Chapter 37
MAGGIE
I can feel Jack trying to dampen his thoughts; I extract my hand from his and straighten my coat.
He needs space to think. His mind is back on the redhead and the feeling that something was about to happen to her.
He’s remembering so much more. I’m determined to help him find out what happened to her, to him that night. Who was she?
‘Brace yourself. They can be a lot,’ he says, opening the door, head lifted. ‘Hello?’ Jack shouts into the large space.
The house is huge, but like Jack warned, it’s not the glossy film set I imagined. Patches of darker colour blot the pale blue walls with areas that need repair, but the foyer alone is bigger than my whole lounge.
Opposite us, a staircase climbs in a curve and splits across three different landings. I half expect them to start shifting like they belong in Hogwarts.
‘In the kitchen!’ a woman’s voice replies.
There is a sense of vertigo as I tread across the floor, as though everything in the house is leaning towards the cliff, to the sea.
But as soon as I’m certain this house is going to fall into the ocean, I can feel the centre of gravity switch, pulling it back inland.
It feels alive. Like it’s got its own thoughts and desires, its own instinct to protect.
I step into the kitchen, olive green cupboards, large wooden counters that look like they’ve been lifted straight from the beach below, all sporadic curves around the edges.
In the centre, a large island, a hunk of wood that looks as though it’s still sunk deep into the cliff, as if the house has been built around it.
The room smells of coffee, pastry and stewed apples.
At the far end there are huge double doors looking out to the darkening sky, and a table that could easily sit twelve, and where his family are all seated, looking over with expectant faces.
I misstep, Jack checks I’m OK, but it’s not the volume of his thoughts or the uneven flooring that has knocked me off balance.
It’s like I’ve stepped on a paving slab that’s not fixed in place.
Jack takes my hand without hesitation. Time doesn’t slow, it slackens.
The anxiety deep in my chest unravels. His thoughts and love for his family ground me, yet unbalance me.
Like I’m tapping into some deep sense of belonging that doesn’t belong to me.
I look to Jack. He’s smiling over at them, as they sit around the table.
Christ I hope they go easy on her.
You.
Sorry.
There is a tiny hint of nervousness from him, a judder in his words that climbs up my spine, but it’s not for himself, I realise, it’s for me.
He rests his hand gently over mine. His thoughts are becoming more distant, like he’s trying to calm himself, but his love for them is searing through my veins, blooming in my chest.
‘Maggie!’ Jack’s mum, the woman I recognise from the pictures on his wall, stands with a welcoming smile. She’s tall, blonde, elegant. ‘Goodness, you’re just as pretty as he described you! Hello, Jackson.’
‘Jackson?’ I question under my breath.
‘After Pollock. I was quite the finger painter apparently.’
He releases my hand.
There is a feeling of emptiness without his hand in mine. Like I’ve been walking around with a hole inside me that I didn’t know was there. Something hidden, or out of reach, like a memory in the corner of my mind.
‘Maggie!’ his father booms, rising from his seat. I swallow, step back. He looks like Jack, but more weathered: he could be cast as a sailor, all creases and broad shoulders, like he’s used to hurling lobster pots on board. His hair is grey, longer than Jack’s, wilder.
‘Mr Chadwick.’ I manage a smile. ‘Thanks for inviting me.’
He lets out a roaring laugh. ‘Mr Chadwick? Good Lord, that makes me feel like my great-uncle Rupert and Great-Uncle Rupert was a right tosser. Studied fruit flies.’ He shakes his head at Great-Uncle Rupert’s choice of job. ‘Tom, please. Good to meet you. You don’t study fruit flies, do you?’
‘I… no.’
‘Ignore him,’ Jack says rolling his eyes. ‘Dad thinks he’s hilarious.’
‘I am hilarious.’ He throws an arm around Jack’s head and knuckle-rubs his hair. ‘At least seventy per cent of the time!’ He releases Jack who straightens his hair. Tom settles himself back into the chair.
Jack begins introducing the others semi-circling the table. ‘This is my sister, Charl.’
