River Deep (41 page)

‘Excuse me,’ Maggie said, though she was fairly certain they wouldn’t notice her even if her hair was on fire. She felt a little pang of memory as the sensation of Pete’s kiss paid a swift return visit. Telling herself it would fade eventually, she took a deep breath and pushed open the door of the pool room bar, The Fleur’s only working bar for the next two months.

It was full to the rafters. This wasn’t hard as it was tiny, and even if only the five regulars who were usually there had shown up it would still have looked busy. But apart from Mrs Kim, Falcon and his friend (not Pete, Maggie noticed, wondering if he was here somewhere, and then dreading the thought that it might have been him and Stella in the gloom on the picnic table) and the old man, there were at least eight, maybe ten other people in the bar. Jim had somehow managed to move the pool table and squeeze two tables and chairs in its place, both fully occupied. Maggie caught Jim’s eyes and headed to the bar.

‘Blimey,’ she said by way of a greeting, gesturing at the busy bar.

‘Yeah, I know,’ Jim said. ‘I think it’s the little side entrance, I think it intrigues people.’

Maggie nodded – it was a possibility.

‘So how was your day?’ Jim asked her. ‘Sarah and Becca get on OK with Aidan? Tearful reunions all round?’ He poured Maggie a glass of wine and set it on the bar.

‘Thanks!’ Maggie was mildly surprised by the gesture. ‘Well, it wasn’t exactly like it is in the movies, but it was a good start, I think.’

‘Oh good, because, look, um …’ Jim leaned a little closer to her. ‘Um, Maggie––’ he began.

‘All right, Maggie?’ Falcon interrupted him, sliding up the bar to stand next to her.

‘Not so bad!’ Maggie said with deliberate brightness. ‘You?’

‘Yeah, I’m all right. How’s that Sarah?’

Maggie bit her lip. ‘That Sarah is fine, really good. In fact, she’s got a lot on at the moment with her family and, well …’ Maggie glanced at her watch and hoped she wasn’t totally lying … ‘she might have just started seeing someone else.’

Falcon shrugged. ‘Good one,’ he said mildly. He gave Maggie a smile. ‘Fancy a whisky with me? The last two singles left in town?’

Maggie was just wondering why ever not when Jim put his hand on her arm.

‘Maggie!’ he said insistently.

‘What?’ Maggie looked at him.

‘I’ve been trying to tell you, Christian’s here. I mean, actually he’s there.’

Jim nodded to the shadowy end of the short bar where Christian sat watching her. His hair was unkempt, his jaw was shadowed with stubble and his eyes looked hollow and dark. Maggie felt a lurch in her stomach and she tried to smile at him.

‘He got here just after lunch. He’s been waiting ever since. He hasn’t been drinking or anything, just sitting there looking like he hasn’t slept in ten years. Even Sheila took pity on him and made him two cups of tea, although she wouldn’t speak to him. But he didn’t touch either one. He’s just been waiting.’ Jim took in Maggie’s blanched white face. ‘Do you want to talk to him? I could get rid of him if you want me to.’

‘And me,’ Falcon said, leaning in on the conversation.

Maggie smiled at him. ‘No, it’s OK. We’ve got things we need to say to each other. That’s why he’s here, I expect.’ She took a deep breath and, picking up her glass of wine, walked over to Christian.

‘Maggie,’ he said, looking at her, his face full of sorrow.

‘Are you OK?’ Maggie asked him. ‘What happened? Is it Louise? Is she OK?’

Christian reached out for her hand and squeezed her fingers more than was comfortable.

‘I need to talk to you, but not here. Can we go somewhere?’

Maggie paused for the protracted second it took to pull her fingers from his grip and nodded, leading him through the pool room bar, through the closed-off bar and into remains of the old kitchen where Sheila was already sitting, lighting one cigarette from another.

‘Oh, you’ve found him then, Mag,’ she said dourly. ‘I’ll get back.’ She pushed back her chair and gave Christian a long look as she swept past him. ‘Don’t you let him mess you around, all right? Even if he is sorry,’ she said as she exited.

Christian sat at the table and folded his hands in front of him.

‘Do you want a drink of anything?’ Maggie asked him. ‘Tea, chocolate?’ Arsenic? She added in her own head. He certainly looked miserable enough.

He shook his head. ‘No. Look, sit down, will you. I need to get things sorted.’

Maggie sat down and looked at him, feeling an inexplicable dread.

