I remember Simon grabbing my elbow as I left, murmuring: ‘Can I see you again?’ Yes seemed the only polite answer. Also, it was hardly unflattering to have someone who gave that ‘only going for the best of the best’ speech after me, even if I’m hoping most of that dastardly bastard routine was bluster.
‘When are you going on this date?’
‘Don’t know. He asked, said he’d call me. I still think we’re a wildly improbable pairing but no harm in confirming it, I suppose.’
‘That’s the spirit.’ Satisfied, Caroline sips from her glass and looks approvingly round the room. ‘You know, this place is almost worth the money. Not quite, but almost. Even if Rupa’s cupboards are about as bare of essentials as our student dump.’
‘Is now the time to ask why the gravy is in a vase?’ Ivor says.
31
The embezzling payphone in our student house wasn’t the first sign our landlord was a south Manchester Fagin. Our detached des-res in Fallowfield had been advertised as a three bedroom – we were without Ivor, who was on a year out in industry.
At the end of the viewing Caroline asked ‘What’s in here?’, trying the handle of a door downstairs. The landlord looked as nervous as if she was a new bride trying to breach Bluebeard’s tower.
‘That’s Derek’s room,’ the landlord said, as if every deal came with a Derek. ‘He’s staying on. That’s why the rent’s so low.’
The three of us exchanged a look. Not that low.
‘Derek.’ The landlord rapped with his knuckles. Derek produced himself – a hulking, greasy kind of character, and grunted a hello. He was an astrophysics post-grad, which was supposed to cover why he had a telescope on his windowsill.
We made our excuses and promptly left, and over lattes at the nearest café, agreed there was no way we were moving into a house which came with a loner perma-lodger. Then we got more lattes, and carrot cake, and started discussing how spacious the rooms were, how many damp-smelling terraces we’d trudged round, and that Derek didn’t seem that objectionable, if you broadened your mind and held your nose. We called the landlord back and said we’d take it.
Luckily, Derek seemed to lead a largely nocturnal existence and spent most weekends visiting his family in Whitby. Where Dracula landed. No further questions, your honour.
He was away on the night of our first noteworthy social event after we moved in, a Halloween party at the university union. I’d spent the day with a stomach bug, throwing up on an hourly basis, getting a chance to closely examine all the corners our cleaning rota didn’t reach in the bathroom. I felt deeply aggrieved that I’d not drunk any alcohol to get in this state, and the bug was about to prevent me trying.
Downstairs, a sexy vampire and a brown-skinned witch in stripy tights, balancing a bumper-sized plastic bottle of scrumpy on her hip, gazed at me as I limped into the hallway to say goodbye.
Caroline put the back of her pleasantly cool, black nail-varnished hand against my forehead.
‘Yoor absholutely burwing ug.’
‘What?’
She removed her plastic fangs. ‘You’re absolutely burning up. Want me to stay?’
‘No, I’ll be OK.’
‘We’ll have one for you!’ Mindy said, hoisting the cider and adjusting the brim of her witch hat.
I felt my gorge rise.
‘Fanks,’ I said, thickly, as if I was speaking through false teeth too.
An hour or so later, there was a knock.
‘Who is it?’ I shouted, without opening it.
‘A bloody cold cold caller,’ came a familiar voice.
I opened the door. Ben was buttoned up to the nose in his coat. He yanked it down to chin level so he could speak. ‘How are you then?’
‘Phenomenally wank,’ I said delicately, standing back to let him in.
I was self-conscious about being seen in my voluminous cotton comfort pyjamas. The somewhat psychedelic pattern depicted farmyard animals with slice-of-melon smiles playing musical instruments.
‘Where’s your costume?’ I asked Ben, to divert his attention.
‘Fancy dress is a terrible way to ruin a good party. Funny, everyone there is got up as ghoulish and scary, and here you are looking more like death than any of them.’
‘Did you stop by to tell me this?’
‘No, I’ve come to check on you. What’ve you taken for this flu?’
‘Two paracetamol, a while ago.’
Two loose paracetamol I’d found at the bottom of my make-up bag. I had to pick a stray hair off one of them. I felt my gorge rise again.
‘Right,’ Ben said. ‘I’m going for supplies. Save me a space on the sofa.’
‘Ben, you don’t have to do this.’
‘Oh, I know.’
‘Here you go,’ he said on return, passing over the tablets with a glass of water, as I malingered on the sofa. ‘These are the business, but they’re strong. You on any other drugs I should know about?’
‘Only the pill.’
Ben grimaced. ‘I didn’t need to know that.’
I threw them to the back of my throat, swallowing them without water.
‘Jeez,’ Ben said.
‘I have tons of spit in my mouth,’ I explained, pointing.
‘Great,’ he made a sickly smile.
He up-ended the contents of his shopping bag: mineral water, crisps, fat Coke, crackers, Berocca and more paracetamol. He sat down next to me, started flipping channels.
I gave him a sideways look.
‘Don’t you mind missing the party?’
‘Put it this way. The welcome cocktail was something called “Bitches Brew”.’
‘Ooh, do you think it was made from real bitches?’
‘Hard to tell.’
‘Cast your mind back. Did it taste of Georgina Race?’
Ben swatted my head with the TV guide. ‘Caroline said when she left you looked like an orphaned marmoset on a Monday morning. I thought, oh shit, I know that look, and then my conscience wouldn’t let me stay out.’
‘Orphaned marmoset!’ I laughed, feeling inordinately touched at his affection.
I settled back into my half of the sofa and we started bickering happily over what to watch, agreeing on The Breakfast Club.
‘You are her. In a nutshell,’ Ben said, after a few minutes, indicating Ally Sheedy, peering out from under the fur on her parka hood.
‘Compulsive liar basket case? You’re the geek in a jock’s body. You’re Anthony Michael Hall trapped inside Emilio Estevez.’
‘Urgh, what a thought.’ Ben paused. ‘At least you don’t think I’m the jock. Do you know what a girl in halls called me, last year? Bland Ben. Blen.’
‘What? Why?’
‘She said I was …’ I saw a slight colour rise in Ben’s face ‘… she said I was “standard issue tailor’s dummy” and “pleasant” and got on with