A girl named Bob

It was a little after 10 last night when I left San's flat. Rather than just go straight home and read for a while I figured that instead I would come here, to the library, and check my email. Not for any real reason, I just like to check it when I can -- since I can't back at my own flat, and hadn't been able to at San's since one of her flatmates was using San's laptop to make her CV.

It's important to the story that I was planning on coming here, because if I was going home I would have walked in a completely different direction -- that is, I would not have been walking past this one particular bar just as a very drunk girl in big black boots and a very short skirt stumbled out, and almost fell down the steps. I hesitated for a minute, when I thought she was going to fall down the steps, but she regained her balance just as her equally-drunk friend came out behind them.

I think they might have seen me hesitate for a minute, because as I started to walk away from them towards the library they started calling out to me. So I stopped walking and let them catch up. Like I say, they were very drunk but they weren't obnoxious so I was happy enough to walk with them a little way and humour them. They asked me my name, and introduced themselves. They were Vicky, and Bob. A girl named Bob. I didn't really believe that was Bob's real name, but it was nothing to me what she claimed her name was so I let it lie.

They asked me where I was going, and not having a good explanation ready I told them the truth -- to the library, to check my email. They were far from impressed, and instead insisted I should go to the pub with them. I quickly weighed up in my head what would be more fun -- checking my email, and getting a very uncomfortable neck (much like now), or going to the pub with these two drunk, but friendly, girls.

Of course, it was no contest. So we got some cash out a little way up the road, and by this time the rest of their friends had come out of the bar and caught us up. I was introduced to the others -- albeit awkwardly, because they were too drunk to remember my name -- and we all carried on to the pub.

Bob was attractive, but in a way that is difficult to explain. I can describe her long legs, big boots and short skirt -- but it wasn't this that made her attractive. It wasn't even the oversized cardigan she was wearing, with big holes in the sleeves where she persistently stuck her hands through. In some way, I think she reminded me a little of Kath -- both crazy and a little bit quiet at the same time.

In the short time we were in pub Bob got progressively quieter and withdrawn, while her friends tried to get her to wake up or join in. Bob's quietness turned instead into tears, although she was refusing to tell anyone what was wrong. Vicky did manage to get her to talk, but only on the condition that everyone else move to a different table so as not to be able to hear what Bob was saying.

By this time, the pub was closing and before long we had been asked to leave so we waited outside for Bob and Vicky. I talked a little to one of their sober friends, who it turned out had gone to the same school as Fiona -- although I didn't ask her if she had known Fi. I just mentioned that I knew a girl that had lived in Shropshire.

Bob and Vicky took their time while we waited outside, but eventually they turned up and it was decided that -- despite Bob protesting that her feet hurt and she wanted only to go home -- that we were going clubbing. It was to be an indie club, so I was happy enough to join them. Unfortunately, the only way Vicky could get Bob to stop complaining about her feet (I personally think they should have taken her home, but it wasn't my place to get involved) was by promising her a piggy back.

From me.

So she jumped on my back, with her legs wrapped round my waist, and I carried her down the road for as long as I could. She wasn't excessively heavy, but just the same it wasn't an easy task to carry her -- but not wanting to offend her by saying I needed to put her down, I continued down the road with this drunk girl who was almost a stranger to me hanging on to my back and occasionally screaming when I pretended I was going to make her hit something. I had to amuse myself somehow. There's probably other ways to amuse yourself with a drunk girl who has her legs round your waist, but I'm not that kind of guy.

In fact, one of the only reasons I had agreed to go to the pub with Bob and Vicky was not because I fancied them -- which I didn't, they were just not my type -- but because I thought if I didn't go with them then another guy would, and someone else might have other ideas on how to treat two drunk girls. I figured it was no inconvenience to me to have some drinks with them and have a laugh, especially if it kept them out of trouble.

I did have to put Bob down before too long, although she didn't seem to take offence to it. She was too busy insisting to Vicky she wanted to go home, and Vicky insisting Bob had agreed to come to the club and have a good time (because you really can just agree to have a good time, apparently) and that she would be able to sit down when we got there. This was all fine until we got to the city centre and Bob recognised a shop which meant she wasn't far from where she lived. And more or less refused to go on.

Bob was refusing to go on, but instead insisting she wanted to go home -- and go home on her own, too. Naturally nobody was prepared to let Bob walk home on her own, and Vicky was still insisting she come to the club. Eventually it was decided that we would go on ahead to the club, and Vicky would talk to Bob and catch us up. I think it was clear that Vicky was more than likely just end up taking Bob home, however much she was protesting.

So I walked on with the less drunk and semi-sober friends, until they decided they'd go to a different club, and not the indie club. Without Bob and Vicky there was nobody to insist on my company, it was coming up to midnight and I wasn't prepared to go to a club I didn't like just for the sake of it. And I went home.

I can't tell you how it ends. I don't know if Vicky let Bob walk home on her own, or if Bob agreed to go to the club with Vicky. But most likely, I think Vicky just took Bob home.

An interesting sidenote -- at one point in the evening, someone asked what Bob's real name was. Apparently, according to Vicky, it was Charlotte -- she just doesn't like her name, and calls herself Bob instead.