The Love We Left Behind

by Katherine Slee

  As he mounted the pavement he kicked one leg over the saddle in a practised dismount and wheeled his bike through the lodge of New College, heading in the direction of the student bar.

  The temperature went up by about ten degrees as soon as he stepped inside the dank, misty space that was filled with a combination of cigarette smoke and sweat. At one end of the room were a couple of strobe lights, constantly flicking through the colours of the rainbow as they landed on the bare skin of the gathered masses. The majority of them were bouncing around to the sound of Pulp’s ‘Disco 2000’ that was blasting from a speaker balanced precariously on one of the tables.

  The first college bop of term (otherwise known in all other parts of the world as a disco), had a traffic-light theme. The idea was that if you were single you wore something green, yellow if you weren’t quite sure and red if you didn’t want anyone to come within spitting distance of you, let alone try to stick their tongue down your throat.

  The learning curve was sharp, and not just for the academic side of college life. Living in such close proximity to one another meant everyone knew who you were, what you were studying, where you went to school and therefore which social circle you belonged to.

  Near the bar, wearing DM boots, skinny black jeans and chain-smoking Marlboro Reds were a group of boys who never washed their hair and listened to The Cure on repeat. Next to them stood a gaggle of grunge girls with ankle-length skirts and oversized jumpers. The sort of girls who still fantasised about Kurt Cobain, were strict vegetarians and refused to shave their legs.

  In the centre of it all, gathered around the table football, was a group of boys wearing crested shirts, blue jeans, loafers and signet rings on the little finger of their left hand. They were drinking pints of beer from plastic cups and tossing insults around like a rugby ball.

  ‘Your round, Leo,’ one of them hollered across to the second-year law student. In return, he raised two fingers and sauntered across in the direction of the bar.

  As he did so, he noticed another, smaller, group of misfits: three people who either didn’t know, or had chosen to ignore, the dress code. They were deep in conversation, heads bent close together, ensuring that no one else was invited to join in.

  The boy was long and lean, legs stretching out under the wooden table to reveal polished black brogues. He was wearing a pin-striped suit, complete with a cravat that hung loose around his paler-than-pale neck. He had a down-turned mouth, at least two days’ worth of stubble and a mop of messy black hair. If you only glanced at him through the fog of hormones and beer, you could be mistaken for thinking he was, in fact, Jarvis Cocker.

  One of the girls sitting next to him had legs that went all the way up to her elbows, highlighted by tiny leather hot pants and over-the-knee boots. She was also wearing a bright-pink leotard emblazoned with the word Flashdance, and her hair was tied on top of her head in a lopsided bun.

  But it was the third member of the group, the one the other two were leaning forward in order to hear, who had caught his attention.

  She was wearing black jeans and a white vest top underneath a fringed cape embellished with tiny silver stars. One side of the cape had fallen off her shoulder to reveal the edge of a tattoo, but he was too far away to see it clearly. Her hair was like a lion’s mane – dark blonde and wild – framing her face, and she was smoking a hand-rolled cigarette that she gesticulated with as she spoke.

  Perhaps she felt him watching, or perhaps he had sent her some kind of subliminal message, because first she paused, then she turned her head to see. Her eyes skimmed over his face, resting on the Italian flag on his dark-blue rugby top, then down to his feet. Her mouth curled up in a half-smile as she stood and walked over to the bar, squeezing herself in between two lads wearing Oasis t-shirts who seemed unable to decide what to do with their hands.

  Tom, a small blonde boy who made up for his lack of height with a double helping of arrogance, sidled up to the girl at the bar, slipping his finger under the collar of her cape and lifting it back on to her shoulder.

  ‘Are you tired?’ Leo heard Tom ask as she tilted her head back to see who had touched her.

  ‘No,’ she replied and the sound of that single word seemed to fill Leo’s head, blocking out all the other noise and chaos around him.

  ‘You should be,’ Tom said with a languid smile, angling his torso towards her as he spoke. ‘You’ve been running around my mind all night.’

