good. Jimmy was a jaunty alter ego that Loz only conjured into existence when he wanted something.
‘This school reunion tonight.’
‘Yep?’
‘Going?’
‘Why would I do that?’
‘Because your best mate begged you to go and promised to buy you beers all night, and said we could get gone by nine?’
‘Sorry, no. The thought gives me a prolapse of the soul.’
‘That’s a bit deep.’
‘You realise that at our age everyone will be doing that competitive thing about their kids? It’ll be all about Amalfi Lemon’s “imaginative play”. Brrrr.’
‘Think you’ve forgotten our school. More like “Tyson Biggie is out on parole.”’
‘Why do you want to go?’ James said.
‘Naked curiosity.’
‘Curiosity about whether there’s anyone you’d like to see naked.’
‘Don’t you want to know if Lindsay Bright’s still hot?’ Laurence asked.
‘Yurgh, no. Bet she looks like a Surrey Tory.’
‘But a dirty one, like Louise Mensch. Come on, what else are you doing on a Thursday, now you’re on your own? Watching Takeshi’s Castle in your Y-fronts?’
James winced. His Brabantia bin was crammed with Waitrose meals-for-one packaging.
‘Why would my telly be in my pants?’ he parried, sounding as limp as he felt.
‘Wap waaah.’
James’s phone pipped with a waiting call. Eva.
‘Loz, I’ve got a call. We’ll continue “me saying no” in a minute.’
He clicked to end one call and start another.
‘Hi. How’re you?’ she said.
James did a sarcastic impression of her breezy tone. ‘How’d ya think?’
Sigh.
‘I’ve got some ear drops for Luther. I need to bring them round and show you how to give them to him.’
‘Do you drop them in his ear?’ James hadn’t necessarily decided relentless bitterness was his best tactic, but unfortunately the words always left his mouth before he’d put them through any security checks.
‘Can I come round tonight?’
‘Ah, I can’t tonight. Busy.’
‘With what?’
‘Sorry, is that your business?’
‘It’s just the tone you’re taking with me, James, makes me think you might be being needlessly obstructive.’
‘It’s a school reunion.’
‘A school reunion?’ Eva repeated, incredulous. ‘I wouldn’t have thought that was your sort of thing.’
‘Full of surprises. So we’ll have to find another night for Luther.’
After they’d rung off, James allowed himself the sour pleasure of having won a tiny battle in the war. The satisfaction lasted a good three seconds before James realised that now he was going to have to go to this school reunion.
He could lie, but no. This merited some small stray reference on social media as incidental proof – a check in, a photo, a ‘good to see you too’ to some new Facebook addition – to let Eva know she didn’t know him as well as she thought she did.
‘Morning!’ Ramona unwound sheep face ear-muffs from her head. ‘Och, why did I drink on a Wednesday? I am dying, so I am.’
‘Hah,’ James said, which meant, please don’t tell me about it.
Naturally, he spent the next quarter of an hour hearing about it, then she repeated the tale to each new arrival. Wine served in plastic pint beakers got you pissed, who knew.
Anna tapped ‘Gavin Jukes’ into Facebook, hoping his name was rare enough to make him easily flush-outable. She wasn’t completely sure why she was looking him up. She wanted one person she could safely say hello to, should he appear.
And there was his profile, second down – she recognised the long nose and chin. She clicked his page, the photo a family portrait. Wife, three kids. Turned out his own gender was not his thing. Lives: Perth, Australia.
Good for you, Gavin. When it came to Rise Park, she could see the appeal in going so far away that if you went any further, you were getting nearer again.
The phone on her desk rang.
‘Parcel for you!’ trilled cheery Jeff on reception.
Anna put the phone down and bounded down the stairs. Jeff was resting the delivery on the counter, a wide, shallow black box with glossy embossed letters, tied up with wide satin ribbon. It subtly but unmistakably trumpeted I have spent more money than I needed to.
‘Something nice?’ Jeff said, then muttered ‘none of my business, of course,’ flushed at the evident thought it could be Agent Provocateur-style rutting wear, the sort of thing with frilly apertures and straps with buckles dangling from it.
Even though it wasn’t, Anna went warm in the face too, knowing she couldn’t correct it without making the suspicion stronger. It was like using the toilet stall with the foul smell and then not being able to warn the next person without them thinking you were trying a poo double bluff.
‘A dress,’ she said, hurriedly, ‘for an … event.’
‘Ah,’ said Jeff, ‘that’s nice,’ avoiding her eyes. In his head, she was obviously already in an Eyes Wide Shut, pointy nose opera mask, grinding away to Aphex Twin’s ‘Windowlicker’.
She carried the box up the stairs, back to her office on the flats of her palms, like a pizza. The University College London history department was spread over a row of Georgian townhouses, with high ceilings and huge sash windows.
It was a magical place to work. In her more sentimental moments, Anna felt it was a spiritual reward for schooldays – the dream after the nightmare. The building had that lovely old-fashioned carpety smell and yellow light from large round pendant lamps, as if you were living inside a warm memory.
Anna pushed her office door open with her back, pleased that no one had spied her. She’d feel self-conscious at any cries of ooh let’s see it on then.
Anna
