by Zoe Strachan
As I was arranging my toothbrush in the mug and my toiletries on the shelf, there was a knock at the door.
Yes? I said, swinging the door open and suspecting that I looked like Lurch against the gloomy backdrop of my new home.
Hi, my name’s Jo and I live on first floor and I thought wouldn’t it be great if all of us got together and went to the Union tonight … she paused for breath and flapped some flyers for half price vodka dash at me. So, right, we’re going to all meet in the TV room at seven. See you then?
Oh, thanks, I said, already playing the part of someone much cooler and more in demand than I had ever been. But I think I’ve already got plans.
Oh, she said, peering round me in case I was hiding a roommate who might be more forthcoming at offering steady social support. Well. Next time.
Definitely.
I closed the door and a second later heard a knock, and Jo launching into her spiel once more.
I hoped our self-appointed social convener wouldn’t appeal much to Luke either, but as I arranged myself on the heavy Victorian radiator outside my door at five minutes to six I imagined that he and his roommate had jumped at her invitation. That I was condemned to a first night alone in my dingy beige room. That in a few hours time Luke might mumble at someone, oh, I forgot, I was supposed to go out with this guy I met on the train, and they would laugh and say, never mind. But at nine minutes past six he appeared, and I’m not sure if it’s just hindsight that makes me think he’d changed in some subtle way, hardened just a touch.
Having spurned the Herrick night out, we felt we should also eschew the student union. We circled back along Church Street, rejecting a couple of real pubs, full of real ale and real local men; we’d both seen enough of that to last us a lifetime, though in my case mainly from the outside. Of course, even if there had been such a thing as a gay bar, I wouldn’t have had the guts to suggest it. I soon discovered the Les-Bi-Gay society and their intense Monday night meetings, at which they populated a corner of the Union with plans for pride parades and endless talk about how desperate they were to cop off with the straight boy or girl on whom they had a crush. And not so long after that I was emboldened to spurn their offers of friendship, mean enough to mock their clichéd concerns.
Just as our walk was starting to seem aimless, Luke pointed down a side street to a corner bar.
Okay, let’s just go there. Whatever it’s like.
It was faux rustic, with the kind of stone cladding that must once have been fashionable, but the music sounded okay, and there were enough beaten copper tables to suggest it was the kind of pub where young men sound of limb could sit down rather than loiter by the bar alongside the regulars, staring at the portable TV and having the kind of conversation that consists mainly of the word ‘aye’ repeated with varying intonation. There was a lone man playing the puggy in the corner. I felt grown up, all of a sudden, buying drinks from the twenty pounds my dad said would be more than enough to tide me over until my grant cheque cleared.
Luke sat with his back to the wall, one leg crossed over the other in a louchely effeminate pose I’d never have dared to adopt in public.
Cheers, he said, when I handed him his drink. So, what do you make of it so far?
I don’t know, I said. Seems okay.
Hmm.
He raised his hand towards his face then stopped himself, taking a drink from his pint instead.
How’s your roommate?
No show yet.
Lucky you.
How’s yours, I asked.
Dickhead. Luckily he pissed off with that girl with the screechy voice who came to the door.
Oh yes, I said. Her.
He sighed and I said, Maybe it’ll get better. With the roommate.
Well, he called me Jock and went through a whole routine of see you Jimmy jokes. What do you reckon?
Oh my god.
Yeah. I think he thought it was funny.
This might be a silly question, I said, taking a drink of my cider. But do you think he’s ever met anyone Scottish before?
Who knows. He’s pissed off at being assigned to Herrick anyway, says he’s going to request a transfer.
Fingers crossed then.
Yeah. Luke leaned back further, easing his hand into the pocket of his jeans to retrieve his lighter. Why did you come here, Richard?
To open up my world, I said, before I realised that he was looking for a more prosaic answer. I laughed. Oh, you mean here rather than Aberdeen or Glasgow?
You don’t have to explain why you didn’t go to Aberdeen, he said.
I suppose not, I said. But I looked at the accommodation policy here …
Social inclusion, shedding the image of snobbery?
Exactly.
But you’d have managed to get accommodation somewhere else.
Maybe, but here looked prettiest in the pictures.
He smiled at me and said, Fair enough.
I didn’t tell him that I used to read about Oxford and Cambridge as well, that I’d sit at my makeshift desk imagining the train journey to the interview. It would be like going back in time as I looked out the window, the trees and hedgerows blending into gentle 50s hues. The fantasy failed me when it came time to actually apply, and instead I listed only Scottish universities. I’d have happily gone to Aberdeen, in spite of the jokes about sheepshaggers, if it got me away from home.
I lied, I said, suddenly. I told my parents I didn’t get in to Glasgow but I did. I could have got the bus there, just about.
Would they not have let you go where you wanted?
I don’t know. I didn’t want to take any chances. What about yours?
What?
Your parents.
Parent. Only got one. Maybe she’d have liked me to stay at home.
