So, there had been some contact between Hope and Romany then, thought Maggie. She was both pleased and a little miffed at the same time, and wondered whether she might be a little bit jealous, which was, she knew, completely ridiculous.
‘Listen,’ said Hope. ‘I have to go now, but we’re nearly at the end of lunchtime service. Why don’t you hang around for a few minutes after your coffee and we can have a quick drink and a catch-up? I’ll drag Daniel out of the kitchen and you can meet him, although he probably won’t be at his best!’ She smiled again. She really was the most beautiful woman; Maggie did have to concede that.
‘That would be lovely,’ said Romany, speaking for them all. ‘It’ll be nice to say hello. We’ll see you later.’
‘Great,’ said Hope. ‘And now I’d better get back to the fray. I’ll see you in a while.’
A long table along the back wall had broken into a rowdy and rather flat version of ‘I Wish it Could be Christmas Every Day,’ which was changing the ambience of the room somewhat, and she sashayed off to speak to them.
‘Have you seen much of her, Romey?’ asked Maggie. She knew she was being childish in hoping that Hope had been neglecting her duties. It was Romany that was important here, not her own petty dislikes.
‘Not really,’ replied Romany. ‘Not nearly as much as I see of the rest of you, anyway.’ Maggie tried not to feel smug. ‘She messages me a bit, though, so we’ve had a few conversations. She’s really nice but I think she’s pretty busy. She sent me a voucher for Christmas for the two of us to go to a very posh spa over near Harrogate, which was kind of her.’
Maggie saw Tiger look down at his fingernails. He had obviously omitted to get Romany a gift, but she doubted Romany would have been expecting anything.
‘Yes,’ agreed Maggie. ‘That was kind. Right then,’ she added, wanting to change the subject away from perfect, beautiful Hope, ‘who’s for pudding?’
48
Coffee and delicious handmade chocolates had been served and most of the other guests had departed, leaving the four of them, an island in a sea of discarded napkins and half-filled glasses.
Romany was ready to go home. It had been a lovely idea, coming out, and she wasn’t sure how she would have coped if they had tried to have a ‘normal’ Christmas at home, but now she was ready to slip into her pyjamas and watch whatever crap they were showing on the television. They couldn’t leave yet, though, because of the invitation from Hope to stay for a drink, and so Romany resigned herself to another hour or so of her guardians.
She wasn’t complaining. They’d been good fun, although they were all quite drunk now. Leon had been liberal with his ordering of wine, calling for fresh bottles almost before the previous one was drained, perhaps to make sure that things stayed jolly. Romany had drunk the first couple of glasses quickly, a kind of anaesthetic against the potential pain, but it had turned out to be a nice afternoon, light-hearted and not at all maudlin, and she had quickly decided that she didn’t need an alcoholic crutch to get her through it.
Their conversation had meandered its way along familiar paths and ended up, as it inevitably did, with a trip down memory lane. The three of them didn’t seem to be able to stay away from their mutual past, as if recounting at least one story was required to validate all subsequent meetings. It was sweet, really, and Romany hoped that when she got to university, she too would find a set of friends that she managed to stay close to for the rest of her life, like these three. Seeing them together, it was clear that they shared such an easy rapport born from familiarity. However, the thing she liked best was how they all cut each other slack for their failings, because they all had pretty huge failings.
Take Tiger, for example. It was obvious to Romany that he had been running from something for his entire adult life. She was beginning to get the impression that even he wasn’t sure why he couldn’t stop, but was it maybe that he was frightened of what might happen if he did? He would have to settle somewhere eventually, though. He was in his fifties now and he couldn’t keep running forever.
Maggie, too, was frightened of something. Romany didn’t really get it because from where she was standing Maggie always seemed to be completely in control, but at the same time she could see that there was always something holding her back, as if she’d got her coat stuck in a door and couldn’t quite pull herself free. Romany wanted to tell her to just take the coat off and leave it behind, but it really wasn’t her place and she liked Maggie – she didn’t want to do anything to upset her.