fallen for Kit over the years and been disappointed, for Kit didn’t really bat for either side. Mum insisted he was just waiting for the right girl, but Laura and I weren’t so sure. He was very much a spectator. Kit had more friends and more godchildren than anyone I knew, and was happy for it to remain so.

  ‘He’s taking me out for a curry in Thame tonight, although your mother thinks we should go to the pub where the squire props up the bar. Hugh, on the other hand, thinks we should go behind the bar, because he says the landlord makes so much money swindling pissed locals I could marry him, divorce him in a year, and move to Acapulco on the proceeds.’

  I smiled. She was raising her game, as she always put it, and I blessed my family for helping her.

  ‘Maggie, stay there. Don’t rush out here for Fréjus, I can cope. Stay and recuperate a bit.’

  ‘I might, if you don’t mind. That’s what I was ringing to say. I don’t fancy crossing the Channel on my own right now, might throw myself overboard. The magic pills I got from Dr Owen have surely got their work cut out.’

  ‘You got them!’

  ‘Oh, yes. I thundered into his surgery on Friday night with no appointment and thumped his desk so hard his paperweight had an involuntary snowfall. He leaped up and wrote me a prescription in the manner of a man with an AK45 at his head – surely preferable to a mad, menopausal woman with rotating eyes. I left with a year’s supply. Popped at least six on the way out to make up for all the ones I’ve missed.’

  I giggled. ‘And?’

  ‘Oh, according to the packet, the worry lines will disappear in a matter of days, the complexion become dewy, the thinning hair achieve bounce and my equilibrium and memory will all be miraculously restored. The theory is, that in a matter of days, shiny-eyed and with the body of a twenty-six-year-old, I shall sprint past Henry in Lillie Road and have him swivelling in disbelief as he rues the day.’

  ‘And the reality?’

  ‘The reality is I still feel like shit. The jury’s out, Hatts. I’ll let you know.’

  I smiled and bid her goodbye: wishing her luck and loads of love.

  I sat there in bed, hugging my knees. Maggie, as ever, five years my senior, was the trailblazer. The one having an affair with the married man, ‘because,’ as she’d airily put it, ‘that’s all there is left in the man-pool.’ The one now popping the radiance pills. But it seemed to me, suddenly, I wasn’t far behind. Wasn’t aeons away, as I’d always nonchalantly told myself. Maggie was now in a place I would be too some day. Of course I had Seffy, but Seffy was a teenager, would soon be on a gap year, at university. Blink and he’d be gone. Back for weekends, obviously, and Christmas and Easter… but gone, effectively. And I’d be… well. I’d be building my business, with Maggie, in my house, which I adored, in a city I loved… I bit my lip. Blessings.

  I sat, pensive, on the bed. My hand still hurt, but a plaster had replaced yesterday’s bandage. I picked at it. After a bit, my reverie was
broken. Footsteps came running up the stairs: then voices on the landing, arguing. I froze, arms locked around my knees. I recognized that voice. It sent a bucketful of adrenalin shooting through me, but it also had me leaping into action. I dived for the baggy T-shirt I slept in, pulling it over my head – just as the door flew open.

  There, framed in the doorway, beaming broadly, blond, tanned and quite delicious, stood Ivan. Behind him, a breathless Monique was remonstrating with him angrily in quick-fire French, wagging her finger. She broke into English.

  ‘I tell him no! I tell him you no down yet, you sleep and I no know him, but still he persist!’

  Ah, yes, Ivan did that. Persist. I felt the blood pumping through me.

  ‘It’s OK, Monique, I’m awake. And actually, I was expecting him.’

  Throwing up her hands with a ‘Zut!’ she went away, grumbling.

  Ivan shut the door behind him with a wicked grin. And a decisive click.

  ‘Stay right where you are,’ he commanded, eyes feasting about my crumpled person and the crumpled bed. ‘I’m coming in with you.’

  He put the flowers and the bottle he was holding on a table by the door, then, with a practised eye, crouched to a diving position and launched himself headlong. As I rolled to the left, he measured his length into an empty bed.

  ‘Oi!’ He demanded into the pillow as I got to my feet. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Lovely to see you, Ivan, but I’m getting up and having a shower.’

  ‘Then I’ll have one with you!’ he roared, as in one fluid movement he was up and after me, following me to the bathroom.

  ‘You will not.’ I turned at the door, kissed him firmly on the lips, then shut and bolted it behind me.

  ‘What kind of a welcome is that?’ he bellowed through it in mock indignation. ‘I’ve just driven eighty miles!’

  ‘I kissed you!’ I yelled back as I reached in to turn on the shower and let it warm up. ‘What more d’you want?’