Impossible To Forget Page 2

  ‘Does anyone have any questions?’ she asked them.

  Leon looked as if he wanted to say something but then seemed to think better of it.

  ‘When do I have to move in?’ asked Tiger.

  ‘That is a matter for you and Romany to agree,’ the solicitor replied. ‘As far as I am concerned it could happen today.’

  Romany gave Tiger a weak smile and nodded as if this proposal was acceptable to her.

  ‘Well, if that’s everything, my secretary will give you your copies of the documents as you leave. If anything occurs to you later, please feel free to ring.’

  The solicitor stood to indicate that the meeting was now over, and one by one the guardians followed suit and then trooped out into the reception area, each nodding their thanks as they passed her.

  As Romany left, the solicitor placed a hand on her arm. ‘Your mother was a lovely woman,’ she said. It was unlike her to make such a personal statement and she was surprised that this one had slipped out, but then Angie Osborne had been a surprising person.

  As she tidied the meeting room for its next occupants, the solicitor let her mind drift over the oddness of what had just happened. Then she looked at her watch and after that she didn’t give the matter another thought.

  2

  ‘Shall we find a café?’ asked Maggie as the five of them stepped out of the solicitor’s office and into the street beyond. ‘I don’t know about you lot, but I wouldn’t mind a little chat about what just happened.’

  ‘Café be damned,’ said Tiger. ‘What we need is a pub and a stiff drink.’

  Leon nodded and Maggie noticed that his bottom lip was trembling as he fought to control his emotions. He had always been prone to tears, right back from when they were teenagers. It could be irritating at times but now she found it endearing and she would have comforted him, except that Tiger was there. She herself felt strangely calm, her tears, for now at least, boxed away out of sight. It wouldn’t help anyone if she got upset as well.

  ‘Actually,’ said Romany, ‘I have to get back to school. I’ve already missed double chemistry.’

  Tiger shook his head disbelievingly. ‘What does that matter, Romey? They’ll make allowances. Your mum just died.’

  Maggie’s head whipped round and she frowned at him. The last thing they needed was for Tiger to start passing his questionable values on to Romany, or the four of them would fail before they had even begun.

  ‘What?!’ Tiger said, palms and eyebrows raised. ‘She did! And school shouldn’t expect Romey to go in, not so soon.’

  ‘But I want to go,’ objected Romany. ‘I’ve missed enough already. And the one thing Mum really wanted was for me to do well in my A levels. I’ll be back at the flat later if anyone needs me.’

  ‘I’ll see you there, then, roomy,’ replied Tiger, and held his hand up for a high five. Romany ignored it.

  ‘For God’s sake, Tiger,’ muttered Maggie. ‘Are you sure you’re okay, Romey? You know we’re here for you, don’t you?’ She gave Tiger a withering glance. ‘You just need to ask us.’

  Romany nodded. ‘I’m fine, Auntie Maggie,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you later.’

  It felt incongruous that Romany still called her ‘auntie’. Maggie wasn’t an aunt, was no relation at all, and using the old-fashioned label had never seemed to fit with Angie’s relaxed attitude to life. And yet she had insisted on it, as if by making Romany call her ‘auntie’ it would give her daughter something she lacked – an extended family. Maggie, herself an only child, had no children of her own, but Romany was like the niece she would never have.

  They found a pub and went inside. It was more of a bar than a pub, with lots of light and space designed for standing rather than sitting, but it suited their purposes.

  ‘What’s everyone having?’ asked Leon as they settled at one of the few tables. They glanced at one another before placing an order, each seeking permission from the others.

  ‘I think I might need a brandy,’ said Maggie, and as she did so she felt Tiger relax at her side.

  ‘Me too,’ he said quickly. ‘Bit of a shock, all that.’

  There was a pause. Maggie wasn’t going to be the first to offer to go to the bar and consequently pay for the round. That was the thing with people you had known for most of your life. They always came up true to form. Tiger never had a bean to his name. How he had made it through the last thirty years or so she had no idea. And here he was again, sitting on his hands. She counted off the seconds in her head. One, two, three . . .

