“Burn the fucker.” He’d say, “burn the fucker, life is temporary anyway, burn every fucker”. Then he’d put the joint out on his hand, usually with plenty left and someone would chastise him and he’d grin. It was just Berry. That’s what Berry was like, never quite fully balanced on the hinges.

Berry fell in love in May of nineteen ninety-nine. She was pleasant enough, pretty if you like the just woken up from the dead look. Berry liked her, Berry more than liked her. We were sat around in our room flicking cigarette butts into an empty pizza box when he came in, a draught from the door made the smoky air spin and dance in a shaft of sunlight that had struggled in through the curtains. Berry paced, he paced round the room, the glint in his eye burning like fire.

“I’ve met someone.” He said, from the look on his face you couldn’t tell whether he was elated or terrified. We didn’t take it very seriously, Berry was always meeting someone. Berry was always in love, always broken hearted when they got bored of his antics and left. We expected it of him, Berry melodrama we called it. Across the room Renna looked at Berry and raised an eyebrow at me before falling back into the arms of her latest conquest. I think Renna has had us all. Berry brought her in. Pamela she was called, she said hello and inched towards Berry wrapping an arm around his and searching the room with big wild eyes. Pamela didn’t talk much, ever and when she did she talked in a rush as though the words were escaping from behind a dam. She was nice enough, we let her join the group.

Berry came round the next night on his own and sat with me in my room. Well I sat, Berry crouched on his haunches occasionally getting up to pace around the room.

“I’m in love, Rishi.” He said to me. “Real love, it burns in me, Rishi, it makes me do things and I don’t know why. I don’t think I like it but I can’t bare the thought of it stopping.”

I talked with him for an hour, Berry melodrama, right?

We didn’t see as much of Berry as we used to after that. Pamela seemed to take up most of his time, when we saw them we’d talk and sometimes she’d finish his sentences and vice versa. Like they were becoming one person. We started to wonder whether we were wrong about this being melodrama.

The next time we saw Berry was in our room, like we ever go anywhere else. He came in, pacing as had become his habit.

“There has to be more.” He kept repeating, his hands flexing at his sides and his face pulled taught and intense. “Just saying I love her isn’t enough, just her saying it isn’t enough. Just words, there has to be more than just words. Some...way.” His voice tailed off and got quiet at the end. The babble of voices in the room turned into an uncomfortable hush. Renna sat forward and ran a hand across her naked shoulder and lightly over the tops of her high white corseted breasts. “Berry.” She whispered in a sluttish voice. “It is called sex.”

Berry stared at her his face going even whiter, then turned heel and walked out slamming the door behind him. The room stayed quiet before Renna’s new bit asked if that was Berry melodrama. Renna laughed but she didn’t sound comfortable. I don’t think that lover lasted long either.

I came across Berry in the bus station, he was crying, tears falling down his face and onto the shiny purple shirt he was wearing.

“Berry?” I asked softly.

“I can’t see her, she’s not here.” He said through his sobs and sniffles.

“She’s left you?”

“No, no. I just can’t see her, she’s so perfect everyone must want her. She must fall prey to one of them eventually. Then she’ll leave.”

“Berry, we’ve seen you two together, you couldn’t be closer if you used glue. I think you might be over reacting slightly here.” He just looked at me before picking up his ratty little bag and walking off down the echoing waiting hall, past the little car that played the tune from Sesame Street.

That tune can be quite creepy if you’re all alone here at night.

He turned up in my room, don’t know how he got in but that was Berry.

I walked in and he was just slumped in a corner. “You alright Berry?” I enquired, moving slowly, like you do when you’re approaching an unfamiliar cat. When he spoke his voice was so quiet I had to strain to hear it. “I don’t know how long I can carry this on, Rishi. The constant worry when she’s not here, the moments of happiness, the flaring passion. I need to be part of her. There has to be more Rishi. You know things, can you be closer than sex? Closer than whispered words in the darkest hours? Can you, Rishi?”

I’d had a bad day. I wasn’t in the mood for Berry melodrama so I gave him a lecture with all the confidence one has when you dropped out of med school halfway through the first year.

“Berry, you have to think about this sensibly. This isn’t real, it isn’t some magical thing happening between you and her, it’s endorphins and hormones kicking you about. It won’t last forever. It will calm down to something bearable.”

“Really?” He asked, some look in his eye that I couldn’t quite fathom.

“Really, Berry.” I said, squeezing his shoulder in one of those rare displays of manly affection.

“Thanks.” He said and left.

We didn’t find out from a friend, we didn’t find out from some sobbing relative. We found out the modern way, completely up to date, twenty four-hour news channel way. I can’t tell you the shock. The bastards showed it happen as well. In our vulture/voyeur society I’m often shocked by the things that pass as entertainment. We watched in horror as the black clad couple embraced by the edge of the station before they jumped, hitting the rails moments before the great wheels of the train chewed into them. Mashed them together. I guess in a strange way they became one. From the footage you couldn’t tell whether Berry had jumped and taken her with him or if it was a mutual decision. I don’t like to think about their last thoughts. Did they panic? Did they suddenly want to change their minds?

Maybe. I didn’t know, couldn’t.

Our little group fell apart after that. I still saw Renna and the others but we didn’t talk much. I think we all held a little bit of guilt about not giving Berry more time. I’ve thought a lot about what I had said to Berry.

Would he have stayed if I’d told him it would last forever?

Was that what pushed him? Had I been there at the station in some way? My words echoing in his mind and Berry unable to stand the thought of losing the rapture he’d found? Finding the only way out he could for them.

You see, at the time I didn’t understand. I didn’t believe in love, I thought it was all just a great con to sell books and cards. That was before I met Jen of course. Now I know everything Berry felt was real, how hurt he must have been when we didn’t believe what he said. I’m feeling it now, Jen is burning me up inside with conflicting emotions and all the pain and heartache feels like a gift. I’m taking her away this weekend, to London.

We’re going by train.