Impossible to Forget(8)

Leon shook his head.

‘Her name is Angie. She’s very . . .’ Maggie searched for the word. ‘Very . . . direct.’

‘So I see!’ replied Leon. ‘I bet she takes no prisoners. What’s she studying? Did she say?’

Maggie couldn’t swear to it, but she suspected that the expression on his face was one of admiration. Maybe he wasn’t that interesting after all, not if he found something to admire in Angie.

‘I didn’t ask,’ she said tightly.

‘I bet it isn’t law or chemical engineering,’ he said wistfully. ‘More’s the pity. She’d really up the ante in the lecture theatre.’

‘I’m not sure I need that kind of interesting in my lectures,’ said Maggie.

But Leon wasn’t really listening to her. His entire focus was on Angie.





5


Term was a few weeks old and a routine of sorts had begun to establish itself. Maggie now felt confident of where she was as she made her way around the university campus and no longer faced the ignominy of having to consult the huge maps that were scattered along the walkways for clues. The Law Department was fairly central and therefore easy to find, and she knew where the students’ union and her college bar were, not that she had frequented either much thus far.

Maggie had decided before she had even arrived in York that the typical student lifestyle was not for her. She wasn’t averse to the odd night out, she had thought, but rolling in in the wee small hours on a regular basis wasn’t something that she had intended to do.

Now that she was here, it seemed that her prediction had come true. Her big nights out were commendably few and far apart; however, this was not for the reasons that she might have thought before she arrived. The truth was that Maggie was not fully engaging in student life because she had no one to engage in it with.

It wasn’t as if she was shy. She had no difficulty in introducing herself to strangers or suggesting an arrangement of some sort to them. The problem lay in finding the kind of people for whom she would happily use up a precious evening, an evening when she might otherwise have been studying.

Maggie had been unimpressed with the people on her course, who all seemed to be terminally dull or a bit cliquey. This left her with the people in her college or, more specifically, her corridor, but the pickings for new friends seemed a little sparse there, too. She liked Leon well enough and they had been out for a drink a few times, but he would insist on inviting the girl from the room next to hers, Angie.

With Angie came crowds of people. They seemed to flock around her as if she were a prophet. Maggie wasn’t sure whether they all wanted to be her friend or were merely curious about her. A few weeks into term and Angie still looked as if she had just stepped off the beach. Maggie was beginning to conclude that this was just her style and it certainly distinguished her from everyone else.

However, Angie had not grown on Maggie. She was just as brash and direct and, well, rude, as Maggie had found her to be on her very first day of term, and so far she had done nothing to alter Maggie’s opinion of her. Their second encounter had been equally unpromising. Each corridor had a small kitchen at one end with a fridge, a hob and a microwave where students could make snacks for themselves if they got peckish or had missed the meal service in the refectory. Maggie, struggling with the food on offer there, had stocked her clearly labelled shelf of the fridge with the wherewithal for various meals. She had written on each packet with a permanent marker as well, so that there could be no confusion over what belonged to whom.

She had gone to prepare herself some beans on toast, but when she arrived Angie was already sitting at the tiny Formica table. She too had chosen beans for lunch and had a tall glass of milk at her elbow. It wasn’t until Maggie noticed the distinctive blue pattern on the plate that she was using that she became concerned. It wasn’t that she was mean, but this was her plate, and cutlery too for that matter, and she would rather not have to share, particularly when others’ standard of washing up did not always match her own.

‘I’d really rather you didn’t use my stuff,’ she said to Angie, trying to hit a note of friendly authority.

Angie looked at her blankly.

‘That plate. And that pan,’ Maggie clarified. ‘They’re both mine.’

‘Oh,’ replied Angie. ‘I thought they were for everyone to use. You know, communal.’

‘No,’ said Maggie. ‘They’re mine. I brought them from home.’

‘Sorry. Didn’t realise,’ Angie said.

Well, that was easy enough, thought Maggie. Hopefully she had made her point and there would be no repetition.

‘It’s just a plate, though,’ continued Angie. ‘I can’t see how it matters much.’

Maggie bridled a little. ‘Well, it’s just that when people use other people’s stuff, it means it’s not there when they want to use it themselves,’ she said. She was using her most balanced tone of voice, and what she was saying was so reasonable and obvious that she couldn’t quite understand how Angie could object.

‘Can’t you just use one of the others?’ Angie asked. ‘There are plenty in the cupboard.’

‘But then I’ll annoy someone else by taking their things. It just works best if everyone sticks to their own.’