River Deep (22 page)

‘I always did love the fact that you ate what you wanted and didn’t stress out about a bit of cake or chocolate – it’s so sexy,’ he grinned, leaning in a little closer. ‘Lou is always at the gym and
always
stressing out about calories. Apparently fat runs in her family. I mean, she looks fantastic, but it can wear you down after a while.’

He smiled as he spoke about Louise for the first time that evening, and Maggie squirmed uncomfortably in her chair, unsure if it was her betrayal of her fake friend or Christian’s obvious fondness for her that made her feel uncomfortable. She’d almost forgotten all about Louise, sitting at home on her own, with no friends nearby and about to have no boyfriend. Maggie took another draught of wine and put Louise out of her mind.

‘So, are you seeing anyone?’ Christian asked her. His eyes crinkled a little around the edges as if he thought the idea of Maggie seeing someone was faintly amusing.

‘Well,’ Maggie said, determined to prove him wrong. ‘Declan Brady asked me out a few times, but I, well, I didn’t really want to see anyone else but you.’ At the last minute her resolve crumbled away. She smiled weakly, the distress of the last few weeks reflected clearly in the sheer black of her eyes.

‘Oh Maggie.’ Christian squeezed her hand. ‘I’m sorry for what I’ve put us through. I really am.’ He paused and withdrew his hand from hers. ‘I like Louise, you know, she’s a great girl. Lots of fun and very warm, but she’s … well, she’s not you, Maggie. She hasn’t got your class, and sometimes I wonder if she’s not a bit too frail for the world.’ Christian grimaced.

Maggie wanted to be pleased, but actually she felt that he was being a little too tough on Louise. She’d seemed like the epitome of class to Maggie, and as together as anyone was in these days when falling apart was practically obligatory.

‘It’s funny,’ Christian continued, ‘but when we were together I felt like our relationship was suffocating me. Now, when I look back on what we had, I realise exactly how much you meant to me and to Fresh Talent. It was you who allowed me to breathe and to grow. I miss that, and it’s been hard adjusting to life without you.’

Maggie opened her mouth to speak just as Christian reached into his top pocket. He pulled out a long cream envelope. Maggie closed her mouth again, feeling an unbidden sense of foreboding.

‘Anyway, here’s your cheque. There’s a rumour going around that you’re going to take on The Fleur. Good luck! You’ll need it!’

He laughed as he slid the envelope across the table to Maggie. Her finger withdrew from it as if it was red hot, and she stared at it, a cold horror creeping up her spine.

‘But surely now that we’re … I mean, this was when we were splitting up. I mean, it would come in handy, sure, but you don’t need to give this to me now, not now that ––’

Christian cut across her. ‘Luigi, the bill please, maestro!’ he called out with his usual theatrical embellishment. He turned to Maggie, his tone gentle but firm.

‘Now look, no one is more pleased than I am that we can sit across a table from one another and talk like old times. I think the thing I’ve missed about you most, Maggie, is your friendship. To have that back is really precious to me, really special. Lou’s got a lot going for her, but conversation isn’t really one of them, if you know what I mean.’

His grin was less than subtle and Maggie felt every muscle and tendon in her body freeze with fear, her mind racing to catch up with the words that Christian was saying. Suddenly the whole world had been turned on its head, and this was all wrong, like a scene from
Alice in Wonderland
. Her world was shrinking all around her into a single point of nothing. She had followed Christian off the precipice and he had failed to catch her.

‘If I could get you back on board at Fresh Talent I would, but I don’t really think it’s fair on Lou – she’s already so intimidated by you. And besides, it’s about time you had a crack at your own business. God knows I trained you long enough! And even if we are friends now, Mags, even if we can put all of that stuff behind us, you still deserve the money. You put a lot into that business over the years. The best employee I’ve ever had by far.’

Luigi arrived, and Christian tucked his credit card into the bill with a wink. ‘This one’s on me,’ he finished.

Maggie forced herself to move, forced her brain to fire up her muscles and nerve endings and her lungs to breathe again. Even as every part of her rational self screamed that she should keep her mouth shut, her heart got her tongue working, with only partial success.

‘But I thought all this was … I mean, when you wanted to see me. I thought it was because … you said you missed me?’

