Kissing Maggie Silver (21 page)

“Oh Jo, I’m so glad!”
As Henry started to wriggle Maggie held him away from her shoulder so she could look at him. His eyes were open and he peered up at her like a grumpy old man. Then he screwed up his face and started to cry.

“I guess I’m not the person he needs right at this moment,” she said as she reluctantly handed him over to his mother.

* * *

Later that evening, back in her room, she sat and stared out of the window for almost an hour. Then she opened a second file on her computer and labeled it. This time she typed in Children’s Book 2: New Baby.

* * *

Life continued uninterrupted until the middle of October when an unseasonal squall chased the leaves off the trees earlier than usual. Maggie spent her mid-term vacation researching publishing houses and writing letters of introduction that outlined her ideas. She knew she would be lucky to receive any sort of response so she was pleasantly surprised a few weeks later when one of the smaller publishers replied asking her to send in some samples of her work.

Bogged down at school by Christmas concerts and carol services, and busy at home helping her mother prepare for the major undertaking that was the Silver family’s Christmas dinner, she didn’t have time to immediately do as they asked, and she knew it would have to wait until the New Year.
Nevertheless the thought of it stayed with her while she made batches of mince pies for the freezer, and when she stayed after work to help decorate the school hall ready for the concert. And it was with her when she went Christmas shopping, and when she decorated the oversized Christmas tree that her father insisted on buying every year. It even stayed with her when the usual family dispute erupted about who would be visiting whom over the holiday period.

Nothing fazed her as she hugged the possibility of success close.
Nothing, that is, until the Christmas cards started to arrive. Mrs. O’Connor’s was one of the first to plop onto the doormat and Maggie opened it with trepidation. As she had anticipated, the envelope contained a letter as well as a card. She wanted to ignore it because she didn’t want to think about Ruairi. Since he had left for New Zealand she had managed to regain some of her equanimity, and although keeping busy had been part of it, not seeing him and not talking about him had been just as important. Now, with Mrs. O’Connor’s letter, she was going to have to look her despair in the face again. With trembling fingers she unfolded the page.

Dear Maggie

I can’t believe almost four months has gone by since I had that lovely holiday in England. I’ve been very busy since then.
Ruairi bought me a laptop computer before he returned to New Zealand, and he set it up for me and taught me how to browse the internet. He showed me how to use the webcam too, so now I can talk to him and see him at the same time. It’s wonderful! I don’t know why I didn’t have one before. It makes him seem so much closer. And he shows me things too, now that we can see one another, so I’m beginning to understand much more about his work.

I’ve even been using the
internet to search for somewhere to live in England and I think I’ve found exactly what I’ve been looking for. I’m coming over to see it in the
New Year, and if I like it and manage to buy it, then I will only be a short bus ride away from you and your parents.

Anyway that’s enough for now my dear.
I hope that your own plans are coming on well. You will be able to tell me all about them when I fly over to look at the bungalow I’ve found. In fact I would love you to visit it with me if you have the time.

Happy Christmas and I’ll see you in the New Year

Love Moira O’Connor

Maggie let the letter rest in her lap as she stared out of the window at the darkening sky. So Mrs. O’Connor was definitely going to move back to England. Well that was good. She needed to be back with her friends. What was not so good was the fact she would have to talk about Ruairi whenever she met her. She might even have to meet him again on the rare occasions he came home, and she wasn’t at all sure she would be able to cope with that.

Her mother interrupted her thoughts as she popped her head around the door
of Maggie’s sitting room.

“Oh there you are
dear. Please come and help me wrap the Christmas presents. There are so many of them I haven’t got the time to sit down and rest, even if you have.”

She turned and hurried away without waiting to see if
she was following her. Maggie sighed as she got to her feet. Her mother could be so irritating and yet there was a warm heart beating underneath all that bossiness and criticism. If only she could be persuaded to loosen the reins that bound the Silver family then she would enjoy her life far more. The problem was that she worried about everything, and when she worried, she fussed. Maggie knew it was the reason she was being particularly hard on her at the moment. Ever since she’d turned down Graham’s proposal her mother had been in a permanent state of worry. She couldn’t envisage one of her children living a life different from her own. She wanted them settled and content, and living as close to her as was possible, so she was worried that Maggie wanted to travel and work in another country; worried that she spent so much time shut up in her room; worried that she had turned down a perfectly good proposal of marriage and didn’t seem to be interested in finding another boyfriend. The list was endless.

Maggie knew all this, and as she made her way into the dining room where her mother was wrestling with wrapping paper and tape, she suddenly realized with surprise that it didn’t bother her anymore.
Losing Ruairi, seeing June and Mark cope with the traumatic birth of baby John, meeting Jo and Ollie and learning from them that there were other ways to live, all these things had conspired to make her grow up.

In four short months she had changed from someone who took every critical remark to heart, to a person who had learned to look outside herself and see things from a very different perspective.

“Before I help you with the presents, I’m going to make you a cup of tea,” she told her mother with a smile. “So instead of struggling on your own, why don’t you put your feet up for a few minutes and read the paper, or listen to some music. Then we’ll do it together. You need to have a rest Mum, otherwise you’ll be too worn out to enjoy Christmas.”

Her mother sank back on the chair, her eyes wide with surprise.
Then she slowly nodded her head. “I know you’re right Maggie. I just never seem to relax enough to stop.”

