Impossible To Forget, page 25
‘And I’m earning plenty,’ added Leon. ‘So she’s not going to starve.’
Maggie knew that he meant this to be supportive and wasn’t in any way boastful, but she felt her jaw tighten all the same. Not only did it make it sound as if she couldn’t look after herself, but it might also have been taken as a bit of a sideswipe at Tiger, who only ever seemed to have enough money to last him to the end of the week. Deep down, she knew that Leon didn’t mean it like that, and Tiger wouldn’t have taken it that way either. The only person with an issue here was her. Belatedly, she gave Leon a weak smile and hoped that he hadn’t noticed her delayed response.
‘And what about you?’ she asked Tiger, anxious to divert the attention from her. ‘What’s next?’
Tiger gave a sigh, as if his plans were equivalent to a job. ‘Newcastle tomorrow for a while and then up north. I fancy seeing the Orkneys.’
‘It’s beautiful up there,’ Leon said. ‘Quiet, unspoilt.’
‘I should fit right in then.’ Tiger laughed, and they all laughed with him.
‘Can I change the music?’ asked Romany. ‘Something a bit more up to date? It’s like The Place Music Goes to Die in here.’
Angie leant over the back of the sofa and put her arms around her daughter, resting her chin on her shiny hair. She kissed her lightly on the top of her head.
‘If you must,’ she said, ‘but then we need to go back to the eighties stuff later.’
Romany rolled her eyes at the prospect and then changed the music from her phone. Maggie didn’t recognise the song but it was a female vocalist with an acoustic guitar and it reflected nicely the new, thoughtful mood that had taken over the room. Romany, it seemed, was blessed with her mother’s levels of perception.
Maggie lowered herself carefully to the floor, conscious that her knees weren’t quite as robust as they once were, and sat crossed-legged on the rug. Angie came round to join her. She might be carrying a little more weight than Maggie was around the middle, but Angie could still knock her into a cocked hat on flexibility. She sank to the rug in one fluid movement without even using her hands and tucked her legs up under her in a way that Maggie could now only dream of.
‘Look at us,’ Angie said affectionately. ‘We’ve known each other for more than thirty years, we’re all completely different. And I mean, completely.’ She pressed the word for emphasis. ‘And yet, here we all are. Still enjoying each other’s company, still looking out for one another. Who’d have thought it, eh?’
Maggie smiled. ‘Who’d have guessed that when you walked into my student room, unannounced I might add, and uninvited, demanding toilet paper . . .’
‘I didn’t demand!’ objected Angie.
‘I bet you did,’ said Romany, and Maggie raised one eyebrow and nodded at her as if to say you bet your life she did.
‘. . . demanding toilet paper,’ she continued, ‘little did I think that we would be sitting here tonight, still friends after all this time.’
‘To be fair, neither did I,’ replied Angie. ‘I thought you were uptight and angsty.’
Maggie shrugged to acknowledge that that was a pretty fair assessment of her. ‘Yet here we are. And I think it’s fantastic. Let’s have a toast! To unlikely friendships.’
They all raised their drinks and clinked, echoing the toast to each other.
Maggie leant over and rested her hand on Angie’s leg, applying a little pressure, the equivalent of a hug. It was all down to Angie, the fact that they were still in contact, that she had Leon as part of her life, and Tiger too for that matter. And now there was Romany as well, the closest thing Maggie had to a child of her own. And somehow, Angie was the key to it all, Angie, who she had once thought to be the most selfish person she had ever met.
‘To unlikely friendships,’ Maggie said again.
40
2018
‘If my mum wasn’t dead, I’d kill her,’ said Romany. ‘What the hell was she thinking with this ridiculous plan? Like I need all these crappy mates of hers to look after me. I’m eighteen years old, for God’s sake. An adult! And I do not need babysitting by an ageing hippy with a ridiculous name. I’m more than capable of looking after myself.’ She puffed her lips out, folded her arms and leant back in her chair, making it balance on two legs.
