AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The quip goes right through her; her belly folds over. She has fantasised about a moment like this, but now that it is here, she has to look away. It’s actually a bit embarrassing. A bit stressful. In her fantasies, she is much more self-possessed.
She manages to get herself together enough to look up. He is nodding towards the crowd, to someone; she doesn’t see who.
‘I’m good mates with Sally,’ he says. ‘She got me on the guest list.’
Guest list is ironic, Samantha gets that. It’s not like this is some trendy club. She wonders if Sally is the young girl he was talking to, before realising that, doh, of course he means Professor Bailey.
‘Head of English,’ he adds, as if reading her mind, his pink mouth turning up at one side.
‘Yes, yes,’ she says. ‘I mean, yes, I know who you mean. You’re … you’re history of art, aren’t you?’ Her face burns. Shit. In her surprise, she has revealed her hand.
But it isn’t, apparently, a disaster. At least, his smile tells her it isn’t. His teeth are even, creamy, a neat lacing of gum. He takes another sip of the terrible wine, his mouth immediately puckering. Beside them, a group of students from her year let out an excited shriek. She winces with embarrassment on their behalf. I am not like them, she wants to say. But can’t, of course; that would be lame.
But he must pick up on exactly what she’s thinking because he widens his eyes, leans towards her and whispers in her ear, ‘What an amazingly exciting conversation they must be having.’
Oh my God, the telepathy! She giggles, tries to choose a spot on the floor, fixes on her DM boots, wonders if he finds them childish, finds her childish. She doesn’t want him to find her childish, not nerdy and shrieking like the others. She wants, she realises, to appear older. When she’s seen Professor Bridges around, in the uni cafeteria sometimes, she’s put him in his late thirties, maybe as old as forty, but she wonders now how old he actually is, how much older than her. How much more experienced. It is not a question she can ask, nor does she, because he is lifting her beaker from her hand.
‘Listen, shall we go and get a better drink somewhere quieter?’ In his eyes there is no doubt, none whatsoever. It is as if he is saving her from something, as if he is teasing a bottle of cheap cider from the grimy hands of a homeless person and offering to take them to a hostel for the night. He knows she is not like the others. He’s identified this in her. That’s why he came over. He wrinkles his nose and she knows exactly what he means. ‘I’ll put these back, shall I?’
No objection makes it even as far as her throat. Why would it? He has chosen her. He, Professor Bridges, has chosen her, Samantha Frayn, a nobody with knobbly knees and flyaway dandelion hair. Out of all these rosy girls who know how to tuck their thick, shiny hair just so behind their ear, how to laugh on sinking knees when he hits them with that laid-back irony, he has chosen her. With no real preamble, no small talk. He has seen that she’s someone who can ignore the petty, wheedling internal voice of reason, who is not afraid to rise to life’s impetuous moments and meet them square on. Someone who can understand someone like him with no real need for words.Shall we go and get a better drink somewhere quieter?
Er, yes.
She watches him return the wine. The crowd parts for him. Girls throw sideways glances, meet each other’s eye with almost imperceptible smiles. His blazer is smart, too smart for an academic, his deep blue trousers the perfect length against his tan brogues. At the back of his head is the hint of a bald spot, no bigger than a ten-pence piece. He has combed his hair over it and she thinks about him doing that – the secret vanity, the vulnerability in the act – patting the hair down with his hand, maybe using a second mirror to check it’s covered. She has no idea what she has said or done to make him choose her, knows only that he has, and that possibly he intends to seduce her – properly, calmly, like a man. The thought fills her with a precipitous sensation. She is unbalanced, falling, the cave of her chest flaring with anxiety.
He is standing in front of her. His smile almost makes her panic.
‘Let’s go,’ he says.
His Porsche is parked on Gordon Square. He unlocks the passenger-side door, which he holds open.
‘No central locking,’ he says as she lowers herself onto the cream leather seat. ‘Makes me appear much more chivalrous than I am.’
Chivalry is a sexist anachronism, shesodoesn’t say. What she says instead is, ‘Don’t Porsches usually have, like, a fin thing on the back?’
‘Likea fin thing?’ he teases before strolling around to his side and getting in. His cologne smells expensive, a little like wet grass. ‘This is a 1985 Porsche Carrera Coupé M491. No spoiler. Nolike a fin thing. I’ve had her a long time.’
‘Was she new when you bought her? It, I mean. I mean the car.’
He laughs. Her face heats yet again. If Marcia could see her right now, she would freak.
‘Just how old do you think I am?’ Still chuckling, he starts the ignition. The engine gives a throaty growl. ‘She was second-hand when I bought her. Nowshe’svintage.’ He glances at Samantha when he says this, and his brown eyes twinkle – oh my God, the cliché of it, the actual cliché. She imagines telling Marcia later – or tomorrow!Marcia, she will say,I know this is a cringe, but his eyes actually twinkled.
‘And which are you?’ she dares to ask. ‘Old or vintage?’
He grins, his canine teeth a little raised against the others. ‘I’d say I’ve had a few too many careful owners.’
Cheesy, she thinks, but laughs despite herself as he pulls out into the city traffic. The pinkish blue of dusk has darkened to soft navy. White headlights flash and fade; red tail lights lure them forward.
‘Where are we going?’ she asks.
‘Anywhere you want. There’s a little pub I know not too far away. It’s in Soho. Used to be … well, not a brothel exactly, but it’s an old prostitutes’ hang-out and it still has the original booths, which back then had curtains you could pull across when you were … you know, busy.’ He glances at her, returns his eyes to the busy street. ‘London pubs have such great history and some of them are beautifully maintained.’ With the palm of one hand he spins the steering wheel, heads left towards Tottenham Court Road. ‘And most of them serve a passable red.’
A passable red. Lol. The urge to giggle itches at her throat. She would text Marcia right now, but he would see.
Soho is dense with bodies. The car gives a low thrum as it slows to walking pace. He appears not to notice, asks her which modules she’s studying.
‘Eighteenth century,’ she tells him. ‘The Romantics and an option on Icelandic literature.’
