Sean Thomas - The Cheek Perforation Dance

— Him …?

— Yeah. Neil. Supergeek. You gonna give him another chance?

Rebecca moues, as if to say: enough said. Sat back on straight arms Rebecca turns and glances over at the guy who hasn’t shaved for a few days. He isn’t glancing at her. He is busy with his own sandwiches, washing them down with a can of cola, idly flicking through his big newspaper. Occasionally he seems to look up and stare vacantly at the Fifties brickwork of Birkbeck. Trying her hardest Rebecca wills him to look at her: look at me, look at me, look at me … please ?

As if commanded, he turns his face … and looks at the bike sheds behind Birkbeck College. Offended, rolling over, Rebecca says to Murphy, who is examining her stomach for a tan mark:

— I’ve seen him here a few times now

—Who invented cellulite?

— That guy …

— I mean you never hear Jane Austen banging on about it, do you? Did Elizabeth Bennett freak out in case Darcy saw her orange peel?

— He often eats his lunch here

— So when did cellulite start? The Sixties? I blame feminists. I reckon lesbian feminists must have invented it. To put us off getting naked with guys. Woman-hating bastards. Chop their tits off I say

— How old do you reckon he is?

— Are you still banging on about that … thug ? He’s gross, Becs, he looks like he’d mug your mum

— He’s quite … sexy …

— You’re such a slapper, Jessel

— He looks … interesting …

— Psychotic

Rebecca shakes her head and goes to answer but Murphy is checking her ironically big plastic watch. The watch with the knowingly naff boy-band motif. Looking up, tongue clicking, Murphy says:

— Gotta go

— But … it’s not even two

— It’s called work, girl

— … Stay …?

A certain pause. Murphy looks over; Rebecca looks back. Rebecca notes that Murphy’s face is nicely tan, her eyes green, her nose stud silver in the early summer sun. Murphy is laughing, as she makes a spastic voice, as she lodges her tongue behind her bottom lip:

— Derrr … Werrrk

— Unfair!

— What’s it like being a Hampstead heiress with nothing to do but check your bikini line?

— I do do the occasional PhD

— Yeah?

With a somehow sarcastic expression, Murphy reaches and lifts another of the books that have slipped from Rebecca’s Prada bag. Slow, ironic, Murphy recites the title:

— The Broken Spears. The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico

Rebecca is shrugging; Murphy:

— … Call me a stupid cow with skates on, but I thought you were doing the Crusades?

— Well

— Too easy was it? Thought you’d tackle a few more subjects? Brainiac

Murphy looks like she’s thinking of another insult; to stop her Rebecca picks up the paperback that Murphy was reading. Slowly Rebecca recites the title, in a similarly stilted way:

— Veiled Voices, an anthology of Arab women’s poetry

Murphy looks vaguely abashed; and a tiny bit proud. Rebecca says:

— Not exactly the lightest of reading … – Checking the title again – Any good?

Murphy shrugs and says:

— Actually, it is … it’s very good, kinda horny

— Kind of horny ?

Murphy laughs:

— Well it’s … interestingly confessional – A glance between them; then Murphy shrugs again – OK so I’m easily aroused …

Before Rebecca can ask her next question, her usual question about Murphy’s love life, Murphy has barked

— Fuck, Becs, I have to go. My boss’ll be chewing her arm off. Conceptual dustbin lids don’t sell themselves y’know …

Rebecca smiles:

— No. Hold on. I’ll come with you, I’ve got to buy something from Waterstone’s

— K

Preparing to go, they look around.

— Er …

— Golly …

Hands on hips they assess the mess they have somehow made. Surrounding their lunch spot is a fairy ring of mobile phone cards, choc-bar wrappers, doodled-on diary pages, and bits of cigarette packet. And Aztec history books, scrunched-up tissues, hay-fever nasal sprays, empty mocha coffee cups, Hello! magazine, OK! magazine, Arab women’s poetry paperbacks, and splinters of smeared almond. Murphy laughs; Rebecca laughs. Laughing as one, they stoop to it: with a burst of zeal and energy they bend to collect the rubbish, bag the books, collate the other stuff, and spend a minute mutually grooming grass stalks. Then and only then do they start walking. As they leave Rebecca checks the corner of the lawn where he was; he isn’t.

Ah well …

But he is already just a memory, a memory almost forgotten as they stroll happily across the grass and down the steps that lead under Birkbeck College. This is their normal short cut: today the two old college friends’ route is blocked by crowds of weird people. By bearded blokes in bad Hawaiian shirts, by hairy-legged women with Marxism For The Twenty-First Century laminate badges. Walking past a parade of temporary bookstalls set out in the sun with an array of yellowing Workers Power titles, Murphy finally stops, wrinkles her nose, blurts:

— God, they ming

Rebecca:

— Murf, please

— But they do. They smell. Yuk

— Murphy

— But why? Why do they have to pong? Does it say that in Das Kapital ?

The two college friends push through one particularly gamey cell of would-be Irish Republicans from Guildford as Rebecca explains:

— It’s a Marxist Weekend, they take over the Union every spring for a weekend and have … I don’t know … conferences … I suppose …

Evidently unsatisfied by this Murphy stops short on a pavement and starts loudly reading out the signs installed everywhere: the Luton Comrades For A United Ireland poster, the Kidderminster Spartacists Meet In The Marlborough Arms flyer. Then:

— Correct me if I’m wrong, Becs, but didn’t, like, these people lose ? Weren’t they like … totally wrong ?

— I’m going to Waterstone’s

— Yeah? Try that poetry collection, you might like it …

Rebecca nods. The two of them are on the corner of Malet Place. In the sun Murphy smiles and reaches over and holds Rebecca’s face and kisses her on the cheek.

— And take care, ducks

With that done Murphy twists on a heel, and walks away down the road.

Still stood still, Rebecca watches her friend depart. From this vantage, the slight overfatness of Murphy’s bottom is obvious, despite the pink cardigan tied around. The sight of this tugs at Rebecca. Flushed by something, Rebecca realises that it is actually this, the pathos of Murphy’s self-consciousness, the pathos of Murphy’s awareness of her own physical imperfections, that constitutes a large part of why Rebecca loves Murphy. Considering this, this odd fact, Rebecca gazes, half in reverie, as Murphy suddenly turns, brightly smiles, and does a sarcastically soppy wave back at Rebecca.

Observing her friend’s cheery wave, Rebecca feels overwhelmed. From nowhere, she now feels an engulfing sadness, as if something soon, something looming and near, something awful is about to happen to her dearest friend that should forever change …

Dismissing it from her thoughts Rebecca goes over to Waterstone’s the Bookshop. Pressing glass she enters. Immediately inside she pauses in the welcome cool downdraught from the doorway aircon. Where to? Travel, Cookery, or Magazines? Or Medieval History, as is proper and right? By her self-imposed schedule Rebecca is all too aware that at this moment she shouldn’t even be here: she should be back at the London Uni library reading up Frankish chronicles. Disregarding her postgraduate conscience Rebecca instead makes her way slowly round Fiction, Crime and New Titles, before climbing the black metal stairs, and the second flight of stairs, at the top of which she turns and makes that guilty but familiar, wicked but much loved right turn: into Literature, and Drama, and Poetry, and Art. Her trueloves …