Niamh had spent the rest of the day thinking about how easy it was for Erika to move from one adoration to the next. Clearly Peter was no longer of any concern, which of course made her question if at some point Erika – beautiful, dazzling Erika – would decide she no longer had any use for her shy little Irish friend?
All of which meant that she had not, as intended, written a blindingly brilliant closing argument about how the American Civil War was fuelled by slavery, not greed. Instead she had limped her way through a rather banal and decidedly unoriginal script that she had handed across to her tutor just over an hour before with an apologetic smile.
The tutorial itself had been less traumatic than she feared. Dr Olsson had a reputation for being a tad misogynistic, but when Niamh greeted him in Swedish he had smiled, nodded curtly and offered her a cup of coffee. When her tutorial partner arrived in a bluster of noise and dropped belongings, she was sitting by the window telling Dr Olsson all about her larger-than-life friend whose family produced vast quantities of timber from a forest outside of Östersund.
She had known who he was even before he stretched out his hand in greeting, his short, thick fingers squeezing hers a little too tight. Robin looked like a country bumpkin, with shirt untucked and buttoned the wrong way, holes in the sleeves of his cardigan and red corduroys that were at least two inches too short. But he spoke with conviction through plummy vowels, one knee bouncing up and down as he filled the room with his arrogance.
It was no longer raining when Niamh left her tutor’s building and stepped on to the pavement, but the wind had changed direction, making her think of Mary Poppins and her annoying habit of bursting into song at any given moment. A bit like Duncan, really, only he was decidedly less tuneful.
‘I’m sorry about the diary.’ Robin came trotting up alongside Niamh and looked down at her from behind a pair of aviator shades that didn’t match the rest of his dishevelled appearance.
‘No, you’re not,’ Niamh replied.
‘You’re right,’ he said with a grin. ‘Without that diary, my essay would have been rather shit.’
He put his hand in the small of her back, guiding her across Broad Street, and she gritted her teeth at the impertinence. He may have thought he was being gentlemanly, but in fact all it did was re-enforce her earlier opinion that he believed himself superior to her in every way.
‘Do you always have to win?’ Niamh asked, thinking yet again that so many people at Oxford seemed to turn everything into a competition. She would have given him the diary without even stopping to consider if by doing so it put her at a disadvantage. But then again, maybe her naivety was part of the reason she was still, more than a year into her degree, trying to figure out her place in that peculiar melting pot of money and brilliance.
Niamh turned to face him to find him standing with arms folded over his chest and legs deliberately wide apart so that she only had to tilt her face a little in order to look up at him.
Robin sniffed. ‘Your reference to that Blake poem was rather clever, if a little short-sighted given it was written nearly a century before the point in history we were supposed to be discussing.’
‘Dr Olsson didn’t seem to think so.’
His eyes swept over her from head to toe and back again, the scrutiny making her uncomfortable. ‘You’re not at all what I imagined.’
‘Oh?’
‘From the way Leo described you I was expecting someone more . . .’ He twirled one hand through the air, as if this action would somehow conjure the word he couldn’t seem to find. ‘More Leo.’
‘More Leo?’
‘You know,’ he said with a smirk. ‘Chelsea not Cork. Chanel not charity shop. I tink you get my meaning?’ The word was said with deliberate emphasis on the missing ‘h’, making Niamh clench her jaw at the all-too-familiar dig. It was infuriating, and not only because Erika was never teased for her accent or insulted for her language mistakes. Niamh knew she wasn’t being targeted because she was Irish; she was being targeted because she was poor.
‘I don’t have time for this.’ Niamh shook her head as she strode in the completely wrong direction because she needed to get away. Away from such a blatant insult that was based on the assumption that she wasn’t the right kind of girl for a boy like Leo simply because she didn’t have a trust fund or parents who bred racehorses like so many of the others she’d been to school with. It was so ridiculously narrow-minded it made her want to punch something, preferably Robin’s annoying, smug face.
