Impossible to forget, p.27
Impossible To Forget, page 27
‘Fancy a trip up there?’ he asked. ‘So you can get a feel for the place before you commit? We could get a train, if you like. Or we could hitch . . . ?’
‘We’ll get a train,’ said Romany firmly. ‘I’ll dig into the money that Mum left for travel.’
They went the following weekend. Romany was a little apprehensive. Even though they had been living together for a month or so, they didn’t see each other much. A whole day was a long time to spend together with no chance of escape. Still, she really should visit Durham before she finally sent her form off, in case she absolutely hated the place, and she wasn’t that keen to make the trip on her own.
At the station, she bought them a steaming cup of coffee and a blueberry muffin each.
‘Your mum would be turning in her grave,’ Tiger teased her.
Romany had noticed that unlike everyone else, Tiger didn’t avoid talking about her mum or flinch each time they said something that they thought might be insensitive. He just carried on as if her death was just another thing that had happened. To start with, she had found his bluntness inappropriate and had resented that he seemed to make no allowances for her feelings, but now it was refreshing.
‘She would. Caffeine AND sugar at once. She didn’t mind though, not really. Yes, we ate vegan at home and there was never sugar in the house, but if I came home with a packet of Haribos or had an egg sandwich at lunchtime she never made a fuss.’
‘Why would you want an egg sandwich?’ asked Tiger, pretending to push his fingers down his throat at the thought.
‘You know what I mean. Mum had strong views about stuff, but they were her views. I was always free to have my own.’
Tiger nodded. ‘Yeah, she was good like that, your mum. And how’s this guardian thing working out for you? No complaints about yours truly, of course . . .’ He huffed on his fingernails and polished them on his fleece.
‘Well, now that I think I’ve got my head round what she was trying to do, it’s not so bad,’ she said. ‘I am a bit young to be living on my own, I suppose, and there wasn’t anyone else to take me in. Maggie’s been great with this UCAS stuff and I’m sure she’ll be able to help with other things. And Leon’s sweet. I’ve bullied him into playing at this open mic thing in a couple of weeks. He didn’t look best pleased, but he can always back out if he wants.’
‘Is he playing his sax?’ asked Tiger.
Romany nodded and Tiger whistled through his teeth.
‘You’re in for a treat then,’ he said. ‘I might even come with you.’
‘Is he good?’ asked Romany.
‘Just you wait,’ replied Tiger, knowingly. ‘And what about that Hope woman? Have you heard from her?’
Romany shook her head. ‘I’m not sure why Mum chose her,’ she said. ‘Maggie doesn’t know either. She said that she’d only met her once before. You don’t know her, do you?’
‘No,’ Tiger said. ‘Seemed like an odd choice to me too, but I’m sure your mum knew what she was doing. She never did stuff by accident.’
Usually it annoyed Romany when people tried to tell her what her mum had been like, but somehow when Tiger did it she didn’t mind. It was probably because whatever he said about her was generally spot on.
The train pulled into Durham and they got out, jostling along the platform with the other travellers. It was a cold grey day with rain clouds hanging threateningly overhead, but it didn’t matter to them. They were on a mission. Tiger had planned a route for them through the city which he said would take in all the main elements, together with the university itself, plus a few corners to give her a feel for the ‘real’ city.
‘Do you know all the places you’ve visited as well as you do this one?’ Romany asked him as he marched confidently up North Bailey with her in tow.
‘Pretty much,’ he replied. ‘I mean, there are one or two places where I wasn’t exactly compos mentis, if you know what I mean . . .’ He grinned at her. ‘But I remember most of them.’
‘I can barely find my way around York,’ confessed Romany.
‘I find that if something is important to you, it has a way of staying in your memory,’ he said. ‘I love travelling, seeing new places, meeting new people, so when I do it, it would be pretty stupid of me to just forget everything I’d seen as soon as I left.’
There was a pause in the conversation as they negotiated a group of tourists.
