Impossible To Forget, page 20
‘As a dive instructor?’ asked Leon. ‘That’s cool.’
‘No!’ replied Angie. ‘Tiger?! Do you think he’d ever get himself organised enough to do a PADI qualification? No, he was taking bookings, driving the boats, cleaning the equipment. That kind of thing. Anyway, he’s been there a while, so he must like it.’
‘It’s not like him to stay in one place for that long,’ said Maggie. ‘It must be going well.’
‘Either that or he just can’t save the money to move on,’ replied Angie.
‘Aren’t the Cayman Islands a tax haven?’ asked Leon thoughtfully. ‘I imagine it’s pretty expensive to live there.’
Angie shrugged. ‘No doubt he’ll be back when he gets bored. Right, I’m starving. Let’s get some food ordered,’ she said.
‘And then I can test your memories with this little quiz I’ve devised,’ said Maggie.
Angie groaned, but she didn’t mean it. A little bit of gentle reminiscing to a time when life was simpler was probably exactly what they all needed.
33
By the end of the evening Maggie and Leon were really quite drunk and very sweet with it. Angie had feared that there might be tears, given everything that had been disclosed, but actually their drunkenness had slanted in favour of an enhanced perception of just how fond they all were of one another. Maggie’s quiz had been the start.
‘Who accidentally dropped their contact lens on the floor in the college bar during the Friday night disco and made the DJ turn the lights on so that everyone could look for it?’ asked Maggie.
‘Oh, I remember that,’ said Leon. ‘Wasn’t it that girl whose room was directly above yours, Ange? The one with fabulous tits.’
‘Leon!!’ said Maggie so loudly that the people at the surrounding tables all looked round, causing Maggie to stare back defiantly in a most un-Maggie kind of way.
‘What?’ asked Leon indignantly. ‘She did have great tits! What was her name? It’s on the tip of my tongue. Guinevere or something.’
‘Genevieve!’ said Angie. ‘Was that her with the contact lens? She was such a princess. I remember us all stopping dancing and crawling around on our hands and knees looking for it.’
‘Completely ridiculous when you think about it,’ said Leon, ‘but if she’d asked us to walk backwards into the middle of next week we’d have done it for her. She was bloody gorgeous.’
Angie tutted loudly.
‘Next. Who was caught in the act red-footed?’ Maggie asked, moving neatly away from Genevieve’s figure.
‘Oh, that’s easy!’ said Leon. ‘That lad who painted anti-Apartheid slogans on the Barclays Bank cashpoint in red paint and then left footprints for the police to follow leading all the way back to his flat. Idiot!’
‘Wasn’t he on your course, Maggie?’ asked Angie. ‘Not the greatest start to a career in the law.’
‘He was. Wonder what happened to him,’ Maggie said vaguely and then, with more conviction, ‘Who could turn anything into a decent chilli?’
Angie and Leon both spoke at once. ‘Me!’ ‘Lee!’
‘They kept us going, those chillis of yours. You should come round one night, Lee, and make us another. For old times’ sake,’ Maggie suggested.
‘I can do that,’ he said and for a moment, Angie thought he was going to mention his newly single status, but he didn’t. Instead, the three of them stayed safely cocooned in the past, in a time before any of them knew how things were going to turn out.
Around midnight the restaurant staff started putting chairs on the tables and mopping the floor and so, taking the hint, they left. The wine seemed to hit Maggie as she stood up and she swayed on the spot for a moment, giggling like a schoolgirl.
‘I haven’t been this drunk for . . .’ she began, looking up at the ceiling and tapping her index finger against her lips. ‘Forever,’ she concluded.
Leon grabbed hold of her arm. ‘Steady!’ he said.
Even in this drunken state, Angie would have expected Maggie to shun the help, but she didn’t seem to notice. Together they stumbled out of the restaurant and into the brightly lit street. There were a few people around, but they all seemed to be walking with purpose to a destination unknown. The evening appeared to be over.
