You Had Me at Hello (23 page)

‘Weeelllll …' Caroline says. ‘It's a weird one.'

‘What is?' I am ramrod straight, like an exclamation mark between their brackets. I will Deny Everything. Forever.

‘When that light bulb went and you were standing on that chair changing it with Simon holding on to your legs, I saw Ben give you two a real
look
.'

‘That's because we were driving a coach and horses through health and safety regs.'

Silence. Feeble jokes are not going to work here.

‘It was very intense, very serious. And when Simon helped you down and managed to grope your arse in the process, I swear Ben almost winced.'

‘He's not Simon's biggest fan. I don't think he thinks it's a good idea we're going on a date,' I add, hoping I've done enough to close the subject.

‘Yeah. This is the thing. If I didn't know better, I'd have said it was simply plain old violent male jealousy,' Caroline says. ‘Why doesn't he want you to date Simon, exactly?'

‘Lucky you do know better,' I say. ‘Given Ben's very happily married.'

‘If he's happily married, he can't have a thing for you?'

‘No.'

‘OK. Number one, there is no such thing as a happy marriage—'

‘Oh, Caroline!' Mindy wails. ‘Enough!'

‘I haven't finished.'

‘I know you haven't, because I still have a shred of hope left,' Mindy says.

‘—There is no such thing as a happy marriage if you mean an invulnerable one. Every relationship has its weaknesses and bad patches.'

‘You don't have to be married to know that,' I say.

‘I know, I know,' Caroline says, trying to soothe me. ‘I'm not running down what you had with Rhys. But he hung around with other blokes in his band all the time. You never had to worry about female friends.'

‘I still don't see what you're getting at.'

‘That if I'm right and Ben's got a soft spot for you, you need to be wary. You don't want to cause trouble by unintentionally encouraging it. Weren't you quite close at uni? Did you ever suspect anything then?'

‘No! And Ben would
never
have an affair.' At last I'm able to say something with perfect certainty.

‘How do you know?'

‘I know. Honestly, I know it like I know my own name. There's no way Ben would ever do that. He's totally honourable. I wouldn't sleep with a married man either. I hope you don't think I would do that.'

‘Nooooo,' Caroline says, with no idea what agonies this conversation is causing me. ‘But I think you might find yourself in the middle of something before you know you've started. You two were lit up like Christmas trees when you were talking to each other. No one has a crafty fag behind the bike sheds expecting to get lung cancer.'

‘I'm not smiling at Olivia, inviting her to parties and moving in on her husband!'

‘I'm not saying you're moving in on him,' Caroline says.

‘Look,' I continue, with a dry mouth that isn't all down to booze dehydration, ‘Ben and Olivia are married, Ben's not interested in me in that way, I'm not out to get him and I'm going on a date with Simon. And that's that.'

‘I'm not so sure everything's great with Ben and Olivia. I get the impression it's been a strain moving up here. She's miles away from all her family and friends and I think she misses her old job,' Caroline says.

Pause.

‘If you want my advice, Rach, the time you need to worry is if he ever says things at home are complicated,' Mindy says. ‘It's
never
complicated. “It's complicated” only ever means, “Well yeah there's someone else but I want to do you too.”'

‘What they actually mean is: it's not as complicated as I'd like it to be,' Caroline says, laughing.

I'm not laughing.

‘Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to wind you up,' Caroline says. ‘Most likely if Ben's feeling anything it's nostalgia for being twenty-one. I mean, if you'd been right for each other, it would have happened then.'

‘True,' I squeak, grateful for the cover of darkness.

‘We all get a bad attack of the what-ifs from time to time.'

‘Yeah.'

We say our goodnights. Caroline and Mindy drift into sleep.

I'm wide awake, mind racing.

If you were cool, Friday night meant clubbing somewhere a bit druggy and dancey, or if you preferred beer and guitars, it was 5th Avenue or 42nd Street. If you were a significantly less cool student, you went to a meat market shark pit where they banned jeans and trainers and played music that was in the charts. And if you were truly tragic, you went to the halls disco and drank cider out of plastic receptacles, danced around a room that doubled as a canteen by day and staggered into the takeaways opposite at half two.