‘Hi! You’re not at all what I was expecting!’ The redhead wearing bright-purple dungarees with a yellow ‘land girl’ tie in her hair grins at me.
‘Charl…’ Jack shakes his head.
‘What? She’s not! No sign of a wooden pole stuck right up her backside like your usual type.’
Charl is bursting with energy, eyes wide and brown, strong chin, kind.
‘Cool jacket. Lunch is almost ready.’ She gets up. ‘Shit. You can eat things made by other people, can’t you? I promise I’ll wash my hands.’
‘Yes, it’s…’ I begin.
‘That’s right. You just can’t touch people. Jackson sent us all a voice note with strict instructions not to hug you. Shame. You look huggable.’
‘I do?’
‘Yeah. I want to give you a squeeze.’ I cast a glance in Jack’s direction, eyebrows raised, his expression reading: I warned you they can be a lot.
‘Jackson, do you think you can stop looking at her like a puppy in need of a belly rub for five seconds and give me a hand? George will be here soon, with the news.’
‘Anyone know what the news is?’ Jack asks, making his way to the kitchen island. Charl passes him a bag of limes.
‘Oh, darling,’ Jack’s mum, Gillian, begins. ‘It could be anything. Last time he had news, it was that he was thinking of getting a puppy.’
Tom leans forward but not close enough to touch me. ‘Gilly has baked.’ He grimaces. ‘Best stay away from the shortbread.’
‘I heard that!’ She bats his arm away.
‘Uncle Jaaaaack!!’ There is a stampede of feet as two waist-high girls in a variety of feather boas and hats run into the room wrapping arms around his waist. He discards the bag of limes.
The youngest is wearing just a feather boa and a luminous lace tutu, wild candy-floss-thin blonde hair, which is standing up like she’s electrically charged.
Jack immediately swings them beneath his arms.
‘Take a seat, Maggie.’ Gilly gestures to a seat at the end of the table.
‘It’s—’ God I have no idea how to navigate this conversation. Words are forming in my head, like a script for an actress but without a director to steer her in the right direction. ‘Lovely to meet you all.’ I smile over at her, trying not to cringe at the plummy accent I seem to have adopted.
‘We’ve heard a lot about you over the past few weeks.’ She smiles but it’s guarded. Not unfriendly but more… appraising.
‘All good I hope,’ I ask not quite meeting her eyes.
‘I hear you’ve been helping Jackson sort out the shop?’
‘I… yes.’
My attention goes back to Jack who is dragging the children around pretending to look for them, one hanging onto his leg, the other with her arm around his neck.
‘I’m on your back, Uncle Jack!’
He’s a natural with them. He casts a quick glance back at me. I give him a little nod in reassurance, and he returns his attention back to the kids hanging off him.
He’s good with children. Of course he is.
I don’t know why this hits me so hard. I suppose it’s because having kids has always been such a foreign concept to me.
Luke and I had never discussed it; it was too early in our relationship.
I guess deep down I’m afraid. Afraid of something happening to me and the kid being left in the care system.
If Hellie hadn’t come along, who knows how long I would have been bouncing around foster care and children’s homes.
And then there is the issue of being able to constantly hear their thoughts.
I mean, there are times I’m sure that would be helpful, but what about while I’m pregnant?
What would I hear then? Seeing Jack like this though, with one girl hanging off his leg, the other on his back…
Something feels like it breaks inside my chest.
Tom pulls the newspaper towards him. His glasses are perched on his nose.
‘Coffee?’ Gillian asks.
‘Yes, please, thank you.’ She reaches for the coffee pot.
Please and thank you?
‘Sugar, Maggie?’ she asks.
Tom reads out a clue from the crossword, ‘Six down, four letters…’
‘Um, yes… please.’ My head is spinning as I try to untangle the riot of activity around me. Jack’s face is lit up as he chases the girls around the large kitchen. ‘Two, please.’
‘Control your kids!’ Jack shouts at his sister.
