Woodpecker

Chapter 3 / Sam 2 / 2 x 3 x 13 Days Left

At the beginning of April, her fourth month in Amsterdam, one of her friends Jimmy took them all to a party. They went to a bar first and drank a few beers and downed a few shots. Raucous conversations shouted across tables. In England, pubs and bars had always been forced to shut at 11pm, but here nothing really got started until ten. This foreignness, the sensation of being distant and detached from an old life only heightened Sam's giddy, exhilarated abandon, lowering her defences and perhaps dulling reason.

Just before midnight the five of them left the bar and wandered through the red-light districts of the city, looking up at the tall narrow buildings with their neat symmetrical geometry. Half walking, half staggering, Sam looked through the strawberry lit windows at the women and wondered what stories lay beyond. What tale would she find to explain them standing on opposite sides of these glass panels, if she could reach through and unpick all the knotted strands of time? Now, in her forties she recognized these thoughts as a type of arrogance. Cruelty even. Something that can only come from growing up in a world devoid of existential concern. It was another sign of how naïve she was. As she grew older, she scolded herself every time she remembered this scene.

The party was a typical student mosh. Too many people squashed into too small a space. What little light there was played on the whisps of cigarette smoke filling the room. The music was uncommonly set to a volume which allowed for conversation at a pitch somewhere lower than a scream. If she engaged her diaphragm somewhat and spoke clearly it was possible for Sam to be heard over the beat and melody of the music. At some point on the intoxicating side of midnight she got talking to a friend of Jimmy's called Mark.

Mark was a second year Geography student. He and Sam hit it off immediately. His main reason for being in Amsterdam was to party for a year, but she thought he seemed clever and well-read. Sam and he liked some of the same books and sitting on the sofa they talked for what seemed like only twenty minutes but was in reality hours. Sam was impressed and joked that he knew his stuff, for a student of humanities. After a little too much drink and disorientated by each other's company their heads started to move slowly together. Attraction in the most literal physical sense. The procession of their bodies toward one another, slow and natural, had been happening since they first sat down, but when they inevitably kissed it felt like the impatient surge of something escaping. They spent the night in her bed and for the next two days didn't leave each other's company, going to cafés and bars, eating, and sleeping together.

Sam had never really had a problem with being single. Growing up without a father she had learned early to be independent and never really felt lonely, but she would be lying if she said that she didn't enjoy Mark's attention. He was kind of good looking, better than average, not overweight or anything, and fun to be around. As a teenager she had never received much attention from boys. She didn't really mind being free of the distraction, happy enough to just drift below the radar. She wasn't unattractive, she knew that much. Sometimes she had caught boys looking at her in a particular way, but she was probably easily overlooked with her nose always buried in a book. Other than the smallest inflection at the intersection of hip and buttock, her body lacked the curves that would mark her out as womanly, slightly boyish you might say, but with a face and a smile that was unquestionably feminine and capable of attracting the opposite sex if she wanted to. Nevertheless, it felt like the right time for a relationship. Whatever this was had become inescapable and being so far from home, Mark's presence felt somehow affirming.

Most of the students went from time to time to the cafes of Amsterdam, and not only for the coffee. Mark enjoyed this aspect of life in Amsterdam more than most. More than was probably healthy. She had never viewed herself as a follower, nor a leader really, but Sam found herself almost subconsciously falling in step with Mark. Had she been trying to impress him, or hold on to the relationship? She still couldn't tell. Her actions seemed to follow some preplanned set of instructions that the world had set out for her. A suspension of free will or conscientious objection. As the months went by, she started to feel more and more dependent on him for company, for fun, for love, and for warmth.