Past Secrets (25 page)

But Shona hadn’t heard him speak, hadn’t heard the tenderness in his voice.

‘He said he missed me,’ she protested, ‘in public. And that he loves me. He means it, Shona.

I know you think he doesn’t, but if you’d seen him …,

‘Oh, that’s so Grey,’ Shona said critically. ‘He loves a scene, that boy, just loves it. I don’t know why he’s pretending he won’t go into politics. If ever a man wanted to stand on a podium and have the party faithful worship at his feet, it’s your ex, He’s addicted to the applause, darling. That’s why he likes bonking girl students.’

There was a sudden pause.

‘What do you mean he likes bonking girl students?’ Maggie asked fiercely. ‘I knew he liked bonking one particular girl student but students plural … ? What have you heard?’

She could almost hear Shona running through escape scenarios in her head.

‘The truth, Shona,’ she insisted. ‘Tell me the truth. I wish somebody had told me the truth a long time ago.’

‘Oh sweetie,’ sighed Shona, and Maggie knew it was bad news. ‘Don’t worry, I was going to tell you. You know me, tell all. I don’t believe in that shoot the messenger crap. Well, like a good pal, I’ve been asking around ever since you caught Dr Grey Stanley sticking it to his cutesy, blonde student and it seems that she wasn’t the only one getting some private tuition. Turns out, he’s got quite a name for it.’

‘Oh.’ Maggie couldn’t manage to say anything else. It was like thinking the world was round, and then finding out it was flat after all.

‘Sorry, darling, but you had to know.’

If anybody else but Shona had told her this, Maggie realised, she would’ve wanted to shoot the messenger. But Shona was a true friend. She loved Maggie. It was comforting to think that somebody still did.

‘I want to hear everything,’ she said. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes,’ she said firmly. ‘Everything.’

‘Paul,’ called Shona. ‘Turn off the music and make me a cocktail. This is going to be a long conversation.’

She could hear Paul reply: ‘You’re not telling her everything about that bastard, are you?’ ‘Somebody has to. The girl needs to see sense.’

There had been four women that Shona had been able to find out about, including the latest blonde. All students of Grey’s, which was probably the worst thing about it. He was always such a stickler for ethics and doing the right thing, Maggie recalled.

Having sex with people whose papers he marked was breaking every rule of teaching.

‘The good news is that none of them was long term,’ Shona finished up. ‘So you can console yourself with that, darling. I mean, he did love you in his own screw-around way. I had to dig deep to find it all out, so I honestly don’t think he meant to humiliate you.’

‘Doing it in our bed wasn’t supposed to humiliate me?’ Maggie shouted.

‘Don’t scream,’ Shona screamed back. ‘I’m clutching at straws here, trying to make you feel better. Yes, he’s a class A shit but it’s obvious that his brain is not his primary organ and he’s clearly not as cerebral as he’d like us all to think.’

‘Meaning he thinks with his dick,’ Paul yelled in the background.

‘He still didn’t have to do it in our bed,’ Maggie said, still reeling. ‘Doesn’t that say he wanted to be found out?’

‘Oh I don’t think he wanted to be found out,, said Shona. ‘Come on, why would he? I think there was nowhere else to go, you were off at work, then you were doing your Pilates or whatever, the coast was clear.’

‘He asked me to come back to him,’ Maggie said, with a little laugh that held no humour.

Only minutes ago, she’d felt a little bit of hope warming her at the idea that it might all work out, she could have it all, again, only better this time, ‘He wants us to be together. He said we should get married.’ Her voice broke. ‘And you tell me he’s had four girlfriends in the past … how many years, five? Why marry someone if all you want to do is sleep around?’

‘It’s the eternal question of life,’ Shona sighed in a world-weary way.

She could hear Paul wanting to know what the eternal question of life was. Shona told him.

‘I thought it was, was there life on other planets?’

Paul could be heard saying, plaintively.

‘No, that’s the third eternal question, after why all the good ones already have boyfriends.’

Despite herself, Maggie managed a hoarse laugh. ‘What a lovely sound.’ Shona was pleased. ‘Don’t let Dr Dick ruin your life, Maggie,’ she pleaded. ‘You’re an old romantic despite your best attempts to hide it. You want the fairytale, darling, and you’re not going to get it with him, are you?’

