River Deep (43 page)

Louise giggled and scattered the pills across the glass coffee table.

‘Actually,’ she said with a confidential smile, ‘to be honest, when I found out this morning I wasn’t even surprised. It was like I knew without knowing. It wasn’t that hard to work it out.’ Louise shrugged and filled up the empty wine glass. ‘I just can’t believe I didn’t find out before. You were crap at lying, total rubbish.’ Louise looked rueful. ‘I suppose I thought we really were becoming friends.’

Maggie took the wine and, hoping it wasn’t laced with arsenic, took a deep gulp. ‘Was I really a terrible liar?’ she asked, feeling peculiarly offended. ‘And why all this? Why couldn’t you just, I don’t know, throw boiling hot coffee in my face and give me a slap?’ Maggie held tightly on to the wine glass, still waiting for the world to stop spinning.

‘Because I wanted to know what you were really like. I wanted to get the inside track on you. No offence, Maggie, but I thought when push came to shove I could take you. And by the looks of things I was right. But just when I thought I’d got it all sewn up, and that I’d got Christian for good, he announced he was dreadfully sorry but he had to go back to you – as if he was going to the gallows and not into the arms of the woman he loved. And he’s holding a photo, Maggie, of you. Of Carmen.’ Louise looked Maggie squarely in the eye. ‘Sometimes men want me because of the way I look. Often women hate me for the same reason, and once I enjoyed both of those things. But I
love
Christian, Maggie, and I thought he really
loved
me. And I really liked you, I really liked Carmen. And I thought you really liked me. But all the time you hated me. You must have.’

Maggie shook her head. ‘But I didn’t, I didn’t hate you,’ she said. ‘I tried to, but to be honest, in the end I was sorry that we couldn’t be real friends.’ She took a gulp of wine, hoping it would quell the storm of nerves raging in the pit of her stomach. ‘I didn’t expect this, though. I mean, I don’t know what I had expected, but not this!’

Louise shot her a steely look. ‘I admit I got a bit worked up, OK? I’m not apologising.’

‘You are insane,’ Maggie said, sincerely but surprisingly mildly.

‘Oh right, yeah. Ever heard of the pot calling the kettle black, love?’

Maggie rolled her eyes and leaned back in the chair. She had to give her that point.

‘Why?’ she asked the room at large. ‘Why do we let ourselves get like this over men? What for? Jesus, I wish I was a lesbian after all, oral sex not withstanding.’

Louise laughed. ‘Then you’d be getting yourself worked up over a girl. It’s human nature, never mind which side you bat for.’

Maggie remembered Pete saying something similar and she sighed. ‘You know what, in the last few weeks my life has been pretty messed up, but this? This takes the biscuit. All that time I’m feeling guilty and manipulative about playing you, and what for? I’d be angry, but I just don’t care any more. It all seems so pointless I can’t even remember why I started.’

Louise studied Maggie’s face for a moment. ‘I thought you’d be angrier when I told you I made it up,’ Louise said. ‘I thought there’d be drama and scratching out of eyes. You seem remarkably calm. It’s a bit of an anticlimax, actually.’ Louise seemed disappointed.

Maggie found the energy to slightly incline her head.

‘It’s the apathy. It always gets me at times of megastress. I’ll scratch your eyes out later.’

‘So he’s back with her, then, Pete and his fiancée,’ Louise said conversationally. ‘I thought you’d made her up, too. I was gutted when I saw them this morning in that cybercafé, because I thought if you were with him you’d send Christian packing and he’d come back to me. They seemed pretty intense.’

Maggie dropped her chin on to her chest in resignation and closed her eyes.

‘Fuck,’ she said.

‘So you do like him, then?’ Louise asked her. ‘I knew it!’

‘Well, sort of, I do. I mean, I never got the chance to find out if I really, really could like him or vice versa. And I never will now Stella’s back. Oh well. It’s probably divine retribution or something. I deserve it. Right?’

‘Right,’ Louise agreed with her. ‘Still, don’t give up all hope. You’ve never actually met Stella, have you? Maybe you could “accidentally” bump into her and introduce yourself as Carmen again?’

Maggie laughed despite her nervous exhaustion.

‘All right, all right. I’m sorry, OK? I’m so sorry. But I think we can both agree you got your own back. Can I stop playing now? Can I just be sorry? After all, you nearly gave me a heart attack. I see the error of my ways and then some.’

