Downsizing (20 page)

Immersed in thought, she didn’t hear the
doorbell until the third ring. She seldom had unexpected callers,
and only answered it because Greg had said he might make it back
this evening. But it wasn’t Greg. Instead, Charles’s cultured tones
echoed through the intercom.

“
Maxine, I hope I’m not disturbing
you, my dear.”

“
No, Charles,” she said, not
wanting company but too polite to turn him away. “Come up.” She
pressed the button to release the front door.

He walked into her small flat, his expression
concerned. “Your message sounded a little desperate,” he offered by
way of explanation. “You’d left the office when I returned your
call, and I couldn’t reach you here.” He shrugged. “I was
worried.”

“
That’s kind of you, Charles, but
there was no need for you to put yourself out.”

“
By the looks of it,” he said,
examining her face closely, “there was every need.”

Without asking if he wanted one, she poured
him a stiff measure of scotch and handed it to him in a heavy
crystal tumbler.

“
Thank you, my dear.” He took the
seat opposite hers. “Now, tell me what’s wrong.”

And so, dry-eyed and succinct, she relived the
injustice of it all.

“
Ah, so you’ve collided with the
infamous glass-ceiling.”

“
Yes. It seems that it’s perfectly
acceptable for McFee to make his way through the grades using his
family connections, but because I wasn’t prepared to sleep with my
boss my career’s going nowhere. It just makes me so angry.” She
felt a fat tear slide down her face.

“
Maxine, they didn’t deserve you.”
He smiled at her. “Would you really have had them for sexual
harassment?”

“
You bet!” She played back the
recording of her interview with John. Charles’s expression darkened
as he listened to the man’s voice, full of self-assurance, calmly
telling her that she’d be
persona non grata
in the legal
world if she told the truth.

“
What will you do now?”

“
I haven’t had time to think about
it.”

“
Don’t rush into anything, my
dear. Have you had any time for yourself since you left school?
Have you had any holidays recently?”

“
I’ve been to stay with Greg’s
parents in Cornwall a few times.” She smiled as she recalled his
irascible father. He’d taken a shine to her and been on his best
behavior for the duration of her visits, apparently, barely
swearing at all.

“
That’s not what I meant.” He
glanced over her shoulder, through her open bedroom door, straight
at the large picture of Noah that dominated her night-stand. “It
seems to me that until you can put your past behind you, you’ll
never really know what you want to do with your life. Shouldn’t you
think about going back to Colebrook for a while and laying a few
ghosts?

“
At the moment, Charles,” she
said, grasping the bottle of Chablis for a refill, “my only
ambition is to get to the bottom of this bottle.”

* * * *

Maxine rather enjoyed her last few days at
work. No one knew she was leaving. Her final act of defiance was to
insist that it remained a secret, especially from McFee. John was
still furious with him, but whether that was for cheating or for
being stupid enough to get caught she couldn’t have said. Neither
did she care. McFee didn’t know what the upshot of his cheating
would be, and walked around the office like a condemned man,
causing Maxine and Poppy to crack up.

Two days after her conversation with Charles,
Poppy told Maxine that Graham Spiller was on the phone. Maxine
couldn’t have been more surprised. She didn’t have a clue what he
might want, but suspected Charles must be behind the call. She
remembered his mood of deep contemplation when he’d left her flat
the other night, and wondered what scheme he’d cooked up to try and
help her. There was only one way to find out.

“
Put him through,
Poppy.”

“
Maxine, how are you?”

“
Well, thank you, Graham, but
surprised to hear from you like this. What can I do for
you?”

“
I’m in town for the day, got your
number from your mother and wondered if you’d be free for
lunch.”

Maxine had never much liked Graham. He’d been
one of the many who’d ignored her when she’d been younger, and she
doubted if she’d exchanged more than a dozen words with him in all
the time she’d known him. Still, she was deliberately running her
business lunches down now that she didn’t have anything to gain
from them, and was curious to see what Graham wanted.

