The Best Thing I Never Had (5 page)

February 2007

The weather was typically February foul and Harriet seemed to have brought along a mood to match. She didn’t remove her scarf the whole journey into Waterloo, her entire lower face concealed behind a wall of plaited, coloured wool.

Adam had never been to Senate House – the University of London’s central library – before, preferring instead, like Johnny, to use the online catalogues. The girls had instantly been appalled, berating the piss poor effort he was putting into his studies, predicting – in typically dramatic fashion – the complete and total failure of his degree each and every time they saw him until finally, worn-down, he agreed to tag along with Harriet the next time she went into the city.

The girls had waxed so lyrical about this great national epicentre of learning that Adam was a bit underwhelmed at first sight of the grey Art-Deco building looming pale on the London skyline. The inside wasn’t much better, emphatically hushed, like a graveyard, and decorated like a gentlemen’s smoking club.

Harriet disappeared into the stacks as soon as they came to the right section, mutely waving her hand to indicate the catalogue computers that lined one wall. Before the log in screen had even loaded for Adam she had reappeared to pile musty books on the reading table where she had discarded her handbag, scarf and coat.

‘Harry,’ he tried.

Shush, she wordlessly flapped her free hand at him. Dispirited, he typed a few vague searches into the engine: Blake. Shelley. Romanticism. Didn’t bother to scroll down the list of several thousand entries that generated. Giving that up as a bad lot he returned to the reading table, shifting Harriet’s one precarious pile of books into two more stable ones. He glanced down the aisle. Way at the end Harriet was sitting on one of the portable steps, consulting the bibliography at the back of a thick, yellow-paged book.

Adam hesitated at the entrance to the aisle, feeling rather the unwelcome visitor left loitering in the doorway. He knew she knew he was there and sure enough, within thirty seconds she turned her head to him, eyebrows knitted together.

‘What?’ Only the fifth or sixth word she had spoken to him all day.

‘Help me.’ Pathetic, but genuine; he couldn’t help but smile ruefully, and – as he had hoped – neither could she. Harriet shut the book with a dull thud, hugging it between her chest and her crossed arms as she stood and came to him.

A move of the mouse as she sat down called up the results list and she started weeding through it with the efficiency he hadn’t been able to muster.

‘Romanticism,’ she muttered to herself, as if it were the most ridiculous focus for a dissertation in the whole world.

Adam moved to stand behind her, hands flat in support on the arms of the computer chair, his stomach pressed to its back. He noticed he could feel a rumbling vibration through Harriet that was her murmuring under her breath as she read through the catalogue list. He noticed how the very tip of her tongue appeared between her lips as she concentrated. He noticed how her hair smelt like the rain that had fallen on them during their walk from the tube.

And then he noticed those unfathomable kicks again, the ones he had felt churning up the Snakebite in his insides that night in the Armstrong; one low down that he recognised well – that was lust – and one higher, that was something more. He pulled back from the support of the chair, frowned, fidgeted.

‘How far in to this do you want to research?’ Harriet asked, seemingly oblivious to Adam’s growing discomfort. ‘How many books shall we get you?’

‘As many as it takes to for me to get started,’ Adam replied, frowning harder as he felt the tell-tale burn of a blush rising on his neck.

Despite being the native Londoner, Harriet was passive and let him pick their spot on the platform at Holborn. She was still quiet, but it was a silence of a different quality now. Her eyes were soft again, her oversized scarf looped around and around the handles of her handbag.

Adam didn’t want to take her home, not yet, back to that house and the other girls, who’d sharpen her back up against him in no time. For the moment they seemed to be friends again, and whilst Adam wasn’t too sure what about his company today had caused it, he certainly wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

He suggested going for Chinese food; he knew it was her favourite – she knew he knew, and smiled at him gratefully.

‘Look,’ Adam said suddenly, interrupting himself, ‘look.’ Harriet followed the line of his pointing arm to where a tiny brown roundness scuttled parallel to the rails and away out of sight. She clutched at his elbow.

‘Oh,’ she breathed, her voice small against the rushing sound of the oncoming train. ‘You know, I’ve never actually seen one before.’ She looked so decidedly pleased at something so ridiculously commonplace as a mouse that Adam couldn’t help but laugh. She smiled up at him, uncaring of his soft ridicule.

