Impossible to forget, p.7
Impossible To Forget, page 7
She hopped down and then took his hand and pulled him past Maggie’s door and into the heart of the house, leaving her standing there. She thought about following them, but this was so clearly Angie’s moment that she decided against it. There would be plenty of time to catch up later.
She went back to her desk and settled down, but she knew she would struggle to refocus her attention on her books. That smile, that private moment that they had just shared. Whatever there was between the two of them, it was clearly unfinished business.
12
Angie and Tiger chatted continuously until dinnertime. Maggie could hear the low rumble of voices punctuated by peals of laughter coming through the wall into her room. She would have loved to saunter into the sitting room and join in, but she didn’t. It wasn’t that she felt totally excluded, although that was part of it; it was more that this was clearly a precious time for Angie, and somehow, despite the tension that there still was between the two of them, Maggie didn’t wish Angie any ill. She wanted her to enjoy the reunion without anyone getting in the way.
It was clear that Tiger was special to her, that there was a deep bond between them. The separate rooms thing had been a surprise to start with, but actually, the way the pair of them interacted with one another put Maggie more in mind of siblings than lovers. Nothing she had seen had ever led her to a different conclusion, although this might have been wishful thinking on her part.
Then again, she would swear that whatever she had felt between herself and Tiger before was still there. He’d only spoken two words to her, but she knew. More could develop there, if she wanted it to.
But did she? That was the question. Tiger was only passing through. He was like a cowboy in one of those black and white films that her father enjoyed so much, blowing into town and then blowing back out again. And she still couldn’t dismiss the way he had left her standing there in the corridor that time. She had decided then that he was a player, and nothing had happened to change her mind about that. Tiger was definitely a girl-in-every-port kind of bloke, and heartache no doubt followed him around like a shadow. Was there really any point getting herself in a lather about him when he had all this going against him?
On the other hand, what was the point of life if you didn’t get yourself into the occasional lather?
Maggie changed her top, freshening her deodorant as she did so, pulled a comb through her hair and added a flick of dark mascara to her eyelashes. Casual insouciance, that was what she was shooting for and, she thought as she looked at herself in the cracked mirror, she had hit her target.
In the sitting room, Angie and Tiger were sprawled on the sofas, taking up one apiece. Leon was in the tiny kitchen chopping veg for his chilli and joining in with their conversation, asking questions where appropriate. Maggie was suddenly sorry that she had spent so long in her room. If she had known that Leon was here as well, she would have emerged sooner. Despite her confused feelings about Tiger, she was genuinely interested in what he had been up to since they had last seen him.
But it appeared she had missed all that. The three of them were now talking about who was the prettiest of Charlie’s Angels. The boys seemed to be plumping for Farrah Fawcett’s character, Jill, which was so disappointingly predictable. Boys always seemed to fall for that blonde hair/blue eyes thing.
‘Kelly was definitely the best-looking,’ Angie said. ‘With those cheekbones, and all that shiny dark hair. In fact,’ she said, turning to look at Maggie, ‘you have a look of her, Mags.’
They all turned to look at her as if to confirm or deny Angie’s statement.
Maggie pushed her hair away from her face self-consciously. ‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ she said modestly.
‘Actually, you do look quite like her,’ said Leon. ‘From what I can remember, anyway. It’s been a while.’
‘Imprinted on a teenage boy’s memory forever, that show,’ said Tiger, his eyes shining mischievously. ‘That and The Six Million Dollar Man. When I wasn’t having impure thoughts about Farrah, I was trying to run really fast and see round corners.’
They all laughed, and Tiger took his legs down from the sofa so that Maggie had somewhere to sit. She lowered herself on to the cushions carefully, making sure that no part of her touched him, but then as soon as she was seated, he swung his legs back up and flopped them down in her lap. She tensed and then relaxed into their new proximity. No one else seemed to have noticed.
