Past Secrets (13 page)

‘To Una, happy birthday, I love you so much, Dennis,’ was Maggie’s usual suggestion.

It was what she’d have liked written on a card to her. Grey, for all his eloquence, hadn’t been much good at cards either, although Maggie had kept every single one he’d given her.

Mum hugged Maggie tightly, then somehow managed a final squeeze and whispered in her ear: ‘We’re so glad you’re here, Bean.’

Bean or Beanpole was her nickname, so given because she’d been long and skinny as a child.

‘Like a beanpole!’ her cousin Elisabeth used to say joyfully.

Elisabeth, also tall but with Victoria’s Secret model curves instead of Maggie’s racehorse slenderness, was never called anything but Elisabeth.

While Dennis bustled off with Maggie’s suitcases, Una told her daughter that the osteoporosis was advanced.

‘They can’t believe I haven’t broken anything before,’ she said finally. ‘It’s a bit of a miracle, and at my stage, I could end up breaking bones with just a knock against a bookcase.’

Maggie was shocked. ‘Oh, Mum,’ she said. That’s terrible. Dad said it was osteoporosis but he never said it was that bad.’

They heard Dennis coming back.

‘I don’t want him to know everything,’ her mother went on. ‘It’d only worry him and what’s the point of that?’

‘He ought to know, Mum.’

‘Ah, why? It won’t be good for his heart if he’s watching me every moment worrying about me. I’ll be fine.’

Maggie’s father came back into the kitchen.

‘What’ll we have for dinner?’ said Una breezily. ‘I can’t wait for a decent meal. Your poor dad is doing his best but he can only do soup and rolls, How about a roast? I fancy beef.’

‘Roast beef? Is there beef in the fridge?’ Maggie asked.

Her mother looked blank. ‘I don’t know, love. I can’t get near the fridge. But look. Or you could go to the shops. The car’s there.’

At that instant, Maggie began to feel panicky. Everything was more serious than she’d thought.

Her father wasn’t exactly one of life’s copers. He’d never been able to cook, and viewed both the iron and washing machine as arcane specimens, beyond his ability. Her mother had done everything in the Maguire household.

And yet here she was, expecting Maggie, who had just arrived, to know what was in the fridge, not to mention to feel confident hopping into a car she had never driven before and going to the supermarket. Maggie had passed her driving test when she was a teenager but she’d never owned a car and could barely remember the difference between all the pedals.

Had breaking her leg broken something else in her mother too?

‘Mum,’ Maggie said, feeling horrendously guilty at not being able to do this simple thing in a family crisis, ‘I can’t drive. You know I can’t.’

She looked into the fridge. There were several big chill-cabinet cartons of soup, half a pack of butter and eggs. Nothing else. ‘We shop from day to day,’ her father-added helpfully. ‘I’ll stay with your mother.’

Maggie shut the fridge. She was in charge. She wondered how this had happened. She was not qualified for this. Her mother was the one who was in charge.

‘You’ll be able to go, won’t you?’ Una’s voice quavered slightly.

With frightening clarity, Maggie saw that their roles had swapped. One cracked femur and she was the parent.

She had no option.

‘I’ll do a shop right now,’ she said firmly. ‘The mini supermarket will have everything we need. I’ll walk.’

Speedi Shop on Jasmine Row had been open from dawn to dusk since Maggie had been in infant school. More expensive than the proper supermarket a mile away, it was always busy but there were never any long queues at the checkouts, mainly because Gretchen, the owner, didn’t encourage chitchat. She was, however, an interrogator of Lubyanka standards and Maggie had always felt that Gretchen was terrifying. She didn’t smile much and when she did, her forehead and face remained static, as if filled with Botox, although it was hard to imagine Gretchen spending the money on such a thing. Beauty, a bit like politeness, was a waste of time in Gretchen’s book.

She was there behind the counter when Maggie

arrived at the checkout, her basket spilling over

with the makings of a roast dinner, shopbought

apple pie and ice cream for pudding.

‘Maggie Maguire, a sight for sore eyes. Long

time no see. I thought you were living in married

bliss in Galway.’

