Mark Shepherd – I’d seen him that first week in university, when I was still buzzing with excitement to be in Bristol, away from home, everything, everybody oozing with potential. Like most women, I’d checked out every handsome, or near-handsome guy, marking them out of ten based only on appearance. We were young, self-obsessed, and superficial. Mark had a rather babyish, round face, his physique gangly and boyish, but he’d still warranted a second look and ticked a healthy seven on my personal hunkometer. I was reading public relations and psychology; he was reading psychology and law so we shared several modules but we never became friendly. He was always on the periphery of the crowd, pushed there by more vocal, active, assertive guys who were simply more fun to be with.
My first year in university, I lived on the campus. The accommodation was expensive, convenient, and came with a long list of rules and regulations. My mother was footing the bill so the cost didn’t bother me. It was the grating rules and regulations that did.
When I told my mother that I wanted to move out, I could hear the edge of worry in her voice. Not for me, not for any fear of my safety off campus; no, I knew exactly what she was afraid of. That if I were unhappy, I’d give up and return home permanently. I could feel my lips curl in a sneer. That wouldn’t please her at all. Our relationship was one of filial and maternal duty, not of love. I wasn’t sure she even liked me.
I knew she’d be happier too if I wasn’t going home for the holidays. I tried to keep my voice carefully neutral as I explained how much easier it would be if I stayed in Bristol for the summer. ‘I could have a look for a job when I get home, of course, see if I can find something in Thornbury. I don’t want to be sitting around all summer, getting under your feet.’
‘Could you get a job easily there?’ This was quicker than I’d expected. Maybe I was being foolish and she’d already considered this. Maybe I’d underestimated her.
‘Yes.’ I drew out the word, as if I was thinking of this idea for the first time. ‘It might be the best bet really. Stay here for the summer. As long as you’re still happy to pay for my accommodation.’
There was the merest hesitation before she replied. ‘I suppose it’s worth looking for somewhere off campus. As long as it doesn’t cost more.’
Luckily, I did find somewhere cheaper. I’d already become friendly with a few students who were in the same boat as me and together, we trawled websites to find somewhere suitable. We weren’t fussy, cheap being the only stipulation any of us made.
The house we found was a ramshackle dump a fifteen-minute walk from the university campus. There were three bedrooms and a tired bathroom upstairs; downstairs, what had been a living room and dining room, made two more bedrooms, and a poorly built extension housed a second bathroom. This had been added to the main house so badly that if it rained heavily, rivulets ran down the inside wall. On a sunny day, if you leaned your head back and peered upward, you could see a crack filled with celestial blue.
That first year together was wild. None of us five cared that the place was a dump. We could do what we liked – and frequently did. There were no restrictions on parties, or drinking, or drugs. So we did them all. And each other. Boyfriends came and went with blithe regularity in a series of mutual, easy-come, easy-go relationships, the men’s faces almost interchangeable in their young, immature handsomeness, their bodies muscular and athletic. It was all so easy.
Of the five who lived in that grotty house, I was the only one who’d never taken an official part-time job to make ends meet. This was thanks in part to the largesse of my mother, but mostly to my unofficial part-time job… the generosity of some of the men I dated.
After all, what was the point in having a fabulous body if I wasn’t going to use it for something more than ornamental? Anyway, it wasn’t as if it was hard work. The men were always older. Sometimes very old. And pitiful. In fact, I’d often wondered if there was a direct correlation between how pitiful they were and how much they were willing to pay for my company.
It was the only amusement I had from the encounters.
But facing into the final year, I knew things had to change. I had already applied for a position with one of the bigger public relations firms in London. It didn’t pay well at entry level but I intended to race up the corporate ladder.
Getting a first would almost guarantee me the position. I was clever, just unfocused, and easily distracted. I had no choice but to step away from my social circle. Difficult to do. Worse if I noticed how well they were partying without me, my absence of as little import as a glass of water taken from a pond. It was torture. I thought my friends would come looking for me, but when I met them in the lecture halls, it was as if they hadn’t even noticed my absence at whatever social event had taken place the previous night. That was the superficiality of our relationships. There was nobody I was close to, no bosom buddy to bend my ear and fill me in on what was happening. I didn’t care. It made it easier to take a step back. To focus on the endgame.
It was at that point that I really noticed Mark. In the two years since I’d first spotted his potential, he’d filled out – more man than boy now. I saw him in the library, looking as if he belonged there, hunched over his books, one spread open in front of him, a notebook to one side as he took notes, his pen scribbling furiously. His concentration was total, intense.
His dogged concentration inspired me to attempt a semblance of the same. It kept me from getting bored. Before long, I found myself fascinated by him. I had often given psychology lectures a miss, but started to attend them, scanning the hall from the doorway, eyes scanning the tiered rows for his tousled head of dark hair. Over the next few weeks, I slowly moved closer to Mark in the lecture hall until finally, I was sitting almost directly in front of him. He was always one of the last to leave; I’d watched him as he checked over the notes he’d taken before packing everything carefully away as other students milled around, laughing and talking.
