The Art of Losing Page 6

  ‘You’re right,’ she says. ‘I’m not at the university. I wish I was. The truth is that I had a bit of a falling out with my parents a month or so ago. I was at uni in Manchester, but I dropped out of my course – I wasn’t enjoying it, I don’t think it was really what I wanted to do – and they weren’t happy about it. It got to the point where I just needed to get away, so I came here – I always liked Oxford, and I thought I’d be able to get a job. I still might … I haven’t been looking very hard.’ She stops for breath, marvelling at how easily the words have come, without her even having to formulate a story in her head beforehand. Adam has straightened up on the bed, his dark brown eyes serious and sympathetic.

  ‘This falling out with your parents, is it bad?’ he asks.

  Lydia weighs up the possibilities. She doesn’t want to be seen as a martyr, complete with a complicated family feud that she might well have to keep enhancing and adding to as the weeks go by. ‘Not really,’ she says carefully. ‘They understood that I needed some space. They expect that I’ll go back to studying eventually, and I’m sure I will. I think they think of this as more of a gap year.’

  Adam nods, relieved; this is safer ground. ‘I don’t know why you didn’t just tell me in the first place,’ he says a little aggrievedly. ‘Did you think I only talk to Oxford girls?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ she says hurriedly. ‘But, you know, when we met … in the lecture theatre … it seemed the obvious thing to say. I know I shouldn’t really have been at that lecture, but I’m … I’m interested in literature.’ Again, Adam appears to accept this, half-truth as it is, without thinking it too strange. He visibly relaxes, obviously relieved at having solved the puzzle, and for the first time he shoots her a warm and genuine smile.

  ‘Well, I like a woman of mystery anyway,’ he says flirtatiously. ‘Look, I’m due at a tutorial in half an hour, so I’m going to have to go. But do you want to meet up tomorrow? I’m having a few people round for drinks in my room in the evening, about nine probably – nothing major, but if you want to come it would be good to see you. Again.’

  ‘Will—’ she begins, and then cuts herself short. She had been going to ask whether Isobel would be there, but realises it is none of her business. ‘Will you give me your number?’ she covers up. ‘Then perhaps I can call you tomorrow and we’ll see.’

  ‘Sure.’ She watches him cross to her dressing table and jot down the number on the edge of her notebook. From behind, he looks tall and imposing, a grown man already, and it makes her feel young and, briefly, inadequate. She shakes the thought off, going to join him.

  ‘Just one thing,’ she says, putting her hand hesitantly on the sleeve of his coat. ‘If I do come along tomorrow, I’d rather that nobody else knows my situation. I’d rather they thought I was at the university. It makes things easier,’ she finishes lamely. She knows it sounds foolish, and can’t really understand her reluctance herself for one lie to be replaced with another. Adam looks as if he might argue, then he nods.

  ‘OK,’ he says. ‘It’ll be our secret.’ The words please him, it seems. He’s standing very close to her, so close that his citrus-spiked aftershave prickles her nose. Very lightly, he puts one hand on the small of her back and the other to her cheek, two fleeting caresses that leave the parts he has touched tingling. Only two or three times before has she been this close to being kissed. On every occasion, the moment itself proved a letdown, a damp squib instead of an exploding rocket. She moves away from Adam and holds the door open for him. She won’t risk the disappointment again.

  ‘See you tomorrow,’ she says. ‘Maybe.’ He nods and brushes her arm briefly as he leaves. From her vantage point in the attic room, she watches him as he steps out on to the street, strolls down it with his hands in his pockets and then, restlessly, as if he can’t keep all his jolting and jumping nerves still, breaks into a brisk jog. She stays at the window until he has become little more than a bobbing shape on the horizon. Turning back into the room, she starts to remove the heads of the scarlet roses carefully one by one, discarding the dripping stems.

  The next night Lydia stands in the porter’s lodge at Lincoln College, shivering in her thin coat. It’s raining again, and she has been sheltering in the lodge for almost quarter of an hour. When she arrived, she sent Adam a text message: ‘By the entrance to your college. I don’t know where your room is – come down and meet me if you like.’ She knows she should have called him, but when it came to it, she couldn’t face the possibility of hearing his voice turn distant and unfriendly, regretting the invitation. Cursing herself, she hugs her arms around her chest, shifting from foot to foot. This is ridiculous, but she can’t face turning round and going back out into the cold, hailing a taxi and spending another night alone with Sandra’s television blaring downstairs.

