Chapter 48
‘ WHAT ABOUT CAMBERWELL? THERE ’ S a place that’s just come up, an old Vietnamese, already licensed. It’s around here,’ Jamie said, pointing at Google Maps.
He and Maggie were on his sofa, her laptop between them, discussing her next restaurant. It was a tactic he’d deployed multiple times over the past week to distract her from gloomier thoughts.
Jamie had come home from France and slipped back into his normal routine – leaving for his office in Soho every morning – whereas Maggie mostly drifted around his apartment, moving from the spare room, to the sofa, then back to the spare room to sleep, occasionally shaking things up with a very slow, lethargic walk along the river, watching joggers, parents pushing prams, tourists outside the Tate Modern and people marching across the bridges, on their way to important meetings.
How were their lives so sorted? she’d wondered that afternoon, looking at everybody moving around her with such purpose. She’d leant on the railing overlooking the Thames and stared into the water where a ragged piece of blue tarpaulin drifted downriver. She was the human equivalent of that blue tarpaulin, floating aimlessly through life: no husband, no home, no job, no child, no purpose. If she was diagnosed with a terminal illness the next day and died the day after that, who would even come to her funeral? Her mother, Jamie, a couple of cooking friends? Mungo, maybe, although she was unsure of the etiquette of going to an ex-partner’s funeral.
Back in the apartment, purely for something to do, she’d opened her laptop and stared at her emails. One from a name she didn’t recognize who turned out to be a divorce lawyer already appointment by Mungo (she took him off her imaginary funeral list). Another from Georges with various complicated legal attachments to finalize the sale which she couldn’t face reading. Another from that bookseller, Humphrey Bancroft, asking her to ring him, but she couldn’t face that either.
Then, as if looking for another method of emotional self-harm, she’d called her mother to announce that she’d left Mungo, half hoping that he would have already told her, but apparently not.
‘Left him where , darling?’
‘No, I’ve left him. We’re done. It’s run its course.’ Maggie had tried to think of more cliches to help her mother understand. ‘We have … expired.’
‘Mungo’s expired ?’
‘Nobody’s died. We’re simply over, Mum.’
‘Well then, Margaret, what now?’ her mother had challenged.
‘I don’t know,’ she’d mumbled down the phone.
Maggie didn’t know. She’d always had a plan: she was going to become a chef and then she became one; she was going to open her own restaurant and then she did; she was going to fall wildly in love and have several children, except that plan had failed. So what next? Because despite all Jamie’s encouragement, for some reason she didn’t feel very enthused by the idea of another restaurant. Did London really need another artisanal wine bar charging a fiver for a pot of olives? She’d lost her mojo, and she didn’t know how to get it back.
‘I don’t know if I have the energy for this, Jamie. I need to sort out the divorce stuff, first.’
‘You do have the energy,’ he told her firmly. ‘And what about if I come in with you?’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘On a restaurant. Why don’t we do it together?’
‘Why?’ she said suspiciously.
‘Oh my god, Mags, you need to belt up otherwise we’re going to fall out. Because you’re brilliant, that’s why! I’m going to allow another week of this moping and then you’re going to get a grip. And maybe a haircut.’
‘What’s wrong with my hair?’ She lifted a hand to her head.
‘You’re starting to look like your mother.’
‘Jesus,’ she said, hitting his arm, ‘why didn’t you tell me that?’
‘I’m telling you now. Another week, and then we’re going to go and look at sites.’
‘Jamie …’
‘I mean it. I’ll do the PR and the hiring, you do the menus.’
‘Maybe,’ she murmured, clicking away from Google Maps to the Daily Mail website. It was a new habit, scrolling through the headlines until she saw one that mentioned him. There was always a story, sometimes more than one a day.
Are Hollywood’s hottest couple back for good?
Holly Hernandez shows off her baby bump at Santa Monica juice bar!
EXCLUSIVE: Gray Hudson set to begin filming lead role in Scorsese Vietnam flick!
She clicked on the story about Gray’s wife and examined the photos. She was in tight black Lycra, her blonde hair tied in a perfect bun, and clutching a large juice. Much of her face was covered with a large pair of black sunglasses but the rest of it looked pretty glowing, and she couldn’t help but notice a diamond the size of a quail’s egg on her left hand.
