chapter twenty

The Morning After(ish)

‘Have you seen Claudine? Is she all right?’

Mel, complete with chaos, had flung himself into the seat opposite me in the canteen. I’d only nipped down there for a break from library duties. I was not having a good day. Gwen’s demon group had been excruciatingly fractious, most of them hadn’t done the set reading, the rest didn’t understand the reading and thought, for some reason, I would understand it better than they did. Admittedly, I was being paid to understand it better than they did, but I was only human. I had a life – of sorts. I hadn’t meant to get ridiculously drunk on Saturday and spend Sunday recovering and then staying up later, reading and planning.

It’d hit me as I had to re-read something for the sixtieth time, while drying and tonging my hair, that I wasn’t as young as I used to be. The days when I could pull an all-nighter and still function the next day were gone. I’d wanted to tell the group that. Instead, I stood in front of them, trawling my brain for any dregs of my psychology degree that would help me get on with this so I could get to the library and read up some more for my meeting with my research supervisor tomorrow. Eventually, we’d all admitted defeat, I sent them off to do the reading and come back next time with valid questions instead of their favoured refrain of ‘I don’t gerrit’. I’d scuttled off to the library for some eleventh-hour reading. Trying to work out what the supervisor may ask me about. What she’d think was wishy-washy in the stuff I’d sent to her.

I’d staved off hunger pangs until two-thirty so anyone who was likely to want to communicate with me would be off doing something better. Ha.

‘I last saw her at about three Sunday morning, and she was fine then. Drunk, but fine.’

‘She’s not in today. I’m really worried about her.’

‘Have you spoken to her?’ I replied.

‘No. Her mobile was switched off all of yesterday. I called the house once and HE said he’d kick my head in if I showed my face around there. I’m really worried. I think he might hurt her.’

‘How do you mean, hurt her?’

‘You know, get physical.’

And you didn’t think to go round there, try to rescue her? What a man.

I mentally slapped myself for thinking such a nasty thought. I was tired and wound up, my life could unravel tomorrow. The supervisor could put an end to my heart’s desire. But that didn’t give me an excuse to be nasty. Even if it was just mentally nasty.

‘Has he ever hit her before?’ I asked.

‘No.’

‘And has she ever said she’s scared of him?’

‘No, but he sounded so angry.’

‘I’d be angry if I was him. And if the person I saw as the root of all my problems kept calling, I’d probably threaten violence too. Just threaten it, mind.’

Mel’s silence said, ‘I’m not convinced.’

‘They’ve got a lot to sort out,’ I added.

‘It’s just not like her to miss a lecture. Something must have happened.’

‘Must it?’ I snapped.

‘Yeah!’ Mel said desperately. ‘You don’t know her like I do. This just isn’t like her.’

I didn’t growl, I didn’t sigh. I counted to five, threw down my fork. ‘Why can’t it be something good that happened? You know, they took themselves off somewhere where they could be alone without the phone constantly ringing and people dropping around so they can talk.’

Mel shook his head. ‘No. No, I don’t think so.’

I sighed. Couldn’t help myself. I didn’t have the time or energy for this. ‘Two things I’ve learnt about these things, Mel, if something bad had happened, you’d have heard about it by now – bad news always travels faster than good news. And,’ I softened my voice, made an effort to sound sympathetic, ‘because you’re part of the problem, you probably can’t be part of the solution right now.’

Mel’s big hazel eyes watered up. I knew that look well. It plucked on my heart strings. ‘You’re right of course.’

Usually. Usually those eyes played my heart strings like a harp. Today they aggravated every nerve in my body. I tutted. ‘No, I’m not. You said it yourself, you know Claudine and Kevin better than I ever will, so only you know what the problem is.’ Mel’s face brightened a little.

‘Look, Mel, I’m sorry, but I have to go. I’ve got a really important meeting in the morning and I haven’t done even half of what I’m supposed to do.’ I got up, taking my half wolfed down food with me. ‘I’m sure it’ll be OK. Bye.’

I almost got to the library. Almost. All right, I got outside the canteen, my heart strings playing such a loud instrumental of ‘Endless Love’ that I couldn’t hear anything else. Not the people leaving the canteen, not the students in corridors, not anything. I stopped, took a deep breath, turned around and went back to Mel. He’d looked so dejected, so genuinely worried . . . I’d obviously learnt nothing from the whole Trudy episode. And it wasn’t like this meeting tomorrow was my first proper assessment or anything. My future in Leeds didn’t rest upon the outcome of this meeting tomorrow, did it?

‘All right,’ I said, sitting back on the orange plastic chair.

Mel glanced up, his face brightening as he saw me. Rarely are people so pleased to see me.

‘This is what we’re going to do,’ I said. ‘I’ll call Claudine and make up something about her leaving something at my place on Saturday if Kevin answers. And then, if there’s no answer, we can go around, check it’s all OK.’ Although if it isn’t, I don’t know what we’ll do.

‘Really?’ Mel said. ‘You’ll do that?’

I hate myself sometimes. I am weak. I allow myself to be swayed to the will of others too easily. Saturday night, case in point. This moment, another case in point. ‘Really. But first, tell me what you’re so worried about.’

And he did.

‘You’re too nice for your own good, you,’ Jess said to me later.

‘So you wouldn’t have gone back?’ I replied.

‘Oh yes, course I would, but if I’d told you that story, you’d have said, “You’re too nice for your own good, you”, so I’m saying it back to you. It’s what friends are for.’

‘I suppose.’

‘But it was all right in the end? With Claudine?’

‘Oh, yeah, it was fine. They’d gone away, like I said, to sort things out.’

‘I bet Mel was pleased.’

‘I wouldn’t say pleased. More like, relieved, plus . . .’

‘Plus?’

‘Plus a whole rainbow of emotions I wasn’t sure one person could feel in about three seconds, but, anyway, love, I’m going to try to get some reading done before this meeting tomorrow.’

‘Try to do some reading?’

‘Yes.’

‘Ceri, do or do not, there is no try.’

‘Yeah, all right, Yoda. I’d better go.’

‘All right, good luck. Call me tomorrow to let me know how it went, bye.’

‘Bye.’