by Paige Toon
I look over her shoulder, but can’t see the hottie in question. Unless her taste has dramatically altered and she’s now interested in women.
‘Not eleven o’clock your time,’ she says with a roll of her eyes. ‘My eleven o’clock.’
I’m vaguely curious, but not interested in the slightest, if that makes sense, so I look left and scan the bar.
‘That’s three o’clock, you moron.’
‘Jesus Christ, you don’t half make this hard,’ I chastise, looking in the opposite direction.
‘Don’t make it too obvious!’ she screeches. ‘He’s looking this way!’ I quickly avert my gaze. ‘Did you see him?’ she asks.
‘No.’
‘Dur!’
‘You told me not to make it obvious!’ I cry.
‘Look now,’ she commands.
I tentatively turn around. ‘Where?’
‘There. With those guys, there. There!’
‘You’ve had way too much to drink.’
‘Not him. Him!’ This time she points. So much for not making it obvious.
‘Oh, I see who you mean.’ Luckily he’s not looking.
Yes, he is quite cute, I concede in a detached manner. He’s wearing dark-blue denim jeans and a grey T-shirt, with short hair and a graze of stubble on his jaw. Luckily, he’s looking down. Scrap that, he’s just looked right at me. Oh, my God, it’s the German!
I quickly spin around to Lizzy.
I’ve thought about him a lot since that day a month ago, but I haven’t seen him again. I’m sure my guilt is to blame, but I’ve found myself walking past Trinity’s Great Gate more often than I’ve needed to.
‘Has he looked away?’ I ask nervously.
She shifts her position and sneakily glances over my shoulder. ‘Yes. Wait, no.’
I can’t resist. I look around. He meets my gaze momentarily before leaning in to listen to something his friend is saying. His normally neatly combed hair has fallen down across his forehead. I turn back, feeling a bit silly.
I feel compelled to say sorry, but I don’t want to go over to him with all his friends there. And I certainly don’t want him to think that I fancy him.
‘I think I know him.’ I fill Lizzy in.
‘Oh, you should say sorry!’ she exclaims. She’s been making me feel increasingly worse since I began my story. For a start, she couldn’t see what was funny about ‘cold compress’. Apparently her mum uses the phrase all the time.
‘Do you think so?’
‘Definitely! He sounds lovely!’ She looks over my shoulder again. ‘Oh.’
‘What?’
‘He’s gone.’
I spin around in time to see the last of his friends’ backs winding out through the tables. The disappointment feels strange and unfamiliar.
‘What a shame,’ Lizzy says with dismay. ‘Maybe he’s pissed off with you.’
I shrug, trying not to let it bother me. ‘Maybe. Or maybe he didn’t recognise me,’ I suggest hopefully.
I barely recognised him without his jacket on, plus it’s dark in here.
‘Maybe,’ she says. ‘Oh, well, plenty more fish in the sea, I suppose.’
I nudge her good-naturedly. ‘What about Chris? He couldn’t keep his eyes off you earlier.’
‘Not for me, you idiot,’ she scoffs. ‘For you!’
‘What?’ I splutter. ‘No! I’m not interested in anyone else!’
‘Anyone else?’ she asks wryly. ‘Anyone else apart from whom?’
‘Joe,’ I reply with a frown.
‘Thought so,’ she says, unimpressed.
‘Why are you saying it like that?’ I’m feeling a bit annoyed now.
‘I don’t get it.’ She shakes her head. ‘You barely knew him.’
‘I did know him,’ I say fervently. ‘I knew him better than I ever knew anyone.’
She pulls a face. ‘How can that be? It was only a few weeks.’
She doesn’t understand.
Luckily, Jessie intervenes. ‘VAGINA!’ He grabs me from behind and lifts me up.
I wriggle out of his grasp and hit him on his chest, before brandishing my forefinger in his face. ‘I told you to stop calling me that!’
He grins and grabs me again, plonking a big wet kiss on my cheek.
‘Gross! You’re all sweaty!’ I push him away and he hoots with laughter – literally hoots.
