Page 6 of The Mismatch

The front of the building had quietened down, with just one other family apart from Soraya’s remaining.

‘Everyone with a ticket needs to go in now. The ceremony is about to start!’ an administrator called. The woman walked towards Soraya. ‘You too, come on.’

And with that she was escorted away, her question left unanswered.

The ceremony was both anxiety-inducing and dull.

It seemed like everyone was competing to receive the loudest applause.

When her name was called, Soraya heard some weak clapping, and what she was sure was her best friend Oliver giving her a ‘woo’. There was also a large booming yelp. It definitely did not come from her family but arose from a classmate.

As she was handed her certificate, she concentrated on not tripping over or drawing more attention to herself than was necessary whilst on stage. Once down the stairs and out of view, she looked towards the students who were sitting down. Magnus was looking over at her with a broad grin on his face.

He was known to be a flirt, but he’d never directed his attention towards her before.

A marquee reception on the college green followed the ceremony, with waiters dressed in tuxes serving elegant-lookingcanapés. The students were released onto the green first, and then parents and family members joined them shortly afterwards. The air there was fresh, a welcome change from the suffocating hall.

Soraya could see Magnus in the distance with a group, clearly his rugby friends. They were built. And they were loud. Full-bodied laughter came from them. It made Soraya want to cover her ears and escape. She hated the pack mentality lads had when they were together. They reminded her of the boys who’d laughed at her all those years ago at school, the ones who had commented on the dark hair on her fingers, on how different she supposedly was. Despite her schooldays being so long ago, their words stuck with her, pervading her thoughts unhelpfully.

She distinctly remembered a picture of Magnus on Facebook after a varsity match, his shorts riding up to expose his strong muscly legs, with a group of cheerleaders around him. He was covered in mud, and Soraya got the impression at the time that he, and the girls around him, thought he looked handsome.

Rugby players at Goldsmiths, like most universities, were a special breed; loved by some, hated by others. Soraya’s friends fell into the latter category. Rumours went around that some of the previous year’s had date raped girls. They could often be found together in the student union, or the local pub, after a game, rowdy and excitable. Yet from seminars she knew Magnus was intelligent, even quiet sometimes. In many ways, she wasn’t sure he fitted in with his crowd.

In one of their third-year seminars she remembered they had been studying a text which explored a dysfunctional romantic relationship. The class was quiet, as was often the case when people hadn’t read the text. The seminar tutor began to pick on people to get their opinion on it, in an attempt to spark some kind of debate.

Most of the people that were selected to speak gave generic observations, commenting on the style of the writing, or the time period it was written in and how that affected the text. However, when Magnus was chosen to speak, what he said remained in Soraya’s memory.

‘I think it’s a commentary against marriage, against the idea of belonging to another someone, which was a bold move in the nineteenth century. Even now, it would be a bold comment to make, but one I ultimately think is true. You can’t belong to another person. It’s no wonder marriage often ends in divorce – or worse, people sticking together when they can’t stand each other. And is it even really right for human beings to be attached to another person for life?’ He gave a small laugh after saying this, lightening what would otherwise be a bleak look at society.

She remembered him saying this for many reasons, one of them being because whilst he provoked a heated debate in the class about marriage on the whole, she noticed how pink the tops of his ears were after, as though he had accidentally revealed his opinion, despite his cool, controlled tone.

He was clearly speaking from the point of view of someone who disliked relationships, perhaps because he preferredmore casual affairs. But still, she was surprised by how strong his feelings were about it.

It was difficult to judge Magnus’s character, though, because she had never seen what he was really like outside the university classrooms and lecture halls. They did not go to the same parties. She, quite unlike Magnus, had spent the last three years with a select few individuals who spent most of their days flicking through fashion magazines or talking about books they had read, preferring to spend their student loan on clothes rather than nights at the pub. Soraya and Oliver’s favourite pastime was spending hours in Selfridges looking at designer garments they could never afford.

Oliver appeared next to her then carrying two tall glasses of clear liquid. He wore a navy blue cord suit with a maroon bow tie and had grown out his Afro, parting it to the side; a new look he had developed over the summer. It flattered his face nicely.

‘Gin and tonic,’ he announced, taking a sip.

She downed hers in one, which was quite an effort.

‘OK, then,’ Oliver said slowly, giving her side-eye.

‘I can’t drink in front of my family, remember?’ Soraya quickly discarded the glass.

‘Well, by all means then, down away.’ Oliver’s dryness was something Soraya had acquired an understanding of a few weeks into their friendship, three years ago. He often spoke in a monotone, and when they first met in freshers’ week, she worried that she bored him. She soon realised that this was his tone with everyone, and that actually he quite liked her.

Despite coming from a different background, Oliver was the only close friend she had who truly understood her.

‘I heard Margaret cheering for you,’ he said, lips pursed as he looked down at her.

‘Margaret?’ Soraya found herself smiling.

‘Yes, Margaret Evans.’

‘Why are you calling him Margaret?’

‘Because it’s funny.’