THE GENTS SMELLS well fermented and the only free urinal is blocked and ready to brim over with the amber liquid so I have to queue, like a girl. Finally a grizzly bear of a man ambles away and I fill the vacancy. Just as I’m coaxing my urethra open, a voice at the next urinal says, “Hugo Lamb, as I live and breathe.”
It’s a stocky, swarthy man in a fisherman’s sweater with wiry dark hair, whose “Lamb” sounds like “Limb”—a New Zealander’s vowels. He’s older than me, around thirty, and I can’t place him. “We met back in your first year. The Cambridge Sharpshooters. Sorry, it’s appalling men’s-room etiquette to put a guy off his stride like this.” He’s pissing no-handedly into the gurgling urinal. “Elijah D’Arnoq, postgrad in biochemistry, Corpus Christi.”
A memory flickers: that unique surname. “The rifle club, yes. You’re from those islands, east of New Zealand?”
“The Chathams, that’s right. Now, I remember you because you’re a natural bloody marksman. Still room at the inn, you know.”
Now I know there’s no cottagey thing going on, I start pissing. “You’re overestimating my potential, I’m afraid.”
“Mate, you could be a contender. I’m serious.”
“I was spreading myself a bit thin, extracurricular-wise.”
He nods. “Life’s too short to do everything, right?”
“Something like that. So … you’ve enjoyed Cambridge?”
“Bloody love it. The lab’s good, got a great prof. You’re economics and politics, right? Must be your final year.”
“It is. It’s flown by. Do you still shoot?”
“Religiously. I’m an Anchorite now.”
I wonder if “Anchorite” means “anchorman,” or if it’s a Kiwi-ism or a rifle club — ism. Cambridge is full of insiders’ words to keep outsiders out. “Cool,” I tell him. “I enjoyed my few visits to the range.”
“Never too late. Shooting is prayer. And when civilization shuts up shop, a gun’ll be worth any number of university degrees. Happy Christmas.” He zips his fly. “See you around.”
PENHALIGON ASKS, “SO where’s this mystery woman of yours, Olly?”
Olly Quinn frowns. “She said she’d be here by half seven.”
“Only ninety minutes late,” offers Cheeseman. “Doesn’t prove she’s dumped you for a gym rat with the face of Keanu Reeves, the anatomy of King Dong, and the charisma of moi. Not necessarily.”
“I’m driving her home to London tonight,” says Olly. “She lives in Greenwich — so she’s bound to be along by and by …”
“Confide in us, Olly,” says Cheeseman. “We’re your friends. Is she a real girlfriend, or have you … y’know … made her up?”
“I can vouch for her existence,” says Fitzsimmons, enigmatically.
“Oh?” I glower at Olly. “Since when did this cuckolding crim take precedence over your stairs neighbor?”
“Chance encounter.” Fitzsimmons tips his roasted-nut crumbs into his mouth. “I espied Olly-plus-companion at the drama section in Heffer’s.”
“And speaking as a reformed postfeminist new man,” I ask Fitzsimmons, “where would you position Queen Ness on the Scale?”
“She’s hot. I presume an escort agency is involved, Olly?”
“Screw you.” Olly smiles like the cat who got the cream. “Ness!” He jumps up as a girl squeezes through the crush of student bodies. “Talk of the devil! Glad you got here.”
“So sorry I’m late, Olly,” she says, and they kiss on the lips. “The bus took about eight hundred years to arrive.”
I know her, or knew her, but only in the biblical sense. Her surname escapes me, but other parts I remember very well. An afterparty in my first year, though she was “Vanessa” back then; potty-mouthed Cheltenham Ladies College, if memory serves; a big shared house down the arse-end of Trumpington Road. We necked a bottle of Château Latour ’76, which she’d nicked from the cellar in the pre-party house. We’ve sighted each other around town since and nodded to avoid the crassness of ignoring each other. She’s a craftier operator than Olly, but even as I wonder what’s in him for her, I recall a drunk-driving offense and a suspended license — and Olly’s warm, dry Astra. All’s fair in love and war, and although I’m many things, I’m not a hypocrite. Ness has seen me and a fifth of a second is enough to agree upon a policy of cordial amnesia.