Before I could answer he stood up. Don’t know about you but I’m starving. Want some crisps?
It struck me that first evening how greedy he was, which shouldn’t seem attractive but was. One packet of crisps wasn’t enough, he needed two and peanuts as well, though he didn’t look as if he had a scrap of fat on him. He had to buy more cigarettes, he smoked so many, and he always finished his drink before me. I hadn’t yet admitted to myself that I fancied him, but it was sneaking up on me, that’s for sure. He had very dark eyelashes and a more direct gaze than I was used to, and you could see inside his mouth more than seemed usual; his tongue, his teeth. His lips were dry and he had a habit of using the knuckle of his thumb to press them against his teeth to moisten the skin. Sometimes he caught himself with his hand mid air and stopped, as though he’d been told it would only make it worse. It’s always the details that slay you.
But he wasn’t gay, I was sure of that. When two girls came in to the pub I noticed the way his eyes skimmed over them. They were very dressed up in the way that supposedly cool girls dressed up then. You know: mini-kilts and band t-shirts, a million layers of ripped fishnets and stripey socks, strand after strand of cheap beads. While one girl went to the bar – clomp, clomp, clomp across the floorboards in a break between jukebox songs – the other whipped out a mirror and blinked down on a stick of Indian kohl then drew it out into a flick at the side, blackening her Cleopatra eyes even further. It was quite a dramatic look, though I’d never had a problem with girls doing themselves up like a different species.
Eyeliner, Luke said.
Yes, I agreed. Indeed.
What do you think of it?
Looks better on girls than on Robert Smith.
There was a rattle of coins as the puggy machine paid up at last. The man hunched down to gather his prize, deftly sorting it into the price of a pint.
I meant on girls, you twat, Luke said. He was pressing me a little, I sensed, testing the waters.
It’s all right, I suppose. What’s your considered opinion?
I like it, he said. I like imagining how it would look smeared all over their faces.
Which might have been a clue, if I’d been interested in
picking up on it. I wasn’t, and a drink or two later – when he said, come clean Richard, who do you like fucking? – I started spilling my own secrets all over the shop. He wasn’t gay, well so what. I wanted a friend far more than anything else. And as I talked, he listened, with just as much greed as he’d approached everything else.
3
Richard drummed his fingers on his desk, listening to Stephie’s footsteps padding back and forward in the hallway as she checked herself in the mirror, then clattered back upstairs for something she’d forgotten. He realised that he should probably give her some money and rushed to find his wallet, hoping it wasn’t obvious that he was trying to speed her progress.
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘And they’ve got magazines in the shop at the garage?’
‘Yes. Scottish Farmer, Top Gear, the usual.’
‘What?’
‘Oh yeah, and some celebrity crap. Size zero shockers, footballing love rats, ohmygod look at her camel nose …’
‘It’s camel toe, get it right. Want me to pick you up a copy of … whatever it is you lot read?’
‘No thank you Stephie,’ he said, resolving to package up his collection of Men’s Health for recycling.
‘Ah well, guess there’s not much call for it up here. Do I need to take a key?’
‘No, I’ll leave the door unlocked,’ he said, manoeuvring her towards it. ‘Chances are someone’ll give you a lift back.’
‘I’m not insane, Richard.’
‘No, it’s okay. The only people that stop are locals.’
She stared at him. ‘Well, as long as you’re sure. Personally I’d rather walk than get in a car with a potential psychopath.’
Even after he’d closed the front door behind her he had to wait a couple of moments before settling at his desk, in case she came back. He reckoned she’d be gone for an hour and a half, maybe longer. On a day like this, who wouldn’t scramble down to the beach and look at the water lapping over the stones, washing them from dull to gleaming? You could stand and count every seventh wave, letting the need to hurry ebb with the tide.
Which was, he thought, part of the problem. He adjusted the angle on his drawing board, as if that would make all the difference to the large sheet of paper affixed to it. ‘Passchendaele’, it said along the top, in red marker, then underneath it, enclosed in a blue circle: ‘Lead in to Ypres 3’. A diagram of the scene was pinned to his corkboard, from which he began to construct flowcharts offering play options: Desertion → Pursuit by MP/escape (where to?); Mad Jack → hero/fool (death/glory). Subsets tracked possible player responses to events: ‘Tank sticks in mud’, ‘Gas alert’.
Some time later the phone rang and Richard grabbed it, thinking of Stephie, telling himself that she’d got tired and wanted collected but unable to stop himself imagining that something had happened, that she’d been hit by a car and was being rushed to hospital. Instead of the sombre tones of a policeman, he was greeted by a far more laconic voice.
‘Rich … how’s tricks?’
‘Fine Rupe, and you?’
‘Marvellous. Just back from the Shanghai expo and I think we’ve got a bit of a buzz going already.’
‘That’s great.’
‘Yup. Listen, we’ve got the rendered images for the characters from Solange. She’s done fantastic things with whatsit, sub-surface scattering on the skin tone. You’ll adore them.’