She was still irritated as she stomped her way across the cobbled streets, muttering to herself about entitled rich boys who felt the constant need to bully and patronise girls like her. But there was another voice in her head, the one that always picked at her insecurities, telling her that Robin was right; why would a boy like Leo be interested in a poor little mouse like her?
Niamh was still fuming as she stepped inside University College Lodge, not bothering to check her post as she walked alongside the Main Quad. At the end of the covered passageway, she tapped in the entry code next to where a stone memorial of Shelley lay behind iron railings. The sound of her footsteps echoed around the stone stairwell as she climbed to the first floor, but she didn’t stop at the sound of Duncan singing from behind the doors that housed the communal showers. Instead she went up another floor and headed for the corner, where a tight spiral staircase took her into the eaves of the building.
Even before she pushed open the fire door at the top of the stairs, she knew. Even before she let her eyes settle on the sight of someone sitting in the corridor, back to the wall and legs stretched out in front of him, she had sensed it. As he lifted his head to see her approach and put down the book he was reading, she felt the smallest part of her heart give way.
‘You’re here,’ Niamh said, finding that her feet were refusing to move and so she stood half in the corridor and half at the top of the stairs. ‘Why?’
‘I brought you this.’ He stood up and stepped forward, holding out the diary she had needed for her tutorial, but was now less than useless to her. She went towards him so that he might not be the one to bridge the gap.
It felt important somehow, the need to meet him halfway. She wanted to show him that she too was a part of the decision, and not just responding to whatever he said or did.
‘Thank you.’ She took the diary and opened the door to her room, holding it with one foot as he stepped inside.
Looking around, he was overcome by the mixture of chaos and order all tumbled in together. There was a desk straight ahead, its surface invisible underneath stacks of papers and books as well as an open packet of fig rolls and a near-empty bottle of Lucozade. To the right was a bay window with padded seats, the leaded panes overlooking both the High Street and one of the college gardens. On the opposite side was an adjacent bedroom, the frame missing its door, and a single bed, underneath which a bundle of shoes and boots had been shoved.
She was watching him, seeing the way he moved about her private space as she pretended to busy herself with unpacking her bag, taking off her jacket and hanging it back in the cupboard. He turned as she did so and she didn’t mind him looking at her, because he did it in a completely different way to that of his room-mate only minutes before.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ she asked, picking up the kettle in search of something to do and filling it from the sink in her tiny bedroom. She stared at her reflection in the mirror that also acted as a splashback, aware of the high colour not only on her cheeks but all the way down her neck. She was sweating, the beat of her heart felt strange and she couldn’t stop her hands from shaking.
He was there. In her room. Making her feel all sorts of things that were causing her head to spin. He’d gone out of his way to find her, so perhaps Robin was wrong? Perhaps Leo was more than just another entitled snob?
He moved aside the same fur coat she had been wearing when she came to his room and sat down on the narrow green sofa next to the window, watching
as she put the kettle on to boil, then went back into her bedroom to rinse out a couple of mugs.
She was dressed in a tight, black waistcoat over red velvet leggings and boots that looked like they belonged to Oliver Twist. Her hair was twisted back into a bun and there was a pencil stuck through its centre. He wanted nothing more than to pull it free, to breathe in the scent of her that seemed to be clinging to every surface of the room. Just as before, he could smell tobacco and oranges, but now there was a trace of something else underneath.
‘Milk?’ she asked as she climbed on to her bed and opened the window to retrieve a bottle from the ledge outside.
‘Please.’
There was the clink of spoon against china as she stirred, head bent and eyes down, concentrating on the task in hand.
Say something, he thought to himself, sitting with hands clasped together and resting on his knees.
Say something, she told herself, but all the words she carried around so effortlessly from day to day had turned into a kaleidoscope of nonsense.
He half stood, half squatted as she set the book down next to him and the mug on the carpet by his feet.