He’s been on the dance floor with Chris, Mike and Sammy. Blondie is still at work, but will no doubt be joining us later. Jessie proceeds to rave dance overenthusiastically in the middle of our gathering. Everyone cracks up laughing, including me. Lizzy and I smile at each other, peace thankfully restored. We won’t be talking about Joe again anytime soon.
A week later I wake up early in the morning. I’ve now moved fully into Jessie’s house where the curtains are blissfully white instead of murky orange, and I open them up to see that dawn has broken. There’s a fine mist drifting across the city’s rooftops. It will be beautiful on the Backs. The river beckons.
I throw on some jeans and a sweatshirt and set off to the Magdalene Bridge punting station. No one will be there now, but I have a key and I can unlock one of the punts.
Soon, the only thing I can hear is the occasional sleepy duck quacking and the sound of the water as my pole dips in and out of it. I was right. It’s breathtaking on the river this morning. The Bridge of Sighs looms up ahead and I go slowly, trying to drink everything in. I breathe in deeply and feel calm.
I pass under St John’s two bridges and look back to see the mist drifting across the lawn in front of New Court on the western bank. It will be a while before it burns off in today’s predicted sunshine. I slow down in the middle of the river, making the most of the fact that it’s deserted and that I’m not in anyone’s way. I wish I had my camera, but at the same time I know that no lens could do justice to this sight. I jolt at the sound of someone clearing their throat up ahead. I pass under Trinity Bridge to see a man perching on the bridge wall to my right. I don’t bloody believe it.
‘Good morning,’ he says.
The German.
‘Hello.’
‘Here we are again,’ he adds with a raised eyebrow.
‘Indeed.’ I smile drily and drop my pole onto the riverbed to anchor my boat.
‘You mean, you’re staying?’ he says with surprise. Is that sarcasm? Big words and sarcasm – impressive.
‘I’m sorry I ran off that time. It’s just that my friend came along and offered to give me a ride back to the punting station and then he made sure I got back to my halls of residence okay because I didn’t really feel up to walking after all of that . . .’ I know I’m rambling. He regards me with amusement.
‘That’s quite alright.’
‘I did put ice on it,’ I feel compelled to add.
He grins and looks down and my insides feel funny. Lizzy is right. He is good-looking.
‘Are you a student here?’ I nod to Trinity on the other side of the river.
‘Yes.’
‘What are you studying?’
‘Physics.’ There goes my theory about him being a medical student. ‘What about you?’ he asks.
‘English Literature.’ I usually just say English Lit, but something about him makes me feel more formal. ‘Not here,’ I add hastily. ‘At Anglia Ruskin.’
He nods. He’s not surprised. Students from the revered university are not supposed to work during term time. All their spare time is supposed to be spent on their studies. Where’s the fun in that? I shift on my feet. The boat wobbles slightly underneath me.
‘Well, then,’ I say, nodding upriver and giving my pole a sharp twist to release it from the riverbed.
‘What’s your name?’ he asks.
‘Alice,’ I reply, hesitantly pushing my pole back into the mud. ‘Yours?’
‘Lukas.’
Lukas. That sounds better than ‘the German’.
‘What are you doing out here at this time?’ I ask him.
/> ‘I couldn’t sleep. I sometimes come out here to read.’ I notice a textbook in his hands. Something to do with electrodynamics, whatever that is.
‘It’s weird bumping into you again,’ I comment.
‘Cambridge is a small city.’
‘True.’ I gaze around me and back at him. He’s wearing jeans and a black jumper. ‘It’s pretty here this morning, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’ His stare is unnerving. It strikes me that he’s extremely confident.
I shift on my feet again. I feel oddly uneasy in his company. ‘Were you . . . Was that you at that nightclub last week?’
He purses his lips and looks away. ‘Yes, that was me.’
‘Good night?’ I ask feebly.
‘I’ve had better,’ he replies.
Talk about a stilted conversation. I wrack my brain for something to say. Of course, I could just leave, but something is keeping me here and I don’t know what.
