It was late September, and as he crossed the grey stone bridge over the River Leam the sun was still strong on Robin’s face before it was cut by the shadow of the buildings. He walked slowly, allowing himself the luxury of savouring the walk back to his new house. Leamington had changed over the summer he had spent away. One old, small closed-up cafe with smeared whitewash on the window glass which had been mere background before had been renovated and opened as an Indian Takeaway. On the short road south of the bridge there was a series of small restaurants and takeaways, kebab shops and pizza places, with a brown wood-fronted pub and a vehicle parts store as the only exceptions. This was the main road through the town to southern Leamington, where a lot of students lived in their second and third years at the university. The bulk of the town’s pubs and bars were north of the river, and most of the students lived to the south; the run of curry houses and kebab shops was a tempting bottleneck for hungry drunken students walking home. Most of them were closed until the evening, and Robin idled by.
She had been so...wanting.
The university year had not yet begun, and people were still coming into the town. As Robin walked he noticed that two of the cars waiting at the traffic lights under the rusting railway bridge were packed full so that the drivers could not see out of the rear windows. One was clearly a student’s car. It was an old model, not rusty or dirty, but a lack of shine to the paint and subtle streaks on the metal trimmings gave it a weathered look. Robin did not recognise the solitary driver, tapping his hands on the steering wheel. At the front of the queue there was a parent’s car. It was an estate, new-looking and cared for, and the back window was completely blocked with a rolled up duvet. A girl was sitting in the passenger seat watching passersby with a blank expression, while her Mother talked, looking across at her. The girl looked familiar.
Robin turned right at the traffic lights. As he came out from the shadow of the railway bridge over the crossroads, the sun struck and warmed him.
She wanted to see him again.
The new house which he and his friends were renting was a terraced building on Tachbrook Road.It faced the street with a tiny square of earth and straggling greenery and a cheap black iron gate. The front of the house had been painted a weak sky blue by the landlord in preparation for the new university year, but it was already peeling around the frame of the front door. The house was across the street from a pub called The Sun In Splendour which sat upon a high bank covered in long grass. The pub sign hanging at the front of the building was so pale and faded as to be almost blank. Robin and his housemates hadn’t gone into the place yet.
He would definitely call her.
Robin unlocked the front door and walked into the entrance hall, which was carpetted with several overlaid off-cuts of different patterns. He shrugged off his jacket and hung it up on the rack with difficulty because all of the hooks were already taken.
“Hello?” called Robin. “Anyone home?”
“Oh, hello stranger!” came a voice from upstairs, followed by a face over the banister. It was Rachel Garrison, Robin’s housemate.
“Hi! Have you finished moving all your stuff in? Can I help at all?”
“No, all done,” said Rachel, still hanging like a child over the banister with her hair falling around her face. She grinned at him. “Jack’s been telling me that you’ve started your casanova-like ways already, you dirty stop-out. What’s her name?”
“Emily,” said Robin.
“Emily. I didn’t know you had a thing for older women. How old was she?”
“I don’t know.”
“Chauvinist!”
There was a pause.
“Look, are you going to come down here and give me a hug, or what?” said Robin.
Rachel laughed and thumped down the stairs in her stocking feet and threw her arms around Robin.
“Welcome back,” he said.
“Thanks, it’s good to be back. How was your summer?”
They stepped into the kitchen and Robin put the kettle on.
“Okay, okay. Didn’t do as much work as I wanted to-” he started.
“Work? It’s the summer break! You’re not meant to be working. It’s a time for barbecues and sunbathing and generally doing sweet bugger all, matey boy.”
“Yeah, I know, but I wanted to get a headstart on a few of my modules, you know, get ahead.”
Rachel shook her head at him. She folded her arms across her chest and leant against the freezer.
“Crazy boy. What did you get up to?”
“Oh, I worked at my old supermarket. I’ve got a bit of spare cash lined up, saved for the Venice thing, you know.”
“Oh yeah! I forgot you had that this year. I promise not to lease your room out,” said Rachel.
