Past Secrets (53 page)

and would-be intellectuals, a spot where many an admiring student had sidled up to Grey and Maggie as they enjoyed coffee and said a shy ‘hi’ to Dr Stanley.

She hadn’t wanted to visit him in their apartment and neither had she wanted to phone him.

She didn’t want him prepared for this meeting with ready arguments all laid out. Instead, she had an armful of legal documents from her newly hired lawyer relating to selling their jointly owned apartment.

She

pushed open the door of the bookshop and made her way upstairs to the tiny coffee shop. He was there, lounging elegantly on a chair, coffee cup held in long artistic fingers, gazing at the paper earnestly.

‘Hello, Grey,’ said Maggie.

He looked up from his newspaper and she could see that he was astonished. ‘Maggie!’ he said, delight in his voice. ‘How wonderful to see you.’

The way his eyes roamed over her made her sure he was pleased to see her. She had made an enormous effort with what she was wearing, and had abandoned her jeans for a long cotton skirt with slits up the side that showed off her legs and a soft aqua shirt that tied neatly around her slim stomach. She looked good, better than good, she looked great.

The morning affirmations and the book of selfconfidence - which she’d read for a third time were working. After all, there was no point in being the only person who thought she looked like Quasimodo’s younger sister.

‘Can I sit down?’ she said.

‘Please do,’ Grey said suavely, taking the rest of his morning pile of papers off the other chair.

Maggie sat, feeling strangely relaxed, but Grey didn’t look relaxed at all. He glanced nervously at his watch as if he was worried about the time.

Was he waiting for another woman maybe? Maggie tested to see how much that would hurt, Grey waiting for another woman. She bounced the idea around in her head and found that she didn’t care.

It hadn’t been that long, she knew, since they had split up, but so much had happened. She’d got over him, she thought. She’d tried so hard to keep him by being what he wanted that she wondered if the real Maggie had loved him at all or he her.

‘I didn’t expect to see you here,’ Grey said. ‘I didn’t think you were coming back to Galway.’ ‘And how was I going to move the rest of my stuff out of the apartment then?’ Maggie asked calmly.

‘I thought maybe Shona would do it.’

‘You mean you thought I couldn’t face coming back,’ she said.

‘That too,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, Maggie,’ he began. ‘Let’s stop all this “I’m sorry”, Grey. We’ve gone through it so often it’s becoming boring. It’s over between us, it was over the first time you lied to me, except I don’t know exactly when that was.’

‘The only thing Shona wasn’t able to find out,’

he said, bitterly. ‘That woman should work for Interpol, she’s so good at ferreting around for information.’

‘It’s

called keeping an eye out for your friends,’

Maggie said evenly. ‘Shona understands that I wouldn’t want to be married to a man who could cheat on me, and lie about it. We might have had some chance if you’d been honest but …’ She thought about it. ‘Actually, no,’ she said. ‘Strike that. We wouldn’t have had a chance whether you’d told me about the other women or not, Grey.

I’d never trust you again. And I couldn’t respect a man who’d make love to me, and still manage to screw other women without feeling in the slightest bit guilty. So no, it wouldn’t have worked out. But I’d have appreciated the honesty, I’d have respected you more.’

‘There’s no going back, then?’

She shook her head.

‘Are you coming back to Galway to live?’

‘I don’t think so, I’ve made a new life for myself, I’m busy.’

‘I noticed. I saw you in the paper, you and your mother, the heroines of Summer Street.’

Maggie grinned, where once she would have been embarrassed at the thought of such publicity. ‘They used that picture of us on the steps of the pavilion because you’re gorgeous and I’m not too bad for an old bird!’ her mother had said proudly at the time and Maggie had stared at her in astonishment. Her mother was saying she was gorgeous. Maggie didn’t remember anyone saying that when she was growing up, but maybe they had and she just hadn’t noticed. Her own insecurities and the emotional pain of the bullying had stopped her hearing the words. She’d been loved and adored; of course they would have told her she was beautiful.

‘There was a stunning photo of the pair of you on the steps of that old building,’ Grey went on. ‘My mother loves that picture - she says we’re gorgeous in it,’ Maggie said proudly. She was able to say such a thing without wincing and was almost beginning to believe it. Men didn’t look at her in the street because she had her jeans on backwards or her hair was stuck to her head, they looked at her because they thought she was attractive.