‘They say serial monogamy is the way forward,’

Maggie said, not wanting to answer Shona’s question. ‘I wanted something longer and Grey obviously doesn’t. Am I the old-fashioned one? Is everyone at it? Should I have been having an affair too?’

‘No,’ said Shona, ‘joking aside, you shouldn’t have been having an affair. You’re too straight, it would kill you. When you love, it’s with all your heart. He’s different. If he’d gone to you and admitted about the other women, said he’d never do it again, well, there’d be some hope. But he didn’t, did he? He just said sorry for Miss Bimbo.

And by the way, her book-borrowing days are over. I’ll have the word out in the library and that girl will never get another book out. She can try, but no matter what book she wants, it’ll be unavailable or her card will be out of date. The library looks after its own!’

Maggie smiled.

‘What am I going to do now, Shona?’ she sighed. ‘I was going to go back to him. I can’t stay with Mum and Dad for ever, it’s lovely and everything but …’ She paused.

The shock hit her again. Damn Grey, damn him.

Just when she’d begun to think there might be a future for them, his past had ruined it all again.

She’d begun to feel a little better the past day or so. Insulated in Summer Street. She’d even got used to her old bedroom again and the reassurance of looking at the same wallpaper she’d grown up with. It was easy to block out the pain of finding Grey in bed with another woman. The pain of feeling so stupid, so betrayed. And she liked the local library, it was a nice place to work.

Maggie knew she was hiding, just a tiny bit, from the past and its power. But she didn’t care. She wanted a little peace after everything that had happened.

And now Grey had knocked her right back to square one. He’d reminded her why she was here, alone. What’s more, he hadn’t betrayed her with one woman, he’d betrayed her with four.

‘Are you still there?’ asked Shona gently. ‘Yes,’ Maggie said. ‘Sorry. I don’t know whether to stay here or go back to Galway. I don’t know what to do about anything. I’m a mess.’

‘Join the club, darling,’ Shona said lightly. ‘My roots need doing, my nails are like hooves and I haven’t had a moment since you left, you know.

The relief librarian they sent thinks the rota is set in stone and I’m having terrible trouble trying to swap shifts with her. Anyway, listen, sweetie, take your time, you don’t need to make a decision quickly, you’ve got another week. You could come back and have nothing to do with Dr Grey or his nymphets. He’s not in your life any more, you don’t need him.’

Shona would say that, Maggie thought ruefully.

Shona was strong and knew her own worth. She hadn’t needed Paul to make her feel fulfilled. But Maggie wasn’t so strong, she didn’t know if she could go back and start again with all the memories of her and Grey everywhere she went.

But then, there were painful memories everywhere, even here, on Summer Street.

She wished she had told Shona about her school years, then maybe she’d understand why Maggie was so anxious about staying in Summer Street.

But there had never been a right time to tell her.

Shona knew the reinvented Maggie, the feisty person with a kooky personality, a soft heart and a clever word for every situation. It would be strange to tell her now. Talking about the bullying would make it all real and she would only have to confront it. Despite what Christie had said about facing the truth, it was far easier to keep the memories buried.

If wishing could make a phone ring, Faye’s mobile would have been blistering loudly all Tuesday morning. Her office phone rang every few minutes but her mobile, the number Amber always called her on, just sat there on the desk, silent. And despite being surrounded by all the other people in the office, Faye had never felt more alone.

It was a little over twenty-four hours since Amber had run off and changed Faye’s world.

There had been no phone call from her, nothing, just the blank emptiness of the house without Amber in it and Faye reliving her mistakes over and over again in her mind.

She’d spent hours the evening before with Ella and her mother, trying to work out where Amber might be, but Ella honestly didn’t know.

‘If I did, Mrs Reid, I’d tell you,’ she said. ‘I think she’s crazy and you know she’s my best friend. And I’ve told her I think she’s crazy too,’

she added, just in case anyone doubted her determination to make Amber see sense.

‘I just don’t understand,’ said Trina, Ella’s mother. ‘She’s always been such a good girl.’

