As he steps out into Corn Exchange Street, he almost bumps into Maggie, who is hurrying past.
“Hello stranger!” she exclaims. “What brings you to civilisation?”
Sean kisses her on both cheeks. “I went and dropped my phone down the loo,” he explains. “I’ve just left it with an Apple ‘genius’.” He raises two fingers to indicate the quotes around the word “genius”.
“How did you manage that?” Maggie asks.
Sean grimaces. “You know, I really have no idea. It pretty much jumped out of my pocket, if you can believe that.”
“I thought they were waterproof or something, aren’t they?”
“Not mine,” Sean says. “Too old.”
“But they can fix it, can they?”
“The guy was too busy being cool to give me any actual information. But by Tuesday I’ll have it back, theoretically. Or one like it.”
“Oh well,” Maggie says. “That’s still pretty good service, I suppose.”
“For three hundred pounds…”
“Ah…” Maggie says. “Quite expensive good service, then.”
“And you? What are you doing here in consumerville?”
Maggie waves her shopping bag at him. “New swimsuit,” she says. “I don’t think I can get into the old one anymore. Though I didn’t even try, to be honest. Too depressing.”
“You’re still thin,” Sean says, eyeing Maggie’s figure in mock appraisal. “You’re looking good.”
“For my age,” Maggie says, completing Sean’s phrase. “I know.”
“No, you’re looking good, full stop, Mags.”
Maggie blushes. “Well, thanks Mister Patrick. Hey, you don’t fancy a coffee in Clowns do you? It’s not every day I get a compliment. I want to make the most of it.”
Sean nods and smiles. “Sure,” he says. “I haven’t been there for years. Plus it’s on the way.”
Maggie takes his arm and starts to walk. “Just don’t let me eat cake,” she says, confidentially. “No matter how much I fight for it, just say no.”
“All right,” Sean says. “I’ll keep you away from the cake.”
“Huh!” Maggie laughs. “I’d like to see you try. Have you tasted their chocolate cake?”
“So talking of being fit and slim and everything…” Sean says.
Maggie releases his arm. “God, you’re going to ask me about rowing, aren’t you?”
“You’ve changed your mind then? That’s OK.”
“I haven’t really. Well, I have, I suppose. It’s just Dave. The idea of me and you doing it together, rowing, that is, well, it seemed to get his back up. So it’s probably safer if I don’t.”
Sean frowns as he guides Maggie across St Andrew’s Street. “No one’s stopping Dave joining us.”
“Oh, I know. But he can’t swim, can he? The poor love.”
“Hum,” Sean says, pointedly.
“Hum?”
“I just think it’s a bit weird stopping you doing something because he can’t join in. It sounds a bit controlling, that’s all.”
Maggie sighs deeply. “Look, I know you don’t like him much. But he’s not stopping me. Not as such. And I know he doesn–”
Sean raises his hands to interrupt her. “Hey,” he says. “I really do not have an opinion on the guy. Other than to say that I think you deserve someone who’s nice to you.”
“He is nice to me.”
“Then good. That’s all fine, then.”
“You’re talking about the pub, right? When he chose for me? And paid with my card? But it was fine. It’s just that he knows my tastes so well.”
Sean laughs. “I didn’t mention that, Mags. You just did. But seriously, I didn’t mean anything.”
“And as for the rowing,” Maggie continues. “I mean, of course, the ideal is to have a wonderful partner who caters to your every need and supports you to do whatever you want to do. To be with someone who says, enjoy rowing with your best friend, darling. I’ll have dinner ready when you get home. But life’s not like that, is it? You don’t… Well, I don’t get to choose between some perfect partner or Dave, do I? I get to choose between Dave or being on my tod.”
Sean glances at a shop window and pulls a face. Maggie is sounding distinctly edgy today. Fearing that she may have seen his expression reflected in the shopfront he turns back to check on her, but all is well.