  Suddenly she hears a commotion across the quad. Peering into the dark, she can just make out a figure running towards her, feet pounding wetly on stone. Part of her already knows, but it’s only when he passes under a solitary floodlight that she sees it is Adam. He runs into the lodge and envelops her in a sudden hug, crushing her against him. He’s brought the smell of the rain with him – damp grass and the faint, musty scent of earth. In the fuzzy half-light of the lodge, Lydia looks into his eyes and feels dizzy.

  ‘Sorry,’ he gasps, panting from his exertions. ‘I had some music on and didn’t hear my phone, I only just got your text. Have you been waiting ages?’

  ‘Not at all,’ she lies, smiling radiantly. ‘Am I late?’

  ‘Not at all,’ he says in turn. ‘Come with me.’

  They run back across the quad together in the dark, hand in hand, her unreliable high heels slipping and sliding along the rain-washed stone. By the time they reach the other side her hair is soaked and plastered to her scalp. Laughing, she wrings it out as she hurries up the staircase after Adam. They climb several flights of stairs, each one winding closer and tighter than the last. He has an attic room too, she thinks, and feels stupidly pleased at the note of similarity. When they near the door she hears the music thumping behind it, and the shouts and screeches of laughter tumbling over each other from what sounds like a dozen or more voices. She freezes; she isn’t used to this. She had vaguely imagined a select group of Oxford students, sitting sedately around a bottle of wine and talking about literature, but this sounds more like a lunatic asylum. Adam sees her apprehension and grins, steering her towards the door.

  ‘Don’t worry, no one’s that pissed yet,’ he says. His words have the opposite effect of their calming intention on Lydia, who finds it hard to envisage the carnage that could come later. Numbly she allows herself to be shepherded through the door and into the bedroom. People are draped over the bed and chairs, lounging on the floor and perched on the windowsill. A couple are smoking a joint out of the window, deep in animated conversation. Others are bellowing along to the thrash metal track that is blaring from the stereo, so absorbed in it that they don’t even turn round. A couple of girls shout Adam’s name drunkenly, beaming red-lipsticked smiles and raising their arms to the air in delight. She recognises one of them as Carla, the Latin-looking girl in the club. As they approach Carla points at her and smiles again, her dark eyes half closing in recognition.

  ‘Lydia,’ she says. ‘The disappearing woman. Where did you go last week? We were worried about you, girl.’

  Lydia is strangely pleased by Carla’s hectoring tone. She shrugs and laughs, mumbling something about having been too drunk to stay on.

  ‘We all know what that feels like,’ Carla agrees, with heavy emphasis. Judging by her flushed cheeks and her expansive hand gestures, she is already halfway there. ‘Come and sit down,’ she adds, motioning to her friend to make space on the bed. Lydia squashes herself into the space, and Carla pours her a generous measure from the bottle of gin she is holding.

  ‘Thanks,’ she says, taking a gulp. She doesn’t like gin and winces over the taste, but she doesn’t want to turn the gesture of acceptance
down. When she looks up from her glass she sees that Adam has disappeared to the other side of the room, where he is slapping Carla’s boyfriend Jack on the back and saying something into his ear. She doesn’t mind him going, not now. Although she barely knows these girls, she wants to play out the fantasy that they are her best friends: sharing secrets, discussing boys and swapping clothes. She can’t remember ever having friends like that. The few she made at school were always kept at a distance, although she can’t remember now whether this distance was created by her or them. That evening, sitting with Carla, she begins to understand that, given a different set of circumstances, things might have been this way for her. As they drink and laugh together, she feels something inside her begin to unwind, like a coiled spring slowly releasing its tension. She has never known how to relax, but suddenly it feels easy.

  ‘How long have you been with Jack?’ she asks Carla after what feels like hours. The crowd has thinned out and the thrash metal music has given way to slow, sleepy ambient noise. Carla grins and rolls her eyes towards the ceiling in concentration.

