Gin, Fizz & Tonic

Super-bright and fresh

"Blimey O'Reilly," Dylan says as he absent-mindedly helps himself to the last of my chips. Okay by me. Telling the tale has banished my appetite. Dwelling on what happened all those years ago has always had an instant hunger-killer effect. Sometimes I feel that I should recommend people develop severe bean phobias, promote it as a new diet and make millions that way.

Obviously, I didn't tell Dylan the whole story. No-one admits to having still been a virgin at the shame-inducingly old age of eighteen, and I may have embellished the size of the crowd.

"But what did poor Liam have to do with it? You tell him you'll go on a date with him, snog him and then abandon him! My sympathies are firmly with him!"

Mr Red-Faced Pint man looks up at that too, as he finishes the Guinness he only began drinking five minutes ago.

I take a fortifying gulp of Prosecco. "Were you not paying attention? It's as clear as day!"

Dylan shakes his head. Mr Red-Face copies him. "No, it's no' hen. To be honest, Ah'm on the side o' the posh boy, and that doesnae happen often. Most rich folks are complete and utter cunts, but you werenae nice tae him at aw!"

For heaven's sake. This is ridiculous. And yes, over the years, I have dwelled on that moment, and how I might have handled it differently with hindsight. Dissing Liam like that was pathetic and slimy, but then what he did in the immediate aftermath cancelled all that.

I was the wronged party, not him.

"Liam paid for me to be dunked, you pair of halfwits! Who else had enough money to trump what everyone had put on Mr McKenzie? Ms Ackerburn donated a week's wages trying to make sure he was the one who got dunked. Don't you remember that part of the story where Liam said his parents gave him five hundred pounds for passing his exams and getting into Cambridge? I humiliated him in front of my friends, so he raced over to the dunking stall at the last minute and put most of, if not all of it, on me to avenge himself."

Mr Red-face scrapes back his seat to go to the bar. He claps a meaty hand on my shoulder as he walks past. "Oh, aye. Pity. I liked him better than that Zander yin."

"Gosh," Dylan says. "What a tale. It does make me understand why you're so terrified of the B-word. Is the clip on YouTube?"

"What?" I gawp at him.

"You said that a BBC film crew was there to record the rector's fundraising triumph."

"Oh my bloody God!"

We both check our phones. Dylan types in 'student gets dunked in beans', and I search for 'Killinhill Academy Children in Need fundraiser'. It was the first and last—the subsequent health and safety report cancelled any prospects of a future event.

"Nothing there," Dylan says, sounding ever so slightly disappointed.

I shake my head and thank the universe for a huge mercy I had never even contemplated until now. Imagine if the clip was out there, raking up millions of views as people watched, glee lighting up their faces.

"Seems a rather drastic thing for Liam to do. Are you sure you didn't just have tonnes of other enemies and they all clubbed together to make sure you were the one they bean-bombed?"

What a flattering question. Not. I shake my head again, and Dylan moves on to asking me what happened when I came round, and I describe the scene, keeping it brief. The end of that day wasn't edifying either. I drift off, lost in memories that aren't particularly comfortable before noticing that Dylan is now talking about the job again.

"... and what about what you said to Liam earlier: so you are serious about coming to work for me?"

I bob my head up and down quickly, half conscious that as usual in my life events have taken over and the train hurtles towards a destination I hadn't originally envisaged. This is daft, right? Agreeing to a new job just because I didn't want to look silly in front of an old school friend?