I was thrown off my stool and landed noisily on the floor. I heard the pub go quiet. For a few seconds I lay sprawled on the beery carpet, too shocked to feel any pain. Then my cheek started throbbing, I felt a wetness in my mouth, and my ear began to ring.
I staggered to my feet, clutching the side of my face. The whole pub remained silent.
‘You know she’s a fucking liar, James. She always has been. And she can’t even lie very well. The whole thing’s bullshit.’
‘Why shouldn’t I believe her?’ said James, discreetly massaging one of his knuckles.
‘You want to know the truth? After you left, we became good friends. Then we became lovers. Then we went to India. Then we fell out and separated. It’s as simple as that.’
‘FUCK OFF! We were
Everyone in the pub was now looking at James, to see what he would do next. Silence hung in the air, time suspended. The hush was eventually broken by a woman’s voice from the far end of the bar, speaking with a thick Irish accent.
‘Don’t you b’lieve her, boy. That girl’s got “liar” writt’n all over her nasty little face.’
Everyone spun round to look at the speaker. She gave one nod, and took a self-conscious sip of her gin and tonic.
‘Take her at her word, son,’ said the barman. ‘You won’t find another one better than that in a hurry.’
‘Fuck off!’ came a voice from near the fruit machines. ‘If you can’t put mates before birds, you’re the scum of the earth.’
‘Maybe that’s why you haven’t had a shag for three years,’ came a woman’s voice from a table near the door.
‘Too right,’ said another woman. ‘He had your girlfriend, young man. I can see it from here.’
‘Hit him again,’ said the barman. ‘You’ve got my permission.’
‘Lay one finger on him, and I’ll kick your fucking head in,’ said the guy at the fruit machine.
‘The woman’s a slut!’ said a pissed man, throwing his glass on to the floor. ‘A faithless whore like the rest of them.’
‘Who are you calling whores?’ chorused the two women by the door.
Amidst a rising cacophony of voices, I felt myself going weak at the knees as the pain in my cheek surged to a new level. I righted my stool and sank back on to it. James and Liz remained standing, and I saw James put his arm around her shoulders. Behind him, a large brawl now seemed to be in progress.
Picking their way through the flying fists, they made their way to the door.
I had two weeks left before university was due to start and decided to try and focus my energies on the reading list that I had received for my course. I just about managed to get through the list, and even made a start on one of the books.
As for a social life, I decided that it was time to start again. I was about to begin in a new place, with a new load of people, so it didn’t really matter that I’d made enemies of my two closest friends. In fact, it was a positive thing. Over the course of my big trip, I had matured so much that I was almost a new person. The time had come to cut all my old ties anyway, because people from my past would only have tied me back to my old self. As a new person, the time was right to clear the way for new friends. That was the whole point of university. I would be able to begin again as the new me – not as Dave the mediocre North London schoolboy, not as Dave the sexual failure, but as Dave the traveller.