They alighted at Piccadilly Circus, out of breath and flushed in their winter layers by the time they made it to street level, where a squall of rain buffeted them immediately. Harriet yelped, unconsciously drawing closer to the shelter and warmth of Adam’s body, wrapping their arms together tightly as if he were another one of the girls. They navigated the flow of tourists, heads together and down, on towards Soho and Chinatown.

‘Did you know,’ Adam turned his face to murmur into her ear, ‘that it’s not Cupid?’ Harriet gave a preoccupied half glance back at the familiar statue in the centre of the circus.

‘It’s Eros,’ she agreed.

‘No, it’s actually Anteros,’ Adam corrected her, pleased with himself. ‘Unrequited love.’

‘Fraternal love,’ Harriet retorted immediately; there was an edge back to her voice and Adam pulled himself up immediately.

‘Yeah, something like that,’ he agreed convivially as they moved forward towards Leicester Square, her fingers still pulling distractedly at the sleeve of his coat.

Now he had noticed Harriet, and the strange solar-plexus wrenches she seemed to incur, Adam found he could notice nothing else. She slipped in front of him, to better see the screen of the quiz machine in the pub, standing so close he could feel the warmth of her body heat all the way down his front; everything on his body involuntarily tightened.

The stake was £2 and rising, and it was a football question. Sukie delicately declared herself without a ‘fucking clue’ and Harriet tilted her head backwards, looking up at him expectantly for the answer.

His mind went blank.

‘Adam!’ Sukie cried, grabbing at his arm in a panic. ‘What’s the answer?’

‘Man United.’ Johnny appeared out of nowhere to save the day, reaching clumsily over Harriet’s head to punch the correct answer on the touch screen with just milliseconds to spare. Sukie exhaled in relief; she took her quiz machine investments very seriously; after all, £2 could be a small fortune to a student the wrong side of Reading Week. The display changed to the next question, the now £3 pot flashing tantalisingly in the corner of the screen.

Q. Who was the first poet to be buried in Poet’s Corner in London’s Westminster Abbey?

A. Keats B. Wordsworth

C. Chaucer D. Shakespeare

Sukie looked eagerly at her two tame Literature students.

They were still looking at one another, Adam flushed all the way to the tip of his ears, Harriet’s lips slightly apart, so that her bottom teeth reflected a sheen in the light from the flashing quiz machine.

‘Guys,’ Sukie tried, weakly, ‘hey, guys?’

‘Chaucer,’ Johnny said, decisively, reaching forward to once again select the right answer, startling Adam and Harriet out of their impromptu staring contest.

‘At least someone is taking this seriously!’ Sukie grumbled, hooking arms with Johnny to prevent him from returning to the table where Leigha and Nicky were sharing a particularly limp looking plate of curly fries.

‘Just going to the loo,’ Harriet mumbled, to nobody in particular. Adam watched her slip away and through the swing doors into the Ladies’. He could feel Leigha’s eyes on him from the nearby table. He took a long drink from his pint of coke, feeling it bubble low in his throat as it went down too quickly.

You have royally fucked this up, he thought to himself

February 2007

It took Harriet and Sukie three trips between the bar and the booth to bring the whole round over; pints for the boys, a pitcher of an orangey coloured cocktail – almost overflowing with ice – and a bottle of cheap white wine. The cherry on the cake was a tray of Jägerbombs, courtesy of Sukie’s ignorant father; she had cunningly hidden the money trail by asking for cashback when doing her weekly food shop on his credit card.

It was the second week of February, a rainy Wednesday, a generous few degrees above zero, and some absolute twat on the Entertainment committee had decided that what the student body really needed was a Beach Party theme night. As inappropriate as the timing may be, they were all loath to miss out on an opportunity for fancy dress and, most importantly, it happened to be Nicky’s 21
^st
birthday. The real celebrations would be that Saturday, of course, at a house party where the Pan Punch would be flowing, but Nicky had wanted to mark the actual day by going for ‘a quiet one’ – meant of course, as ever, ironically.

Sukie gingerly put the tray of glasses down on the table. Nicky literally clapped her hands with glee. ‘Right guys, let’s play a game,’ she ordered. Leigha groaned, tugging up her blue and white bandeau summer dress, oversized sunglasses perched stylistically on her head.