‘Beauty sells,’ agreed Grey morosely, staring at her. ‘Are you going out with anybody?’ he asked. ‘It’s just you seem happier, happier than you were with me.’

‘I am, as a matter of fact,’ Maggie said, unable to hide the broad smile that lit up her face at the thought of Ivan. ‘He’s a good man. Kind, handsome, very sexy.’ She couldn’t resist adding that, just to show Grey that he wasn’t the only one who could hook up with members of the opposite sex. ‘And he’s older than me, by a few years,’

she added.

‘Not a twenty-year-old student, you mean,’ Grey snapped.

‘Exactly.’

‘He makes you happy?’ He looked as if he would prefer to hear that this man didn’t make Maggie happy.

‘He makes me very happy,’ she said softly. ‘I can be myself with him.’

‘You were yourself with me,’ Grey insisted. ‘No, I wasn’t,’ Maggie said, determined to say what had to be said. ‘I was what I thought you wanted me to be. We did things you wanted to do, because I wanted you to be happy. Not things I wanted to do. Not that it was all your fault, I had my own issues,’ she said, ‘but you didn’t help.

You wanted a certain type of person as your girlfriend and I was pliable enough to fit perfectly into the role.’

‘I loved you,’ Grey said defensively.

‘Loved me enough to have four affairs while we were together?’ Maggie asked sharply. ‘That’s not love, Grey. That’s selfishness masquerading as love.

If you’d really loved me, you wouldn’t have needed anyone else.’

‘What a cliche,’ he said in irritation. ‘I don’t know why women buy into all that romantic bullshit.

All the same, all wanting fairytale marriages and white dresses and happy-ever-after. Life isn’t like that.’

‘It can be,’ Maggie stated. ‘It can be if you want it to be, and I want it to be. And if the man I’m with is unfaithful to me, then I’ll leave him too.

Do you understand?’ she said. ‘I don’t want happy ever after romance. I want real love and respect and I’d prefer to be on my own than be with someone and without it.’

Grey wasn’t listening. He was staring, like a goldfish, at someone approaching from behind her.

Maggie turned to see a slender young blonde girl, mid-twenties at the most, standing awkwardly a few metres away from their table.

‘Er … well .. stammered Grey, no doubt anticipating seeing the remains of his coffee landing on his clothes.

‘Relax,’ Maggie said. ‘You’re a free agent, Grey.

See who you like.’

She got to her feet, handed him the sheaf of papers and held out her hand for him to shake it. ‘Let’s sort this out as soon as possible,’ she said.

He took her hand and shook it.

Then she turned to face the blonde woman. ‘Hi,’ Maggie said. ‘I’m just leaving. He’s all yours.’

Then she walked down the bookshop stairs, head held high.

For old times’ sake, she took the bus out to Salthill and walked along the beach. The vastness of the Atlantic always awed her. She’d loved walking here when she’d first come to Galway, loved the knowledge that centuries of women had walked along here, thinking about their lives and loves when there were no amusement arcades in the background, just the stretch of the bay encircling them.

She’d like to share this place with Ivan. But perhaps not just yet.

As she walked, Maggie realised that she didn’t want to make any big decisions yet about her and Ivan. She’d tried to get other people to fix what was wrong with her. And it hadn’t worked; it couldn’t. Only she had been able to fix herself.

She didn’t want to make that mistake with Ivan.

If they ended up together, it would be for all the right reasons, she promised herself that.

Smiling, she turned and headed back along the beach.

The office looked exactly the same as when Faye had left it. The ‘Flipper Does Dallas’ painting still dominating the reception area, the arrangements of flowers on the tables in reception looking unchanged, and Grace’s stilettos still crackling as she ran across the reception floor.

In a stunning cream suit with a nipped-in waist and buttons like golden golfballs, she was the epitome of the corporate madam.

‘Welcome back!’ Grace said delightedly. ‘I love your hair!’

Faye laughed and kissed Grace on the cheek. ‘I’ve been away for a month, I’ve gone through all sorts of torments and the first thing you mention to me is my hair?’ she demanded in mock disgust.

