Darcy Loch’s Whey Pat Flat

I met Darcy in town the next morning, at around two p.m.

‘Afternoon, Quinn,’ she said.

‘Yeahyeahyeah,’ I whimpered, unconvinced.

I have no idea what I was in town for, but I remember that I was in pain.

‘Fancy a cup of tea?’ she asked.

‘You had me at tea,’ I told her.

‘That was the end of the sentence.’

‘Fuck.’

‘There’s biscuits, maybe.’

‘You had me at tea,’ I said, clutching my head.

Darcy was Craig’s ex. Things had gone South, and they had treated each other pretty fucking badly in the death throes of the relationship. Neither of them had much good to say about the other.

‘How’ve you been?’ I asked.

‘Shitty,’ she said. ‘Just awful.’ She took a deep breath and smiled, with a sharp, bracing exhale.

The previous year had taught me the range of my emotional intelligence, and I knew that I wanted to work up to other people’s break-ups.

‘I don’t know, maybe I should leave you to it?’

‘No,’ she said, reaching out suddenly. ‘Come see my flat.’

She pulled her arm back before it touched mine, but it hovered urgently.

‘Where are you staying this year?’

‘There,’ she pointed.

‘In the Whey Pat?’

‘Above it. Behind, it, sort of, but round a corner. Come on.’

‘Alright,’ I said.

We walked down the side of the Whey Pat, past a cute little garden with hanging baskets, and through a little gate, along a wall, around a corner, and back up some stairs to a main door. There was nobody else home.

‘There’s an old lady in the flat below,’ Darcy said. ‘You better take your shoes off, because she complains when we walk around.’

‘At night?’ I said. One of my socks had a hole in it at the big toe.

‘No, then it’s fine. She sleeps like a log. Just in the day. She’s always banging on the floor.’

It was a dinky looking place from the entry way, but there were stairs going upwards. There were clothes drying all the way up the banister. We went into the kitchen, which was also awash with damp laundry, and the hot sickly smell of a freshly run load.

The kitchen overlooked the cute little garden we had passed on the way in. I looked out of the window, while Darcy pottered at the counter. On the opposite side of the road was an old folk’s home.

‘There’s always someone up at night, sitting in that lounge, no matter what time it is,’ she said. ‘I guess it doesn’t matter what time it is when you’re old.’

‘Old people sleep less,’ I said.

‘Not less than you.’ 

‘Not less than me.’

‘Bourbons okay?’ she asked.

I turned back into the room. She was holding a packet of biscuits. I nodded.

‘I think I would find it comforting to see them there,’ I said, indicating out of the window with my thumb. ‘I sometimes just feel like I need to see other people when I can’t sleep.’

‘You can see me, sometimes,’ Darcy said. ‘I don’t sleep so well, either. Just give me a call.’

‘OK,’ I said. But I didn’t mean it, at least not right then. You can’t call someone at five in the morning on the off chance they’re still awake.

Darcy put the tea down, and brought over a plate with biscuits on. I had forgotten that Darcy knew me well enough. But she’d been with us, ostensibly one of our group, for most of the first year. She had been Craig’s girlfriend, after all. I still felt like she was a stranger.

‘I feel like we’ve hardly talked for ages,’ Darcy said. She settled into a high-backed chair on the opposite side of the kitchen table. She cupped her mug with both hands.

‘Well, there was the summer,’ I said. ‘And all the stuff with Craig.’

‘He’s such a bastard,’ she said.

‘There’s a healthy reflex.’

‘Sorry, I know he’s your friend,’ Darcy said.

‘He can be a jerk.’

She sighed, and shrugged.

Darcy wasn’t beautiful. Her features were just a bit too round and cherub-like to really be striking and a bit too ordinary to be girl-next-door attractive. But she did have a certain appealing way about her, a certain air that sometimes made her seem like she was really something. At any rate, I could certainly imagine fucking her, so I did that for a while.

‘What are you giving me that dopey look for?’ Darcy asked.

‘Just checking out your eyeliner,’ I lied, immediately, while one half of my brain screamed at me that I didn’t know what eyeliner was, or if she was wearing any.

‘Oh, yah,’ she said. ‘It’s a really nice colour, hmm? It’s just from Boots, but I had to go out to Dundee to find one big enough to stock the colours that suit me.’