They chatted easily, the four of them. The housemates did get on all right when they were just three, but the addition of Tiger to their number seemed to release something that was generally lacking between them, a kind of ease with one another that wasn’t usually there.
When the chilli was ready, Angie cracked open a bottle of cheap red wine and they sat with plates on their knees to enjoy it.
‘How’s it going with the sax?’ Tiger asked Leon as he wiped his plate clean with a slice of white bread.
‘Oh God, Tiger,’ interrupted Angie. ‘You have to tell him. He barely touches the thing outside the house. All that talent and it’s just going to waste. He has to go to America and make his fortune. You have to go, Lee,’ she added, turning to Leon.
Leon shrugged. ‘Yeah, maybe one day. But I’ve got this degree to do first.’
This was an old argument and Angie seemed to realise that he was stuck on this course of action. ‘Yes. But after that . . .’ she tried.
‘She’s right,’ said Tiger. ‘You should do it.’
Leon looked down at his plate. ‘It’s all right for you two,’ he said. ‘You do as you please and make it look so easy. But I’m . . . Well, I’m not really like that. I want to get a job, a mortgage, you know, all that boring stuff our parents did.’
‘Not so much my parents,’ said Angie wryly.
Angie never talked about her home life and Maggie wondered if now, with Tiger here and the second bottle of wine open, might be the moment. It seemed it was just a passing comment, though, and Angie continued along the path she had been on.
‘But why, Leon?’ she asked, as if he had suggested that he wanted to spend his life standing in a bucket of cold water. ‘There’s time for all that. In the future.’ She waved a hand at some mythical time to come. ‘What about NOW? You need to grab life with both hands and hold on to it tight.’
Leon was looking increasingly uncomfortable and Maggie felt the need to leap in to defend him.
‘Actually, I know what Leon means,’ she said. ‘I’m the same. I just want to get through this and then get on with my career. I’m dying to start work as a solicitor.’
‘But that means you don’t get the most out of this part of your life,’ said Angie. ‘You’re so busy looking forward to what is to come that you’re missing what you have in the here and now.’
Maggie thought about her words and then dismissed them. It was something that she had considered and rejected before. For her, university was a means to an end. If she managed to have a good time on top then so much the better, but it really wasn’t the main reason for being there.
‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘I’m perfectly happy in the here and now. I just have my eyes on the prize, that’s all.’ She turned to look at Angie. This apparent honesty between them all was new, and she didn’t want it to slip between her fingers. ‘And what about you, Ange?’ she asked. ‘What does the future look like for you?’
Angie considered for a moment, picking up her glass but then putting it down again without taking a drink. ‘Bright,’ she said. ‘My future looks bright.’
Maggie wasn’t sure how she could reach that conclusion based on the available evidence, but now wasn’t the time to question her reasoning.
‘And what do you see there?’ she pressed.
‘In my crystal ball, you mean?’ Angie said. She mimicked mist floating before her with her hands and rolled her eyes up into her head. ‘I have no idea. Which of us can see into the future? I just know that whatever I end up doing, it will be exactly the right thing for the time.’
Tiger nodded his head appreciatively at these words of wisdom, but Maggie was less convinced. She could see nothing on which to base a statement like that in Angie’s life so far. Everything was so haphazard, so accidental. The randomness of it made her shudder. But her own life? Now that was a different story. Structured, ordered, planned and going exactly as she wanted it to.
Having finished eating, Tiger swung his legs back up on to Maggie’s lap. They were even closer to one another now. She longed to put a hand on his thigh as it rested on hers, but knew that she couldn’t do it and make it look natural. She left her hands where they were at her sides, but then, as if he had read her mind, Tiger found her fingers with his. Maggie started at the unexpected contact, but then, relaxing a little, she allowed his thumb to explore her palm as she cast a sly glance at Leon and Angie to make sure that they hadn’t noticed the altered status quo. However, they were still laughing and seemed oblivious.
