‘It’s a bloody nonsense,’ said the cabbie. ‘Cannae get anywhere. Naebady’s gawn anywhere. Hate the bloody stuff.’
‘Okay,’ said Carmen, biting her lip. She hadn’t expected there to be so much small talk in her dash.
She thought of Oke though, and felt a thrill go through her. He had come into the shop. Surely there was a chance? Surely?
She sighed happily and glanced at her phone. And God, she would get his bloody number.
She WhatsApped the concert videos off to Sofia with an eye-heart emoji and got a quick thumbs up message back, together with a tiny pic of the baby captioned: ‘What do you think about Jesus for a name? Too much?’
She laughed and sent it to her mother too, who to Carmen’s slight embarrassment, typed back: ‘Darling, just checking. Are you going to be around on Christmas Day?’
Carmen typed back, ‘Can I do anything?’
‘Oh, no, don’t tell anyone but it’s just a big roast,’ came the response.
‘It will be so nice to have us all together.’
‘It will.’
Carmen felt a bit guilty typing it, as if she were tempting fate, but even so she did it anyway: ‘Can I maybe bring someone?’
The three dots lasted a little while.
‘Is it that ghastly man from the television?’
It was a proper blizzard by the time she got out of the cab, tipping the driver hugely, who sniffed, ‘Only bloody students doon here, no bloody fares, eh?’ and turned and took off again.
The King’s Buildings campus was large and business-like. Tall buildings erupted from everywhere; students were passing through, chattering, probably heading home for Christmas. Some were wearing tinsel and there was mistletoe everywhere.
They didn’t, Carmen thought, look snotty or entitled as she’d always joked about students being with Idra. They didn’t look like they thought they were better than anyone else. They just looked normal; some were international, chatting in different languages, shouting and saying hi to each other, but normal.
Well.
‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘Can you tell me where biology is?’
‘Sure,’ said the first person she stopped. ‘Biological sciences is the big grey building.’
‘They’re all big grey buildings!’
‘One, two … third on the left. Over there.’
Nobody was checking ID at the door of the low unattractive building, but Carmen was still daunted. It was quiet; lectures must be over for the term.
Oh God. Maybe she should have stayed in town after all and just sat outside the halls of residence, hoping she saw him before she froze to death. This was maybe an even stupider idea than that would have been.
She followed a sign that said ‘PhD offices’， hoping a nice member of staff would take pity on her once she finally got there. She was beginning to feel very tired and slightly spacey.
There was nobody in the offices either. It must be their Christmas lunch or something. She nearly cried. There were, however, doors leading down a large corridor, with names on each one. Surnames, which wasn’t helpful. But many of them had little jokes on them – cartoons, or signs. And on one of them was a Gary Larson cartoon of his usual pointy-headed men examining the rings of an old tree and saying something that made no sense to Carmen whatsoever but was presumably hilarious if you knew a lot about trees.
Dr Benezet, it said. So. Dr Benezet was his name. Carmen rubbed her mouth. How strange – to come so far, and not remember his name.
She ran her fingers through her hair, blotted on some lipstick – God, she must look knackered.