‘It does sound kind of shit,’ replied Laura. ‘It’s a pity the hippy bloke had to move in. We could have had some cool parties at your place.’
Romany sighed. ‘Actually, he wouldn’t mind parties. He’s pretty chill about that kind of thing. More than Mum was anyway. But what if I want to take someone back to mine? Can you imagine us in my room with him sitting on the sofa listening?’
‘Well, that’s no different to how it is at my house,’ said Laura. ‘I swear my mum can hear if me and Matt go within a metre of each other, and as soon as we do, she pops in to see if we want a cup of tea.’ Laura rolled her eyes and it made Romany smile.
‘Well, there’s no danger of that at my house,’ Romany replied. Her mum was never going to catch her with a boy again.
Laura looked momentarily horrified, but then gave her a sad half-grin. ‘No,’ she said. And then, ‘At least Matt’s got a car.’
‘Have you ever tried that?’ asked Romany. ‘It’s bloody uncomfortable. Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is that Mum has abandoned me with all these misfits when all I want is her, and it’s crap.’ Romany could feel her throat starting to tighten and hot tears burned the corners of her eyes. She wiped them away savagely. There had been enough crying. She just wasn’t going to do any more, not in front of other people, at least. Well, maybe a bit with Laura, but no one else. If she was going to be treated like the adult that she kept saying that she was, then she was going to have to stop behaving like a little girl.
Laura put her arms around her, pulling her chair back on to four legs. ‘It’s okay, hun. I know it’s tough.’ She whispered her words so that the boys sitting in the row behind them didn’t hear.
It was tough. In fact, she doubted whether it got much tougher than losing your mum when you were still at school. And she hadn’t even had that long to get her head around what was coming. When her mum had finally stopped trying to shake off whatever bug she’d thought she had with macrobiotic diets, obscure food supplements and reiki and actually gone to the doctor’s, they had discovered that it was stage 4 ovarian cancer, terminal, and with little chance of any life-prolonging treatment being successful. She had been dead within two months.
To start with, Romany had blamed her mother for not seeking help earlier. How could you get so close to death and not even realise that you were ill? But the Macmillan nurses had explained that it was sometimes the way. Symptoms got missed or misdiagnosed. Even if her mother had been to the doctor, there was no guarantee that they would have picked it up any sooner. Ovarian cancer was called the silent killer, apparently. Or the whispering killer, at least, but in her mum’s case it had whispered so very quietly that no one had heard it.
Then Romany had blamed the doctors for being incompetent, and then finally herself for not making the connection between her mother’s rounded stomach and uncharacteristic lethargy and the deadly disease that was eating up her insides.
It was a process, apparently, grief. She had looked it up on Google, desperate to find some hope in the experiences of others. She reckoned that she was stuck somewhere in Stage Three, which was Anger, but some days, sometimes even some hours, she still fluctuated around Stage Two – Pain and Guilt. Of the two, Romany thought she preferred the anger. At least she could scream and throw stuff. The pain was unbearable.
And yet here she was, sitting in double chemistry and pretty much holding it together. Her form tutor, all sympathetic looks and tissues, had said that if she felt she wanted to take some time out then that would be perfectly fine. They would tell the exam board and allowances would be made. But what would Romany do if she didn’t come to school? Sit in the house all day with Tiger? The idea was unthinkable.
No. The one good thing that she was determined would come out of this horrible situation was that she would get her A levels and go to Durham University to read biochemistry and make her mother proud of her. What else was there to do but carry on?
Mr Johnson strolled into the classroom and stood at the front, waiting for silence to descend. It took some time before everyone noticed that he was there.
‘Good morning, year 13,’ he said when the room was finally quiet. ‘I trust we are all well and ready to get on with the biodegradable qualities of polymers. Get your homework out and we’ll see what a dog’s dinner you managed to make of it.’
