My provisional licence arrived after five days. I stared at my haunted face on the little photocard, feeling terrified. I’d somehow imagined it wouldn’t turn up for a month or two. I’d managed to get the cash out of Massimo by telling him Sandro was going on a school trip. Riddled with guilt, I’d schooled Sandro in the lie. It couldn’t be helped. Dad had to come first for the moment.
Before I lost my nerve, I walked into town and bought some magnetic L-plates, shoving them into my bag as though I’d bought a leopard skin thong I didn’t want anyone to see. I went straight round to Maggie’s, feeling nervous in case she’d gone off the idea. She came to the door looking as though she hadn’t been to bed for a week.
‘Are you okay?’
And this time, it was her turn to burst into tears.
‘What’s the matter?’ I wanted to hug her, but instead I shuffled about in the hallway, embarrassed. I was so out of practice at the warts and all of friendship. When I was at work, boyfriend bust-ups, being bawled out by the boss and IVF failures had me shouting through loo doors on a regular basis. Now I was so busy keeping a lid on my own life, I’d got lulled into thinking everyone else was so happy they did a little disco dance in front of the mirror every morning.
She started to fill me in on what had happened the night before.
‘Oh my god. What did Nico say? Was he furious?’ I asked.
‘I don’t think he realised how important it is to me to keep working. I don’t earn anything like he does, so I think everyone assumes I’m just titting about sewing on a few buttons. But I want to pay my way. Everyone already thinks I just married Nico for his money.’ She gave a little sob.
I felt a rush of shame for getting sucked into Anna’s little power-play. ‘No one thinks that.’
Maggie broke away. ‘I love you for saying that, Lara, but I could name at least one person who does. You and Massimo have made me really welcome though.’
Thank God she hadn’t overheard Massimo when Sandro had let slip that he’d been to Beryl’s last week instead of going swimming. He’d ranted on about ‘fat-arsed Fanny next door coming up with the brilliant idea of leaving our son in a bloody drugs den while you two go gallivanting off to see a bloke who doesn’t know what day of the week it is.’
‘Can I help you tidy up?’
‘I’m not sure how bad it is yet. I couldn’t face looking at it properly last night. I was just about to go up.’
‘Come on, let’s do it now. The sooner you’re shipshape again, the less angry you’ll feel.’
Maggie gave me a little ghost of a smile. ‘Thank you. And as soon as we’ve finished, let’s head out of town and find somewhere quiet to turn you into Lewis Hamilton.’
God knows how Maggie felt, because I nearly screamed when I saw the state of her workshop. But, unlike me, Maggie was made of tough stuff. She closed her eyes, took a big breath and handed me one of the printers’ trays.
‘Could you pick up the blue and green beads, and anything diamante?’
We worked in silence for a bit, until I couldn’t bear it any more.
‘Was there a particular trigger for this? When I saw you with Francesca a few weeks ago, I thought you were getting on really well?’
I remembered watching Maggie’s curly head next to Francesca’s smooth dark one as they pored over a pattern for a summer top Francesca wanted. I’d felt a little stab of envy about Maggie’s natural affinity with children. I found it hard to be spontaneous and relaxed with Sandro, my maternal instinct straitjacketed by what Massimo would find acceptable, my affection diluted by fear.
A mix of emotions dappled Maggie’s face, like leaves against summer sunlight. ‘We had a bit of an issue over a box belonging to her mum. She thought I’d thrown it out and got really upset.’
‘Was it a special box?’
‘It was quite pretty. Gold, studded with red stones in the shape of a heart. Probably worth a bob or two.’
My skin started to prickle, sick dread chiselling another slither of ballast from my already fragile universe. The insidious voices of suspicion I’d smothered over the years were clamouring to be heard.
‘So what did happen to it?’
She hesitated. I could see that, unlike me, lies weren’t the oil that smoothed her path through life. They were the things that tripped her up, stopped her in her tracks because of the infrequent need to tell them. Her answer when it came was thin and high.
‘I’m not sure. We can’t find it anywhere, so I think I might have thrown it out – accidentally, obviously – when I was clearing out some other stuff.’ She tried to make a joke. ‘It was a funny old thing, played some sort of opera when you opened it up, right old racket.’
‘Opera?’
‘Yeah. Apparently Caitlin loved all that stuff, though I don’t think Nico is very keen. Or if he is, he’s not telling me. Probably doesn’t want to make me feel a thicko.’
Red stones in the shape of a heart. Opera music when you opened it. The box I found tucked at the back of the drawer under some of Massimo’s jumpers.
The present I waited for him to give me on Christmas Day five years ago.
22
MAGGIE
After we’d finished sorting out the workshop, Lara couldn’t escape me quickly enough, coming up with the excuse that she ‘needed to walk Lupo’. Maybe she’d lost her nerve about driving, but all of a sudden, the dog she hated became a much greater pull than learning the difference between a clutch and an accelerator.
Once, I was a person that everyone liked. Customers at the shop used to chat to me long after they’d spelt out their requirements for hems, zips and necklines. I’d get thank you cards for saving the day from women who needed a dress letting out for a special event, flowers from men who’d split their one decent suit.
And now, everyone I knew ran from me as though an extra fifteen minutes in my company would bring them out in purple boils.
Nico had phoned me a couple of times to check I was okay, begging me to forgive Francesca, telling me ‘if we could just get through this rough patch, we’ll laugh about it in a few years’ time.’ Right now, it seemed highly unlikely I’d be ha-ha hee-heeing about having to spend a whole afternoon repairing a seam on a dress that Francesca had wrenched apart in her frenzy.