The one new thing this year was their student house and Maggie was genuinely thrilled about it. Having a room in halls was one thing, but you still felt a lot like a fresher. A whole house to live in was much more like being a real adult, even if she was having to share it with Leon, Angie and a girl called Fiona whom she hadn’t yet met.
‘How can you live with someone that you don’t know, Margaret? Isn’t that taking unnecessary risks?’ her mother had said when Maggie had made the schoolgirl error of confessing the fact to her.
‘It’s no different to last year, Mum. I didn’t know anyone then, either,’ she replied, not unreasonably.
‘But that was different,’ her mother had said. ‘You had your own room. With a lock on the door. Now you’ll be sharing with a total stranger. Who knows what she might be like or who her friends are?’
Maggie had sighed inwardly. ‘I’m sure she’s very nice, Mum, and perfectly normal. She’s a friend of Angie’s from her course, so it’s not like she’s a stranger. It’s just that I haven’t met her yet. And she’s a last-minute step-in for someone who dropped out over the summer. We’re lucky to get her at such short notice.’
The girl that they had been going to share with, also from Angie’s course, had failed her exams, and her re-sits, and so wouldn’t be returning to York. Maggie had kept this information to herself. Her mother was sniffy enough about sociology undergraduates without giving her any more ammunition.
‘And I can’t say I’m that happy about you living with a boy, either,’ her mother had continued along a similar vein of disgruntlement. ‘What if he sees your underwear in the laundry? And you’ll have to make sure you wear your dressing gown at all times. Boys can’t be trusted, you know. They’re only after one thing.’
Maggie could have explained that she had rarely met a man less likely to pursue her sexually than Leon, but she would never convince her mother so she had just promised that she would be careful and left it at that.
As they turned the corner into her new road, Maggie held her breath. She had wandered over to visit the house several times at the end of the previous term, standing in the street and staring up at the windows, wondering what it was going to be like to live there. She had even chosen her bedroom （first floor, overlooking the garden） although she hadn’t mentioned this to the others. No doubt they would allocate the rooms by some sort of lottery.
Maggie watched her mother’s eyes narrow and her lips squeeze themselves into a tight knot as she took in the kind of place that Blake Street was. Bins blocked the pavements, grimy net curtains hung at badly maintained windows and peeling stickers rather than shiny brass numbers adorned the doors. As she saw the place through her mother’s eyes, Maggie knew that she had been making serious allowances for its shabbiness.
‘It’s that one,’ she said as the car slowed. ‘Number 23.’
Number 23 did at least look reasonably smart, its front door relatively newly painted in a cheerful red. Her mother drew the car to a halt outside. Her silence spoke volumes, but Maggie refused to be put off by it. She opened the door and hopped out, the house key ready in her hand. Her mother got out as well, reluctantly, making a huge show of locking and then double-checking all the car doors.
Well, Maggie wasn’t going to let her mother spoil her excitement. Ignoring her tuts, she slid the key into the lock and the front door swung open. The carpet, she noticed at once, was a little more threadbare than she had remembered, but it looked clean enough. The hallway led through to a dark sitting room that was lit by borrowed light from the tiny kitchen at the back, the front room having been given over to a bedroom. There were two old-fashioned sofas in there and a rickety coffee table. All of them might have come direct from a skip if you judged by appearances only. Maggie pushed on through to the kitchen. That too seemed shabbier than she had remembered it, the lino curling away from the floor and a couple of the laminate cupboard doors badly chipped. It was perfectly serviceable, though, and it looked clean.
Maggie didn’t want to look at her mother, knowing all too well the expression that would be on her face. Why couldn’t she be pleased for her, just this once? Of course, the house was a little down at heel – it was a student house – but the only thing dampening Maggie’s spirits was her mother’s palpable disapproval.
‘Right,’ she said, making sure by her tone that her mother would understand that she was not to criticise. ‘I’ll start to bring the stuff in from the car, shall I?’