So, the truth is I’m a bit of a weirdo. Weirdo is a bit harsh perhaps. I mean I don’t have some peculiar obscure obsession with say traffic lights for instance. Write down all their issue numbers and compare various hues of reds, yellows and greens wherever I go. No. I don’t do that: although that is perhaps a good description of my one and only friend. But it’s not me. I’m not the really weird one. He is. Am I a bad person? I guess maybe that’s why we’d bonded. Not because I’m a bad person, but because I’m weird. Because for me, I got to feel like I was doing ok in life standing next to Richard (Rich for short) and he, well I guess he just got someone to hang around with. Curly wiry hair, pale skin and rectangular black-rimmed glasses he is the archetypal nerd.
“Did you know different countries have different jingles for the sound the lights make when you can cross the road?” Rich asked as we crossed the road over to High Street.
He’d come to visit me at university in Oxford. Let me just clarify here that I don’t actually go to Oxford university. I like to think I’m smart, but perhaps not that smart. For the time being I’m studying at Oxford Brookes University. It was my second year there and I’d just about got the hang of the city. I’d wandered around aimlessly, exploring pokey alleys and grand streets enough times that I was the ‘lonely planet’ in the flesh, ready for visitors (if ever they felt inclined to visit). In Rich’s case though I think he was just happy if we came to a cross roads rather than a roundabout.
“You know, I think I knew that,” I replied, “think I saw a Japanese film once where they crossed the road and a cheery little melody played whilst they walked over.”
“There’s a Japanese film about people crossing the road?”
“Erm, no Rich, it was just a scene in the film.
“What was the film about then?”
“Revenge and getting it in the most violent blood splatteringly way possible.”
“Oh,” he said disappointed. “Sounds like ‘Kill Bill’. I didn’t like ‘Kill Bill’. Too much killing.”
Shall I reply to that? No, I don’t think it’s worth it.
We walked down past the shops and the university colleges. Small wooden doors cut out of larger wooden gates swung open giving a glimpse into secret college gardens and ivy covered walls. The sky was clear and sunlight bathed my face, taking the edge off of the autumn chill that had only hit this week.
The summer had been average at best – that was my adjective of the month, average, after hearing a couple of Oxford boys greet each other, “So how’s things with you old friend” one had asked coming out of a pub. They were perhaps twenty years old, although they looked a few years younger. “Oh you know, middle to average, average, you know,” the other replied – but the first few weeks of September had brought with it a late heat wave. The library had emptied out into Southpark behind the university and study was pushed back another few weeks in favour of drinking in the sun.
“This way,” I shouted to Rich, as I turned down Alfred Street and he continued on like a moth to the flame, attracted by the pelican crossing up ahead.
We sauntered down the short side street that connected High Street to the maze of secreted cobbled back alleys.452Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0nUUujpG7p
“Here, in here,” I said, “This is it, The Bear.”
The pub was crammed from wall to the wall. At first inspection it looked as though it was just a random mass of people compressed into the space but, after trying to work out the easiest route to push through to the bar, it became evident that people were separated into groups of six or seven people. It was quiz night. Shit. I thought it might just be quiet on a Tuesday but I’d forgotten about the pub quiz. It was famously difficult and frequented by the university challenge teams of both Brookes and Oxford amongst a host of other academic types and regular barflies.452Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJ96b0EoKpH
“Oh, shit man, I’m sorry Rich I don’t think we’re going to get a seat in here tonight”
No answer. I turned around but Rich wasn’t there. Beautiful. I’d lost the weird little shit already. He’d probably seen a lolly pop lady walk past and followed her back home. Do lolly pop ladies still exist? There he is. He vanished from the other side of the bar into the next room; maybe he needed the toilet. I pushed slowly through the crowd towards him. Beer spilled down my front as a guy in front of me whipped around with two pints in his hands and walked into me. He gave me a scowl and then continued on walking. Good old British repression. Don’t go saying what you think now, just be sure in the fact that the person knows exactly what you thought of them and will go home and give themselves a good reprimanding.
I found Rich in the next room staring up at the ceiling. The room was covered in glass boxes filled with ties. It was apparently a tradition started by one of the previous landlords who would swap a pint of beer for the end of your tie to be snipped off and pinned to the wall; guess it beat sniffing women’s underwear. This tradition had gone on for quite some time and now ties covered the walls and even the ceiling that Rich was currently staring up at.
