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‘Hey, that’s mine,’ he said in his cut-glass accent, which reminded her of a television detective one of her foster mothers had loved.
‘Not any more,’ said Maggie. She handed him the bottle of water she had brought with her. ‘Drink this,’ she said impatiently.
‘It stinks in here,’ she said, turning up her nose. ‘Open a goddammed window, you’re not a teenager.’
She moved to the glass doors and opened them up, letting in the fresh sea air.
‘You seem upset with me, Maggie Hall,’ he said, looking at her sadly.
She saw his face was covered in grey stubble that matched the day. ‘I don’t know you, so how can I be upset with you?’ she said, crossing her arms.
‘You don’t like people who drink, do you?’
There were grey hairs in his chest hair and his skin had the tired look of someone who didn’t eat properly or do any exercise. He wasn’t fat, he was just, well, she tried to think of the word. Unremarkable, that was it. What a let-down Hugh Cavell was turning out to be, she thought, not hiding her disapproval.
‘I don’t have an opinion about your drinking,’ she lied.
She sat, crossed her legs and smoothed out the white fabric of her pants.
‘You look like a wedding cake,’ he said. ‘All white, pink and hopeful.’
‘An old wedding cake, remember?’
Then Hugh laughed. It was clear as a bell and Maggie felt the hairs on her arms stand up in response.
‘Shall we start again?’ he asked, seeming less drunk now, or was she just getting used to it?
‘I’m Hugh Cavell: author, alcoholic, widower and general emotional recluse.’
Maggie stared at him unsmiling. ‘Maggie Hall: actor, divorcee, and part-time babysitter for alcoholic novelists.’
Hugh laughed again and this time her body tingled a little as their eyes met.
‘Where’s Zoe?’ he asked, squinting at her. ‘And why did she send you?’
‘Because she said you weren’t to be trusted on your own, and it seems she was right.’
Hugh stood up and swayed a little. ‘She’s a smart one that Zoe Greene.’
‘She certainly is. Why don’t you go take a shower and then we’ll get something to eat. You need some food,’ she said sternly.
Hugh looked her up and down and nodded.
‘So do you,’ he said as he wandered off.
Maggie stayed where she was until she heard the sound of running water coming from a distant room and then she started snooping.
On the glass table sat a laptop, a copy of Scriptwriting for Dummies, a selection of notebooks and pens and a pile of magazines and mail, still in plastic wrappers, forwarded from an address in London.
Besides these few personal items, the room was actually very neat.
Moving into the kitchen, she checked the fridge and the cupboards. There was no food in either, but the rubbish bin was overflowing with takeaway food containers, cigarette packets and crumpled, handwritten letters.
She pulled out one of the letters with the fewest questionable stains and smoothed it out on the kitchen bench.
Dear Hugh,
Thank you for writing your book about your wife Simone’s battle with brain cancer. You had a beautiful marriage and I know she will always be in your heart. A love like that never dies.
My own husband died four years ago in a car accident. I will never get over him, just as you will never replace Simone.
I hope you remember all the love and the happinessand know that one day you will be together again in the house of God.
Sincerely,
Jenny Wallins
Maggie grimaced as she turned the letter over and saw the sign of the cross in one corner.
‘Reading my fan mail, are you?’ she heard and looked up to see Hugh in a towel, his hair wet, and wearing a freshly shaven scowl.
Maggie shrugged. ‘It’s better than some of the fan mail I get. The last time I dared to look, I was offered the chance to be impregnated, raped or murdered, I can’t remember which. Maybe all three.’
Hugh walked over and looked at the letter.
‘Ah yes, Mrs Wallins of Miseryville,’ he said and then scrunched it up again and threw it back in the bin.
‘Why be so mean?’ Maggie asked. ‘And why read the fan mail and not your other letters?’
‘None of your business,’ he said and then walked out of the room. Maggie pulled out her phone and texted Zoe.
I hate it when I meet someone I’ve admired and then find out they’re an egotistical idiot.
Within minutes Zoe texted back.
Ha. Now you know how your fans feel after they’ve met you. PS: I’m really grateful, is he okay?
Maggie looked at the overflowing bin and sighed.
Fine. He’s just a bit of a disappointment. I thought he would be nicer. TTYL
Zoe’s text came flying back.
WDYM? He’s TOO nice, that’s his problem.
Maggie heard Hugh’s footsteps and slipped her phone into her pocket.
‘I’m somewhat more sober and now desperate for a fry-up,’ he said as he walked into the room, in jeans, sneakers and a surprisingly nice white shirt.
It was the sort of shirt that a woman would buy a man, well cut, in beautiful cotton that would only look better with age.
Had Simone bought him that shirt? Maggie found herself wondering as she followed him out of the house. She almost felt like she knew the woman as a sort of friend, except she was dead and everything Maggie knew about her she had learned from a book.
‘You’ll have to drive because I can’t get the hang of driving on the other side of the road here,’ he said, as he stood next to her car.
‘And because you shouldn’t drive drunk,’ said Maggie as she opened the car.
‘Just for the record, I would never drink and drive,’ Hugh said. ‘I may want to kill myself, but I have no plans to kill anyone else.’
‘That’s good to know,’ she said sarcastically. ‘I’m sure your legion of fans will be thrilled to know their lives are safe.’