I waited for my moment, that slight lull when the noisiest of the students had left and the next influx of students hadn’t yet begun.
‘Good lecture, wasn’t it?’ I said, pushing my expensively highlighted, blonde hair back all the better to peer up at him. I broadened my smile and fluttered my eyelashes. Oh yes, I could play the game when I wanted to. I let my hair fall and gestured towards the dais. ‘This was such a great lecture that my head is spinning. I’m going to get some coffee and see if I can make sense of it all.’ I nodded and moved on a few steps, turning with a frown. ‘You know the way they say two heads are better than one – d’you fancy joining me? Perhaps we could chat about what he said. It’d help make it clear, I think.’ I laughed in feigned embarrassment. ‘Sorry, forget it; it probably already is to you.’ I was a firm believer that subtlety was wasted on men so my invitation was clear, pointed even. If he took it to mean that I wasn’t very bright, or certainly less intelligent than he was, if we got to know each other better, he’d soon learn that was incorrect. I was, as the teachers in my school used to say with heavy sarcasm, too clever for my own good. But I could do dim like the best of them.
‘Sure.’ He nodded towards the exit. ‘We’d better get out of here anyway, unless you want to stay to listen to a lecture in information technology.’
I wasn’t sure if this was supposed to be a joke. Then he grinned and I laughed to cover my sigh of relief.
There were several cafés dotted around the university. We went to the closest and were soon seated at a small table near the back. It was a little airless but that worked in my favour. After a few minutes, sipping our drinks, I wiped a hand across my forehead. ‘It’s warm in here, isn’t it?’
I slipped the jacket I was wearing off and let it drop to the back of my chair. I was wearing a long-sleeved, cotton T-shirt, the material worn thin by years of washing. It was a favourite of mine; I’d wear it till it fell apart, and probably for a while afterwards. I plucked at it, pulling at the V-neck, and huffing a breath down my cleavage. I saw him look. A quick flick of his eyes. Enough, I hoped, to show an interest. I’d have been pissed if I’d wasted all this time on a man who wasn’t interested in women. And if he liked women, there was no reason he wouldn’t be interested in me. I was the perfect package. Nature had given me an ample bosom, slim waist, and long legs, all of which I was more than content to show off given the opportunity. I was often described as beautiful, sometimes exotic. Mind you, when people got to know me better, the word that was most often used to describe me was bitch. I had no illusions; it was much more appropriate.
I hooked one arm on the back of the chair, the better to show off my attributes, and reached for the glass of Coke with my free hand. ‘So what did you think of the lecture?’
‘It was good. The professor is an excellent lecturer. I like the way he backs up what he says by citing documented research.’
Mark had a low, melodic voice and a way with words that kept my attention even when the subject matter began to pall. He was knowledgeable about the subject, and it took no more than the odd mmhm of agreement from me to keep him talking.
He’d soon leave. I knew his timetable better than I knew my own and he had one of his law lectures next. Since, as far as I could gather, he never missed one, there was no point in trying to lure him away with promises of a quick tumble. He was still talking, using his hands to make a point, his face alive with enthusiasm I could never muster for any of my courses. His face, slightly cherubic two years before, had slimmed down. It was divided by an aquiline nose set over lips that were fuller than usual for a man. I imagined them locked to mine, then moving lower. Much lower. I shivered.
‘You okay?’ he asked with quick concern. He looked up to the air-conditioning unit set among the pipes that crossed the café ceiling. ‘They can belt out cold air sometimes; you better be careful you don’t catch a chill.’
We could go somewhere and you could warm me up. It’s what I’d have said to any of the other men I knew, and we’d leave and head to my room or theirs, or to one of the shady, private places dotted around the university campus – the maintenance rooms on the ground floor of the main building, the groundsmen’s huts which were supposed to be locked but rarely were, even to the shrubbery by the north wall. I’d used them all over the last couple of years. But as I looked across the table and took in his genuinely concerned expression, I knew this guy was different. Or maybe I was. This studying lark, perhaps it had altered my brain chemistry.
I stood up so abruptly, he reared back, startled.
‘Sorry.’ I ran a hand through my hair. ‘I forgot I have a tutorial. I better run.’ I gathered my books, my bag, my coat, and with them threatening to fall from my arms at every stop, I hurried across the café. He called my name. I heard it drifting over the hubbub, humming there before dissipating and dying before I’d reached the exit.
I’d lied; I had no tutorial. There were lectures I should attend but even my new-found desire to succeed couldn’t get me to attend any more that day. Instead, I dropped the books I’d borrowed back to the library and headed off to my digs. It was a relief to find nobody home. I needed silence to get my thoughts in order.
Mark – he’d shimmied under my skin.
It was that strange feeling that had sent me racing from the café.
It might have been love.