“Rich” I said, “come on, we’ll never get a seat in here. We’ll have to do it another time.”
“You can squeeze in here,” a voice said from below somewhere.
I looked down to my left and saw, perched on two small stools, two girls wedged into the corner by the window. One was really pretty. Small with dark long brown hair and grey blue eyes. She wore a simple outfit, dark blue jeans a white vest and a black cardigan. Her friend who sat nearest the wall was taller with mousy brown hair and brown eyes. She would probably be considered better looking in the eyes of most, but I didn’t like tall girls and I had a thing for blue eyes.
“No, no don’t worry” I said taken aback at the sound of the social barrier being broken. “There’s no room, we wouldn’t want to bother you.”
“It’s no problem,” she said. “Anna and I can fit on one stool and you two on the other. We want to join the quiz, but we think that we won’t have much of a chance with just the two of us.” When she spoke she stressed certain syllables in odd places that gave her sentences a pleasant rhythm. “Plus, we could do with a couple of native speakers to translate all this noise!”
What am I saying no for, this is bloody great, I thought. This is the kind of thing that never happens to me – probably because I shy away from the social situations like they’re a Trump rally – for once though somebody’s trying to pull me out of this antisocial sinkhole and I’m telling them that it’s not all that bad in here, once you get used to the smell and the slow but sure assurance of death by lonely suffocation.
“Ok, I guess we could help out. What do you think Rich?” I looked over at Rich; he was still looking at the ceiling.
After a few seconds he noticed that I was looking at him and said “Yeah, I don’t mind, I like it here.” And then continued staring up at the ties.
“Ok ladies keep the seats warm for us I’ll go and get some drinks,” I said. Keep the seats warm for us. Idiot.
The dark haired girl smiled and said. “I’ll have an ale! A dark one.”
I didn’t actually mean I’d buy the girls a drink but I didn’t really feel I could back out of this now seeing as I’d already accepted the invitation to sit down with them.
“Yeah, sure” I said “and your friend? Anna was it”
She looked up at me but before she could say anything the dark haired girl said, “She doesn’t like beer so a glass of red wine would be great.” She smiled again.
“Can you give me a hand please Rich, to grab these drinks and bring them back to the table?”
Rich followed me to the bar begrudgingly, putting on hold his newfound fascination for ties. Perhaps this would be a good experience for him and he’d ditch the traffic light obsession. He could become a mod, or a banker. Maybe I’ll buy him a Quadrophenia t-shirt for his birthday.
“What do you think about these girls?” I asked Rich after we’d got to the bar and ordered the drinks.
“Which girls?”
“The girls that I’ve just spent nigh on ten quid on for two drinks.” I answered irritably.
“The two by the ties?”
“Yes Rich, the two by the ties.”452Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡC54B5uaDKh
How he could specify any two people as being by the ties in a room wallpapered with ties I didn’t know, but I assumed we were talking about the same girls. I don’t think Rich is unintelligent, or even unobservant, it was more just that he had his eye on different things than most people had.452Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyoTzFXQM8M
“Yeah, well, they’re nice girls.” He answered plainly.
“How do you know they’re nice girls?”
“I mean, well they seem nice. They talked to you didn’t they? Most girls don’t talk to you.” He said this without any hint of sarcasm or vitriol. His words were purely coming from some honest place that most people had blocked off after entering society. I liked that about Rich.
“So, you think it’s a green light for go then?” I asked.
“Yeah,” He answered, giving me a strange look as though he’d never heard such an expression before outside the context of an automobile and a crossroad. “The light is green.”
We got back to our seats just in time for the first question, and quickly scrawled our names on the top of the quiz sheet. I read the other two above ours. Anna and Hermione. Hermione. In Oxford. I looked up from the sheet at her.
She obviously followed my train of thought and before I could ask, she said, “Yes, I know. My name is Hermione.”
She gave me a look that said please don’t ask any more about it, which I obliged albeit somewhat unwillingly.