  ‘I’ll go,’ said Leon, just as she had known he would.

  ‘No, I’ll get this first one,’ she replied. It wasn’t fair for Leon to get caught up in the mind games she played with Tiger. ‘What would you like, Leon? Hope?’

  ‘I’ll just have half a lager shandy,’ said Leon. ‘I need to be getting back to work.’ He checked his watch as he spoke.

  ‘Mineral water,’ said Hope, and Maggie felt the small knot of resentment in her stomach tighten a little more. She needed to get over that now that Hope was going to be around for the foreseeable future, but would it hurt the woman to say ‘please’?

  Maggie bought the round, distributed the glasses and then resettled herself at the table. They all took a sip of their drinks, no one wanting to be the first to pass comment. Tiger took a second swig and then downed the rest of his brandy in one.

  Maggie blew out her lips. ‘Well,’ she said, sitting back in her chair, ‘I didn’t see that coming, did you? God bless Angie but, bloody hell, she certainly knew how to put cats amongst pigeons.’

  ‘She did indeed,’ replied Leon, nodding slowly. ‘And I’m not very clear on what she wants us to do, on a day-to-day basis, I mean. I’m supposed to help Romany with her reading and going to the pictures and so forth, but how do I actually go about that? Do I send her books, or a reading list maybe? It seems a bit prescriptive. She’s a teenage girl. I’m not sure we’ll have much crossover in our tastes. Or perhaps I should make sure she’s read certain books, like as part of her general education? I wish Angie had given us a few more clues.’

  ‘Well, that was Angie all over,’ replied Maggie. ‘Vague. Remember that time she took us all on a magical mystery tour and it turned out she had no idea where we were going either?’

  A fond smile rippled around the table.

  ‘And her cooking!’ said Tiger. ‘Some of the things we ended up eating just because that was what she had in. Do you remember when she put bananas in the pasta sauce because we didn’t have any veg?’

  He ran a hand through his sun-bleached hair. It was starting to turn grey, Maggie noticed, although the strands were well disguised by the blond. It was thinning on top, too. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to look less bronzed beach bum and more ageing hippy. He still had that magical something, though, she thought. She batted the inconvenient thought away.

  They sat for a moment, each lost in their own memories. Hope, perching on the front of her chair and ready to leap up at any second, kept looking up at the clock above the bar. Okay, Maggie thought, she couldn’t join in with their reminiscing, not having been part of their group, but did she have to make her lack of interest so very obvious? Maggie could feel her resentment growing stronger. Soon it would have little legs and everything. Why had Angie got Hope involved anyway? Couldn’t she just have stuck to her old friends when allocating the tasks? It would have made life so much simpler. Now, as well as trying to work out how to make things work for Romany, they were going to have to get a measure of Hope on top. It was an added layer of complication that they didn’t need.

  ‘I’m not sure what I’m meant to do either,’ said Tiger. ‘She gives me travel to mentor and then makes me stay in her flat! It makes no sense. I haven’t lived in one place since I left home when I was Romany’s age.’

  This wasn’t true, Maggie knew; of course he had. What he meant was that he had been unable to settle in any one place. He did have a point, though. It was ironic that he sh
ould be given travel and then asked to stay put.

  ‘If you think about it,’ said Leon quietly, ‘it makes perfect sense. You can just move in there at the drop of a hat. All your stuff is in that blessed rucksack and you don’t have to leave anywhere, or anyone, else to do it.’

  ‘That’s as may be,’ replied Tiger, ‘but I don’t see the rest of you having to put your life on hold to carry out Angie’s last wishes. You can just keep going like you were doing. I’ve got to change everything I’ve ever known. I mean, it’s not that fair, guys, when you actually think about it.’

  Hope spoke now. Her voice was clear but she didn’t make eye contact with any of them. ‘Yes, but you do get to live rent-free for a year. Sounds like a pretty cushy number to me,’ she said.

  Tiger opened his mouth to object and then closed it again. What could he say to that? She was completely right.