“Well now’s the time,” Maggie said.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes with tea and biscuits and then maybe we should make a list of everything else that needs to be done before Christmas.”

* * *

Drinking the tea while they drew up a ‘to do’ list together proved to be a turning point for Maggie and her mother, and by the time Christmas arrived Cathy Silver was telling anyone who would listen that she didn’t know how she would have managed to get everything ready without Maggie.

Impressed, her brothers teased her less and took her more seriously, even asking her about her travel plans without a hint of sarcasm in their voices.
And when Maggie told them she had put them on hold for a few months while she concentrated on something else, they just nodded acceptance and didn’t pry.

The children treated her as they always had, expecting her to suggest games or help them with jigsaws, or read stories; and their parents hadn’t changed so much that they no longer relied on her to keep them occupied on family occasions, but
now it didn’t bother Maggie. After all she liked the children and they liked her. She was even trying to write books for them for goodness sake; so playing with her own nephews and nieces was hardly a problem.

Determined to make a new start in every area of her life, she threw herself into the family Christmas with an enthusiasm that had been lacking for months, while at the same time making sure her mother didn’t do too much and get over-tired.

When she sometimes felt a pang of loneliness as everyone else around her paired off, or when a casual mention of Ruairi or his mother prodded the wound in her heart, she pushed it to the back of her mind, focusing instead on her plans for the following year.
Only June noticed the occasional glitter of tears and she was the only person who saw the deep down sadness in Maggie’s soft grey eyes.

Chapter
Seventeen

Ruairi’s Christmas was far less successful. Racked with guilt about his mother as well as about the way he had treated Maggie, he wouldn’t let himself celebrate. Instead he threw himself into his work, refusing all invitations to join the rest of the team on a trip to the nearest town for a pre-Christmas party.

On Christmas Day itself
, there was a barbecue. The few colleagues, who, like Ruairi, lived too far away to get home for the festive season, organized it and given the hot sun and the idyllic setting, he should have enjoyed every minute of it. He didn’t though because although he ate the food and tried to join in with the banter, his heart wasn’t in it. For the first time in his career he wanted to be somewhere else. At that very moment he would willingly have swapped the sea, sun and sand for a bitter wind and icy rain if it meant he could be with Maggie, and he sat, nursing a glass of beer and thinking about it while the Christmas celebrations went on around him.

By the time the sun sank into the glittering sea he knew he had made a dreadful mistake, and by the time the Southern sky was filled with stars he was castigating himself for all kinds of a fool.

Why hadn’t he gone with his heart?
Why hadn’t he trusted Maggie to make the right choice for her, for both of them? He remembered how she had felt in his arms, how she had kissed him freely and how her kiss had been full of love. Then he remembered her hurt expression when he told her she needed to live her own life and forget about him, and he wondered how he could have been so cruel. Somehow he had to get back to England to see her and tell her exactly how he felt, and when he did he just hoped she’d be able to forgive him for being so stupid.

Then he remembered how much work he
still had to do to finish his documentary about the seals on time. He had to make preparations for his own penguin documentary too, so it would be close to Easter before he could travel back home. The three months of constant work stretching before him seemed like forever. Anything could happen to a girl like Maggie in three months. She was too bright and funny and beautiful to stay unattached for long. Maybe she had already found someone else and moved on.

At the thought his heart plummeted, and when one of his colleagues asked him
why he was looking so miserable he almost bit his head off. After that everyone left him alone to spend the rest of the night staring up at the sky and wishing he hadn’t been such an idiot.

In a small, tight-knit team
, news travels fast, however, so it wasn’t long before a chance email to Ollie from one of the team mentioned that Ruairi was being uncharacteristically bad tempered and might even be depressed. He showed it to Jo.

“About time!” she said cryptically.
Then she telephoned June.

Chapter
Eighteen

When Mrs. O’Connor telephoned, Maggie was not altogether surprised. It was a call she was both looking forward to and dreading. It went better than she had anticipated, however, because the older woman was far too full of her own news to make any mention of Ruairi, and by the end of the call Maggie had agreed to go with her to view the bungalow she was hoping to buy.

“Would you like me to meet you at the airport?” she asked her towards the end of their conversation.

“Goodness me no, my dear. You’ll be at work when the plane lands. I’ve got it all arranged. A car will meet me and I’ve booked three nights in a hotel. I’ve decided it’s about time I learned to stand on my own feet.”

Delighted that Mrs
. O’Connor had got her old spark back, Maggie soon found she was looking forward to meeting her again, and she set out to pick her up from her hotel in high spirits.

* * *

The bungalow turned out to be just what she was looking for. It was light and airy with a small, enclosed garden that had obviously been much loved by its owners, and it was set in a quiet road right in the middle of four similar homes.

“I might even get a little dog to keep me company,” Mrs
. O’Connor said thoughtfully as they strolled around the neighboring roads after the viewing. “There’s a park nearby, and a small piece of woodland just over the brow of that hill, so there would be plenty of places to walk a dog.”

“Whatever has happened to the
woman who refused to travel to England unless Ruairi brought her?” Maggie teased. “Now you’re travelling on your own, and making plans to buy a dog too!”

“I am aren’t I?” Mrs
. O’Connor looked very pleased with herself. “I think it was learning how to work the computer that did it. Once Ruairi had proved to me that it wasn’t difficult and persuaded me I would soon get the hang of it…well things just got better and better.”