by Fiona Harper
I lead her to the sofa and we both sit down. Billy has forgotten my keys and is now staring, wide-eyed, at the TV, transfixed by a youthful-looking Carol Vorderman as she does her sums. I think it might be love at first sight.
‘What happened?’ I ask.
Becca takes a deep breath. ‘We had a fight. He didn’t want me going out with the girls from work. But it was Shanna’s birthday do.’
I nod. I met Shanna at Christmas. She’s the stage manager at the theatre. Loud, brassy, incorrigible. Just the sort of woman control-freak Grant would hate his girlfriend to be around. Becca loves her, though. I find her a bit over the top, but I’ve got nothing against her in small doses.
‘Anyway, one thing led to another, and before I knew it we were shouting at each other.’ Becca looks at me, her eyes huge. ‘Oh, Maggie, I said some awful things to him! You know how I can get when I really lose it.’
‘I know, but it doesn’t – ’
‘I pushed him too far!’ Becca wails, covering her face with her hands. ‘You’re always telling me I’ll go too far one day, and now I have!’
I peel her hands away from her face and make her look at me. ‘Becca,’ I say sternly, ‘this is not your fault.’ I wait for my words to sink in but her attention is fractured, all over the place.
‘I know’ she says weakly, but she doesn’t sound very convincing. ‘But if I hadn’t – ’
‘If you hadn’t nothing,’ I say. ‘There’s no excuse.’
I think of Dan, of how he just backs off from every confrontation now, and I silently thank him for it. There are worse things, I remind myself. There are definitely worse things.
The TV cuts to adverts and Billy loses interest. He turns round, and when he sees Becca, he beams. It just makes Becca cry again, even though she smiles back at him. She scoops him up and hugs him tight, doesn’t even mind when he grabs fistfuls of her hair, and breathes him in, closing her eyes.
He’s magic, this kid, I think. A charmer, in the real sense of the word. He has the ability to bring people back from the brink. He did it for me and now he’s doing it for Becca, too. I see her shoulders relax.
As if he knows his job is done, Billy stops being adorable and begins to grizzle. ‘Promise you’ll always be sweet and lovely like this,’ she whispers to him. ‘Promise you’ll never grow up.’ It’s past his tea time. I break out the emergency pot of raisins from the nappy bag and make him sit on the floor to eat them.
‘What happens now?’ I ask, while Billy is absorbed in mastering the pincer movement of chubby thumb and forefinger that will make catching raisins easier.
‘I don’t know. I mean, I haven’t even seen him since Wednesday night. I haven’t answered the door, haven’t answered the phone. But I’m going to have to talk to him eventually, aren’t I?’
I nod. While I think the best thing she could do is call the police – and I’m going to bring that up later – the first thing she needs to do is to get Grant out of her life, and she’s going to have to communicate with him somehow if she’s going to do that. ’Do you want me to be there?’
Becca looks confused. ‘Be where?’
‘With you. When you tell him it’s over.’
She looks away.
‘Please tell me you’re not going to stay with him?’
She speaks to the rich, patterned curtains. The ones Grant bought her. They were far too expensive, Becca told him, but he ordered them anyway. Anything for his girl. ‘I have to at least hear him out. I have to give him a chance to explain.’
‘Fine. But after that you’re telling him to sling his hook, right?’
‘Right,’ she replies, but she’s still staring at the curtains and there’s no determination in her voice, no determination at all.
‘Becca?’ I raise my voice, make her look at me. ‘But then you’re telling him to get lost, right?’ I stare at her as she looks back at me, her eyes hollow. ‘Promise me?’ I say, and everything I feel for her is packed into those two tiny words. ‘Promise me!’
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Becca doesn’t give me a clear answer, and the next morning I open my eyes to high white ceilings with Victorian mouldings and the smell of Jude’s aftershave lingering in the dent in his pillow. I bury my face in it and cry.
I’m back. In my real life. The other one is just a shadow, a cautionary tale.
