Impossible to Forget(80)

‘I missed my chance there, then,’ Tiger replied and winked at Romany, who wrinkled her nose in teenage disdain.

That was all it was for Tiger, Maggie told herself. A chance. And suddenly she wasn’t quite sure how she had let her infatuation with him run for so many years. Tiger had never been what she needed. And never would be.

‘And Ange tells me you’re not soliciting any more,’ he continued, oblivious to the seismic shift that had just happened in her head.

Maggie rolled her eyes. This was the real Tiger – always light-hearted, up for the cheap gag. If he had made the ‘soliciting’ joke once over the years, he must have made it a thousand times.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I gave it up about a year ago.’

Admitting this was also hard, and didn’t seem to be getting any easier with time. Would she ever get used to it, the change in her status? It still hurt to admit that she had lost her prized career, and the reframing of the facts to something that sounded as if it had been her decision just made it worse, but she still couldn’t bring herself to be honest and tell enquirers that she had been let go.

‘What happened a year ago, then,’ he asked, ‘to bring about all this change?’

Maggie shrugged. ‘The gods must have been bored that week,’ she said with a laugh.

‘Gods my arse,’ said Angie. ‘It was the universe telling you that you needed to change direction. You just haven’t quite worked out which way up the map goes yet, have you, Mags?’

‘No. Not quite yet,’ replied Maggie.

How did Angie do that? How did she seem to know the things that Maggie hadn’t yet fathomed for herself? It was very discombobulating.

‘What are you doing instead?’ asked Tiger.

‘Oh, I’ve got a little job working front of house in an architect’s practice in town.’

Tiger pulled a face. ‘All those brains and qualifications and you’re working as a receptionist? Something doesn’t add up there.’

‘It’s not so bad,’ replied Maggie, trying hard not to sound defensive. ‘Obviously, it doesn’t pay as well as what I was doing, but my needs are very simple, and it is nice to go home at the end of the day and not have to think about work until you turn up again the next morning.’ This was her pat answer, the one she had trotted out to everyone who had asked the question. It almost sounded true.

‘And I’m earning plenty,’ added Leon. ‘So she’s not going to starve.’

Maggie knew that he meant this to be supportive and wasn’t in any way boastful, but she felt her jaw tighten all the same. Not only did it make it sound as if she couldn’t look after herself, but it might also have been taken as a bit of a sideswipe at Tiger, who only ever seemed to have enough money to last him to the end of the week. Deep down, she knew that Leon didn’t mean it like that, and Tiger wouldn’t have taken it that way either. The only person with an issue here was her. Belatedly, she gave Leon a weak smile and hoped that he hadn’t noticed her delayed response.

‘And what about you?’ she asked Tiger, anxious to divert the attention from her. ‘What’s next?’

Tiger gave a sigh, as if his plans were equivalent to a job. ‘Newcastle tomorrow for a while and then up north. I fancy seeing the Orkneys.’

‘It’s beautiful up there,’ Leon said. ‘Quiet, unspoilt.’

‘I should fit right in then.’ Tiger laughed, and they all laughed with him.

‘Can I change the music?’ asked Romany. ‘Something a bit more up to date? It’s like The Place Music Goes to Die in here.’

Angie leant over the back of the sofa and put her arms around her daughter, resting her chin on her shiny hair. She kissed her lightly on the top of her head.

‘If you must,’ she said, ‘but then we need to go back to the eighties stuff later.’

Romany rolled her eyes at the prospect and then changed the music from her phone. Maggie didn’t recognise the song but it was a female vocalist with an acoustic guitar and it reflected nicely the new, thoughtful mood that had taken over the room. Romany, it seemed, was blessed with her mother’s levels of perception.

Maggie lowered herself carefully to the floor, conscious that her knees weren’t quite as robust as they once were, and sat crossed-legged on the rug. Angie came round to join her. She might be carrying a little more weight than Maggie was around the middle, but Angie could still knock her into a cocked hat on flexibility. She sank to the rug in one fluid movement without even using her hands and tucked her legs up under her in a way that Maggie could now only dream of.

‘Look at us,’ Angie said affectionately. ‘We’ve known each other for more than thirty years, we’re all completely different. And I mean, completely.’ She pressed the word for emphasis. ‘And yet, here we all are. Still enjoying each other’s company, still looking out for one another. Who’d have thought it, eh?’

Maggie smiled. ‘Who’d have guessed that when you walked into my student room, unannounced I might add, and uninvited, demanding toilet paper . . .’

‘I didn’t demand!’ objected Angie.

‘I bet you did,’ said Romany, and Maggie raised one eyebrow and nodded at her as if to say you bet your life she did.

‘. . . demanding toilet paper,’ she continued, ‘little did I think that we would be sitting here tonight, still friends after all this time.’