Past Secrets (44 page)

‘I’m sorry, I never meant to hurt you, Carey,’

she said. ‘I never meant to lead you on, to make you think we had a future, when we didn’t. That’s why I came to meet you, not to look back and think weren’t we fabulous and wonderful, because I felt guilty every day of my life for what happened.

I paid for our time together. Adultery has a price and it’s too high, believe me. I want to put it behind me. Can you understand that?’

His other hand reached up to touch her face and she closed her eyes as his fingers traced the bones, stroked her cheekbones, her jaw, the hollows of her eyes, the curve of her lips, the way he’d once touched her until she thought she’d scream with desire.

‘You’re still beautiful,’ he murmured. ‘No matter what age you are, you will always be beautiful because it’s in your soul and I think that’s what drew me to you, Christie: your soul, your goodness and your wisdom. I missed you all this time we were apart. There have been many women and they all look like you, strange, no? But none of them was you. So that’s why I came. Yes, I have an exhibition here but they ask me to have exhibitions everywhere, I can say no, I have the power. But I wanted to come here, one last time, to see you.’

‘Why do you keep saying “one last time”?’ she asked. There was portent behind his words and suddenly, with a shock, she knew.

‘Can’t you tell?’ he said, half smiling. ‘You have Gypsy sight after all. I’m sick. I shouldn’t be drinking.’ He laughed. ‘I shouldn’t be doing anything. I shouldn’t be flying. The doctors didn’t want me to. But I can keep going on and the drugs are good. Medicine has moved on so much.’

She didn’t want to ask what was killing him. ‘How long do you have?’ she said, evenly. ‘Months, they think months. I don’t know, maybe not so long, but I want to make my peace before I go. That’s why I had to see you. I didn’t come to destroy your world, I came to say goodbye.’

‘Oh, Carey,’ she sighed, taking his hand from

her face and holding it tightly. ‘Were you happy?

Did you have a good life?’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I did. I didn’t have you and for a long time you were all I thought about, but an artist needs something to drive him, doesn’t he?

And you inspired my best work. You gave me so many things, Christie.’

‘You gave me things too,’ she said. ‘You made me see that I could still feel passion. You made me see how much I loved my husband and my children,’ she added frankly, ‘and I know it probably hurts you to hear that, but that’s the truth.

So you gave me a huge amount and I’ve never forgotten you.’

‘It’s good then that we had this chance to say goodbye,’ he said, and, suddenly, he was formal again.

Christie put her arms around him. Now she could feel the frailness of his body, hidden under the beautifully cut jacket. He was dying, she could feel it, every part of her sensed it, and it might not be long. He didn’t have months at all, and he knew it, knew she’d know it too.

‘Don’t pity me,’ he said and he laid his lips against her forehead to give her a cool, dry kiss. ‘Please don’t pity me, I would prefer you remembered me the way we were.’

‘I understand,’ she said, and she did. She got up.

‘I have a small present for you,’ he said. ‘It may be nothing you can ever show anyone but I wanted to leave it to you. A bequest, that is the word, isn’t it?’ He handed her an old cardboard box, large and unwieldy. ‘Someone will help you out with it. Goodbye, Christie,’ he said and he turned, but not before she could see the glitter of tears in his eyes. He left the room and shut the door behind him.

In the lift down, Christie stared at the box that the bellboy held carefully. She didn’t want to open it here. She waited until she got into a taxi and the bellboy had placed the box reverentially on the back seat beside her. Then she carefully removed the lid. On top was a wrapped package that contained a small artist’s sketchbook, like a writer’s notebook, full of pencil drawings and charcoal sketches, cartoons for paintings, ideas, thoughts that had occurred to him. It must have been the sketchbook that Carey had used when they’d met.

The first few pages were full of his trademark drawings and then the pages were pictures of a woman, who could only have been Christie, her face obscured, her body the one Christie knew well. These were the sketches for his Dark Lady paintings. The masterpieces painted by a genius whom the world would mourn when he was gone.

She turned page after page, each more beautiful, interesting, alive than the rest. Some were just pencil, others charcoal, and yet more, coloured in with subtle pastels. It was an incredible gift. The second package was a small canvas, a scaled-down

version of the most beautiful of all the Dark Lady paintings. The dark lady was again lying on a divan, in a painter’s studio, but in this one her face was not hidden. Her face was alive with love and it was clear she was looking at the artist. Christie gazed at it, thought of Carey and what he meant to her and what was going to happen to him now, and she cried.

