The Best Thing I Never Had (27 page)

Adam stared at the dark varnished wood of the doors. ‘Who knows?’ he said, blithely. ‘Up to her, I guess.’ He was picturing the wooden-panelled corridors that wormed through this old building; you could get out to the library quad through doors at the back of the dining hall. ‘Can you look after that for me, mate?’ he asked, holding his drink out to Demi. ‘Just going to pop to the loo.’

Demi smiled widely and accepted the glass into his free hand. ‘Sure thing,’ he said, in a tone that heavily suggested that he knew full well that Adam’s destination was not going to be the gents.

The day still had some heat in it, as it wasn’t quite five o’clock yet. Harriet sought out a patch of particularly plush looking grass and sat gracefully, smoothing her dress out carefully and folding her legs beneath her, a far cry from when she used to throw down book bags and collapse anywhere there was space to. This quad had always been thronged in the better weather, the perfect space for studying outdoors, what with its proximity to both the Old Library and the dining hall.

The quad was quiet now, all the students home for the Easter break, the campus and its amenities given over for events like conferences and weddings. Still, Harriet felt as if the ghost of her undergraduate self was going to come trotting out of the library, ring binders and text books clasped to her chest with one arm, sticking earphones in with her free hand, squinting in the brightness of the sunlit quad after the gloom of the library.

What would I say to my eighteen year old self, Harriet wondered idly, ripping up clumps of grass and sprinkling the blades. Beware false friends, the smiles of certain boys, the effect that the love poetry of Pablo Neruda will one day have on you.

She contemplated calling Annie – after all, that is what she’d come out here to do – but found she didn’t quite have the energy.

She hadn’t heard anyone approach, but the sun was low in the west and threw the person’s shadow out in front of her; guiltily she hurriedly wiped the butchered blades of grass from her fingers. Adam sat beside her, carefully balancing the glasses of champagne he was holding, one in each hand. He took a sip from one as he settled, passing the other over to her without comment.

‘So, my dissertation,’ he said, conversationally, as if he were carrying on some paused, five year old chat. Harriet blinked.

‘What about your dissertation?’ she asked. ‘Tell me you’ve handed it in by now!’ she teased. Adam laughed.

‘I’ll have you know it got handed in a full fifty minutes before the deadline,’ he replied, in a tone of affront. ‘And I got a high 2.1 mark for it.’

‘Good for you,’ Harriet said, shifting uncomfortably, unsure as to where this conversation was leading.

‘I changed the topic, you know,’ he said, casually. Harriet trained her eyes on the little humps of grass she’d made.

‘Yeah, Nicky told me at the time,’ she said. ‘Brave move.’ The love poetry of Pablo Neruda obviously didn’t have the same effect on him, she thought to herself, ruefully. She remembered Adam reading certain lines aloud to her in the dead of the night, voice hushed so as not to disturb any housemates, could picture exactly how his face had looked in the lamp light.

I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,

In secret, between the shadow and the soul.

‘Anyway,’ she said, hurriedly, banishing the memory of their nights together as if he would somehow be able to see the scene projected onto her face. ‘What are you doing out here?’

‘I was on the way to the toilets,’ Adam said casually. ‘Thought I’d check you weren’t doing a runner.’

‘On your way to the toilets with two glasses of champagne?’ Harriet asked lightly. Adam shrugged nonchalantly and took another sip from his drink.

‘What are you doing out here, is the better question,’ he said, turning slightly to face her more.

‘Oh,’ Harriet groaned, flapping her hand dismissively, ‘I just wanted five minutes to sit without an inoffensive smile plastered to my face, without worrying that someone’s going to think I’m suicidal with stress, or a jumped up moody bitch.’

‘And running away is the better option?’ Adam said. He clearly hadn’t thought his words through; he was already looking away from her before the final word was out of his mouth and she knew they were both thinking about the same thing.

‘I’m not running anywhere,’ she said, carefully. ‘Just wanted five minutes, whilst they changed the room over. Plus this champagne is going straight to my head, especially on top of last night’s!’ she joked. Adam didn’t reply, just stared ahead to where the arch above the library door joined at its keystone; she wondered if he was talking to his eighteen year old self, too.

‘So,’ she said, sitting up a little straighter, trying to steer the conversation onto safer ground. ‘What do you do, these days? Nicky said something to do with insurance..?’ Adam turned back to her and nodded.

‘Yeah, brokerage. Boring. Long hours at the moment because we’re going through a merger,’ he confessed. ‘Pays the bills. How about you? How do you fill your time?’

