Kicking-out time, January 2004, and Laura and I are sitting on the kerb waiting for a bus outside Alexandra Palace in north London. Not that we’re in a hurry to be anywhere else. We’re having the best time on our kerb, cheeks flushed from hard liquor and the exhilaration of the White Stripes show we’ve just seen. We’re busy communing with a fellow nocturnal creature, a woodlouse. It is one of those rare moments in my 20s when just about everything feels right.
Laura and I had quietly become office allies over a few years, a bond initially forming around our mutual shy diligence in the face of not fully fitting in. We would conspiratorially skip downstairs to the canteen together most lunchtimes and temper any work worries by chatting shit, laughing hysterically and plotting small acts of rebellion. (Like the time we childishly made a “FUCK CHESS” sign and left it on the office chess club’s shelf, which for some reason felt necessary and hilarious. If you’re reading this, chess club, we’re very sorry.)