‘I’m sorry that I haven’t been in touch, after the other night. When we kissed …’ Maggie began to tell him not to worry, but he talked over her. ‘I hated myself for that, Maggie, for kissing you and leading you on and not letting you go. For lying to Louise about it. But then I realised that maybe there was part of me that didn’t want to let you go, that couldn’t. I haven’t been in touch because I decided to take Louise away on holiday, to try to get you out of my head once and for all. And we had a great time, a fantastic time. Whenever she was by my side I couldn’t think of anything else but her. She’s so …’ Christian gestured in the dark air as if he were spreading star dust through it. ‘She’s so wonderful to be with, she lights me up from the inside, you know? She’s a bit fragile sometimes; she’s not like you. She’s not so self-reliant, but she makes me want to take care of her.’ Christian stopped himself. ‘But when I was alone, or in the middle of the night, I kept thinking about you, Maggie, kept coming back to you. I kept thinking about everything we’d done together, how much we achieved. I couldn’t have built up Fresh Talent without you.’

Maggie wondered if she’d misheard.

‘You could have, it was all you, not me …’ she began.

‘No. We did it together. You had just as many ideas as I did, although you let me think they were mine more often than not. I’m not totally stupid, Maggie. Fresh Talent really took off after you arrived. That wasn’t just coincidence. And you kept it going, you were the engine room. It’s been hard to replace you, really hard.’

Maggie thought she knew what he wanted.

‘Christian, look. I’m … OK about you and Louise now. I’m fine, but I can’t come back to work for you, not now … It would be too hard, and I’ve got to concentrate on the––’

Christian slammed his palm down on the table, making Maggie jump a little.

‘No, I don’t want you to come back to work for me! You’re not listening! Christ knows how long I’ve spent working out the right thing to do, so please. Just listen to me, please, OK?’

Christian ran his hands through his already dishevelled hair and Maggie nodded, suddenly wishing that the main bar next door wasn’t closed and that it wasn’t so far to the nearest people.

He took a breath. ‘You know me, Maggie. You know where I came from and how I got here. It’s taken a lot of blood and guts and a lot of learning. No one, except for you, has ever helped me. Whatever I’ve got now, I got it on my own. I’ve learnt that you have to keep building on strong foundations to keep growing. You know I left school when I was fifteen without an O level to my name. You know that. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt, and I’ve learnt it the hard way, you don’t let your best assets go cheaply.’

Maggie shook her head. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said.

‘I’m saying that you – you and I. We were the greatest asset I’ve ever had. We were a team, a great team. And OK, so our relationship has changed over the years, so we don’t make each other feel the way we used to, but I still care about you, Maggie. I still love you and I still … I still want you to be happy. The way I treated you, you didn’t deserve that. It’s the worst, most dishonourable thing that I’ve ever done and I can’t live with that. I thought you’d be OK, but then when we had dinner I realised that you weren’t, that you were so badly hurt, and I can’t bear the thought that I did that to
you
. I can’t pretend I’m not in love with Louise, but … well, if you’re willing to give it another go, then so will I and maybe eventually those feelings for Louise will fade. I just want to do the right thing, Maggie, and I don’t think we should throw away everything we had. What we had was solid.’

He looked at her and picked up her hand.

‘Maggie, will you come back to me?’

The fridge kicked in, its humming breaking the silence of the room. Maggie sat back in her chair and went over everything he had just said, checking that she hadn’t imagined it. And then she thanked God that sometime in the last few days she had realised she didn’t love him any more, and hadn’t for a long time before Louise – because otherwise right now she’d be dying of a broken heart.

‘Are you joking?’ she said finally, aware that the anger that had so long evaded her had crept into her voice. ‘Are you actually kidding me?’ Maggie’s laugh was harsh and hard-edged. ‘You come in here and you say, “Oh well, Maggie, I’m totally crazy about this other woman, oh yes I love her, but you’re ever so good at filing and I really can’t cope with feeling guilty so I think we should give it another go. I care about you, Maggie, not as much as I totally love my new girlfriend, mind you, but she’s not so good at negotiating with suppliers, so why don’t we get back together? Is that what you’re saying?’

Christian pushed his chair back a little in surprise.

‘No, no. I’m trying to say––’

‘That we can’t throw what we had away?’ Maggie asked him.

‘Yes, exactly …’ Christian stumbled over his words.

