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‘Hard,’ Maggie said, and there was a note of anguish as she re-examined that time. ‘It was a new school, new family, new everything, and I was trying to fit in with them all. She started me at ballet...’
‘And we both know you can’t dance!’
He made her smile.
In the midst of the hardest part, he made her smile just a bit, but even the little joke was telling. He already knew her better than Diane ever had.
‘Apparently I wasn’t grateful enough. And I wasn’t happy enough for her liking. She was upset that I didn’t call her Mum, but as I said to the case-worker, even if she was dead, I already had one. Maybe I should have just called her what she wanted, maybe in time I would have, but Diane decided I was too much trouble.’
It was actually right to examine that time, Maggie realised. For years it had been too hard to, but lying in Ilyas’s arms made it doable.
‘I wasn’t trouble,’ she told Ilyas. ‘Believe me, I’ve seen trouble, and I was nowhere near that. I like my own space, I like to read, but Diane wanted entertainment on demand and a playmate...’
‘She wanted a living doll?’ Ilyas offered, and Maggie hesitated.
She had never thought of it like that, but it had feltexactlythat.
‘Yes!’ She nodded, so glad that he understood—that he had voiced what she hadn’t been able to articulate, even to herself. ‘But I wasn’t the daughter she’d envisaged and so she labelled me as trouble. I came home from school one day and there was a social worker waiting and I was told that things hadn’t worked out.’
‘You were taken back to the care home?’
‘No, they were full,’ Maggie said. ‘So I was placed in another.’
It had been time to start over again.
‘What about the dog?’ he asked. ‘Patch?’
And she gave a thin smile because it was a little odd to hear him ask fondly about something like that.
But then her smile died. ‘She got rid of him too,’ Maggie said bitterly. ‘No doubt he was also too much trouble.’
She peeled herself from his embrace and sat up and he watched as she picked at the fur rug. He noted that she didn’t cry and he wondered if she had at the time.
But, then, who would have comforted her?
It was disconcerting the emotion that swept through him as he lay there, because usually he did not allow for such things.
A tender heart was not a part of his job description, yet he sat up and put a hand on her shoulder, pulling her in, and Maggie let herself be held.
‘I hate her so much,’ Maggie admitted. ‘I know it’s not healthy to, but I hate what she did.’
‘So do I,’ Ilyas agreed.
‘Your brother’s lucky to have you,’ Maggie said. ‘I was jealous before when I said you were wrong to be so protective of him... I always wanted that, someone who loved me enough to look out for me. The carers were good and everything but it’s not the same as family...’
‘When did you leave the home?’
‘I had weekend work with Paul at the café. When I was sixteen and I went into semi-independent lodgings he took me on full time. I’ve been there since...’
‘Eating chocolate.’
She was grateful that he sensed she was through talking about it and ended it for her with a smile.
‘Yes.’
It was close to sunrise.
He heard the bells as the maid approached and they both lay silent as she placed refreshments by the bed.