‘Why don’t you get your sax out now, Lee?’ suggested Angie. ‘Let’s have a bit of soul to match our mood.’
Leon’s face made a feeble stab at objection and then he went to fetch the instrument from his room. As he set it up, Maggie, who had been sitting upright on the sofa with Tiger’s legs draped across her, allowed herself to tip sideways so that her head was on his chest. At once he put an arm across her, his fingers finding the bare skin on her back where her top had ridden up. Maggie let her eyelids close as she enjoyed his touch, gentle and with no agenda, but more intimate than she had known for some time.
Leon played ‘Smooth Operator’, which was perfect for the mood, and then ‘Careless Whisper’, and as the haunting melodies filled the room, Maggie began to feel that maybe Angie had a point. Perhaps there was more to university life than just a law degree.
13
The following day Maggie came back from her tutorial and let herself into the house. She had been hoping that Tiger might be in on his own, but as she opened the door the place had a still, silent quality that suggested that it was empty, and Maggie’s disappointment rose. She wasn’t sure what was going on between her and Tiger, if anything at all. The previous evening, after Leon had chilled them all into a state of extreme relaxation, they had just drifted to their beds. Maggie had been grateful. She hadn’t even kissed Tiger yet, and didn’t want to run before she could walk, but she had been left with the unsatisfactory feeling of not really knowing quite where she stood, a state she wasn’t used to.
She went straight into her room and dumped her bag on her desk. Then she went out to make herself a cup of coffee before she settled down to some work. There were dirty dishes in the sink from breakfast, but Maggie barely flinched. Was she becoming more forgiving? It seemed unlikely, but perhaps it was true. She hadn’t got as far as washing up for someone else yet, but she was happy just to leave the dishes there rather than going on the warpath after the culprit.
The kettle boiled and as she poured the hot water into her mug, she thought she heard someone moving around upstairs. Maybe she had been wrong; perhaps there was someone in after all. She took her coffee and headed back to her room, but as she crossed the hallway, she distinctly heard someone sobbing. It was such an intimate sound that she felt guilty for overhearing it. Perhaps whoever it was hadn’t heard her come in and thought they were alone? It had to be Angie. Leon was a sensitive soul and not beyond a few tears, but there was genuine pain in the sound that Maggie was listening to.
Maggie hovered on the threshold of her bedroom as she tried to decide what to do. She didn’t want to intrude, but at the same time Angie might welcome someone to talk to. She should at least offer, even though she was certain she would get short shrift.
She turned and began to pad quietly up the stairs until she was standing outside Angie’s door. The sobbing seemed to have abated a little and now the sounds were more gulps and sniffs. Maybe whatever it was that was wrong had passed. Then again, she was there now, so she might as well see if there was anything she could do to help.
She lifted her hand and rapped lightly. ‘Angie? It’s me, Maggie. Are you okay? Can I get you anything?’
The room fell silent as if Angie was holding her breath, but then Maggie heard a sniff. She took it as an invitation to open the door.
Angie was sitting on the floor, surrounded by balls of the toilet paper that she had clearly been using as tissues. When she looked up, her face was pink and blotchy, and her eyes swollen to slits. It felt to Maggie like this was a private moment that she shouldn’t be witnessing, and yet this diminished and forlorn Angie was such a different spectacle to the Angie that she usually saw that she felt herself drawn to it, almost as if to an actress on a stage.
‘Oh, Angie,’ she said as she stepped into the room and immediately dropped down to Angie’s level. ‘What on earth is the matter?’
Angie just shook her head and tore another strip of toilet paper from the roll at her side. She blew her nose noisily. ‘It’s nothing,’ she said.
Why did women always say that when it was patently untrue?
Maggie tried again. ‘Come on, now. There’s obviously something. It’s not like you to be down.’
‘I’ll be fine in a minute,’ Angie said.
