as Flin too. Through them he’d got to know Jessica pretty well – everyone knew everyone, after all. He shared a flat in the Olympia side of Barons Court with an old friend of his called Jim Dawson. Both were hearty, fun-loving, beer-chugging sport fanatics.
As it was a pleasant evening, Geordie and Jessica decided to walk. Taking far less time than they had supposed, they ended up arriving a bit too promptly. Jim had not even arrived back home from work. Undaunted, Geordie took out a four-pack, Tommy poured Jessica some wine and they all sat down in front of the telly, which was murmuring and flashing images in the background. Although Jim and Tommy had made a slight effort to make the place respectable – throws over the sofa, a few plants and framed pictures – the ashtrays, empty tankards and various balls and other sporting accessories clearly indicated theirs was a bachelor pad and nothing more. Even the plants, that most elementary indicator of domesticity, were insipid little fronds, while pride of place above the fireplace was a print of the fifteenth hole at the Belfry. Dominating one corner of the sitting room was a complex music system and a massive television, with CDs and videos scattered haphazardly below. Long-dried shirts, socks and boxer shorts crammed the radiators.
It was quite apparent that Tommy hadn’t even started preparing supper, and the arrival of his friends seemed to delay this further. He happily chatted away to them – how was work? What had they been up to? Where was Flin at the moment? He blew a multitude of smoke-rings from underneath the acutely curved peak of his Oakland Athletics baseball cap. Apparently Jim’s new girlfriend – Katie Symons – was coming too.
‘Lovely girl,’ said Tommy, ‘Jim’s got himself a humdinger.’ And then making up the party was a friend of his from work called Molly Duguid. ‘So not a major bash,’ Tommy continued, ‘but it means we can all put in some serious chit-chat.’ Then he got up and announced that he really should be applying his culinary talents and sorting out supper. Geordie’s ears had twitched at the mention of Molly and he couldn’t help wondering – as he did with any new girl he might meet – whether she was a) pretty, and b) single. Coming on her own was an encouraging sign, though.
No sooner had Tommy disappeared into the kitchen than Jim turned up. Looking slightly flustered, he went straight for the kitchen and the fridge and only then came in to say hello to Geordie and Jessica.
‘Jessica, hi! You look gorgeous as ever.’ He took hold of her shoulders and kissed her on both cheeks and then turned to Geordie. ‘Good to see you,’ he grinned, shaking his hand unbelievably firmly, ‘how are you, mate?’
Slumping himself down on the sofa and pulling on the top of his can of beer, Jim asked them their news, and then ambled off to get changed. Both he and Tommy were just beginning to forge successful careers, albeit in different fields: Tommy worked for a pharmaceutical company as a brand manager, while Jim worked for a City bank. Geordie had always known Tommy would do well – he had the gift of the gab and bucketloads of self-assurance, ingredients that counted for a great deal. Both he and Jim were now earning pretty impressive salaries, even if the decor of the flat suggested otherwise; greater evidence of their material wealth could be found on the street below, where gleaming under the orange neon were Tommy’s Beamer and Jim’s MX5.
It was strange how quickly their lifestyles had changed, Geordie thought to himself. Only a few years ago, they had all looked so unkempt and slept and drank far more than they ever worked. Now pin-striped suits and cuff-linked shirts were the uniform, not worn-through jeans and ethnic jumpers. At first, he had found this change very disconcerting. When he’d set off to travel the world, no one had a proper job and they’d all still been students in attitude and circumstance, larking about with no responsibilities worth talking about. He’d been back in between, but only ever for Christmas when everyone else was on holiday and partying; so, on the surface, nothing much had seemed to have changed. But it had, irrevocably. The carefree days of early adulthood had gone for ever. Maybe that was why he had travelled so much: to perpetuate his youth, to delay growing up. All the same, it was a shock to discover that his friends no longer wanted to play every night.
Two years of travelling, however, had done little to clarify his career options, and he certainly had no better idea of how to achieve his entrepreneurial goal. But he’d vowed to himself that he would never sit another exam in his life, and determined never to join one of the professions like so many of his friends. He remembered having a huge argument with Eddie Fussle, who had been taken on by Freshfields. Geordie had told him that he’d only chosen law because it was expected of him: Eddie’s background, class, his parents’ expectations, guilt – all these factors ensured that he was bound to follow the safe path. Eddie had argued back that although perhaps that might in some ways be true, he knew he would always be comfortably off and able to work anywhere in the country, and that as far as he was concerned, Geordie was just a ‘waster’ and that he, Eddie, would have the last laugh. Whilst travelling, Geordie had often thought of such friends (as he settled down on the beach or contemplated skiing down another mountain), working harder than they ever had in their lives and probably ever would again. In the prime of their lives, in their early twenties, they were working flat-out. Such a shame; such a waste. All the same he’d felt left behind when he first came back. Most of his friends had done their hard graft at the bottom of the rung and were established in their various careers. Perhaps Eddie had been right. He’d been keenly aware he had a lot of catching up to do.
Initially, Geordie had sold advertising space. He quickly discovered he had a natural talent for selling things, but none the less hated it, loathing the tedium of being glued to a phone all day and repeating the same old patter over and over. But relief was at hand – within three months he was approached by a computer software company called FDU and offered a job selling computer monitors and managing various key accounts. Maybe not the greatest work in the world, and nothing he’d ever planned to do, but he got a company car and did a fair amount of travelling around the country seeing clients. In fact, he could often be out of London for the best part of the week clocking up enormous mileage and Argos Premier Points. It was an aspect of the job he quite liked, for he was always slightly relieved to escape London.
It was just before half past eight when Molly turned up. Jessica had gone to talk to Tommy in the kitchen and Jim was still changing, so Geordie went to open the door. As soon as he saw her, he felt a spontaneous attraction to her. It was her eyes, so perfectly light and shining and staring up at him, that caught him off guard, and although this took only a fraction of a second to register, it was she who spoke first.
‘Am I at the right place? Only you don’t look much like Tommy or Jim, unless either of them has radically altered.’ She smiled at him again, and Geordie laughed.
‘No, no, this is Tommy and Jim’s flat all right. I’m just their new doorman. Actually, I’m Geordie. Hello.’ He held out his hand, feeling a kiss to be too familiar on a first meeting. She took it, still smiling.
‘I’m Molly. How do you do?’
As he ushered her inside they were hit by the powerful smell of simmering curry. Jim then appeared from his room and took over the hosting.
‘Molly, darling, what can I get you to drink? We’ve got wine, or beer, or another colour wine.’
‘A beer would be great. Where’s Tommy?’
Geordie looked at her with even greater admiration. Quite tall, she wore her dark brown hair in a shoulder-length bob, which accentuated her eyes even more. Geordie thought she was beautiful, not in a classical way, but pretty, humorous and, he noticed appreciatively, she even had quite big breasts and liked beer.
Jessica could see Geordie blatantly staring at Molly as Tommy came out to greet her, and wondered idly whether he might be in luck. She hoped so. Really, it was about time Geordie ended this lean stretch. His moaning about his lack of a girlfriend was beginning to become tiresome. She couldn’t work out precisely where he was going wrong: Geordie was always entertaining, fairly good-looking in a blond, stringy-bean sort of way, and also moneyed: when added together, this made him quite a catch. Perhaps she should help him improve his dress sense and execrable taste in music. In the meantime, though, Jessica was conscious that Tommy was starting to flirt with her quite blatantly and so decided to stop worrying about Geordie