Impossible to Forget(26)

‘So, they might not show up until after the pubs shut, then?’ asked Maggie.

She tried not to let her irritation show, but this was so typically Angie. Maggie didn’t want loads of people she didn’t know arriving at the house at midnight. That wasn’t what she wanted at all, but as the evening wore on and the guests were still conspicuous by their absence, it looked as if she would get her way. No one came.

‘We don’t need anyone else, anyway,’ said Angie, her voice slurring a little as the clock ticked past ten. ‘We’re a party all by ourselves.’

She turned up the volume and ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’ filled the room.

‘The perfect tune,’ she said, sashaying over to where Tiger was sitting on the sagging sofa. ‘I can’t believe you’re abandoning me again,’ she added as she grabbed his hand and pulled him to his feet, almost losing her balance in the process.

‘You could always come with me,’ replied Tiger, immediately finding the beat and moving smoothly into a bouncing movement. He looked as if dancing came as naturally to him as walking. Maggie’s dance style was more step than dance, with a bit of jumping up and down if she’d had too much to drink. She’d like to dance with Tiger, she thought, but having seen him move, her confidence deserted her. She reached for her plastic cup instead and took a deep slug of the eye-watering punch.

‘I can’t,’ shouted Angie, having turned the music up to its maximum. ‘I like it here and I’ve got a degree to get.’

Tiger took her hand and spun her in and out whilst Maggie watched. Part of her longed for it to be her that Tiger was dancing with like that and part of her was relieved that it wasn’t. She had another drink.

‘I’ve got an idea,’ said Leon, disappearing into the kitchen and emerging seconds later with the cornflakes box. He set it on the floor. ‘So, you have to pick the box up in your teeth, but you’re only allowed to have your feet on the floor.’

Maggie wasn’t keen on drinking games as a rule, but this one sounded innocuous enough.

‘Okay,’ said Angie, still dancing with Tiger. ‘Show us how it’s done.’

Leon bent over and easily took the box between his teeth and stood up. He grinned like the cat that had got the cream.

‘I’m not being funny, mate,’ said Tiger, ‘but that’s the crappest game I’ve ever seen.’

Leon raised an eyebrow, unfazed by the criticism. ‘Go on then, Tiger. Be my guest.’ He gestured at the box.

Tiger took a step towards it, looked at it and then began to bend down. It quickly became apparent that he didn’t have the flexibility that Leon had. He straightened up and tried again, this time bending one knee rather than both, and managed to get his face closer to the box but not close enough to pick it up.

‘God, Tiger, you’re rubbish at this,’ laughed Angie. ‘Let me have a go.’

Angie picked the box up but didn’t make it look as easy as Leon had done. ‘Ta dah!’ she said through gritted teeth, the box wavering in the air.

Maggie knew that she was going to have to take her turn, but she had absolutely no idea whether this was something that she could do or not. She didn’t want to look like an idiot if she couldn’t, but she knew she’d look worse if she didn’t try at all.

Angie put the box down. ‘Your turn, Mags,’ she said.

Maggie had rarely felt quite so self-conscious as she folded her body in two and reached for the box, but then was delighted to discover that picking it up was easy. A wave of relief rushed through her.

‘Let me have another go,’ said Tiger and, by copying the one-legged approach that Angie had adopted, he managed to pick the box up without falling over.

‘Okay,’ said Leon, plucking the box from Tiger’s teeth. ‘Now we tear this off’ – he tore a strip of cardboard from the top of the box – ‘and have another go.’

‘I’m going to need another drink if I’m going to get all the way down there,’ laughed Tiger.

They kept going round and round. Tiger dropped out on round three and Angie toppled over on round five and declared herself out. That just left Maggie and Leon. As each bent lower over the remains of the cereal box, Angie and Tiger cheered and whooped as if it were an Olympic sport.

Maggie hadn’t thought herself to be particularly competitive, but with the punch racing round her bloodstream and Tiger watching her, she found that she really wanted to win. As the box got lower and lower the feeling grew. Leon was stiff competition, though, and they matched each other until there were only a couple of inches left of the box.

Leon went first. He was still making it look easy, his hips and torso allowing him to bend low enough. It looked as if he could have licked the carpet if he’d needed to.

It was less easy for Maggie. There was a real danger that she would topple over and land on her nose. She repositioned herself, planting her feet further apart, but then she lost her balance and fell. Rolling on to her back, she grinned up at the three faces looking down at her.

‘I give up!’ she said. ‘You win, Leon.’

Leon began a celebratory circuit of the room, arms raised and cheering, and Angie tucked in behind him. Tiger dropped and straddled Maggie, pinning her arms down with his knees.

‘Got you,’ he said. ‘There’s no escape.’