The Couple’s Secret

‘Yes. You’re friends with Ally, aren’t you? You live practically on top of each other.’

This wasn’t exactly true. Despite having adjacent rooms, Ally’s social life meant our time together was usually spent brushing our teeth in the morning before lectures or chatting on the way out of the showers. Time snatched away from the day here and there and the odd episode of Neighbours – hardly the basis of a close friendship. For Peter’s benefit, however, I nodded.

‘We talk about things. Books mainly. Music, sometimes. Cinema, if James is holding court. He loves films. Always tries to battle against Ernest’s snobbery towards them.’

‘Ernest doesn’t like films?’

‘Oh, I don’t think it’s to do with not liking them, exactly. It’s more he feels they can’t be interrogated in as rigorous a way as, say, Kant or Hume, or the great novelists like Dickens and Austen.’

‘I think that’s crap.’

Peter laughed. ‘It may well be, but that’s Ernest for you. Not one to budge on his opinions, even if the opposite is clearly true. James likes films, though. I think you’ll get on with him. So long as you don’t mind your entertainment a little on the dark side.’

I thought of Becky and Rachael complaining about the violence in Goodfellas, whereas I had been left relatively unmoved.

‘I can do dark,’ I said, trying to sound confident. A confidence I hadn’t really earned. How did I know I could ‘do dark’? Something shifted within me uncomfortably, like I was just reaching out and touching a barely visible line I’d never really known was there. New horizons. Uncharted territory. I was intrigued.

‘Then you’ll probably get on with him rather well.’

When I got back to my room, I found Ally waiting for me at my door. I was disconcerted by this. Had Peter had time to contact her during my short walk over from Dr Lawrence’s office and tell her what a fool I’d made of myself during the seminar? She was smiling, though, in her usual, enthusiastic way, and her eyes seemed to glow with excitement. ‘We’re going to the Wimpy.’

At first I thought I’d misheard and just stared stupidly at her. She rolled her eyes, as if she could guess what I was thinking.

‘Oh, I know, I know. You’re probably thinking it’s not quite our style. I’m not completely unaware of the image Ernest and I must give off. We do go to fast-food chains on occasion. It’s not just caviar at The Ritz every day, you know.’

I found my voice again. ‘I know that. Sorry, I wasn’t … I didn’t mean …’

More smiles. More eye rolling. ‘Relax. So do you want to come?’

I couldn’t imagine anything weirder. Sitting on those dingy, scruffy chairs at those grease-stained tables with the always immaculate-looking Ernest and James while Ally laughed in her rumbling Sloane Square tones at whatever witty aside James had made about Proust. But I nodded and told her it would be lovely. She didn’t seem convinced, but she smiled sweetly and then grabbed my arm. ‘Come on, let’s go and get ready.’

Getting ready involved Ally trying on multiple cardigans of various colours and weaves while she mused and puzzled about the temperature outside, the velocity of the wind and the cardigan’s usefulness if she was going to be wearing a coat over it in any case. I passed the time by browsing Ally’s book collection. There were some of the usual suspects there. Dickens and Austen. A couple of Brontës. But there were some surprises, too. I tried to quiz her on her apparent love for Kingsley Amis, but got a snort of derision as a response: ‘That old misogynist! Can’t stand the man. I should really throw them out, if I’m honest, but it’s a little bit awkward.’ I asked her why it was awkward and she just tossed her head to dislodge a gold strand of hair that had got stuck between her eyes and said casually, ‘Oh, he’s a family friend.’

I found myself in a strange, scratchy mood, as if I wasn’t quite sure what was going on. There was something about the randomness of the invite to the Wimpy that unnerved me slightly and I kept flicking between deciding not to go and feeling quietly excited they’d decided to let me into their little gang. When I found myself thinking this latter thought I mentally kicked myself. We weren’t back in school. The idea of having cliques and gangs was supposed to go away when you were past the age of seventeen, surely?

Apparently not, it seemed, as we set out on the short walk to the boys’ dorms. I could see other little packs making their way across the courtyard; small huddles of friends who had decided they belonged together. Whether through sports, studies, societies or just common interests, these people had decided they worked better as a team. We’re sociable animals by nature, of course, but the politics of friendship seemed to be emphasised here to a disproportionate degree; worse, perhaps, than when I was at school. The horrendous weather, which, combined with the spires and churches on the skyline, made it seem as if we’d slipped into a Hammer horror movie, meant Ally and I had to hold our coats hard to our chests for fear of them blowing open. The rain hadn’t started, but we both knew it wouldn’t be long, dreading the moment we would have to open our umbrellas and fight to keep them from being turned inside out with every gust that came our way.