Being skint is a great leveller, however, and by the second year, with the expense of ‘living out' biting, a lot of people we knew collided at the latter venue. Among the dozen or so that had gathered one particular night were Ivor, back on a weekend from his placement, and Ben and his latest girlfriend, Emily. They'd been together for a few months – good going for Ben.

She was cool in a way I could never hope to be: hi-top trainers, hacked-off denim mini, two-tone peroxide hair piled atop her head. The look was predatory-sexy and yet conventionally pretty in an ‘I don't need to labour the point; it's so obvious, I can work against it' way. He always went for hues of blonde on the colour wheel, I noted. I hadn't had much of a chance to get to know her and I was disappointed that they sat at the far end of the table, merely waving their hellos. If I wanted to get to know Ben's girlfriends, I had to strike while the iron was hot. None of them lasted much beyond a term. Whoever got Ben to settle down one day was going to have her work cut out, I thought.

When it was Ben's turn to get a round, it occurred to me it would be an opportunity to chat. I pushed my chair out and went over to give him a hand.

As I approached the bar, I saw a gaggle of rugger buggers had struck up conversation with him. Ben played football and had an XY chromosome and therefore existed as a human being rather than a heckling target.

‘Oh, hello. Do you know what we call you?' said one of the rugby gang, as I joined them. ‘Ben does. Hey, Ben! Tell Rachel what we call her.'

Ben looked deeply uncomfortable. I frowned at him.

‘Rachel
You Would
Ford. Ahahahhahaha!'

Ben muttered: ‘I bloody wouldn't.'

Rather like the truth or dare ‘sister' day, I wasn't entirely sure what to make of this denial. Ben and I ran relays between the bar and the table, two or three pints at a time, passing at the midway point.

I felt the group's eyes on me as I retreated and briefly wished I hadn't worn my new black cords that were a little tight on the rear. As I carried the second lot of glasses back to where we were sitting, I felt a hard – frankly, painful – pinch to the arse, and whipped round.

‘Oi!'

‘It was him.' They all pointed at each other, arms crossed over, comedy skit style.

There wasn't a lot I could do with full hands, so I settled for giving them serious stink-eye. When I went back for more drinks, I made the point that I was refusing to be cowed by casting a deliberately contemptuous look in the direction of my antagonists. Mistake: this only caused another ripple of amusement.

‘Don't take this the wrong way but we want to see the back of you,' said one particularly unpleasant-looking specimen, who was short, squat and acne-covered. I could see he was making up for insecurity about his deficiencies by behaving even more badly than the rest of them.

‘Drop dead. Try it again and I'll smack you.'

Rachel against ten rugby players was a prospect unlikely to make them skid their pants in fright, but I still felt I had to assert myself.

‘I won't try that again,' said hobbit rugby boy. ‘Can I check, is this not allowed either?'

He reached out and squeezed my left breast, as if it was the horn on a vintage car. The rugby boys started braying with laughter.

‘Hey!' I shouted. ‘You arsehole!'

‘Sorry, sorry, that was wrong,' he said. ‘It was actually this right one that caught my eye.'

He performed the same indignity on my other breast and I went to slap him, hard. He caught my wrist before my palm connected with his lumpy cheek. I'd seen this move in bad soap operas and didn't think anyone had fast enough reactions in real life. He had a horrible, clammy claw-of-a-vice grip. I couldn't wrest myself free and started to feel panicky.

‘Gerroff me!' I shrieked, to more raucous laughter. I could still feel the imprint of his nastily rough fingers. I'd lost control and felt my lungs constrict.

I was suddenly aware of a presence at my side. My wrist was abruptly released. I turned in time to see Ben lunging towards the spotty groper, his fist connecting hard with his jaw in a wet-sounding crunch.

‘Ow!' he cried. ‘I—'

He didn't get a chance to say anything else as Ben punched him again, quite ferociously, this time knocking him off balance and sending him sprawling to the floor. I momentarily worried that his friends might defend him and square up to Ben. Instead they stepped back and watched him flailing. Nice guys.

‘Apologise!' Ben shouted. Actual real violence had taken place and I felt like I was going to throw up. This was the halls bar, not some terrifying pub in Moss Side.

