The bar was packed as Kate swerved round the pool table. She reckoned the gang would have repaired here by now: it had been an hour since she left Amy’s room and Kes’s objections to the bar would have dried up along with the wine. She spotted them at a central table with a few other freshers huddled round. Given her narky departure, it would take some nerve to just stroll up but Kate figured that in their eyes she had already reached a cruising altitude of weirdness and one more weird action would make little difference. She got herself half a cider and approached the table.
Kes saw her first. ‘Marsden! She leaves, she returns, she’s in, she’s out, she does the hokey-cokey and she shakes it all about!’
‘Hello! Me again.’
Kes shuffled up along the banquette to create a space, slightly squashing Toby, who raised a glass at Kate and gave her an open smile. Amy was saying something vehement to Luke about the demerits of the Nestlé business model in developing countries. He was doing his sincere nodding routine while his eyes constantly flicked over Amy’s shoulder in case there was something more interesting going on elsewhere.
Toby was making himself a roll-up. ‘Kes and I were discussing children’s TV shows, if you can imagine anything more banal. It’s like we’re in denial.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Kate began to take off her student coat, a manoeuvre she’d forgotten was almost impossible while sitting down. She stood. ‘What are we denying?’ The movement and question caused Luke and Amy to look up at her. Kate removed her coat and sat down, randomly giving Amy an enthusiastic thumbs-up. Without moving her hand from the table, Amy slowly extended a thumb while maintaining an immovable frown. Kate nodded playfully, as if everything was normal. And decided to ignore the baffled expression of her dead husband.
Yep, playing it cool. Real cool.
‘We’re in denial of our huge academic potential,’ Kes continued. ‘It’s violently transgressive to be talking about Bagpuss in an environment such as this.’
There was a loud crash from the far corner and the sound of a dropped tray of drinks and somebody’s utter humiliation was greeted with the obligatory massive cheer.
Toby ran the tip of his tongue along the Rizla and added some final touches to his handiwork. ‘Yes, the place is clearly an intellectual powerhouse.’
‘God, I used to love Bagpuss!’ said Luke.
Amy folded her arms and looked elsewhere. Kate felt that Luke’s comment should be encouraged, since he’d finally said something honest. He really did love Bagpuss. How exactly she was going to finesse that into ‘You’ve got a brain tumour’ was a bit of admin that probably needed to be dealt with at some future point quite soon.
‘I liked it too,’ she said, weakly.
Toby was still on Luke’s case. ‘What was it you loved about Bagpuss, Luke?’
‘Yaffle,’ Luke replied decisively. ‘Professor Yaffle. He’s a massive pedant. He thinks it’s all beneath him but can’t help getting involved. It makes the whole thing more real.’
‘You mean, he’s the benign patriarch,’ Toby went on, lighting the rollie and not meeting Luke’s pretty eyelashes, now batting themselves to attention. ‘He’s the grown-up in the room who gives the whole operation validity. So that even as children, we need to be given permission to believe in magic.’
‘Well, Bagpuss himself is magic.’
‘Unquestionably. But you think we need Yaffle to sign the chitty.’
‘Chitty?’
‘Permission slip. We can’t enjoy the impossible unless someone calling himself a professor says it’s okay.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘Did you not? I thought you said he makes it more real?’
‘No, I… yes, I probably did say that, but…’
Kes sensed something in the air and chose to diffuse it. ‘Obviously the boss of Bagpuss is a matriarch. It’s Emily’s shop. Emily is the prime mover.’
Amy found a principle that overcame her reluctance to join in. ‘Oh, for God’s sake. Emily’s not even in it! Emily turns up in the opening credits and you never see her again! Matriarch, my arse.’
The familiarity of this topic was beginning to oppress Kate. It wasn’t like she hadn’t happily joined in the first time round–for that whole first term, if it wasn’t Bagpuss then it was Rainbow or Chigley or The Flumps. But Luke using the word ‘real’ had bothered her. Kate suddenly felt the weight of her years–by the time she was forty her own childhood felt so distant that she sometimes had to ask herself how much of it had really happened. Reflexively she reached for her left shoulder and ran a fingertip over her BCG scar.
‘Yup!’ said Luke brightly. ‘Nostalgia certainly isn’t what it used to be!’
There was a moment’s silence for this conversation-stopper and Luke took a swift sip of his beer. Kate’s heart bounced for him in sympathy. She had always known Luke’s greatest fear, his most secret dread. Luke was afraid that he was boring.
He walked into rooms and his appearance excited expectations that he felt could never be met. He was like David Beckham: a demi-god as voiced by Sesame Street. Achilles would open his mouth and everyone would be basically relieved that he sounded like Elmo. There was nothing odd about Luke’s voice: an easy contralto and soft as chalk. He just worried about what he used it for. Hence all the posing and bullshitting. Kate had weaned him away from that through a combination of love and sarcasm. She much preferred it when his pronouncements were made of milk and cookies: she liked it when he sounded like Barbara, his mum. And besides, she was intimately acquainted with his inner life, and that was considerably darker and knottier. She had read his book. If a character in Luke’s sprawling novel said something as bland as ‘Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be!’, Luke would persecute him for the next five pages and then throw him under a lorry.
