After Maggie died, I was taken into care, although calling it that always seemed a little ironic to me, because most of them didn’t. I was sent to live with lots of foster families, but never really felt that I belonged with any of them. I think the feeling was mutual. I wasn’t a bad child, I didn’t get into trouble, and I was good at school. I was just quiet, at least on the outside; the characters I wanted to be were so noisy inside my head that, for me, it was practically deafening at all times. People don’t always trust quiet; they didn’t then and they certainly don’t now. The world we live in today is too loud, so that most people think they have to shout all the time just to fit in. I’ve never been great at fitting in, and when I look at the world around me, I’m not sure I even want to.
I think about all the years I spent believing John was dead, when he wasn’t. What if I’m wrong about Maggie too?
I’m not.
I watched her die.
But I also saw John die, or so I thought. I don’t know what to think anymore.
I wish I could erase what happened that day; the memory of it has never stopped haunting me, and I’ve felt alone in the world ever since.
Every time I film a movie or a TV show, I am surrounded by people, all of them fussing over me, and telling me what they think I want to hear. But, when filming stops, they go home to their families and I am left abandoned. That will never change now, it will always be this way. I’ll never marry again; how could I even meet someone else? I’d never know whether he was with me for me, or for her. Sometimes I hate her, the me that I have become, but without her, I am nothing. Without her, I am nobody.
Life is a game that few of us really know how to play, filled with more snakes than ladders. I’m starting to think that maybe I’ve been playing it all wrong. Perhaps, when all is said and done, and the world decides to turn against you, people are more important than parts. Somebody hated me enough to do this to me, and whoever it is is still out there. It isn’t over until I slot the pieces of the puzzle together, and I won’t be safe until I do.
I wash the remaining fear and dirt away, then step out of the shower. I wrap a thick, soft white towel around my body, and another around my wet hair, then creep out onto the landing, leaning over the banister at the top of the stairs.
“Jack?” I call.
He doesn’t answer. The house is completely silent except for the sound of the oversized metal clock ticking in the hallway. I walk down the stairs, enjoying the feeling of the carpet beneath my toes, telling myself that everything is going to be okay, because if I can make myself believe that it will be, then maybe it might.
“Jack?”
I wander through the rooms, ending at the kitchen at the back of the house, cold tiles beneath my feet now, sending a shiver all the way through me. It’s strange, walking around a house that has the exact layout as your own. I double back to the lounge and freeze when I see the coffee table. Panic paralyzes me as I stare at the items on it, as though they were dangerous. It feels as if they are.
“Jack!”
Nobody answers.
It’s happening again.
His phone and keys are here on the table, but Jack is gone.
Fifty-six
Maggie arrives early for her appointment in Harley Street.
Thanks to Aimee, she has more work than time in which to do it today, and she is not in the mood for a so-called doctor to feed her any more excuses or lies about why they need to delay her surgery. It’s her body, she should be allowed to do whatever she wants to it. She isn’t asking others to pay for her self-improvements, so why should she need their permission?
Maggie thinks the whole country has tied itself in knots with red tape, so consumed with checks and bloody balances that nothing gets done anymore. She tuts and shakes her head and only realizes that she has been muttering beneath her breath when she notices a woman in the waiting room staring at her. Maggie lifts her chin and stares back, until the woman’s eyes retreat and look down at the magazine she is pretending to read. The next person to look at Maggie the wrong way today is going to regret it.
Everything in the clinic is white. The walls, the floor, the strange modern chairs in the waiting room, the staff, the patients, and the lengthy invoices she receives after each visit. All white. Sterile. The place is too white and too quiet. There is no music, just the maddening and monotonous sound of the receptionist tapping away on her keyboard, with her pretty little hands. Maggie always thinks there ought to be music, something to help take your mind off your present, forget your past, and daydream about a fantasy future. Without anything to listen to, she kills her time observing the other people waiting for their appointments, wondering what they are here for, wondering what they want to have done. She finds them all rather fascinating and tries to guess from looking at their faces and bodies—nose job, tummy tuck, hair transplant. Almost anything is possible nowadays, you can completely reinvent yourself. Start again.
“The doctor will see you now,” says the receptionist, fourteen minutes after Maggie’s appointment should have started. Doctor. Doctor my arse, thinks Maggie, hearing the cracking sound her knees make when she stands up from the uncomfortable white chair, wishing the clinic had invested in some white cushions. Maggie can see that the receptionist has also had some work done. Her crease-free brow screams Botox, and the face-lift is good, subtle, the skin on her cheeks hasn’t been pulled too tight. Only the skin on her neck gives the age game away. Maggie wonders whether the receptionist gets a staff discount, but thinks it might be rude to ask. Instead, she forces herself to smile and say, “Thank you,” before shuffling along the white corridor to room three.
He smiles when she walks into the room. He’s practiced that white smile so often, it almost seems real. “Hello, how are you?” he asks, as though he cares.
He’s younger than her and has already made far more of his life than she can ever hope to now. His tan is real, unlike his concern for her well-being, and his floppy blond hair looks as though it might have been blow-dried. Photos of a smiling wife and two perfect-looking children adorn his desk, reinforcing the image of all-round success.
Maggie knows the man is busy, she has seen all the people waiting in reception to become better versions of themselves. Maggie is busy too; she might not be a doctor, but she has things she needs to fix and mend, important things, so she would rather they didn’t waste any more of his time or hers with unnecessary small talk.
“Why have you postponed my surgery again?” She leans as far forward in her chair as she can without falling off, as though she might hear his answer sooner if her ears are closer to his mouth.
He sits a fraction backwards in his own chair, but keeps his eyes fixed on hers. They are deep blue and look wonderfully wise for such a young man.
“Having some excess breast tissue is incredibly common after dramatic weight loss, like you experienced after having a gastric band fitted—”
“Yes, well, I don’t want to look common, I want to look more like this.” She thrusts a crumpled magazine page from her pocket onto his desk.
He gives the glossy picture of a celebrity he vaguely recognizes a cursory glance. “The surgery you wanted is relatively noninvasive, and I would have been happy to go ahead, but do you remember the scan that we did the last time you were here?” He carries on without waiting for an answer. “And do you remember the unexpected mass that we found, and the biopsy I performed?”