Helen Callaghan - Dear Amy

That said, charming or not, he was Ara’s man at the end of the day. She had called and now he was answering.

‘Tell them you won’t take it,’ I said. On the face of it, it seemed a simple enough riddle to solve, if you weren’t too greedy about it. ‘If they want rid of you that badly they’ll raise their offer or liquidate the company under you. Get them to up your share offer, so you’ll see a profit when the business does.’ I shrugged at him. ‘In any event, I don’t see what this has to do with me any more.’

I put the kettle back on the stand, snapped it on.

‘Margot, you don’t get it,’ he said, with a deathly earnestness. ‘If I can get the retainer together, there’s a solicitor in London who thinks she can get my offer doubled…’

‘Then complete the arbitration I sent you and mortgage that flat of yours,’ I said as the kettle switched off, gouting steam into the air.

He raised his chin, his eyes meeting mine, and a hateful light burned within them.

He had become someone I didn’t recognize.

‘I didn’t work and sweat like a fucking bastard for two years just so that pair of twats can kick me to the kerb now.’

His voice was low, harsh and very cold. I found myself a little afraid of him.

‘That’s great,’ I said, moving to fill the mugs with boiling water, so I didn’t have to look at him any more. ‘But, like I said, it’s nothing to do with me.’

‘If we hold off on the divorce we could get a loan out on this house,’ he said.

‘Hold off?’

‘I mean, forget about the divorce.’

I had been about to pour water into the waiting mugs.

‘What do you mean, forget about the divorce?’ I asked carefully, my back still to him.

‘You know what I mean,’ he said. ‘Stop pretending you don’t.’

I wanted to be reasonable. I had promised myself that I would be reasonable, and calm. And to be honest, there was something in me that had wanted him to show up here again, for us to talk.

It was tough doing this alone, this life, to sit in here in the dark at night, to be haunted by thoughts of shadowy stalkers and lost girls and silent phone calls.

If this had panned out some other way, I would probably have taken him back, I realized.

I turned to face him.

‘I don’t want to forget about the divorce, Eddy.’ I crossed my arms.

‘Margot, I know I-’

‘I don’t want to be married to you because I don’t think you love me.’

And as I said it, trembling as I was, I realized that it was completely true.

‘In fact, if we’re doing full disclosure, I’m not sure you ever loved me, but be that as it may, I’m really quite positive you don’t love me now.’

‘Oh come on,’ he said, and he was clearly angry, his chair squeaking as he drew back, ‘I made a mistake, I admit it! I know I was a bastard, and you’re still furious about Ara, but-’

‘No,’ I said, and felt the truth of it. ‘I’m not furious about Arabella, not any more. You didn’t love her either.’ I pulled the band out of my sweaty hair, to let the cool air nearer my burning brain. ‘You’re a liar – it’s the company you really want.’

‘What?’

My promised calm was fraying and snapping like a weak tent in a strong wind. ‘You went after that woman for her money and now you’re bricking it because she was more than a match for you. And there is no way in hell I’m going to risk my house because your sexual takeover of the company went tits up.’

He looked stunned, as though I had slapped him.

‘Everyone makes mistakes, Margot. You should know that better than anyone. And you might want to think about that before you decide to get all self-righteous. What if they found out about your old mistakes at that school of yours?’

I gripped the kitchen counter behind me, numb with horror. ‘Was that supposed to be a threat?’

‘Oh for God’s sake, I was just pointing out a fact.’ He had gone an angry scarlet. ‘What’s the matter with you? You’re twitching all over the place. Are you off your meds again?’

I flinched inwardly. I had forgotten that he knew me just as well as I knew him.

He pointed his finger hard at me, with something like triumph. ‘I knew it! I knew it when I saw you on TV!’

‘I think you should leave.’

‘Margot, you don’t realize this, but you need me-’

‘Get out. Get out now .’

He looked about to say more, but instead merely held up his hands and shrugged. ‘Suit yourself.’ He got to his feet, snatched up his coat and offered me a bitter smile. ‘But if you need someone to ring next time you’re thrown in the loony bin, you might want to remember this conversation.’

I kept utterly still until I heard the door slam after him. I didn’t start crying until I was quite sure he was gone.

Wednesday night is late-night shopping in Cambridge, and I’d been elected by a jury of my peers at school to buy Rosa Vidowski her leaving present. This meant I was back in the car today, as I don’t like cycling late at night, and I’d parked under the Grand Arcade.

I’d no idea why I had been chosen to do this rather than anyone else. I would have made an excuse, but they caught me on the hop. So, after my obligatory and pointless visit to the Examiner offices, with its sudden thickets of letters from people who weren’t Bethan Avery but had something to say on the subject, I found myself aimlessly roaming around the china and fancy goods department of a large department store.

I listlessly sized up saccharine china figurines of beautiful women dancing, flirting, reading and fanning themselves, bedecked in the ribbons and stays of dead ages, the store lights making their glazings gleam. Apparently this was the sort of thing Rosa liked. I could not, for the life of me, imagine why. The glass cabinet that held them slowly revolved, showing them all up to their best ceramic advantage.

I glanced away at a table nearby, where several larger objects in china and metal were displayed. Quite a few of these were representations of women, awful art deco women, nude or almost nude, or wearing carved drapes under which their nipples stood out stiffly, and which were slit open to reveal long bronze or pewter legs. Soft porn in a perfectly respectable department store: some of them were even bent over, or exaggeratedly arched, to hold stupid trivial things in their long thin badly carved arms, objects like ashtrays or sockets for light bulbs.

I was growing angry; a hard, cold anger. I thought of Linda Moore’s book, describing Bethan’s ‘porcelain good looks’, and I looked back at the clay dolls going slowly around in their glass cabinets. They were connected, these china virgins and pewter whores, I knew it instinctively. They were opposite sides of the same coin; they defined women in lies and half-truths; they were Everywoman and consequently No Woman.

Maybe I read too much into things. Eddy always says I do. But how could I misread something so obvious, so tangible? I hefted my bag and walked off, leaving them all in their foolish poses.

I ended up purchasing a pair of fancy glass candlesticks, shot with blue and pink. Well, I liked them, so Rosa better had, too.

I paid for the candlesticks and joined the desultory queue on the escalator down, packing them into my big floppy black bag. I was heading for the doors when the perfume counters caught my eye. I was running out of my regular perfume and fancied a change. Since Eddy wasn’t going to be buying me the usual bottle of Coco for Christmas this year, maybe it was time to update my scent along with my last name.

These thoughts all made something hitch painfully under my ribs.

You could have him back, you know. If you called him, he’d come.