The Last Testament

She looked at her watch. She should be getting on. Edward would be waiting for her outside, ready to hit the full range of Washington's domestic retail outlets in a bid to equip their not-quite-marital home.

She opened the door to a surprise. Flicking through one of Maggie's back numbers of Vogue, in the tiny area that served as Maggie's waiting room, was a man who oozed Washington. Like Edward, he had the full DC garb: button-down shirt, blue blazer, loafers, even now, on a Sunday. Maggie didn't recognize him, which didn't mean she hadn't met him. One of the troubles with these Washington men: they all looked the same.

‘Hello? Do you have an appointment?’

‘I don't. It's kind of an emergency. It won't take long.’

An emergency? What the hell was this? She headed down the corridor, opening the door onto the kitchen. There she saw Edward, signing on one of those electronic devices held out by a man wearing delivery overalls.

‘Edward, what's going on?’

He seemed to pale. ‘Ah, honey. I can explain. They just had to go. They were taking up too much space, they messed up the whole place. So I've done it. They've gone.’

‘What on earth are you talking about?’

‘Those boxes which you've had sitting in the study for nearly a year. You said you would unpack them, but you never did. So this kind gentleman has loaded them onto his truck and now they're going to the trash.’

Maggie looked at the man in overalls, who stared at his feet. Now she understood what had happened. But she could not believe it. She stormed past Edward, flung open the door to the study and, sure enough, the space in the corner was now empty, the carpet on which those two cartons had once sat more compacted, a different shade from the rest. She flew back to the kitchen.

‘You bastard! Those boxes had my, my … letters and photographs and, and … whole fucking life and you just THREW THEM OUT?’

Maggie rushed to the front door. But, doubtless sensing trouble, the trash guy had made his getaway. Swearing, she pressed the lift button again and again. ‘Come on, come on,’ she muttered, tensing her jaw. When the lift came, she willed it down faster. As soon as it arrived on the ground floor and the door opened a crack, she squeezed through it, running through the main doors of the building and out onto the street. She looked left and right and left again before she saw it, a green truck pulling out. She ran hard to catch up, coming within a few yards. She was waving wildly, like someone flagging down traffic after a road accident. But it was too late. The van picked up speed and vanished. All she had was half a phone number and what she thought was the name: National Removals.

She rushed back upstairs, frantically grabbing the telephone, her fingers trembling over the butons. She called directory information, asking for a number. They found it and offered to put her through. Three rings, then four, then five. A recorded message: We're sorry, but all our offices are closed on Sunday. Our regular opening hours are Monday to Friday … If she waited till tomorrow it would be too late: they would have destroyed the boxes and everything they contained.

She went back into the kitchen to find Edward standing, defiant. She began quietly. ‘You just threw them out.’

‘You're damn right I threw them out. They made this place look like a student shithole. All that junk, all that sentimental crap. You need to drop it, Maggie. You need to move on.’

‘But, but …’ Maggie wasn't looking at him. She was looking at the ground, trying to digest what had just happened. Not just the letters from her parents, the photographs from Ireland, but the notes she had taken during crucial negotiations, private, scribbled memos from rebel leaders and UN officials. Those boxes contained her life's work. And now they were in a dumpster.

‘I did it for you, Maggie. That world is not your world any more. It's moved on without you. You've got to do the same. You need to adjust to your life now, as it is. Our life.’

So that's why he had been so keen to get her locked away in the consulting room this morning. And she thought he just wanted her to get a punctual start to the day. She had even thanked him! The truth was that he just wanted the garbage men in and out before she had a chance to stop them. For the first time, she met his gaze. Quietly, as if unable to believe her own words, she said, ‘You want to destroy who I am.’

He looked back at her blankly, before finally nodding towards the other end of the apartment. In a voice that was ice cold, he said, ‘I think someone's waiting for you.’

She almost staggered out of the room, unable to absorb what had happened. How could he have done such a thing, without her permission, without even talking to her? Did he really hate the Maggie Costello he had once known so much that he wanted to erase every last trace of her, replacing her with someone, different, bland and subservient?

She stood in the landing that served as the waiting area, her head spinning. The man in blue was still there, now turning the pages of Atlantic Monthly.

‘Bad time? I'm sorry.’

‘No, no,’ Maggie said, barely out loud. On autopilot, she added. ‘Is your wife coming?’

He made a curious smirk. ‘She should be along soon.’

Maggie gestured him into the consulting room. ‘You said it was some kind of emergency.’ She was struggling to remember his case, to remember if he was one of the handful of clients she said could contact her out of hours.

‘Yes. My problem is that I'm finding it hard to adjust.’

‘To what?’

‘To life here. Normality.’

‘Where were you before?’

‘I was all over. Travelling from one screwed-up place to another. Always meant to be doing good, always trying to make the world a better place and all that bullshit.’

‘Are you a doctor?’

‘You could say that. I try to save lives.’

Maggie could feel her muscles tensing. ‘And now you're finding it hard to adjust to being back home.’

‘Home! That's a joke. I don't know what home is any more. I'm not from DC; I haven't lived in my hometown for nearly twenty years. Always on the road, on planes, in hotel rooms, sleeping in dumps.’

‘But that's not why you're finding it hard to adjust.’

‘No. It's the adrenaline I miss, I guess. The drama. Sounds terrible, doesn't it?’

‘Go on.’ Maggie was remembering everything that was in those boxes. A handwritten letter of thanks she had received from the British prime minister, following the talks over Kosovo. A treasured photo with the man she had loved through her mid-twenties.

‘Before, everything I did seemed to matter so much. The stakes were high. Now nothing even comes close. It's all so banal.’

Maggie stared hard at the man. The words were coming out of him but his eyes were flat and cold. She began to feel uneasy at his presence here. ‘Can you say more about the work you were doing?’

‘I started with an aid organization in Africa, working with people there during a particularly vicious civil war. Somehow – it was a fluke really – I ended up being one of the few people who could talk to both sides. The UN started using me as a go-between. And I got results.’

Maggie shivered. Her mind was racing, wondering whether she should call for Edward, though that was truly the last thing she wanted to do.

‘Eventually I became known as a sort of unofficial diplomat, a professional mediator. The US government hired me for a peace process that had stalled. And one thing led to another. Eventually they were sending me around the world, to peace talks that had hit the buffers. They called me “the Closer”. I was the one who could close the deal.’

Could she make a run for it? But something told her not even to glance at the door: she did not want to provoke this man. ‘Then what happened?’ Her voice betrayed nothing: years of practice.

‘I was the best in my field. Sent everywhere. Belgrade, Baghdad. Back to Africa.’

Maggie swallowed hard.

‘And then I made a mistake.’

‘Where?’

‘In Africa.’

Maggie's voice stayed low, even as she said, ‘Who the hell are you?’

‘I think you know who I am.’