‘My dad has Parkinson’s.’
‘Oh God, poor Alfred,’ said the Dreamer.
But the Wilbur in the room said nothing.
‘I found out a month ago but there was never the right moment to tell you. I want to be near him. I want to go to Sheffield. I want to move back.’
The Ghost told his younger dreaming self to watch closely. ‘Look. Look at our first reaction. It isn’t about Alfred. It isn’t about Maggie. Look.’
And, indeed, it wasn’t.
‘I can’t move back, Mags. I can’t. I need to be in London to oversee the IPO. The company’s going public. We’re going to be on the stock market. After that I can take a back seat. But right now, I have to be in London … There’s no way I can’t be here.’
Maggie stared at him as tears glazed her eyes. ‘There is a way. You just can’t see it. We’re nearly fifty. You always said you would quit at fifty.’
‘Well, I’m nearly able to. I just have to make sure everything is handled right, and if the market flotation goes well—’
‘You didn’t used to talk like this.’
Wilbur looked around at their plush living room. ‘Look what we’ve achieved, though. Look at this place.’
‘This wasn’t my dream, Wilbur.’
‘It’s a comfortable life. A dream life.’
Maggie laughed bitterly. ‘Whose dream? I haven’t worked for this. You know I never wanted this. To rattle around all day, in guilty luxury, with nothing to do apart from Tuesdays when I go to Newham and help out at the trust … That’s it. I don’t have any contact with old friends. I haven’t seen Doreen in years, and have only met her Rosie once. Claudette won’t speak to me because of the Charlie business. And everyone round here is a millionaire’s wife …’
‘Youare a millionaire’s wife. It doesn’t define you.’
She stared at him as a tear fell. ‘To be a wife you have to havea husband. Someone who doesn’t want to avoid you. Someone, you know, who looks out for the broken glass.’
‘Broken glass? What are you talking about?’
The Ghost and the Dreamer knew what she was talking about. But the middle-aged Wilbur in the room was struggling.
‘Remember when we were kids and I first met you? When I was with Doreen on Glossop Road.’
‘When I denied I had a brother,’ Wilbur said, full of self-loathing.
‘No. I don’t mean that part. I mean the part where you told me to look out for some broken glass on the street. I thought it was the most romantic thing ever. To have a boy think of me like that.’
‘I can’t remember. But, Maggie, you are still everything.’
She shook her head firmly. She shut away tears. ‘No. I am just a woman who makes macaroni cheese for one till the rest of time. I just sit here reading and trying not to go insane.’
‘You do tons. You have your art, you have the charity, you have the book club—’
‘The book club?’
Of all the stupid and patronising things Wilbur was saying, the one he regretted most was bringing up the book club. She didn’t like the book club. She had told him that. She wanted to get out but was too polite to leave.
‘Do you ever feel this isn’t our real life?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, this wasn’t the plan. This wasn’t what we got married for. To spend no time together. I feel like there is a real us, somewhere else … An us that was content with the world we had and didn’t need the moon and the stars as well. An us that is happy at least some of the time. We left that couple somewhere else. We aren’tusany more. We didn’t need luxury once upon a time. We just needed a bench.’
‘Maggie, this is just life. This is just midlife … stuff. We’re not teenagers any more.’