‘They’ve got like a fucking aisle and a half, in St. Andrews,’ I said.

‘I know,’ she said. ‘These tiny provincial branches only stock the popular stuff, and that means that people with unconventional colours are out of luck.’

‘You have unconventional colours,’ I said in a monotone, unsure of the appropriate inflection.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And you’ve got to know your strengths. Take red for example. I can’t do red, especially not on the lips. It makes me look like a harlot! I can’t do any reds.’

‘Hmm,’ I said. ‘You wear pink lipstick.’

‘You know,’ she said. ‘You haven’t the first idea about any of this.’

‘No.’

‘Well, what’s it like living with him?’

‘He’s a pain in the arse,’ I said.

‘I know, right?’ she said. 

‘He’s so fucking particular. He demands we put the vegetables into the stir fry in a precise order, or he refuses to eat it.’

‘More for the rest of you.’

‘Or pay for his share.’

‘Oh.’

‘And he’ll bitch about it all the next day.’

‘You liking Fife Park?’ Darcy asked. ‘I thought it was a shithole.’

‘It is,’ I said. ‘But it’s cheap, and...’

‘Well,’ she said. ‘At least it’s cheap.’

‘No, there’s something about it,’ I said. ‘Something really different. Not like other places I’ve stayed. It feels like freedom.’

‘Well, it’s kind of like camping,’ Darcy said.

‘It’s not that bad,’ I said. ‘Hell, you can live anywhere, if you get on with the people.’

‘You know he wanted us to move in together,’ she said, suddenly.

‘I didn’t know,’ I said.

‘That’s why he was dragging his heels over getting the place with you guys.’

‘I didn’t know. He never said.’

‘That boy hates himself,’ she told me.

‘He hates a lot of things,’ I said. ‘Let’s not start drawing lines.’

‘Frank’s lovely,’ she said. ‘He’s so nice. You know he’s the only person who’s said ‘Hello’ to me since we got back this year.’

‘Apart from me.’

‘Mart crossed the street to get away from me.’

‘Mart just doesn’t know what to say,’ I said. ‘He’s not good with awkward situations.’

‘It is awkward,’ she said. ‘I’m so glad you came in for tea. It’s not awkward now you’re here, right?’

‘Well, there’s knickers all over the place,’ I told her.

‘They’re not mine,’ she said. ‘I haven’t done laundry yet.’

Somehow that made it easier to look at them.

‘Done your Phil essay, yet?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘And neither have you. Even though it’s a week late.’

‘I’ve got to worry about Psychology, first,’ I told her. ‘Fucking stats is my kryptonite. What’s your excuse?’

‘Better than yours,’ she said. ‘Saw the dick in English yesterday. Didn’t even look my way.’

‘That’s your excuse?’

‘No, fool. I was just saying.’

We sipped our tea, slurping a little at the same time. She laughed. I took another biscuit.

‘I remember the first night I knew you guys were in trouble,’ I said. ‘The James Bond Ball, back at the end of first year?’

‘We’d been in trouble for weeks, by then.’

‘Yeah, well. That was the first night I knew. You were frosty.’

‘Like a Bond villain? I was a bit of an ice queen.’

‘Yeah, but you still went through all the boyfriend-girlfriend stuff. Buying each other ice creams and playing games. You weren’t into it, though. It was just obvious.’

‘Like we were at each other’s throats, secretly.’

‘No, worse. Like you were desperate to save it and overcompensating.’

Darcy didn’t say anything.

‘It was just… sad.’ I fumbled for words, wishing I hadn’t started in on it all. ‘You were all over each other, but it was empty. And not like because you didn’t mean it. That’s why it was sad. Because you really did mean it, but it didn’t matter.’

‘Well,’ she said, eventually. ‘I’m sorry our break up was so traumatic for you.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘It was.’

‘Well,’ she said again, more lightly, ‘It’s not all roses, all the time.’

I grinned. ‘I may never love again.’

‘Hey, you had your little crush back then, do you remember?’

That brought the colour to my cheeks.

‘Remember?’ I said. ‘I was wearing a fucking blouse.’

I raised the tea to my lips, and got the cold dregs of the mug. How circular life is.