No one suggested going on anywhere else, and Angie felt relieved. There was only so much reminiscing she could take, and she feared that if they let the conversation stray closer to their present situations, the evening would take a very different turn.
‘Right,’ said Leon decisively. ‘Point me in the direction of a taxi rank.’
‘Noooo,’ said Maggie. ‘Come and stay at my place. I’ve got a spare room with an en suite and I can definitely rustle you up a shiny new toothbrush.’
Leon’s eyes flicked between the pair of them as if Angie could help him make a decision.
‘Don’t look at me,’ said Angie. ‘You’re very welcome to come back with me but you’ll be on the sofa, it’ll be a scrum for the bathroom and you’ll have to share my toothbrush!’
Leon looked back at Maggie. ‘Are you sure you don’t mind?’ he asked.
‘The more the merrier,’ replied Maggie in a very un-Maggie-like way.
She slipped her arm through Leon’s and, after saying their goodbyes, the pair of them strolled off in the direction of the taxi rank leaving Angie to make her own way home.
It had been a lovely evening, Angie thought, letting herself back into her quiet flat and sneaking up the stairs for fear of waking Romany. There was something about old friends, she thought, a special depth of understanding that you never quite managed to reach with friends made later in life. The people who knew you when you were learning to know yourself had a more honest picture. They’d seen you when you were not yet entirely formed, when your outer shell hadn’t quite sealed around you. As a result, there was less pretending. Friends like that would never let you get away with the stories that you could spin around yourself with newer people. And even though that could be scarily exposing, it was also good to be around them. You could skip past all that small talk and pleasantries stuff and cut straight to the heart of whichever matter needed to be discussed.
That said, once she and Leon had learned that Maggie had been sacked – sacked! Maggie!!! – they had managed to steer the conversational boat a long way from that particular reef, old friends or not. There would be time enough to unpick that in the coming weeks.
Leon seemed to be faring better with his new situation, but then he had had longer to get his head around the changes. Also, he had always had such low expectations in the first place, so he had less far to fall than Maggie. There was a kind of logic to his approach to life, Angie could see now. If you never aim too high, then you never have too far to fall. It was fundamentally self-limiting though, accepting that your life was never going to be more than you allowed it to be, and Angie didn’t believe that that was what Leon really wanted. Fear of success, that was what was holding him back. His life would be much easier if it just trundled along the same path as his parents’ had done. It was safe and secure and in many ways that was commendable. But it was such a waste! A waste of his musical ability and a waste of life in general. You got one spin on the merry-go-round. Surely it was a person’s responsibility to make their ride as exciting as they possibly could?
Was it arrogance, Angie wondered, that she thought she knew better than Leon? Possibly; probably, in fact, but she was obviously right.
It wasn’t too late, though. Now that he was free from the clutches of that controlling wife of his, would he be brave enough to do something with his talent? But even as Angie was thinking that, she knew it would never happen. Leon just didn’t have it in him to push himself beyond where he had always been. Not without help, anyway.
She tiptoed through the flat, dropping her bag on the floor and kicking her shoes off so that one landed by the coffee table and the other half-under the sofa. There was a light coming from under Romany’s bedroom door, so she pushed the handle down gently and peeped inside. Romany was asleep, Lord of the Flies open across her face where it had fallen. Angie padded across the room and lifted the book, folding the corner of the page to mark the place. Then she bent down to kiss her daughter on the head and to turn off her bedside light. As she did so, Romany stirred and opened her eyes.
‘Nice night?’ she asked.
Angie smiled and nodded.
‘I must have fallen asleep,’ Romany said, reaching a hand out from under the duvet to retrieve the book from her mother. And then, ‘Mum!! Did you fold the corner?!’
‘I didn’t want you to lose your place,’ replied Angie indignantly. She had been pleased that she’d thought not to just shut the book.
‘Ever heard of a bookmark?’ Romany said, but she was too sleepy to be actually cross and she let her eyes droop and then close again.
‘Night, night, baby,’ said Angie, and then retreated out of the room.