‘So is it really bad,’ Romany asked, ‘being stuck with me?’ She hadn’t really thought about that before. She had been so busy resenting what had happened to her that she hadn’t looked at the situation from anyone else’s point of view.
Tiger didn’t say anything for a moment. He’s going to lie, she thought. He’s going to tell me that it’s all totally fine and that he doesn’t mind in the least.
‘Yes, it’s bloody awful,’ he said. ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ he added. ‘You’re a nice kid and I’d have done just about anything for your mum. But this? Being stuck in one place for a whole year? I reckon it might actually kill me.’
Romany was horrified. ‘I’m so sorry . . .’ she began.
And then she saw his face. He was grinning at her and she thumped him gently in the ribs.
‘You bastard!’ she said, laughing. ‘I thought you meant it then.’
Tiger’s grin slipped a little. ‘Well, I’m not entirely joking,’ he said. ‘It is hard, not being able to just take off whenever I want. But it’s not forever and to be honest, I’m quite getting into the routine of it all. And there are advantages to being in one place. It’s safe, for a start – I don’t have to keep looking over my shoulder to see who’s watching. And there’s always food – well, if I’ve been to the shops, that is – and it’s warm and dry. And you don’t snore – or not that I can hear through the wall. So, no. It’s not all bad. Right, less of this philosophical bollocks. Let’s go and look at the cathedral. Oldest surviving vaulted ceiling of its size. Did you know that? Actually, I reckon that kind of thing is as much Leon’s area as mine, but I bet he couldn’t give you the guided tour.’
By the time the day was over, Romany had walked her legs to bleeding stumps and couldn’t take another step, but she felt like she had a pretty good idea of what Durham was all about.
‘So, still want to go to uni there?’ asked Tiger as they sat in the train on their way home.
‘Yeah, I reckon so,’ Romany replied. ‘Thanks, Tiger.’
‘You’re welcome. Glad to be of use.’
Something that might have been sadness flickered across his face, as if he wished he could be helpful more often. It made Romany wonder.
‘Can I ask you something?’ she began tentatively.
‘Sure. Fire away.’
‘Is it just you? I mean, have you got family somewhere or are you like me, with no one?’
‘Is that how you feel?’ he replied, answering her question with a question.
Romany pulled her lips together tight ready to stop her emotions from escaping, but then she realised that she wasn’t going to cry.
‘Yeah, a bit,’ she said. ‘I mean there’s you and Auntie Maggie.’ She could feel her cheeks warm at the babyish name. ‘And Leon, of course. And I’ve got my friends. Laura is amazing and her mum’s been great. But, basically, yes. It does feel like it’s me on my own.’
‘What about your dad?’ asked Tiger. ‘He’s still around, somewhere. We could try to track him down.’
Romany had thought about this. Since her adamant response to her mum’s enquiry in Whitby that time, she had felt that she needed to continue to toe that line. But actually, given how things had changed, she wasn’t quite as opposed to the idea as she had been at fifteen. That wasn’t the same as actually wanting to find him, though. She shook her head.
‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘I mean, I’ve done all right without him so far. And maybe we’re just not meant to meet?’
Tiger gave her a look that suggested he didn’t agree, but he didn’t challenge her view. ‘You’re young,’ he said instead. ‘There’s plenty of time to decide.’
They fell silent then, each of them staring out of the window into the darkening sky for the rest of the journey. Romany didn’t realise until later that Tiger had dodged her question.
45
‘Hurry up, Leon! We’ll be late.’
He was dragging his heels and Maggie knew precisely why. He just didn’t want to go. He had been anxious about the open mic evening ever since Romany had bounced him into doing it, but he had said he would play, and he couldn’t drop out now.
Maggie softened her tone. ‘It’ll be fine,’ she said. ‘You can do this standing on your head. All you have to do is play one piece, just show Romany that you’re there for her. It’ll mean so much to her, you stepping up like this.’
Leon refused to engage. Whatever it was that was going on in his head, he wasn’t prepared to share it with her. He left the room without a word.