It was very different. The brown ponytail was gone, to be replaced by a jaw-length feathery bob which really suited her.

‘It’s only a haircut, Grace,’ she added, although she knew it was more than that. Asking for a new

look hadn’t just been chopping off a lot of hair.

It was making an effort, albeit a small effort, to step back into the world.

‘It’s fabulous though,’ said Grace, giving Faye’s hair a professional once-over. ‘All you need is for Ellen to come in and maybe do something about your clothes.’

‘Grace!’ warned Faye as they stepped into the lift. ‘I like my clothes and it’s only because you’re an old friend that I allow you even to mention them and my lack of interest in them without killing you.’

‘Sorry,’ said Grace unsubdued. ‘It’s just, you have had that suit quite a long time and there is a sale on in Debenhams.’

‘Point taken.’

‘Fine.’ Grace put up her hands in resignation. ‘It’s lovely to have you back, even if …’ She stopped herself.

‘Even if Amber isn’t with me?’ Faye said. ‘Sorry, I don’t know what to say. I wish I knew how to console you but I suppose there is no making it better. At least you found her and talked to her.’ Grace wasn’t entirely sure if Amber had any plans to come back because she hadn’t wanted to ask Faye such a tough question, but whatever had gone on in California between the two of them, Faye was actually looking better than she had for years. It wasn’t just the hair. That was only a surface thing, Grace knew.

But Faye genuinely looked different - not content exactly, because Grace knew that Faye could never be content when Amber was away from her - but strangely more comfortable, less uptight, as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

‘The whole office has missed you.’ Grace changed the subject. ‘Personally and professionally.

Little Island can’t cope when you’re gone. You better not have any holidays again,’ she said, teasing.

‘No, not ever again,’ agreed Faye. ‘Although I’m thinking of taking a month in September to visit Amber.’

She hadn’t discussed this with Amber, not sure how her daughter would react to the news that her mother was going to fly out to LA to spend a month there. Faye realised that if Mohammed wouldn’t go to the mountain, then the mountain would have to go to Mohammed.

‘The month of September, that’s fine,’ Grace said evenly. ‘Are you free for lunch? We’ve a lot to talk about. Neil has been driving me mad, driving Philippa mad too. You know what he’s like when he gets involved in the business.’

Faye did know. Grace’s husband, Neil, was not one of life’s instinctive people managers. He could start an argument in an empty room.

‘Of course I’m free for lunch,’ she said.

When Grace had gone, Faye had sat down and glanced around at her office, thinking it was odd to find it looking the same as ever when so much

had changed within herself. Her desk looked exactly as she always left it, with the phone and the stapler precisely at right angles to the top of the desk; even the cleaners knew to leave it that way, because Mrs Reid insisted upon everything just so.

God, she was anal, Faye realised ruefully. She reached over and moved the phone, the stapler and the lamp. There, just a little bit of chaos, a smidgen of unpredictability. It was probably better that way. She didn’t know what she was going to do next with her life - that was unpredictable, too, but as she mulled this over she decided it could be rather exciting. She’d muted herself for so long in order to be the perfect mother and, instead, had turned into a controlling person who’d lost sight of the real Faye.

Now it was time to work out who the real Faye was and to enjoy life again. She’d punished herself enough for the past.

Amber looked around her new home, a tiny studio apartment in west Hollywood, and grimaced.

Compared to the hotel - where she’d been staying in one of the cheapest rooms after moving out of Karl’s suite - it was nothing much to look at and definitely needed some serious cleaning products.

Her mother’s weak bleach solution might do the trick. Still, it was furnished, in a reasonably safe building with security doors, an intercom system and she was on the second floor rather than the ground. Number 2F contained a kitchenette, a tray-sized balcony overlooking the apartment block next door’s pool and a minute shower room. It hadn’t taken her long to move in. All she had were a lot of clothes, some nice hotel toiletries and that was it. She made a list of all the stuff she needed, like groceries, cleaning products, washing powder, some plants to brighten the place up, and headed off to find a shop.

It was Syd who had helped her find her new home when she’d told him she was leaving Karl.

‘You can’t.’

‘Leave?’ said Amber. ‘Syd, you know I have to. I can’t hang on to Karl’s coattails for ever, not when he doesn’t want me. I have some pride, you know.’