‘Have you broken up yet?’ I ask. ‘From university, I mean?’
‘I know what you mean,’ he says. ‘I’ve finished my exams, yes.’
‘How do you think you did?’
‘I’ll find out today.’
‘Aah, so that’s why you can’t sleep?’
‘Part of it.’
Intriguing. ‘What year are you in?’
‘Two.’
‘Only one more to go, then.’
‘I’m doing a four-year course.’
‘Oh, okay. How old are you?’ I’m curious.
‘Twenty.’
Hello? Help me with the conversation, here! Nope, he says nothing.
I try again. ‘Are you going to the May Ball on Monday?’
‘Yes. Yourself?’
‘Not likely.’ The tickets are like gold dust. ‘No, I’ll be working.’ I indicate the punt.
‘Aah, yes,’ he says knowingly.
The description ‘May Ball’ is misleading, because the end-of-term balls actually take place in late June. I thought the students here were supposed to be bright – unless they named it the May Ball to confuse the rest of us. Anyway, each college has its own shindig, with Trinity, St John’s and Clare all being renowned for their spectacular fireworks display. So much so that we offer punting tours on the nights of the balls, so those of us not invited – i.e. practically everyone alive – can still get a taste of the action, so to speak.
I suspect, from Lukas’s tone, that he doesn’t really approve of the gatecrashers. But the river belongs to us all.
‘Do you have a problem with us commoners being there, then?’ I ask a little shirtily.
He shrugs. ‘Not at all. It all adds to the ambience.’
‘Are you bilingual?’ I’m distracted by his use of language and consequently overlook the fact that he accepted the term ‘commoner’ as a description for me.
‘No,’ he replies.
‘Your English is very good.’
‘Thank you,’ he says. I get the feeling he finds me entertaining.
Silence. A man in a suit crosses the bridge up ahead. More silence. That’s it. I can’t do this anymore.
‘I’d better get off,’ I say, pointing back the way I came. ‘My flatmate will think I’ve been kidnapped if he wakes up and finds me gone.’
‘Flatmate? I thought you said you lived in halls of residence.’
He picked that up from my earlier ramble, then.
‘I did. Until last week. Now I’ve moved in with a friend.’
‘You’re not going home for the summer?’
‘No. I thought I’d stay here. What about you?’
‘I leave after the ball.’ He leans forward and rests his elbow on his knee.
‘Back to Southern Germany?’
‘That’s right.’ He smiles. ‘You didn’t get concussion, then.’
‘Sorry?’
‘When you hit your head. You remember me telling you where I was from.’
‘Oh. Right. Yes. I still can’t believe I did that. It was mortifying.’
‘It’s nothing to be ashamed about.’
‘Yes, it is.’ I give him a wry smile. ‘My workmates gave me a major amount of grief for it.’
‘I’m sure it happens all the time.’
‘That’s what I keep telling them.’ Although I’ve never actually seen anyone else doing it . . .
‘I thought you did well to stay aboard,’ he says.
‘Er, thanks,’ I mumble. More silence. Another city worker crosses the bridge up ahead. ‘I guess I’d better go,’ I say again. This time he lets me.
‘It was nice talking to you, Alice.’
‘You too,’ I reply. ‘Maybe I’ll see you around.’
He nods at my punt and then at Trinity. ‘Next week, perhaps.’ I gather he’s talking about the night of the ball.
‘If you’re not too drunk to recognise me,’ I tease.
‘I doubt it,’ he replies.
‘Okay, then. Well, bye.’ I give my pole a sharp twist and pull upwards to release it from the riverbed. ‘Good luck with your exam results today.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Hope you get some sleep tonight.’
‘You too.’ He smiles and gets to his feet.
By the time I’ve turned the punt around and gone back under the bridge he’s already inside Trinity’s gates.
