Chapter 32
MAGGIE FOUND MUNGO UPSTAIRS , pacing in front of their bedroom window.
‘Oh, good, your leg’s better,’ she said brightly.
Mungo froze. ‘Only a bit. Where did you go?’
‘I needed a walk. I needed some space, it’s all happened so fast.’
‘We want it to happen fast! The faster it happens, the sooner we can go home,’ Mungo told her, chopping his hands through the air. ‘Look, I’ve spoken to Ellen and she says the offer’s on the table for twenty-four hours.’
‘A day? They’ve given us a day to think about it?’
‘What’s there to think about, darling? Although there is one condition.’
‘Another one? On top of giving us three seconds to decide?’
‘It’s not unusual in this sort of situation. These guys don’t mess around.’
‘What’s the condition?’
‘It’s conditional,’ Mungo began warily, watching his wife’s face, ‘on possession in two weeks.’
‘Two weeks? They want us to be out in two weeks ? Two weeks ?’
‘Yessssss,’ he said slowly, before hurrying on, ‘but the good news is he doesn’t care about the furniture. Ellen says all that can be left as is.’
‘Left? Why?’
‘I don’t know all the details but the implication was that they’re going to bring their own team to refurbish the place, and if it’s quicker for us to clear out and leave the furniture then they can dispose of it. Anybody buying this place would get rid of it all, darling. It needs a new start, and a lot of money spent on it, and we simply don’t have that.’
Maggie glanced around the room – at the wooden bed, the wardrobe with delicate flowers carved up each door and the leather chair in the corner, its seat worn shiny. Each individual piece sourced and treasured by her aunt.
‘Darling, this was never going to be easy,’ Mungo said, stepping forward to take her hand. ‘But this is a good offer, a brilliant offer. And what’s the alternative, hmmm?’
‘I don’t know.’ She looked through the window to see Ringo and Paul eating the roses beside the pool. ‘What about the donkeys?’
Mungo frowned. ‘Isn’t there some sort of home they can go to nearby?’
She pressed her lips together. She hadn’t seen many donkey sanctuaries in Provence.
‘This is the very best scenario,’ he went on, squeezing her fingers. ‘We can go home and life goes back to normal. And by the by, I was having a conversation with that pregnant woman earlier, Isabella or Araminta or whatever she’s called.’
‘Arabella.’
‘She said they know a very good fertility doctor who’s helped several of their friends. Apparently one woman who was forty-two and been trying for nine years. Nine! Imagine that. It made me feel much better about us. So I was thinking …’
As Mungo talked about yet another doctor, Maggie stared through the window. What was normal life? In the past few years, normal for Mungo had become heading to his office every day, before returning home to whatever dinner Maggie had spent all afternoon making to distract herself.
For Maggie, normal had become waking up and trying to gauge how she felt that day: tired? Angry? Sad? Fat? She’d taken so many different hormones that she felt like a rat in a laboratory cage. Every morning she had to remember the multiple instructions that different fertility doctors had given her: more sex; sex on specific days; sex on alternate days; sex during specific hours; sex followed by twenty minutes of lying with her legs up against a wall; no caffeine; no wine; more milk; less milk; more flaxseed; more Vitamin B; more water; only filtered water; take up yoga; do no exercise whatsoever; no baths, showers only; stop using all scented body products; acupuncture; take an afternoon nap; drink this disgusting brown juice that tastes as if it was made from a puddle; less stress! Now, she couldn’t even remember which doctor it was who’d recommended she give up the restaurant because her cortisol levels had been too high and guess what? Still no baby. Normal, for Maggie, had become almost unbearable.
‘Darling? This doctor, a good idea?’ Mungo continued. ‘Arabella said she’d email me his details. Apparently he’s excellent, so we don’t have to go back to Dr Goodall if you don’t want to.’
‘I don’t want to see another doctor.’
‘Darling,’ he went on, in the wheedling tone he used on dogs, ‘I know it’s been jolly difficult for you. Jolly difficult for both of us, but we’ve got to persevere. You’re tired and fed up and I understand that, I really do, but let’s just give this new chap a go.’
