For Team P:
Ed, Amélie, Rafe and Theo
Fate was supposed to throw them together again in Rome, standing in the shadow of the Coliseum, exchanging guide-book-gleaned titbits on the tyrannical reign of Nero. Or often, in another one of her daydreams, they’d be in the grand lobby of the Royal Albert Hall, swapping polite apologies as they jostled into each other a few minutes before the lights dimmed at the Last Night of the Proms. Sometimes they’d be smiling nervously at each other as they prepared for their hot-air balloon to slowly lift off the ground over the sun-soaked sand of Queensland, or occasionally sitting at sunrise on neighbouring blankets watching turtle eggs hatch on a beach in the Florida Keys. Jayne had never been to Italy, Australia or America and, truth be told, she didn’t actually like classical music. But regardless of these small, and insignificant, realities, not once had she imagined that her reunion with Billy would be accompanied by a lingering smell of analgesic and mouthwash on a dark February afternoon in Twickenham.
**
Jayne had arrived uncharacteristically late; her cheeks were flushed from getting off the gridlocked bus and deciding to run the remaining half mile with her satchel containing thirty dog-eared exercise books bashing violently against her hip the whole way. The door let in an icy gust before slamming behind her, rudely announcing her arrival to the packed waiting room. Flustered and overly apologetic, she sandwiched herself into the only available seat, which was under a graphic poster screaming the words Disorders of the Teeth and Jaw.
She tried to keep her elbows close to her body as she took off her glasses to de-steam them and yelped as her bag slipped to the floor, scattering books and papers across the waiting room. Twelve pairs of eyes looked up at the unexpected commotion as Jayne fell to her knees reaching under the plastic chairs and leaflet-laden coffee table. ‘Sorry, sorry, I’m so sorry,’ she kept uttering while plunging her hand between boots and shoes.
‘Here’s a few more,’ a man’s deep voice uttered to her side. He was holding a pile of books and papers. ‘I think that’s the lot.’
‘Thank you so much,’ Jayne replied, accepting his outstretched hand to help her back onto her feet, ‘What an idiot.’
‘Don’t be daft, it’s fine.’ He looked at the top sheet of paper he was still holding and read its title aloud. ‘Terry Pratchett has been called the Shakespeare of today, discuss. Wow, now that’s the kind of essay I wouldn’t have minded writing when I was in school, or even now, actually!’
Jayne blew her hair out of her face as she took the papers off him, stuffed them in her bag and sat in the empty seat next to him. ‘A Pratchett fan?’ she said.
‘Have been for years,’ he replied. ‘Is that really what kids are learning nowadays?’
‘Not officially, but it’s a bit of light relief after the mocks. For me more than them, I think, although I may have converted a few of them. What was it he once said, ‘The trouble about having an open mind is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it’?’
‘My favourite quote of his was, ‘The pen is mightier than the sword if the sword is very short and the pen is very sharp’.’ They both laughed. Jayne retrieved a bottle of water from her bag and took a big gulp. She’d wanted to nip to the bathroom and give her teeth a quick brush before her appointment, but then she’d lose her seat, and she thought that it might seem a bit rude if she just got up in the middle of her conversation with this random man. She settled for swishing the water around her mouth like a wine-taster; that would have to do.
The man courteously waited for her to swallow before adding, ‘So what else do you normally like reading, then?’
‘Anything really,’ she shrugged. Being in London, talking to a stranger, albeit one that you’re touching shoulders with, was a rare phenomenon. She hadn’t yet dispensed with saying ‘sorry’ or ‘excuse me’ when she mistakenly jostled someone on the tube, which immediately singled herself out as an outsider, even after fifteen years in the city, but there was a difference between proffering up instinctive apologies and actually having a conversation with someone she didn’t know. She didn’t have anything better to do, though, apart from a quick floss, but then, that’s what she was just about to pay someone to do.
‘I usually have a few books on the go, which I know you shouldn’t do, respect for the author and all that, but, um, biographies, classics, I guess, and I try to read a few of the Booker list each year, because I feel that I should, historical fiction, some science fiction if it’s not too weird, a bit of crime, if it’s not too gruesome, um, poetry, I do like a good poem.’
‘Who doesn’t?’ He replied smiling. Up until then their exchange had all happened side-on, giving a nod to the unspoken English rule of respecting one another’s personal space, quick side glances punctuating the questions and responses. Jayne swivelled slightly in her seat to face him; he smiled and then, embarrassed, they both quickly looked away. This didn’t happen to girls like her. Strange men in public places didn’t just strike up a conversation about literature.
She started scrabbling through her bag for her phone, under the pretence of checking the time but actually just to break the silence. Thank God he didn’t know that without her glasses she could barely see the screen, let alone the numbers on it, but she didn’t want to put her specs on and spoil the illusion of being a seductive temptress. She was pretty sure he was incredibly attractive, but admittedly, at that moment he resembled a beautiful pastel drawing that was delicately smudged around the edges. To keep up the charade of having the power of sight she sighed, prompting the man to venture, ‘They seem to be running late today.’
She nodded and took one of the essays out, but deciphering the swirled swags and tails of teenage penmanship didn’t really cut it as a distraction technique, particularly as she was only pretending to read. Her eyes began straying to the side, at exactly the same time as the man looked up from the page of his book.
‘You know, reading shouldn’t really be so much of a chore,’ he teased. ‘If your forehead got any more furrowed you’d start to lose things in there.’
‘Is it that obvious?’ she smiled, ‘Here I am trying to earn an honest living and all I get is mockery.’
She could sense his mouth turning up at the edges at her feeble attempt at being affronted, and he held his hands up, ‘Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to cast aspersions on your obvious dedication to education; it quite literally seeps out of you.’
‘I hate the word ‘literally’,’ Jayne rolled her eyes, ‘Like it literally kills me. And ‘seeps’, now you come to mention it.’
‘I’m like that with ‘gusset’.’ He shivered theatrically. ‘Eugh.’
‘I have a theory about that, actually.’
‘This’ll be interesting. A theory about gussets.’
‘Indeed. I think, in the case of gusset, it’s purely because of what it describes, so if it swapped its meaning with a nice word, it would be okay – like if Judy Garland had sang ‘Somewhere Over the Gusset’ it wouldn’t be a horrible word.’
‘Okay, so by that reasoning, and I grant you, it’s a valid theory, we’d be sitting here saying ‘I loathe the word ‘rainbow’, bleurgh. Vile word. Yuck’.’
‘Exactly!’ They both sat back in their seats smiling. The room had relaxed; it felt lighter, more convivial.
Jayne started to feel butterflies building inside, a sensation