‘Nope, you started it,’ she responds, opening plastic cartons of food.
‘Milk?’ Gilly asks, eyes back on the task.
‘That would be great,’ I reply.
She passes me the cup. I hesitate before reaching for it.
‘Shit sorry, I didn’t think…’ She places the cups down with a clink, concern around her eyes.
‘It’s fine. Thank you.’
‘Phew. Thought I’d fucked up at the first hurdle. Jack has warned us not to make a mess of things and here I am, practically about to hold your hand.’
I’m slightly taken aback by the F-bomb but Jack had already warned me that his mum swears like a sailor.
‘Greta!’ Charl bellows from the other side of kitchen as the kids run away and out of the kitchen, Jack making growling noises behind them until they run up the stairs. ‘Put some clothes on!’
‘Oh, let her be,’ Tom adds barely looking up. ‘She’s not going to get hypothermia.’
Charl lands her hands on her hips. ‘Do I need to remind you that I did get hypothermia when I was her age?’
‘That’s completely different.’ Gilly shakes her head. ‘You were in the sea and not wearing a wetsuit.’
‘If I recall…’ Jack adds, his dark hair flopping forward into his eyes as he reaches over for a biscuit on the counter. ‘You were wearing Mum’s bikini, which you’d superglued shells onto.’
‘I didn’t superglue them, I used Blu-Tack.’
‘And you made a magnificent mermaid,’ adds Tom but with his eyes still on the newspaper in his hands. ‘Triangulate.’ He mutters, hand pressing a biro onto the page.
‘So, Maggie…’ Gilly takes a sip of her coffee. ‘Jack tells us you have your own cleaning business?’
‘I, no, I clean; I don’t own a business. I have a few regular gigs—’
‘And you clean the cinema too?’ My head turns to Charl, who opens a bottle of vodka and pours half of the bottle into a large glass drinks dispenser.
‘Yes, I—’
Gillian jumps in, ‘Such a cool place. I’ve been a few times…’
Tom mutters another clue to himself, pen tapping his bottom lip.
‘I can’t believe you got Jack to go and see Notting Hill,’ Gilly says under her breath.
‘Is that the one about the sports agent?’ Tom asks glancing up.
‘No that’s…’ I begin.
I’m trying to keep up with the discussion bursting with different personalities surrounding me, but it’s hard.
Fireworks of conversation are exploding in every direction; my body wants to duck beneath them.
I can’t remember the last time I was this close to so many people, being part of the conversation rather than spectating from a distance.
I look over to Jack, warmth floods through me but I know my hands are quietly shaking.
Jack turns, looking back as though I’ve pulled on the toggle of a kite string.
He says something to his sister who rolls her eyes, and then he walks towards me.
‘Tell me you’re going easy on her?’ he asks his family, eyebrow quirked.
‘Honestly, Jackson!’ Gilly says, taking another sip. ‘You make us sound like the Spanish Inquisition.’
‘Do I need to remind you of the first time I brought a girl home?’
Charl snorts as she twists a cap, then pulls out a chopping board.
Gillian laughs. ‘What? We were being welcoming!’
‘Mum, you asked her what her intentions were,’ Jack challenges.
‘Well… I was interested.’
‘We were fifteen!’
‘We were charming!’ Tom adds.
‘Hardly,’ Charl says, as she begins chopping a red pepper. ‘She dumped him before the apple crumble hit the table. Mum, are you sure everything else is ready?’
‘Yes, I told you, it’s all under control. Come and sit back down, Charlotte.’
The conversation continues on to other moments where their parents’ behaviour caused embarrassment.
‘Everything all right?’ Jack crouches beside me, his words quiet. His voice cuts through the cacophony of conversation around me, like we’re alone and the equaliser on the background track has been turned down.
Yes. No. I don’t know. This is wonderful. This is hard.
He reaches out and I take his hand.
They already like you.
I can tell.
His words are soft, gentle yet solid. His emotions hang off each word like an accent: pride, concern, protection and something else.
And I think it might be love.