‘Mungo, listen, I can’t do it. I don’t want to inject myself again and again and again, and for what?’
‘For a baby!’
‘What baby?’ Maggie said louder, pulling her hand back. ‘I can still practically show you the bruises from the last round but show me the baby!’
‘Maggie, we can’t give up now.’
‘Why not?’ she replied defiantly.
‘Because we’ve come this far, that’s why not. Darling, being out here has clearly been a strain and you’re tired. What we need to do is get home, go and see this new doct—’
‘I DON’T WANT TO SEE ANOTHER DOCTOR!’ Maggie shouted, fists balled by her side.
Mungo blinked. ‘Goodness me.’
‘I can’t … I don’t … I will not see another doctor,’ she said fiercely. ‘I won’t. You can’t make me.’
‘What on earth has got into you? All I’ve been trying to do in the past few weeks is help you with this place. I thought you might even be grateful for my help, appreciate the effort that I’ve gone to try and get this decrepit junkyard sold so we can get back to London and get on with our life. But now all I’m getting is grief – grief for trying to help with this place, grief for trying to help wi—’
‘Mungo …’
‘No, don’t worry about me, your poor husband who only ever considers what’s best for you, and for us,’ he carried on. ‘You do what you want, Maggie. Swan off to France, have a lovely time in the sun, do what you want to d—’
‘I am grateful, and the offer for the hotel is probably the sensible thing to do, I just need some time to get my head around it. But the children conversation is more complicated.’
‘How?’
She thought back to her conversation with Gray on the railway track.
‘I don’t know if we’re still trying because we want a baby, or because we’ve come so far we feel like we have to keep going, when the braver thing to do …’ she paused and took a breath, ‘the braver way forward might be to admit that it’s not going to happen for us.’
Mungo shook his head. ‘We’ve talked about this, we’ve always said it’s what we wanted.’
The memory of their first date passed through Maggie’s head like a shadow. ‘I know we said that then, but do you know what I want now?’
He stared at her stonily.
‘I want never to visit another fertility clinic,’ she told him, clutching her fist to her chest. ‘This isn’t the life we planned on having and I don’t think we can carry on as if it is, pretending . I feel like I’m acting in my own life, and I can’t do it any more.’
‘Have you considered how I might feel about this?’
She briefly closed her eyes. ‘No, because I’ve only just realized it myself. I’m tired , Mungo.’
‘Of course you’re tired,’ he scoffed. ‘You’re running round after famous actors and demanding guests, and Jamie’s doing almost nothing to pull his wei—’
‘No, not tired of the hotel. Tired of trying. Tired of … this.’ She gestured feebly with her hand to denote that by ‘this’ she meant ‘them’.
They stared at one another in silence until a donkey brayed under the window, making Mungo flinch.
‘Those ridiculous animals,’ he snarled. ‘Right, well, in that case, I’d better be going.’ He reached for his overnight bag and stalked into the bathroom, then returned, clutching his toiletry bag. ‘I’ve tried, Maggie. I’ve provided and I’ve been supportive and encouraging, and I’ve never once complained about our marriage even though there have been moments when, well, never mind. And now I’ve found someone to buy this place, and all I wanted was for us to go home so we could start trying again but no, you’ve decided that’s not what you want. This place has infected you, Maggie! You’re starting to turn into your mad old aunt.’
He looked up from his bag with a face like a cartoon villain; red forehead, red cheeks, bulging eyes.
Maggie considered her options: she could try and placate him as she always did during any row, by apologizing and soothing him as if he was a four-year-old, saying that they would sort it out and all would be fine.
Or she could stand her ground.
‘If you want to go, then go. I’ve got guests downstairs and I need to start making dinner.’
‘Fine,’ Mungo snapped, throwing his earplugs into his bag, although one missed and bounced along the floorboard. ‘Please ask that woman who looks like an orangutan to call me a taxi?’