open season, to say I told you so, to reveal he’d thought it needed doing for the last three years. Mind you, I didn’t want him to exclaim you idiot either. In fact, I didn’t know what I wanted him to say. He appeared on the other side of the lawn, holding another two drinks, grinning broadly when he saw we’d doubled up. I smiled back. In Ben’s company, I was going to feel fine. This wasn’t what you were supposed to do when you’d dumped your long-term boyfriend, was it? Where was the chocolate binge, the recriminations, Gloria Gaynor? It was as if without the echo chamber of my female friends around, I was free to invent new protocol.
‘Shall we park the finals talk? Is that what’s making you anti-social?’ Ben asked, after the greeting. ‘If so, you’ve got nothing to worry about. You’re the essay queen.’
Princess Rachel crowned as essay queen. I wasn’t sure I liked the way the men in my life saw me.
‘Mmm …’ I lifted and dropped my shoulders to indicate maybe, not yet able to get the words out.
Ben rubbed the condensation off his pint glass with his index finger. I fiddled with the stem of my wine glass, enjoying the feeling of the first half glass-full hitting home.
‘How’s Pippa?’
‘Not sure. We split up.’
I was taken aback. I thought Pippa was going to be the game changer.
‘Oh, God. Sorry to hear that. How come?’
‘When I really thought about it, I knew I wasn’t going to be flying back and forth to Ireland when I got back from my trip. Seemed fairer to finish it.’
‘How did she take it?’
Ben shook his head. ‘Not brilliantly. Still. Better done now rather than later.’
‘I’m sorry. You two were good together.’
Wow. He’d not taken the option on Pippa. She was the kind of uni-pull most boys parade around their home town like the Champion’s League Cup. For a second, my imagination spooled forward to the Cleopatra-esque, peerless goddess who’d see Ben finally commit.
‘Still – now you’re clear to hit on Polly-Annas from Richmond-upon-Thames,’ I added.
‘Who?’
‘Rich girl “gappers” at Thailand’s Full Moon parties, discovering a world beyond materialism while spending daddy’s dollars.’
‘Ah. Them.’ Ben shrugged and put a hand on the back of his head.
‘So we’re both enjoying the single life,’ I said.
‘I wouldn’t say enjoying, especially.’
I paused to let the penny drop.
‘Did you say “we”?’
‘Yep. I finished with Rhys.’
Ben looked as if he was waiting for me to say Aha, not really, had you fooled. He stared in astonishment, mouth open. ‘You did? When?’
‘On the phone, earlier. He piked out of the graduation ball for no good reason. We’ve been arguing a lot lately. I lost it and told him it was over. In a shouty sort of way.’
I knew why I exaggerated. I wanted to make the point I could stick up for myself.
‘For good?’
‘Pretty much.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Ben said, eyes downcast.
‘No worries,’ I said.
I dodged further questions by swerving into superficial chatter. I looked and sounded like myself. Inside I was wondering who I was now I wasn’t Rhys’s Rachel. Rhys and Rachel, Rachel and Rhys. Ben looked like his mind was ticking over too, his view of me undergoing some adjustment. I wasn’t sure if I was imagining we held each other’s gaze for longer, in the gaps between speech, or if it was the potent combination of dehydration, nostalgia and pub quality Pinot Grigio.
‘If I’m single I’ll have more time to visit friends at the other end of the country,’ I said, halfway through the evening, once the sun had gone down and the lamps had gone on.
‘Yeah, that once-a-year get together’s going to be a blast,’ Ben said, with a sour edge.
‘Ow. We might manage more than one,’ I said, nudging him.
‘Two?’
‘Why so negative?’
‘Not the same as this though, is it?’
‘Nothing will be. University’s like this little world, a bubble of time separate from everything before and everything after.’
53
Ben walked me home that night through quiet, suburban tree-lined streets, the sodium orange glow of the streetlights buried among their leaves. The air still and thick, even late at night, as if we were in the Med. It was as though Manchester itself was laying on a farewell party for us and had ordered in special weather. We reached my front gate.
‘Urgh, I don’t want to go in,’ I whispered to Ben. ‘I don’t know whether creepy Derek’s left or not. He’s locked his door. He’ll probably start bumping around and growling at three a.m.’
‘You’re on your own? The girls have gone?’
‘They’re only coming back for the ball tomorrow.’
We looked at the house. An interior light was switched off somewhere and it plunged into darkness.
‘Brrr,’ I said to Ben.
‘If you’re that bothered about Derek, I can crash here,’ Ben said.
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah. Have you got sofa cushions, a spare blanket?’
‘I’ve got a sleeping bag, somewhere.’
‘I’ll kip on your floor, then.’
‘You would? Really?’
‘As long as you don’t snore.’
‘Great!’
Ben pretended to be grudging and I grinned like a fool. The house looked strange, a husk stripped bare of our décor and emptied of Mindy’s multi-coloured swap shop heap of shoes in the hallway. It was our End Times. Though Derek would probably live on, like the cockroach after a nuclear war.
‘I think I have a bottle of Pernod with a gummy screw-top if you want a nightcap?’ I said.
‘Pernod? I’m good, thanks. Ball tomorrow. Probably shouldn’t encourage a filthy hangover.’
‘Agreed.’
