His 'n' Hers Read Online Free PDF

sentence trails off as the most beautiful girl in the entire world walks into the pub. She is stunning. Absolutely beautiful, in a million different ways. A goddess. She’s with a tall, moody-looking guy – who, it occurs to me, should look a lot happier given the company he’s keeping. The girl and the guy walk over to our table and stop.
    ‘Nick!’ says the girl. ‘How are you?’
    ‘I’m fine,’ he says coolly. ‘How are you?’
    ‘Great,’ she says. ‘Really good.’
    Nick and this beautiful girl talk for about three minutes about nothing in particular – work, living arrangements, friends in common, life in general – and then she looks at the moody guy standing next to her, and says, ‘Oh, I’d better be off,’ and disappears to the other side of the pub.
    ‘Who was that?’ I ask, as soon as they’re out of earshot.
    ‘Who was what?’ replies Nick, just to wind me up.
    ‘That girl. That absolutely amazing girl.’
    Nick laughs. ‘Oh, her? That was Anne Clarke. She lived in halls of residence with me in the first year . . . She’s a bit of a babe.’
    ‘That’s the understatement of the year. She’s gorgeous. Why have you never introduced me to her?’
    ‘She’s bad news, mate,’ he says cryptically. ‘You’ll only go and fall in love with her and she’s guaranteed to break your heart.’
    Thursday, 14 February 1991
    23.05 p.m.
    I’m at a Valentine’s Day party in Selly Park. As a rule I don’t go to student house parties if I can help it. During my time at university I’ve discovered the first law of student house parties: for every female who attends there will be at least ten sexually frustrated rugby-playing engineering students, who will label non-rugby-playing engineering students as a threat to their attempts to get off with a member of the opposite sex.
    I discovered this law in the first week of my first year and, not believing that such Neanderthal behaviour could exist at such levels of higher education, continued to learn this lesson at Sam Golden’s nineteenth-birthday house party, Elaine Doon’s house party to celebrate the end of exams, and Michael Greene’s Christmas house party. I hadn’t been to a house party since Michael Greene’s when several rugby-playing engineering students had taken umbrage at the flowery shirt I wore and the fact that I’d had my tongue down the throat of Linda Braithwaite, who turned out to be the twin sister of rugby-playing engineering student Gary Braithwaite. I’m at this party with Nick for two reasons: first, he has promised me on pain of death that no engineering students have been invited; second, he mentioned that there’s a good chance Anne Clarke will be here. And she is.
    She’s dancing exuberantly in the living room – glass of wine in one hand, cigarette in the other – to the Happy Mondays. When the song ends she walks over to a group of guys in the corner of the room. Within seconds she’s laughing and giggling with them. They’re all clearly infatuated with her. It’s odd watching them because it’s almost as if she has them mesmerised. Their eyes follow wherever she goes. It’s snake-charming at its most obvious. I determine that although I’m desperate to talk to her there’s absolutely no way I’m going to walk up to her and begin a conversation. I’m going to play it cool. Not cool in an I-like-you-do-you-like-me? way but cool in an I-have-no-interest-in-you-and-am-impervious-to-your-charms way. I choose my moment carefully. She leaves the group of guys and walks into the kitchen where she heads to the sink and fills her glass with water.
    ‘Can you pass me a glass from the draining-board?’ I say, behind her.
    ‘No problem,’ she replies. And then she turns and adds, ‘Nice shirt.’
    I’m wearing a peach-coloured cheesecloth short-sleeved shirt with a huge seventies-style collar – if a sudden strong wind enters the kitchen, I may take flight. ‘Cheers,’ I reply, and smile – but not