Maggie wasn’t sure whether she was being dismissed. They had never been close, the two of them. Perhaps it wasn’t her place to interfere now? But Angie’s customary confident breeziness was gone. Her shoulders drooped and her head hung low, and Maggie divined that her concern wasn’t entirely unwelcome.
‘Just talk to me,’ she said as she settled herself down next to Angie, signalling her intention not to leave. ‘It’ll feel better if you let it go, and I might even be able to help.’
As she said the words, Maggie thought about how ludicrous they sounded. What did she have to offer Angie? Angie was super-cool, and she was, well, she had to admit it, a bit of a square by comparison. She stiffened a little as she waited for Angie’s rebuff but instead, Angie moved across and launched herself at her, wrapping her arms around her shoulders. Maggie’s automatic reaction was to tense at this unexpected contact, but then she relaxed into it, put her arms around Angie and squeezed her back gently. She could feel Angie beginning to sob again, and she found herself leaning into their embrace still further.
‘It’s all so shit,’ said Angie, her voice muffled by Maggie’s shoulder.
‘What is?’ asked Maggie.
‘Everything.’
Maggie wasn’t sure where to go from there, so she just held her, waiting until Angie had regained her composure, and then released her.
Angie sat back. ‘Sorry,’ she said, without looking up.
‘There’s no need to apologise,’ said Maggie. ‘I’m just worried about you, that’s all. What’s so shit?’
Angie sniffed and wiped her nose with the heel of her hand. ‘Everything.’
They were going round in circles and Maggie tried not to become irritated with the illogicality of it all, but then Angie seemed to realise the same.
‘I mean, I’m here. University is supposed to be the best time of your life, but I feel like it’s all happening somewhere else to someone else, do you know what I mean?’
Maggie nodded. She did know. In fact, she knew precisely how that felt.
‘And I have no idea what I want to do when I’ve finished my degree. Tiger says I should travel like him, but that’s not for me. I don’t want to spend my whole life running away. I like England. I want a base. I want to get a job and a flat and settle down. He says that that’s selling out and that I’m just buying into the corporate dream, but I don’t think it is. I don’t want a corporate job, but I do want a job. I just have no idea what kind.’
And with that the tears started to fall again.
Maggie was at a loss to know what to say. This wasn’t something that had ever worried her. She had been steadily working towards her plan to be a solicitor for as long as she could remember and at no point had she ever doubted that she would pull it off, or that it wouldn’t be exactly what she hoped for when she finally got there. She could see, though, that not having such a clear path to follow might be unsettling.
Then again, this was Angie! Angie, who seemed to float through life with no plan, borrowing or taking what she needed and without giving a damn about any of the things that felt important to Maggie. That was hard to get her head around.
‘I really don’t think you should worry, Angie,’ she said now, in a tone that she hoped didn’t sound dismissive or superior. ‘We’re only halfway through uni, there’s plenty of time for deciding what you want to do next. Just ignore Tiger. What does he know, anyway? His lifestyle is totally unsustainable. Sooner or later, he’s going to want to stop travelling and settle down and he’ll have no education and next to no prospects. You’re smart and articulate and pretty and you’ll be able to get whatever job you decide you want to do, I’m certain of it. If I were you, I’d stop fretting about the future and just concentrate on getting the best degree that you can.’
This was a lie. If Maggie really were Angie, she would be worried to death. But then again, Maggie would never have come so far without a plan.
Angie blew her nose messily and threw the snotty loo roll on the carpet. Maggie tried not to flinch.
‘You’re probably right,’ she said.
There was a pause, and Maggie wondered whether she should leave Angie to it, duty discharged, but then Angie spoke again.
‘You have no idea how much I envy you,’ she said, staring directly into Maggie’s eyes in a way that made Maggie want to drop her gaze. ‘You know exactly who you are and where you want to go. It’s impressive. And rare. I think you’re the only person I know who’s that certain about things.’
Maggie knew how rare it was, but she tried to look modest rather than proud.