She was too awake to go to bed, so she made herself a cup of chamomile tea to try and help her nod off. Sitting on the sofa, curled into a ball with her fingers wrapped tightly around the mug, it occurred to her again that for the first time in thirty years, she was the only one whose life was flowing along nicely. She had her thriving business and her flat, which was at least half-paid for. And she had Romany, the most precious thing in the world. For all her lack of a plan, she had made something good out of her life. It might have been more down to luck than judgement, but all was spectacularly well in her world.
Of course, she took no pleasure in the difficulties that the others were facing. That wasn’t how things worked. Life wasn’t like a see-saw where you could only be at the top if someone else was at the bottom. But at the same time, it did feel fair that she should have a bit of good fortune. It was her turn. If anyone understood the universe’s energy, it was her. Right now, it was her sun that was in the ascendant and for that she was very grateful.
Her mind cast back to that day in their second year at York when Maggie had caught her crying in her room. That day had been the start of their friendship. Until then they were just two people who had ended up living together through a series of random circumstances. But after she had accidentally revealed her vulnerability, a kind of reluctant trust had been garnered between the two of them that had been growing, little by little, ever since. At twenty, Angie had thought that she didn’t need anyone, that she was strong enough to get through life on her own. But gradually she had come to realise that sometimes you really do need someone rooting for you. Over the years, that person had become Maggie.
And now, here they were with the roles well and truly reversed, Angie with her life on track and Maggie adrift and without a clue what to do about it.
Angie had no magic bullets for her friend. She didn’t even know what her options might be. But she knew that she was going to be there when Maggie needed her.
34
A month after the reunion and Angie was still no wiser about Maggie’s situation. She seemed to have gone to ground. Angie’s calls went to voicemail and her texts were replied with cheerful but very brief responses from which no information could be readily discerned. Angie didn’t want to pry, but at the same time she didn’t want to leave Maggie stewing in her own juices. Brooding was no good for anyone. She had even offered her a number of therapeutic treatments, either from her or other members of her team, in case Maggie would rather not be treated by a friend, but they had all been politely but firmly declined.
She had to do something, though. Maggie was strong, but no woman was an island. Everyone needed some help sometimes, even Maggie; maybe especially Maggie. When things went up in smoke around Angie, she already had a whole armoury of defences built up over a lifetime of difficulties to help herself get back on her feet. This was, as far as Angie knew at least, the first time Maggie had ever encountered anything going other than entirely according to plan. She must surely need all the help she could get. And Angie was determined to be the one to provide it.
Then, as she walked to Live Well one clear blue morning, the perfect idea presented itself. She checked the weather app on her phone. Things were set fair for the entire weekend. It would be just what they needed.
She rang Maggie.
‘I’ve had an idea. You have to say yes. No is not an option.’
‘Good morning to you too,’ replied Maggie.
Angie could hear that there was a lightness in her voice, and she felt relieved. Maybe things weren’t quite as bad as she had feared.
‘Tomorrow we’re going to the seaside. You, me and Romany. We can do paddling and ice cream and eat chips out of the newspaper—’
‘They don’t serve chips in newspaper any more. It’s unhygienic, apparently, although it did no harm for generations,’ Maggie interrupted.
‘Don’t interrupt,’ replied Angie. ‘We’ll go to Whitby and then we can take Romany to the Abbey and tell her all about Dracula, so it’ll be educational too. What do you think, bearing in mind my previous statement that yes is the only option?’
‘Er, yes,’ said Maggie.
‘Excellent. Right answer. You’ll have to drive, though. You’ve still got a car, right?’
‘Your tact is as solid as ever,’ replied Maggie. ‘But yes, I do still have a car.’
‘Great. You can pick us up at nine. Bring a flask.’
‘Anything else?’ Maggie laughed.
‘No. That’s it. No. Wait. A towel. Right, we’ll see you at nine.’
Angie rang off before Maggie had a chance to change her mind. Then she texted Romany telling her to cancel any plans she had for the following day.