‘It certainly isn’t!’ Kate agreed, and tried to think of something to complement Luke’s vanilla tone. ‘They say flares are coming back but I say that’s nonsense!’
Toby looked mildly alarmed. ‘Flares have come back, haven’t they?’
Amy agreed. ‘They’ve been and gone.’
Kes checked the bootleg cut of his red jeans. ‘No, I can confirm that they’re still in. We’re still doing the seventies again.’
‘Flares are from the sixties,’ Toby objected. ‘My dad’s still got a pair in his wardrobe.’
‘Okay, I was wrong,’ said Luke, who seemed to have rallied. ‘Nostalgia clearly is what it used to be. Everything comes back.’
But now Kate said quietly, ‘It does. But it’s not the same, is it?’
‘I’m not sure anyone’s saying it’s the same,’ said Amy.
Kate felt herself slamming into a wall of utter futility. She couldn’t say a damn thing to these people. She knew too much. ‘You are, though. You don’t know it, but you are.’
Kes detected the hornet’s nest of thoughts behind Kate’s eyes and decided to give it a good old poke. ‘My God, Marsden is having one of her brainwaves and now we’re all in the shit!’
Kate ignored him.
‘We must shelter from the cataclysm. She’s about to destroy us for our idle talk of flares and Bagpuss.’
‘It’s not that it’s idle, it’s just that the whole trying-to-live-in-the-past thing is meaningless.’
‘Why?’
Don’t say anything weird. Don’t say anything weird.
Kate almost shouted: ‘Because obviously you can’t do something for the first time twice! Because you can’t fake innocence!’
There was a startled silence. Kate went on more calmly but with a measured anger. She didn’t even know who she was angry with.
‘You can wear flares like it’s the seventies and you can make your indie band sound like David Bowie like it’s the seventies and you can enjoy Ivor the Engine like it’s the seventies but it won’t be the same because you know things that people in the seventies didn’t know. It’s like saying, “You keep AIDS and Tiananmen Square, we’ll have the space-hoppers.” And backwards, it’s always looking backwards. “Let’s get back to basics. Let’s take back control. Let’s make America great again.” And it’s always a mistake. Because nobody remembers anything properly. Let’s renationalise the trains and forget how they used to be even shitter. Flares, for crying out loud. You might as well be doing the conga in a graveyard.’
Kes timed a pause and then turned to an imaginary camera: ‘And that concludes this week’s edition of Kate Marsden Holds Forth.’ The break in the tension left Kate simultaneously peeved and grateful. Kes went on. ‘Next week, Kate meets Nelson Mandela and gives him a thorough bollocking about his taste in shirts.’
Kate laughed along. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to go on like that.’
Amy grabbed her arm. ‘Don’t you dare apologise.’ She nodded at the boys around the table. ‘They wouldn’t.’
‘I might, actually,’ said Luke with such good-naturedness that Toby let out a small groan, which attracted more attention than he intended. He styled it into a throat clearance.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But I’m a bit confused about the railways, though. What do you mean, re-nationalise them? Last time I looked they were in public ownership.’
Kate realised her mistake but was given a moment to breathe by Amy cutting in bitterly.
‘Not for long, knowing these bastards.’
‘Well,’ said Toby, ‘Major’s talking about it but—’
Kate had found what she was looking for in the giant fresco of her memory and was so relieved she blurted out the correction: ‘Nineteen ninety-four. They’re going to sell them off in… in a couple of years. I reckon.’
‘I knew it. Marsden is not only furiously opinionated on the subject of nostalgia, but also psychic.’
‘No, no, that’s—’
‘You knew Tobias and I were both Aquarians.’
‘That was just—’
Luke joined in. ‘So who’s going to win next year’s Grand National?’
Kate took a sip of cider. ‘Er… Red Rum?’
Luke laughed. ‘I think Red Rum would have to come back from the dead. Sorry, are you okay?’
Kate recovered and wiped the cider from her nose. ‘Yup, just went down the wrong way. Look—’
‘No, let’s stick with politics,’ Kes announced to the ceiling, determined that ‘Kate the Clairvoyant’ was a great game. ‘So, Marsden, is John Smith going to win the next general election?’
‘I… doubt it.’
‘Why not?’ asked Toby.
Fatal heart attack.
‘Too safe,’ Amy interjected. ‘Now Kinnock’s blown it, they need someone from the Left.’
‘Well, that’s true enough,’ agreed Kes.
Five people who would vote for Tony Blair with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Kate was glad it wasn’t her job to let them know.
‘What’s my star sign, then?’ said Luke quietly, from under his eyelashes.
Okay–Luke flirting again. That’s… good?
