‘Why don’t you get your sax out now, Lee?’ suggested Angie. ‘Let’s have a bit of soul to match our mood.’
Leon’s face made a feeble stab at objection and then he went to fetch the instrument from his room. As he set it up, Maggie, who had been sitting upright on the sofa with Tiger’s legs draped across her, allowed herself to tip sideways so that her head was on his chest. At once he put an arm across her, his fingers finding the bare skin on her back where her top had ridden up. Maggie let her eyelids close as she enjoyed his touch, gentle and with no agenda, but more intimate than she had known for some time.
Leon played ‘Smooth Operator’， which was perfect for the mood, and then ‘Careless Whisper’， and as the haunting melodies filled the room, Maggie began to feel that maybe Angie had a point. Perhaps there was more to university life than just a law degree.
13
The following day Maggie came back from her tutorial and let herself into the house. She had been hoping that Tiger might be in on his own, but as she opened the door the place had a still, silent quality that suggested that it was empty, and Maggie’s disappointment rose. She wasn’t sure what was going on between her and Tiger, if anything at all. The previous evening, after Leon had chilled them all into a state of extreme relaxation, they had just drifted to their beds. Maggie had been grateful. She hadn’t even kissed Tiger yet, and didn’t want to run before she could walk, but she had been left with the unsatisfactory feeling of not really knowing quite where she stood, a state she wasn’t used to.
She went straight into her room and dumped her bag on her desk. Then she went out to make herself a cup of coffee before she settled down to some work. There were dirty dishes in the sink from breakfast, but Maggie barely flinched. Was she becoming more forgiving? It seemed unlikely, but perhaps it was true. She hadn’t got as far as washing up for someone else yet, but she was happy just to leave the dishes there rather than going on the warpath after the culprit.
The kettle boiled and as she poured the hot water into her mug, she thought she heard someone moving around upstairs. Maybe she had been wrong; perhaps there was someone in after all. She took her coffee and headed back to her room, but as she crossed the hallway, she distinctly heard someone sobbing. It was such an intimate sound that she felt guilty for overhearing it. Perhaps whoever it was hadn’t heard her come in and thought they were alone? It had to be Angie. Leon was a sensitive soul and not beyond a few tears, but there was genuine pain in the sound that Maggie was listening to.
Maggie hovered on the threshold of her bedroom as she tried to decide what to do. She didn’t want to intrude, but at the same time Angie might welcome someone to talk to. She should at least offer, even though she was certain she would get short shrift.
She turned and began to pad quietly up the stairs until she was standing outside Angie’s door. The sobbing seemed to have abated a little and now the sounds were more gulps and sniffs. Maybe whatever it was that was wrong had passed. Then again, she was there now, so she might as well see if there was anything she could do to help.
She lifted her hand and rapped lightly. ‘Angie? It’s me, Maggie. Are you okay? Can I get you anything?’
The room fell silent as if Angie was holding her breath, but then Maggie heard a sniff. She took it as an invitation to open the door.
Angie was sitting on the floor, surrounded by balls of the toilet paper that she had clearly been using as tissues. When she looked up, her face was pink and blotchy, and her eyes swollen to slits. It felt to Maggie like this was a private moment that she shouldn’t be witnessing, and yet this diminished and forlorn Angie was such a different spectacle to the Angie that she usually saw that she felt herself drawn to it, almost as if to an actress on a stage.
‘Oh, Angie,’ she said as she stepped into the room and immediately dropped down to Angie’s level. ‘What on earth is the matter?’
Angie just shook her head and tore another strip of toilet paper from the roll at her side. She blew her nose noisily. ‘It’s nothing,’ she said.
Why did women always say that when it was patently untrue?
Maggie tried again. ‘Come on, now. There’s obviously something. It’s not like you to be down.’
‘I’ll be fine in a minute,’ Angie said.
Maggie wasn’t sure whether she was being dismissed. They had never been close, the two of them. Perhaps it wasn’t her place to interfere now? But Angie’s customary confident breeziness was gone. Her shoulders drooped and her head hung low, and Maggie divined that her concern wasn’t entirely unwelcome.