When we reached the boys’ halls, I felt my stomach drop inside me, a feeling that only got worse as Ally marched down the corridor that led to their rooms. The thought of being in such close proximity to where they lived, where they slept, where they undressed – where James undressed – made me squirm slightly. Ally didn’t bother to knock, just barged into what I gathered was Ernest’s room. The place was shockingly messy, even messier than Ally’s. Clothes littered the floor – white shirts, mostly, which seemed to be Ernest’s trademark apparel, along with jumpers, underwear and stacks of books, many of which seemed to be written by obscure European philosophers and various other authors I had never heard of. On the desk was an extensive array of orange Penguin paperbacks and on the shelves were hardbacks from the Everyman’s Library series. It seemed that when he’d moved in there had been some effort to establish order, though these foundations had been tested over time.

‘See anything you like?’ said Ernest, who’d noticed me looking at the books. His face hadn’t quite spread out into a full sneer, but I was suspicious of the smile dancing around his lips.

‘Maybe,’ I said, then turned to Ally. ‘Is James’s room close? Are we meeting him and Peter at the restaurant?’

Ally was about to speak, but Ernest’s laughter cut her off. ‘Three things. First, I don’t think “restaurant” is usually a term employed in relation to the Wimpy, unless one is using it very loosely. Second, Peter has lost some book he desperately needs and is having a strop in the way only Peter knows how. He will indeed be meeting us there, if he finds his missing tome. And third, you might want to take a look at Sleeping Beauty in the bed over there. Better still, maybe you could give him a nudge for me. I’ve been trying to get him up for the past hour.’

I looked over at the bed and there was indeed, amidst an excessive amount of pillows, a human-size mass under the sheets, with the duvet pulled up so high that only a glimpse of brown hair could be seen nestled among the folds. I felt a jolt of something uncomfortable in my spine as I realised it was James, sleeping silently. I could see the rise and fall of his breathing, ever so slightly, in the shape of his shoulders.

‘Oh, for God’s sake, I thought you guys would be ready. I’m fucking starving.’ Ally stomped across to the bed and tore back the duvet. For one mortifying moment I found myself partly dreading, partly hoping, that he would be unclothed – perhaps even naked – under the covers, but he wasn’t. He was wearing pyjama bottoms and a navy-blue Oxford hoody.

‘Wake up.’ He recoiled from her harsh bark, moving closer to the wall, burrowing his head deeper into the mound of pillows. She got on the bed and began poking his back. ‘I want a bloody burger, and your idle behaviour isn’t going to stop me from getting it.’

Ernest was grinning, with his hands on his hips, watching his sister drag his friend from his bed. ‘We had a bit of a wild night last night,’ he said. ‘It takes poor James a little longer than most to recover. Delicate creature, he is.’

James was now sitting on the bed, rubbing his eyes. ‘I should go have a shower.’

‘No time for that. Didn’t you hear me? Me. Food. Want. Now. You look fine, anyway.’

‘Probably better than most of their clientele,’ Ernest drawled, rolling his eyes and smirking, though I kept my face neutral, refusing to be complicit in his casual snobbery.

‘Your trousers are around the floor somewhere, if you can find them,’ he said, but James shook his head and murmured something about jeans before wandering off out of Ernest’s room, presumably to his own to get some fresh attire.

It took about fifteen minutes for James to get ready. I spent most of it awkwardly perched on Ernest’s bed while Ally made complaints about her stomach and how she could feel the muscles contracting in protest due to extreme hunger. Ernest showed no sympathy and made a crude comment about James having a wank in the shower. Ally tutted at this and accused him of being vulgar. ‘Oh, he likes to knock one out in the mornings. Does it like clockwork.’ Ally reminded him that it was 5.30 p.m., which didn’t count as ‘the morning’, regardless of what time one woke up.