Saturday dawned just as bright and blue as forecast, and Romany appeared at eight thirty dressed as if she was going to spend the day on Ibiza in August and not the east coast of England in May.
‘You’re going to need more clothes than that,’ said Angie when she saw her in her skimpy shorts and tiny crop top. ‘I know the planet is heating up a little more each day, but it’s still not quite tropical in Whitby. And I don’t want you getting cold and spoiling things.’
Romany sighed and rolled her eyes but retreated to her room to gather more layers.
When the doorbell rang bang on nine o’clock, Angie was feeling positively excited. A day out was just what they all needed. She pulled a tote bag out of the ‘messy cupboard’ and stuffed two towels into it. Then she filled a bottle with water, found her purse and raced down the stairs, leaving Romany to lock the flat.
Maggie was on the pavement dressed in a pair of navy trousers and a Breton-style jumper with a red scarf twisted round her neck. She also had a jacket. No concession had been made for the potential warmth of the day. Maggie had obviously been to the east coast before. She still looked very gaunt, Angie thought, but there was at least some colour in her cheeks and her smile was wide and genuine.
‘Your carriage awaits,’ she said, flourishing her arm in the direction of the car. ‘Roof up or down?’
‘Down!’ chorused Angie and Romany.
‘It’ll be chilly,’ warned Maggie. ‘But I have blankets,’ she added.
Of course she did, thought Angie.
It took a couple of minutes to drop the roof on the little car and then they were off, following the coast road out of York. It seemed that plenty of others had had a similar thought and the traffic was pretty much nose to tail until they reached the turn-off for Scarborough, where most of the traffic peeled away.
Once in Whitby, they left the car down by the harbour and set off towards the town.
‘I’m ashamed to say that I’ve never been to Whitby,’ confessed Maggie as they crossed a bridge and followed the crowds towards the Abbey. ‘I know it’s only just down the road, but somehow I never made the time to visit. The downside of a busy life, I suppose,’ she mused, and Angie braced herself for the mood to slide, but Maggie seemed cheerful. ‘These days, I have no excuse not to get out and about more. Starting right now!’ She nodded decisively as if reinforcing the idea.
‘We went to Scarborough on the train once,’ Angie recalled. ‘In the third year?’ Maggie looked at her blankly. ‘Or maybe that was me and someone else,’ she added vaguely. ‘Pretty sure I’ve never been here, either.’
Romany gave her a disdainful look. ‘Call yourself a mother!’ she scoffed. ‘Isn’t making sure that I’m well rounded and know my local environment part of your job description?’
Angie doffed an imaginary cap. ‘Sorry, Miss. Will do better, Miss,’ she said in a fake Cockney accent, although why she associated servants with Cockneys Angie had no idea.
‘She’s got a point,’ said Maggie.
‘Don’t gang up on me! I’m doing my best here!’
Romany leant into her and gave her a little squeeze. ‘Only teasing,’ she said.
Was it good enough, though, her best stab at single parenting? It was a question that Angie asked herself regularly, measuring herself up against her view of a perfect mother (and father for that matter). She invariably found herself lacking, but that had to be normal, didn’t it? Not many people considered themselves flawless in that regard, she was sure. Having no role model made things a little bit trickier, but at least she had, from experience, a pretty clear idea of what a parent was not supposed to do.
They made their way over a bridge and up an increasingly narrow street. The shop windows seemed to be mainly filled with cheap jet jewellery and skulls. Halfway up, they came across an odd photographer’s shop. The window displayed sepia prints of families in Victorian costume. Angie thought they were antiques for sale at first but when, her curiosity piqued, she looked a little closer, she realised that they were actually modern-day photographs.
‘Romey, look at these,’ she called out.
Romany, who was walking a couple of paces ahead with Maggie, turned round and looked across.
‘You can get dressed up in costumes and have your photo done,’ Angie said, inexplicably taken with the idea. ‘Look!’
‘You can,’ replied Romany. ‘But why would you? Who wants a photo of themselves dressed like that?’