And then there was no time to think about anything other than polymers, and that suited her just fine.
After school, Laura had a job looking after a couple of primary school children, and so Romany was left to wander home alone. At least she knew now that Mum was gone, and there was no danger of things having got any worse whilst she was at school. She found herself dawdling, though, wandering home the long way, window-shopping in places that normally she wouldn’t have given a second glance. Anything to avoid having to chat to Tiger. She felt bad about that. He was a nice enough bloke, but they had nothing to say to one another. What did he know about teenage girls? What did she know about middle-aged men, come to that? They seemed to have no point of connection other than her mum, and she was the one subject of conversation that they were both desperate to avoid. And so they hovered around each other in a strained kind of benign silence, neither having the raw materials nor the energy to begin a conversation other than to ask each other what they should eat. It was impossibly awkward, but there was nothing she could do to improve it. So, she spent as little time as she could at home, and when she was there, she hid herself away in her room to study or watch CSI on her laptop until it was time to go to bed.
It wouldn’t be forever, she told herself. It was October already and the arrangement was that he would leave once her exams were finished in June. But when she counted down the weeks on her calendar it felt like an impossibly long time.
41
‘Now, I don’t want you to worry,’ said Romany’s form tutor. ‘You still have plenty of time. The deadline isn’t for months yet. But we do find that it helps students to focus on their coursework when their UCAS applications have been finished and sent off.’
Romany wanted to cry. Didn’t she have enough to deal with? She knew what subject she wanted to study and where she wanted to go. Those decisions had been hard enough with everything else that had been going on. Wouldn’t that do? Why did she now have to go through all the hassle of actually filling in forms? Surely it would be simpler for everyone if she sent Durham an email explaining that this was what she wanted, and they would just say okay? Then she could just get on with the job of trying to get the grades.
It didn’t work like that, though. She had to fill in the form and write a personal statement to convince Durham that she was passionate about her subject and that they would be foolish to miss the opportunity of teaching her.
Unfortunately, this task was currently beyond her. She didn’t have the bandwidth for it. It was sitting pretty in the ‘too hard to achieve’ box. She had tried to make a start. There was a new folder on her laptop that contained a document handily titled ‘Personal Statement’, but every time she opened it and stared at the white page and its little blinking cursor her mind went blank. What could she possibly say about herself? What did she have to offer somewhere as prestigious as Durham University? She had never even been to Durham, but somehow she knew that that was where she needed to be. In Durham, she wouldn’t be the girl with the lost father and the dead mother. She would simply be Romany Osborne, biochemistry student, just like all the others.
Before her mum died, she had booked them on to the Open Day just like she was supposed to, but then her mum hadn’t felt that well on the day and they had put it off, saying to one another that they would go to the one in September instead. They hadn’t known then that there would barely be a September.
If Mum had been there, she would have helped her write something good for the form. Then again, if Mum had been here, she would have been able to do it by herself, because she would have been able get her thoughts to align themselves neatly in her head without everything becoming muddled and confused.
‘It won’t take too long once you start,’ said her tutor, cutting across her thoughts. She was speaking in that gentle voice that everyone seemed to use to her these days, the one that made Romany want to scream at them to stop treating her like a victim. ‘At least, you know where you want to go and which course, so that’s half the battle.’ She gave Romany a wan smile and Romany almost felt sorry for the woman. She doesn’t know what to say either, she thought. She’s probably been dreading this conversation for weeks, talked to her husband about it over a glass of wine in the evenings. ‘I have this poor girl in my Year 13 tutor group. Her mum has just died. It’s so tragic. Doesn’t it break your heart?’
That’s what Romany had become – a person who broke other people’s hearts. But that was going to change. She had to get a grip and show them all that she didn’t need their sympathy, that she was just the same person she had been before. And then maybe people would stop pussyfooting around her. It was her mum who had died, after all, and not her.