Both mothers had talked before of how lucky they were with their daughters. Amber and Ella had never given any trouble before, and their parents agreed that having tough rules about what was and wasn’t allowed was certainly a factor.

‘When she gets home, you should ground her for a month!’ Trina insisted.

Ella and Faye looked at each other. They both knew it had gone far beyond that.

When Faye had left Ella’s house that evening and returned home to Summer Street, she entered a house that felt like an empty shell. With Amber there, it had been a lively home; now it was cold and hard, all the life and the warmth gone. This was the rest of her life, Faye realised bleakly: being alone without the one person she loved most in the whole world. It was like the end of a love affair, except Faye knew she’d never have felt the loss of any man the way she felt the loss of her daughter.

Christie had phoned on Tuesday morning before Faye went to work.

‘I wanted to see how you were,’ she said, in her soothing way. ‘To remind you that you’re not on your own, that you’ve got people to talk to in this.’

‘Thank you,, said Faye. ‘Did you sleep?’

‘If you call lying in bed crying, yes, I slept really well.’

‘I’ll bring you over some wonderful herbal tea later this evening,’ Christie promised. ‘I got it in a little shop in Camden Street and it’s called Sleep Tea. It’s very relaxing.’

‘Do you have Instant Happiness Tea or Make Everything Better Tea?’ Faye inquired.

‘No,’ sighed Christie. ‘I wish I did. In fact, I’d also love a packet of the Make All the Old Secrets Disappear Tea but they were out of stock. Are you going into work?’

‘Of course.’

The idea of doing anything else was ridiculous to Faye. Work had been her saviour for many years. Work made you forget about humiliation and pain, and people who treated you like dirt.

Work gave you confidence and courage and a tiny glimmer of self-respect.

Except not today. No matter what she tried, she couldn’t concentrate.

She sat at her desk miserably. She had no idea how to get Amber back and all she could do was see the mistakes she had made and regret them.

Faye had been so sure that she had brought Amber up in the right way, in a lovely cosy world, where education and faith in your own power were the most important things. She had been so sure that was right, and now it seemed, like mother, like daughter. Amber was merely repeating her mistakes. And Faye, who, she could see now, should have told Amber the truth, had let Amber grow up thinking her mother was a plaster saint.

She didn’t tell anyone at work about Amber going. She couldn’t. Keeping people at a distance was too firmly engrained in her. Yesterday, she’d let Christie and Maggie get closer to her than anyone had in years - she was still getting used to having done that.

Grace popped her head round the door at eleven.

She didn’t come in because she always felt it was really only a quick chat if she didn’t stand entirely in a room.

‘I’ve someone you’ve just got to meet, Faye.

She’s an image consultant and a life coach. You know, that’s not even describing her properly, she changes people’s lives. She has degrees coming out of her armpits and I thought it would be a brilliant idea to bring her into the business as part of our getting women back to work campaign.’

Faye had come up with the idea of a drive to recruit women coming back into the workplace after a few years of being at home taking care of their children and the campaign had become Grace’s special project. Grace set up the interviews and had organised a whole retraining programme for mothers wanting to brush up on interview techniques and computer skills. It had been a huge

success, with scores of brilliantly qualified women signing up, but the only problem, Grace said, was that some of the women coming back to work were terribly anxious about it all.

‘No matter what top job they had before, they keep saying everyone’s moved on and they’ve become mumsy and out of touch. You wouldn’t credit the sort of superwomen who say they don’t know what to wear or what to say because they’ve lost the knack. I tell them you never forget,’ Grace added, ‘but honestly, women’s anxiety is terrible.

Why do we do this to ourselves? I bet men don’t obsess that they won’t fit back in if they haven’t been in the workplace for a few years? I mean, can you imagine Neil feeling like that?’ she asked Faye.

As Faye felt that Neil didn’t really work in the first place, she couldn’t answer this accurately. But she nodded and said yes, she knew what Grace was getting at: the age-old problem of confidence had undermined many a woman.

‘So your plan is to help people dress properly and do their hair and be full of enthusiasm?’ Faye asked now.

‘That’s part of it.’ Grace inserted her whole body into the room. ‘It’s giving women back their confidence more than anything. This life coach is just totally amazing. Her name’s Ellen. You’ll love her.