She turned to him. Her lips were dry.
‘I made her give it away for adoption, Mr Stratton. A baby boy, she told me when she came back home. But she said she couldn’t bear to be with me no more, not after that. So she took herself off. She left me. I never heard from her again. I told you it was because she got work. But it weren’t. Oh, I’ve missed her so much.’
Her head sagged. Her pink scalp shone through thinning hair. ‘I’m sure you did what you thought was best, Mrs Morle.’
‘Seemed the only thing I could do at the time, Mr Stratton. Best for her and the baby, I thought. But now, looking back, I think that I was wrong.’
A car drove into the yard. There were voices. Seymour’s daughter-in-law talking to Peter and Julian, too. Seymour filched the glass from beside Mrs Morle and hurriedly swallowed his pills. ‘We can’t change the past. Though you and I both, we sometimes wish we could,’ he said deliberately. For a moment, his hand rested on hers. ‘And you have Daisy to look forward to. Lynn wants to come and visit. It’s good news, surely?’
‘I’ve got regrets and there’s nothing that I can do with ‘em,’ said Mrs Morle. She struggled to her feet. ‘Best be on me way, eh?’
36
‘I just don’t want to spend money that we don’t have on some pokey cottage that you own with some old gits from the past, one of whom wanted to put her tongue down your throat last night!’
Amber’s shouts ricochet round the car. It’s our allocated weekend, according to her bloody rota, Amber sneers, and we need some space and will you shut up David and drive.
`***
Maggie wakes. The town is quiet this early in the morning. She stares at the ceiling. Last night the lonely hearts contact – she couldn’t grace the despicable person with any other label – did not show up where they had agreed to meet. How rude and unkind can people be?
In some moods, her bedroom is a place of tranquillity. Today the emptiness defines her.
She ties her dressing gown cord around her hips and waist. She lets Merry out in the garden. It’s when she’s going back into the flat that she sees the letter lying on the door mat. She’s been expecting it for days. But seeing it for real, the organisation’s stamp on an envelope addressed to her, is an unexpected shock.
She handles it like a suspicious package. Props it against the pepper pot while she makes tea. Ignores it while she makes a piece of toast. Opening it meaning facing rejection. Breathing slowly in and out, Maggie conjures up the voice of her meditation teacher telling her to abandon negative thoughts.
Chucking the toast in the bin, she rolls a cigarette and leans out of the window to smoke.
For the last few days, it’s rained incessantly. ‘That’s summer over,’ people have been saying from under umbrellas. Today the roof tiles on the house opposite glint in the sun. A plane’s white tail drifts in the sky.
It’s an omen. She prises open the envelope.
There’s a knock at her door. ‘Hi Maggie, sorry to bother you.’
It’s one of the men who live upstairs with his partner, the one who thrusts political pamphlets at her. Geraint or Gareth, she can never remember who is who. ‘It’s about the party,’ he says.
She shakes her head. ‘I don’t want to join the party. I’m going to live in India.’ She hasn’t put concealer on her scars this morning. She doesn’t care.
‘Oh cool. I’m not calling about that party, actually. It’s about the one we’re having tonight. A celebration. It might be a bit noisy. Come along if you’d like to.’
Waiting for the coach, Maggie lists in her head all the things she must do before she leaves. What about Merry? Tonight she’ll go to the cottage. Even if it’s not ‘her weekend’, whoever is down there will have to stuff it. She’s about to leave the country for the next three years. Who knows? She might never come back.
The sounds of a saxophone and a bass guitar competing for volume blast from an upstairs window. Amy peeks through the half-closed curtains. Her husband is sprawled on the sofa, his plastered leg on a chair, a can of beer in hand. Next to him Julian balances Peter on his knee. All holler ‘yeeesss!’ at the television. Crisps scatter from the bag as the boy waves it about in celebration.
Amy pushes open the door of Bramble Cottage. For a moment she is suspended between entry and exclusion.
‘Oh, Amy, you’ve come.’ Miriam’s tone is clipped. ‘I’m waiting for the match to finish. Then I’ll take Peter back to the farmhouse.’
The volume of music coming from upstairs is such that she must raise her voice to be heard.
‘Miriam, hallo.’ Amy walks closer to the woman so she can be heard. ‘Is that David and Amber? But he wrote to us saying he wasn’t using the cottage this weekend.’
‘I really don’t know.’ Miriam says dismissively. ‘He and Amber were here this morning when I got back from the hospital with Simon. I gather from the rather heated conversation that Amber doesn’t like football. I think there was a disagreement, shall we say.’
‘Oh dear. Well, thanks for collecting Simon. I came as soon as I could.’ This is not strictly true. Amy had dropped back to sleep after the alarm rang, something to do with the effects of mixing beer and gin. ‘Do you know how the accident happened?’
Miriam regarded her coolly. ‘Simon and Julian had a party last night. I wasn’t there, I had an early night. But at some point, I gather, Simon fell over and smashed his knee. He was in agony. They woke me up. I had to drive Simon to casualty.’
‘I’m so sorry you had