  Her mouth twitched and she blinked rapidly as she handed over a five-pound note to the barman in exchange for three drinks. The movement made all the bands of gold around her wrists jingle and jangle in secret mirth. He heard the absence of an ‘h’ as she said thank you for her change, and he watched transfixed as she pushed past Tom and headed back towards her friends without so much as a backward glance, let alone a verbal retort.

  ‘Cock-tease,’ Tom shouted, then lit a Marlboro Light and turned to Leo. ‘Or a lesbo. I mean, look at them. Imagine the taller one’s legs wrapped around you whilst the other one watched.’

  Leo didn’t bother to reply. His attention was all on her, like a scene from a film where everything apart from the lead actress was soft and out of focus.

  ‘Remind me again why we’re here?’ Niamh asked, setting down the drinks on the table and sluicing a little froth on to the painted wood.

  ‘You’re my wingman,’ the gangly boy replied, crossing one of his lengthy limbs over the other and pouting as he inhaled on his own cigarette.

  ‘I don’t think he’s gay, Duncan,’ Erika said as she reached forward for her drink and took two quick swallows.

  All three of them looked in the direction of the table football where a couple of boys were having a drinking race. The slighter of the two was left gasping as his opponent finished first then dumped his empty glass upside down on his head and demanded that the other boy remove his trousers in forfeit.

  ‘You said the same thing about Quentin.’ Duncan took another drag of his cigarette, using his thumb and forefinger to remove a sliver of tobacco from his tongue. All the while he kept watching as the defeated lad shuffled around the table football with his trousers around his ankles.

  ‘You stole him from me,’ Erika said with a yawn.

  ‘Darling, it’s not possible to steal something that never belonged to you in the first place.’ Duncan propped his feet up on a spare chair, laced his fingers together and cupped them behind his head.

  ‘Perhaps I shall go and steal your new little pet.’ Erika pointed at the lad standing at one end of the table football with arms raised and a deep flush on his cheeks. She laughed as someone went up behind him and promptly pulled down his boxers. ‘Perhaps I shall keep you up all the night with the sound of my headboard banging against the wall.’

  ‘As scintillating as this all is’ – Niamh stood and shouldered her bag, inside of which were several battered hardbacks and a notepad stuffed with loose sheets of paper – ‘I really need to go back and make a start on this essay.’

  ‘Don’t be such a bore.’ Erika grabbed her hand, leaning across the table and staring up at her. ‘You can’t leave me here with Duncan. He’ll find someone to take advantage of and then I’ll be all alone.’

  ‘Let her go.’ Duncan extracted a plastic wallet of tobacco from his inside pocket and began to roll another cigarette. This one was laced with a couple of buds from an altogether different kind of plant than tobacco and had become something of a nightly ritual, along with too much coffee and not enough food. ‘She needs to pretend that historians actually do some work every once in a while.’

  ‘Says the person who sits up all night watching rats and claims it’s research.’ Erika drained her glass, shivering as the double shot of vodka coated the back of her throat.

  ‘The rats are my friends.’ Duncan placed his hands on his chest for emphasis then twisted the end of his joint and tapped it on the table. ‘They are far more loyal than you two bitches.’

  ‘Speaking of bitches,’ Er
ika said with a nod towards the door.

  Niamh looked over, groaning as she realised who it was. Octavia, Cleo and Juliette – three girls from their year who went everywhere together, with matching Gucci loafers and cashmere jumpers over pink polo shirts with the collar turned up. Whenever Niamh came across them they would look her up and down, then whisper something to one another and laugh, a sound bitterly reminiscent of the mockery Niamh had had to endure through school.

  ‘No doubt they’re here hunting for a husband,’ Duncan said, tucking the joint behind one ear.

  ‘Well, you would know.’ Erika nudged Duncan with her foot.

  ‘She accosted me,’ Duncan said with a shiver. ‘I can still feel her slug-like tongue trying to force its way into my mouth.’

  ‘I’m sure you’ve had far worse things than Octavia in your mouth.’