‘I can’t use it,’ Niamh said. ‘I’ve just come from my tutorial, so it’s too late.’ She turned away and ran her fingers along the shelf of records next to her desk, her nails catching on the spine of each one. She stopped at the far end and took out the penultimate sleeve, tipping out the vinyl and placing it on a nearby turntable. The movement calmed her, as it always did, and she waited for the first crackle to spill from the speakers, seconds before the sound of a bass drum and plucked guitar took over.
Leo saw the slant of her shoulders change as the song began. He noticed the way her body was beginning to unfurl, almost as if the notes were sneaking inside her, gluing her to the melody.
He was aware of how the energy in the room was building, and not just because of the hypnotic vocals of a man and a woman singing about broken love. He recognised the song as one his mother used to play, but he couldn’t remember who it was by.
Niamh felt him come up behind her but she didn’t dare turn around. The knowledge that what she did in that precise moment would change it all was so exquisitely painful that she didn’t want it to end.
He understood that what he did in those next seconds would send him down one of two paths. The conscious acceptance that this was a decision he would remember for the rest of his life terrified but also excited him.
The song came to an end and she turned and lifted her head to his, lips parted and eyes sweeping over every pore, every line, as if committing them to memory. She was afraid, but she didn’t know if it was of what would happen if he kissed her, or what would happen if he didn’t.
‘Niamh.’ He said her name slowly and she felt the sound of it land on her skin. A moment more and everything would be altered, changed, and then recounted in years to come.
His hands came up to her face, the weight of her held in his palms like an antique bowl too delicate to touch. He could feel the pulse at her neck and gently pressed his thumb to it, hearing her intake of breath as he did so.
It was as if he had inserted a thin, sharp needle into her spine, causing every single one of her nerve endings to scream in a way they never had before. All thoughts of probability, of likelihoods and fate slipped from her mind as she leant into him and allowed herself to wonder how he might taste.
The door reverberated against its frame as someone kicked at it from the other side, followed by a long call of ‘Helloooooooo’, the last vowel elongated like a yodel.
‘Niamh, are you in there?’ Erika called out, even though the question was redundant given the music that was still spilling from the speakers.
Niamh went over to the door, opened it a fraction and peered out.
‘What are you doing?’ Erika stepped forward then realised Niamh wasn’t letting her in. ‘Why are you hiding, or,’ she said with a Cheshire Cat grin, trying to peer over Niamh’s head, ‘who are you hiding? Is it him? The boy from the bar?’
‘Go away,’ Niamh hissed.
‘Suit yourself,’ Erika replied with a huff. ‘But we made a promise, remember?’
‘I remember,’ Niamh said. But at that point all she could think about, all her brain would allow her to focus on, was the way that boy, that stranger, was making her feel.
ERIKA
GOLDEN MONKEY
Cambodia, 2009
The sun is barely visible above the horizon, but already the sky is made up of a tumble of colours, with the ancient temples of Angkor Wat jutting out from the landscape ahead.
On the seat next to me is an empty cage with a few feathers stuck to the bars, and there’s a plastic string of flowers wound around the pole that’s holding up the roof of the tuk-tuk that’s transporting me to the sacred site. It’s my third day in a row at the temples, but the sight of those stone towers is just as breathtaking as the first time I caught sight of the hundreds of apsaras carved into the walls.
Of all the places I have visited, Cambodia is by far my favourite, and the sacred temples, with their sheer scale and symbolism, are simply stunning. Just like the ancient pyramids of Egypt, the stone from which Angkor Wat is built was quarried elsewhere and floated down the river on rafts, with the help of over six thousand elephants to move everything into place.
‘How much?’ I smile at a young boy who is sitting leaning against a pillar riddled with age. At his feet are various carved animals and representations of Buddha, most made from wood, but also painted metal.
‘Two dollars,’ he says, holding out an elephant carved from the blackest of woods. I consider it, but shake my head and point to a pair of golden monkeys at the back of the collection. One is sitting with his palms pressed together and head bent; the other is holding on to a knobbly nut.
