‘Oh yes, what, tomorrow?’
‘No, not tomorrow. One day. Never mind.’ He sighed, pushed his head into his hands. Possibly his imagination, but it seemed that Angie had her arm around him. Then not. She lifted his arm and he felt his jacket being coaxed onto his body, the warmth as it lay across his back. The need to be sick abated.
‘Thank you.’
‘Not used to this, are you?’ he heard her say.
‘Yes,’ he protested. ‘Just haven’t eaten today, thassall.’
‘Do you think you could eat something? There’s a chippy not far away.’
‘Thank you, that’s kind, but no. Not chips. Where are you from, by the way? I missed it earlier.’
‘Blackpool.’
‘You don’t sound like you’re from there.’
‘Ah, no, well I went to school… elsewhere. But my family home is there.’
‘I’m from Morecambe,’ he said. His own voice struck him as sad. ‘We have illuminums… illuminames… you know, lights. Like Blackpool. Down along the prom.’ Watching from the back of the car as a child, thighs stuck with sweat to the black vinyl seat, his siblings, in their separate world, scrapping over something or other. The cold of the window pressed against his nose, rainbow colours haloed against the dark Atlantic sky.
‘Oh yes, Blackpool Illuminations,’ said Angie.
‘Angie,’ he said. Angie. She was lovely, he thought. But she might be mocking him.
Angie helped him up. Her hands were soft, her fingernails pink as potted shrimps on the ends of her long thin fingers.
‘Thank you, Angie. Angel Angie.’
‘Oopla, that’s it. Watch your step.’
He stopped. ‘Angie, this is all wrong. I should be walking you home.’
‘And here was I thinking you were different from your friend.’
‘I am.’ That was wrong too, made him sound like he thought he was better, which he did not. ‘I mean, what about, you know, the way things are? Like you said, there was a victim only last month. You can’t walk home by yourself – it isn’t safe. Besides, if you do, I won’t sleep. So you’d be doing me a favour, you see. You’d be helping me sleep.’
She laughed, and despite the booze, his heart fizzed at the sound. She was lovelier than any girl he had ever met – not that he had exchanged more than a greeting with the girls back home.
‘All right then,’ she said. ‘Since you put it like that. To be honest, I would never have gone by myself; the girls would kill me, and like you say, the way things are.’
‘Do you think we should tell Adam?’
She shook her head, gave a brief laugh. ‘I think Adam’s in good hands, don’t you? It’s Alison I need to check on.’
She disappeared, returning a few seconds later.
‘Looks like Adam’s seeing Alison home safe. No surprise there.’ Angie threaded her arm through his. ‘Come on, let’s go.’
They walked. He focused on keeping step with her in case she should take her arm away. It seemed to him they were going further up the Otley Road, away from his halls, then off right somewhere. He let her talk, soothed by her idle chatter. She liked Blackpool, she said, but it was too full of tourists in the summer. She liked to walk along the beach in the autumn and the winter.
‘Do you have the rockets?’ she asked. ‘How about a big dipper?’
‘Big dipper yes,’ he said. ‘But no rockets, though it’s years since I’ve been. I only went when I was little. There’s a death slide, I think, in the House of Fun.’
‘Death slide, not sure I fancy that. Do you like candyfloss?’
‘No.’
‘Me neither! Disgusting, isn’t it? Like eating sugary hairsprayed hair.’
They seemed to have been walking for a long time – about half an hour or so – when she turned right down an alleyway, which led to a gate; beyond, to the left, were playing fields, what looked like flats at the far end.
‘This is Oxley,’ she said. ‘It’s a bit of a way, I should have warned you.’
They walked down to the flats and came to a sandstone building that was almost entirely black, neoclassical arches on a kind of porch. She stepped up into it and he followed her. It was very dark there. He leant back against the wall, felt it shore him up.
‘Oxley halls for women,’ she said, something scoffing in her tone. ‘Can’t wait to get out, get my own flat. Listen, it was kind of you to walk me home. Germaine Greer is marvellous and everything, but she’d be precious little use if I met him, wouldn’t she? Unless she had a knife.’ She mimed a slashing motion with her hand. ‘Here, cop hold of this, Mr Ripper…’ She was doing an Australian accent – quite well, he thought. ‘I’ll turn you into a bloody eunuch myself, you bloody pervert.’ She laughed at herself then sighed. He stared at her in awe. She was pretty, he thought.
‘He could be out there right now.’ She shook her head, serious again. ‘I wish they’d catch him.’
‘It’s a terrible thing.’ He smiled an apology, on behalf of whom he had no idea: himself, perhaps, for being of the same sex. He looked at the floor, and when he plucked up the courage to look at her again, she was taking off her glasses. Her eyes were large, so large they seemed to see right through him, to all that he did not know. She slid her specs into the breast pocket of her jacket and smirked at him as she had when they were introduced.
‘Well,’ she said, and looked towards the upper windows. One of them was open – the faint strains of Pussycat’s ‘Mississippi’ trailing out into the night. He wondered which window was Angie’s, what her room looked like, what it would be like to go there with her.
‘Your coat is thin,’ he said. ‘You must be cold.’
She placed her hand on his cheek and smiled. ‘Warm hands, see?’
His heart beat faster, in fear. ‘You should go in.’
‘We could sneak up to my room. I’d like to find out what’s going on in there.’ She tapped him gently on the side of his head: once, twice. She was still smiling, her fingers light on his neck, bare where he had neglected to bring his scarf. ‘Might get expelled though. Making cocoa in the presence of a male. Honestly, you’d think it was the fifties.’