Page 18 of One Night With You

‘How do,’ he says, as the customer in front moves along and he sees it’s me.

‘How do,’ I say back. ‘The usual, please.’

I love Mick. He’s proper Mancunian, saying words like ‘sound’ if something is good or ‘buzzing’ when something is great. He remembered my name after only going there twice, and even if I don’t want coffee I stop by for something, just to experience neighbourly kindliness. He’s as much a part of my routine as brushing my teeth or topping up my printer credits in the student hall.

‘Won your Oscar yet?’ he says over the din of steaming milk.

‘Snubbed by the Academy again,’ I retort, using my phone to pay on his card machine.

‘There’s always tomorrow,’ he quips back. ‘Or the day after.’

‘Here’s hoping,’ I say, raising my cup at him as a gesture of goodbye.

I notice my phone flash with a text from Mum asking me to Sunday lunch this weekend so find a wall to set my coffee down on. I tell her I’ve got coursework to do this weekend, but I’ll do my best to come down the week after. I feel a twinge of guilt – they’re only forty minutes away – but even giving up a day here feels frivolous and wasteful.I’m actually going to try and get to an exhibit on the origins ofla vie bohèmein 1880s Paris at the big museum in town. I’m not sure she’d like being turned down for an exhibit, though. I’m on campus so much that I have to book in days to head into town though, which I’m desperate to do because it’s amazing.

Manchester is all old-meets-new, with wide streets and massive red-brick buildings beside glass-fronted offices. I took myself out for a cocktail at 20 Stories in Spinningfields, the posh bit of town, when I first got here. Just a way to mark to myself that I’ve arrived. All the museums are free, so I’ve been around the Manchester Art Gallery, People’s History Museum, Science and Industry Museum, the Whitworth Gallery, and I’ve discovered the brilliant independent cinema, where the tickets are cheap enough to justify going a couple of times a week, even on my budget. I’m enjoying beingin it.Everything feels charged and important and like it’s a clue for what I should be doing – both here, and ‘next’. I’m following the hunches and inklings as I watch this film or take this class or hear this snippet of conversation, adding everything to a sort of mental compost heap so it can sludge down and percolate and marinate into ideas. I’m not sure what I want to make in my independent project yet, or how I want it to look or sound or feel, but I am certain, even so soon, that this was absolutely the right thing. The Year of Me has begun.

‘Hello,’ a voice says, as I sit reading the newspaper in the atrium closest to where most of the graduate film-making classes are held. I’ve just been to a talk from averyfamous BAFTA-winning writer, Veronica Latimer, who has just blown my mind with her explanations in building narrative arc to emotional stories, and now I’m doing exactly as she suggestedand scouring local press for human interest stories that could be the special spark we’re all looking for. I look up.

‘Hello,’ I say back, uncertainly, because I know his face, but I can’t remember his name. He’s tall and burly and bearded and has a tattoo across his knuckles that says MAMA. I glance down. His other knuckles spell out NANA. He always sits at the front of the classes we’re in together – I think he’s in my storytelling lecture. Barry? Barney? He’s one of the few people I haven’t been to the pub with. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen himoffcampus. Only in class.

‘Harry,’ he says, smiling. ‘I was just in the guest lecture? I sat behind you. Thought I’d introduce myself properly. Finally.’

He’s carrying a tray with a cheese baguette and can of Coke. I gesture from it to the table and say, ‘Do you want to join me? I’m Ruby.’

‘Nice to meet you, Ruby.’ He grins, kicking out a chair with his foot and sitting down. I move to close my paper so I’m not being rude, but he interrupts and insists: ‘Please, by all means, keep reading. I’d never thought of the local paper as a place to start my research until Veronica Latimer said it just then. I suppose I always thought it was too … small-fry?’

‘Same,’ I reply, immediately enjoying that he has big ideas that he can articulate well. I study his expression: he’s got a wide, open face and a crooked Roman nose, and he’s all beard and strong shoulders so that he looks positively Viking. ‘And what she said about the minutiae of one life speaking a wider universal truth to all of our lives? I felt that.’

‘Me too. Like, isn’t that why we share? So others can learn, and vice versa?’ he enthuses.

‘You know when Adele released “Someone Like You”?’ I say, because he’s looking at me like he’s waiting for me toshare my next thought. He nods, encouragingly. ‘I remember lying on the floor of my bedroom and listening to it on repeat, and it wasn’t because I cared about Adele’s heartache, per se, it was that …’ I pause, trying to find the words.

‘Her articulation ofherfeelings gaveyoua language for your own?’ Harry supplies, before biting off a huge chunk of his sandwich.

‘Yeah!’ I cry, astonished that he really must feel the same. ‘Which I suppose proves the point: Adele’s specific truth felt like my truth, but it felt like your truth, too, and millions of other people’s. That’s what made it such a hit. The totally personal becoming the absolute universal.’

Harry nods at the newspaper between us. ‘So you got any leads?’

I like that we’re not making small talk. I’d be happy to, I suppose, but getting right into the nitty-gritty of telling stories with somebody who gets it is a particular kind of joy, and it’s exactly the kind of chat I hoped to get here. Plus, Harry seems about my age. A lot of the grads are closer to undergraduate age, some having even come fresh off their first degree and into their second so they’re twenty-one or twenty-two, and I’m not being snobby when I say it makes me feel old, it’s just fact. I’ve got almost a decade on them, and a lot has bloody happened in that decade. My early friendships have been nice so far, but it’s not been as immediately easy as it is now, with Harry. He must be about thirty; I’d guess thirty-three if I was a betting woman. I’m committed to talking to anyone, but having somebody my age on the course is a comfort I didn’t know I’d been searching for until this exact moment.

‘I’m not sure,’ I say. ‘I’m trying not to discount anything, and so far there’s …’ I leaf back through the pages I’ve alreadythumbed, reminding myself of what’s there. ‘Lost dogs, a lottery win – but we’re talking thousands, not millions – an arrest for misuse of company funds …’

‘What’s the old dude’s story?’ Harry gestures to a small colour photograph of a nonagenarian, waving the last stub of his baguette. He’s eaten it in less than four bites.

‘Oh,’ I say. ‘I didn’t spot that one. Let’s see.’ I scan the story. ‘JP, ninety-six years old … fell in love when he was fighting in the Second World War, came home and had four children with his wife of seventy years and … oh, that’s sad.’

‘What?’

‘Well, his wife died, but it seems so has one of his sons. A rare blood cancer. He’s raising money for a charity.’

‘At ninety-six?’

‘Yeah,’ I say.

Harry chews the last of his food and says, ‘Sounds like he’s lived quite a life.’

I nod. ‘It does. Can you imagine fighting in a war? Coming home and just getting on with life?’

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