“Have my seat,” Olly’s saying, removing her coat like a gentle-twat, “and I’ll … er, kneel. Fitz, you’ve met. And this is Richard.”
“Charmed.” Cheeseman offers her a four-fingered handshake. “I’m the malicious queer. Are you Nessie the Monster or Ness the Loch?”
“And I’m as charmed as you are.” I remember her voice, too: slumming-it posh. “My friends have no trouble with just ‘Ness’ but you can call me Vanessa.”
“I’m Jonny, Jonny Penhaligon.” Jonny jumps up to shake her hand. “A pleasure. Olly’s told us shedloads about you.”
“All of it good.” I hold up my palm to say hi. “Hugo.”
Ness misses no beat: “Hugo, Jonny, the malicious queer, and Fitz. Got it.” She turns to Olly. “And sorry — who are you again?”
Olly’s laugh is a notch too loud. His pupils have morphed into love-hearts and, for the nth time squared, I wonder what love feels like on the inside because externally it turns you into the King of Tit Mountain.
“Richard was about to buy a round,” says Fitzsimmons. “Right, Richard? Aerate your wallet?”
Cheeseman feigns confusion. “Isn’t it your turn, Penhaligon?”
“Nope. I bought the round before this one. Nice try.”
“But you own half of Cornwall!” says Cheeseman. “You should see Jonny’s manor, Ness — gardens, peacocks, deer, stables, portraits of three centuries’ worth of Captain Penhaligons up the main staircase.”
Penhaligon snorts. “Tredavoe House is why we’ve got no bloody money. The upkeep’s crippling. And the peacocks are utter bastards.”
“Oh, don’t be a Scrooge, Jonny, the poll tax must be saving you a king’s ransom. I’m going to have to pimp myself later just to get a National Express ticket home to my Leeds pigeon-loft.”
Cheeseman is a fine misdirector — he still has ten thousand pounds from the money his grandfather left him — but I want no ruffled feathers tonight. “I’ll get the next round in,” I volunteer. “Olly, you’ll need to stay sober if you’re driving, so how about a tomato juice with Tabasco to warm the heart of your cockles? Cheeseman’s on the Guinness; Fitz, fizzy Australian wee; and Ness, your poison is … what?”
“The house red isn’t bad.” Olly wants a drunk girlfriend.
“Then a glass of red would hit the spot, Hugo,” she tells me.
I recall that quirky lilt. “Wouldn’t risk it, unless you carry a spare trachea in your handbag. It’s hardly a Château Latour.”
“An Archers with ice, then,” says Ness. “Better safe than sorry.”
“Wise choice. Mr. Penhaligon, would you help me bring these six drinks back alive? The bar will not be pretty, I fear.”
THE BURIED BISHOP’S a gridlocked scrum, an all-you-can-eat of youth: “Stephen Hawking and the Dalai Lama, right; they posit a unified truth”; short denim skirts, Gap and Next shirts, Kurt Cobain cardigans, black Levi’s; “Did you see that oversexed pig by the loos, undressing me with his eyes?”; that song by the Pogues and Kirsty MacColl booms in my diaphragm and knees; “Like, my only charity shop bargains were headlice, scabies, and fleas”; a fug of hairspray, sweat and Lynx, Chanel No. 5, and smoke; well-tended teeth with zero fillings, revealed by the so-so joke—“Have you heard the news about Schrödinger’s Cat? It died today; wait — it didn’t, did, didn’t, did …”; high-volume discourse on who’s the best Bond; on Gilmour and Waters and Syd; on hyperreality; dollar-pound parity; Sartre, Bart Simpson, Barthes’s myths; “Make mine a double”; George Michael’s stubble; “Like, music expired with the Smiths”; urbane and entitled, for the most part, my peers; their eyes, hopes, and futures all starry; fetal think-tankers, judges, and bankers in statu pupillari; they’re sprung from the loins of the global elite (or they damn well soon will be); power and money, like Pooh Bear and honey, stick fast — I don’t knock it, it’s me; and speaking of loins, “Has anyone told you you look like Demi Moore from Ghost?”; roses are red and violets are blue, I’ve a surplus of butter and Ness is warm toast.