‘I’ll take them, please,’ I say as I search through my bag for a crumpled five-dollar note.
The boy looks up at me with a frown. ‘You no want Buddha?’ He points to a rather jolly little carving with a garland of fresh marigolds hanging around its neck.
‘I like the monkeys,’ I say, handing over my money and he holds it up to the sky before nodding his agreement and tucking it away inside an old ice-cream pot. Duncan liked monkeys. He was due to come here that summer as part of a conservation programme, which included working in a monkey sanctuary. I remember him saying he wanted to bring one home, call him Cyril and have him ride in his basket every morning as he cycled into town.
But I have no idea if he even came here, let alone whether he managed to smuggle a new friend all the way back home. It’s stupid, but part of me hoped he might still be here, hiding in the temples, waiting to jump out at me and somehow close the gap of time so that we might forget about that fateful night when all our secrets were spilt, and be friends once more.
As I walk, I can feel the statues jutting against my hip. Gone are the designer totes and leather suitcases, replaced by a hand-woven shoulder bag and a rucksack I bought from a military store in Vietnam. When I first left London nearly a year ago, I holed up in the same five-star hotel in Goa where I’d been for a detox yoga retreat with Layla and Michelle. But after the initial panic wore off (because, let’s face it, I’d walked away from everything with no plan, no checklist, nothing but my passport and a suitcase full of clothes), I found myself aching for a different kind of experience.
My decision to leave the safety net of luxury was made whilst standing in the Arabian Sea, staring up at a sky overwhelmed by stars. I knew that leaving London had to mean something, that I needed to prove to myself I was capable of keeping the promise I’d made years before. A promise I’d made to him, just before I ran.
Don’t be ordinary, I said to myself, listening to the beat of the sea as the tide pulled against my calves. Don’t let the past define you.
Ever since that night, I have travelled through Asia with little more than sunscreen and an old Discman that seems to have arthritis because it never works duri
ng a rainstorm. My clothes are bought from local markets, I have slept in beach bungalows and backpacker hotels, eaten the spiciest street food known to man (including frog stuffed with kroeung paste which was surprisingly delicious), and cut off all my hair in an attempt to survive the oppressive heat.
Not only that, but I decided to sell my phone in Bangkok and I only ever check my emails when I stumble upon an internet café. It is liberating being alone; I adore the total freedom of having nobody know where I am after so many years of being glued to my BlackBerry, of constantly being at someone else’s beck and call. Slowly but surely, I have grown accustomed to having no expectations for my day.
Moving through the temples, every so often I catch sight of one of the Buddhist monks, the bright orange of their robes like dots of fire against the stone and trees. One is standing in a doorway watching me approach and I press my palms together, bowing my head in greeting. He simply mimics my movement, then walks away.
Layla would love it here, having embraced Buddhism wholeheartedly whilst researching religion for her degree show. I wish she were here so that we could argue about whether death is the force that propels us ever onwards, or simply get wasted on cheap beer and flirt with the gangs of tanned, athletic gap-year boys that seem to multiply the closer to the beach you get. We try to swap emails every week, but I haven’t actually spoken to her since leaving Bangkok and it feels strange somehow, as if my universe is a little off-kilter because of her absence.
You chose this, the voice in my head says. A voice that I thought was finally, finally, leaving me alone; but no, it’s always there, lurking and waiting for the perfect moment to make me realise that there’s nobody else to blame.
You chose to run, again.
It’s true. Was I naive to think putting oceans and mountains between us would make any difference to how much I miss him? How much I miss all of them?
Get a grip. This is my voice now, like a slap to the face that’s forcing me back to the present, to the memories and escapism and more bloody culture than you can shake a monkey at. Pay attention, for goodness’ sake, because one day soon you have to go home; you have to make a decision about what happens next.
The Love We Left Behind Page 7