  ‘Five – no, six months,’ she says. ‘Quite a long time, for me.’

  ‘Have you …’ She has been going to ask whether Carla has had a lot of boyfriends, but the question feels crass. ‘Met his parents,’ she finishes.

  ‘God, no!’ Carla gives a surprised bark of laughter. ‘It’s not like that. So,’ her eyes sparkling slyly now, ‘have you got a boyfriend, Lydia?’ She shakes her head. ‘Do you want one?’ Carla presses.

  Lydia can’t help her eyes from drifting around the room, searching for Adam. He’s sitting sprawled in a chair by the window, looking up at a girl perched on the windowsill, her slim legs encased in long black leather boots. As her gaze travels up she sees that the girl is Isobel. She’s looking irritated, smoking a cigarette in short angry drags that expel the smoke violently up towards the ceiling. Her heavy eyeliner, red lips and pale skin make her look as if she’s come off a film set, startlingly dramatic against the black backdrop of the window. As Lydia looks at her, she catches her eye. This time there is no pretence of friendliness. The girl stares at her with open hostility, her chin raised defiantly. The next moment she bends down to Adam with angry swiftness and hisses something. He looks over at Lydia, very briefly, than puts his hand on Isobel’s leg placatingly. She shakes it off and snaps something at him again.

  Carla has followed her gaze and sighs, putting her arm around Lydia’s shoulders. ‘Listen, Adam and Isobel have a complicated relationship,’ she explains. ‘They went out last year, but it didn’t work out. I shouldn’t say this, because we are friends, but she’s a bit mental. He didn’t want the hassle, but he’s found it difficult to stop things completely. I keep telling him he should just let it go, but he’s a man, and of course she’s …’

  Very beautiful, Lydia silently concurs. Even with her face twisted in anger, Isobel looks like she belongs on the front of a glossy magazine. She imagines Adam kissing the curve of the other girl’s neck, and the rush of angry adrenalin that it gives her makes her catch her breath.

  Carla pulls on her sleeve earnestly, demanding her attention. ‘He likes you,’ she says. ‘It’s really obvious. He’s not in love with her. Maybe you just need to make a move – like, go up to him and say—’

  She hears Carla’s voice continuing, but the words are slipping away from her. Isobel has leapt up from the windowsill, eyes burning with fury, and stalked from the room. Adam gives a long sigh, rubbing his hand over his face. Sluggishly, he gets to his feet and follows her, swinging the door to behind him.

  ‘Don’t follow him,’ Carla cuts into her thoughts. ‘He’ll be back.’

  She wants to believe Carla, but she can’t stop herself. She wriggles off the bed, finding that her legs are trembling. They feel like reeds, supporting her only by the thinnest of threads. She creeps to the door and peers through the crack, which shows her the staircase outside Adam’s room. He and Isobel are standing face to face, not touching. She can’t see Adam’s face, but Isobel’s is anguished, accusing.

  ‘So why is she here?’ Lydia hears her ask bitterly. She knows without a shadow of a doubt that they are talking about herself. ‘If nothing’s going on, why is she here?’

  Adam’s voice is lower, harder to catch. ‘I invited her,’ she makes out, and then, ‘I like her.’

  ‘Well, I like a lot of people,’ Isobel snaps back. ‘I don’t send them flowers.’ Adam must look shocked at her words, because she tosses her head triumphantly. ‘Jack saw you getting them last week,’ she says. ‘I thought at first … I thought they were for me.’ Suddenly her voice breaks and without warning she bursts into tears, rivulets running down her perfect cheeks. Her whole body shakes with the effort of crying. She screws her fists into angry balls, pressing them against her eyes. It’s too much, the emotion swamping Lydia and making her feel sick. She almost wants to go out there, put her arms around the girl and tell her that everything will be all right. But a secret part of her knows that it won’t be all right, not in the way she wants. Adam is shifting uncomfortably, placing a nervous hand on Isobel’s shoulder.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he mutters, so quietly that Lydia can barely hear him, ‘but you and me – this was over ages ago. I should have stopped it, but, you know … you’re hard to resist.’ He’s trying to make her laugh, and he almost succeeds, a watery shadow of a smile passing over her face. ‘If I’d known you were still taking it so seriously, I would have stopped it, I promise you.’

