I was walking past an open door with cold hot chocolate slopping over the sides of a nibbled styrofoam cup, dribbling down my rain-numbed hands, when it hit me. The smell of her hair, a pleasant, tropical tidal wave of herbal essences. Yes, oh yes! orgasmed a blonde, sun-drenched woman under a steaming shower on the beach surrounded by parakeets and parrots, and for a moment I was there and not here with my perpetual and very literal rain cloud following me like a poodle on a too-short leash.

Half an hour early for class, she was, her shampoo giving her away. She sat there in an empty room with an unnibbled styrofoam coffee cup , shadowy eyes from typing up essays till 3am. The closer I got, the stronger this shampoo smell got. I washed my hair two days ago, she told me, after my knees buckled me into a hard plastic chair, grey and institutional. The universal chair of nasty places.

How’s life?

Same old.

Same old rain.

Yeah.

Same old up at seven in the dark.

Yup.

Same old bowl of cornflakes.

Uh-huh.

She told me she slept through New Year’s Eve, and I told her how the countdown I joined in with, it was three minutes late because we’d lost the Spanish crowd to a bowl of grapes somewhere, one grape per each chime of Big Ben, and no-one would start without them.

Over-rated, anyway.

We sat in silence for a while.

Was it exciting, being deported? I asked her.

Not particularly, she answered, and our minds flew to Australia with FlyBe, cheap and cheerful.

Another silence. Still early for class, we waited on our grey chairs with our styrofoam cups and our chewed plastic pens.When the others arrived in lethargic dribs and drabs with sweater hoods pulled tight over wet fringes, they seemed not to notice the amazing smell of hair, of somewhere sunny far away.