‘Oh, you know. Work, sleep, play. Laundry. I seem to forever be doing laundry.’

‘Are you seeing anyone?’ Although she had sensed they had been working towards this, the sheer suddenness of the question took Harriet aback.

‘No,’ Harriet said, drawing the word out. ‘Not at the moment. Or I’d have him here, wouldn’t I? Much needed moral support.’

‘I thought I said I’d be your moral support?’ Adam said, with a teasing smile.

‘Only for this weekend, you said,’ Harriet teased back. ‘I might have meant moral support for life in general.’

‘Has there been anyone serious? Any serious moral support being offered?’

‘Nope. Just a rather depressing string of things that fizzle out after just a few dates.’

‘A string, eh? A string sounds like rather a lot! You on that internet dating or something?’

‘I think Annie – Iona’s sister – I think she put me on that My Single Friend dot com once,’ Harriet laughed. ‘I don’t think I even got any bites, despite the fact she referred to me as “a great laugh” with “a cracking bod”’!

‘Hey, I don’t remember giving your friend permission to quote me,’ Adam laughed. Harriet laughed too, a little falsely. It was too hard to get comfortable with Adam, he kept blurring the lines; was he an old friend, with whom she had a convivial rapport, or an old ex, with whom she had unfinished business? The parameters kept shifting and she couldn’t keep up.

She took a cold sip of champagne and allowed a silence to fall. She imagined finishing the glass, and another, and a whole bottle more, and telling Adam Chadwick – who was sat beside her so companionably – that sometimes, when she was in bed with a man, beneath him, she’d look up through the muddle of her eyelashes and it would be him instead.

She could imagine how well that would go down. She shouldn’t even be thinking about it, let alone thinking about telling him about it. She’d better watch herself on the champagne tonight, she thought; Annie was right.

‘It’s probably okay to go in now,’ Adam said, after a while, clearly feeling the silence had gone on too long. ‘Nicky will be wondering where we are.’

And Leigha and Sukie will be salivating over the fact that we’ve disappeared together, Harriet thought to herself. No doubt in their minds we’ve broken into the library and rutted one another up against the stacks in the Reference section.

Her expression was obviously a curious one, as Adam was looking at her with interest. ‘You okay?’

‘Yeah, fine!’ she said, a little too brightly. ‘I was just… thinking. You go ahead, I – I need to make a call.’ Adam looked at her, unsure. ‘I’ll be like, five minutes.’ Still, he hesitated. ‘Line me up another glass of champagne, they must be running out soon.’ Reluctantly Adam nodded and hoisted himself to his feet.

He touched her shoulder as he left. It was an odd, friendly gesture, and one that left her insides feeling like the ball of wadded up paper towels that Leigha had left in the bathrooms. It was a feeling she was getting used to already, this weekend; it seemed to be coming from all corners.

She didn’t call Annie, just sat and finished her champagne in solitude, staring across at the red bricks of the library archway, idly flattening out her little grass piles with her palm.

Love is so short,

Adam had read out to her, lying on his stomach in this very quad, on the first truly warm day of spring, 2007.

forgetting is so long.

Sukie had given up the ghost and was making a small hill of hairpins on the table in front of her. When she was sure she’d gotten the last of them out she massaged her aching scalp lightly with her fingertips.

In the centre of the room, Miles held Nicky – all elbows – in the classic waltz position as he swept her about the dance floor to the anguished vocals of Aerosmith’s
I Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing
.

‘Bit of an odd choice, for their first dance,’ Johnny murmured, frowning lightly.

‘What do you mean?’ Iona chided him. ‘I love this song, it’s a classic!’

‘It’s just that they aren’t really, you know,
power ballad
people,’ Johnny explained.

‘It was playing that night.’ Harriet’s absence has not gone un-noted but she appeared to have slipped back amongst them whilst Sukie was occupied dismantling her hair. ‘In the Armstrong. The night they met.’

‘My fault,’ Leigha said, stirring; she had been watching Miles and Nicky with a little smile on her face. ‘Do you remember there used to be a juke box thing? In the corner by the loos? They got rid of it some time in second year. Do you remember, I went round the bar begging 10ps off strangers to make up the quid for it? And then I chose a couple of cheesy songs and
Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing
was first and Miles and Nicky dirty danced to it.’

‘Yeah, right in the middle of the pool tables,’ Sukie added.

‘How far they’ve come!’ Adam grinned, looking fondly over at the couple. Nicky’s full-skirted dress swished and swayed; it was like the end of a Disney movie.

