‘It’ll be dark anyway,’ Adam had said. ‘But tomorrow we’re going into town and sorting you out with something decent. You will never get laid like that, man. Not unless she’s blind.’
Now, Adam jabbering all the way, they headed out of the grounds and up Cumberland Road. Christopher made himself look up, notice, see. On the corner with Headingley Lane, the looming tower of City Church, its gothic arches, its blackened sandstone. He thought of Morecambe, with its semi-dilapidated funfair, its smooth pink promenade where he had roller-skated as a child, the grey sea, the pale miles of sand. Here in Leeds, sturdy sandstone walls ran along the pavements, giving the place a pleasing sense of a past solid and near enough to touch, to fall against. One that would not crumble.
‘We could take a bus, but it’s not that far to walk,’ Adam said, guiding Christopher to the right with a light touch to his elbow. ‘The Oak’s just down here, on the Otley Road. Work up a thirst. Put the pennies we save in the beer jar, eh?’
‘Yes,’ said Christopher. ‘I don’t mind walking.’
On the way, Adam filled him in on his week. He had lectures pretty much all day, he said. Went straight to the library afterwards, knocked off the old homework, then hit the pub around nine. This was why Christopher hadn’t seen him – at least not in the evenings. He wondered where he ate, if not in the halls canteen, and how he afforded it. He didn’t appear to take his breakfast at the halls either. Mornings, the two of them had settled into a routine of grunted greetings, Christopher making his way down to breakfast, Adam – a shambles in a rather incongruous paisley silk robe – to the showers.
The Original Oak was crowded – Christ, it’s heaving, Adam said – and so hot, Christopher’s glasses steamed up the moment they stepped inside. The thick air made his eyes sting and he blinked over and over, almost glad of his momentarily opaque lenses. Slowly his glasses cleared. The place was full of students – distinguishable by their scruffy clothes, the bold burgundy and white of Leeds University scarves on some of them, and their age too. He wondered how they had the money to drink, to smoke, on the maintenance grant before remembering that of course not all of them would have such a thing – that it was their parents who were paying. There was no one Christopher recognised from his course or from the halls, but then since his arrival, he had been mostly lost in daydreams.
Adam, the ends of his fingers dipped into the tight pockets of his faded denim jeans, was looking around intently as if to take some sort of inventory, and rocking back and forth on his heels.
‘So I guess we just go to the bar?’ said Christopher.
‘That is where they sell the beer, mate. You have been in a pub before, haven’t you?’
‘Of course. Lots of times.’
Adam made no move.
‘What would you like to drink?’ Christopher said, after a moment.
‘Very kind of you to offer, sir. A gin fizz… no, a dry martini, shaken not stirred.’
‘Dry martini. Right.’ Christopher took a step towards the bar.
‘Hold it!’ Adam caught him by the arm. ‘I’m kidding. Jesus! Who do you think I am, James Bond? I’ll have a pint of Tetley’s, if you please, and a packet of pork scratchings if you can stretch to it.’ He turned and strode towards the window, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out his packet of cigarettes.
Christopher stood a moment, fighting off nascent panic. At the thought of going to the bar, his chest constricted. He had hoped to watch Adam, see how it was done, and was overcome now by something else, something darker, like anger but not anger – not exactly. His father came into his mind, coming home late one night, soundlessly placing his tool bag on the kitchen table like a burglar, creeping across the linoleum in his stockinged feet. Christopher, no older than ten, up for a glass of water, had watched the pantomime of him from the kitchen door.
‘Hello, Dad,’ he had whispered, only to see his father leap into the air, clapping himself on the chest.
‘Sweet Mary and Joseph, Christopher, what the dickens are you doing there, son?’
His father’s pub was the Time and Tide, near the bay. He went every Friday after work – payday. He had done this ever since Christopher could remember. Why had his father not taken him, once he came of age? All right, so Christopher did not know how to fix a broken flush or fit a tap, had little time for The Sun newspaper and the shouting headlines his father favoured, but would it have been so terrible to spend an hour drinking beer, as men, as father and son? He, Christopher, would have been so much more comfortable now, had his father done this small thing. Perhaps, he thought then, this ritual had failed to happen due to the lack of rope tethering one flesh generation to the next, the lack of blood. That his brother Jack would be taken to the Time and Tide the moment the icing on his eighteenth birthday cake had set, Christopher had no doubt.
Steeling himself, he approached the bar. There was a cigarette machine on the right, near the Gents. He considered buying some, had noticed that Adam smoked Players No. 6, but had no idea of brand or strength; the passed-round fags behind the school lavvies another ritual in which he had not been included. The barman was dropping change into the hand of another man, young enough to be a fellow student. Christopher raised his eyebrows, then, on seeing the barman engage with a bearded chap at the far end, coughed and studied his feet.
‘Yes, sir, what can I get you?’ The barman appeared before him.
Christopher felt himself blush to the roots of his hair, but, eyes fixed to the dark wood of the bar, pressed on. ‘Yes. Thank you. May I please have two pints of Tetley’s beer and two packets of pork scratchings, please, if you have them?’
‘Right you are, sir.’
‘Thank you. Thank you kindly.’
And like that, it was done. The tightness in his chest eased. It was with some small shock that he witnessed the exchange of a pound note from his own hand for two cool pints of ale, snacks and a little change. He pocketed the change, hung the two packets of scratchings from his mouth and, fighting the urge to grin at his small and private victory, carried the drinks over to Adam.
He found his room-mate sitting between two women on a sofa near the window at the front of the pub. Both women had long straight brown hair; one wore flared jeans and what his mother called one of them pouffy blouses, the other had glasses – hexagons rimmed in thin gold – and was dressed in denim dungarees and a tight brown T-shirt. Her eyebrows were no more than thin lines, the lenses in her glasses looked to be tinted, but only a little, and behind them her eyes were dark – and looking directly at Christopher. His face grew hot, and for one horrifying moment he imagined upending the glasses and pouring beer all over the table.