Page 39 of The Truth About You and Me
I take a deep breath. ‘It’s as good a place as any.’
* * *
The windows are clean, and while the plaster is still hanging off the walls, and the shelves remain in the plastic covering, and the boxes filled with the first stock I ordered remain hidden inside, the neglect and expectation of the room feels less suffocating.
Maggie is reaching up to the corners of the room with her feather duster, singing to ‘Private Dancer’ by Tina Turner. The local radio station has been playing non-stop classics for the last two hours and Maggie has sung along to almost every song. I follow her movements, watch the way she balances on the steps of the ladder, hands working. I realise I’m smiling and wonder – not for the first time since I’ve met her – how being around her seems so… easy, and question if my life could be as simple as this. She stops singing, sneezing five times consecutively. The ladder wobbling. I step forwards and hold it still, looking up.
‘You OK?’
‘Wha—’ She sneezes again, a tiny little ‘ssnnnyyup’ sound.
I steady the ladder as she climbs down. My eyes linger on the small part of her lower back between her jeans and the edge of her navy T-shirt as she descends, her skin smooth and porcelain. Get a grip, you arsehole. She’s put her trust in you. We can’t be more than friends, right now. Even after today, I don’t think I can fix this. It will fail.Iwill fail.
‘You sneeze like a kitten,’ I say.
‘Like a wh—? Ssnnnyyup!’
I laugh and shake my head as she climbs off the ladder, stepping back, her eyes searching the room, landing on the gloves. Her bright yellow Marigolds, sitting untouched on the counter next to the remains of our lunch from next door. I don’t know why it catches my attention now, but it does. And I realise her hand brushed mine as she climbed down the ladder. The air between us changes ever so slightly.
‘You OK?’
‘Yeah, it’s the dust…’
She heads towards the other side of the shop, humming now, not belting out ‘Private Dancer’ the way she was minutes ago. My stomach tightens. Her hands reach for the gloves, but she puts them back down, looking around the room, as though she can see its potential. ‘I, um, I hope you don’t mind, but… I checked out Dr Levin.’
Her words quickly hammer me back down to earth. If this was anyone else, I would be angry. But right now, do I mind? Strangely… no. Maggie didn’t know me before, and unlike with my family, or with Vicky, she doesn’t want to fix me, she wants to help. Those are two very different things.
‘You did?’ I pull at a thread at the edge of my cuff.
‘Yep.’ The softness in her voice pulls my attention back to her. ‘He’s… well, I get the impression that his methods are a bit out of the box, but—’ I want things to go back to how they were a few moments ago, where everything felt easy.
I deflect quickly, ‘What, like he’s going to hypnotise me and make me think I’m a squid trapped in a fish tank in a restaurant?’
She snorts, the tension in her face falling away. ‘I don’t know, I mean, maybe? It could be fun to watch. I can see how much this means to you, Jack, and I can help, or maybe this doctor could?’
She looks away, before meeting my eyes. ‘Sorry, I’m overstepping; forget I said anything.’
The question Riz had asked as we’d sat in the waiting room at the out-of-hours doctors’ surgery comes into my mind unbidden. I’d found it so easy to open up to her about the stroke before I’d mentioned it to Maggie.
‘Is there anything that can be done? I’m a bit out of touch these days, but you always hear of these groundbreaking treatments…’
‘No. Not really.’
‘And what is the “not really” treatment?’
‘I will never be… for want of a better word “fixed” but I can retrain my brain a little. Sounding out the words, copying the letters and repeating the sound. Sand trays and all that…’
‘Nonsense?’
‘It’s… not for me.’
‘Why? Why isn’t it for you? You’re a young man. I learnt how to speak some Mandarin using that wonderful app and I’m eighty-four. What’s stopping you?’
‘Reading isn’t part of my life any more. I’ve come to accept it.’
‘Forgive me, at my age I have little time for beating around the bush, but that is utter poppycock. You’re too proud to try.’
I look back to Maggie, at her hopeful expression. ‘You’re not overstepping.’ There is a catch in my voice, and I clear my throat. ‘Thank you.’