But I can’t quite settle into the joy of being back where I belong. Firstly, because of that conversation with Becca. I left her nodding and agreeing she’d be strong, but I could see the yearning in her eyes. I could hear her murmuring to herself in her head, ‘But I love him …’ as I’d laid out all my sensible advice. It’s like reaching the final episode in a season of your favourite TV series and being left on a bombshell of cliffhanger. Except it’s not just scripts and sets and actors; it’s real life, and that version of Grant is way, way worse than the other one. At least the original kept his hands to himself.
And then there’s the feeling as I wander round our stylish flat that something is missing, and I don’t mean Jude, who must have risen early to get to some building site somewhere. My ‘mummy radar’ is still switched on. I keep wanting to go and check the cot. Every now and then I find myself glancing at the clock, calculating how long it is until the next nap or the next meal.
It’s only the knowledge that I will go back – I have a gut sense I’m not done with this yet – that I will see Billy again, that stops me bursting into tears a second time.
I always feel a bit strange after a jump. Not disoriented, but more like when you come back from holiday and your house still looks like your house, but feels strange and not-quite-right for the first twenty-four hours, so I take my time wandering round the flat, reacquainting myself with my life, the way I slot into it. I search for diaries and calendars, anything to give me a clue to where and when I am, to work out if I’ve moved seamlessly from one reality to another, or if I’ve missed a huge chunk of time in the transition. It’s weird these things are becoming normal for me, isn’t it?
A quick look out the windows, to the grey skies and large, plopping rain, leads me to suspect it’s still early 1997, but when I turn on the TV to catch the morning news I discover it’s November and almost two years have gone by. It feels as if the madness is accelerating. I don’t like it. In ‘Maggie time’ – the time I feel I’ve actually experienced – I haven’t seen the man I love for a year, which is far too long, but by the calendar it’s even worse. Close to four years! I’ll be twenty-eight soon.
I can’t possibly pretend this is a dream any more. As bonkers as it sounds, it’s time to call a spade a spade, or to be more exact, a time-travelling housewife a time-travelling housewife.
I laugh softly to myself. Even inside my own head it sounds insane.
I decide to go and get dressed, do something completely normal, to stop myself losing it altogether. It’s weird, though. I don’t recognise many of the clothes in my wardrobe. They’re two sizes smaller than post-baby Maggie wears. I look down and check out my flat stomach, my toned thighs. I wonder if I’ve started going to the gym.
As much as I’m pleased to be in such good shape, I can’t help feeling a bit thrown too. I look in the mirror. This Maggie hasn’t got split ends and she has her eyebrows done. She’s had time to shave her armpits and even her legs, and her uterus is pristine and unused.
If I’m not careful, I’ll start to think I’m dividing into two people. I’m going to have to hang on to who I think I am quite tightly, which might not be as easy as it sounds. With all these different versions of myself wandering around, I feel it would be quite easy for one of them to get lost. Maybe it’s just a matter of deciding who I want to be and choosing that. And maybe that’s the key to all of this – that when I work out which one I’m really supposed to be, I’ll naturally slot into the right life and stop all this jumping around.
Anyway … enough philosophising. I have to dig new hooks into this life. I might as well work out what I’m
supposed to be doing today.
I turn my computer on and wait for it to boot up, then search my graphic-design folder for any current files. There’s nothing. The last folder is dated more than two years ago. I try looking in other places on my hard drive but I can’t find anything else. Maybe I had a virus?
I rummage in my handbag. Actually, I rummage in three handbags until I find an unfamiliar one that is obviously the one I’m using at the moment and pull my trusty black Filofax out of it. I hug this anchor to my chest, hoping that this other Maggie, this ‘Meg’, never stops filing it in in her small, neat handwriting. I flick to the current week and find an address and an appointment time.
OK. So maybe I’m meeting with a new client?