‘And I’m here to help you,’ her tutor continued. ‘If we work together, then I’m sure we can get this done and off in no time at all.’
‘Thank you,’ replied Romany, looking up and meeting her tutor’s eye for the first time in the conversation. ‘But it’s okay. I have someone who can help.’
At lunchtime she texted Maggie. Maggie was the one her mum had left in charge of this kind of stuff, so it was time for her to step up. And anyway, she liked Maggie a whole lot more than she liked her tutor.
Hi Auntie Maggie. Can you help me with my UCAS form please? R x
The text came straight back.
Of course. Are you still looking at biochemistry? I’ll do some research and we can go through it together. This evening?
Her mum was right. Maggie was possibly the most efficient person in the world.
Great. Come round after work.
Maggie turned up at ten past six with a selection box from Hotel Chocolat and a huge smile. She gave Romany a quick hug – nothing too showy or tear-inducing – and handed her the chocolates.
‘Sustenance,’ she said.
They sat at the kitchen table with a pad of paper, a selection of coloured pens and their laptops fired up and ready to go.
‘Right,’ said Maggie. ‘I’ve done some reading around, and it seems that this is all about the personal statement. You have to show the admissions tutors who you are, that you have the right qualities for university-level study and that you have a passion for the course you’re applying for. It’ll be a piece of cake!’
Romany nodded. It did sound easy when Maggie put it like that.
‘And you can apply for courses at five universities,’ Maggie said. ‘So, biochemistry across the board?’
‘Actually, I only want to go to Durham,’ said Romany.
Maggie eyed her curiously.
‘I’ve looked at all the other courses and the universities and that’s the only one.’
‘Okay,’ replied Maggie slowly. ‘That’s a bold decision. But if you’re certain that that’s what you want then I can’t see any reason why you can’t do that. I’m not sure school will like it, though.’
Romany shrugged. She didn’t really care what school thought.
‘You’re doing the right A levels so that’s no problem. And your predicted grades are . . .’
‘Three As,’ said Romany. ‘Or they were before . . .’
‘Don’t worry about that,’ said Maggie. ‘The main thing at this stage is that the university considers your application. We can worry about actually getting the grades later.’
They heard the front door opening and Romany saw Maggie start. Her hand went to check her hair and then to wipe any stray mascara from under her eye. Her mum had always said that these two fancied one another. Romany thought it was gross, old people flirting.
‘Hi, Tiger,’ Romany shouted brightly, pre-warning him that they had company.
Tiger sauntered in carrying two heavy-looking shopping bags.
‘Oh, hi Mags,’ he said when he saw her. He looked considerably less flustered than Maggie had done. ‘I got everything on the list except for the capers. No capers to be had for love nor money.’
‘Never mind,’ replied Romany. ‘Maggie and I are just working on my university application.’
Tiger nodded. ‘Mags is the ideal woman for that job,’ he said approvingly. ‘Where are you thinking?’
‘Durham,’ said Romany.
‘Ah,’ he replied, nodding again.
God, he’s useless, thought Romany. I bet he doesn’t even know where Durham is.
‘Beautiful city,’ he said. ‘The castle and cathedral are a UNESCO World Heritage Site, of course, and there are some amazing botanical gardens too. If you get the timing right, you can wander over Elvet Bridge when the sun is going down. The light there is just astounding. Top choice, Romey.’
Romany stared at him, open-mouthed.
‘Well, you’re a fount of knowledge,’ said Maggie. She sounded impressed as well.
‘How do you know all that stuff?’ asked Romany. ‘You sound like a travel guide.’
Tiger looked surprised to have been asked. ‘Well, I’ve been, haven’t I? It’s a gorgeous place. Tiny but jam-packed full of medieval history. It’s great.’
And then he started to unpack the shopping.
Maggie threw a glance at Romany, eyebrows raised, and they swapped an expression of pure incredulity.