Louise pursed her lips thoughtfully and then nodded.

‘I suppose so,’ she conceded. ‘And I’m sorry too. I’m sorry I split you and Christian up in the first place, and I’m sorry it hurt you. But, well, I love him, Maggie, and I need him, and somehow it didn’t matter who else got hurt. I feel bad about it now I know you. I quite like you, despite everything.’

‘Don’t be sorry,’ Maggie said, hardly believing her own ears. ‘It would have happened anyway one day – we were going nowhere.’ She stood up and looked out of the window at the brown Capri. ‘Look, Christian really is on his way to your London flat. Why don’t you call him and tell him you’re here.’

‘Because then he’ll know that I broke into his flat and think I’m a nutter?’ Louise suggested with more than a hint of sarcasm.

‘Then tell him you guessed that he keeps a spare key under the potted palm in the hallway and that you let yourself in. It’s not exactly the world’s most original hiding place.’ Maggie picked up her bag. ‘Look, I hope it works out for you two, I really do, and if … well, if we meet each other again through Christian, maybe we could just pretend that we’re meeting for the first time and
maybe
we could even have a go at being friends, the traditional way, I mean.’

Louise considered her for a moment.

‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘If you’re really not the bunny boiling madwoman you come across as.’

Maggie laughed, aware that she suddenly felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Tonight had been the single most stressful night of her life, but it was also a beginning. It was the end of the madness and the beginning of a fresh and free start.

‘Right back at you, babe,’ Maggie smiled. ‘Look, if you feel like you have to tell Christian about all this crap then go ahead. I can handle it, because pretty much nothing would surprise me now.’

Louise shook her head. ‘I won’t. I mean, if I rat on you then I’d have to explain the whole faked overdose thing and … well, I just won’t.’

Maggie went to the door and then paused.

‘You do love him, don’t you, Louise? You’re not going to leave him or anything?’ she asked. ‘Not now he’s gone through so much to be with you?’

‘Yes, I love him,’ Louise said. ‘And I know that I want him more than anything. I’ll try to make it work, and with a bit of luck I will. I can’t say much more than that.’

Maggie nodded.

‘Well,’ she said. ‘It’ll be nice meeting you. Again.’

‘And you.’

Louise watched as she closed the door behind her and then she reached for the phone.

Pete opened the back door and dropped the binbag next to the other three that already languished there. His breath misted in the cold air as he looked at the damp mess of soggy leaves that had piled up on the doorstep over night.

‘I can’t believe it’s nearly November already,’ he said to Falcon, who sat at the table enjoying beans on toast for breakfast. ‘It’s like it was this intense heat day after day, and then bam! A joyless, snowless arctic winter. Is that global warming or what? Whatever happened to seasons?’

‘Mmmm.’ Falcon shoved the last of his toast into his mouth and wiped his hand across his beard, clearly uninterested in what Pete had to say. ‘Not off to work today, then?’ he said. ‘You’ve usually gone by now.’

Pete shrugged and sat down, pouring himself a cup of tea.

‘No, I’ve got a couple of days’ holiday which, even though I’m only on a contract, I have to take before I … Anyway, it’s a bit of a lull there now, so I thought I might as well take them before the final push. And I’ve got things to think about … big things.’ Pete glanced up at Falcon, testing his receptiveness; after all, in the last couple of months since Stella had moved in, Falcon was pretty much his only local friend.

‘Oh yeah?’ Falcon said, slurping his tea. ‘Planning the big day and all that shite?’

Pete wondered what he was talking about and then remembered that, technically at least, he and Stella were supposed to be getting married. In actual fact, neither one of them had mentioned it since that morning in the coffee shop. In fact, neither one of them had mentioned pretty much anything since that morning, barring basic pleasantries. It was as if Stella was just Pete’s lodger, sharing his room and his bed with him and not much else. The day after their ‘chat’ she’d asked him for some cash and bought herself a small TV, which she’d positioned on its upturned box at the end of the bed. Most days, more or less every day now, it was so cold that she stayed in and watched daytime TV on her own. Sometimes Angie’d come up and they’d watch it together and giggle at the true-life stories of Rikki Lake. When Pete got in from work, which could be any time when things were really kicking off at Magic Shop, she’d already be in bed under the covers, watching the TV and waiting for him to bring her some food. They’d become companionable strangers, existing and coexisting in a kind of suspended animation.