Christian looked at her. ‘I do, I do miss you. Louise drives me up the bloody wall sometimes with her incessant chattering, she’s so jealous of you – it’s like she can’t accept that you and I are in the past! I do miss you, Maggie, but …’

He stopped mid-sentence, a look of horror washing the colour out of his face.

‘Oh Christ, you thought that I wanted to … that we were going to … Oh fuck. Oh Maggie. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I never meant you to think that! God, I’m so crass. I’m an idiot. I was just so pleased to see you, so pleased we were getting past the split and you were going to be OK. And … Oh Maggie, I’m sorry. I don’t want us to get back together.’

Maggie pushed back her chair and rose from the table.

‘I know,’ she said stiffly. ‘Of course I know. Now if you’ll excuse me … Thank you for the meal.’

Leaving the cheque on the table, she stumbled towards the door, the deliciously drunk feeling she had felt only minutes earlier now a painful hindrance to her exit.

‘Baby!’ she heard Christian call out after her. She ignored him, and after weaving her way though the closely-packed curious diners, she finally made her way out on to the street. Christian was at her side almost immediately, his eyes blazing with some kind of emotion that Maggie could only guess at. He caught her by the shoulder and stared down at her.

‘Maggie, please … Don’t be like this, please,’ he said. ‘If you only knew how hard it is for me to sit across a table from you and not be able to …’

Maggie took a confrontational step closer to him, her mouth set in an angry line.

‘And not be able to what? Humiliate and embarrass and hurt me any more?’

The anger that she realised had been waiting to ignite ever since the morning he had first told her bubbled up in her chest like red-hot lava.

‘When will it be enough for you, Christian? When will you have finished hurting me? You can’t have both. You can’t have me as your “little friend”, looking on benignly as you rebuild your life, our life, without me. It doesn’t work that way!’

Maggie was breathing hard, her finger pointing sharply at the centre of Christian’s chest. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. She was supposed to be easygoing and charming, not some bitter harridan out for her pound of flesh. She shook her head and took a step back.

‘Oh God … I’m sorry,’ she said, but as she turned away from him he grabbed her arm hard and pulled her close into his chest. Maggie shook her head.

‘Maggie, it’s me that’s sorry. I never meant to make this worse for you, I was trying to make it better. If you only knew how much I wanted to kiss you all through that meal … but …’

Maggie pulled away from him, trying to resist the urge to collapse right there in his arms and weep. ‘Please, I just need to go,’ she said, but she couldn’t move.

Christian shook his head. ‘Maybe I’m crazy, I don’t know. I look at you, Maggie, and I want you, I still want you so much, and I think about you all the time … but I just don’t think we can work together any more, I don’t think that we can. I don’t think I’m good for you – you deserve more than me, but …’

Without warning, he crushed his lips against hers and kissed her hard, and her body gradually melted under his touching, melding into his hard, metallic passion. Aeons might have passed in those few seconds, and for the first time since he’d left her, Maggie felt at home. When they parted at last, Maggie felt as if all the air had been sucked out of her, and she was numb, spinning gratefully in a vacuum.

‘To be honest, Maggie,’ his voice was hoarse, ‘I just don’t know what I think. I don’t know, and because I don’t know … I need some time. To think about all of this and the way you make me feel, and how I feel about Lou. Is that terrible? To treat you like this? I don’t mean to, you know. I really don’t. It’s just that whenever I think I’m in control I look at you and …’

Christian shook his head, and Maggie detached herself from his embrace by sheer force of will. As she stepped back he handed her the cheque, and this time she took it. There was something here, a chance – a faint hope glimmering in the dark confusion of her mind. Whatever happened she mustn’t blow it, because she was certain she would not get another. She composed herself and measured each word before she spoke it.

‘Obviously,’ she said carefully, ‘there’s a lot of chemistry between us still. But I think you’re right Christian – for now at least we need to keep it just friends. We need space to discover what our real feelings are.’

Of course in her head she was replacing ‘our’ and ‘we’ with ‘you’ and ‘your’, but it was important she put some small doubt in Christian’s mind about how she felt about him. Right now she was just too damn easy. She needed him to see there was a real chance of losing her.