‘Sorry,' said spotty man, rubbing his cheek and looking wary of getting another right hook.

‘Not to me, to her!'

‘Sorry,' he sulked, casting a very quick look up in my direction.

‘
Idiot
,' Ben said, injecting the word with great feeling. He picked up the last two pints and I followed him back to our table.

As we walked away, spotty man shouted, at a volume that brought the whole bar to a standstill – or the small part of the bar that wasn't already watching: ‘Ben, I didn't know she was your girlfriend!' Pause. ‘I DIDN'T KNOW SHE WAS YOUR GIRLFRIEND!'

I cringed. I was absolutely certain Ben cringed. When we reached our group, everyone demanded to know what had happened.

‘They were being idiots,' Ben muttered, taking his seat next to Emily again.

‘He indecently assaulted me!' I wailed, covering my self-consciousness with theatrics.

‘How do you mean?' Caroline asked.

‘He grabbed my baps,' I said, feeling I had to explain that Ben's reaction was within the range of reasonable response.

‘And you smacked him?' Caroline said to Ben in awe, her crush clearly going nuclear.

‘Congratulations,' Ivor said. ‘I've been hoping someone would do that since I met them.'

‘Yeah, cheers, that was heroic,' I said, thanking Ben for the first time. He didn't seem to want to look at me, or anyone else for that matter, draining his pint in great gulps.

‘I didn't know you were hard!' Mindy said. ‘I might have to secretly fancy you from now on.'

‘I'm not hard, my knuckles are killing me,' Ben said, putting his glass down and rubbing his hand. ‘I don't know if I did it right.'

‘What a great fella you've got,' cooed another girl in our group to Emily. It was then that I noticed the stunned expression she was wearing. It was as if she'd been punched.
She must've been so worried he was about to get a pasting
, I thought. Even though I hadn't asked for my secondary sexual characteristics to be mauled, or for Ben to step in and defend them, I felt peculiarly guilty and anxious.

A week later, word reached me that Ben and Emily had broken up.

Ivor is awake when Mindy and I drag ourselves out of bed, Caroline having disturbed him on her way to the gym. He's sitting up on the sofa, bespectacled and bare-chested, drawing the coverlet around him when we emerge.

‘Are you hoping we'll admire your buffness and forget the sickage?' I say.

‘My t-shirt was somewhat soiled,' Ivor says. ‘Christ, was I very bad?'

‘Was he very bad, Rach?' Mindy turns to me, sarcastic, hand on hip. ‘
Was he very bad?
'

I scratch my head, yawn. ‘How do I put this? Bonfire of the dignities, Johnson.'

I make cups of sugary tea and when I deliver Mindy and Ivor's, she's climbed under the covers next to him.

‘I hear you were trying to show the twenty-three year olds how it's done?' I say, returning with mine, settling into an armchair.

‘White Russians,' Ivor says, blowing on his tea. ‘They were more like Beige Russians with all the Kahlua. I feel like dungy hell. My tongue's like a Ryvita.'

‘I take it Jake won?'

‘Oh no,' Ivor says. ‘I won.' He gestures at his half-dressed, bedraggled form. ‘This is what success smells like, ladies. The cologne of victory. Inhale deeply.'

Mindy and I laugh.

‘Think I was drinking to forget,' he says, putting his tea down and rubbing his eyes under his glasses, making them flip up and down like a music hall act. Ivor without glasses always looks wrong. ‘Major misdemeanour, the night before last.'

‘Did you snap when a Belgian teenager levelled their troll before you did on
World Of Warcraft
?' I ask.

‘Nah …' He rubs his head. ‘It was Katya.'

Mindy's head, resting in the crook of his arm, snaps up. ‘You haven't let her extend her notice? Ivor, what is wrong with you?'

‘No, she's still leaving.'

‘So?' I say.

‘We got smashed on her homemade damson wine.'

Ivor gives me a mischievous, bashful smile that I think I interpret correctly.

‘You didn't make her eat meat, did you?' Mindy says, into his armpit.

Ivor starts laughing and then winces. ‘Don't say funny things, it hurts.'