I have a boat full of people – twelve in total. They’re friends who have clubbed together to hire a punt on the night of the ball. They’ve been steadily making their way through several bottles of champagne, laughing, chatting and soaking up the atmosphere for the last three and a half hours. It’s almost eleven o’clock and the fireworks are due to start soon. I’ve anchored my boat with my pole in the usual way, right outside the Wren Library. I wasn’t here for the balls last year, and they’re a sight to behold. Trinity’s south paddock, in front of me to my left, has a fairground and there are marquees set up for food and attractions like a comedy club and a hog roast. There’s a champagne bar situated under the cloisters of the Wren Library, and we can hear music coming from the main stage beyond that. Supergrass are one of the acts playing tonight and I’m gutted I can’t go and watch them.
Jessie is on the boat next to mine, and our passengers have been plying us with champagne, so we’re in high spirits. There are so many punts hemmed in on this part of the river that you could step from boat to boat all the way to the banks and back. Shame about the level of security: it’s practically impossible to gatecrash. Trinity Bridge is heaving with people, and I only wish Lizzy were here so we could dissect the vast array of ball gowns that we see in front of us, from the sublime to the extreme.
One of my merry passengers tops up my champagne and Jessie and I raise another glass to each other.
Then, once more, I scan the crowd for Lukas.
I wish I could stop myself from doing this, but I can’t. I’ve been doing it all night. I keep telling myself that it’s because he’s the only person I know who goes to Trinity, so of course I’d feel compelled to look out for familiar faces. But that’s not it. There’s something else. He intrigues me, and I’m a little freaked out by how much.
The fireworks kick off and they’re spectacular – but I’m distracted, and when it’s all over and I still haven’t seen Lukas I punt back to the station feeling quite deflated.
That night in bed I let myself think about Joe for the first time in a long while. I’ve become good at closing off my mind from him, protecting myself from the pain that comes with thinking those thoughts, but tonight I need to remember . . .
There’s a full moon, and the air is unnervingly still. We lie together in a grassy field. He moves on top of me and I pull him in closer as his tongue explores my mouth. I want him desperately – we haven’t yet made love – but Dyson distracts us.
I smile to myself as Joe berates him, and then my mind is flooded with the image of his beloved dog sprawled out and damaged, his fur matted with blood. Oh, Dyson . . . I can’t believe he’s dead.
Suddenly Ryan is groping me and I jolt and furiously shake my head to push out that memory. I stare ahead in the darkness.
Where are you, Joe?
What if something has happened to him? What if Ryan found him? A cold sweat washes over me. Why have I never wondered this before? What if Ryan hurt him? What if that’s the reason for him not coming for me? How can I find out? I should be in London. I shouldn’t be here, having fun on the river and being distracted by a good-looking foreign man. I shouldn’t even be using the description good-looking in relation to Lukas! My fingers curl under and press themselves into the palms of my hands and the pain is a welcome distraction from the pain in my chest.
Tomorrow I’m going to London.
Having made this decision, I can’t get back to sleep. Eventually I get up and start to pack, my heart hammering with adrenalin as I pull my suitcase out from the top of my wardrobe. I can’t think straight. I don’t know what I’ll need. I rummage through my drawers, trying to get my head together. I hear a muffled knock and look sharply at the wall. Jessie. Am I being too noisy? Cautiously I return his knock. Moments later he stumbles through and climbs into my empty bed.
‘What are you doing?’ he mumbles, still half asleep.
‘Packing,’ I tell him. ‘I’ve got to go home.’
‘What? Why? Has something happened?’
‘No, nothing. But I have to go.’
‘Why?’
I take a deep breath and stare at him. I never told him about Joe. I didn’t need to. Jessie – being Jessie – made me smile again. I didn’t want to cloud our relationship by bringing sadness into the equation.
He sits up, trying to focus. I perch on the end of the bed.
‘Last year . . . last summer . . . I met a boy. It was in Dorset. I was on holiday with my parents.’
No reaction. He waits for me to go on.
‘I fell in love with him. And it wasn’t just a holiday romance . . . It was real love. I know it was.’ It’s important to me that he understands this.
He nods at me. ‘I believe you.’ After that, I tell him everything.
‘God,’ he says, staring ahead when I’ve finished. ‘But why now? What’s making you think that you’ll find him now, after almost a year?’