Maggie hadn’t seen him vulnerable like this for a while. He had always worn his heart on his sleeve, but over the years, that side of him had become more deeply buried. It was just part of getting older, she assumed. You became more adept at keeping the softer parts of yourself hidden from view and, in time, sometimes maybe you even forgot they were there.
The prospect of playing at this open mic night, though, had definitely triggered something in him. Maggie wasn’t sure what it was. Nerves, certainly, but it felt like there was something else beneath that, something that she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
He reappeared at the door with his sax bag slung across his back. He looked very pale. Maybe it was too much? She should perhaps give him the chance to back out.
‘I can tell her that you’re ill, if you like,’ Maggie said gently. ‘We don’t have to go.’
Leon shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Let’s do it.’
An hour later she was sitting in a dark room above a pub sipping a dubious white wine and feeling more than a little out of place. They were at least twenty years older than the rest of the clientele and quite a lot cleaner than many of them, too. There was a nice atmosphere, though, welcoming and warm, the air tinged with a crackle of excitement about what was to come.
‘Do you know who else is performing?’ Maggie asked, and then could have kicked herself for her choice of verb, but Leon just shook his head. She wanted to ask what had happened the last time he’d been here, but it was clear that she wasn’t going to get any conversation out of him, so she took a sip of her drink and watched the door.
Romany arrived about fifteen minutes later, looking young and beautiful and surrounded by a gang of other young and beautiful girls. She had almost reached the age that Maggie had been when she met first Angie. Maggie had felt so grown up back then, but Romany still looked like a child to her. She must feel grown up though, just as Maggie had done, and of course, she had had far more to deal with so far than Maggie had experienced in the whole of her life.
Following behind them was Tiger, but Maggie’s stomach stayed where it belonged at the sight of him. It had passed. It was gone. And she didn’t miss it. It was time to fully appreciate what she had rather than hankering after make-believe. Spending time with Romany had taught her that.
Tiger raised an arm and came over and Romany and her friends dragged a spare table across so that they could all sit together.
‘Hi, Auntie Maggie,’ Romany said, leaning over and giving her a peck on her cheek. ‘Hi, Leon. All set?’
Leon nodded. ‘All set,’ he replied, his voice flat and not revealing his jitters.
One of the girls broke away from the group and came to whisper something in his ear. He turned to look at her and for the first time that evening, smiled. This must be Laura, Maggie thought. Sweet. And whatever she’d said, it did seem to have made a difference, as he suddenly looked a little less tense. Then he lifted his untouched pint and drank the first half in one go.
On before Leon was a comic poet with a diatribe about Brexit and a folk singer whose tuning was a little bit off to Maggie’s ear, although she was no expert. Then there was another poet and then it was Leon. Maggie gave him a supportive smile as he stood and made his way to the stage. Her insides were knotted so tightly that it was hard to get a lungful of air. She raised her eyebrows at the collected group as if to say, now just watch this, but under the table she was crossing her fingers. None of the girls knew how big a moment this was for Leon. Even Tiger might not really get it. But she did.
Leon arranged his instrument on its sling around his neck and pulled the mouthpiece in and out of his mouth a few times, moistening the reed. He was standing in a pool of light cast by one of the spotlights and his saxophone glinted as he lifted it, ready to begin. Maggie’s mind skipped to the first time she had heard him play, in a corridor in their halls of residence. That had been the week she had first met Tiger, too. And Angie had been there. It felt like another lifetime.
As Leon played, the room stilled as the audience became completely caught in the spell of his music. Maggie let the tears trickle down her cheeks. She cried for her youth that was lost, for the dreams that had never quite come to fruition, for Leon’s wasted talent, for missed opportunities with Tiger. But most of all she cried for Angie, her least likely and yet her closest friend. How she would have loved to have been here, egging Leon on just as she had always done. Of all of them, Angie had always been the one who had most believed in his talents, in him. In fact, Maggie couldn’t think of anyone else who had tried to encourage Leon as much as Angie had, not even herself. God, she missed her so much that it was like a stabbing pain in her very core.