“That sounded terrible, didn’t it?” she’s saying. “Am I sounding mad today? I am, aren’t I? Shut up, Maggie! It’s just that I get a bit defensive. I mean, I know he’s not an easy person to like. But his heart’s in the right place, honest it is.”
Sean reaches out and gives Maggie’s shoulders a quick squeeze. “Of course his heart’s in the right place,” he says. “And that’s fine. And no, you don’t sound mad at all. You sound a bit… stressed, maybe. But not mad, per se.”
“Do you hate him? Dave, I mean?”
Sean laughs. “You’re not listening, Mags. I really don’t have an opinion of the guy. I just want to make sure you’re happy.”
“Well, I am. And I’ll be even happier once we get to Siena tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? And Siena is it now? I thought it was Portugal. Or Bali.”
“Nah, we couldn’t agree on those. But Tuscany is going to be gorgeous. Especially if it’s like this.” Maggie looks up at the blue sky.
“And there was me thinking the cossie was for Jesus Green Pool.”
“God, Jesus Pool!” Maggie says, fondly. “I’d forgotten it even existed. We used to go there all the time, didn’t we? What happened, eh? What happened to our youth?”
As they have reached the entrance to Clowns, Sean gestures for Maggie to enter first.
“It looks busy,” she says, pushing at the door. “But let’s try, anyway.”
Once they have ordered their coffees (and, for Maggie, cake), they take the only free table, crammed in the corner, and sit.
“You were so lucky, you know, to meet each other,” Maggie says, as if this is somehow the continuation of a conversation they’ve been having.
“Me and Cathy?” Sean asks, then, “I suppose so. Though it doesn’t feel that lucky right now.”
Maggie rolls her eyes. “What is wrong with me, today? God, I’m such an idiot sometimes. I’m so sorry, Sean.”
“It’s OK,” Sean says, flatly. “I know what you mean. And we were lucky, I suppose.”
“It’s just the way you got on,” Maggie says. “About everything, really. Whereas for most of us, well, this is about as good as it gets.” She sips at her cappuccino. “God, this is good coffee,” she says, wiping the froth from her lips. “I wonder if it will be as good in Italy?”
“I’d think so,” Sean says, then seriously, “So, Mags. Are you happy? I mean, you say you are. But as good as it gets doesn’t sound that satisfactory.”
“I’m OK,” Maggie says, forking a lump of cake and pointing it at Sean, then eating it herself when he shakes his head. “Like I said, I’ve got someone to go on holiday with this year,” she says, speaking through crumbs. “And maybe that really is as good as it gets.”
“You could have the pick of the pack if you just believed in yourself a bit more,” Sean tells her. “You’re funny, clever, good looking…”
“Well, thank you for your vote of confidence,” Maggie says. “Now I remember why I like you so much. And Clowns! God, this cake!” She pulls a face expressing ecstasy. “You really don’t know what you’re missing.”
“I just ate late, that’s all,” Sean says.
“I was never very good at relationships,” Maggie says, sucking her teeth. “That’s the thing. Or choosing men. I never have been. It’s like a skill set that I just don’t have.”
“I remember you telling Catherine that, years ago.”
“Really?” Maggie asks. She looks puzzled. “Well, it’s true anyway.”
“I’m not so sure it is.”
“Oh, it is! Trust me.”
“Maybe. I g
uess, I mean that, well, you believe in it. So it’s true.”
“Like a self-fulfilling prophesy, you mean?”
“That’s exactly what I mean.”
Maggie pulls a face. “Well, I’ve certainly spent most of my life self-fulfilling. When I wasn’t busy being in some rubbish relationship, that is.”
“Now, come on. Even you have to admit that they weren’t all rubbish,” Sean says.
“Really? Which ones weren’t?”
Sean shrugs. “Ian was pretty lovely. We were all in love with Ian.”
Maggie laughs genuinely. “Yes, and look what happened there!”
