Impossible To Forget, page 4
He smiled at her affectionately as he said this, which took the sting out of his words. Also, it was true – she was a goody-two-shoes. She was happy to claim the title. Doing as she was instructed was so much a part of who she was that the thought of being in contravention of something made her heart beat a little faster. Rules were rules and made to be followed, and her inclination to report any infringement felt almost as natural as breathing.
But then again, if she reported Tiger he would have to leave and that, she suddenly realised, would not be good. There was no denying he was attractive, but on top of that (and she certainly wouldn’t say this to anyone else) she had felt a definite spark between them. Their encounter had been over so quickly that it had barely had a chance to ignite into anything more obvious, but it had definitely been there.
‘Hmmm,’ she said to Leon. ‘Maybe you’re right, and I don’t suppose he’s doing any harm. It must be horribly cramped in there, though.’
‘I doubt they’ll have noticed,’ replied Leon.
He winked at her and she felt herself bristle. She did not want to think about whatever Angie and Tiger might be doing together in the tiny, untidy space.
Later, as she tried in vain to concentrate on her contract law essay, Maggie caught herself straining to pick up any noises coming from the next-door room that might give her more clues as to what was going on in there, but there was nothing. Either they were both very quiet in their lovemaking or there was not very much happening on that score. She really hoped it was the latter.
7
Over the next couple of days, Maggie found herself having to leave her room at the exact second she heard Angie’s bedroom door opening, but generally it was someone going into the room and not coming out and they disappeared without giving her a chance to strike up a casual conversation. Finally, though, the timing worked, and she emerged at precisely the right moment to speak to whoever it was. Her heart plummeted, though, when she saw that it was Angie and not Tiger.
Despite what Maggie felt was a tangible antipathy demonstrated towards Angie on her own part, Angie didn’t seem to have noticed, but then Angie appeared to breeze through her life without being troubled by whether she was upsetting anyone else. She continued to ‘borrow’ Maggie’s food from the fridge without ever replacing it and when Maggie’s crockery was no longer available to her, she had just moved on to using someone else’s. It was as if other people’s lives made no impact on hers whatsoever, and Maggie had decided that her own life would work best if she was friendly, but not friends, with Angie.
But now, as she had orchestrated a bumping into her in the corridor, she couldn’t waste the opportunity to get more information out of her about the mysterious man in her room.
‘Hi, Angie,’ she opened. ‘How are you?’
‘Sound,’ replied Angie. If she was surprised at the uncharacteristic attempt at conversation, she didn’t show it. ‘You?’
Maggie nodded. ‘Good, thanks. My course seems to be going well at least.’
Angie turned to head up the corridor, already bored by what Maggie had to say so Maggie spoke more quickly.
‘I bumped into your friend, Tiger, the other day. Literally walked right into him.’
‘Oh yeah. He said. Said he nearly showed you his crown jewels by accident!’
Angie grinned at her. She was pretty when she smiled, Maggie thought, less ‘too cool for school’, and she felt an absurd wave of pleasure that Tiger had mentioned their encounter. He must have noticed that spark, as well.
‘He seems nice,’ Maggie continued.
‘Yeah, he’s great. I met him when I was travelling in my year out.’
Well, that made sense, thought Maggie. He too had that worldliness about him that Angie had and that the rest of them, there fresh from school, seemed to lack.
‘And is he studying here too?’ Maggie asked, hoping that her questioning sounded more natural than it felt.
‘God, no! He’s just passing through on his way to Thailand.’
‘Ah,’ replied Maggie.
A sense of disappointment settled heavily over her. He had only come to visit Angie and wasn’t staying. Whatever that little frisson between them had been, it was clearly going to amount to nothing. Angie set off again, but after a few steps she stopped and turned back to face Maggie. Her eyes ran up and down her as she weighed something up, and Maggie tried not to feel judged.
