Page 93 of How Much Wine Will Fix My Broken Heart?
‘You’re in my reading group, right?’ he said.
‘I’m in your halls. In your block. I study accounting and finance.’
And for one small moment, the club went dead. Dead with some awkward, embarrassing silence that this would be all there was to say to each other.
‘Abby?’
‘Grace.’
‘Well, I’m Tom.’
I couldn’t tell if he was hitting on me or just turning on the social chum act, knowing I was ahead of him in the drinks pecking order.
‘So which Tom are you?’ I asked. ‘By my counts, there’s six Toms in our halls. Tom Godfrey, Casino Tom, Tiny Tom, Major Tom, Tripod Tom and Greek Tom.’
‘Major Tom.’
‘Was that name self-proclaimed perhaps?’
‘It’s because my dad is David Bowie.’
It was a lie and an awful pick-up line.
‘My dad was a huge Bowie fan,’ he carried on, ‘and used to sing that song to me when I was a baby.’
I remember smiling when he said that. I did notice it was in the past tense. It seemed sincere, genuine.
‘Better than Tiny Tom, I suppose?’
He turned to face me.
‘You have experience of Tiny Tom?’
I did but I didn’t let on.
‘Tiny Tom is called that because he’s only five foot five and looks like a Dickens character in that flat cap he wears. Tripod Tom on the other hand…’
‘Likes photography?’
‘May as well have three legs.’
‘I won’t even attempt to go there…’
I think of that first conversation as I’m sitting here with a bottle of craft beer at the bar. With my jute shopping bag. I literally went out for milk and bread. It would have been in this very spot, right here when it first started, when the sparks didn’t fly as such but they were there, glowing like embers.
‘Quiet night tonight,’ says the bartender now, attempting to start a conversation with me. I can’t quite read the look on his face. Is that concern? It’s the big coat, hat and shopping bag, isn’t it? I don’t quite fit the cool vintage sweatshirt/arcade-game vibe of this joint.
‘It is Sunday,’ I say.
‘That is true.’ He has impeccably groomed facial hair. He’s also wearing braces but as a style statement not as a means to hold up his jeans. They look fiddly? Plus, if you were sitting down to go to the toilet, wouldn’t they trail in the bowl? I can’t ask him that, can I?
‘I knew this place when it was a nightclub,’ I tell him.
‘Crap, that was years ago. You don’t look old enough.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ I say, taking off my hat, hoping static is my friend. ‘There used to be a dancefloor over there.’
‘I believe it also had a cow-print wall, didn’t it?’