“Thanks,” said Robin. “I’d appreciate it.”
The kettle clicked off.
“Want one?” asked Robin.
“No, I’m fine. I’ve got a coke upstairs.”
“How was your summer, then?”
“Fabulously dull. I did absolutely nothing all summer. I sunbathed-”
“I can tell.”
“-thank you, I read trashy novels, I drank Pimm’s...it was great.”
“Didn’t you get bored?”
“You did just hear what I did, right?” she grinned. “Come upstairs. Jack is winding her wicked way through my new CDs, and I want to stop her before she finds this new Chillout compilation.”
Emily Ilsford walked slowly up The Parade, away from Satchwell’s, the pub where she and Robin had eaten. After crossing one street she turned and looked back to see if he was watching her, but he was gone. She spotted him further down the hill, walking towards the river. A bus growled past, changing gear. It was one of the university shuttles that the bus company laid on during the university term. They ran every twenty minutes and so they were never full during the day, but in the mornings the last bus to get to the university in time for nine o’clock was always full. During term months she would watch the buses from outside the chemist where she worked as she waited for the owner, and she would feel sorry for the students packed like sardines into too small a tin.
And now she had slept with one of them.
She quickened her pace with the gentle slope, past the white bay window frontages of the shops, her short heels clicking on the paving slabs. By the time she reached the top of The Parade, she was smiling to herself.
Not just one of them, but Robin.
She crossed the road which cut off the top of The Parade and decided to walk through the small park there. During the summer she took her lunch into the park, and the ash she usually sat under was starting to let a little yellow seep into its leaves. The grass in the shade was wet so she kept walking, along the curve of the tarmac path which cut behind the petrol station to the alley which would bring her out onto her street.
He had been so tender, so...honest.
She crossed to the sunlit side of her street and slowed in her walking. A man was carrying a long thin cardboard box from a car into the house next to hers. It was the only student house on the street, one tall town house converted to have nine bedrooms instead of the three flat conversion of her own building. The parties the year before had been loud.
She let herself into her flat and walked into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. Blowing the steam from the kettle onto the window which looked out onto her tiny garden, she drew an abstract squiggle on the glass with the tip of her finger.
He would call. He was so honest. He was not innocent, but he was honest.
She pulled open the refrigerator and put her weight on the open door to gaze inside. Two bottles of white wine were lying sideways on the shelf next to a microwave curry. She poured the tea into the sink, pulled one of the bottles out of the fridge and slid open a drawer for her corkscrew.
“You’re home, then,” said Mike, coming into the living room. Robin was sitting with sheets of paper in his lap and the television was on but mute.
“Yes, well, you know. I thought I might as well. I pay rent, after all.”
“Man, I know she was fit, but she was a lot older than us. How pissed were you?”
“Not that drunk, mate. I mean, I stopped drinking after that first round at Sugar.”
Mike sat down on a tattered armchair and began changing channels on the television.
“We ought to get cable this year. A few sports channels.”
“Great,” said Robin, leafing through his paper, “in the year we need the least distraction.”
“What? Come on, imagine it. It would be great...and good for us. If there’s always something good on, we can chill out with the TV any time we like.”
“Or all the time.”
“It’ll be fine,” said Mike.
“Check it out then. I like the idea of having comedy on whenever.”
“Wicked.”
Mike flicked through the channels and turned the television off. He turned to Robin.
“What are you doing?”
“Just going over my options for the year. I might change, I’m not sure.”
“You’re something else, you know that? Lectures haven’t even started yet. Are you even unpacked?”
“What?”
“Are you unpacked? Have you unpacked yet?” asked Mike.
“Not totally. I was thinking I might pick up some drawers or something from a charity shop in town in the week; my room hasn’t got a lot of storage space.”
“Well, you chose the smallest room.”
“I know,” said Robin. “I need to save money this term, and it’s not like I’m going to be in it for the whole year.”
“Yeah yeah yeah, we know. Venice.”
Robin let the papers fall into his lap.