‘Actually,’ Angie said after a moment, ‘we were thinking of having a bit of a gathering here tonight. Come if you’re free. Bring a bottle.’
And then she was gone, breezing up the corridor, trailing a silk scarf and the unmistakable smell of patchouli in her wake.
A gathering. What was that? A party? Something else? Maggie hadn’t been invited to either gatherings or parties thus far. She wasn’t really sure what the form was, but she was definitely interested. As soon as she was certain that Angie had gone, she crossed the corridor and knocked lightly on Leon’s door, but there was no answer. She tried again a little louder, but he clearly wasn’t inside. He probably wouldn’t know what Angie meant by a gathering either. His social life wasn’t much better than hers.
As she let herself back into her own room, she decided that she would go whether Leon was invited or not. She’d be able to hear what was going on through her wall in any event, so there would be little chance of getting any work done. And even if Tiger was spoken for, at least she could gaze at him for a bit. There was nothing wrong with that.
She had better buy herself a bottle.
As Maggie had thought, there was no danger of not hearing the gathering once it got underway, and she was ready to join the fun. She had put clean jeans on and a newish top and taken more care than usual over her make-up. The result wasn’t at all bad, she decided as she looked at herself in the mirror.
Now, though, she had to decide how to arrive. By the sound of it, things had spread out from Angie’s room and into the corridor right outside her door. There was music playing and she could hear talking and laughter. It sounded like they were having fun, whoever they were.
However, it was one thing knowing that there was a party to which she was invited happening right outside her room, but it was quite another just opening her door and joining in. She doubted she would know anyone there. The people she had seen from Angie’s sociology course, whilst not looking as bohemian as Angie, were still quite intimidating in their coolness. Maggie refused to be daunted by them, but all the same . . . She really hoped that Leon was out there. It would be okay if she could just go and sit with him. But how could she tell until she opened her door? And once she had done that she could hardly just close it again and slink back into her room, not without provoking some comment or other, when they were literally right outside.
Oh, this was ridiculous. She was an adult. She should just open the door and join in and if she decided it wasn’t for her, then she could wander off to the college bar instead and pretend that that had been her plan all along. She took a deep breath, ran her hands though her hair and pulled her shoulders back. Then she picked up the bottle and opened the door.
There weren’t as many people as she had imagined there would be, based on the volume. A little group of four or five sat on the floor between her room and Leon’s, and Angie was lying on her stomach, her head supported on her hands and her body half-in, half-out of her room. There was no sign of Tiger.
‘Room for a little one?’ Maggie asked, and she dropped to her bottom and sat cross-legged on the floor outside her door. Immediately she twisted the cap on her bottle of Thunderbird and took a swig. Normally she would have brought a glass with her, but she hadn’t wanted to appear prissy. The cheap wine tasted sharp on her tongue, but she could feel the alcohol starting to work almost at once.
‘Absolutely,’ said a boy she hadn’t seen before, and he opened up the little circle so that Maggie wasn’t sitting on top of him.
‘Everyone, this is Maggie,’ said Angie. ‘She’s doing law, though God only knows why anyone would want to.’
‘You do know that the law is a social construct designed to . . .’ began another who was wearing a heavy donkey jacket with a Coal not Dole badge on the lapel. The halls of residence were notoriously warm and he must have been roasting hot dressed up like that, Maggie thought.
‘Oh, shut up, Dave,’ said Angie. ‘Leave her alone. And anyway, it’s far too early for that kind of talk.’
She gave Maggie a wink and Maggie felt a rush of gratitude. She could more than hold her own in a debate, but she would rather get the lie of the land before she marched into battle.
‘We were just discussing whether I should stand for something in the Student Union elections,’ continued Angie. ‘If you want to be president in the third year then you have to have had a couple of other jobs under your belt before then, to get a bit of a track record so that people will vote for you.’
‘And do you want to be president?’ Maggie asked incredulously. The idea of standing for office wasn’t something that had ever crossed her mind, but even as she spoke her brain was considering whether it might be a useful thing to have on her CV.
