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.
39
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!’