  ‘Pot. Kettle. Black,’ Duncan said, punctuating each word with a poke of Erika’s arm.

  Niamh checked her watch, trying not to think of how much of the evening she’d spent listening to her friends swapping notes on their love lives. ‘Don’t wake me up when you get back,’ she said, raising one hand in farewell as she walked towards the exit, tucking her cape around her neck in response to the evening chill that greeted her at the top of the staircase.

  At the same time, Leo looked up, then across to the corner where moments before three people had been sitting, but now there were only two. Without stopping to think he left his half-finished pint on the side of the table football and ran up the stairs two at a time.

  It had begun to rain, just a little but enough to make him wish he’d stopped to collect his sweater. He rubbed at the back of his neck, a nervous habit left over from childhood, as he scanned the quad, then set off at a pace as he spotted her pushing wide the door that led out to New College Lane.

  The heavy oak door swung shut behind him, a resounding thud that bounced off the walls of the narrow lane.

  ‘Are you following me?’

  She was leaning against the wall, one foot tucked behind the other and arms folded across her chest as she watched him approach. He caught the lilt in her voice that told him where she was from and the knowledge made him smile, because up until that point she had thrown him completely off balance.

  ‘No,’ he said, shoving his hands in his pockets and fiddling with his keys. ‘Well, yes. But not in that way.’

  ‘What way is that?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He shrugged, scuffed the ground with his foot and noticed that the sole of his shoe had come loose. ‘A weird stalker kind of way?’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘What?’ He was aware of the words coming out of his mouth, but seemed to have lost the capacity to make any sense.

  ‘Why are you following me?’ She spoke slowly and with care, no doubt thinking him either stupid or drunk, or probably both.

  ‘I wanted to apologise for Tom.’ This was partly true. But another part of him was grateful for Tom’s callous nature, because it had given him an excuse to follow her out into the night.

  ‘Who’s Tom?’ She was clearly losing interest because she glanced at her watch and then along the lane away from him.

  ‘The idiot at the bar.’

  She flicked her hand in dismissal and pushed herself away from the wall as she spoke.

  ‘I’ve had enough run-ins with public schoolboy twats to last me a lifetime.’ It was a line Erika had used only the other day when the two of them had been discussing her break-up with Peter. The words felt strange on her tongue, as if she should know better than try to be more like her best friend, and she ducked her head, hoping the stranger wouldn’t notice the blush on her skin.

  ‘Bit harsh.’

  At this she hesitated, and seemed to notice him properly for the first time.

  ‘How so?’

  ‘You don’t know anything about me.’

  Niamh looked at him then, noticing the floppy dark hair that kept falling across his face, the deeply tanned skin, which suggested a summer spent somewhere exotic, and the designer watch around his wrist. A rich kid, part of a tribe that was so unwelcoming to outsiders, to commoners, like her. But there was something more: an unusual feeling of curiosity that he had aroused in her, which was both intriguing and unsettling.

  ‘Which one were you?’ Niamh pointed at the flag on his shirt, three stripes of red, white and green.

  He pinched the fabric of his shirt as he looked down, then nodded as he realised she thought he’d chosen it in recognition of the bop’s traffic-light theme. ‘None of the above,’ he said with a grin. ‘I came straight from the library. What about you?’

  ‘What do you think?’ She responded by twirling on her heels and sending the back of her cape spiralling through the air. Everything about her was about twenty years out of date, and yet all he could think was that she was absolutely perfect.

  ‘I’m Leo,’ he said as she stopped spinning and fixed him with a look.

  ‘That’s nice,’ she said as she began to walk away.

  ‘Aren’t you going to tell me your name?’ he called after her, watching as she turned the corner in the direction of the High Street.

  ‘Not yet,’ she called back, and he willed her to stop, to turn around and come back. Yet part of him was afraid of what would happen if she did.

  In that moment, both of them were overcome by the sense that whatever had just happened, whatever it was that put them in the same place at the same time, was only the very beginning.