Maggie loved the silence of the library. Ever since she’d been a child, and her father had explained why libraries were special places where you had to whisper, she’d loved the fact that the only sounds to be heard were muted whispers and the gentle rustling of pages.

‘It’s quiet because all the books are sitting on the shelves, snoozing quietly as they wait to be picked,’ Dad had said, ‘because being picked by you is the start of an amazing adventure for them.’

She’d told that story to a small group of children only that morning, and they’d stared up at her, wide-eyed, just as enthralled as she’d been by the idea of silently waiting books.

‘Spot was waiting for me?’ asked one small girl with glasses and a mummy-cut hairdo, who sat holding one of the Spot books on her lap.

‘Yes, Spot was waiting for you!’ Maggie said, thrilled at being able to pass on the message to a new generation.

‘Wow,’ said the little girl in awe. ‘Wow,’ agreed the other children.

Maggie was sitting in the small staff room having her morning coffee and talking to Shona on the phone about the children when another call came through on her mobile.

‘Hold on a second, Shona,’ she said. ‘I’ll be right back to you, OK?’

It was Ivan.

‘How’s it going?’ he asked in his calm way. ‘Not bad,’ said Maggie. ‘I’m at work, you know.’ ‘I know. You have your coffee break between half ten and a quarter to eleven, don’t you?’

‘I do,’ she said, fascinated that he’d remembered. ‘I wanted to ask if you’d come to the cinema with me tonight.’

‘Tonight?’ ‘Yes, tonight,’ Ivan repeated. ‘I know that’s probably bad form in the big book of women’s dating techniques, and I’m supposed to give you a week’s notice and you’re supposed to come up with four other possible dates because you’re washing your hair, having your legs waxed, going out with your girlfriends, seeing other men. But you know me, I’m simple. I thought it might be nice to go to the cinema tonight.’

Maggie had to laugh. ‘You’re unique, do you know that, Ivan?’ she said.

‘It has been said before,’ he replied, ‘although not always in a complimentary way. My grandmother says I speak as I find.’

‘I hate that expression,’ Maggie said. ‘It’s the sort of thing that horrible fathers in gothic novels say when they’re alienating people left, right and centre. But sure, I’d love to go to the cinema tonight. I have no hair-washing or waxing plans.

What will we go to?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘How about I pick you up at about seven and we’ll decide then?’

‘Great,’ she said, pleased. ‘See you then.’ ‘Sorry,’ she said to Shona when she clicked back on to the first call. ‘That was just Ivan asking me out to the cinema.’

‘Just Ivan asking you out to the cinema?’ said Shona. ‘Is this the same big lug of a mechanic person with dirt under his fingernails who took the mickey out of you with the petrol-sucking machine and who made you so angry that you were keen to hire a contract killer to bury him with the fishes?’

‘And who took me to the lovely wedding. That’s exactly the guy,’ Maggie said, laughing. ‘I’ve cancelled the contract killer, by the way. They refused to do a two-for-the-price-of-one deal with Grey included, so I said no. Seriously, though, Ivan’s nice when you get to know him. He’s got a great sense of humour. It just happened to be working overtime the day I met him.’

‘I’m teasing you,’ Shona added. ‘Go for it. Go out with this fabulous Ivan and bonk his brains out in the back of the cinema. Tell me, does he own the garage or does he work for someone else?’

‘Shona, you are appalling,’ Maggie said. ‘I’m not interested in him that way, he’s just a friend.

And there’s more to life than money, you know.’

‘People who say that type of thing are generally not in full control of their senses,’ Shona pointed out. ‘Money may not be everything, but it sure helps, and if you’re miserable, you can be miserable in comfort.’

‘Besides,’ Maggie interrupted, ‘I’m not in the market for a man. And rebound relationships are always a mistake and never work out.’

‘Dr Phil, right?’

‘You’re incorrigible,’ laughed Maggie. ‘No, that’s Maggie Maguire advice.’

Maggie was on until half past six that evening, so she had to race home from work.

‘Hi, Mum, hi, Dad,’ she yelled, rushing in the door and sprinting to her room to change out of her work clothes into her most comfortable jeans.

