Chapter 6
Maggie
‘Maggie. Oh lord. Maggie, is that you?’
He stumbled slightly and lowered himself into the nearest chair. Across the room a wedding photograph perched above the fireplace, tucked amid trophies for British Business Person of the Year. Wilbur and Maggie walking out of the church.
‘Yes, it’s me.’
‘How did you get the number?’ Instantly, he cursed himself for asking. It sounded so defensive. He wanted nothing more than for her to have his number, and to call him, but it had come out all wrong.
‘You gave me it, remember. You sent me a message on Facebook six years ago.’
‘Oh. Oh yes. Oh yes, I did. I did. I thought you never saw that message.’
‘I saw it. I don’t do Facebook, but I saw it. I just didn’t know what to say …’
Wilbur was feeling the pressure in his shoulder again.
He stared at the wedding photograph through the distorted Perspex of one of his trophies.
Maggie’s laughter and Wilbur’s uncomplicated smile.
On paper their marriage lasted for twenty years.
Though if he was honest, it died way earlier.
But back then it was going to be for ever. ‘Where are you?’
‘I’m in Sheffield. What about you? Bedfordshire, right?’
‘Yes. Clophill. It’s a lovely little village.’ He nearly added: but it is lonely. ‘Maggie, it is good to hear from you …’
It was strange. After all these years, he didn’t know how to talk to her.
It was as though the passing of time brought its own formality.
How someone you once slept beside every night could become a stranger through years of silence.
As though, except for brief interludes, the natural setting of humanity was to be impossibly distant from each other.
He tried again. ‘I have things I’ve been wanting to say. To ask you. To make amends for …’
‘Don’t be silly, Wilbur. It’s all water under the bridge …’
‘It’s so funny you should say that. I’ve started playing the piano.
’ He looked down at his time-weathered hands.
The veins like a map to an unknown town.
‘I have lessons every Saturday. And I’ve just been playing “Bridge Over Troubled Water”, and remembering how you loved it. It did rather take me back.’
‘The good old days.’
‘Yes. The good old days …’
‘Wilbur. Wilbur.’
That second Wilbur had a firmness to it. He realised he was just prattling on without asking about her. ‘I’m sorry, Maggie. How are you? It’s been so long. I saw on the internet that you had an exhibition for your art in—’
‘Oh, that was years ago,’ she said, almost shy. ‘I hardly do it any more.’
He worried she was about to tell him she was dying. That did seem to be the prime reason people from his past contacted him. To tell him they were about to die, or that someone else he knew was.
‘It’s really silly.’
‘What’s silly?’
‘This phone call.’
‘It’s nice to hear from you.’
‘Well, I have no reason at all to phone you. In fact, I always told myself I never would …’
‘Oh. Right. Yes.’
‘Not out of spite, or anything. Just, it’s a little bit sad, isn’t it? But then recently I thought it would be – well, I wanted to hear your voice. Which sounds ridiculous.’
‘No. Not at all.’ And then he smiled. ‘My voice is pretty special.’
Her small laugh ended with a sad inflection. ‘Well, you still have some of your accent. Just.’
‘Just.’
‘I suppose I could have listened to you doing a speech on the internet. Or one of your telly interviews.’
‘Oh, you don’t want that …’
‘I just wanted to hear you.’
He thought of sitting next to Maggie on a bench in the park as she drew a picture of the pond, a lifetime ago. ‘I’m here. I’ve got so much to ask you. There’s so much I want to know.’
There was a little silence. He imagined her thinking, If only you had always been like that.
He thought of all the things he didn’t know about her.
All the mysteries that had been created by their decades apart.
Did she have a partner? Had she had one?
Was she happy? Had she made new friends?
Did she still have any of the old ones? What shows did she watch?
How did she spend her days? How was her quality of life?
How was her health? Could she still walk about okay?
What did she think about the state of the world?
What was the view from her window? Had she ever tried matcha? How was she?
‘I don’t know if I want to tell you anything at all, really,’ she told him.
His mind felt foggy.
He stared at the wedding photo some more.
Maggie’s smile in that August sunshine as she stepped out of St Timothy’s Church into a cloud of confetti.
Such happiness. Their old friends framing the picture – Charlie, Claudette, Doreen.
Just names now. People he didn’t even know were alive. The fragility of the past.
‘I just dreamed of you last night,’ said Maggie. ‘Of us. Not much happened in the dream. But it was so vivid. It was before London. We were in the house in Broomhill, talking, as if no time at all had passed. But we were happy. Just so happy. It’s so silly. I wonder why that, last night, was the—’
‘Oh, Maggie. I dream of us too.’
‘I don’t ever remember dreams, but this morning I did. I’m sorry. I think I should go now. It’s a little too much. I just needed to—’
‘You’ve only just—’ Wilbur stopped himself.
He wanted her to stay on the line. It was torture to hear her for just a few moments, and then for it to be over.
But he knew she didn’t owe him anything at all.
Life was as it was. No one could change what had happened.
And so much had happened. That was simply what it was always meant to be.
Still, he couldn’t help himself. ‘I would like to speak to you again. Would that be all right?’
‘Yes,’ she said, in her frail and aged voice. ‘I would like that.’