  ‘What we need to remember,’ said Maggie, ‘is that Romany is an adult. She can make her own decisions. We are just there to help guide her until she finds her feet. There are going to be plenty of things that she’ll want help with. She needs to know that she only has to ask.’

  ‘Maggie’s right,’ said Leon. ‘None of us knows exactly how this is going to work. So, I suppose we just need to be guided by Romany and take our lead from her.’

  The four of them nodded enthusiastically at this, but Maggie couldn’t help thinking that it was more to convince each other than anything else.

  ‘So, I’ll move in and cover the day-to-day stuff,’ said Tiger. ‘And the rest of you can just step in as and when required.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Leon.

  ‘That’s easy enough,’ said Tiger with a resigned grin. ‘I mean, what could possibly go wrong?’

  3

  THE EIGHTIES

  1985

  Maggie cast a discerning eye around her new home and gave a nod of satisfaction. Her law textbooks were lined up neatly on the bookshelf, their unbroken spines promisingly broad. Her new record player, bought with the proceeds of her summer work experience at a prestigious firm of solicitors, sat on the chest of drawers next to a selection of her favourite compilation tapes. On the desk sat a pristine A4 pad, her pencil case and the black angle-poise lamp that had come with the room. The enamel had chipped off the lamp in several places, which was disappointing, but perhaps she could paint over the larger bare patches with nail varnish so they weren’t so glaring. There was also an umbrella plant in a plastic pot, which her mother had given her for good luck. It stood about a foot tall and was too big for the desk and too small for the floor but, like the lamp, it would do for now. The narrow bed, far narrower than her bed at home, she was sure, was made up with her blue and white checked duvet cover and matching pillowcase set, and her blue towels sat in a neat pile on the end. Look out, University of York: Maggie Summers had arrived.

  Of course, exciting though it was to be there, the room was far from ideal. It was barely big enough to swing a cat in. The walls were white-washed breeze blocks that made it feel disconcertingly cell-like and the carpet was faintly tacky under her feet. But Maggie could overlook all that. She was here. She had arrived at university. She had made it happen for herself, and she was going to do everything in her power to ensure it was a success.

  Now that she had her new room arranged just so, she was starting to feel curious about her neighbours. The door to her room, B27, led off a long corridor of similar doors. Maggie had requested a quiet area. She was here to work, and whilst she wasn’t averse to letting her hair down from time to time, she was no party animal. So far all seemed well on that front, however. She had seen a boy with lank dark hair scuttling into the room opposite hers when she had gone to check out the bathroom, but he didn’t look the wild party type either. He had offered her a tentative smile, which she had returned politely. She had no real need for friends, but manners cost nothing.

  For a moment, she contemplated knocking on the doors to her left and right, but decided against it. She would meet the occupants in due course and there was no point initiating any kind of relationships with them in case they got the wrong idea about her. In any event, either the rooms were surprisingly soundproofed, which she doubted, or their occupants were yet to arrive.

  Maggie selected an Everything but the Girl album from her collection of records, slid it out from its sleeve and put it on the turntable. Then she sat back on her bed with de Smith’s Constitutional and Administrative Law. So far, she had got to chapter 7, ‘The Privy Council’, and she’d admit to finding it a bit of a struggle if pressed, but she imagined that the course wouldn’t all be as dry as this. Once she got started, she was sure that there would be more interesting things to get her teeth into.

  Outside her window she could hear people, other freshers she imagined, laughing and calling to one another in the warm September afternoon. She allowed herself a small smile. This was who she was now: a law student at the University of York. She was on her way to achieving her life’s ambition – everything was going according to plan.

  By half past five she was beginning to feel hungry. Dinner was to be served in the refectory from five until seven thirty, so she would wander down around six so as not to look too keen. She wasn’t completely sure of the way, but she had the map that they had given her at registration and it couldn’t be that far. Maybe she would go for a little pre-dinner stroll, just to get her bearings. She decided that this was a good idea and, slipping her room key and her purse into her shoulder bag, was about to step out into the corridor when, without warning, her door burst open.