‘Never Ever…?’ Sukie suggested, with a grin, knowing Nicky was far too prim.

‘Bunny?’ was Johnny’s proposal, complete with hands-above-head imitation of the ears.

‘Twenty Ones?’ Miles said. Leigha groaned louder.

‘No, no! I plan on getting very drunk tonight; I don’t plan on calculating… prime numbers or… trying to work out Roman Numerals.’ Leigha karate-sliced the air to emphasise her point.

‘Let’s play Categories then,’ Harriet suggested.

‘Yeah, Categories!’ Adam agreed immediately. Leigha rounded on them.

‘Oh yes, that’s always great fun,’ she snapped, sarcasm dripping from every word. ‘Especially playing with you two. What will the category be? Nineteenth Century poets? Shakespearean plays?’

‘That could be a good one,’ Adam said mildly, as uncomplicated and happy-go-lucky as usual, checking Leigha’s rising annoyance. She sloshed cocktail and ice cubes into her glass, spattering the table.

‘Whatever,’ she said, ‘I don’t really care.’ She sipped at her drink, printing her red lipstick like a signature on the rim of the glass. Harriet, still standing, began to line the shot glasses of Jägermeister up next to their respective tumbler of energy drink. Adam stood to help, resting his hand on Harriet’s hipbone briefly as he brushed past to her other side. Harriet jerked at the touch.

‘Shit.’ Harriet sucked the split Jägermeister from between her thumb and index finger.

‘That’ll have been yours then,’ Johnny crowed. Harriet ignored him, wiping her hand on her sarong-style skirt, leaving a streak of darker material. She dropped the now more than half-empty shot glass into her tumbler and downed the lot before the Red Bull had even subsided from its froth and fizz.

Johnny followed suit, slamming the tumbler down on the table for good measure; the empty shot glass inside it tinkled.

‘Well, whilst you ladies are faffing,’ he jeered, standing and wiping his hands on his demined thighs. ‘Come on mate, pool table.’ Adam quickly saw to his shot and obliged, digging in his pockets for pound coins as he went. Harriet, still rubbing at her sticky hand, slid into the newly vacated space next to Leigha.

‘Bottoms up Ley,’ Sukie pushed a tumbler and shot glass towards Leigha. ‘Happy Birthday Nic.’ She saluted Nicky with her shot glass before dropping it into the tumbler. She waited for the effervescing to stop before delicately pinching her nose closed and drinking the concoction in three careful gulps, the shot glass banging against her knuckles.

Leigha watched Adam stretch his long body out across the length of the pool table as he lined up his shot. Johnny groaned good naturedly as Adam’s break potted two balls. Adam straightened and tossed his pool cue across from one hand to the other, grinning widely. Even in a ludicrously coloured shirt, left hanging open over a preposterously pink tee-shirt, he was irritatingly handsome. That combined with his obvious confidence and his quick and free smiles ensured that Leigha’s weren’t the only eyes in the bar on him at that moment.

A crow of triumph drew her attention to Johnny; Adam had sunk the white and Johnny was rejoicing as if he had somehow cleverly been responsible for the gaff.

Johnny’s acquiescence to the theme was adding a lei garland of plastic flowers to his white tee-shirt over cargo shorts combination, a straggly survivor from some other fancy dress event. He was taller and broader than Adam, well-built, had alternated between the first and second string university football teams since he was a Fresher.

Johnny caught her looking across at him and beamed at her, before self-consciously fumbling with his pint as if to negate the enthusiasm he’d just shown. Leigha smiled back, took a drink herself; she found herself wishing, stupidly, pointlessly, that she could transfer her attraction to Adam onto Johnny, sweet Johnny – then they’d both be happy.

‘Harry.’ Leigha jumped. Adam had come back to the table whilst she wasn’t paying attention. Harriet was slow to turn to him from her conversation with Miles; Adam plucked at the fabric of her top for her attention. ‘Got you another,’ he said, placing the components for another Jägerbomb in front of her. ‘Cos you spilt yours…’ he finished, weakly, visibly wilting under Harriet’s inquiring stare.

And, not for the first time, Leigha reflected on how nauseating it was that some men, sometimes, acted so pathetically around Harriet. She flushed with guilt immediately and reached for her previously ignored Jägerbomb to distract herself.