‘Um, not exactly,’ Pete said to Falcon. ‘I’ve been offered an extended contract, another six months …’ He sank into the rickety chair opposite Falcon.

‘Cool man!’ Falcon told him. ‘It’s all working out for you, isn’t it? You must be made up.’

Pete nodded. ‘I am, in a way, except it’s not at Magic Shop. Well, not in London anyway. They want me to go to LA. There’s this new animation technique we worked up on this project, and they want me to go and oversee its implementation on their next film.’ Pete couldn’t help feeling a little proud. ‘Apparently I’m the expert for the job,’ he finished.

Falcon nodded with enthusiasm. ‘Excellent, and what does the little lady say about that, then? I bet she’s looking forward to all that swanky crap they’ve got out there, right? I might even get out to see you at some point. When are you going?’

Pete frowned. ‘Well, it was a couple of months off – a couple of months ago.’ Falcon looked bemused.

‘I’m supposed to fly out there in just over a week.’

Falcon put down his cup of tea with a thud so that the brown liquid slopped over the sides and spread slowly across the green Formica of the table.

Pete coughed. ‘The thing is, I haven’t told Stella yet. The thing
is
, I … I don’t want to take her with me. I know I sound like a shit, but I want to go on my own. I don’t want to come back to her, either. We’re finished, Falc. I tried to tell her that weeks ago, but she’s just clung on, and I … well, I haven’t been able to really tell her. She’s so … fragile. It’s like someone has come along and let the air out of her. I don’t want to hurt her, I really care about her. I still love her, sort of – just not in a way that makes either of us happy any more.’

Pete paused, but as Falcon didn’t seem to have anything to add, Pete continued.

‘I thought I had a real reason for breaking up to tell her. I thought there was this girl who I’d really like to know better, you know? But then things happened, and when I realised I couldn’t go for the girl I wanted, I didn’t want to hurt Stella needlessly, so I just … didn’t. Which makes me a cowardly shit, doesn’t it? And an idiot, because the longer I’ve left it, the harder it is to say, and I can’t just sneak out of the house in the dead of night and fly off to the States. Christ knows what she’d do, the state she’s in …’

Falcon reached over the table and took Pete’s last bit of toast without apology.

‘Have you sorted out someone to take over your rent while you’re away?’ he said.

Pete suppressed his exasperation. ‘I’ll pay it. I’ll probably be back in six months. I’ll live out of a hotel over there, all expenses paid, and maybe … well, Stella might need the room for a while. Now tell me, what do you think, am I a cowardly shit?’

Falcon shrugged. ‘You’d have to ask Angie about all that stuff. She’s an expert on what makes a bloke a cowardly shit. Although now she’s got this new bloke on the go, she’s all bloody sweetness and light, and she’s got a lot sexier. Have you noticed how much sexier she’s got recently? Must be all that shagging. Day and night it’s like living above a porn shoot. Don’t either of them have jobs? But seriously now,
have
you noticed how much sexier she is? You can tell me, I won’t mind.’

Pete shook his head irritably.

‘No I can’t say that I have, Falc! We’re supposed to be talking about me here, mate! Remember?’

Falcon looked at Pete and forced himself to stop musing on the allure of Angie’s breasts since she’d started dating that English teacher cretin from the college. It was just that he didn’t know why Pete was asking him what to do when it was pretty clear he hadn’t the foggiest what to do with his own sex life let alone anyone else’s.

‘Right, sorry mate.’ He tried to focus his mind and review the facts. ‘So – you don’t want Stella to go to LA with you. You can’t bring yourself to chuck her and you can’t get the bird you want.’ Falcon thought for a moment. ‘Which bird can’t you get?’

Pete looked at him and then down the hallway for any sign of either of the girls. Angie might possibly drag herself out of Justin’s arms, but Stella was rooted to the spot in front of
GMTV
, he was pretty sure.

‘Maggie!’ he told Falcon in lowered tones. ‘From The Fleur. You know, beautiful dark eyes, slim and sort of … short? I mean, nothing ever happened between us, not really … but I was sort of working up to it when Stella came back – when I really didn’t think she would – and then Maggie got back with
her
ex and it all sort of came to nothing.’

Pete sighed. He’d seen Maggie from a distance a couple of times in the last two months. He’d wanted to talk to her, to reinstate their friendship, but it just seemed to be too painful to be around her when there was no possibility of something more happening. Maybe when he was in LA he’d be able to shake her out of his system once and for all.