Without mobile phones to help them, everyone had gathered there on a sunny afternoon in early June, straight after their degree results had been announced. James had just discovered, to his enormous relief, that he had got an upper second and Alice, to her enduring disappointment, had got exactly the same. Carl had got a lower second, but that didn’t matter because it was in maths, he hadn’t done any work, and he had already been offered a job at a bank. Adam was less concerned than any of them – he had a place at law school and was already talking about work experience and graduate trainee schemes. It would take James and the others many years to understand what Adam had already realised that afternoon: that they weren’t students any more.
So there they all were – all of them together, with their second-class degrees and first-class futures. People were bound to start kissing one another. Of course, Alice had already kissed Carl and probably done a bit more with Adam, not to mention with her activist friends from Yemen and Pakistan. But this was different. It was a public declaration. And while exam results and white wine may have generated her heightened emotional state, James was to understand that there was more to it than this, that it was something that Alice had given some thought to, and decided would happen, something that James would now need to go along with. And so she had kissed him standing up, slowly and in front of everyone, with mock ceremony and deadly seriousness.
There had been a round of applause and cheers. Adam had immediately ordered a bottle of champagne. And James had felt a surge of relief and thanks at having been chosen. She wasn’t so very pretty, not back then, and there had been plenty of girls who might have been more suitable, who he would have preferred to go out with. But from that moment James accepted that he would have to be Alice’s boyfriend, and that it was something he would do without hesitation or doubt. It was, he now saw, an important life lesson: you had to be very careful not to go out with someone you didn’t love, for there was every chance that you would fall in love with them.
‘That’s the East Midlands,’ said Rachel. ‘I’m from Wolverhampton, the West Midlands. It’s completely different.’
‘Yes, sorry. I’ve never really totally grasped the whole Midlands thing.’
‘You know,’ said James, ‘his geography might not be very good, but Felix is actually a kind of planner, like us – you know, an advertising planner.’
‘Oh yes, I know. Such a creepy profession – the way they try to manipulate people into wanting things they don’t need.’
‘Well, someone has to. Just imagine what would happen if people weren’t being manipulated by us advertisers?’
‘Wouldn’t they just make their own choices?’
‘That’s exactly the problem. If you just leave it to the people, they make terrible choices. They go around murdering philosophers, electing tyrants and drinking the wrong brand of coffee.’
‘God, I think you’re being serious. In fact, I’m starting to worry that you’ve been serious all evening. You’re a total disaster.’
Rachel’s new red lips were smiling. James wasn’t sure what he had wanted from the evening. Had he wanted Felix and Rachel to like each other, to become friends? Well, that had never seemed very likely but at least, now that they weren’t talking about his future any more, they seemed to be getting on.
‘I’ll get some more drinks,’ said James.
James went to the bar. It hadn’t changed in the slightest. What with being located in the heart of a conservation area, the pub had thrived on the lack of competition. Planning controls had meant there had been no new market entrants, and no need to innovate or improve. As a result, the pub was as well preserved as Bloomsbury itself, and dated from a time when all that English pubs ever did was serve two types of beer, terrible white wine and roasted peanuts. The service was slow and cumbersome, for the barman was not an alert young East European or a highly competent New Zealander, but a well-fed, middle-aged Englishman. He had a red beard and wore a burgundy sweatshirt with the pub name in yellow italic letters. James was sure that he’d been there when he was a student ten years ago, possibly becoming promoted to bar manager at some point.
When he got back, Rachel and Felix were arguing, but in a good way. They weren’t discussing macroeconomic policy or the European union , they were having what seemed to be a highly entertaining disagreement and Rachel was laughing – a nice gentle laugh, not like the one she used in the Red Lion.
‘So I’ve been trying to explain town planning to Felix,’ said Rachel. ‘But without much success. I’m starting to wonder if he’s as clever as he thinks he is.’