Human Remains

as the weather corrodes it.
    There were five at the tutorial: Darren, Lisa, Alison, Roger and I. Nigel, the tutor, was late as usual, and we hung around outside the locked tutorial room with our machine coffees, standing there in a grim sort of silence. I wondered if they were also trying to think of something intelligent to say. That’s the trouble with this course – it puts you under real pressure to come up with something good when you do manage to speak to one another.
    Roger came over to me and cleared his throat. He wanted to know if I had put any of the techniques into practice yet.
    ‘Not at all,’ I said, and then immediately gave him a smile and a half-hearted wink, since I knew by the nature of the study that he would be able to tell I was lying. Although he might have missed the lie and misinterpreted the wink. Such is the precarious nature of our methods of communication.
    After the tutorial I waited in the classroom, asking inane questions about the potential for linked study and how many credits this course might give me towards a further degree, this time in psychology – why not, after all? – but really just delaying so that I would not have to walk back out to the car park with the gang of no-hopers.
    Through the glass doors in the foyer I noticed Lisa and Roger standing outside the main entrance, chatting. She was standing at an angle to him, her hip facing him, the toe of her shoe pointing out and away from him. He was leaning in towards her, laughing, and – yes, there it was – moistening his lips with the tip of his tongue. And she laughed too and threw back her head, exposing her neck to him.
    I turned my back on them and studied the noticeboard in the entrance. I looked at the advertisements for flat-shares, various social groups and sports societies, and student services including counselling. These I studied in a little more detail. A small advertisement, tucked away under a young mothers’ breastfeeding support group (really? Here, of all places?) for bereavement support.

    We are a group of students who have all suffered loss. We aim to come to terms with our different situations through mutual support. Tuesdays 6.30–9pm, Tutorial Room 13. All welcome.
     
    I stared at the advertisement for a few moments, not wanting to turn round in case Lisa and Roger should notice me and wonder what on earth I was up to. Next to it was another, this time for eating disorders. Another, a bigger, more official-looking advertisement for Alcoholics Anonymous.
    It’s strange how Fate intervenes at times like this. I was at the noticeboard reading about alcoholics and bereavement and she was suddenly there, standing next to me, reading the same inane things I was. I glanced across and I had the feeling from her, that little buzz of excitement. She was wearing a denim jacket and had a scarf wound around her neck several times. She had pulled the frayed, chewed cuffs of the jacket down over her hands.
    I looked at her and attempted a smile. She caught my eye and looked away again. She had that desperation in her face. I didn’t know what had caused it, where it had come from. But she had it, nonetheless.
    I put a hand on her arm and she jumped a little. ‘Now,’ I said, ‘I think this might be what you need to be looking at.’
    I indicated a random notice on the board, one for a student counselling group. Instantly she leaned closer to the board, and to me, and studied the scrap of card intently.
    ‘I think…’
    ‘Or do you think this might possibly be the right one?’ I said, pointing.
    ‘Yes,’ she said, looking at me and smiling. ‘It is. I think it is. Thank you.’
    ‘It’s all so easy, making things better,’ I said.
    She made a sound. I made eye contact with her just as a tear crept from the corner of her eye and dripped from her cheek.
    I touched her arm again.
    ‘What you need to think about doing is possibly coming to the pub with me; that would be very easy, wouldn’t it?’ I said.
    There was barely a hesitation. Even I was surprised.
    ‘Yes, alright,’ she said.
    Thankfully Roger and Lisa had gone. I led her out to the car park, wondering whether taking her in my car so soon was a good idea. There was a pub on the corner; it wouldn’t be busy, which meant we would be more likely to be noticed, but it would have to do. I couldn’t risk taking her in my car. It was an old man’s pub, which made it more likely that two strangers would stand out; but on the