The bus journey was complicated by the annual intake of new students who were clutching maps and trying to find their way about, trying to get on the right bus to the right site on the right campus. Manchester boasts three universities and a handful of colleges and the city’s population leaps by thousands every autumn.
They were a feature at every bus stop. Thankfully our driver was helpful and courteous. He patiently pointed out where the bus would go, corrected people’s mis-pronunciations and called out loudly when we reached the various buildings on Oxford Road.
After living in Manchester, Keele would have seemed small to Jennifer Pickering, manageable. I’d a notion it was one of the out-of-town campus universities like Lancaster. I wasn’t even sure where it was, Midlands? Somewhere near Stoke perhaps.
If Jennifer had got pregnant she must have met someone fairly early in the term. It takes a few weeks to make sure and I knew that she’d left Keele and had broken off contact by the Christmas. If I could find any people who were students with her, maybe people who shared her accommodation and did English with her they would be pretty likely to know who the man involved was, a student or a lecturer? Secrets were hard to keep in the close environment of university life. I remember in my own case we seemed to know everything about who was screwing who, who was into drugs or had debts or got violent when drunk.
At the top of Oxford Road there were adverts for new apartments in the heart of the city. Some of them were selling for ludicrous prices. Manchester was the place to be. We had the best football team in the world (according to Ray) and had produced Oasis as well as Coronation Street. Time was people in Manchester felt overshadowed by the dominance of London; people moved south for the opportunity to develop. But these days Manchester was on a roll. The centre of the universe. A Manchester accent was an asset – chuck.
The bus swung round past Central Library with its domed roof and pillars and I got off when it stopped near Albert Square.
It was a mild, misty day, the air felt soft. The Gothic style Town Hall with its honey sandstone seemed to glow against the colours of the surrounding trees and the slate grey of the sky.
The Neighbour Nuisance Unit is upstairs but I had to report to the security desk on the ground floor and they rang for Mandy to come down and collect me. She led the way up the stone staircase, between marble pillars with vaulted ceilings, everything rich with intricate stone mouldings and carvings. She made us coffee before we settled at her desk in the corner of the open plan office. She picked up a file from the sea of paperwork that cluttered her desk and spilled over onto a side table as well.
