Chapter 21 #2
‘Difficult anywhere. What about you?’
‘A few. None that have ever really gone anywhere.’
‘Must be just as difficult for you to meet people in your line of work.’ She threw a smile over her shoulder. ‘The right sort of people, I mean.’
‘Yeah. You can say that again.’
Downstairs, we entered an L-shaped bar full of shadowy people.
It wasn’t an ideal scenario. What wasn’t pitch black was illuminated with green neon, and the sound system was pumping so loud it was strictly mouth-to-ear in conversation terms. Even harder, it turned out Rachel was responsible for the gathering, so she kept having to flit off and talk to groups of people, making sure they were okay, circulating.
So for most of the next two hours, I was basically propping up the bar: just another person there she knew who she’d talk to every so often – apologising every time she did.
Caring.
Considerate.
‘Sorry, sorry, sorry.’
‘It’s okay.’ I sipped from my bottle of Corona. ‘We sorted this on the fly. I knew I wouldn’t have your full and undivided attention.’
‘At least you know what you’re letting yourself in for.’
In truth, I didn’t mind watching her circulate.
I was quietly noting the groups of people, and there wasn’t a single one she left out or didn’t touch on at some point.
It was like a military operation. She was very organised, very in control.
Rachel has always been ultra-efficient, and this was the first time I saw it in action.
Despite not being the centre of her attention, I liked it a lot.
I’ve never really minded being on the periphery, especially when I’m on the periphery of someone very interesting.
Organised.
Efficient.
About ten o’clock, the bar began to empty: groups of people disappearing, leaving the coloured strobe lights increasingly tracking bare patches of stone floor as though searching for something. In between saying goodbye to people, she dashed over and touched my arm.
‘You got to run off?’
I checked my watch. I was on early shift in the morning, but I hadn’t drunk so much that getting up was going to be a big deal.
I shrugged. ‘Not really.’
‘I’ve got to head to the lab; I’ve got an experiment running. Fancy prolonging this hideous torture a little longer?’
‘It’s not torture,’ I said. ‘But yeah, sure.’
It was cold outside by that time, and we walked side by side, slightly hunched in our coats, misty-breathed and chatting about some of the other people who’d been there – a lot of foreign students, she explained, which was why she’d felt compelled to make sure everyone was feeling comfortable.
‘And I figured you were comfortable enough,’ she said.
‘You figured right.’
Intuition.
Kindness.
Her department was a ten-minute walk across campus: a faceless building, lined with implacable walkways and heavy red doors.
Rachel had a large collection of keys, and she worked through them as we went through various security doors, each one closing with a heavy thud and a click behind us.
At this hour, the place was deserted; the run-down corridors were all but interchangeable, and the doors leading off were distinguished from each other only by tiny steel plaques.
The lab itself reminded me of school science classes: rows of benches divided into stations.
A lot of them were covered with equipment – microscopes and tissue boxes full of dishes and pipettes – but Rachel’s was predictably pristine and polished.
She collected a sheaf of papers from the neat pile at the back, then opened one of the cupboards above, revealing further carefully-arranged rows of material.
‘Follow me,’ she said.
She led me through to a back room, where one wall was taken up by an enormous bulk of metal and glass. Inside, a circular rack of sealed beakers was spinning around astonishingly quickly.
Rachel checked the display and frowned.
‘Not done.’
‘Problem?’ I said.
‘I wanted to get it done, but never mind. It’s just mixing my samples for me and somebody else will probably want it first thing.’
She put the papers down and pulled the top off a biro with her teeth, then started making a few notes, glancing occasionally at the display on the machine.
Then she topped the pen again.
‘Okay. That’s that, then. Sorry again, by the way. This is what it means to date a geek.’
‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘I’m just concentrating on not knocking over a Petri dish or anything.’
She looked at me, suddenly all science-serious.
‘You know what will happen if you do?’
‘No. Tell me.’
‘The apocalypse.’
Serious but funny.
‘Shit,’ I said. ‘Well, you know, I was hoping more for “you’ll develop superpowers, Andy”.’
‘Useful in your line of work. But no. A deadly strain would be released. We’d probably have to quarantine ourselves in here for a while.’
‘Really?’
I knew she was kidding, but suddenly I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I was aware of her body and how close it was, and the way she was looking at me. The slight, playful smile on her lips.
‘We’d be locked in,’ she said.
Sexy.
Forward.
Rachel glanced down to where an empty pipette was resting on a desk. She reached down and knocked it onto the floor.
‘Whoops.’
‘And now?’
I turned the piece of paper over, although there was no point; I hadn’t written anything on the other side, because I didn’t need to.
‘All the same,’ I said.
It made me feel sad. Nothing had changed. It wasn’t about her, the things I couldn’t say. I loved her more than ever, even as I was losing her, and there was nothing I could do about it.
‘All the same things.’