“Mate,” said Robin. “You know that girl from last night?”
“Girl! Sorry, yes?”
“She was pretty cool. I mean, she seemed really nice.”
“Hah, right. Wisdom of experience, huh?”
Mike raised his eyebrows and smiled expectantly. Robin’s stomach tightened.
“Not really. Just...nice.”
“Right...what? Mate, tell me you’re not serious.”
“No, no, of course not.”
“Right. We’ve got a university packed with pert young women and a fresh batch just in. The last thing you need is a middle aged girlfriend.”
“She wasn’t middle aged!” said Robin, laughing.
“Right, well, you know what I mean.”
“Sure.”
“I mean, if you’re that way inclined we can always try and get you together with a mature student.”
“Watch it!”
“Just winding you up, mate. There’s a lot of mileage in that.”
“Git.”
“Want to check out the pub across the way later?”
“Yeah, okay. Just a quiet one.”
“I’ll ask the girls.”
Mike left the room and Robin heard him climbing the stairs.
The house had four bedrooms, of which Robin’s was the smallest, and he took a cut in rent because of it. Mike and Rachel had identically sized rooms. Mike’s was on the ground floor at the back of the house and could only be accessed through the living room, and mirrored Rachel’s upstairs. Jack had the largest bedroom and the only double bed, and Robin’s room took up the small remaining space on the first floor, above the downstairs kitchen. The four of them had lived together on the university campus in the first year, when the accommodation department had allocated them all a room in the same flat in a hall of residence called Tocil Hall. In the second year they had taken a house in a different part of Leamington, but the house, which was next to the canal, had chronic damp, and the landlord took it off the rental market for a year to work on it.
Robin was a lean-looking man, twenty years old, but not yet shaving every day, something he hated to do. His hair was a light chocolate brown, in relaxed curls on the top of his head, tapering to a neater trim at the sides. He was easy going about everything except his work, which he loved.
At half past eight, the telephone rang. Emily had finished the first bottle of wine, and she was reading a book with Carole King playing loud on her stereo. She floundered for the remote control before answering.
“Hello?”
“Emily! Hi! How are you? Did you have fun last night?”
“Hello Blake. I’m okay. Yes, I had a good time.”
“The usual piss-up then, was it?” said Blake, with laughter in his voice.
“Yes, well, close.”
‘You know I think you drink too much,” said Blake.
“And I know you drink more than me,” she answered.
Andrew Blake was Emily’s friend. A handsome man, she enjoyed his company, and from what she knew he had few male friends. Maybe it was the flattery of attention, or the sheer compulsion of him, but he often called to ask her out to dinner or for a drink and she always accepted.
They dined together at least once a fortnight, met for drinks after work about once a week...never regular, never the same place two times running, and ever the smile and the ready wit. She enjoyed herself with Blake, she felt close to him, but he was a tantalisingly elusive man.
He called for the first time one week after Emily started divorce proceedings. Blake had worked in the same office as Emily’s husband at the foundry in Sydhenham, and they had met at a dinner party where Blake was the only single guest. Four or five times after that she had seen him at barbecues and parties, laughing, joking, enjoying himself. As far as Emily knew Blake had been a friend of her husband, but she never asked.
After break-ups, after separation, an invitation from a single friend could only mean one thing. She had pushed it to the back of her mind as she quietly accepted his invitation to dinner, but when the night was over and she was standing on the inside of her own closed front door, alone and feeling a little lightheaded from the drink, she realised that she had only gone out with Blake to sleep with him. Out of revenge, out of fear, out of a spark of attraction, but too much of why she wanted him was about David leaving for the feeling to be any good.
Despite herself Emily continued to go out with him.
“Yes, well. It was about drink that I was calling. Would you like to have Sunday lunch with me? My treat. I thought we could drive on out to The Cricketers.”
“Blake, it’s always your treat. You’re really going to have to let me get the food sooner or later,” Emily said.
