‘Yes. Clophill. It’s a lovely little village.’ He nearly added:but it is lonely. ‘Maggie, it is good to hear from you …’
It was strange. After all these years, he didn’t know how to talkto her. It was as though the passing of time brought its own formality. How someone you once slept beside every night could become a stranger through years of silence. As though, except for brief interludes, the natural setting of humanity was to be impossibly distant from each other.
He tried again. ‘I have things I’ve been wanting to say. To ask you. To make amends for …’
‘Don’t be silly, Wilbur. It’s all water under the bridge …’
‘It’s so funny you should say that. I’ve started playing the piano.’ He looked down at his time-weathered hands. The veins like a map to an unknown town. ‘I have lessons every Saturday. And I’ve just been playing “Bridge Over Troubled Water”, and remembering how you loved it. It did rather take me back.’
‘The good old days.’
‘Yes. The good old days …’
‘Wilbur.Wilbur.’
That second Wilbur had a firmness to it. He realised he was just prattling on without asking about her. ‘I’m sorry, Maggie. How are you? It’s been so long. I saw on the internet that you had an exhibition for your art in—’
‘Oh, that was years ago,’ she said, almost shy. ‘I hardly do it any more.’
He worried she was about to tell him she was dying. That did seem to be the prime reason people from his past contacted him. To tell him they were about to die, or that someone else he knew was.
‘It’s really silly.’
‘What’s silly?’
‘This phone call.’
‘It’s nice to hear from you.’
‘Well, I have no reason at all to phone you. In fact, I always told myself I never would …’
‘Oh. Right. Yes.’
‘Not out of spite, or anything. Just, it’s a little bit sad, isn’t it? But then recently I thought it would be – well, I wanted to hear your voice. Which sounds ridiculous.’
‘No. Not at all.’ And then he smiled. ‘My voice is pretty special.’
Her small laugh ended with a sad inflection. ‘Well, you still have some of your accent. Just.’
‘Just.’
‘I suppose I could have listened to you doing a speech on the internet. Or one of your telly interviews.’
‘Oh, you don’t want that …’
‘I just wanted to hear you.’
He thought of sitting next to Maggie on a bench in the park as she drew a picture of the pond, a lifetime ago. ‘I’m here. I’ve got so much to ask you. There’s so much I want to know.’
There was a little silence. He imagined her thinking,If only you had always been like that.
He thought of all the things he didn’t know about her. All the mysteries that had been created by their decades apart. Did she have a partner? Had she had one? Was she happy? Had she made new friends? Did she still have any of the old ones? What shows did she watch? How did she spend her days? How was her quality of life? How was her health? Could she still walk about okay? What did she think about the state of the world? What was the view from her window? Had she ever tried matcha? Howwasshe?
‘I don’t know if I want to tell you anything at all, really,’ she told him.
His mind felt foggy.
He stared at the wedding photo some more. Maggie’s smile in that August sunshine as she stepped out of St Timothy’s Church into a cloud of confetti. Such happiness. Their old friends framing the picture – Charlie, Claudette, Doreen. Just names now. People he didn’t even know were alive. The fragility of the past.