Hugh was staring out the window and the car filled with an uncomfortable silence.
How could the man who wrote the most beautiful book in the world be such an angry, ungrateful person? Where was the man who nursed his beloved wife for two years until she died in his arms?
Maggie had thought Hugh Cavell was perfect and now the realization that he was broken and bitter felt like a punch to the stomach.
Hugh cleared his throat and then he spoke. ‘I read my fan mail, all of it, and most of it’s very nice, very thoughtful. But I don’t keep it, like I didn’t keep the condolence notes after Simone died, they’re not something you want to read over and over again.’
Maggie stayed silent, feeling like he hadn’t finished.
‘But it’s more than that. I’m waiting for someone to recognize the truth about what I wrote, to see what lies beneath the words, but no one does, everyone takes it at face value and you, Maggie Hall, know more than anyone that it’s dangerous to think anything is perfect, especially people.’
She drove, grasping the steering wheel tightly. She did know what he was referring to; she had lived it every single day.
Maybe he wasn’t so terrible after all, she thought, and she glanced at him smiling, only to see he had fallen asleep, with his mouth wide open like he was a small child.
Chapter 6 (#ulink_8cca7ea1-7f8e-5242-b31f-2654f2d0cb24)
Elliot was still lying in bed when he heard his father calling his name from upstairs.
‘Maggie’s here to see you,’ his father yelled and Elliot groaned.
The last thing he felt like was a lecture from Maggie about his lifestyle.
Maggie had a way of getting to the heart of the matter. Elliot almost smiled at his own pun, but decided that would take too much effort.
‘Get up, you lazy ol’ porch dog,’ said Maggie in the thick southern accent that always made Elliot laugh.
‘Go away,’ he said, burrowing deeper under the covers.
Light flooded in as Maggie flung open the blinds and pulled back the duvet.
‘Jesus, Maggie,’ Elliot said, sitting up abruptly and blinking at the day’s brightness.
‘Your scar looks intense,’ she said. ‘Very Sons of Anarchy.’
Elliot looked down at the angry red scar running down the centre of his chest.
‘Did someone on Sons of Anarchy have a heart transplant? I must have missed that episode,’ he said as he stalked into the bathroom and turned on the shower.
‘I’ll still be here when you get out, so be modest,’ she called as he closed the door.
Maggie made the bed and opened a window to let out the smell of stale air. Why did men never open windows? She wondered, thinking of Hugh briefly.
Glancing down at the desk, she saw a photograph of an Indian man, surrounded by genuflecting people, all in pink and red robes. She turned it over and read a note from Elliot’s mother, Linda.
Guru Sam says you’re healed now, that he spoke to the Universe and it happened. BE grateful to him, we are fortunate to have him in our lives. Namaste Linda.
Maggie rolled her eyes at the note. It wasn’t Guru Sam that saved Elliot’s life, it was the donor and the doctors, she thought angrily.
Linda had been missing in action for ten years and now she thought she had the right to send Elliot a note telling him to be grateful?
If Maggie was still Elliot’s stepmother, she would tell Will to intercept any communication at all from his first wife, but that wasn’t her role any more.
She moved about the room, picking up dirty clothes. Clearly Elliot wasn’t letting the housekeeper down here to do her job, she thought, as she made neat piles of the books he had been reading. She turned one over in her hand, Scriptwriting for Dummies, the same book as Hugh, she thought briefly and she put it on top of a book on writing your life story. Frowning, she checked the other books, all of them to do with writing of some sort.
Unopened letters from Berkeley sat on the table and Maggie resisted the urge to open them, as she heard the shower turn off.
Grabbing a film magazine from the bedside table, she sat on his made bed and leafed through it casually.
‘Apparently your dad and I were the greatest couple since Liz and Dick,’ she said, holding up the magazine for him to see the shot of her and Will attending the Oscars years before.
‘Yeah, but they didn’t have to listen to the fighting.’ Elliot had pulled on what she hoped was a clean T-shirt and boxer shorts.
‘True,’ said Maggie with a wry smile and she reached down to her handbag. ‘Here,’ she said, and threw a disc at him.
‘What is it?’ he turned it over in his hand.
‘The first cut of the next James Bond. Don’t tell anyone, and don’t share it,’ she said firmly.
Elliot smiled. ‘You don’t always have to bring me presents when you see me, Maggie,’ he said. ‘You brought me so many thing when I was in hospital, I think you brought me thirty presents in all.’
‘A present for every day I saw you,’ she said, trying not to think of that month in Elliot’s life where they didn’t know whether his body would accept the new heart.
Elliot placed the disc down on the desk and she saw him glance at the neat piles of books.
‘Come on then, give me the lecture about how some poor bastard died and gave me his precious heart and how I only have one life to live and that I’m wasting it. And I’ll listen to you and nod, and change for twenty-four hours, and then we can all pretend the lecture worked.’
Maggie stared at him and then frowned. ‘Damn you, no spoilers please. If you knew how this was going to play out, you should have saved me the trip over.’
Elliot shrugged. ‘It’s the same shit I hear from Dad every other day, Mags. Lather, rinse, repeat.’
Maggie said nothing, she just watched him until he held his hands up at her.
‘What do you want me to say? I still feel like shit and I have no idea why I survived and some poor person died.’
‘Have you told the doctors?’ she asked.
