Page 7 of Seven Rules for a Perfect Marriage

I drink her in for a moment and she’s so beautiful that I stop thinking about the fact that I’m wearing a pair of shorts that say St Aloysius Boys Rugby VIII team, or that there’s a half-unwrapped air mattress on my bedroom floor. Instead I do the first genuinely cool thing that I’ve ever done. I reach forward, I wrap my arms around her waist, and I kiss her. I finally understand why other people think that this objectively slightly disgusting activity is a good idea. Because they’re right. It’s a really good idea. The best idea.

‘Hi.’ She smiles.

‘Hi.’

For some reason, and I really can’t fathom what that reason would have been, I told a girl named Calliope that we’d come to a party she’s throwing tonight. I only agreed to it casually on the way out of a seminar, but since then she’s asked me three times and sent me an inbox message on Facebook to confirm.

So when Jessica and I emerge from between the sheets after the best two hours of my life, during which I dispose of my virginity without completely embarrassing myself, and all I want to do is liethere and count her freckles, instead I have to tell her that we’re going out. ‘It’s just down the road,’ I say apologetically. ‘And we can leave after an hour.’

‘Cool,’ she says, getting up and finding her knickers from the bottom of the duvet. ‘A party sounds fun.’

A party does sound fun. This is, by that metric, not going to be a party because it is almost certainly not going to be fun. Parties around here, at least the ones I get invited to, are people standing in each other’s rooms without any music, talking about their essays.

I want to warn Jessica, as she puts on a pair of denim hot pants and a pink floral crop top, that she’s going to be overdressed, but she looks beautiful and I’m worried it’ll come across like I’m complaining, or worse, judging. So I say nothing as she draws a massive wing of eyeliner on each eye and then laces up the highest heeled boots I’ve ever seen in my life. We walk, hand in hand, my feelings for her a slight sunburn after a day on the beach, warming my skin. It’s going to be a crap party because they always are, but if I’m totally honest, there’s a prickle of excitement about showing off that I’m with Jessica.

‘I’m really glad you came,’ I say eventually.

‘Me too.’

‘How is she?’

She winces at the question. ‘Not good. I felt like I shouldn’t leave her. I keep thinking, if anything happened ...’

‘If anything happened, I’d get you back there as quickly as humanly possible.’

She gives me a weak smile. ‘Thanks.’

‘I know I don’t know your mum,’ I say, very aware of what delicate ground I’m walking, but determined not to ignore the thing that has dominated Jessica’s life for the last year. ‘But sheraised you, and you’re the most single-minded person I’ve ever known. So I don’t think she’d have told you to come unless she meant it.’

There’s a smile at the edges of her lips.

‘How did you two meet?’ Calliope asks when we arrive. She’s wearing a jumper with END APARTHEID knitted into it. There is no music, and only a handful of people leaning against the walls. I cringe for her, but she doesn’t seem worried about it.

‘It’s quite a funny story,’ I begin. ‘We were queueing up to take our final exams at Bristol, and Jessica was in front of me, and she asked me if she could borrow a pen.’

‘You went to your finals without a pen?’ Calliope is very tall and slender with bright blonde hair and a lot of opinions about wealth distribution for someone who went to Benenden.

‘I figured it was a fair bet someone would have one.’ Jessica smiles. ‘And this nerd had one of those foot-long plastic pencil cases with like, twenty.’

‘WHSmith’s sells them in twenty-packs,’ I say defensively. ‘It would be arbitrary not to bring them all.’

‘And how long have you been together?’ Calliope asks.

‘Oh, no, we’re not officially together,’ I say quickly. The last thing I want is Jess to assume that I’ve been walking around Oxford talking about my stunning girlfriend who ‘doesn’t go here’. She’s taken great pains to use the words ‘seeing each other’ and ‘hanging out’ in our emails. Obviously, one day I’m going to have to have a big drink and then man up and ask her if she’s willing to consider being my girlfriend, but the fact she’s turned up in Oxford and consented to come to this embarrassing attempt at a party is enough of a win for now.

‘I’m going to get another drink,’ Jessica says, tapping the mug that Calliope had poured two fingers of red wine into when we arrived.

I watch as she disappears through the dozen people standing around the kitchen and goes outside to light a cigarette on the pavement. I want to follow her but Calliope is talking at me about a guy on our course who doesn’t know the difference between illusion and allusion, and I’ve never understood how you’re supposed to leave a conversation in a social setting. Through the window, I can see Jessica talking to two broad-shouldered boys in rugby shirts who seem to have stopped on the way somewhere. The windows are open because the air is warm; I can catch the scent of smoke but not what they’re saying. My phone buzzes, and I look down to read the message:met some guys outside, going to follow them to another party and see if it’s fun, catch up later?

By the time I look up from reading it, she’s gone. I stay at the party, furious, for another hour. I listen to boring stories from boring people, and I simmer with confusion and hurt. Eventually I make my excuses to Calliope.

‘Where did your friend go?’ she asks.

‘She met some meaty sports blokes and went off with them,’ I reply, surprised at the vitriol in my voice.

‘Seems more her speed,’ she replies.

‘What?’

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