Chapter 15
Look. I’m not stupid. I know I say that a lot and you could maybe tell your old pal Mary-Elizabeth that there’s no smoke without fire, but I really don’t think I am.
Sure, I deliberately give myself candy-floss hair and have a penchant for clown fashion, but I am, at my core, an intelligent person.
Queen Anne’s Powell School of Art and Art History is a serious department and, like I keep mentioning, for reasons unconnected to the fact that I want to establish that I am a certified non-idiot, the art history degree is competitive and hard.
All of which is to say that I know pursuing things with Felix Balfour is a bad idea.
And if I know that, then it means I’m in control of my shit while I do it, right?
I am owning the badness of the idea. I am empowering myself to make bad decisions.
As long as I know what I’m doing, then everything is kind of OK.
I’m sorry about the other day, I was a total arsehole. Let me take you for cocktails tonight?
An unexpected date with Felix! What a delight.
I brush some mascara onto my eyelashes, swipe a bright, blue-toned pink lipstick over my lips and then I’m good to go.
Oooh, I wonder if he’ll come back to mine later.
I do like sleeping with him, I have to say.
Very fun. Very intoxicating. I do like walking the streets of Bloomsbury feeling a bit like I’m permanently drunk, when actually it’s just the energising vibes of getting to sleep with someone you really fancy.
‘Cheers!’ I say, clinking my cocktail glass against his. I may not drink much, but when I do, I want it to be a very silly cocktail with a maraschino cherry, which this very much is.
‘Cheers,’ he says, looking at me over the top of his glass as he takes a sip. Gorgeous. Devastatingly handsome. And here on a date with yours truly.
‘So, how are Quad things?’
‘Exhausting but worth it,’ he shrugs.
‘All the best things are,’ I tell him, fluttering my eyelashes at him.
‘Ha! You know, I’ve never met such a flirt as you,’ he says, shaking his head and smiling.
‘It’s what I do best.’
‘Among other things.’
‘Among other things,’ I repeat after him. ‘It’s fun to be out with you.’
‘Ah, you know, I just thought . . . why shouldn’t we go out for a drink? You’re doing such a good job of not making it a big deal within the magazine, and I thought let’s chill out a bit.’
I nod. ‘I’m glad, makes everything feel a bit more . . . normal.’
‘Normal like how?’ he asks, taking another sip of his Old Fashioned.
‘Just normal like we’re –’ I stop myself. I want to say like we’re properly dating, but I know that’s the wrong thing to say. ‘I don’t know, ignore me,’ I say, shaking my head.
But it doesn’t derail the conversation for too long, and within moments we’re back on track, chatting about uni and the magazine and some foreign film he went to see the other night (who with?) and how annoying his housemate Oscar’s girlfriend is and the conversation just rolls on and on until –
In walk Laurie O’Donnell and Charlotte Sherman.
And they seem to be wearing matching boring outfits, although I’m sure it’s not intentional, just a product of being too serious to think about clothes.
And anyway, are they ever apart? Are they joined at the actual hip?
And do they ever smile? They always look so bloody intense!
What does she see in him? Does she know literally zero other boys?
Because even if I knew literally zero other boys, I would probably rather be single forever than decide Laurie O’Donnell is the best possible option.
I’m so sick of this guy, just turning up everywhere all the time.
I feel like I never used to see him and now I can’t get rid of him.
Like if the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon was a person.
I really can’t deal with them souring our evening.
I down my drink. ‘Shall we go?’ I ask, smiling seductively at Felix from across the table.
He nods. ‘Sure.’
‘Your place or mine?’ I hold his gaze, which has the dual effect of giving me the most delicious butterflies in my stomach and preventing him from looking in their direction.
‘Either’s fine with me,’ he says, raising his eyebrows, the unspoken ‘as long as . . .’ hanging in the air.
‘Mine then,’ I say decisively.
As we walk along the side street from the bar to the main road, Felix slips his hand into mine and then both into his coat pocket.
At first I think, Oooh, how cute, but then I start to wonder if it’s so that no one can actually see us holding hands.
God, stop being paranoid, Mary-Elizabeth.
Get over yourself. We turn the corner to the bus stop, where the indicator board says we only have a two-minute wait, which is good news for me because I have the slight feeling with Felix that any minor inconvenience will make him disappear.
Too long waiting for the bus will send him home on his own, not coming back to mine.
After a few minutes, I do indeed see the bus cruising up Tottenham Court Road towards us, about to take me home to my flat with Felix.
But he hangs back as I step forward to hail it.
‘Babe,’ he says ruefully, looking down at his phone, ‘I’ve got to go, I’m really sorry. There’s some big drama with the Quad Media society and they need me to help figure it out . . .’
‘Now?’ I ask, raising my eyebrows at him. ‘Like, right now?’ The disappointment is beating furiously away in my chest.
‘I know, I know.’ He hangs his head as if it’s a great disappointment to him as well. ‘The timing . . . it’s just not the one, is it?’ Echoes of what he said about our whole situation.
I shrug. ‘I guess not.’
‘I’ll make it up to you though,’ he says, putting both hands on my shoulders and looking me right in the eye. ‘We’ll do something fun, no interruptions. I promise.’
‘I guess this is just the cost of doing business with Felix Balfour, big name on campus, king of the Queen Anne media empire.’ The bus departs without us on it.
He gives me a roguish smile. ‘I’m not the king, that’s Jack Sampson, and I can’t really say no to him.
’ President of the Quad Media organisation, pretty decent guy, so if he needs Felix for something important then I guess I just have to suck it up, don’t I?
‘I feel like I’ve got to do everything I can to fight for the magazine right now,’ he says, his smile falling.
‘It would be a shame if it all just . . . disappeared,’ I agree. We devote so much time and energy into making it actually good, actually fun, actually interesting, actually worth reading. I don’t want to see it disappear any more than Felix does.
I can’t help but feel like a bit of an idiot really for expecting better from Felix.
But if I was writing an advice column to me, I would probably tell me to trust him and see where it goes.
I can’t help but laugh bitterly at the advice I know Laurie would give.
Something like: ‘Only an idiot would trust this prick.’ Alone at the bus stop, waiting for another bus to turn up, I wonder if maybe on this occasion Laurie would be right.