Jenny Colgan - Talking to Addison

Josh of course would do anything of a community nature enthusiastically and Kate was still in the ‘gamely joining in’ stage, before she realized that she could dress up as a giant antelope and it still wasn’t going to make her sexually attractive to Josh, so we all trawled into the hallway to figure out what was happening.

What was happening was what happens anywhere with horribly diverse sects of shy and socially inept people away from home for the first time and unsure of their very identities: groups of twos and threes stood in small corners grunting nervously at each other and downing obscure former communist bloc spirits as fast as they possibly could. A group of rugby- or aspirant rugby-playing lads started getting rowdy in the corner, and the ents officers gibbered around, excited yet again at the possibility of not being one of the 29 per cent of students who leave Coventry certified virgins. What they didn’t yet know was that 100 per cent of ents officers leave 100 per cent of all institutions certified virgins.

A petite, very pretty blonde girl who wore enormous fleeces and was clearly out to score with a rugby boy – Why? being the only unanswered question – became the first person, at around 10.30 p.m. and after a lot of goading, to take off her top and flee down the corridor, bouncing merrily, to massive applause. After that, about fifteen of the men immediately tried to do it with their cocks out – what is it about British men and being completely naked for no good reason? I’ve seen someone play the piano with his.

Anthropologists would have had a field day with all this, given, truly, how few of us that year had yet seen another buck-naked human being we weren’t blood related to.

Finally, and it all starts to get a bit hazy around this point, pretty much everyone had done a quick streak and been accepted into the gang. Mine would have been sexier had I not stumbled over somebody’s outstretched foot and made a noise which sounded like a fart (but wasn’t) on my way down. Josh skipped along his, to yells of ‘faggot’, but generally good-natured ones.

And at last there was only one more person to go. Kate would clearly rather have died than take part in anything so vulgar. She had that faraway look in her eyes she got whenever she dwelt on what romantic and glistening evenings she could be having at Oxford right now . I started egging her on, and pointing out to people that she was the only one who hadn’t done it, just in case she got away with it.

‘Shut up , Holl,’ Kate hissed.

‘Kate hasn’t gone! Kate hasn’t gone!’ I shouted loudly to the rugby players.

‘KATE! KATE! KATE! KATE!’ they started chanting.

Kate flushed redder than ever.

‘Everyone else has,’ I said petulantly.

‘Go on, Skatie,’ said Josh, who, due to his upbringing, was completely unable to understand why someone wouldn’t want to take part in group-enforced humiliation in the name of fun. The rugby boys name-calling had failed to abate and formed an increasingly ferocious background.

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake!’ said Kate, furious.

‘KATE! KATE! KATE!’

Kate pulled up her top extremely quickly and made a sprint down the corridor. Immediately, silence fell. Quite simply, Kate had the flattest chest anyone had ever seen.

Of course, nowadays, that doesn’t matter. Kate Moss resembles a boy who’s been stung by two bees and nobody bats an eyelid. But when you’re nineteen and desperate to find yourself attractive …

To cut a long story short, that was never a moment when anybody needed me to inadvertently expostulate:

‘Christ, they look like two Pop-Tarts!’ loudly enough for everyone to hear.

Kate handed me one of the glasses of wine.

‘Sorry, I didn’t hear that … what did you say you were up to again?’

‘Ehm, I’m … I’m a florist.’

‘Still! My goodness. Is it … fulfilling?’

‘Huh?’

Fulfilling? I couldn’t even conceive of what that might mean, and was standing with a confused expression on my face until I remembered that when Kate asked a question, she required a logical answer quickly – time being money, etc.

‘Yes, it is,’ I said. ‘The pay is shit and the hours are crap and your hands are wet all day, but apart from that it’s fantastic.’

She smiled thinly. ‘Never mind, eh? You’d probably hate a career job anyway.’

‘This is a …’

‘Where do you work?’

‘Actually, I’m freelance at the moment …’

Well, I couldn’t commute to Hackney Flowerarama any more, but I did have a chum at New Covent Garden who was going to let me help out.

‘Oh, so you’re like a temp florist? How funny!’

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I went and helped Josh, who was chopping onions for spaghetti bolognese. I could see Kate reflected in the kitchen window. She did look fantastic – tired, but fantastic. Her dark hair was glossy and tied back in a chignon, and she was wearing an expensive fawn suit. I wiped my hands on my pinafore and sighed.

‘Tell me about your mystery flatmate. Is he away?’ I asked Josh.

Josh and Kate looked at each other and smiled.

‘Away?’ echoed Kate. ‘Addison doesn’t do away.’

‘What – you mean, he’s in the house?’

I felt nervous suddenly. I’d been stomping about merrily for two hours, singing and making loud noises in the toilet, and all along there had been an additional presence. Spooky.

‘Oh yes,’ said Josh. ‘I’ll probably leave some food out for him later on. He forgets to eat until he faints, so I put it by his door.’

Curioser and curioser.

‘Can I meet him?’

They exchanged glances again.

‘Ehm, best not.’

‘Well, I’ll have to meet him sometime,’ I argued. ‘What if he just pops up in the bathroom one day? I’ll scream the place down.’

‘You might do that anyway,’ said Kate.

‘Addison is very … well, sensitive. He’s a computer buff, you see.’

Only Josh still used words like ‘buff.’

‘You mean, what – an anorak? A geek? Dork? Nerd?’

‘Ahem.’

Josh gave a polite cough as a shadow flitted across the open kitchen door.

‘Is that him?’ I hissed. ‘I’m going to see.’

Kate stepped in front of me and shut the door.

‘What is going on?’ I asked. ‘Is he hideously deformed, like the Elephant Man?’

Josh patted me on the shoulder.

‘Sorry, Holls. We’re not doing this on purpose. Addison does a lot of highly technical, top-level computer work, and he hates being disturbed when he’s working.’

‘But he’s in the flat.’

‘He works from home.’

‘And for about twenty-three hours a day,’ muttered Kate. ‘It’s really easy to forget a hard day’s work when you’ve got beeps and tapping going on all night next door to you.’

‘Better than some things …’ I started to say, then remembered that Josh’s bedroom was next door to mine, and didn’t.

‘So, I mean, what’s he like ?’ I started again. A man of mystery? Sounded good to me.

‘Oh, you tell her, Josh. I’m absolutely exhausted,’ said Kate. She took out her Psion and started stabbing at it, making me feel like a complete idiot. Then Josh and I shared our ‘it’s Kate’ glance, and I felt a bit better.

‘Well …’ started Josh, stirring the sauce. I went and leaned on the cabinet next to him.

‘He’s quiet. Very quiet. In fact, I think he’d rather not speak at all. He was amazed when we didn’t have e-mail in every room in the house so we could just communicate that way.’

I raised my eyebrows. At the table, Kate let out a long ‘How can I be so busy and successful when there are people in my kitchen making spaghetti bolognese?’ type sigh.