“Yes. I suppose.”
“Look, I don’t know,” Maggie says, another chunk of cake hovering in front of her mouth. “But it’s always felt a bit like destiny to me.”
“Destiny?”
“You don’t believe in destiny, I take it?”
Sean shakes his head.
“You don’t think it was your personal destiny to meet Catherine in Dreamworld that day, all those years ago?”
“In Dreamland? I don’t know,” Sean says. “Perhaps if it hadn’t been Catherine, it would have just been someone else.”
“Sorry, but I can’t even imagine that.”
“No. Nor can I, to tell the truth,” Sean admits.
“I often think that there’s just one person on the whole planet for you,” Maggie says. “But sometimes your paths never cross. Or they cross and you’re busy looking the wrong way or at your phone, or whatever. Or they cross at the wrong time in your lives when one of you isn’t ready.”
“Again, I don’t believe that,” Sean says. “It’s just not… I don’t know. It’s not scientific, I suppose.”
“Maybe not,” Maggie says. “But I’ll tell you this much. Dating in your fifties feels like licking out someone else’s dog bowl. It feels like all of the decent food has been eaten and you’re left with all the mangled leftovers that no one wanted, the bits that even the dog couldn’t digest.”
Sean’s brow furrows. Maggie is, he decides, sounding a little fragile today if not quite mad. And the tone of the conversation is definitely darkening. In an attempt at changing direction he says, “Anyway, here’s a shocker for you. Here’s a little snippet from my perfect relationship with Catherine. She thought we had an affair.”
Maggie frowns at Sean uncomprehendingly. “What? Who did? Who had an affair?”
Sean gestures at the space between them. “You and me, apparently.”
Maggie’s mouth drops. “What?” she says.
Sean nods. “It was on the tapes. She thought we had a thing together. And she thought it all ended when you met that French bloke.”
“Really? But why? I mean, that’s madness. Based on what?”
“The fact that we were… are, close I suppose. The fact that I was stressed and distant, which was actually a work thing, as it happens, but Cathy didn’t know that.”
“The Marble Drama?”
“Ha! You remember. Yes, that’s the one. And to explain it all, to explain the fact that I was being weird and distant and stuff, she invented an affair. Plus we were rowing together at the time, of course.”
“You see… rowing…” Maggie says, with meaning. “It makes people very suspicious! But that’s really… I don’t know…” She stares into the middle distance for a while then adds, “It’s a bit icky, really. It’s tawdry.”
“Yes,” Sean says. “It’s not very nice, is it?”
“She was a bit sulky for a while,” Maggie says, evidently trawling back through her memories. “But never a clue that she thought anything like that. She never said a word.”
“No.”
“How long?”
“How long did she think we were together?” Sean asks. “A couple of months, I think.”
“Ooh,” Maggie says, looking worried. “But, no… I meant, how long did she believe this? Not until… not the whole time, surely?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I think she believed it for a while. And then when Stephane came along she started to doubt herself.”
Maggie rubs her brow for a moment, then blows through pursed lips. “I’m not sure I know what to do with that information,” she says.
“No,” Sean agrees. “Me neither. I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have told you.”
“Oh, it’s not that. No, it’s better out in the open. Everything always is, really. And I can see why she could have thought that, I suppose.”
“You can?”
Maggie shrugs. “We were always close. Stephane was jealous of you, actually. So is Dave, hence the rowing troubles.” Maggie pulls a face like she has toothache.
“What?”
“Oh, sorry. I was just thinking about Stephane, actually. What an error of judgement that one was.”
Sean smiles at Maggie whimsically. “You enjoyed it at the time, as far as I recall. You wouldn’t shut up about him.”
“Well, yes,” Maggie says. “Yes, I always enjoy it at the time.”
Sean winks at her. “Yes, you do,” he says.
“But anyway, I still don’t think that’s right,” Maggie says.
“You don’t think what’s right?”