Maggie translated this bit of faux politeness in

her head: fancy seeing you here, and is it true

you’re not married at all but still shacking up with

some fellow who clearly won’t marry you?

‘Home for a few days,’ said Maggie, aiming for

the happily unconcerned approach. Had Gretchen

X-ray vision? Could she see that Maggie’s man

had cheated on her? It wouldn’t surprise her if the

answer was yes. ‘And I’m not married, actually,

I’ve a long-term partner.’

Translation: I am a fulfilled woman who has made interesting life choices and wouldn’t be bothered getting married when I could live the free life

of a modern feminist unshackled by silly old wedding vows.

‘Right.’ Gretchen nodded appraisingly and began

to scan Maggie’s groceries. ‘You remember my

Lorraine, don’t you? You were in the same year in

school. Lorraine’s living in Nice, married to this gorgeous French pilot, Jacques, with three kids and a live-in nanny. You should see their house: Jacuzzi, pool, bidet in every en suite, the lot.’ I don’t buy

your story, said her eyes. Long-term partner, my

backside. Now Lorraine, she’s a success story. She has it all: fabulous husband, children, everything money can buy. She’s not home with her tail

between her legs at the age of thirty with no ring

and no kids either.

‘How wonderful for her,’ Maggie said, adding

a large bar of chocolate to the basket to comfort

herself. ‘Lorraine always knew what she wanted,

didn’t she?’ She snatched back her shopping and

shoved it into a bag. Lorraine was a hard-nosed

little madam and she was always keen on selfimprovement without doing any actual work. Like

stealing other people’s homework or hanging round

with the class bullies.

‘Bye, Gretchen, have to rush.’

On her way home with the grocery bags

weighing her down, Maggie passed the time by

trying to remember who lived in the various houses on Summer Street. Many of them were still owned by the people who’d lived there when

she was a child, like the Ryans, who bred Burmese

cats and never minded the neighbourhood children

coming in to coo over the latest batch of

apricot-coloured kittens. Or sweet Mrs Sirhan,

who’d looked eighty when Maggie had been

small, and now must be unbelievably old, but

still went for her constitutional every day, up

the street into the cafe for a cup of Earl Grey

with lemon.

There was a sign on the park gate: ‘Save Our

Park’, written in shaky capitals on a bit of cardboard, and Maggie idly wondered what the park

had to be saved from. But the sign-writer hadn’t

thought to add that bit of information. Rampaging aliens, perhaps? Or people who didn’t scoop the dog poop?

The old railway pavilion was her favourite part

of the park: she’d played in it many times during

her childhood and it was easy to imagine it as a train station, with ladies in long dresses sobbing into their reticules as handsome men left them

behind, sad stories behind every parting. There

hadn’t been a train that way for many years.

The train tracks were long gone, too. Maybe

that was the lesson she needed to learn: nobody

cared about the past. Her misery over Grey would

mean nothing in a hundred years.

It was ten before Maggie managed to escape to

bed and to her private misery. She’d left her mobile

phone unanswered all day and when she finally

checked there were seven where are you? texts from

Shona, along with two missed calls and one I am so sorry, please answer your phone text from Grey.

Yeah, right, Maggie thought furiously, erasing it. One lousy text and a couple of phone calls.

What an effort that must have been. Feeling angry

with Grey was easier than giving in to feeling hopeless and alone. If she let go of the anger, she’d

collapse under the weight of the loneliness.

She unwrapped the giant bar of milk chocolate

she’d bought and dialled the only person in the

world, apart from Shona, who might possibly

understand: her cousin Elisabeth. Despite coming

up with the nickname Bean, Elisabeth was one of

Maggie’s favourite people.

Elisabeth was tall, athletic, had been captain of

the netball team and was wildly popular at her

school, a fact that had often made Maggie wish

they’d gone to the same one. She might have

protected Maggie. She was now a booker in one

of Seattle’s top model agencies and incredibly,

despite all these comparative riches, she was a nice

person.