Angie tipped her head to one side whilst she considered. ‘I haven’t really decided,’ she said, as if the taking of the position was entirely in her own gift and not the outcome of a highly competitive election, ‘but I just think there are issues that need to be addressed that aren’t being. Getting kids from non-privileged backgrounds to uni for a start. Making sure that everyone gets a bite at the cherry no matter who they are and where they’re from. I mean, most people made it here because their parents supported them, gave them aspirations and encouragement.’ She pulled a face that Maggie couldn’t quite interpret – anger, maybe, or bitterness, and then continued. ‘But there are loads of others who are perfectly smart enough to get the grades, but no one backs them. It probably never occurs to them to even try to get into uni, and they just end up doing the same as everyone they know, so nothing ever changes. Unless someone shakes things up, of course.’
Maggie listened intently. This was the first time she had heard Angie talking like this. Yes, there was plenty of political chat around campus – the plight of the miners, what people would do to Margaret Thatcher if they ran into her on a dark night – but this was the first time Maggie had heard anyone talking from the heart about something that really mattered to them. And this was important to Angie; that much was clear from the conviction in her voice.
But then, as if she had let more of herself show than she’d intended, Angie changed the subject. ‘Get out here, Tiger,’ she called behind her into her room, ‘and bring that bloody guitar. You must have found it by now. It’s not like there are many places it could be hiding!’
At the mention of his name, Maggie felt her heart lurch and she took another swig of her wine, more to disguise the lurch than anything else.
And then Tiger appeared.
It was the first time Maggie had seen him since the towel incident and she had forgotten just how very sexy he was. This time he was wearing battered 501s and a plain white T-shirt that showed off his out-of-season tan to perfection. Maggie almost gasped at the sight of him. He was holding a guitar that was almost entirely covered with stickers of all shapes and sizes and he looped the strap around his neck and strummed a couple of chords as he lowered himself to the ground.
‘When did you last play this baby, Angie? She sounds bloody awful.’
Angie shrugged and Tiger began to tune the guitar, working his way down each string in turn until he was satisfied.
‘Any requests?’ he asked the group, but when no one spoke he began to pick out the first few arpeggios of ‘The House of the Rising Sun’. He was surprisingly good, and his fingers moved confidently across the frets. Then he began to sing. He sang less well than he played, but it was still good to listen to and Maggie was transfixed. There was something magical about a person who could play an instrument whilst their peers watched. It wasn’t so much the skill itself – she had piano to Grade 8 – but the unflustered self-confidence that it took to display their abilities to others. In Maggie’s experience that part was rare and, she discovered now, extremely attractive. Then someone else began to join in, but their contribution was more of a wail than an actual tune and the moment was spoiled. Tiger kept playing the melody but he stopped singing to allow the others their comedy moments.
After that they worked their way through a repertoire of Doors and Beatles classics, although it was rare that anyone knew the words to an entire song. Tiger would play the opening chords of something to great enthusiasm, but then moved on when it fell flat due to a lack of lyrics.
‘Where did you learn to play?’ Maggie asked him when he finally stopped to take a drink.
Tiger shrugged. ‘Just picked it up, I suppose. I spend a lot of time in hostels and there’s not much to do in the evenings. It just kind of rubbed off.’ He looked at her as he spoke, his eyes meeting hers and Maggie felt it again – that indefinable something.
‘You’re really good,’ she said, with a smile that she hoped expressed her thoughts. She was going to have to create an opportunity for them to be by themselves, and she thought wistfully of her beautifully tidy bedroom just the other side of the door. Maybe when the party started to break up a little, or if the others went off in search of more fun elsewhere . . . He winked at her and her insides wobbled a little.
‘Oh look. A party in my corridor,’ said a familiar voice to her left, cutting across her thoughts.