The performance was over before she realised, the crowd clapping and then on their feet, arms raised above heads. Sharp wolf whistles sounded around the enclosed space and there were cries of ‘Encore’. Maggie hastily wiped the tears away from her eyes and then looked over at the stage. Leon was standing there in his pool of light and looking at his feet but then, as it became obvious that the applause wasn’t stopping, he slowly lifted his head to look at his audience. And then he beamed, a wide, open-mouthed smile that lit up his entire face. He mouthed ‘Thanks’ and raised his saxophone in the air in a salute.
The crowd kept going, stamping their feet against the floorboards in a rhythmic tattoo and calling for more. Leon seemed uncertain what to do. Then a man standing behind the bar called out over the racket.
‘Order, order! Let’s have a bit of hush, shall we? Now, we don’t normally allow encores, but shall we make an exception, just this once?’
The crowd roared and Leon looked over at Maggie questioningly.
Then Tiger stood up and shouted out over the cheers. ‘Go on, Leon, mate. Show ’em what you can do!’
And so Leon played again. This time it was more upbeat and less soulful than the first piece, and it captured the mood of the audience perfectly. They listened, rapt, and then applauded vigorously once more, but this time Leon unhooked himself from the amplifier and pushed his way back to their table through the standing crowd. People were patting him on the shoulder and congratulating him as he passed them.
‘There you go, Romey,’ said Tiger. ‘I told you you were in for a treat.’
Romany’s eyes were wide and shining. ‘Oh my God, Leon!’ she said. ‘Where did you learn to play like that?’
Leon shrugged. It was just the same as it had been thirty-odd years ago when Romany’s mother had asked the question, Maggie thought: Leon self-effacing and his friends in awe. But this time there was a greater poignancy to the moment. Now, they were over halfway through their lives and Leon’s talent was still mouldering away in a box, hidden from view.
‘I don’t really know,’ Leon said. ‘I just learned.’
‘Did you play professionally?’ asked Laura. ‘Back in the day, I mean?’
Maggie flinched. They weren’t that old! But then again, to these girls with their whole lives glittering ahead of them, perhaps they were.
Leon shook his head. ‘No. It’s always been just a hobby,’ he said, putting the saxophone back in its case. ‘Right,’ he said decisively, indicating a change in subject. ‘Who wants a drink before the next act?’
Leon wandered off to the bar, despite having bought the round before, and the rest of the group chattered on about how wonderful his playing had been. After a bit, Maggie realised that he had been gone a while and she looked over to see where he’d got to. He was still standing at the bar, chatting to the man who had allowed the encore. He looked lively and animated, his face bright and his hands gesticulating as he spoke. It was nice to see.
Eventually, he made his way back with the tray of drinks and settled himself at the table. The next act, a guitar player, was just getting the mic set up, no doubt feeling a little daunted by what she had to follow.
Leon handed the drinks round, still grinning like a Cheshire cat. ‘The guy at the bar has offered me a gig,’ he said.
‘Nice one, mate,’ said Tiger, slapping him on the back.
‘What kind of gig?’ asked Maggie.
‘At a jazz club in Leeds. His mate runs it, apparently,’ Leon said. He pulled a face that said he didn’t know whether this was a good thing or not.
‘Fantastic!’ said Maggie, just to make sure that he did. ‘What did you say?’
‘I said yes!’
Maggie was delighted. She threw her arms around him and kissed him. When she looked up, Tiger was looking on, his expression wistful.
46
Durham had made Romany an offer. It had arrived when she was at school and had popped up, as casual as you like, when she refreshed her UCAS page at break. Romany saw it, did a double take and her heart paused for a second and then begin to pound. She screamed and then handed the phone to Laura.
‘Does that say what I think it does?’ she asked her.
Laura peered at the screen. ‘Well, if you think it says that Durham have made you an offer of AAB then yes! It does! Well done, Romey!’ Laura threw her arms around her and squeezed tightly, hugging all the breath out of her.