  ERIKA

  PEAR-DROP DIAMOND RING

  London, 2011

  ‘Hector,’ I call out as I kick the front door to. ‘Are you home?’ It always feels a bit strange letting myself in to his flat, but ever since he signed the deeds to this place he has been insistent that I can come and go as I please. Lately, I’ve been spending more time here than at home with Layla, and I am very aware of her partially disguised annoyance about being left without a housemate. My feelings for Hector have returned without any kind of warning, so that suddenly I have found myself in a very serious and grown-up relationship. It feels different than before, almost as if I might actually be learning how to let go, to allow myself to be happy with him.

  Why then does the sense of dread seem to linger in the back of my mind, somewhere close to all those feelings of doubt I keep telling myself are no longer important?

  Slipping off my heels, I let out a small sigh of relief. Work is definitely more low than high at the moment, which means I need wine. With one quick glance at my phone, I decide to ignore the pull of the endless stream of emails and make my way to the kitchen. For the most part, Hector’s flat is open-plan, one vast space intended to be divided into sections by rugs, bookcases or strategically placed furniture. At present, everything apart from one ancient leather sofa and his beloved plasma TV is all huddled together in the centre of the space and covered with old dust sheets.

  Most of the kitchen worktops are currently taken over by discarded pots, chopping boards and food packaging, the results of which are simmering in a cast-iron casserole dish on the hob. I can’t resist a peek and a taste, murmuring in appreciation as my mouth is rewarded with a mix of cumin and just the right amount of chilli. What Hector lacks in tidiness, he more than makes up for with his culinary skills.

  Opening the fridge, I discover a half-finished bottle of Sancerre and pour myself a more than generous measure. The sweet hit at the back of my throat is enough to take the sting out of my mood and I refill my glass, noticing a sieve full of mussels draining in the sink. Which means Hector has something to tell me, because whenever he does, he always makes a sharing pot of moules-à-la-crème, with mountains of garlic and coriander.

  ‘Hector?’ I call out again as I walk across the polished concrete floor to where a cast-iron spiral staircase leads up to the master bedroom.

  Whilst the rest of the flat is being decorated (slowly, and with the sort of deliberate care that I should embrace, but actually find ridiculously annoying
), Hector has moved his writing desk into the bedroom. Most evenings I come back to find him scribbling furiously, with headphones on and a haphazard pile of research books and abandoned sheets of paper at his feet.

  He isn’t here, but evidence of his day is strewn all over – biscuit crumbs and empty coffee mugs on the desk, a dark-blue sweatshirt draped over the reclaimed Victorian radiator and damp towels on the end of the bed. This last one is a particular bone of contention between us, but whenever I try to pull him up on his slovenly ways, he simply kisses me long and slow and tells me not to fuss about the unimportant things in life.

  Draining my glass, I pick up the towel, take it into the en suite and dutifully hang it up on the rail by the sink, resisting the urge to wipe away the evidence of his morning shave that clings to the marble. I am, however, unable to ignore the tube of toothpaste that’s missing its cap.

  Swapping my work clothes for one of Hector’s shirts, I pad barefoot back downstairs and into the kitchen area. Behind the floor-to-ceiling cabinets is a smaller space intended to be Hector’s study. So far, he has painted two walls the palest shade of green, but wants the one directly opposite the window to be more of a ‘feature’, whatever that means. He claims it’s so when he’s staring into the distance, searching his mind for a perfectly constructed sentence, he has something more inspiring to look at than overpriced paint.

  I start by clearing the floor in front of the wall, stacking books and magazines to one side, taking extra care with his comics because I know he loves them. Next, I pick up his boxes of records, one by one, and move them nearer to the window, because God forbid any of his precious collection be tainted with either paste or paint. As I turn around, my eye falls on the record player waiting patiently in the corner for someone to turn it on.

  Flicking through the boxes, I make a mental note to actually organise his collection once the shelves are in place and the speakers mounted on the wall. By decade, perhaps, or even genre. Anything to ensure that I don’t stumble across an album that I long to play but would do nothing more than send me hurtling down a path paved with nostalgia.