Kate recalled Luke’s absurd weakness for horoscopes and wanted to close down this nonsense as soon as possible. Then again, she was just beginning to recapture his interest, which would be handy if she was going to save his life. She met his gaze evenly and said, ‘You’re a Libra.’
Luke confirmed she was right by looking at the others and upturning a palm in her direction. He turned back to Kate. There had been an air of discovery about him ever since her rant. And now she recognised a look on his face. Something she hadn’t seen for a very long time.
‘Surely that was a one-in-twelve fluke,’ muttered Toby, flipping a bar mat and catching it. Kate kept her eyes on Luke, who was looking straight at her. He didn’t even care that she could see what he was thinking.
Frisky husband. Oh, you’re a bold one when you feel like it.
Luke quickly drained the last of his pint and made rather a pantomime of looking at his watch. ‘Right, that’s me. Lovely to meet you all.’ He leaned over and kissed Amy on the cheek. It was just a peck but also somehow 0.00045 seconds too long. Amy knew instantly that the kiss was for Kate’s benefit and raised an eyebrow at the girl across the table. Luke was reaching down for his coat as Kate replied with the briefest of complicit grins and Amy looked away, openly smiling. Kate longed to be alone with her friend. Just one talk with Amy without freaking her out…
Outraged, Kes was on his feet. ‘In the name of God, man–where are you going? They haven’t even rung last orders!’
‘I know,’ Luke said, slowly raking the dark hair out of his eyes. ‘Shameful, isn’t it?’ With that last comment he glanced again at Kate. And then: ‘I’m off to bed.’
‘Night-night, Luke!’ said Toby loudly. ‘Mind the bugs don’t bite!’
Luke smiled and made to leave. Amy said, ‘If you change your mind, we’re off clubbing at chucking-out time.’
Toby looked up. ‘Are we?’
‘Yeah. I was talking to some fourth-year economist bloke and he said there was a place called Blossom which is a Chinese restaurant by day and then turns into a disco at night.’
Kes considered this. ‘Sounds barking mad. Let’s go.’
Luke cast his jacket over one shoulder, looking more like a model than ever. ‘Well, have fun.’ He sauntered off but not before making significant eye-contact with Kate once more on his way past.
Confident little bastard! He actually expects me to follow him.
‘Right, my round,’ said Toby. ‘What are you having, Kate?’
‘Oh shit, are we doing rounds?’ asked Kes.
Amy too was perplexed: ‘First I’ve heard of it.’
But Kate was on her feet. ‘Actually, I’m going to head off too.’ Toby had been rummaging in his coat for money: he kept his head down as the rummaging stopped for half a second and then continued. Kate saw his face settle into a look of wry resignation. She shrugged apologetically at the group. ‘Bit of a long day.’
Having scraped her off the floor three times since breakfast, the gang could hardly argue with that. Kes relented: ‘Maybe see you later at the Beijing Bopalong if you get a second wind.’
‘Maybe. Look, you’ve all been really kind to me today. Thanks.’
Toby stood to go to the bar and put his hands in his pockets. ‘Any time.’
Kate nodded warmly to him and then knelt down next to Amy. The two men sensed a private moment and busily organised the drinks order.
‘Especially you,’ Kate said.
‘I don’t know what’s going on with you, pet,’ said Amy, taking Kate’s hand. ‘But if you need a mate… well, you definitely know where my room is.’
Kate rolled her eyes in apology. ‘I definitely do.’ She looked down at her friend’s hand and thought of those first few weeks after Luke had died. ‘I had this dream, you see? Not some kind of prophesy or anything daft like that, but… it was just very real. And in the dream, I lost someone. Someone very close.’
‘Sounds horrible.’
‘It was, yeah. And the thing is… you were there.
Don’t freak out–not you obviously, that’s impossible. But… someone very like you. And we were friends. And you educated yourself about grief. You read as much as you could about it on–in a big library. And you found out that people in “complicated grief”–people who’ve lost people very suddenly or when they’re too young or things like that–that they lose their appetite for a while. So you would make these soups, Amy. Soups and broths. And you would come round with them. Come to the house with a thermos flask and a couple of magazines. And you did it every day. The person like you. You tried to look after me. And I was too poorly to thank you.’
Amy shook her head gently, apparently still wondering whether this girl was best served by giving her a hug or getting her sectioned. She said softly, ‘Well, I’d like to think I’d act that way for someone if it came to it, but… well, you never know, do you?’
‘No. You never know.’
Kate didn’t think she could go any further and made to stand before she had one last thought. ‘By the way, that fourth-year bloke who told you about Blossom. He wasn’t a big hearty bloke with dyed blond hair, was he?’
‘He was, yeah. His mates were calling him Bonzo or something. Do you know him?’
‘Friend of a friend. Look, don’t take this the wrong way. I’m sure you can take care of yourself. Just… he’s worth watching out for. Bad reputation. Very bad.’
Amy fully understood what she was being told. ‘Right, love. Thanks.’
‘I always think it’s best to be informed.’
‘Me too.’
‘See you around, Amy. See you again.’