The Good Wife aka The Good Wife Strikes Back

silver light. ‘Hallo, Raoul, I haven’t seen you for a long time. Fanny always keeps you to herself whenever you come over.’

Raoul did not miss a beat. He went over and kissed Meg’s cheek. ‘Fanny did not mention…’

Meg submitted to Raoul’s embrace. ‘That was nice.’ She touched her cheek. ‘We should meet more often. Come to that, Will didn’t mention that you were here.’

‘Will doesn’t know,’ I said.

Meg looked from Raoul to me. ‘Oh, well,’ she said.

Raoul laid a hand on my shoulder. ‘I will be in touch. Maybe we can all have dinner somewhere before I go home.’

All three of us knew this was a fiction.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Meg. ‘That would be cosy.’

19

‘Just what are you doing here?’ I demanded after Raoul had driven away.

‘Arriving in the nick of time, it would seem,’ she said drily.

There was no answer to that.

Meg followed me into the kitchen and dropped her suitcase on to the floor.

‘If I said, Fanny, that it seemed a little greedy of you to have all this space in a lovely house in Italy and not to share it… or I could say, that I missed you. So does Will. He does love you, you know. And…’ She bit her lip, but spoke with her usual mockery, ‘I love whoever Will loves…’

Her eyes shifted away, and I knew she was frightened as to my reaction.

Meg commandeered the single chair in the kitchen, leaving me to stand. ‘He was nice. My darling brother is always nice to me. But he made it plain that he didn’t wish me to appear at his side. He said…’ She grimaced. ‘He said it was your place, not mine. But before you go all dewy, he had probably calculated that if I stood in for you people would talk.’

‘Meg -’

‘Will never gives up. When he dies you’ll find “percentage swing” engraved on his heart.’

‘Who taught him to be like that in the first place?’

‘I suppose it might have had something to do with me.’ Meg nudged her suitcase with a foot. ‘I’m sorry to have surprised you, Fanny, it was not nice of me, but you can make room. We’ve lived together long enough.’

My energy had returned and I knew I had to confront Meg. The compromises were over. ‘Go home,’ I said. ‘I won’t have you here. This is my breathing space.’

Meg’s lips quivered. ‘Don’t be nasty, Fanny. I’m not sure I can bear it.’

‘Try.’

‘I have tried, and I need you.’

It was close to midnight. It was hot, I was bone tired, the airport was miles away and, as usual, Meg had brought her baggage of the funny, the sad and the monstrous with her, and there was nothing much to be done.

We cleared a space in the second bedroom. Inhaling camphor, I knelt down by the chest of drawers in the corridor and searched among its contents for extra sheets. Eventually, I found a pair with embroidered initials, MS, at the corner and we made up Meg’s bed.

‘Clearly, this was meant,’ she said.

Heated with the effort of dragging furniture around, we went outside and walked up the road.

‘What will you do with me in the morning?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know.’

Our feet stirred up a wake of white dust as we passed. Cicadas sang in the undergrowth. The darkness was scented – basil and marjoram, a hint of lemon – and far, far removed from the cool, rain-laden, sodden air of Stanwinton.

I broke the silence. ‘I’ve been out of touch. Is there any news?’

‘The polls show that support is slipping,’ Meg sounded troubled, ‘but what can you expect? Everyone needs a change. People get fed up with continuity and good intentions.’

We walked past the clump of olives and the vineyard where the vines grew straight and disciplined. At the end of each row there was a rosebush.

‘Nice detail,’ observed Meg.

I pinched a leaf or two of wild thyme between my fingers and sniffed. ‘Smell this. You’ll never buy herbs in a bottle again.’

At the point where the road divided, we halted. One fork led down into Fiertino, whose lights, a bright contrast against the dark sky, were strung in a necklace of brilliants. The other snaked up past Casa Rosa and over the hill. Meg pushed back her hair. ‘It’s hot.’

‘That’s its point, to be as different from Stanwinton as possible.’ I spoke more passionately than I’d intended.

‘Poor you, you’ve got it bad.’

‘I have. But I’ve sorted out a few things while I’ve been here.’

‘If you call Raoul sorting out,’ she said.

We walked on. ‘Raoul and I are good friends. I knew him long before I met Will.’

‘If you say so, Fanny.’ Meg scuffed at a stone with a sandalled foot. ‘I have been good, Fanny,’ she said. ‘I’m as clean as a whistle. I have tried.’

I was touched by the halting admission.

‘I wish I’d been different, Fanny. I wish I’d done things differently. I would never have ended up so… wanting. So under the spell of a substance.’ Meg tugged at her hair so hard it must have hurt.

I sighed deeply and Meg heard. She gave a bitter laugh. ‘Drink destroys. A girl fetches up with no friends, no husbands, no lovers. Only… only a son, and he has grown up and gone away. That leaves you and Will.’ She paused. ‘You managed it better. As you always do, Fanny… the good Fanny.’

‘OK, Meg,’ I said. ‘We’ve had this conversation before.’

Meg did a swift volte-face. ‘Two old lags, then.’

‘Less of the old.’ In the moonlight, Meg’s face looked odd, strained. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I’m trying to frown. I’ve had Botox shots. I reckoned if I couldn’t frown, life wouldn’t seem so dreadful. But I keep forgetting.’

I found myself standing – an adulteress manquee - on the dusty, moonlit road with the lights of Fiertino blazing in the distance, helpless with laughter.

‘You should have some too, Fanny,’ Meg suggested, when she could get a word in edgeways. ‘You’re getting a few lines.’

I tucked my hand under her brittle elbow. ‘Meg, why don’t you consider doing that university course you once talked about?’

She froze but did not draw away. ‘I’m not clever enough for that.’

‘Actually, you are.’

We walked back up the path to Casa Rosa. ‘I’m frightened of not winning my particular battle,’ Meg admitted, in a rush. ‘For the rest of my life, I will be on twenty-four hour watch. But the demon will try to slip under my defences, in the dark, when I’m sleepy and sad. It will try to outwit me in the sunshine, and the boredom of the day when nobody minds if I’m there or not.’

‘Sacha minds. Will minds… I mind.’

‘Sacha is… a son. Not a husband, or a lover, or a companion.’

During the night, I heard Meg call out. I threw back my sheet and felt my way across the room over the cool floor. Meg was hunched on her side and the sheets were twisted and bunched. I bent over her and she muttered something unintelligible: a troubled, sad sound. Inadequate to console, and guilty that I did not want her here, I did