“
All right. When and
where?”

She recognized him as soon as she walked into
the restaurant. He was sitting at the bar watching the door,
probably wondering if she was now too fat to get through it. He
hadn’t changed much. He still wore his air of superiority as
casually as he wore his expensively tailored suit. His hair had
thinned a little, and his face showed early signs of ageing, but he
was still unmistakably Graham.

Maxine walked up to him, hand outstretched.
“Hello, Graham, it’s good to see you again.”

“
Maxine?” His expression was
incredulous. “You look fantastic!” He jumped to his feet and took
her hand in both of his, still eyeing her with
astonishment.

“
How did I used to look?” she
quipped.

Their conversation was stilted, both of them
aware that a discussion about old times in Colebrook would be a
potential minefield. It was saved from stalling altogether by their
common interest in the law, and it was only as Maxine’s half-eaten
grilled fish was removed from in front of her that she decided to
give him a prompt. He certainly hadn’t sought her out in order to
avoid talking about the good old days, so it was time to find out
what he really did want.

“
So, what really brings you to
London, Graham?”

“
Actually, you do.”

“
Me?” She smiled across at him.
“You’ll have to explain that one.”

“
I just wondered how life in the
fast lane suits you.”

Maxine shrugged. “It’s a living,”

“
Have you ever thought of giving
it up for a different sort of challenge?”

“
The idea occasionally crosses my
mind,” she admitted cautiously. “Did you have something in
mind?”

“
Actually, yes. I know you haven’t
been back to Colebrook in a while, but I expect your mother’s told
you how much it’s changed.” She nodded. “There are four firms of
solicitors in the High Street now, and my father hasn’t found it
easy to adjust to the idea of competition.” Maxine expressed polite
sympathy. “Anyway, it’s caught up with the old man and he recently
suffered a mild heart attack.” This time Maxine’s sympathy was
genuine. “The doctor has recommended early retirement and so I’m
looking for a new partner, someone willing to buy into the business
and help me kick it into the twenty-first century. My father’s
rather held me back in that respect.”

“
And you think the proposition
might interest me?”

“
I was talking to Charles about
it, and your name came up in conversation. I was in town anyway, so
I thought, what the hell, there’s no harm in talking to
her.”

“
No harm at all,” agreed Maxine,
her mind whirling with unthinkable possibilities. “What sort of
business do you attract nowadays?”

“
The usual that you’d expect for
small town solicitors. Wills, boundary disputes, conveyancing, that
sort of thing. A small industrial park has been built on the
outskirts of town, housing offices and small to medium sized
business that don’t have in-house lawyers.” Maxine felt a small
flicker of interest. “The sort of thing that you do at the moment
and which, I freely confess, isn’t really my bag.” He paused and
took a sip of his wine.

“
The thing is, Maxine, being a
local girl, people will remember you and have more confidence in
your abilities than they would with a stranger.” He had the good
sense not to comment on her improved appearance helping to pull the
punters in, but she suspected that he was thinking it. “You’d be
able to build up your own client base and have complete autonomy
over your own domain.” He grinned at her. “It’s nightmarish, the
prospect of advertising and interviewing a load of strangers. I
don’t suppose you’d be prepared to consider it? You have passed
your solicitors exams, I take it.”

“
Yes, I have, but I’ve never
seriously considered going down that route. Besides, Graham, I
haven’t been back to Colebrook for twelve years, and if I’m honest,
I’m not sure that I want to.”

“
I understand that, but won’t you
at least think about it?”

“
Sure.” She’d been doing nothing
but think about it since he started talking. “What sort of money
are we talking about if I wanted to buy into the partnership?” she
asked, visions of her hard-earned golden parachute disappearing
into the ether.

He told her, exacting a soft exclamation from
her for his trouble.

“
That seems rather a lot,” she
said.

