The Weekend - Completed

Chapter 46

46

I squelched into the canteen conscious of the trail of water I was leaving behind me. It was a little before eight on this awful, stormy Monday morning and despite there only being half a dozen shivering customers in the university cafe the tiled floor was slippy with murky water pooling at several locations around the room. The waitresses didn't even bother to mop it up; knowing as the students started to stream in for their morning lectures it was only going to get worse.

"You look soaked" Joel noted looking up from the book he was reading.

"How ca ca can I be s s so wet from ju just walking fr fr from the car park?" I shivered as I sat in the chair opposite and gratefully held the steaming hot mug of tea I knew Joel would have waiting for me.

Since that first day we had fell into an easy routine, every morning we would meet in the canteen around eight, whoever was there first would buy the drinks and grab a table before it started to fill up. Whilst we drank our hot beverages Joel would read through whatever I had written up the day before and we would discuss ways in which it could be improved.

It had been two weeks since the professor had asked me to help Joel out, initially I had thought the task would take me about a month but it was a slow and arduous process. His thesis was over a hundred pages long, but most of it was calculations and annotations, the bit I needed to help him with was only about forty pages worth. The problem was that when I was turning his gobbledygook into English, every one of his pages when translated amounted to three or four of mine, so the ten pages I had been asked to rewrite were now thirty six pages long.

"I'm freezing and starving" I added as I handed him the last of the rewritten pages. "I'm going to get bacon on toast, do you want some?" I asked as I scrapped the metal chair unintentionally noisily across the beige tiles.

"Erm yeah sure" He replied not lifting his eyes from the notes I'd handed him. "This is really good" he called after me.

"You say that every time, and every time I'm slightly more offended." I grumbled from over my shoulder as I continued to make my way to the counter.

"I've got a meeting with Professor O'Neill at nine, he just wants to check in, see how we're getting on." He said a little nervously in-between mouthfuls. "I said I'd give him what we've done."

"What do you think he'll say?" Now it was my turn to feel anxious.

"You've done a great job; this is so much better than the original, I'm certain he'll like the improvements." He smiled across at me trying his best to allay my doubts.

"Good luck" I held my crossed fingers up and smiled back tentatively.

"Right well" he said sighing heavily, "It's five to; I better get going, see you later." I waved my goodbyes as he headed off.

My morning lecture dragged horribly, no matter how hard I tried to concentrate, my mind kept wondering to how Joel was getting on. Rather selfishly I wanted the professor to be impressed with my input, a lot more than I cared about Joel passing his course. After what seemed like an age my lecturer, Mrs Bellamy, looked at her watch and smiling at our bored faces, told us to be back in ten minutes.

After having two cups of tea with Joel before my lecture I thought it a good idea to use the bathroom, typically as soon as the lecture reconvenes I will inevitably need a wee. I waited a minute for the eager boys in the class to stampede out the classroom and towards the cafeteria, desperate to beat the queues, before heading out the room.

"Alex, over here" Joel called to me as I walked through the doorway, I turned my head trying to find him through the throng of students now populating the corridors.