It was eight hours earlier in Seattle and Elisabeth

was on her lunch break, sitting at her desk with

her mouth full of nuts because she was still doing

the low-carb thing.

‘How are you doing?’ asked Elisabeth in muffled tones.

‘Oh, you know, fine. You heard about Mum’s

accident?’

‘Yes, Dad told me.’ Her father and Maggie’s

were brothers. ‘You don’t sound OK,’ she added

suspiciously.

Elisabeth picked up tones of voice like nobody

else. Certainly nobody else in the Maguire family,

who all had the intuition of celery. ‘What’s up?’ ‘I told you.’

‘I mean what else?’

‘You can hear something else in my voice?’

‘I spend all my life on the phone to young models

in foreign countries asking them how they are, did

anybody hit on them and are they eating

enough/drinking too much/taking coke/ screwing

the wrong people/screwing anybody. So yes, I can

hear it in your voice,’ insisted Elisabeth.

‘I caught Grey in bed with another woman.’

Silence.

‘Fuck.’ ‘I didn’t know you were allowed to say that

outside Ireland any more,’ Maggie remarked, in an attempt at levity. ‘Everyone on your side of the Atlantic nearly passes out when they hear it, when

here, it’s a cross between an adjective and an

adverb, the sort of word we can’t do without.’

‘Desperate situations need desperate words,’ said

Elisabeth, then said ‘fuck’ again followed by, ‘Fucking bastard.’

‘My sentiments exactly.’ ‘Is he still alive?’

‘He has all his teeth, yes,’ Maggie said. ‘And they’re not on a chain around his neck?’

Maggie laughed and it was a proper laugh for

the first time all day. Elisabeth was one of those

people with the knack of making the unbearable

slightly more bearable. With her listening,

Maggie didn’t feel like the only person on the

planet to have been hurt like this before.

‘No, they’re still in his mouth. I did think about

hitting him but he was attached to this blonde

fourteen-year-old at the time …’

‘A fourteen-year-old!’ shrieked Elisabeth. ‘Metaphorically speaking,’. Maggie interrupted.

Which was really a bummer. I mean, if she was

ugly and wrinkly, I might manage to cope, but

being cheated on with a possible centrefold doesn’t

do much for your selfconfidence.’

‘Oh, Maggie,’ said Elisabeth and there was love

and pity in her voice. She’d long since given up

trying to boost Maggie’s self-esteem, although

having a beautiful cousin with a skewed vision of

her gorgeousness was perfect training for working

with stunning size six models who thought they

were too fat and faced rejection every day. ‘I wish

I was there to give you a hug. What did you do?’

‘Dad phoned about Mum, so I left to come

here. Ran away, in other words, which is what

I’m good at.’

‘You haven’t told them.’ ‘No. Couldn’t face it.’

Maggie heard muffled noises at Elisabeth’s end. ‘Sorry, I’ve got to go. Call me tomorrow?’ ‘Sure.’

Maggie looked at her suitcases waiting patiently

to be unpacked. It was hard to feel enthusiastic

about moving back into her childhood bedroom.

All she needed now was one of those big doll’s

heads that you put eye make-up on, her old Silver

Brumby books, and she’d be eleven again.

She’d read so much as a child, losing herself in

the world of books because the outside world was

lo cruel. And yet she hadn’t learned as much as she’d

possibility that the prince would betray you. They

never pointed out that if you gave a man such ferocious power over your heart, he could destroy you

in an instant.

She finished her bar of chocolate slowly.

If everything had been different, she’d have been

at home now in her own flat with Grey.

Without closing her eyes, she could imagine

herself there: sitting on their bed, talking about

their day, all the little things that seemed mundane

at the time and became painfully intimate and

important when you could no longer share them,

Like waking up in the night and feeling Grey’s

body, warm and strong beside her in the bed. Like

leaning past him at the bathroom sink to get to

the toothpaste.

Like hanging his Tshirts on the radiators to dry.

These things made up their life together. Now it

was all gone. She felt betrayed, broken and utterly

hollow inside.

She was back in her childhood bed with nothing