‘It’s such a lovely story,’ said Demi, also watching the couple. ‘Shows how “The One” can appear when you least expect it. Bam! You casually go out mid-week for a couple of drinks, you’re not looking for it, and there’s your soulmate. Seven years later?’ He gestured at the new man and wife. ‘Aerosmith and a hell of a lot of tulle.’

‘It’s true!’ Iona agreed, earnestly. The poor thing was periodically taking baby sips from a glass of chardonnay that she clearly didn’t like the taste of but didn’t want to say. ‘My friend met her boyfriend when she was walking her dog, looking completely skanky, just two days after her high school boyfriend had dumped her. She was totally broken-hearted, couldn’t even
think
about being with someone else. But then she met James and within, like, a week they were practically living together.’

Sukie managed with some restraint not to roll her eyes. Iona – or, to be fair, being nineteen – seemed utterly ridiculous to her. Had she ever been that young?

Demi smiled encouragingly at the girl. ‘That’s what it was like with Sukie and me,’ he confided, in a gossipy tone of voice. ‘I was in the library studying. I definitely wasn’t looking for a girlfriend.’ Sukie did not do as well at containing the derisive snort that rose up inside her at that; not looking for a girlfriend – that was putting it mildly! ‘And suddenly there she was.’ Demi smiled again, a smile that Sukie knew was just for her this time. It was hard to stay annoyed with him when he did that.

‘Well I don’t believe in there being just one person for everyone.’ Leigha centred herself back towards the table and crossed her legs matter-of-factly.

‘What about love at first sight?’ Demi enquired. Leigha smiled, a slow, lazy smile.

‘I believe in
lust
at first sight,’ she corrected, flashing a – cheeky cow! – heavy-lidded look towards Adam. Adam didn’t give the slightest reaction but Sukie didn’t miss Harriet’s knuckles whitening against the curve of her wine glass.

‘I believe in love at first sight,’ offered Johnny. Iona preened and simpered a little at this, like it was the equivalent of him saying he’d fallen for her at the first glance. Leigha turned her lidded gaze onto her ex; she – like most of the table – knew who Johnny was most likely referring to. ‘Well,’ he continued, nodding towards the newlyweds, ‘it sure worked out okay for them.’

On the dance floor the track had changed. Nicky was being turned around and around in a very stately box-step by Miles’ salt-and-pepper haired father whilst the official photographer contorted and swivelled to take pictures of them. In the opposite corner, Miles fumbled to keep pace with Nicky’s mother, a grandly dressed statuesque woman, the same height as he.

‘The only girl I’ve ever loved, well, that wasn’t love at first sight.’ Adam’s voice was quiet, considering. ‘Didn’t mean it wasn’t love, though.’ Was he talking about Harriet, Sukie wondered? Harriet was suddenly very interested in rubbing lines in the condensation on the swell of her wine glass with her fingertip.

‘I say, different strokes for different folks,’ announced Roddy.

‘But maybe you only believe in love in first sight when you’ve experienced it yourself,’ Johnny argued. ‘You know. Like with ghosts.’ Adam grinned remorsefully.

‘I really don’t hold out much hope for ever falling in love at first sight.’

‘How about falling in lust at first sight?’ asked Leigha, more than a tad coquettishly. Roddy just laughed at her indulgently.

The wedding guests broke into polite applause as the song came to an end and Miles and Nicky were released by their respective new in-laws. The DJ came on the speakers.

Iona practically bounced in her seat. ‘Ooh, I really want to dance!’ she said, excitedly. ‘Johnny’s never taken me out clubbing, or anything, so we’ve never danced together.’

‘Is that so?’ Adam’s eyebrows rose in exaggerated disbelief. ‘Well, let me tell you, he was quite the mover back here in the day.’

‘Really?’

‘Really,’ Adam repeated, cheerfully ignoring the death glares Johnny was shooting him. ‘Later, we should ask the DJ to play Akon,
Smack Dat.
Johnny had a whole dance routine worked out for that, I seem to recall.’

‘We
definitely
have to get hold of some Jäger if I’m going to be doing a reprisal of that,’ Johnny said.

‘A reprisal of what?’ Sukie interrupted.

‘Johnny’s
Smack Dat
dance.’

‘Good God,’ Sukie said, with feeling. ‘And maybe we can persuade Miles to do the
My Humps
routine in the background.’

‘Does someone have a pen?’ Leigha asked, amused. ‘I feel like we should be making a list of song requests for the DJ.’ As she finished speaking, so did the DJ, and the unmistakeable opening strains of Whigfield’s
Saturday Night
burst from the speakers.