When he finally arrived, James did look a little more kempt, with his hair in a less-ruffled state and wearing a pair of dark-blue jeans. He’d swapped the hoody for a chunky burgundy jumper, which made him look like one of those dreamy-looking boys I’d seen once in a Ralph Lauren advertisement – boys who, I’d told myself at the time, weren’t real and had been crafted in an evil man-lab somewhere to make girls feel lightheaded and other boys feel jealous, resentful or sexually confused.

‘At bloody last,’ Ally huffed, and we all left Ernest’s room.

Conversation was attempted and then aborted as we walked around the corner to the fringes of the city centre. It was impossible to hear one’s own words, let alone those of anyone else, when the wind was screeching like a tortured farm animal and battering us from either side. The much-feared rain eventually arrived just as the warm, welcoming glow of the Wimpy came within sight, causing us to dash madly down the street and in through its little door before we got soaked to the skin.

The restaurant was almost empty, save for a woman and little boy in a dark corner at the end of the restaurant. She glanced around at me as we arrived, then turned back to the child, apparently trying to coax him into finishing the last of his chips.

‘Could we get a table for four, please? I’m afraid we haven’t booked. Is that a problem?’ This ridiculous question came from Ernest, who could barely contain his mirth at his own joke as he spoke to the bored-looking Asian lady behind the counter.

‘No,’ she said flatly. ‘Please sit where you like.’

‘You can be a bit of a dickhead, Ern,’ said James, though Ernest just beamed in response to this as if he considered it a compliment.

Peter was still nowhere to be seen, so we settled at the table nearest the window, away from the woman and child, and Ally began dishing out menus, grabbing extra ones from the tables nearby. I took the slightly sticky laminated sheet in my hand and looked through the options. Though I hadn’t been in a Wimpy for years, I wasn’t surprised to see only minimal changes had been made to the array of burgers, strangely plastic-looking sausages and other fried food. When the waitress came to take our order, I was slightly disconcerted when everyone ordered exactly the same thing: a cheeseburger and fries with a strawberry milkshake, as if it was some kind of set menu I wasn’t aware of. I almost changed my own choice so as not to be the odd one out, but stuck to my guns and ordered a burger with no cheese but tomato sauce, fries and a Coke.

Although I had been afraid of awkward silences, conversation came quite naturally, with Ally conducting everyone like an orchestra, asking me questions about my course in a way that enabled me to have a part in whatever they wanted to discuss. It turned out that, as with me, literature was their primary topic of conversation, as Peter had suggested. And I could see why he’d recommended I join in with them more after our discussion on To the Lighthouse; the group were apparently going through a bit of a Woolf phase. Mrs Dalloway seemed to be the focus today, with Ally declaring it ‘utter, pretentious claptrap’, while James and Ernest objected to her criticisms and said she ‘just didn’t get it’.

‘There’s no need to denigrate one of the greatest authors of the twentieth century simply because you have a short attention span.’ Ernest had a wicked smile on his face, knowing full well what would wind his sister up.

Ally almost spat her milkshake out of her nostrils. ‘I do not have a short attention span.’ She shifted in her seat irritably. ‘Where’s the food? They don’t usually take this long.’

‘I think you’ve just proved my point.’

‘Hunger has nothing to do with attention spans.’

‘And yet you used it to change the subject.’

Ally glared at him. ‘Peter’s still not here.’

‘Well spotted,’ said Ernest, peering over James’s shoulder at the rain-soaked night outside. ‘Perhaps he took one look at the weather and decided we weren’t worth it. Or he’s crying in one of the stacks of the library, having a little private funeral for the remnants of his essay.’

I took in Ernest’s fluid movements, his laughter, his playful barbs aimed at his sister. Some girls would like that type of thing, I thought as I watched him. But turning my attention to James, I felt a deep swell inside me, like a force rebelling against any attempts to tame it, and knew I wasn’t one of those girls. The quiet, serious type was my thing – a ‘thing’ I’d never really known I had until I met him for the first time. My lack of experience with boys was probably plain to see for people like Ally and Ernest who, by all accounts, enjoyed their respective sex lives in an unfussy, matter-of-fact kind of way. And when the topic of conversation turned, as it was always going to do, to the subject of sex, I found myself wanting to crawl under a rock somewhere. Or a table.

‘The problem is, she’s just never had it done to her,’ Ernest said, describing a girl he had gone home with a few nights before. ‘When I told her the name of it, she made this shrieking noise, as if she was repulsed.’