Impossible to Forget(9)

‘Well, I don’t have any so that doesn’t work very well for me,’ Angie replied.

‘That’s hardly my fault,’ said Maggie under her breath.

It was all right though. Maggie wasn’t petty-minded. On this one occasion, she would use somebody else’s things herself and then, when there was nobody looking, she would gather up all her items and take them out of harm’s way.

She opened her cupboard to get her last tin of beans, but it wasn’t there. In fact, her tuna, pasta and a tin of rice pudding that she had been saving for a special occasion all seemed to have disappeared too. Maggie opened the fridge. Her loaf of bread was down to the crusts and someone had put her milk bottle back in even though there was nothing but the last dregs left in the bottom.

‘Are you eating my food?’ she asked, outraged.

‘Dunno,’ said Angie. ‘It was in that cupboard. I’ll get you some more when I get a minute.’

‘And what am I supposed to do now?’

‘The shop’s open until five. You could get something there.’

The cheek of her. Maggie could hardly believe what she was hearing. The idea of taking someone else’s food without permission was so alien to her that she couldn’t quite get her head around it. And did Angie really expect her to replace her own stuff?

‘I can’t believe you!’ she said. ‘You eat my food and then, instead of offering to replace it, you suggest that I go out and get it myself!’

Angie put the last forkful of food in her mouth and then sat back and stared at Maggie, as if it was her who was being unreasonable. ‘I don’t know why you’re getting your knickers in such a twist. It’s only a tin of beans.’

‘And bread. And half a pint of milk! You can’t just take what you want, you know. It doesn’t work like that.’

Angie shrugged. Then she stood up, dropped her dirty plate into the sink on top of the pan and left the kitchen. Maggie just stood there open-mouthed, for a moment too flabbergasted to speak.

Then her full fury filled her. She stormed after Angie and shouted up the corridor at her retreating back. ‘You can’t just leave it like that. Get back here and wash my stuff up!’

But Angie had reached her room, opened her door and let it close behind her without even turning round.

‘And I want my food all replaced by the end of tomorrow,’ Maggie continued, although there was no point at all. Angie wasn’t listening.

Indignation fanned the flames of her anger as she took all the dishes out of the sink and ran hot water into it. She accidentally squirted in more washing-up liquid than was necessary as her fingers squeezed tightly around the bottle. The waste also made her curse Angie under her breath. How dare she? And to be so blatant. And with absolutely no hint of an apology. It beggared belief. Maggie fumed away under her breath as she washed all her things and dried them on her neatly pressed tea towel. She was still muttering to herself as she carried all her possessions from the communal kitchen back to the safety of her room.





6


It was during the Easter term in her first year when Maggie met Tiger. She ran into him, quite literally, as he headed into Angie’s room and she headed out of hers. She was racing to her afternoon lecture, uncharacteristically late, having become absorbed in an episode of Neighbours. She’d opened her door and launched herself at speed at exactly the moment a tall, tanned Adonis of a young man, dressed only in a barely adequate hand towel, had stepped across the corridor to open Angie’s door. Maggie’s momentum meant that she ricocheted off him, dropping her bag and very nearly ending up on the floor herself. A lever arch file full of notes sprang open as it hit the ground and disgorged its contents in a disorderly muddle on the carpet.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she began, bending to retrieve her notes whilst making sure that her gaze didn’t settle on the skimpy towel.

‘Hey. Someone’s in a hurry,’ said the man. ‘It’s not good for you, you know. Stress.’

He bent down to help her with her things, holding the towel in place around his waist with one hand, and their heads almost touched, his blond and tousled, hers dark and tightly pinned back. She could smell peppermint toothpaste on his breath and his skin was still damp from a recent shower, but she was so flustered that she barely allowed herself to make eye contact with him.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Sorry. I’m late for my lecture. Or nearly late.’

‘I’m sure they won’t start without a beautiful creature like you,’ he said.

It was the corniest line Maggie had heard in quite some time, but somehow when it came out of his mouth it sounded entirely reasonable. She could feel her cheeks flame.

The papers regathered, they stood up and he raised a hand – the one not protecting his dignity – in a wave of sorts.

‘I’m Tiger,’ he said. ‘Mate of Angie’s. And you are . . . ?’

‘Maggie,’ she managed. ‘I live next door,’ she added, and then could have kicked herself, as that much was probably obvious. ‘And I need to go. Nice to meet you . . .’ She wanted to repeat his name, to attach some significance to the delivery of it, but was stymied. Surely, he wasn’t really called Tiger. Who would do that to their child? Instead, her sentence seemed to float in the air unfinished.