A voice bellowed from the bar room, “Alright guys, first round is the literature round. I’ll repeat the questions twice and at the end of the round if you missed any questions you can come and ask for it again. Question number one: In which 19th century novel, inspired by Dostoyevsky’s ‘Crime and Punishment’, does the protagonist wander the streets of Christiania in search of nourishment?”
Murmurs filled the room as everybody huddled down into the centre of their tables.
“So, any ideas?” Hermione asked. I knew the answer. Thank you God I knew the answer. I read it the summer before after an obsession with the Beats and Bukowski had led me to read all of his influences.
“I think the answer is ‘Hunger’.” I said.
“That’s the name of the novel?” Anna asked, speaking for the first time. Her words had a strange cadence to them as well, stronger than Hermione’s.
“Yeah, well. That’s the English title at least. I think it’s a Norwegian novel.”
“So you know something,” Hermione said, somewhat sarcastically whilst a smile pulled at her lips. Her mouth was full of white rounded teeth, like pebbles on a beach.
“I like to read,” I replied embarrassed, “and I study literature, so I guess I should get a few questions right in this round.”
Hermione turned to Anna nodding her head whilst she said, “We picked the right ones, we picked the right ones” as if she’d planned it all along.
The quiz went on and in fact I didn’t end up knowing too many of the answers in the literature round or any of the others for that matter. The rounds of drinks kept coming though and during the break a shot of tequila was set on the table in front of me along with three more for the rest of us. Apparently, they only had a limited choice of spirits: vodka, whiskey, gin and tequila. Hermione explained she’d only ever drunken vodka once and had subsequently never drunken it again and whiskey was far too sophisticated to drink in one go, so she’d settled on tequila. This had been a first for Rich, as he usually stuck to one beer, sipping at it for as long as was humanly possible like a fly lapping it up with his proboscis. We left the pub at half past ten. Pissed as newts: a phrase that I had never before used, but was now saying at every opportunity after Hermione had told me she thought it was “so charming and British”. It turned out that she was Greek, and her name was not pronounced Herm-eye-oh-nee, but something more like Her-mee-oh-neh. She was studying psychology at Oxford University (the real Oxford University). Her friend Anna was visiting for the autumn holiday and was going back to Greece tomorrow.
“You’re interesting you know?” Hermione said as we got to Halifax tower to wait for a Taxi. “Let’s exchange phone numbers. I’ll text you next week and maybe we can do something similar.” It wasn’t a question. She stated it in such a way that I had no choice in the matter. Not that I disagreed with her. I just didn’t like the idea that I couldn’t say no, even if I wanted to.
“Great!” I blurted out. “Yeah, really. Let’s do it again next week.” Too eager? A bit eager. “I mean, you know. If you’re free, or I’m free. Not that I’m busy a lot in the evenings. Well I mean I do things. I do. I don’t. I mainly watch a lot of stuff on the internet.”452Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKwSR2aO9QX
She stared up at me, streetlight shining down casting an orange hue around us. Her eyes were dark against the light behind, almost black.
“I really have no idea what you just said,” she laughed.
My cheeks flushed, red and hot in embarrassment. No wait, not embarrassment. Suddenly I felt vomit shoot up my throat and I managed to turn around just in time. Unfortunately, I threw up directly onto the windscreen of the taxi pulling up to take us home. The attendants ushering people into the taxis immediately marched over and grabbed my arms pulling me to the side.
“You’re too drunk to get in the taxi mate.”
Saliva dribbled down my chin as I looked up at the men. They wore black waterproof jackets with up turned collars. Neither had hair and one had a stubbly chin.
“I’m as pissed as a newt,” I said and then fell to the floor...
***
…Shit. I didn’t get her number, and I don’t even know her last name. I’ll never find her on Facebook. Ergh. My mouth is so dry. Shall I drink the three day old water on the side? Yes. It’s definitely too far to the kitchen. I reached for the glass on my desk and felt the back of my fingers brush against the glass as I missed it. Still drunk. I brought my hand back for another attempt. Got it. Sit up. No. Don’t sit up. I drank the water slowly whilst lying on my side and spilt most of it over the mattress underneath me. Better. Sleep. Outside the birds began singing. Rich looked up at me from his airbed on the floor.
“Morning”
ns 172.70.178.60da2
and then Add to home screen.