A Few of the Girls (5 page)

“But you were very frank about your relationship with Alec.”

“Because I thought you were someone who hadn't much interest and whom I would never meet again!” said Catherine desperately.

“You mean you'd prefer to talk to someone who could be of no help?” asked Bob.

“I don't want help,” she said, choked.

“You do, my dear Catherine, you do, you're just afraid to admit it. This British reserve may have got you all through national crises but it's no good for a young girl all by herself.”

“Please don't say any more,” begged Catherine.

On shaking legs she rose and ran haltingly down the Embankment towards a bus stop. Behind her, Bob was calling, “Catherine, Catherine, we must talk, you need to talk.” Behind her, St. Paul's towered knowingly over it all.

Oh, we could tell each other
anything
when we were fifteen, Angela! Couldn't we? You and Maggie and I. You two could tell me that white lipstick was tarty. We two could tell you that the short skirt gave you thunder thighs. We could both tell Maggie that the frizzy perm didn't work. We were always together, Maggie, Angela, and Deirdre. They used to call us MAD back then. We thought it was a scream.

And when we got a bit older we could tell each other
almost
anything. Like we told Maggie that the fellow Liam she was seeing was also seeing a lot of other people. We only told her because she was actually starting to talk about weddings and we couldn't let her go down that road.

And we told you that your boss Eric that you fancied was a con man. And we had to tell you because you were about to invest all your savings in some scam. And you both told me to go back home and live with my mam because my lovely bedsit that I was so proud of was actually a room in a brothel.

And back then we never really minded being told that we were wrong or foolish or silly or whatever. We didn't
like
it now, but we didn't get upset or sulk or anything. It was what friends did for each other. So why has it become so difficult now that we are twenty-eight?

It's not that twenty-nine is old. Or that the dreaded thirty is creeping up on us…We've lost something along the way. I don't know what happened, but we seem to be walking on eggshells with each other. And there's no reason for it.

We've all done fine. Well, as regards work anyway. Not quite so well in the Men Department. But then, people marry much later nowadays. And some don't marry at all.

It's not like it was back in our mothers' time where they still had the notion of being old maids or spinsters or whatever. And of course we'd all like to have children, but when we're ready. Not like half the kids we were at school with who had kids of their own just to get out and have a flat, and now they're tied down and can't go anywhere.

And I mean, you have to admit we're not doing badly. You run a hair salon on your own. And you go out to movie sets and meet the stars and do their hair. You have your picture taken with them. That's pretty good, Angela, by anyone's standards.

And I'm doing okay as well. Nobody in my family had even heard of a career in marketing, and yet here I am in a consultancy doing very nicely thank you. Away long from the classroom when poor Miss O'Sullivan said that we would all end up in the gutter because we had no get-up-and-go.

And of course Maggie's doing fine too. In a way. You know. Considering everything.

And really
her
family was much more difficult than ours were so she more or less
had
to help out all the time. And she couldn't get any real money together for a training course like we did. When we all worked stacking shelves and serving tables, back then. And honestly, Ange, we
did
try to tell her.

Remember when we said we'd all stand up to her father when he came down to take her wages from her? We said we'd speak to him straight out and tell the authorities that he was taking every penny his daughter slaved hard for, but Maggie begged us not to, said it would be worse for her mother if we did.

So we did nothing.

And then when her mother got sick Maggie said she
had
to stay at home and mind the younger ones. Who else was there?

And we did say to each other then that someone should tell her we didn't get all that many chances in life and she should have gone to college. She was brighter than all of us. She could easily have got a place.

But would she listen?

Instead it was all this about the young ones wetting the bed, what with her mother being so long in hospital, and her father being so drunk. And somebody had to be there and do it and she was there and did it.

I mean, Maggie's marvelous, and what she did for those sisters and brothers was fantastic. Some of
them
are actually in college now. And she was tough, too. She got her father into some alcoholics' program and he did stop eventually, I think. Didn't he?

Anyway, it was all too late for Maggie and somebody should have told her that it's not so easy to go back to studying when you're older. And they want babes, nowadays, not mature women. But it was getting harder to talk to her. All the old easy feeling had gone.

And that's what has her where she is now. Not that there's anything wrong with it; working in a tacky kind of shop like that, selling all kinds of rubbish. But you know the way Maggie goes on. It's lovely. She meets great people, they get marvelous bargains, it's near home, one of the younger sisters has asthma or something and she likes to put a good meal on the table for her father. And honestly, she doesn't seem to remember that we are all out for each other's good. And that since we were the group they called MAD back at school, there was literally
nothing
we couldn't say to each other.

You get the feeling she's become touchy.

We never did touchy before, did we? But I didn't like the way she reacted when I offered to give her my old jacket. It was a million times better than anything she had. A million. But Maggie said she wouldn't have a call to wear it. What a strange phrase, instead of saying thank you and being delighted with it. Like we all would. If we were in a position to, I mean.

