The lecture finished and people filed out of the hall as quickly as they could – having already packed up while the lecturer was in her final comments – and I was left alone at the podium. I was waiting patiently for the lecturer to notice me as she ducked under the desk and gathered up her own things. After a while I grew impatient.

‘Shona?’

Her head shot up from below the desk, her fingers ringed with silver clutching a long brown coat. She looked at me, bewildered for a moment, before producing a well practiced smile.

‘How can I help you?’

‘I was just wondering if you were taking any tutorials this semester,’ I asked.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘The tutorials for the course on Power. I was wondering if you were teaching any of them.’

She glanced at one of the pieces of papers lying out on the worktop in front of her. A crudely drawn timetable was on one of these, and she scanned it quickly.

‘No, I don’t think so. My timetable’s really busy this semester so I don’t have much time for anything else. They might slot me in there though,’ she reached down and lifted her leather handbag to her shoulder. ‘May I ask why?’

‘I was just wondering if I could transfer to one of your classes.’

She laughed. ‘Why would you want to do that?’

‘I find you interesting.’

She was taken aback, but she barely showed it. There was the slightest flutter of her eyelashes and her eyes focused properly on me for the first time since we began talking. She placed her bag and jacket on the worktop and leaned on her hands, spreading her sparkling fingers wide. ‘Who’s tutoring you now?’

‘Billy.’

‘And what’s wrong with him?’

‘Nothing. Well, nothing much. He doesn’t handle debates very well. He’s good at teaching the main points of the topic, and he can govern a discussion, but he’s not really good in a debate.’

‘Ah, but I have first hand experience with Billy. He’s a good tutor.’

‘But he fires down a debate at the first sign of inflammation.’

‘Hmm. Can I ask, what’s your name?’

‘Jonathan. Jonathan Mercer.’

She smiled at me. There was a spark in her eye that only appeared when she was lecturing something she felt really passionate about.

‘Ah. The infamous Mercer. I have an email to send to you.’

I laughed. ‘This wouldn’t happen to be about the sarcasm I threw your way on the university message board is it?’

Either she didn’t hear me or she just didn’t answer. She pulled on the jacket and slung her bag over her shoulder. ‘I need to go. My train has long gone by now, but I still need to hurry to catch the bus. It was nice talking to you Jonathan.’

And she was gone.

Despite the rain the ground outside was relatively dry, so I sat on the steps in front of the building and lit a cigarette. She had said ‘The infamous Mercer’ with a devious grin. I wondered briefly at what I had done to win myself such an illustrious title, but when the list of probably noticeable acts I’ve committed exceeded the fingers on my hand I realised that it was probably better that I didn’t know what I had done to have my name passed around the faculties.

It didn’t matter anyway. It was just cool to have someone recognise my name.