Maggie Read online

  After the accident, Maggie found that many of her friends didn’t keep in contact the way they had previously, and those who did just didn’t want to talk about the accident. Only Andy Blythe had been a constant, and because of that she loved him more than ever.

  ‘Have they forgiven you for nicking the booze and getting so very pissed?’ Andy smiled and shook his head. ‘I know I shouldn’t say it, but it was so funny, you were falling all around our front lawn.’

  Maggie put her hand up to her face. She was still trying to get used to the denture in her mouth, and she was terrified it might fall out mid-conversation. ‘Don’t! I’m so embarrassed. I’m surprised you don’t hate me. I really thought you’d not want to have anything to do with me.’

  ‘That’s just daft.’ Andy started to laugh. ‘We were just worried about you being so ill. And maybe dying on our lawn, of course. We didn’t want that either. How were the guardians from the black lagoon when you got home?’

  ‘Bloody furious, but they tried to hide it. Anyway, they can’t have a go at me! I’m their golden goose, their route to the Wheaton inheritance. Thieving buggers …’

  ‘Not forever, though; they haven’t got it forever, and they’re only looking after your half of it. If my parents popped off tomorrow they’d never let me loose with the family silver. I’m sure it’d be put well out of my reach. I just hope mad Aunt Lily would be my guardian; she’d let me do whatever I wanted.’

  For the first time that day Maggie managed a slight smile before continuing: ‘The bitch has got half of everything for herself already, and I’m sure she can do whatever she likes with mine. Her and him and fatman.’

  ‘Oh hey, that’s funny.’ Andy laughed. ‘Her and him and fatman. I love it. Must remember to tell Mum you said that. She rather liked you, you know. She thinks you’re a character.’

  ‘Oh, and I liked her. She’s so glamorous and beautiful; she’s like a beauty queen. And she was so kind to me; she could have just left me there and let her and him deal with it.’

  ‘She wouldn’t have done that,’ he said seriously. ‘She’s a good person, my mum.’

  ‘If they make me go, will you keep in touch?’ Maggie asked suddenly. ‘Will we still see each other?’

  ‘Of course we will. You could come up to London when I’m working there, and I could come and see you at the seaside.’ He paused. ‘Have they decided what’s going to happen to your house when you go to Southend? Are they going to sell it or what?’

  ‘No, Dr Banbury from the surgery is going to rent it. I think fatman is going to deal with all that. I don’t know. I don’t care. I’ve always lived there, and now it won’t be my home any more. I’m a bloody homeless orphan …’

  As her bottom lip wobbled, Andy leaned across, put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her towards him.

  And then he kissed her.

  At first it was a brushing of lips, but then he moved his hand behind her head, wrapped his fingers gently in her hair and kissed her hard, his tongue pushing between her lips and into her mouth.

  After the initial surprise Maggie reciprocated, and when he leaned across and cautiously tried to feel his way up inside her blouse she didn’t resist. She was so confused about her life and so much in love with Andy, she would have let him do anything. Her whole body started to tingle as he pushed her bra up and tentatively cupped her breast in his hand.

  But the moment was spoiled when she heard someone coming around the corner and jumped away from him like a scalded cat.

  It was Suzette, one of the older girls from the tennis club. She walked over and stood in front of them with one hand on her hip and a long tanned leg stretched out in front of her. Her tennis skirt was so short that her frilly white knickers were visible, and Maggie was sure Andy was looking at her in a way he shouldn’t have been.

  ‘Andy … what are doing out here? Come inside with us. The table tennis table is up, and we really need a fourth.’ She pouted straight at him and flicked her hair. ‘Pleeeease? We really want you to join us. The winners get a free coke each.’

  Andy Blythe did absolutely the wrong thing when he smiled, looked from girl to girl and hesitated.

