Impossible to Forget(63)

Angie could think of various things that would actually be worse, but this clearly wasn’t the time to start pointing out how much Maggie had to be grateful for. Instead, she threw an arm around Maggie’s shoulder. She felt her tense at the unaccustomed touch, but then she leant into the gesture and Angie squeezed harder.

‘So, have you given any thought as to what you’re going to do?’ asked Leon.

Maggie threw him a look that suggested that she had thought about little else, but then she shrugged. ‘Not really. Obviously, I’m being paid until the end of June. And I have plenty of savings, so money won’t be an issue. Not for a while, at least. But after that? I have no idea. Get another job, I suppose, although who would want me is a bit of a moot point.’

‘Of course they’ll want you,’ Angie said indignantly.

But she was talking about the other Maggie, she realised, the Maggie with a rock-solid plan who always got exactly what she shot for. She wasn’t sure who this new version of her friend was. And neither, it appeared, was Maggie.

‘Do you know what the hardest part is?’ Maggie asked, without looking at either Angie or Leon but focusing instead on the bustle around the bar. ‘If I’m not a solicitor then I have no idea who I’m supposed to be. For my entire life I have either been working towards becoming a solicitor or actually being one. I can’t remember a time when it wasn’t part of how I saw myself. And now that it’s gone, I’m not sure what else there is. Not much, basically.’

Her bottom lip began to tremble, revealing the effort that she was having to put into not crying.

‘But you’re still a solicitor,’ said Leon. ‘You’ll always be one.’

It wasn’t a helpful thing to say and Angie wanted to kick him under the table, but Maggie seemed to take it in the spirit that it had been offered. She gave him a wan smile.

‘Yes. But you take my point. No husband, no family, no social life to speak of, present company excepted. My work has pretty much been my life and my raison d’être. Now, if someone asks me who I am and what I do, I have absolutely nothing to say.’

Angie could see that she was really struggling to hold herself together.

‘I know it must feel like that now, Mags, but we all know that’s not true. We wouldn’t be friends with a loser like that, would we, Leon?’

Leon grinned. ‘No, we would not. Only the mega-successful can join our band,’ he said. He gave Maggie a look that Angie had never seen pass between them before, caring and almost intimate despite his jokey comment, and she wondered if there had been conversations between them that she hadn’t been privy to. She decided not. Leon was clearly as surprised by Maggie’s news as she was. But maybe there was something else that she’d missed.

‘Well, I’m glad it’s not just me whose life has turned to shit,’ Leon said, draining his glass and reaching for the bottle.

‘Oh Leon,’ Maggie said, ‘hark at me making it all about my problems, and I didn’t even ask how you were getting on. How are you?’

‘I’m okay,’ he said. ‘I’ve had longer to get used to my new status than you. And it’s all right really. I hadn’t been what Becky wanted me to be for a while. Well, forever really, but it took her the best part of twenty years to work out that she couldn’t mould me into her version of a perfect husband. So, when she suggested that our marriage had run its course, it was pretty easy just to agree with her. And living alone has a lot to commend it, I’m discovering. I can eat takeaway from the carton in my boxers and there’s no one there to object.’

‘Ew!’ squealed Angie. ‘Save us that particular mental image!’

Leon looked affronted. ‘There’s nothing there that you haven’t both experienced before,’ he said.

‘Well, I’m not sure that I want to experience it again!’ Angie said, and they all laughed more loudly than the comment deserved, a welcome relief from the tension.

The waitress arrived to take their order, but as no one had even opened their menu, Angie sent her away.

‘So, does that mean I’m the only one that has their shit together right now?’ she asked in delight. ‘Praise be! It’s a miracle! I’ve waited a bloody long time for my turn to come round.’

‘And talking of getting your shit together,’ said Leon, ‘have you heard from Tiger recently?’

Angie saw Maggie start at the mention of his name. It’s still there then, she thought idly, after all this time. There was something else as well. She thought she saw Leon’s jaw tighten slightly. Had he and Tiger had words last time he’d been home? That seemed unlikely, but she couldn’t think why else there might be any bad feeling between the two of them.

‘Not seen him for about a year,’ she said. ‘No, wait, it’ll be closer to two. God, is it really that long?’

‘Well, time is flying,’ Maggie said. ‘Evidence – one thirty-year reunion dinner.’

‘I suppose so,’ said Angie. ‘Last time I heard anything he was working at a diving school in the Caribbean. The Cayman Islands, I think, wherever they are.’

‘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.’