We had known one another for about a year on that hot summers night, when I was just relaxing in the house, hanging out with Cathy and sitting in the garden drinking wine.
Six of us were due to start sharing a student house in the Autumn of 2003. We'd all met in halls, all got along and decided to not go for the more intimate house shares, the twos and threes, of some of our friends, but instead to rent a large, six bedroomed "party house" in the middle of the town. Certainly, we'd already had some parties by then in halls, not least the party of three that I'd had with Steve and his girlfriend in the kitchen in the spring. Cathy and I were already moved in, Steve was due the next day and the rest were to follow over the course of the summer. We were excited... our first house!
So, sitting in the garden with Cathy, it was just hitting dusk when Steve phoned and asked me what I was doing. Not much, I conceded, drinking and hanging out. I told him that I was excited for his moving in tomorrow, and that was when he told me that he had a slight problem: he hadn't actually packed his stuff up from halls yet, as, and he thought he'd mentioned this, he'd been away with some lads from the rowing club for a few days and it had been a bit of a bender. I rolled my eyes. This was classic Steve: late to his own funeral. Deadlines were never met, he never turned up on time and now he hadn't packed.
"Could you come and help, Michelle? Ask Cath as well?" he asked, pleadingly. I looked over at Cathy, who was flicking through a magazine with one hand and holding her wine glass with the other. I knew she had an early start working in the student one-stop shop and no way would she agree.
"Cath's at work tomorrow." I said. "And I'm not in the mood to come and pack up all your pants and socks."
"Please Miche," he pleaded again, "I will buy you a bottle of wine and you can drink it while we pack....?" He sounded pretty pathetic. I laughed, he knew that the promise of wine would get me over there, especially as I'd just drunk the better half of a bottle and my student budget didn't allow for anymore.
"Okay, okay," I said, "I'll be over in twenty minutes."
Walking along the river, it dawned on me how warm it actually was. People were spilling out onto the tow path from the bars along the way, and dragonflies buzzed over the reeds on the bank. It was a beautiful night to be alive. However, Steve's room was on the 16th floor of a tower block. I didn't remember much from GCSE Science, but I knew that heat rises and it was going to be hot up there. I sighed. Trust Steve to con me into this. It had better be bloody good wine.
It was, as I sadly could have guessed, terrible wine. A really sharp Chardonnay, which tasted like vinegar and actually made me recoil at the first sip.
"Fuck Steve! This is disgusting!" I said. It didn't stop me taking another gulp though. "Blergh." He laughed.
"Well you don't have to drink it."
"You know I do. It's the only thing that will make this bearable." The room was a pigsty. When he said he hadn't packed he meant it. He hadn't even picked his socks up from the last month by the looks of it. The door opened, and Ben walked in. He was another guy who lived on Steve's corridor, similar age to Steve- about 23 or 24 to most of our 18 or 19- and he was carrying some cardboard boxes.
"You can have these, mate." He said. I'd met Ben once or twice before, but couldn't claim to know him. He wasn't on my course or anything but he had been at the odd party. "You're brave," he added, addressing me, "moving in with this untidy bastard." He grinned. "Michelle, isn't it?" I nodded.
"You've met Michelle before." Steve said, absent-mindedly, flicking through some CDs to put into one of the boxes. "She's the one who had the threesome with me and Louise, I told you all about it." I blushed scarlet. I wasn't embarrassed by the threesome, but I was embarrassed that he was mentioning it so casually, like I had threesomes all the time.
"He's such a gent, isn't he?" Ben laughed. I giggled too, laughing seemed the best way to carry it off.
"Oh shut up," Steve said, "she's a firecracker, she doesn't care."
A good couple of hours passed, the wine was drunk and we'd packed most of the stuff up, and I slumped down on the bed. I had well had enough.
"Have you got any more wine, Steve?" I asked. He was slumped in the easy chair on the other side of the room, equally fed up with packing. We were both sweating with the heat, despite both being dressed in next to nothing- Steve just in shorts now, and me in a flimsy summer dress. He shook his head.
"Nope. No wine. But there are some bits of spirits in the kitchen." I needed more drink if we were going to do more packing. I told Steve this. "Okay, let's go and have a look then, you massive piss head." I laughed. I wasn't a huge drinker, but this was the most monotonous job in the world. It called for booze.
Ben was sitting in the kitchen, with a girl I'd never seen before. They were rolling up their own cigarettes and had the remnants of a bottle of Vodka on the table, as well as two glasses. They looked up as we entered through the swingdoor.