  ‘I’ll get over it,’ she gulps finally, wiping the last of her tears away. Lydia can see that she’s already regretting her outburst, and wants to claw back some composure. ‘And what about her?’

  Adam’s shoulders lift, sink down. ‘I don’t know,’ he says. There is a long silence; they look at each other.

  ‘I’m going to head off,’ she says at last. ‘See you.’ She reaches up, almost on tiptoes, and runs a hand through his hair, pulls his head down to hers. They kiss, on the mouth, for what feels like minutes. It doesn’t seem like a goodbye kiss, but that is what it is, Lydia tells herself, that is what it has to be. She can’t help seeing, though, that it is Isobel who breaks away first. With a flick of her blonde hair, she walks away, hips swaying, not looking back at Adam. He’s still standing in the corridor, looking after her, as if frozen in stone.

  Lydia slips quietly away from the door and looks back into the room. Although they have not been talking loudly enough for the others to hear, Adam and Isobel’s departure seems to have had a sobering effect on the handful of students left. Coats are being slung on, bags gathered. The party mood is broken, and no one wants to outstay their welcome. She hears muttered discussions about the rest of the night – a club, a film in the JCR, or simply going to bed. She’s not involved in any of them, and it’s only then that she remembers that, despite how it may have seemed for a few warm, inclusive hours, these people are not her friends. Although she barely knows them, she feels desolate as they leave. Carla winks and waves, but it’s obvious that she has forgotten their earlier discussion. By the time Adam returns, Lydia is sitting alone in the room, curled up on the bed.

  ‘Wow,’ he says, looking around as if he is surprised to see it so empty, although his friends must have passed him in the hall as they went. ‘So … everyone left.’ He takes in the mess they have left behind them; crushed beer cans, cigarettes stubbed out on the windowsill, empty packets of crisps and chocolates littering the floor. ‘I should tidy up,’ he says, without much conviction.

  ‘I’d leave it till the morning,’ she says. ‘If I were you.’ She finds that her words don’t fit her mouth properly, her tongue struggling to form the right sounds. She’s not sure how much gin she’s drunk, but it feels as if it has all hit her at once, and the taste at the back of her throat is cloying and sour.

  ‘I will,’ he says, as if she has made an excellent and novel suggestion. She tries to determine how drunk he is and can’t, her judgement too fogged to be of much value.


  ‘Well, I’ll be off, then,’ she says, or thinks she says, just as he crosses to her and sits down next to her on the bed. She drops her head down on his shoulder, just because it is the easiest thing to do. They don’t speak for a long while.

  ‘Stay here,’ he whispers. ‘I want some company.’

  All of a sudden, irrationally, she wishes that she was back in her own bedroom. She has been dreaming of kissing Adam all week, in fits and starts, the image bobbing to the front of her mind at the most unexpected times. Now she doesn’t want to, but she doesn’t not want to either. She feels confused and young, unsure how to interpret the messages tugging insistently at contradictory corners of her brain.

  In the end she doesn’t have to make a choice, because he doesn’t kiss her. He simply pulls his T-shirt over his head, unbuckles his trousers and lies down. Lying there only in his tight black boxer shorts, his body is taut and lightly tanned, his chest dusted with a sprinkling of tawny hairs, lighter than those on his head. When she puts out a hand to touch them she can feel the heat rising off him in waves. Her fingers run tentatively over the bare skin, raking a path down to the band of his boxer shorts, then stop. He doesn’t ask her to continue, just closes his eyes. In repose his face looks serene and almost babyish, long eyelashes curling delicately upwards. He looks less like his father this way. Lydia wriggles quietly out of her jumper and unbuttons her jeans, slipping out of them and casting them to the floor. She leaves her black bra on; she feels naked enough. Lazily, Adam’s eyes open again and travel over her body. He puts a hand out to touch her, exploring her curves as slowly and minutely as if he is performing a medical examination. It should be the opposite of erotic, but somehow it’s not. She holds her breath and her stomach hollows as his hand slips over it. Her body feels tense and taut, as if something might crack.