Fifteen years earlier
After the monthly editorial meeting, we always went for drinks at the Criterion, a crusty old pub that was popular with students, who wore these things like a badge of honour – the hottest curry, the dingiest pub, the cheapest cup of coffee in town.
The editor was a tall, thin Jarvis Cocker type, without the glasses or the charisma.
He seemed to exist in a permanent kind of simmering rage, furious about injustices big and small, even the fining system at the library.
Privately Liv and I called him Angry Jeff.
I didn’t enjoy these drinks much but I always went for at least one, partly out of politeness, partly to keep my eye on the prize, an editorship before my second year was out.
I was halfway through my drink, plotting my departure, when the door opened and you came in with your friends.
I knew all their names: Jack, Harry, Rachel, Alexa.
My heart cartwheeled and I looked down quickly at my drink.
I’d been avoiding you ever since our lunch by the sea without really knowing why, working in my room instead of the library, even missing the weekly Milton tutorial.
I couldn’t have explained the need to avoid you, only that the thought of bumping into you unexpectedly pumped me up, as it did right now, with an overwhelming surge of adrenalin.
‘What on earth are that lot doing in here?’ asked Angry Jeff.
‘They’ll leave when they realise they don’t sell champagne or Chablis,’ said Melanie, a second-year history student whom I was beginning to like.
But you didn’t leave.
You sat down in the opposite corner of the room, the glossy girls an incongruous sight with their highlighted hair and their cashmere scarves and glinting gold watches.
I kept my focus in a narrow gaze, head movements restricted from my drink to my table of earnest friends, so I didn’t see you approach.
‘I’ve been looking for you.
’
I tried to be casual.
‘I’ve been studying in my room.
Less distracting than the library.
’
‘And the tutorial?’
‘I overslept.’
You rolled your eyes, irritated.
‘I don’t think so. You’re not the oversleeping type.
’
You leant down, elbows on the table, face close to mine, voice loud and clear.
We hadn’t even touched at this point, but the close proximity of you was doing dangerous things to my stomach, my chest, my groin.
‘I don’t want to play games with you,’ you said, shockingly forthright in front of the student journalists, who were gazing openly at this exchange.
‘Nor do I.’
You looked at me for a moment, then stood back up.
‘We’re going to a party later.
Will you come?’
I shook my head.
The prospect of a night with your friends was intolerable.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘No you won’t come to the party?
Or no you don’t want to spend the evening with me?
’
‘The party,’ I managed to say.
Full sentences and regular breathing were beyond my grasp right then.
This time a rare full-strength smile that reached up to your eyes.
‘In that case,’ you said, ‘I have a bottle of very good wine at home that has your name on it.’