‘Cheers,’ Harriet said finally, dropping the smaller glass into the larger with a wet clunk.

‘What about Sambucas next, yeah?’ Sukie asked.

‘Yuck, yuck, yuck!’ Nicky – hopelessly hyperactive – cried out in delight.

Johnny appeared from nowhere, still brandishing his pool cue. He dropped a pound coin into Adam’s pint, causing the beer to hiss. Adam groaned.

‘Down it,’ Johnny commanded, pointing precariously with the pool cue, ‘and come and finish this bloody game.’

Months before, the guys had shared a joke about Harriet sleeping in a bed surrounded by books, like teddy bears. Adam was relieved to see that they seemed to be piled up appropriately on the desk and smiled – he had to remember to tell Johnny and Miles.

It was the first time Adam had been in Harriet’s room at night. There was a streetlight directly outside, he noted, and the curtains were cheap and thin; the room was flooded with a stark orange light that the clicking on of the bedside lamp did little to diffuse.

Harriet grabbed a glass from her desk, scowling at the little puddle of musty water still in the bottom. Tipsy and more than a little off-balance, she crossed the room and knelt on the bed, throwing the window wide to empty the glass out of it. The sharp February air rushed in to fill the little room, seemingly in agreement with the weather forecasters who predicted snow before the week was out.

‘Leigha,’ Adam began, the L sound rolling drunkenly from his mouth, ‘will be mad.’

‘Leigha,’ Harriet replied, closing the window as quietly as she could, ‘is always mad lately.’ She giggled drunkenly at her audacity, tugging the curtains to and turning to face him. ‘Oh I’ll replace it tomorrow!’ she assured him, taking the three-quarters full litre bottle of Malibu they’d pilfered from Leigha’s cupboard and pouring a poorly measured shot of the rum into the glass.

‘Never ever, have I ever,’ Adam began, ignoring Harriet’s snort of laughter, ‘gone
skinny dipping.’

Harriet let out a squeal of protest. ‘I told you, that was a secret!’

‘It’s only us here,’ Adam pointed out. Harriet sighed in agreement, and did her punishment shot with a wince and a cough.

‘Never ever have I ever,’ she said, her voice sly, ‘had sex in my parents’ bed!’

‘Nope,’ Adam grinned. ‘I’ve
never
had sex in
your
parents’ bed.’ Harriet rolled her eyes.

‘Oh, stop being fucking pedantic,’ she moaned. Like Leigha, she tended to swear more when she was drunk. Adam nobly acquiesced and took the shot she poured for him like a man. The rum burned all the way down. They knew too many of one another’s secrets, the result of far too much time spent together – both en masse with the rest of the group and alone, distracting each another from research, in libraries and study pods; this game wasn’t going to last long.

If he kissed Harriet, right then and there – he found himself thinking, drunkenly, crazily – that both he and she would taste like rum; maybe they would burn one another.

‘Never ever have I ever,’ said Adam, the words running together in one vague sound, ‘given out a fake name or number in a bar?’

‘Oh Christ! Harriet laughed. ‘Loads of times!’ She poured out the accompanying shot.

‘Would you have given me a fake number?’ Adam asked her suddenly, before he could stop himself, his face surely glowing in the dark with the sudden rush of drunken mortification.

Harriet finally seemed to sense that her silence had lasted a little too long. ‘Oh I don’t know,’ she said lightly, with a wave of her hand and a slosh from the Malibu held by it. ‘Impossible to tell now, you know?’ Something about this answer rankled. Adam fixed her with a hard look.

‘I guess,’ he answered, coolly. ‘Your turn.’

‘Never ever,’ Harriet drew the words out as she tried to think. Adam could almost see the two shots of Malibu at work, slowing her down. ‘Have I ever… oh, fuck it, played football,’ she gave up. Adam raised his eyebrows.

‘Not even at school, like in PE?’ he pressed. Harriet’s eyes fluttered closed at the realisation that she’d now have to do a double shot.

‘Fuck,’ she repeated.

‘It’s alright,’ Adam said, reaching for the bottle and pouring himself a small amount. ‘I’ll let you off.’