And remember that time we went to have lunch with her in the posh hotel. It was almost embarrassing. Well, it wasn't really embarrassing, what with her being Maggie and everything. But she seemed so out of place and asking could she take home the little sugar packets and paper napkins with the name of the place on them to her sisters. They were giving us such pitying looks. Did you notice?

No? But then, Ange, to be honest, you are as blind as a bat these days.

Anyway, it was impossible to get a thing out of Maggie about her own life and her plans or anything. She just kept saying she'd see what happened, as if that were any way to get anywhere.

I don't know whether you noticed, but she never answered a direct question. I know I asked if her father was still off the sauce and she said something totally waffly about him being marvelous, all things considered, which is neither a yes nor a no, so I asked again and she said that to some people drink was as natural as breathing. Where does that leave us?

Then she was asking all about
my
mother and father and whether I should tell my father that my mum had been for tests. He might want to know. I said he had wanted to know very little else about her over the years since he left. She remembered everything, Maggie did, about when he left. More than I do. We were all twelve then. You'd swear it was her own family. Honestly, it was spooky. And she's been to see my mother more often than I have.

And it wasn't only me. She knows all about your family, too, Angela. She said she heard from your brother who went to jail in Australia. I mean, I know you told us all about it at the time, but Maggie actually sends him postcards and things because he'd be lonely so far from home. She knows the name of the jail and all. And apparently he's got very interested in birds, like in that film with Burt Lancaster. He writes to her about spangled drongos and galahs and things you'd never have heard of…

Oh, he does to you, too? You keep in touch with him?

That's great. Great. Well, he
is
family, of course.

No, I was just surprised that Maggie would.

Yes, of course it's kind of her.

Maggie
is
kind. That's what she does. And of course if you wanted
me
to write to him, I would. I just didn't think you had anything in common with him anymore.

No, indeed, you're right. He probably wouldn't remember me. And too much water under the bridge, really. But that wasn't what I was talking about. I was saying that someone should tell Maggie for her own good that this kind of thing can't go on any longer. It's not fair, not on herself, not on anyone.

No, Angela, I
know
what you're going to say, that we should never try to come between lovers, no matter how star-crossed they are. Look, I know there's a point in that. I know that you often end up with egg on your face when it turns out to be a long-lasting affair. But be honest, you were glad when we turned you against Eric, that con man who was going to take your money, weren't you?

What do you mean it was only money? You had
worked
for it. Saved it.

No, that's ludicrous, Ange. You know it is. He couldn't have loved you. You couldn't have been the only one he didn't con. You were so well out of it.

It's not like you to look back and regret. Not like you at all.

And going back to that time—at least you'll admit that Maggie was lucky we pointed out that her fellow Liam had so many other girls. Look at the fool she would have made of herself and she had more things to worry about with her sister with asthma, her mother not well, and her father drinking.

Oh, come
on,
Angela, how could that Liam have helped her with any of those problems? If he had been around he would have made things much, much worse.

But now it's really serious that someone says something.

This guy Hanif. I mean, Angela, he's an African. An Algerian. From Africa.

Oh, I know Maggie says he's a French citizen but it won't work.

Well it
can't
work. I mean, marriage is hard enough anyway. Look at all the disasters we see around us and that's even when they're from the same culture and background and race and religion.

I mean, what does Maggie know about Hanif's life before he came here? He could have lived in a hut in the desert.

No stop it, Angela. Stop telling me he's from Marseilles. That's not what it's about. He can't go in and live with Maggie in her house with her father poised to go back on the drink, with her sister whooping with asthma, with poor, daft Maggie going to see
my
mother, writing letters to
your
brother. It's just ludicrous.

I know it's hard to do because we all like Maggie so much and we go back such a long way, but honestly, someone should tell her before she starts organizing a wedding.

She
has
organized a wedding? I don't believe you!

You're serious? When?

But that's only six weeks away. It can't be!

Angela?

Angela, have you been invited?

And are you going?

I see.

I see.

Okay. I haven't been invited, but I suppose you know that.

What do you mean, when did I see her last? She's our friend, for God's sake. I'm
always
seeing her. I saw her that time we went to the smart hotel where she took the sugar packets and paper napkins. And then I saw her when we went to that weepy film and had a pizza afterwards.

No, of course I haven't been to Maggie's house.

Angela, listen to me. Who could go to that house with the chance that her father might come reeling in and the sister wheezing away in the corner?

You do. I see.

Okay, I know she asked me, but honestly…

And so that's true, I haven't sat down and talked properly to Hanif. But what's the point? What would there be to say?

Oh. You do? You have? Good, good.

No, I mean it. I'm
glad
you like him. And that you've found plenty to talk to him about.

No, that's nice, really it is. It's just that…Oh, come on, Angela, you and I, we don't have to talk politically correct to each other. It's just that no matter how nice he is, he's an immigrant. He'll bring Maggie down. Whatever hope she had before, she'll have none now. And suppose she has children? Well, I mean…

But she's not seriously going to marry him, is she?

She is.

And did she think I would never find out? I mean, was she ever going to tell me or anything? Was she going to wait until I walked into her one day when she had a brood of children by the hand?