She hadn’t noticed Leon arrive – when did you notice Leon at all, really? – but here he was, and if she didn’t play the situation carefully, he would attach himself to her and spoil whatever chance she might have with Tiger.
‘Hi,’ she said, a little brusquely.
‘Hi!’ said Tiger with far more enthusiasm. ‘I’m Tiger. Mate of Angie’s. And you are?’
‘Leon,’ said Leon. ‘That’s my room there.’ He nodded at his door, now totally inaccessible for the mess of sprawling students that lay in front of it.
‘Have a drink, Leon,’ said Tiger, pulling one of his cans free from its plastic ring and passing it to him.
‘Cheers,’ said Leon. ‘I’ll just . . .’ He leaned over the throng, unlocked his door and chucked his rucksack on to his unmade bed.
‘Is that a sax?’ asked Tiger, peering inside the room.
The saxophone sat, as it had done since the beginning of the year, on its stand in the corner. Maggie had never seen Leon play it. It had even crossed her mind that he had only brought it as an accessory to decorate his room, a kind of pointer to the sort of person that he aspired to be, like a record collection or bookshelf. She had asked him about it once, but he had just brushed her off. He hadn’t offered to show her or even seemed prepared to talk about it. If he could actually play, then the contrast between him and the confident and relaxed way that Tiger handled Angie’s guitar couldn’t have been more marked.
Today, at least, the instrument was free of underwear adornments. Maggie waited to see how Leon would reply.
Simply, it appeared.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘I assume you play,’ Tiger pressed.
‘I do,’ said Leon.
It was like the two of them were stalking one another with their words.
‘Go on then,’ challenged Tiger.
Maggie watched with interest. She assumed that Leon would respond in that shy, modest way that most people did when asked to play in public. That would certainly accord with what she knew about him. And Tiger was so chilled and cool that that alone would surely put Leon off.
So, when Leon said, ‘Okay,’ and stood up, she couldn’t have been more surprised. Her feelings changed then to something more protective. She liked Leon. She didn’t want these people to laugh at him, to snigger behind his back. He had missed Tiger’s turn and so didn’t know how well he had played, that the musical bar had already been set quite high. Part of her wanted to cause a distraction so that he didn’t have to put himself through the embarrassment.
But Leon wasn’t a child, and she wasn’t his mother.
She watched as he attached the strap to the saxophone and looped it over his head. He took the cap off the mouthpiece and licked the reed, making sure it was suitably damp. Then he put the instrument to his lips and blew.
8
He played Gershwin’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue’.
The opening trill caught the assembled crowd. Hands holding drinks hovered in the space between waist and mouth as surprise and then astonishment circulated. The music was lilting. The notes hung in the air, suspended on invisible threads and then faded and disappeared only to be replaced by others so entirely perfect that it was hard to believe that they hadn’t been there all the time. They twisted and turned, were bent in and out of shape, grew and were then dismissed as Leon’s fingers moved across the valves. It was as if the music had taken hold of them, hold of the air even, and kept them motionless, like a charm.
Maggie felt her jaw drop.
How was this unassuming boy, who she’d thought she was getting to know quite well, capable of producing such a beautiful sound and yet she hadn’t known, had had no idea whatsoever? How had he kept it hidden? Why didn’t his talent just shine out of him from the moment he woke up in the morning, in his sleep even! There was absolutely nothing about Leon, no clue whatsoever, that might give away this part of him.
Angie was the first to break the spell.
‘Bloody hell, Leon!’ she said. ‘You kept that quiet. You play like a pro. A real pro.’ She cast her gaze around the collected group for confirmation of her thoughts.
‘Respect, man!’ said Tiger. ‘Wow! I mean, just WOW.’
Leon, who seemed to have been transported to some other plane whilst playing, lowered the sax and looked at his feet and suddenly the Leon that Maggie knew, self-effacing, a bit nerdy and bland, reappeared. He shrugged one shoulder but didn’t seem to know what to say.