“I won’t hear of it, young lady. Do you hear me? Buy me a G and T when we get back into town,” said Blake, mockingly stern.
“Okay, okay. The Cricketers it is,” answered Emily, sighing.
“Excellent. I’ll pick you up then? What, twelve-ish?”
“Fine. See you then.”
“Emily...are you okay? You sound a little...quiet.”
“I’m okay. Just a bit tired from last night.”
“Okay darling. Get a good night’s worth in tonight then, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Goodnight.”
“Goodnight Em.”
Emily tossed the telephone off the bed, and she heard it land and scuttle underneath. She left it there and began reading again.
“So tell us about last night, Mister,” said Jack, gathering the darts in her hand.
“What is there to tell? You saw,” said Robin.
“Yes, well I saw, and Mike saw, but Rachel missed out.”
“He’s already told me about it,” said Rachel, sipping her beer.
The Sun in Splendour was not a student pub. The four of them recieved a look of mild malevolence and surprise from the old men in the bar when they entered. Now they were playing darts and talking amongst themselves, Robin, Jack, Rachel and Mike were being politely ignored.
“Ah,” said Jack, waving the flight of a dart in Rachel’s direction, “did he tell you everything?”
“I hope not,” said Mike. “There are a lot of things I’d rather not know.”
Jack threw three darts in quick succession, and they were spread widely over the board. She turned back to the table.
“Come on Mike, I’m not doing the maths myself, you know,” she said.
Mike stood up and pulled the darts out of the board, counting under his breath. He subtracted Jack’s score from the total on one side of the chalk board and walked back to the ockey.
“What then?” asked Robin.
“You know. She was older, Rach. Much older. Cradle snatcher!” Jack bared her teeth.
“We’re not kids, Jack,” protested Robin.
“You know what I mean,” Jack sipped her beer, “toy boy hunter then.”
“I hate to say it,” said Mike, “but she was fit for her age.”
“You too?” said Jack.
Jack had short black and blonde hair. It was dyed in streaks and she kept it straight and cut above her shoulders. Her features were pointed, and her jaw angular, but with a curl to her mouth which set her face off beautifully. Robin liked her a lot, but she was a political science student, and had a tendency to speak on topics of conversation long after everyone else had comfortably left them.
“You know what I mean Jack. She was good looking for her age. That doesn’t mean that I’d jump into bed with her,” Mike sat down and slid the darts over to Rachel.
“But you wouldn’t kick her out?” asked Jack, her head tilted and her hair hanging straight down out away from her face under its own weight.
Mike paused, and Jack punched him in the arm, laughing.
“Men.”
Rachel, who was sitting next to Robin, subtly patted his knee under the pale wooden table. He looked at her and nodded as she got up to throw her darts.
They had two rounds of drinks in the Sun in Splendour, until the locals began to increase in numbers and there was only room to stand. The four of them stopped for a moment as they came out of the pub and stood in the cool night air. A series of cars and a bus on the university route drove up Tachbrook Road in the orange light of the streetlamps.
“So this is our house for the year,” said Rachel.
They stood looking at the house across the street, which was completely white in the street lights. Mike walked towards the steps down the grass bank to the road, when he suddenly stopped.
“Did you hear that?” he said, whispering.
“What?”
“That noise...wait...there. What is that?”
“I can’t hear anything. What are we listening for?” asked Jack.
“It sounds like it’s coming from behind the fence.”
“Around the back of the pub? What?”
Mike ran over to the fence which ran out from the side of the pub to a row of bushes bordering the first house in a terrace, and ducked down to a hole just above the level of the dustbins.
“It’s a goat!” cried Mike.
“What? Let me see!” Rachel pushed Mike out of the way. “It is! It’s a big white goat! That’s so cute.”
“That’s pretty random,” said Robin.
“People can keep animals if they like,” said Mike, shrugging.
“Here goat! Goat! Come here! It’s tied up.” Rachel said, through the fence hole.
“Rach, come on,” said Jack.
“Why have they got a goat, do you reckon?” asked Rachel, coming away.
