Class Reunion

‘Baxter,’ I said. ‘My God. Matt Baxter.’
‘Yes?’ he said, turning round, with that sniffy, snotty look he’d had talking to Melvyn on telly about his latest.
‘Johnny,’ I said. ‘Johnny Morgan. UCL. Remember?’
‘Oh ... yes.’ He remembered all right, but he was looking at me like I was a rat salad ...
Opposite Goodge Street tube: him needing a cab, me hanging around in the sun, waiting for Panda to come out of Heels. ‘Well, how’ve you been?’ he said, offering his hand like a medieval monarch touching for scrofula.
‘Oh, country doctoring. In the Cotswolds now. Five monstrous kids – at their gran’s today, while we’re here.’
A face now like a peptic ulcer was giving him gyp. ‘We?’ he said.
‘Me and Panda ...’ I said. ‘Amanda.’
A deep, painful-looking frown. ‘Amanda ...?’
‘Amanda Newman,’ I said. ‘As was.’
Staring past me now, pale, licking his lips.
Here was Panda, taking my arm, and Baxter looking at her like she’d just popped back from the dead for a hand of whist.
‘As I live and breathe,’ she said. ‘How the hell are you?’
‘Great,’ he said. But his hands were fidgeting, twitchy.
‘What about a coffee?’ I said.
‘No,’ he said, backing away, ‘no, I’m ... busy. Sorry.’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Well, maybe a drink one day, meet up ...’
‘Fine,’ he said from the kerb. His arm was out; a cab pulled up. He got in, with a vague flap of a goodbye wrist.
‘Blimey,’ I said. ‘No change there. Tosser. Celebs, eh?’
‘Mm.’ I turned for a kiss, but she was staring after him.
'What's up?' I said.
'Nothing ...'
‘Hold up,’ I said, remembering. ‘You copped off with him once, didn’t you? He charmed his way into your divine drawers.’
‘Not once.’ She sighed. ‘He was my bloody boyfriend, J.’
‘Yeah?’
Her eyes on mine now. ‘Yes.’
‘So, he ditched you, then,’ I said. ‘Bastard.’
‘No,’ she said, very quiet now, shaking her head. ‘I was his world, J. His everything. Obsessed by me. He said he’d ... top himself if I ever left him. Poor guy.’
‘Poor guy? Baxter bullshit, more like,’ I said. ‘Noooo bloody way he'd do that. The world was his lobster.’
‘But he did,’ she said, eyebrows raised.
‘What?’
‘He ... well, slashed a wrist.'
'No way.'
'Yes way, J. On a very wet Wednesday,' she said. 'One of your mates patched him up.’
I was staring at her now, hard. ‘But you never told me.’ She shrugged, made a face. ‘So,’ I said, ‘why’d you do it? Drop the biggest catch around?’
‘Oh, that,' she said. 'Well ... coz one morning, just round this corner, I was riding ...'
'Your bike ...'
'My bike ... and I nearly knocked down this gorgeous medic ...'
'Dashing to save the world at UCH.'
'Mmm.'
'Blimey,' I said. 'So, inadvertently, I nearly put paid to an already fabulous career ...'
'You did.' She frowned. 'J ...'
'What?'
'Don't smirk.'