‘Are you busy?’ she asked. ‘Do you fancy meeting up for a drink tonight? Or tomorrow?’
There was a slight hesitation before Maggie spoke that might have been interpreted as reluctance, but Angie knew was simply the sound of Maggie reconfiguring her plans for the evening.
‘That would be great. Usual place? Eight?’
They tried to meet once a month or so, although sometimes that stretched a little. Whilst Maggie had the fuller diary, it was actually Angie who cancelled the arrangement most often, usually because she was too tired after a day on her feet to make the trip back into town. Of course, Maggie would only cancel if the four horsemen of the apocalypse trit-trotted through her office, but then that was Maggie all over.
The ‘usual place’ was a wine bar on Goodramgate, more Maggie’s kind of place than Angie’s to be honest. It had a smug, self-satisfied air about it to Angie’s way of thinking, and seemed to be frequented by the type of people who wore a suit and tie to do their important job and then talked loudly about it in public. The stench of heady perfumes and aftershaves could sometimes be enough to floor a rhinoceros. Angie always made sure that she wore her brightest, least conventional outfits and then enjoyed the turned heads and elbow nudges as she made her way through the wall-to-wall Boss and Armani to join Maggie.
Maggie was there first – of course – and had already been to the bar. A crisp gin and tonic and a pint of snakebite sat on the table in front of her.
‘I assume that’s okay,’ she said as Angie sat down, nodding in the direction of the pint glass.
Angie looked at the glass, then back at Maggie and twisted her face.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Maggie, getting quickly to her feet. ‘I just assumed. I’ll go back to the bar. What do you want?’
‘A pint of orange juice?’ replied Angie.
‘Hungover?! On a Wednesday,’ said Maggie, but then she must have seen that she was wrong. ‘Oh my God! You’re pregnant!’
The routes that Maggie’s mind followed never failed to impress Angie. She would never have leapt so deftly to that conclusion. In fact, she doubted whether it would even have occurred to her. And yet Maggie had nailed her news in one shot. It was almost disappointing.
She nodded.
‘And . . . ?’ Maggie continued.
She was being asked whether this was a good thing or not, Angie understood. Here she was, not four hours since she had discovered the truth for herself and she was having to jump one way or the other.
But she found that this was not a difficult answer to give.
‘It’s good,’ she said, nodding as she spoke as if confirming the fact to herself. ‘Yes. Definitely good. A surprise – it’s most definitely a surprise – but a good one.’
Maggie beamed; a big broad smile that held nothing but joy at the news.
‘I’m delighted for you,’ she said. ‘Congratulations. Let me go and get you that orange juice and then you can tell me all about it.’
She returned a few minutes later with a pint glass full to the brim of orange juice, ice cubes clinking against the side as she put it down carefully on the table next to the abandoned snakebite. Angie thought that the snakebite actually looked far more appealing. She’d had a shock, after all. But she dismissed the thought. This could be the first of the very many sacrifices that would follow.
‘So?’ said Maggie. ‘Tell me everything.’
‘Not much to tell. I did a test this afternoon and that’s pretty much it.’
‘And what did Jax say? I assume it is Jax’s?’
Maggie knew about Jax now, although she had never met him. He wasn’t the kind of partner that you paraded at a dinner party, and their time together was so rare that Angie guarded it preciously.
She stretched her face into a look of mock horror. ‘What are you saying?’ she said.
‘Okay.’ Maggie smiled. ‘But it’s always best not to make any assumptions. So, what did he say? Is he pleased too?’
Angie scratched at her dreadlocks. ‘He doesn’t know yet. In fact, no one knows but you and me.’
The look of flattered delight that appeared on Maggie’s face touched Angie’s heart. But then Maggie returned to her pragmatic self.
‘How come?’ she asked. ‘Are you worried he won’t be as pleased as you are?’
‘It doesn’t really matter what he thinks,’ replied Angie, a tinge of defiance in her voice. ‘It’s my body.’
‘Yes, obviously,’ said Maggie. ‘But it’s his baby. He has a right to be consulted.’