  Maggie was instantly furious, and she could feel an even bigger blush rising up from her chest all the way to her forehead; biting her lip, she stood up and straightened her clothes. ‘See you around …’

  ‘Maggie, wait—’ he said. ‘Wait for me, I’m coming with you.’ But as he stood up, she took off at a run round the outside of the tennis courts and straight out of the gates. Without looking back she ran to the high street, only pausing when she reached the corner. But the instinct to get away from the situation sent her running again, and she carried on as fast as she could all the way up the hill to home. The weight of the cast on her arm didn’t slow her down but it did tire her out, and by the time she got there she could barely stand, let alone breathe normally.

  As she turned into the driveway she was horrified to see Ruby standing out by the car talking to the vicar’s wife, Mrs Hobart. They both stopped talking and watched as Maggie carried on running up to the house, puffing and panting and drenched in sweat. Only when she reached the back door did she stop and bend over to try and catch her breath.

  ‘Maggie? What’s happened?’ Ruby ran over and put her hand on her back. ‘Tell me what’s happened.’

  Maggie caught her breath. The way Mrs Hobart was looking at her told her all she needed to know. They’d been talking about her. ‘I’ve just been running.’

  ‘I can see that, but why? Is someone chasing you? Has someone said something?’

  Still breathing heavily, she stood up straight. Mrs Hobart had followed Ruby to the door and was standing just a step behind her.

  ‘What? Apart from you?’ Maggie shook her head to release her hair, which was stuck tight to her head with sweat. ‘I can see from her face you’ve been telling her my business, which’ll be all over the village before you can sing a hymn.’

  Ruby’s jaw dropped. ‘Don’t you dare be so disrespectful,’ she said, glaring at Maggie. ‘Mrs Hobart was kindly asking how you were.’

  Maggie looked from one woman to the other and laughed humourlessly. ‘Don’t you mean gathering gossip for the flower arrangers to spread?’

  ‘Stop it,’ Ruby said.

  ‘Oh, just bugger off, Ruby,’ Maggie sneered.

  Mrs Hobart had been the vicar’s wife since before Maggie was born, and there was nothing that went on in the village that she didn’t know about. She was kind and caring and performed her duties with gusto, but she was also a natural gossip, and Maggie knew that whatever was said to her inevitably made its way out into the public domain eventually. That was the biggest downside of village life.

  ‘Now stop this. I know you’re upset – we all are – but it’s not Mrs Hobart’s fault.’ Ruby said as Maggie stared her down with lips pursed and eyes full of loathing. ‘Losing George and Babs was hard for me as well. We’re all grieving, but rudeness like this just can’t go on.’

  As she looked at the two women, Ruby and Mrs Hobart, standing side by side, Maggie felt as if there was a fire burning inside her, and it was growing fiercer and fiercer. She could feel an anger enveloping her which was threatening to explode. ‘Grieving? You’ve managed to get your hands on half of everything that should be mine! It’s mine – this is my home, not yours. You were nothing to them, just a bloody evacuee, and now you’re a bloody thief, that’s what you are, and I hate you! Get out of my house, get out, get out get out …’

  Maggie watched Ruby Riordan trying not to cry as she absorbed the hatred that was emanating out of her. It gave her a certain satisfaction, but there was also a tiny twinge of guilt at seeing Ruby so distressed. For a moment she wanted to physically attack her, to hit her and hit her until she felt the same pain she herself was feeling, but then she backed off. Not because she had second thoughts, but because over the shoulders of the two women she saw Andy Blythe appear, looking nearly as puffed out as
she was.

  He looked at her for a moment, staring straight into her eyes, before smiling and gently shaking his head. She slowed her breathing, and as the overwhelming anger started to subside she knew that Andy had saved her from herself once again.

  She walked round the silent Ruby and Mrs Hobart and went to meet him, relieved that he had nailed his colours to the mast by coming after her.

  ‘Do you want to come in?’ she asked.

  ‘Will that be alright? I don’t want to make things worse for you.’

  ‘Things can’t get any worse now. We could go into the sitting room and play records?’

  ‘OK …’

  Andy smiled confidently at Ruby as they both started to walk past her into the kitchen. ‘Hello, Mrs Riordan.’

