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Helen caught up with Alex as he made it into the foyer. He let her take his arm. It was a gesture of support, without it being at all clear who was supporting who.
‘Are you all right?’
Alex paused. It was what he’d been about to ask her. He nodded. ‘You?’
‘I think so.’
There was a ‘quiet room’ set up on the other side of the hallway, where party-weary guests could rest their feet and heads. The night was young, and enthusiasm for the revels was yet to fade, leaving the room deserted. Alex and Helen collapsed onto a sofa. Neither of them felt the need to fill the silence.
Alex closed his eyes for a moment. They were moist. He screwed his lids closed more tightly. If no tears got out, then he wasn’t crying. It was a point of pride. Alex Lyle did not cry over girls. He was a shark. A lone hunter. He didn’t do meeting parents, or making plans, or joint Christmas cards. He didn’t do emotional involvement, or lazy lie-in, or third dates. Alex was self-sufficient. A connoisseur of all the delights of femininity, rather than a committed devotee of any one example of the form. Whatever he’d been thinking about Emily was an aberration. Alex absolutely did not do falling in love. He opened his eyes.
Helen was sat next to him, staring straight ahead. He remembered her performance with the vodka and the wastebin last night. ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’
She nodded. ‘It is what it is, isn’t it?’
‘And what is it?’
She shrugged. ‘I think it’s like the stages of grief. The last ten years have been denial. Last night was the start of depression. I’ve got anger to get through and then acceptance and I’m sorted.’
That didn’t sound right. ‘I think anger comes before depression.’
‘Maybe it’s different if nobody’s actually died.’
‘And I think there are five stages of grief.’
Helen screwed up her face. ‘Well what’s the other one then?’
‘I have no idea.’
She sighed. ‘Maybe I can make a deal with the universe?’
‘What?’
‘Maybe if I really never drink again, or if I eat all my greens or something, he won’t go through with it. Or maybe I need to actually do something, rather than being all nice about this, or maybe if I’m really strong and hold out a bit longer he’ll change his mind?’
‘That doesn’t sound like doing anything.’
‘Give us a coin.’
‘What for?’ Alex searched through the pockets of his Robin Hood hose. ‘I don’t have any change.’
‘Never mind. It was stupid. I was going to toss a coin. If it was heads I was going to go and throw my body at him.’
‘And if it was tails?’
‘Probably just stick with the waiting.’
Alex laughed. ‘It would have been tails.’
Maybe she was right though. Maybe they did need to do something. A thought popped into his head almost immediately. ‘Wait there.’
He returned a few minutes later bearing two more cups of punch. He handed one to Helen.
‘I’m not sure this is mainly fruit.’
‘Screw it.’ Alex downed his drink, and tried to formulate a plan inside his increasingly fuzzy punch-brain. ‘Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to get back on the horse.’
‘What horse?’
‘The horse horse. You know, you have to get straight back on it.’
‘Right.’ Helen didn’t sound entirely convinced by his plan. Alex replayed the conversation in his head. That might be because he hadn’t actually explained what the plan was.
‘What we’re going to do is, we’re going to go back into that party and we are going to have an amazing night.’
Helen shook her head. ‘How?’
‘Well how do you normally have an amazing night?’
She shrugged. ‘I like reviewing dissertation proposals.’
Alex closed his eyes. Sometimes his landlady had no idea at all. ‘It’s a party. Dissertation proposals aren’t party-ish. Why did we come to this thing to start with?’
‘Because of the job.’
That was right. That had been the whole point of this expedition; to allow Helen to dazzle and impress her prospective permanent employer. ‘Right then. So you’re going to get back in there and be all clever and that.’
‘All clever and that?’
‘Yeah.’ Another thought struck him. ‘Maybe have another punch. I think the punch definitely makes us sound cleverer.’
Helen smiled. ‘I’m not sure that’s right. Anyway I’ve already talked to Professor Midsomer. He didn’t seem very interested in me.’
‘That’s not the point.’ Suddenly Alex had a great sense of clarity. Helen was going to get her job. He was going to get back on his horse. Everything was going to be all right. ‘You need to make him interested. Flirt with his friend or something.’
‘What?’
‘It never fails. Hot girl. Plain friend.’
‘Alex!’
‘Hot girls always have a plain friend. The hot girl won’t look at you twice, so you chat up her plain friend. Suddenly she’s not getting all the attention and she’ll do anything she can to get the spotlight back on her.’
Helen was silent for a moment. ‘Are you suggesting that I try to secure a serious academic position by making the Head of Department jealous?’
Put like that it did sound like a stupid plan.
‘It’s brilliant.’ Helen jumped off the sofa.
‘Where are you going?’
‘To talk about Elizabeth Fry.’ Alex watched her stomp out of the room, only slightly unsteadily. Right. That was one of them back in the game. Now it was his turn. He sat up straight and closed his eyes. Just a few metres away from him was a room full of party guests. Disgruntled nineteen year old nieces who would give anything not to have been carolled into costume and dragged to Uncle Theo’s stupid party. Divorcee friends of the bride drowning their jealousy in pints of punch. Waitresses. Waitresses were people too, Alex reminded himself. Never underestimate the level of boredom and desperation achieved by the staff at this sort of event. And all of them bound together under a banner of romance and love, and then fuelled with alcohol. A celibate monk would struggle to walk the length of that room without pulling. Alex tilted his head to one side and then the other, before rolling his shoulders and standing up. Game on.