The Celebration Party

They piled out of the Lord Nelson in that aura of bonhomie and high spirits that comes from the mix of alcohol and youthful exuberance.

Nick put his arm around Stephen’s shoulder.

“Cheer up, old son. Anyone would think you’d failed instead of getting a two-one. That’s a bloody respectable degree. Beats the pants off my third, but am I complaining?”

Stephen smiled, returned the hug and broke away to look for Helen among the company.

He spotted her up ahead, arm-in-arm with Paula. They were walking in stockinged feet, shoes in hands.

He waited for an opportunity to speak to her alone, and it came when Nick picked up a road cone and began to serenade them all with a ballad.

“Please, Helen. I wish you’d reconsider.”

She sighed. “For heaven’s sake, Steve, let it drop. We’re supposed to be having fun tonight but you’re beginning to ruin it.”

He caught her arm as she began to walk on. “I’m begging you, Helen. Please don’t do this.”

She rounded on him. “You disappoint me, Steve, you really do. All that progressive, left-wing rhetoric you’ve treated us to over the last three years goes straight out of the window the moment it clashes with your own selfish desires.”

“My selfish desires? I think you’ve got that arse backwards, haven’t you?”

“Have I? You should have heard yourself in the pub. You sounded just like some reactionary misogynist. Donald Trump would have been proud of you.”

“That’s not fair, Helen.”

“Fair or not, I’ve made my decision. Now if you’re determined to be a misery, go back to the flat and I’ll see you later.”

She slipped her shoes back on and trotted ahead. “I want to go clubbing,” she announced to the company.

Stephen stopped and watched them walk ahead on to the bridge that led to the city centre, laughing and arguing about which night club to visit. Yesterday she'd been as pleased as he was, but all that had changed now their results were out.

He turned off before the bridge and walked down the steps to the riverside footpath, then down again to the water’s edge. He stood on the bank, listening to the rippling water and the late-night thrum of the city.

From his pocket he took out the image he’d printed that morning from the app he’d found on Google: What will your baby look like?

Half in seriousness, half in jest, he’d uploaded images of Helen and himself and clicked Go.

The smiling toddler was surely a girl. He just knew it. He knew it as surely as he knew her name would be Amy. Where the name came from, he had no idea. It just popped into his head and felt so… so right.

She’d be pretty and clever like Helen, and musical like him. She’d ask him for things with a little pout that would melt his heart, and he would always give in. Helen would rebuke him for spoiling her, but he wouldn’t care. He’d gleefully let his little princess twist him round her little finger.

The image was to have been a surprise for Helen at the start of the evening’s celebrations, but the moment he showed it to her he could see she’d changed.

“Look, Steve, there’s plenty of time,” she’d said. “We have our lives in front of us. Can’t you see what an opportunity this is for me?

“Never in my wildest dreams did I expect to get a first, but I can do research now instead of having to find work. Oxbridge maybe. But it’s going to mean another bank loan.”

She put her hand over his. “We can start a family later, Steve. It’s just not sensible now. We can’t afford it.”

Stephen bent and placed the image face up on the water. It drifted a few feet before catching in the weeds, lingering there as if reluctant to leave him.

He nudged it free with his foot and watched the current carry it away under the arches.

I’m so sorry, Amy.

He made his way back up the bank and sat on a bench. He heard the rustle of leaves behind  him and the fading revelry of his friends on the bridge. He looked up at the stars and watched their slow surrender to the tawny gold of dawn.

End