Impossible to Forget(35)

‘With you in them?’ said Tiger, his eyes wide. ‘How did that work?’

‘Well, as good as. The bastards cut all the branches so we couldn’t get down and then used cherry-pickers to pull protesters off. We held fast for as long as we could.’ Jax hung his head as if he was single-handedly responsible for the failure of the protests against the new road.

Angie put out a hand and stroked his back reassuringly.

‘Blimey!’ said Tiger, taking a swig of beer. ‘High drama in the treetops.’

He was grinning to himself as if he found the whole episode deeply entertaining, and Angie threw him a warning look. She was beginning to regret the four beers and not getting rid of Tiger when she’d had the chance.

‘It was bloody serious, mate,’ said Jax. ‘There were people there prepared to die for the cause. I mean, actually die.’

Angie thought that Tiger was going to laugh at that, but somehow he managed to swallow it.

‘I’m sure, mate. Big roads. Bad news. Seriously bad news,’ he said, shaking his head.

Angie could feel Jax’s body tensing beneath her. The last thing she needed was for these two to have a full-blown row.

‘Anyway,’ she said. ‘So, that’s where we met. Right, I’m suddenly knackered. How about we retire to the bedroom, Jax?’ She gave him a wink which under normal circumstances would have been signal enough, but Jax, it appeared, was still gunning for a fight with Tiger.

‘What you don’t seem to understand,’ he said pointedly, ‘is just how much damage the road is doing. We can’t replace all that woodland, you know. You can’t just plant a few trees and hey presto, it all grows back. It was a habitat for God knows how many different species. The mammals, of course. Everyone thinks about the badgers and the cute little rabbits. And the birds obviously lost their homes. But the insects and the plant life. And the microscopic organisms like lichen and fungi. They had been growing there forever, since the Big Bang for all we know. And then they were all gone. Just like that. Totally unforgivable.’

‘Yeah,’ said Tiger. ‘I can see that. Poor little bunnies.’

Jax sat up so quickly that Angie had to hold on to the sofa so that she didn’t get flung to the floor.

‘Are you always this much of an arse?’ he said to Tiger.

Tiger shrugged. ‘I’m just saying, man, that when you’ve seen as much of the planet as I have it’s hard to get too worked up about a tiny patch of woods in a tiny country like England. Destruction of the rainforests. Now there’s a serious issue. Destroying the ozone layer. Shit. Yes! Let’s get worked up about that. But a bunch of tree-huggers in leafy Berkshire – I’m sorry, but I just don’t see it.’

‘Boys, boys, let’s take this down a notch or two, shall we?’ said Angie. They weren’t boys, of course, but fully grown men, although their behaviour might suggest otherwise. ‘Let’s just agree to disagree, shall we?’

She pulled a meaningful face at Tiger, widening her eyes in her effort to get him to back off. She knew from experience that once Jax got the bit between his teeth it would be harder to distract him, and she really didn’t want her weekend spoiled by a stupid argument like this one.

‘Yeah, sorry,’ said Tiger. ‘I guess we all have causes that are close to our hearts.’

Jax didn’t reply, but that was good enough for her.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘We’ll see you tomorrow, Tiger. Sleep well.’

Tiger looked at the clock on the wall. ‘It’s eight forty-five,’ he said, as if he were a primary school child objecting to his bedtime. Then he caught her drift. ‘Ah, right. I’m a bit knackered myself as it goes. It’ll do me good to have an early night. I’ll see you two tomorrow.’

Angie mouthed ‘sorry’ at him and then took Jax’s hand. ‘Come on, you. Let’s go and catch up on what we’ve missed.’

She grabbed the last two beers out of the fridge and pulled a still fuming Jax into her bedroom, banging the door shut behind them.

‘That bloke is a total jerk,’ spat Jax almost before the door shut.

‘He’s all right, really,’ she replied, not wanting to irritate Jax any further but still feeling the need to defend Tiger. ‘He’s just not tuned into the stuff that we are. He travels so much that he finds it hard to focus on the micro. But his heart’s in the right place.’

Jax harrumphed, pacing up and down like a leopard. It wasn’t that big a space and he could only go a few steps before he had to turn round. Angie tried not to laugh at him. That really wouldn’t have helped.

She lowered herself down on to the bed and arranged herself provocatively.

‘Come and lie down, baby,’ she said. ‘Forget about Tiger.’

She patted the cover next to her but Jax was having none of it.

‘What’s the story, anyway, between you two?’ he asked.

Angie knew what he was getting at, but it really wasn’t going to make things any better if she gave him all the details.

‘We met on my year out,’ she said. ‘In India. And then I came home to go to uni and he stayed where he was. He’s been travelling ever since. He doesn’t have a base in the UK any more so if he comes back he floats around begging favours until it’s time to leave again.’