I check the clock and realise I need to get a move on if I’m going to make it. The address is in Dulwich. A cute little outfit catches my eye on the rails, a cornflour-blue dress with a short, flared skirt and matching jacket. Very Ally McBeal. I pull it on, along with some chunky-heeled shoes from my wardrobe, grab my handbag and head for the door. It’s only as I catch my reflection in the mirror that I realise I’ve got so out of the habit of wearing make-up I’ve forgotten to put any on. I backtrack to the bedroom and rectify that before setting off.
I arrive in Dulwich forty-five minutes later. The address is not what I expected. It’s a large Victorian house with soft sandstone bricks and bright white masonry and windows. There’s a tall flight of stone steps leading up to the front door, so I make my way carefully up them and press the doorbell. That’s odd again. If there’s an office here, a design company I’m freelancing for or something, then I’d expect there to be multiple bells with labels or an entry system. Instead, there’s just one large white button set in its original circular casing.
I can hear heels on the hallways and a girl in her twenties with a pencil behind her ear and a clipboard clutched to her chest answers. She’s wearing a delicate gold necklace above her cropped mohair jumper that declares her name is Holly, but she’s the spitting image of Britney Spears, complete with bared midriff. The mother in me wants to ask her if she isn’t a bit chilly dressed like that at this time of year, but I know it’s none of my business.
‘Oh, thank God you’re here!’ she exclaims and grabs me by the arm and drags me inside. ‘The chandeliers arrived early and I have no idea how low we should hang them.’
‘OK …’ I say calmly. Going with the flow is the easiest way to tackle ‘jump day’ scenarios.
‘How are you not a wreck?’ Holly asks as she trots past the staircase into the back of the house. ‘I’m always a wreck on install day!’ She leads me into a spacious dining room. It has the original cast-iron, arched fireplace, cornices to die for and large French windows leading onto what looks like a brand-new conservatory. The decor is amazing. The space is big and light enough to cope with walls painted in a colour somewhere between crimson and burgundy, the floor is dark mahogany and there’s a long dining table flanked with antique chairs.
There are a couple of workmen in paint-spattered trousers hanging around and when they see me they jump to attention. One climbs up a step ladder, and another one hands him a stupendous Venetian crystal chandelier. I marvel at the delicate beauty of the curls of blown glass, quite mesmerised by them.
‘Here alright?’ he asks, puffing.
‘Down a bit,’ I say, just going with the scenario. I have no idea how high or low to hang a chandelier, so I just follow my gut. He does as requested and I tell him it’s perfect before he drops it. The other man rushes in to ease it gently from his hands and then a whole team of them go to work hanging both that one and an identical one at the other end of the room.
Holly looks at me nervously. ‘It’s just like the sketches, right? The team’s been working really hard to bring your vision to life.’
My vision? I stare at Holly.
‘Do you want to do a final walkthrough of the top floors?’ she asks. ‘I know you let me oversee the install of the bedrooms, and I followed your checklist to the letter, but I wondered if you want to add any final touches?’
I nod dumbly. As we walk up the large turning staircase with its gently scrolling banister, I piece it all together. Jude had suggested interior design, hadn’t he, last time I was with him? I must have followed his lead, even though I wasn’t sure I had the eye for it; but as I walk round this house, which has slightly more of the twenty-first-century mix of minimalism and good-quality traditional features than is right for the late nineties, I recognise myself. Not in an obvious way, but in the choice of colour of a vase or the eclectic mix of photo frames in a wall display.
I did this?
For the first time in my life – any of my lives – I’m astounded by my own abilities. I sigh as I look round the gorgeous master bedroom, with its large picture window overlooking the landscaped back garden. This is who I am, I think. This is the me I’ve been searching for. I close my eyes for a moment.
‘Any last things you want done?’ Holly asks.
I open my eyes again, walk around the bed, and stare at the room from another angle. Can I do this? I know the other Maggie, Meg, has excelled herself, but I feel like an imposter standing in her cute little designer suit. I look round the room again, inspecting it more critically this time.
