Free The Pink and the Grey by Anthony Camber

lifeless body onto the rocks. I locked onto his deep brown eyes and roused the most confident and attractive smile from my armoury.
    “Wotcha,” I said. Wotcha? Dear jeebus. “I’m Spencer. I don’t think I’ve seen you here yet. Not that I’ve been stalking you. Are you newly gay, or just here on the off-chance?” Oh, arse, I thought, I’ve turned into Amanda .
    He glanced at his friends and grinned. “I’m sorry?”
    Warp core breach imminent, Captain . I stuck out my hand: in for a penny. “Spencer.” Say nothing else, your foot’s in too deep already .
    He was British, and therefore obliged to shake and respond in kind: “Laurie.”
    “Are your friends called Lift and Pavement?” What in the devil’s name am I saying?
    “I’m sorry?” He laughed. I fear this was at rather than with .
    I ploughed on, treading a fine line between lecture and unconsciousness. “Laurie brought to mind the road vehicle, the lorry, and then truck, the ghastly American equivalent. And then other godforsaken Atlantic variations, like elevator for lift and sidewalk for pavement, and then my mouth just blurted them out you have very sexy eyes.”
    “Spencer, right?”
    I nodded. First goal achieved.
    “I hope you’re not driving.”
    “I’ve never driven a lorry in my life.”
    “Ah, very good.” A gentle chiding. “I’ve heard them all, you know.”
    “Heard them all what?”
    “Never mind.” His smile warmed me pleasingly.
    I thought it was going rather well at that point. We’d scaled that initial awkward hump and were hurtling towards an intimate conversation of some length, should the dice fall my way. I launched into the usual conversational gambit and attempted at all times to maintain eye contact.
    In the next hazy time period I discovered many things. He was a post-graduate student specialising in early Romance languages, who’d spent eleven months circumnavigating the globe and teaching English along the way for subsistence. He was a keen and accomplished chef, helping out in his parents’ restaurant during vacations. His fringe would fall over his eyes were it not for his defensive eyebrows. And I was a fool and a wastrel and we had absolutely nothing in common, bar the obvious.
    I blustered haphazardly, the drink sploshing about my brain. “That’s all rather exciting. As for my own self, I’m preparing to embark on a major marvellous project at St Paul’s designed to practically rocket our profile into the broiling stratosphere and take us sprawling to the next level in funding income achievement.”
    “Sounds interesting. What are you doing?”
    My hands began unaccountably to wave. “A, er, celebrity, charity, competition, er, thing. Lots of charity and mystery celebrity, wrapped up in an enigmatic competition. Hush-hush, early days, need-to-know, shush, that sort of solid business.”
    “Charity competition? What, like a race? I did the London Marathon for charity a few years back.”
    “A race? A race! Yes, a race.” Subtle was not the word. Paralytic, paralytic was the word.
    “In Cambridge? Whereabouts?” Bless him, he seemed genuinely interested.
    I touched his arm, his drinking arm, and a quantity of beer escaped. “Careful,” I said, “they make you lick it up. Whereabouts? Now then. This has yet to be confirmed, but we’re looking at, we’re looking at, all over. From St Paul’s, to, to, which college are you doing again?”
    “I’m at St John’s.”
    “Yes, St Paul’s to St John’s, that seems fair. And back again. No! Not back again. Somewhere else.” I pointed at his two friends, silent and smiling admirers of my delicate flirting technique. “You two, Pavement and Sidewalk, or whatever you were. Colleges.” My finger now alternated rapidly between myself and Laurie. “St Paul’s, St John’s, St John’s, St Paul’s, then where? Speak up. St, St, John, Paul—”
    One of them looked at Laurie, and me, and said: “George and Ringo?” All three