“Well, it’s like the April thing, isn’t it?” she says, fiddling with one earring. “Catherine and I were best friends, really, weren’t we? She can’t really have thought that, or I would have known. I would have picked up on it, surely?”
“Maybe,” Sean says. “At any rate, the tapes certainly aren’t proving to be boring.”
“No,” Maggie says. “No, I can see that. But I still think you shouldn’t take them to heart. I still think we’re basically talking about morphine, here.”
Sean nods thoughtfully. It crosses his mind that for many of these recordings, particularly the early ones, Catherine was hardly taking any drugs at all. She certainly wasn’t on morphine until the end. But then he decides to leave Maggie with the option to believe what she wants to believe. “Maybe,” he says. “Maybe you’re right.”
When Sean gets home that evening, he re-listens to all of Catherine’s tapes, just to be sure. But the sad truth is that, no, she doesn’t sound out of her mind. In fact, with the exception of the first tape, which was recorded last of all, she sounds perfectly compos mentis. Which would seem to imply that she really did spend much of their married life believing he had cheated on her. “What a shame she never asked,” he murmurs sadly as he reaches for the next envelope in the series.
Snapshot #18
35mm format, colour. A small girl stands at the school gates, holding her mother’s hand. She is sucking her thumb and her cheeks are wet with tears.
They had argued, Sean remembers. They had argued at the school gates because Sean had felt that Catherine was doing just about everything that she shouldn’t be doing.
He had spent the preceding days attempting to reassure April. He had told her what fun school would be, how exciting learning things was. He had said that there would be toys and climbing frames and new friends to play with.
Catherine, for her part, had been all over the shop. And her unpredictability had peaked at the school gates when she had burst into tears and hugged April as if she was never going to see her again.
An onlooker might have thought she was putting the poor girl on a train for a concentration camp rather than dropping her at school for the day, such was her desperation. And April had picked up on all of it. She’d been terrified, a terror that she associated with school long after Catherine, herself, had got over it.
And so, just to make everything even worse, they had argued. Watched by other nervous parents and poor, tearful April, they’d had one of their rare all-out shouting matches.
Sean frowns as he tries to work out whether the dates match up with his hypothetical fling with Maggie. Because that would certainly explain a lot.
Had Catherine’s tears that day – indeed had the argument itself – been about Maggie, and not about April at all
?
Cassette #18
Hello, darling.
I’m feeling quite well this morning. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that I’m feeling positively chipper. But don’t ask me why. I don’t know. Perhaps it’s just that after a week of rain, the sun has come out.
I wish this communication was a two-way thing. I wish I could ask you how you’re doing, too. According to my calculations, it must be summer by now. God, I’ll miss not being able to walk along the Cam with you. Well, I would miss it, if I wasn’t dead.
So, April’s first day at school.
I know you’ve had to wait too long for this, but here goes: I was wrong.
I fell apart at the seams that day. And yes, I was a terrible mother, a wicked mother who completely forgot about her daughter’s needs. And yes, you were totally right to point that out.
I got lost in myself, that’s the thing.
As a mother, you spend all of your time trying to make everything right for everyone else. But that day, I got lost in me.
Everything welled up: how inferior I felt, to you, to your family, to the people we knew in Cambridge, to the pretty students wafting around in summer dresses showing off their slim, child-free figures and their smooth brown legs. And yes, inferior to Maggie, too.
Up until that day I at least had April. Until that moment at the school gates, my existence had been justified. I had a baby. She needed me. She needed me twenty four hours a day. Only suddenly she was off out into the world on her own.
I felt so lost, Sean. Once she started school it felt like the only thing tethering me to planet Earth had been cut free. I was terrified I’d just float away.
You never knew it, but I used to spend the entire day in bed and then get up in time to meet her from school. You were working pretty late back then, so I usually had time to cook and clean and shop before you got home. I tried to keep everything looking normal.
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