52

      We weren’t yet graduates, but the small matter of the graduation ball loomed. The Chem Soc one in the faded grandeur of the Palace Hotel had emerged as the front-runner and we’d bought tickets en masse. Taking a date, if you had one, seemed more important than usual and, after his effusive words at my twenty-first, I’d asked Rhys to come.

      His hired penguin suit was hanging on my wardrobe door in its polythene dry cleaner’s shroud, next to my bell-skirted prom dress. I’d reminded him constantly as the ball drew nearer. Nevertheless, the call I’d somehow expected came the day before. I was in splendid isolation, Caroline and Mindy each having gone home to drop off the first wave of their possessions, Ivor back in halls for his third year, Derek thankfully apparently attending to sociopathic business elsewhere.

      ‘Rach. That thing, the party—’

      ‘My graduation ball?’

      ‘Yeah. I can’t go. We’ve got a gig and I’ve got to do it.’

      ‘Rhys!’ I cried. ‘When was that booked?’

      ‘Sorry, babe. It’s a last-minute thing. I can’t duck out, Drugs Ed would have my bollocks.’

      I’d lost a competition with Drugs Ed. Unless it was a competition to see who could take the most drugs, this was a poor state of affairs.

      ‘This is really important to me. You promised!’

      ‘Ah come on, there’ll be other parties.’

      His insistence on dismissing it as a ‘party’ riled me. This was a landmark, the last hurrah of studenthood, when I said goodbye to Manchester and the life and friends I’d made here.

      In truth, things had already been slipping, slightly. Ben’s words at my twenty-first had played on my mind too. Doubt had crept in and been allowed to stay. Rhys’s eagerness to run my life started to feel less like support, more like control. His superior knowledge on every subject had become less impressive and more supercilious. His avowed loathing of ‘student nob heads’ increasingly kept him at home at weekends, though I’d pointed out he was coming to Manchester for my company, not the entire undergraduate population’s.

      When I went to Sheffield instead, I landed among his band mates in the same old pub, wondering why I’d not noticed before that they never took an interest in anything I had to say. And as wonderful as the twenty-first speech was, something about it had niggled me. I’d eventually identified it as the ‘greatest girlfriend’ terminology. He liked to tell me his make of shoes and guitar were the greatest in the world too. I was a treasured Rhys possession, evidence of his taste, with about as much of a valued opinion as the Chucks and the Les Paul. Rhys had assumed, without me ever recollecting making a decision, we were moving in together after I left university. Life is about decisions, I thought. Mine were being made for me.

      I’d known Rhys would pull out of the ball because the only reason to do it was to please me. There was no stake in it now: I was coming home, coming back to him. It was a time of endings and new beginnings. I’d started to think treacherous, revolutionary thoughts.

      ‘Do you know how much trouble I’ve gone to? I spent a bomb at Moss Bros.’

      ‘I’ll pay you back.’

      ‘It’s not about the money, is it?’

      ‘What is it about then?’

      ‘I want you there.’

      ‘Yeah, well. I want doesn’t always get, Princess Rachel.’

      ‘Great, thanks. This should come before the band. There’ll be other gigs, I only get one grad ball.’

      ‘Oh, come on. There’s more to life than your little world, you know. It’s not as if you’d notice whether I was there or not, after the first half hour of Nasty Spew-mantes.’

      ‘Why do you always make anything that matters to me sound stupid?’

      ‘I might’ve known I couldn’t get out of this without a huge barney.’

      ‘Get out of this?’

      Rhys sighed. ‘Anyway. When you’re back I’ve got a flat for us to go and see in Crookes.’

      ‘I never said I wanted to get a flat together.’

      ‘Eh? Didn’t you?’

      ‘You never asked. You take me for granted. I feel like I’m a junior partner, or an apprentice. Not an equal.’

      ‘Well, act more mature and then I’ll treat you that way, babe.’

      I seethed. I boiled. I said: ‘Do you know what, Rhys? I think it’s best if we say we’ve run our course.’

      A bewildered silence.

      ‘You’re binning me because I won’t come to this party?’

      ‘It’s not a bloody party, it’s my graduation ball. I’m “binning” you because I’m not a teenager any more and I’m not going to be steamrollered.’

      ‘You really want to finish?’

      ‘Yes.’

      Rhys had been playing it cool in this confrontation and clearly didn’t see any reason to change tack. ‘Seems an overreaction.’

      ‘It’s how I feel.’

      ‘Right then. That’s that then.’

      Another silence.

      ‘Bye, Rhys!’ I slapped the receiver down.

      After a moment’s hesitation I dialled another number on the landlord’s payphone, listening to the heavy chink as my 50p fell into the pirate’s booty pile of silver inside. We tried to chisel it open one night when we were drunk, with no success.

      ‘Ben, what’s happening? Want to go and get hammered?’

      ‘I’ve said I’ll play pool with the house-mates. Wanna come?’

      ‘I’d be crap company tonight.’

      ‘Thanks for asking me out, then!’

      I started laughing. ‘I meant, I was thinking of a quiet one-to-one.’

      ‘Sod pool then, quiet sounds good.’

      ‘I don’t want to ruin a house night out.’

      ‘Nah, we’re going to the ball tomorrow. We’ll see plenty of each other there.’

      ‘OK then. The Woodstock? For old times’ sake?’

      ‘Can you have old times at twenty-one?’ Ben asked, sounding pleased.