  There stood a girl, she assumed a fresher like herself. She was dressed in a pair of cheesecloth trousers and a tie-dyed T-shirt and had battered espadrilles on her feet. Her hair, the colour of a fox’s brush, was held away from her face by a scarf and was all matted together in knotted rats’ tails. She was tanned to a deep golden brown that looked like it had taken more than two weeks in the sun to achieve.

  ‘There’s no bog roll,’ she said without introduction. ‘In the loo. Have you got some?’

  Maggie was completely thrown, partly by the appearance of the girl, which was like nothing she had ever seen before, but also by the abrupt conversation opener. Then, before she’d had chance to gather her thoughts, the girl pushed her gently to one side. She let out a low whistle as she took in Maggie’s room.

  ‘Who has a room as tidy as this?’ she asked. ‘Seriously, did you smuggle a slave in here with you?’ Her eyes settled on the new sound system. ‘That’s a nice piece of kit,’ she said appreciatively. ‘Are these your records? What have you got? Can I have a look? Police, Squeeze, Kate Bush . . .’ The stranger flicked her way through the records one by one. ‘All a bit mainstream for me,’ she concluded. ‘But I’ve been travelling for a year. My tastes are more global, you know.’

  Finally, Maggie found her tongue. ‘Excuse me,’ she said shirtily. ‘But you can’t just barge in here and start going through my things.’

  ‘Oh, sorry,’ said the girl, although she sounded anything but. ‘No offence intended. I’m Angie.’

  She waited for Maggie to reciprocate but Maggie was damned if she was going to share anything with this impertinent intruder, from her name to her loo roll.

  ‘Well, I’ve got no toilet paper, so I’d like it if you left now, please?’

  Maggie thought about the pack of sixteen rolls that she had neatly stacked in her wardrobe and hoped that a blush didn’t give her away.

  ‘No worries,’ said Angie. ‘I’ll try next door.’

  She breezed out with as little concern as she had breezed in, but as she turned to knock on the next door she looked back at Maggie.

  ‘I really like the Cocteau Twins, though. Treasure’s a fantastic album.’

  And then she was gone.

  Maggie closed the door and sat down on her perfectly smoothed bed as she fought against the warm spread of pride that was rippling through her. She really didn’t care that the weird-looking but quite
cool girl had praised her musical taste. It couldn’t be of less interest to her.

  4

  Five minutes later Maggie decided she could wait for food no longer, but she opened her door at exactly the same moment as the geeky-looking boy opposite opened his. She saw him flinch, his first reaction to close his door again and re-emerge when the coast was clearer, but then he seemed to reconsider, and smiled at her as he had done earlier. His smile was less tentative this time, and it transformed her opinion of him from the class stiff to someone who she might like to spend time with.

  ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Again. I’m Leon.’

  ‘Maggie,’ said Maggie. ‘I was just going to see if I could find something to eat.’

  ‘Great minds,’ replied Leon. ‘Or at least, I imagine your mind must be great or you wouldn’t have wound up here.’

  Oh, thought Maggie. Not the shrinking violet that she had assumed.

  ‘How great my mind is remains to be seen,’ said Maggie modestly. ‘But I am starving. Shall we go on a food hunt together?’

  They each turned and locked their rooms, Maggie mindful of the introductory talk about security that they had been given on arrival.

  ‘I think it’s this way,’ offered Leon, and they set off towards the fire doors that punctuated the long corridor.

  ‘So, what are you here to read?’ he asked. Maggie noticed his use of the old-fashioned expression and appreciated it. She prided herself on the use of correct terminology. Every time anyone asked her what she was going to ‘do’ at York she shuddered inside.

  ‘Law,’ she said proudly. Would that ever fade, she wondered, the frisson that she felt when she uttered that word?

  Leon raised an eyebrow, like most people did when she told them, as if studying law was something that merited particular deference.

  ‘And you?’ she asked. It would be something dull like maths, she thought, or economics.

  ‘Chemical engineering,’ he said, and now it was her turn to be impressed. She wasn’t entirely sure what that even entailed – she had focused on the arts at school – but now wasn’t the time to confess to her ignorance.