When Sid Met Nancy

Another extract from the very rough first draft of my second novel.

Sid’s first encounter with Nancy was at an event during Freshers’ Week. She was pulling a friend off the floor with a sweet smile that said ‘I’m drunk, but I’m in control’. Her companion, on the other hand, had lost the use of her legs. Sid put this down to the bottle of Thunderbird – red label: impressive – that lay on its side next to the uncooperative limbs. Nancy’s friend, who Sid saw on campus often after that, but never with Nancy, set the bottle spinning in a way that reminded Sid of those awkward and anxious games at teenage parties. He was torn between offering to help and staying put to see how the scene would develop, but he stepped forward when the giggling drunk collapsed onto her back and cried out as her head hit the floor.

‘If I push, you can pull.’ He bent down behind the giggler and reached for her shoulders. ‘What’s her name?’

‘I’m not sure. It’s the Thunderbird.’

‘Cheap way to get pissed. I’m Sid.’

‘And I’m Nancy,’ she leaned forward to grab her friend’s floppy arms.

‘No use,’ said Sid. ‘We’ll give her a minute.’

‘Can’t leave her like that.’

‘No, but...’

A pair of bulky Student Union officials in matching bomber jackets thrust into the space between Sid and Nancy and instructed them to stand clear. They lifted the giggler from the floor as though she were an empty cardboard box and carried her off, shouting something about sickbay.

‘I’d better check she’s alright,’ said Nancy.

‘But you don’t even know her name.’ He put his foot on the bottle, which was rolling towards a huddle of Goths.

‘See you around.’ She turned to follow the bomber jackets.

‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Nancy.’

‘What?’

‘Sid and Nancy.’

‘Or Nancy and Sid.’ She disappeared into the darkness beyond the Goths.

Sid rolled the bottle under his foot, assessing its weight. The young woman had drunk half of it at most.

Their paths next threatened to cross two weeks into the start of term, after Sid had dropped The Origins of Political Thought and opted instead for Contemporary British Society. He’d had mixed feelings about swapping Aristotle for the consequences of Thatcherism, but when he spotted Nancy taking notes at the front of the vertiginous lecture theatre, he relaxed into his corner seat on the back row. Forty five minutes later, as the lecturer gathered her papers and made for the exit, Sid took a risk with the stairs in an attempt to catch Nancy before she disappeared into the crush of the corridor. His efforts came to nothing, however, when another student intent on a quick getaway blocked his path with a huge backpack, over which Sid was able to see Nancy glide through the doorway. The following week he found a space three rows up and four seats to the left of Nancy, who had taken the same spot on the front row. She turned to wave to someone towards the back and gave Sid a thumbs-up when she clocked him trying not to look like he was watching her. ‘She was fine,’ she mouthed as though continuing a conversation. Sid, red-faced and sweating and feeling his resolve drain away, returned the thumbs-up with one of his own. He remained in his seat, scribbling notes of zero relevance until all of the students had left.

‘Aren’t you ever going to say hello?’ Nancy was standing on the other side of the doors.

‘Oh, hullo.’ He looked at his feet and then over the sea of heads to the coffee stall at the other end of the corridor.

‘Is that the best you can do? And us being Sid and Nancy.’

‘I wasn’t sure you’d noticed that.’

‘Of course I did. Who wouldn’t?’

‘Lots of people.’

‘True, but not me.’

‘Nor me.’ He felt for some coins in his pocket. ‘Fancy a drink?’

‘Tea. I like tea.’

‘Perfect,’ he said.

He let the coins slip between his fingers as they shuffled towards the front of the queue. He made some remarks, which he hoped were amusing, about how he’d noticed that a lot of student life was spent waiting in line or walking up and down corridors, holding doors open or thanking others for holding doors open. There were eight sets of double doors between his room and the dining room in the Hall of Residence in which he was unhappily billeted. The corridors were mopped every morning and afternoon and by the time he reached the queue for the food, his clothes bore a whiff of bleach or disinfectant. The meals, many of which he ate in silence at the table unofficially reserved for solo diners, tasted the same. No such problems for Nancy, who had chosen – of course she had – to try a flat share in her first year.

‘But isn’t it difficult, living with strangers?’

‘I could ask you the same.’

‘But I don’t live...’

‘How many people are where you live? Two, three hundred? I only have to deal with four strangers.’

‘When you put it like that...’

‘And they’re not strangers now. When there are five of you, you’re forced together.’

‘I wish I’d thought of that.’

‘Well, it just happened like that. Cake! Do you fancy some cake?’

‘Erm...’

‘My treat. You buy the tea and I’ll buy the cake.’

‘Let’s share one. I’m not very hungry.’

They had tea and cake the next week and the week after that Nancy suggested they meet for a drink at a pub near her house. She must have known she was at the other end of town to Sid, but he didn’t think she was the kind of person who set people tests. It was more likely she hadn’t thought about the bus he’d have to take into town and the other one to where she lived. In the end he stayed late in the library so that he would only have to catch one bus to meet her. The idea that he might be late won over his frustration at having to miss the dinner for which he had already paid. He’d get chips or something if he had any money left at the end of the night.