  Ruby smiled, and Andy paused, but Maggie carried on walking.

  ‘Hello, Andy, it’s nice to see you again. How are you? And your mother?’

  ‘We’re all very well, thank you. Mum and Aunt Lily have gone to see my grandparents today – they live near Northampton. And then they’re bringing them back to stay with us for a while.’

  ‘That’ll be nice for you, Andy, having them with you.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ll see much of them. Dad has got a lot for me to do in London, so I’ll be spending more time there.’

  Ruby said, ‘That’ll be exciting for you, working in …’ She paused. ‘I think Maggie’s waiting for you to join her.’

  ‘Come on … why did you talk to her?’ Maggie asked as they walked down the hall side by side.

  ‘Because I’m a nice polite boy, according to my mother. Manners cost nothing.’

  ‘Is that a dig at me?’

  ‘God, no. But it’s your battle, not mine. It’s not my place to be rude to your … to your … to Ruby,’ he stuttered.

  As they went into the small sitting room where the record player was, Maggie went straight over and put a random selection of forty-fives on to the turntable and turned to volume up, so if Ruby did try and listen it would be hard.

  Andy closed the door and pulled her into him. ‘Shall we carry on where we left off?’

  Maggie slipped her good arm around his neck. And then, just as quickly, stepped away again. All she could see was the expression on Mrs Hobart’s face when she’d run into the driveway. It hadn’t occurred to her that anyone else would know, but suddenly it hit her like a bolt between the eyes. Other people in the village had to have known at the time. They had to.

  ‘In a minute. Andy, there’s something I have to tell you first. You might not want to carry on when you know the truth about me, but I have to tell you this before you find out from someone else.’

  ‘The truth?’

  ‘Yes, the truth. I’m not who you think I am … I’m not even who I thought I was. Nobody knows me …’

  Eight

  Maggie had watched the day dawn from the window seat where she had been all night, silently seething that Ruby and Johnnie and Gracie and Edward were asleep just down along the landing of her house, her home. All four of them had been shifting and shuffling furniture and boxes into an order. There were the things that were staying as part of the rental; the things to be stored in the attic for Maggie to make decisions about in the future; her parents’ belongings, which the vicar and his wife were going to rehome; and then everything that was going with Maggie to Southend.

  ‘Isn’t it lucky our house is so big?’ Ruby had said with false jollity. ‘You’ll have your own bedroom, which is the big one up on the top floor with lots of cupboards. And you’ll be able to make as much noise as you like with your music up there. Johnnie has done his best to make it homely for you. I know it’s going to be hard, but you’ll settle, I know you will.’

  Maggie had looked away. No matter how hard they tried, she was determined not to interact. She didn’t want them to think she was coming round to the idea, because she wasn’t. She was dreading it more than she had dreaded anything, even the funeral of her beloved mum and dad.

  Now the moving day had arrived, and everything was packed and ready to go in the afternoon after the final meeting with Herbert Smethurst. Not that she had any intention of being at the meeting; she knew now that her thoughts on it all were irrelevant and nothing she said would change the way her future life had been organized for her, so she had instead arranged to go and meet Andy at the Manor House to say goodbye.

  She was dreading the day ahead – not only the thought of leaving the house and village, but also of being away from Andy, the love of her life, who was the only person she could talk to. When she had told him she’d expected horror and disdain, but he’d taken the news of her complicated history with a queried look and a bit of a shrug.

  ‘Nothing wrong with being adopted, and at least you know where you came from. My mother was adopted. You should talk to her. She and Aunt Lily aren’t real sisters, they were both adopted separately, but everyone gets on with everyone …’ He paused. ‘Talk to her. She’s good like that, my mum.’

  They’d sat side by side on the small sofa and listened to the music. The moment for romance had passed, but Maggie had been happy to just sit there with Andy’s arm around her shoulder. Her relief at his reaction had been overwhelming.

  ‘My plaster’s coming off tomorrow,’ she’d suddenly said, breaking the comfortable silence.

  ‘That’ll be good. I bet you’re looking forward to it.’