‘Wait, no, I’ve got another one,’ Harriet interrupted him. ‘Never ever have I ever snogged Leigha Webster.’

Adam placed the already considerably emptier bottle of Malibu down on the bedside table, trying desperately to think faster than the night’s drinking really facilitated.

‘Ha!’ he blustered, finally, ‘whatever! I’ve seen you plant plenty of smackers on her! You girls are right lezzers sometimes.’

‘I’ve never had my hand up her skirt,’ Harriet shot back in an instant, suddenly impossibly, impossibly angry with him. Adam met her glare with a look of complete bewilderment; he thought they’d put all this him and Leigha stuff behind them. He was getting really sick and tired of these mood swings.

‘Harry,’ he said finally, ‘chill out, mate. You’re drunk.’

‘And whose fault is that?’ Harriet grumbled, but her rage was already deflating, quick to anger, quicker to calm as ever. Slowly she stretched out, snaking her feet past him to rest them on the pillows and curling herself to fit around where he sat on the single bed.

‘Poor Leigha,’ she mumbled, half to herself.

Adam frowned. ‘I don’t think she’s as poor as she likes you to think she is.’

‘Oh, but she is,’ Harriet insisted. ‘Poor Leigha. She’s my best friend.’

‘Hey,’ Adam said, poking her on the sliver of skin of her back that showed where her top had ridden up. ‘I thought I was your best friend,’ he teased. Harriet closed her eyes and smiled.

‘You’re one of them,’ she answered, simply. ‘You going down to the couch, or trek home?’

‘I’ll stay here, if you don’t mind,’ Adam answered, leaning back against the pillows next to Harriet’s feet. ‘Top and tail, yeah?’

‘Just don’t kick me in the face,’ was Harriet’s reply and just minutes later her breathing was the deep and regular one of sleep. Adam lay awake listening to it most of the night, alone with the burning in his chest.

Harriet woke that Thursday cramped and disorientated, feeling like she had a tumbleweed stuck in her throat. She stretched out her legs, disturbing Adam, who had been using her calf as a pillow. He protested faintly and threw his arm over his face to block the light. They were curled around one another’s legs like yin and yang.

Harriet sat up completely, slipping her legs from underneath Adam’s chest, scrabbling around on the floor for her mobile phone. It was out of battery. She swore, hauling herself up – unsteady due to pins-and-needles – and went out onto the landing, leaning over the banister of the stairs. She could hear someone in the kitchen.

‘Hey, what’s the time?’ she called down, voice hoarse.

‘Morning,’ Sukie called back. ‘About twenty to ten. Do you have Adam up there? His shoes are still here by the door.’

Harriet ignored Sukie, having started to rush back into her room before she’d even finished the sentence. She rat-a-tat-tatted her palm on Adam’s hipbone.

‘Up, up,’ she demanded, ‘we’ve got twenty minutes to make the
bildungsroman
lecture.’

Supremely unbothered, Adam just rolled over to his front and put his head full under the pillow. ‘Water,’ he croaked.

‘When you’re up,’ Harriet snapped, wriggling frantically into a pair of tights under the sarong-style skirt she’d slept in. ‘Get up!’ she repeated.

‘I’m not going to a lecture dressed like a Hawaiian pimp.’ Adam’s voice was muffled through the pillow. ‘Definitely giving this one a miss.’

‘Well I’m not!’ Harriet snapped, spraying herself liberally with deodorant. ‘And you shouldn’t, you’ve missed so much this term.’ She could hear the snort of Adam’s laughter.

‘What are they going to do, write home to my parents?’

‘Adam!’ Harriet cried, exasperated. ‘For crying out loud. This really is your third year at University, not a practice go at it. You’re going to fail your degree unless you start
trying.
You’ve got to try.’ She was met with obstinate muteness from beneath the pillow; she sighed. ‘I’ll treat you to a plate of curly fries afterwards?’ The pillow slid to one side as Adam begrudgingly heaved himself to his feet.

Dressed as he was in a practically fluorescent pink tee-shirt and denim shorts cut at the knee, Adam drew his fair share of odd looks as he and Harriet hurried through the sleet from the lecture theatre to the campus refectory. He made a solemn vow to never again take the piss out of guys unseasonably dressed – they too might just be poor sods doing the walk of shame after a theme night.