‘Where are you going in such a tearing rush?’

Dad yelled after her.

‘Out to the cinema with Ivan, you don’t mind do you?’

‘Not at all,’ said her father. ‘Oh, the man arrived today with the posters about the park. Your mother has them, she’s very proud of them. She keeps saying “to think I designed these myself”. A very talented woman your mother.’

Maggie ran a comb through her hair and considered putting on some lip gloss, then thought better of it. There was no need, Ivan was only a friend. She spritzed on a bit of perfume and ran to the kitchen where her mother was indeed admiring the posters. Above a line drawing of the park gates, which Una had traced from a picture, were rousing words about saving Summer Street’s heritage from the developers.

‘It’s part of your community, help save it!’ ran the bottom line. They looked good. Nobody would be able to resist, Maggie thought.

Harrison Mitchell was actually being useful and had given her the contact numbers for a couple of journalists who were interested in campaigns like theirs. She was meeting one of them at lunchtime tomorrow in the park and they were bringing a photographer.

‘Don’t they look great?’ said Una happily. ‘Fantastic,’ agreed Maggie. ‘This will make the councillors sit up and take notice.’

‘What film are you going to see?’ asked Una. ‘I don’t know,’ said Maggie, ‘doesn’t matter. It’ll be nice to see a film. I haven’t been to the movies for ages.’

‘He’s a nice fella, isn’t he, Ivan?’ said her mother idly.

‘Now, Mother, don’t start that,’ warned Maggie. ‘He’s just a friend.’

‘I know, love,’ said her mother quickly. ‘It’s nice to see you happy.’

Ivan’s stylish car drew up outside.

Maggie grinned, kissed her mother on the cheek,

snagged a banana from the fruit bowl and gave her dad a hug as she ran out the door. It was true, she was happy. Odd that, when just a few weeks ago she’d felt as if her heart was breaking.

Something was healing her, although she didn’t know what.

‘We could go to the multiplex, if you like,’ said Ivan, as they stood in the foyer of the tiny local cinema where they had discovered that the three latest releases were fully booked. The only film with any seats available was a classic French film, with subtitles.

‘Well, maybe we’ll go to the French one, what do you think?’ Maggie said, thinking that if she’d been with Grey, the French film would have been their original destination. Grey had no interest in films with popular appeal. The more populist they were, the less he’d like to see them. An old French film with subtitles would top his list.

‘Whatever you like,’ said Ivan easily.

That was the nice thing about having Ivan as a friend, he never tried to push her into anything.

And he was so comfortable in his own skin that he didn’t need to prove his intelligence by his movie choice.

‘I don’t have the energy to go into town. Let’s try the French film,’ suggested Maggie.

‘If that’s what Mademoiselle wants, then that’s what she shall have.’

He went up to the counter to pay. ‘No, let me,’ insisted Maggie.

Ivan glared at her.

‘Or at least let me pay half,’ she pleaded. ‘I asked you out, so I’m paying.’

The cinema was only half full and they found two seats right in the back row.

‘I always love the back row,’ whispered Maggie. ‘You feel sort of naughty, as if you’re going to get into trouble for sitting here when you should be down the front under the head nun’s beady eye.’

‘I still think you must have been a holy terror in school,’ Ivan teased.

‘I wish. Butter wouldn’t have melted in my mouth,’ said Maggie.

They were old-fashioned comfortable seats and somehow Maggie found herself leaning on the arm rest that separated her and Ivan, so that her shoulder was squashed against his. And finally, Ivan put his arm around her and pulled her closer into him, which felt absolutely natural. And Maggie, the person who kept insisting that they were just friends, found that she liked it very much.

Don’t think about it, she told herself. Just enjoy Then, somehow, when Ivan moved his other arm around to touch her face and turn it towards his, it seemed like kissing him was the most obvious thing to do and Maggie turned her face to his and their lips met. Suddenly they were kissing, passionately and hungrily, and who cared about the film? Who cared if anyone saw them in the darkened gloom of the cinema? They kissed wildly, Ivan’s

hand in her hair, sliding down to caress her neck, stroking her collarbone, reaching down to the softness of her shoulders and further, until finally, he said, ‘I don’t want to see this film, do you?’

‘No,’ she muttered, pulling her mouth away from him. ‘Let’s go.’