  ‘I am. That’ll be it then. No collar, no plaster, no stitches. Everything about the accident will be gone.’

  As the car pulled slowly away from the house in Melton later that day, a few of the villagers were there to see them off.

  Maggie was in the front seat alongside Ruby, and the personal belongings that comprised her whole life were stacked on the back seat. Following behind in a borrowed van were Johnnie and Gracie’s husband, Edward, who’d been doing the main shifting and clearing and preparing the house for rental. Behind them was Gracie in her own car. It was almost a procession, heading away from the village of Melton in Cambridgeshire down to Southend-on-Sea on the Essex coast.

  On her last look around her home, Maggie had felt as if the heart of the house had been ripped out. All the identifying items of the Wheatons’ everyday life had been stripped from every room, leaving only the furniture, some top-layer bedding and the best of the kitchen utensils. From now on someone else would be living in the only home she’d ever known, and it felt so wrong. Her home, the one she’d shared with her parents all her life, had been transformed into an empty shell with no personality, and she was now being dumped into a new house with a new family, neither of which she wanted.

  Now she was silent and expressionless, but her body language said it all. She sat as far away from Ruby as she could, hunched against the door with her eyes closed tight and her knees turned away forced tight up against the door; she was as near to turning her back on Ruby as possible in the front seat of a car.

  She just couldn’t believe that the day had come and that they had all ridden roughshod over her wishes. But worse than that; she couldn’t believe that they’d lied to her all her life and sullied her memories of her beloved parents.

  ‘Look, there’s Andy and his mother. Oh, that’s nice of them …’ Ruby said as they approached the Manor House.

  Maggie didn’t answer and didn’t move, although she turned her eyes sideways to see them. Her unhappiness was so overwhelming, she didn’t wave back.

  ‘Oh darling, I’m so sorry. If there was another way …’ Ruby stretched her hand across the wide leather car seats and touched her arm, but when Maggie batted her off and tucked herself away even further she put her hand back on the steering wheel. ‘I wish there was some other way, I truly do – we all do – but we can’t come and live here. There are five of us, and we have commitments of our own—’

  ‘Just shut up!’ Maggie cut in. ‘You’re enjoying all this: telling me what to do, pretending to care about me. Well, I know you don’t or you wouldn’t have dum
ped me when I was born. You’re nobody to me. I hate you, all of you.’

  Since the dreadful day when Ruby and Johnnie had had to break the news to her about her true parentage, she had barely spoken to Ruby other than to hurl insults, and she had played no part in the packing up of the house. Johnnie had offered to take her down to Southend the week before so she could miss the final packing and leaving, but she had been determined to sit it out to the very last moment in the hope that they may just change their minds.

  But they hadn’t, and now they were on their way.

  Ruby and Johnnie had decided to let the house instead of selling it, after the doctor had expressed interest; it had seemed a good compromise, because that way it left the door open for Maggie to go back to the village, when she was older and able to support herself, if she wanted to.

  But Maggie didn’t see it that way.

  At sixteen, Maggie had had to accept that she really didn’t have a choice in her own future in the short term, but although she had accepted it she didn’t like it, and she was even more determined not to cooperate at all with any of them. The utter betrayal she felt ate away at her every minute of every day, and she promised herself she would make their life as miserable as she could until they no longer wanted her there.

  ‘We’re not pretending to care about you! It’s not like that, Maggie, it isn’t. We’re all devastated about losing your parents, and we’re especially devastated for you … but nothing can change the situation we’re all in. I know how lost you must feel.’

  ‘Oh, stop telling me all that rubbish. You don’t know! Your mother is still alive and you have your own family, even if you preferred Aunty Babs.’ Maggie injected as much poison into the two words as she could. ‘So how do you know how I feel?’ Maggie screamed at Ruby, but she still wouldn’t look at her.

  ‘I know how I felt when I was sixteen and all alone and betrayed. It was Aunty Babs and Uncle George who saved me. I owe them everything, so yes, I do understand how you feel, Maggie.’