‘Let’s be friends, OK? Like you said. Have dinner every couple of weeks and keep kisses like
that
,’ she smiled with flirtatious fragility, ‘off the menu. I think that’s best, don’t you?’

Christian nodded. ‘You’re an incredible woman, Maggie, you really are.’

Maggie smiled, and, kissing him lightly on the cheek, she began to walk away.

‘I’ll call you,’ she said, keeping her voice and her gait steady until she was sure he could not see her any more. She stepped off the high street into the loading alley that ran alongside Woolworths and slid down the side of the wall, feeling the brickwork scrape her skin through her dress. Then she let herself cry, soft, rasping sobs, regardless of who might see or hear her.

Pete looked over at the bar and then back at Angie, whose eyes were fixed on Falcon. He’d been talking to this woman, a curvy tall brunette, for the last twenty minutes, more or less ever since Pete and Angie had walked in through the door. The woman was leaning with her back against the bar, both elbows propped behind her, making the best of her impressive breasts, and Falcon was mesmerised. But despite her come-on body language, her face was another story and she regarded him through heavy-lidded eyes with only a take-it-or-leave it level of interest. Both Pete and Angie watched six-foot-something pink-haired Falcon jump through hoops to get a smile out of the woman. Pete cursed him as he sipped his pint. He should never have let Angie come here, not to see Falcon try and pull another woman right in front of her. Surely a casual relationship doesn’t have to be
that
casual?

‘We could go if you like,’ he said, putting his arm on her forearm to get her attention. She glanced at him quickly and then back at the woman.

‘No, it’s all right.’ She smiled without conviction. ‘I’m fine, really!’ She turned to Pete and he was alarmed by the mildly delusional look in her eye.

‘I’ll get the drinks in. Same again?’

Pete glanced at his near full pint and then at Angie’s, which she had finished in under ten minutes.

‘Um, well …’ he began, but she was gone before he could say anything.

The door creaked open and Maggie walked in, her head down, her hair shrouding her face. Pete had to double-take before he recognised her. He was about to call out her name when the woman Falcon had been attempting to impress broke away from him mid-sentence and rushed up to Maggie.

‘Darling, what is it? What’s happened?’ Sarah asked her, wrapping her arms around her.

Falcon looked like he’d been slapped in the face, a demeanour that was not improved when he realised Angie was standing right behind him.

Maggie and her friend headed speedily into the ladies. The older barmaid, Sheila, gave the middle-aged couple at the end of the bar a concerned look and they all stared at the ladies’ door in confusion. The woman, Pete realised, as he studied her profile, must be Maggie’s mother. Which meant that this must be Maggie’s parents’ pub. Pete congratulated himself on his powers of deduction and, noticing that Angie had now engaged Falcon in a close and intense discussion, commiserated himself on the loss of his next pint, which even now stood despondently on the bar.

Pete had wanted to take his mind off Stella tonight, to try and clear his head of all the guessing and second-guessing that her absence was forcing him to do, but somehow, with people crying and fighting and generally spreading their emotional pain around like it was manure, it seemed impossible. He wondered again about Maggie’s bent head as she’d hurried into the ladies with her friend. He’d have liked to have had a chat with her about Stella again, get her perspective on things. He’d really enjoyed his ‘coffee’ with her the other day. He liked the way she talked to him and the way she listened. He was surprised by the realisation that not many people did listen to him all that closely. Not Stella, not his students, and obviously not Angie, Pete observed with some distress, otherwise she’d be at home right now with a cocoa.

In any case, it looked as if Maggie had enough problems of her own tonight – that idiot bloke who’d chucked her, more than likely.

Falcon said something to Angie, who simply shrugged and made her exit without even a glance of farewell to Pete. Pete wondered if Falcon regretted hurting her, or sleeping with her, or both. He knew that at some point he should probably try and point out to Falcon that if he really wanted Angie to be just a friend, he should stop sleeping with her. The only trouble was, he didn’t think he could do it in bloke semaphore, with just a grunt of a look. He was sure he’d probably have to actually talk to him, which he knew would make both of them awkward and embarrassed. Perhaps he could just buy him a pint instead, a really meaningful one.