‘It’s too late, Christian. It’s too late. You threw it away the day you decided to go to bed with Louise. Maybe you didn’t think you’d fall for her, maybe you just wanted a bit on the side, but either way, you threw it away then, and to be honest, I think both of us had been destroying it in little bits and pieces for months. We couldn’t go back, even if it wasn’t as clear as bloody day that you love her and want to be with her, and I
certainly
don’t want to go back for reasons of practicality or because you can’t sleep at night. Jesus, how desperate do you think I am?’

‘But I thought you said …’

‘Yes, I did say it, and I did want you back at first, before I realised that you were right. We weren’t lovers any more, not really. We might have had all the moves, but it was all so routine, so … joyless. And we weren’t even that good at being friends towards the end. I hardly saw you, and if I think about it, I didn’t actually miss you, not until after you were seeing her when I supposed I must have known something was going on. I was shocked, Christian, that you left me. Shocked out of my routine and my safe, predictable life. Hurt and desperate and a bit mental. But I’ve had time now. Even if you weren’t madly in love with Louise, I still wouldn’t want you back. I don’t love you any more.’

Maggie panicked as she wondered for a second if that were actually true, but then her heart resurfaced from the depths of her stomach and she felt sure again.

‘And you don’t love me, so let’s just put it behind us and move on. And as for your terrible guilt, what about Louise? How were you going to live with the guilt of leaving her? Or hadn’t you thought that far ahead. Look, you go back to Louise, and I’ll get on with my life, and we’ll both pretend we never had this conversation, OK?’

Maggie was alarmed to see a large tear tracking down Christian’s face and her voice softened.

‘What? What is it? Come on, babe, you know I’m right, don’t you? Louise will make you a hundred times happier than I could,’ she told him, still feeling slightly out of sync with the unreality of the situation.

Christian looked at her with bloodshot eyes.

‘Yeah, I know. I know you’re right, but I … I already told Louise I was going back to you.’ He broke into a sob. ‘Oh fuck, Maggie, what have I done! I’ve been such a bloody idiot. This thing’s just tied me up in knots and I couldn’t see what was right any more. Oh God, I’ve lost her!’

Maggie thought for a moment, trying to see through the mess that was piling up around her.

‘It’s OK, it’s OK, babe. Do you know where she is?’ she asked him.

‘Back at her flat, I suppose,’ Christian said. ‘In London.’

‘Well then, just go. Go to her and tell her what an idiot you’ve been. Tell her what you told me, and then tell her you realised that you’d give up everything to be with her, because that’s how you feel isn’t it?’

Christian looked at her. ‘Yes, I think it is, Maggie. I think it is, and I’m terrified that she won’t feel the same.’

Maggie felt a tiny pull at the corner of her heart, wishing for one split second that it
could
have been her and Christian. That they
could
have been happy, and that she had never had to take up stalking or double agent spying or kissing Pete for the wrong reasons and getting stuck with the memory. But it wasn’t her, and she was mostly glad about it. In a few weeks more she was fairly sure she would be all glad.

‘Come on, Christian, just go. Go to her and work it out. You can do it. Don’t ask me how, but I just think that … well, I just think that Louise loves you as much as you love her. Call it women’s intuition. I’m sure she’ll be really happy once you’ve explained it all.’

Standing up, Christian went to the sink and splashed water on his face.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’m going.’ He turned to look at her. ‘I meant what I said, Maggie, about how important you are in my life and how much I hated to hurt you.’

Maggie nodded an acknowledgement.

‘I know, and you were a total shit, but I suppose in the end it’s not how it happened, just that it did. And I think it was the right thing to happen, I really do.’ Maggie shrugged. ‘And for what it’s worth, it does mean something that you came back to try and make things right. Even if it was for all the wrong reasons and in the wrong way. I still think we’ll have each other when this has settled down. Just differently.’

Christian nodded, and, bending down, he grazed his lips against her cheek.

‘I’ll see you,’ he said, and left her again, for good this time.

Maggie sat back in the kitchen chair, tipping it up on its back legs and rocking it as she listened to the hum of the fridge and the ticking of the kitchen clock. Tomorrow, even this old table would be gone and the new stainless steel chef’s kitchen would be fitted. It was as if her old life had had its own deadline by which everything had to be changed for ever. The old pub was already gone, and now Christian was too. She just hoped he would manage to work it out with Louise, though if he did, it wouldn’t be long before their paths would cross again and she’d have to come clean about Carmen. Maggie sucked in her cheeks.