I sense an empty space on the bed. The bedding is an exercise in complementing neutrals – oatmeal, hessian and taupe. ‘More pillows,’ I say, without almost deciding to. ‘In aubergine …’
Holly stares at the bed. ‘You’re right. It needs a lift of colour.’ She frowns. I can tell she’s disappointed at not having thought of it herself. ‘How about those darling Chinese silk ones with the birds embroidered onto them that we found in Paris? I can hop in a cab and fetch them from the office?’
I nod. ‘Do it,’ I say, hoping my assistant’s eye – because that’s who I’m guessing Holly is – is as good as mine. She grins at me and rushes out the door. I hear her clumpy shoes thumping down the stairs. ‘You might want to take a – ’ the door slams, cutting me off ‘ – coat.’
I wander through the house then, looking at everything a second time, trying to take it all in. I’m an interior designer, I think to myself, and I’m flipping good! A warm glow follows me through the rest of the day.
When Jude comes home that evening, I make my way to meet him. I find him standing in the hallway, a bottle of champagne in one hand and a huge smile on his face.
‘What?’ I ask, unable to help smiling back.
‘I did it!’ he says, putting the bottle on the console table against the wall and shrugging his coat off. ‘I sold the Mayfair house – my first million-pound property – and you know what that means?’
I nod and laugh, even though I have no idea what I’m agreeing with; I’m just so happy to see him. He picks me up and spins me round, plants a kiss on my lips and then breaks away to laugh out loud.
‘The final offer was for a million and five! The commission means we’ve finally got what we need for the house! No more squishing into this pokey little flat.’
Our flat is hardly pokey, I think. The square footage equals that of the three-bed semi I share with Dan in my other life, but I’m too thrilled to be back again to argue. We open the champagne and order food in because neither of us can be bothered to cook, and over dinner I manage to piece together most of what has happened since I was last here.
Jude is no longer working for his father. He bought the business out so his dad could retire and started focusing almost exclusively on high-end renovations, doing for other people what he’d been doing for himself when he was flipping houses. However, that wasn’t enough for him. Capitalising on his charm and sales patter, he’s started his own luxury estate agency, figuring there was much more money to made in buying and selling of property rather than the assembling of bricks and mortar. And that’s where I come in too, because when his clients decide they need to rip everything out and put their own stamp on their new seven-bedroomed, five-bathroomed propert
y, he knows somebody fabulous who can help them do just that.
‘This is our way in, Meg,’ he says, his eyes shining. ‘It’s our way to the top rung, where we belong.’
He’s so unshakeable in his confidence, and just so flipping handsome when he smiles like that, I don’t even think to question whether that’s really where I fit too, or whether I’m just hitching a ride on his coat-tails. We’re a team, aren’t we? We come as a package.
However, I know that’s how I feel about our relationship, but I’ve noticed my ring finger is still naked, and I start to wonder if Jude feels the same way? I don’t think I’m kidding myself about him, about our relationship, but then Becca didn’t think she was kidding herself about Grant. I smile to hide the butterflies fluttering weakly in my stomach as I ask, ‘Together?’
Jude leans over and gives me a lingering kiss. ‘Always.’
I kiss him back, the warmth spreading inside lifting those butterflies, letting them flit free. I smile against his lips, feeling braver. ‘Are we going to do something about it?’
I feel rather than see him frown. He pulls back and looks at me. ‘What sort of thing?’
Ah, he hasn’t been thinking along these lines at all. However, the look on his face crystallises everything I’ve been thinking and feeling today into one hard truth: if this is the life I’m going to pick, the one I’m going to stay in, I want more. I want to be married, totally Jude’s. And I want to have children. I want to have my chance at bringing Billy or Sophie into this life – maybe both, if I’m lucky – to make it complete.
‘How long have we been together now?’ I ask him.
‘Five years? Six?’
I nod and then I take a large breath. ‘Don’t you think it’s time to do something to, you know, show our commitment to each other?’
‘Like what? You mean get married?’
‘Would that be so bad?’
He smiles at me. At first I think he’s going to drop down on one knee, but he reaches out and touches my face, strokes the baby hairs at my temple with the tips of his fingers. ‘You know I love you, right?’