“
It would be subject to validation
by an independent audit, of course, and you wouldn’t have to find
it all at once. A down payment of, say, twenty percent would
satisfy Dad, I’m sure, and the rest could be deducted over a period
of years from your profits.”

Maxine tried to picture herself as a small
town solicitor. It was something she’d never have dreamed of when
she’d left university, so full of plans to change the world, but
she found the prospect less dispiriting now that she’d had a taste
of reality in the corporate world. But Colebrook. Noah. Did she
dare?

Graham didn’t say anything else, leaving her
to marshal her thoughts. It was funny how things happened. She’d
had virtually no contact with Colebrook for almost twelve years,
and now, in less than twelve months, she was reacquainted with
Charles, on electronic speaking terms with Noah, and Graham had
approached her with a surprisingly tempting offer at a point in her
life when she was about to become unemployed.

Was Charles right? Should she go back and see
if she could finally put Noah behind her? Sometimes, she mused,
reaching a decision surprisingly quickly, you just had to go with
the hand life dealt you.

She smiled at Graham. “Strangely enough, I’ve
got some holiday time to take at the beginning of next month.
Perhaps I’ll come down and see my mother, take a look at the new,
improved Colebrook, and see how I feel after that.”

“
Great!” Graham grinned at her as
though it was a done deal.

“
There’s just one thing, Graham,”
she said. “No one in Colebrook knows that I’m in contact with
Charles, and for now, I’d like to keep it that way.”

“
Mum’s the word.”

* * * *

Less than a week later, Maxine left
Metropolitan for the last time, the few personal possessions she’d
kept in her office easily squashed into her briefcase. No one but
Poppy, who was in tears at the prospect, knew she was leaving for
the last time. That was the way that she wanted it. No flamboyant
gestures of farewell, fake expressions of regret, or vague promises
to keep in touch. Just a clean break from which she didn’t intend
to look back.

The following day she packed a couple of bags
into the sports car she’d bought out of her Christmas bonus.
Slipping behind the wheel, she pressed a button and the roof slid
smoothly down, causing a soft wind to buffet her hair as she drove
rapidly away from London.

It was July first, the sun was shining on
this, her thirtieth birthday, and she was going home.

Part Two

Chapter Fifteen

Maxine drove all the way to Colebrook with the
roof of her car down, her face turned into the breeze. Relief at
having escaped the corporate jungle unscathed distracted her from
the reckless decision she was considering in respect of her future.
She smiled, suddenly confident that she’d be able to survive this
long-overdue visit. Glad that Graham had talked her into
it.

Then, as the streets became increasingly
familiar, doubts set in. What the hell was she doing here and what
did she hope to achieve by it? She pulled into the driveway of her
mother’s bungalow before she could have a change of heart. Apart
from a fresh coat of paint, it hadn’t changed at all. She extracted
keys from her bag, opened the door to the garage, and drove her car
inside. She didn’t want inquisitive neighbors to know she was here,
spoiling the element of surprise.

Once inside the bungalow, Maxine opened the
French doors to the garden, breathing in the smell of freshly cut
grass. The garden was her mother’s passion and had always received
a greater share of attention than the house itself. Nothing seemed
to have changed in that respect. A tiny feeling of regret inched
its way into her well-insulated heart as she recalled the last
occasion upon which she’s stared at this same space, sick with
disappointment at Noah’s cruel defection.

Determined to remain in control, Maxine tore
her thoughts from the past and entered her old room. Everything was
exactly the way she’s left it, the only addition being a thick
layer of dust. Wrinkling her nose she forced the window open and
set about cleaning the whole place. The physicality of the exercise
kept the nostalgia at bay, and by the time she’d finished she’d
recaptured her mood of quiet optimism. She loaded the contents of
her London fridge into the antiquated one in her mother’s kitchen
and put the kettle on, planning her afternoon in her mind as she
waited for the water to boil.