‘Do I need to get changed as well, then?’ Leon asked.
‘Not if you don’t want to,’ replied Maggie. ‘I doubt Ange or Tiger will notice what we’re wearing anyway. Are you ready? Shall we go?’
Leon nodded. ‘Do you want me to drive?’
‘I don’t mind. We can go in my car and leave it there. I’ll walk over and pick it up tomorrow,’ said Maggie.
‘Okay, if you’re sure,’ said Leon.
It might be nice if they walked over together, Maggie thought. They would have done that at the start of the relationship, would have relished the opportunity to spend the time together with nothing to do but just talk. Things moved on, though, she supposed, and it did make more sense for just one of them to waste time collecting the car.
‘I’ll tell you what. Why don’t I give you a lift over in the morning before I head back to Leeds?’ Leon said.
Problem solved with an entirely practical solution. Maggie sighed internally. The gilt on their romance was definitely tarnishing a little. She might not have much relationship experience, but even she knew that the heady dopamine-laced days at the beginning of a love affair were generally short-lived. The lust that they had felt at the outset seemed to have been replaced by something less exciting, and they had slipped quickly into a comfortable companionable pairing, rather like she imagined marriage to be. It wasn’t a bad place, but Maggie couldn’t help thinking that somehow they had bypassed ten years or so. She supposed that was what happened when you started dating one of your closest friends. So much about your new partner was unsurprising, so little left to be discovered.
None of this had occurred to Maggie, however, until Angie had proposed the party with Tiger. Suddenly, all she wanted was to spend time with Tiger, and Leon, lovely, safe Leon for whom she had only affection really, was in the way.
But she had to be sensible. Tiger blew in and out like the clouds and Leon was here for her day after day. Maggie knew which side her bread was buttered, although the thought of Tiger was enough to make her insides clench. She needed to behave better, even if her misdemeanours were only in her head.
‘It’s a shame we didn’t have a bit more notice of tonight,’ said Maggie as she slipped her coat on and twisted a scarf around her neck. ‘You could have taken your sax over and played for us.’
‘Yes, I could have done,’ replied Leon, as if this were actually something he might have done had the circumstances allowed. ‘Typical Angie plan, eh? All last minute.’
‘I imagine Tiger has only just drifted in from wherever he was. You know what he’s like.’
The saxophone suggestion hadn’t been entirely outlandish. Leon had been playing more now that he lived on his own, or so he told Maggie. Sometimes he even played for her, although it was a little bit loud in his tiny flat and you couldn’t turn his volume down, which made it hard to relax and listen. Taking her cue from Angie, Maggie was keen to encourage him with his music. His first set of life choices hadn’t worked out that well, so maybe it was time to try something new. With this in mind, she had suggested that they find a studio in Leeds somewhere.
‘Why don’t I buy you a recording session for your birthday?’ she had suggested. ‘You could cover some jazz stuff, the classics, you know,’ she had said vaguely, not really being sure exactly what he might want to play. ‘Maybe you could mix in a backing track or even pay for some session musicians to play with you. Then I’d have a CD and listen to you whenever I liked.’ Maggie had been quite pleased with her idea by the time she got to the end of it, impressed that she’d managed to dredge some appropriate terminology from somewhere.
‘Who listens to CDs anymore?’ had been his only comment, leaving her feeling antiquated and stupid.
At Angie’s place it seemed as if the party had already started. Music was pumping out through the walls and into the street; they could hear it as they parked the car in a space a few doors down, the dull thud of the bass drum reverberating into the dark night.
‘Her neighbours must love her,’ said Leon, laughing, and Maggie rolled her eyes.
The front door was open, and they let themselves in, Maggie clicking the latch behind them. Now they were inside she could identify the tune as ‘The Only Way Is Up’， a song that had been in the charts the year they graduated and which they had danced round their grotty student digs to, singing the words as if they had been written specifically for them. Maggie had been so sure then that the only way truly was up. Now she knew better.