‘That’s enough emotional self-harm for one evening, babe,’ Jamie said, reaching across to take away the laptop. ‘Top-up?’
‘Go on,’ she said, leaning back against the sofa. She shouldn’t feel so jealous. She’d known he was married. She’d known he was going home. She and Gray had been in the wrong, not his wife. But she did feel jealous of her, and sick at the idea that Gray had so easily slipped back into his life in America when hers had been completely upended.
‘I don’t understand why I feel so sad,’ she said, as Jamie opened his fridge. ‘I know I’ve done the right thing, but why doesn’t it feel like it?’
‘You’re grieving, babe,’ he said, sitting back down with a groan. ‘Have you noticed I’ve started doing that?’
‘What?’
‘Groaning every time I sit down. Is that it now? Like, am I going to make that noise every time I sit down for the rest of my life? Give us your glass. Now, what was I saying? Oh, yeah, grieving. Look, you’re not just going to waltz out of a seven-year marriage and feel hunky-dory, and you’ve just signed away the hotel, so you’re grieving twice. It’s a lot, Mags, which is why you need a plan, and having something to focus on, a new restaurant, would be a proactive step.’
She smiled. ‘It’s like you’ve had years in therapy.’
‘It’s lucky I’ve had years in therapy, babe. Erik charges a hundred and twenty quid an hour for this crap.’
Maggie’s phone screen lit up. Georges.
She closed her eyes briefly. But if there was one person she had to speak to, it was him. Without Georges, she wouldn’t be able to move out of Jamie’s. Or get divorced. Or even think about another restaurant. Having not worked for the past four years, without access to the joint account she and Mungo had shared, Maggie had almost no money of her own.
‘Why’s he ringing so late?’
She shrugged and pressed the green button. ‘Hi, Georges. Sorry, I know I need to sign those documents you sent me. And I will. I was just …’ she looked wildly around Jamie’s apartment for help with an answer, ‘doing some work.’
‘Maggie, do not sign them.’
She frowned. He sounded stressed, almost breathless, as if he’d just run to his desk.
‘Georges, are you all right? What’s going on?’
‘I ’ave just seen my friend from the planning office at Claude’s, and I wanted to tell you before you sent those back, but my friend, he tells me there is an application just lodged, to pull down the ’otel.’
‘What? You said it was protected?’
‘ Quoi ?’ he exclaimed loudly, still panting.
‘That thing, that protected thing. You remember! That historical thing.’
‘The monument historique , oui , and technically eet ees but I believe some money ’as changed ’ands and my friend says the application, eet ees already in and there are plans for a whole new building, Maggie. My friend, ’e ’as seen them. A new ’otel, and a car park, and a new pool and a spa with a gym. Pffffft! Eet ees like he wants to build The Ritz in Narnesse.’
‘OK, how do we stop it?’ Maggie asked, her heart thudding against her ribcage.
‘You ’ave signed the compromis so eet ees now very difficult. At the worst, you would ’ave to pay a penalty.’
‘How much?’
‘Ten per cent of the price.’
She quickly did a calculation in her head. ‘Georges, that’s three hundred thousand euros! I can’t pay that! How would I possibly pay that?’
‘ Non , I suspected as much.’
‘Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Sorry, Georges. I don’t mean to swear but …’
‘I do not mind. Merde , as you say. I can try and stall for some time, to see if you can arrange the funds. But we are finalizing in three days so we ’ave not much time, Maggie.’
She bit down on her lower lip. What would Phil do? ‘What if they pull out of the sale? Do I have to pay a penalty then?’
‘If they do? Non , if they pull out of the sale they forfeit the compromis .’
‘All of it? Three hundred thousand euros?’
‘ Oui .’
‘To us?’
‘To you.’
‘OK, Georges. Leave it with me. I won’t sign anything and, if they ask, act normal. Say I’m on it.’
‘What are you going to d—’
‘Don’t worry, Georges. It’s all going to be fine. Trust me.’
He made a nervous chuckle. ‘Maggie, that is what your aunt always used to tell to me, eet will all be fine.’
‘Because it always is, somehow.’
Maggie hung up, adrenalin surging through her veins. She had a plan again, and the plan was to save Le Figuier. She reached for her laptop and Googled a familiar name.