‘Sounds brilliant,’ Richard pushed his chair over towards the computer and clicked on his email. ‘Can you ask her to fire them over to me just now?’
‘She’s gone for today but they’ll be on the wiki first thing. This is going to be beautiful, Rich.’
‘I hope so,’ Richard said, noting that he had no new messages and picking up a pen instead. He started doodling, wishing that Rupe would figure out that just because he liked having his name inelegantly truncated didn’t mean that everyone else did.
‘While I was out there I had a bit of a chat with Tad. He loves what you’re doing. Thinks it’ll go a bomb all over Europe, if you’ll forgive the pun. And if that transfers to the States, well, cross platform could be an option.’
‘Do I sense a but, Rupe?’ Richard’s doodles began to take the form of intensive crosshatching.
‘May I be blunt?’
‘Only if I can be Philby.’
‘What?’
‘Nothing Rupe. Just give me the bad news.’
‘The bottom line is that poofing about in the trenches is all very well, but concerns have been voiced that there need to be a few girls in there.’
Richard put down his biro and started to massage his forehead. ‘How’s the female character looking? The one who’s fighting in disguise.’
‘Really cool, in a butch kind of way. But our target group for this one’s predominantly male. Are you with me, Rich?’
Richard swallowed a groan. ‘I think so.’
‘What you’ve done so far is splendid. Fab. But what came up when I was running through it with Tad was, how about working in the potential for leave?’
‘Leave?’
‘R & R, if you catch my drift. Maybe earned by success in fights and puzzles, maybe just as a wildcard, well, you know what you’re doing. Can you come up with something by early next week?’
‘By something you mean …’
‘Basically we’re looking at a whole new level here. A townscape with a few fleshpots, a chance for those infantrymen to go wild … Nothing that dilutes your original vision of the game of course, just a little boost to the fun quotient, okay?’
‘It’s fun already, Rupe.’
‘Yeah but Rich, ask yourself this: is there such a thing as too much fun? Do they make another Halo because you just can’t get any more fun than the others? Do they buggery. And that’s exactly what we’re talking about. Total sandbox.’
Richard picked up his pen again and wrote the word ‘sandbox’ on his pad, then circled it for emphasis. He could feel his heart rate quickening. ‘It would be unpredictable,’ he said.
‘That’s the whole fucking point, Rich. You invent the town, they do what they want there. Anything goes.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Can you handle the coding?’
‘Yes. I think so. It’s just …’ Richard heard a muffling on the line, imagined Rupe putting his hand over the receiver and mouthing the words ‘bloody creatives’ to whoever was nearby.
‘Come on Rich. Total sandbox. How cool is that?’
‘Pretty cool, I guess.’
‘You said it.’ Rupe chuckled. ‘Sex’n’drugs’n’Vera Lynn songs.’
‘Vera Lynn’s Second World War.’
‘Thank Christ for that. Soundtrack would be ghastly otherwise. One last thing, Rich.’
‘What?’
‘Give the mappers plenty to come back to when we’re tinkering with the mods.’
What a joy that was going to be, Richard thought, imagining playing the game and discovering handfuls of secret – and probably semi-pornographic scenes – embedded in it. Scenes which DaCapo could express open-eyed surprise at when their attention was drawn to them by the appalled parents of underage players.
‘Sure, Rupe.’
‘Great. Well, cheerybye. That’s what you lot say up there, isn’t it? Cheerybye Rich.’
‘Cheerybye,’ Richard echoed, returning the phone to its cradle.
He typed a name into Google, punctuated with a brisk tap on the return key. He was conscious that if someone was watching, it would seem as if he was conducting part of his research, pinning down some vital snippet in order to complete the Ypres build up. Except that the results that popped up didn’t have anything to do with the war, and besides, he knew them almost by heart already. A BT sales manager in Hull. An inorganic chemist at the University of North Texas. A lawyer specialising in matters pertaining to fraud and tax evasion. Third place in the under-sixteen Harriers at an inter-schools competition in Galloway. Nothing new. Nothing about Luke.
He sigh
ed and flipped a fresh sheet onto his board, drew a rectangle in which he scrawled ‘LEAVE’. From it he backtracked an arrow to: ‘Killed x number of opposing forces/forced a retreat’. He added ‘Medical/wounded’, then, scraping the bottom of the barrel, ‘Strategic reasons’. There might be some fun to be had with Rupe’s fleshpots after all. Richard turned back to his computer, keyed another name into his search engine, clicked on the fourth result down. His old roommate Calum Peterson, now doing postdoctoral research in high energy particle physics. A familiar university crest in one corner of the page, and a picture of Calum looking happier – and geekier – than Richard could ever remember seeing him, despite the onset of male pattern baldness. A photo of a baby, eyes closed, under News. Links to websites devoted to Buffy and the Lord of the Rings beneath those to partner institutions and publications. If Richard had a memory for surnames he’d have searched for other past contemporaries too, exploiting the impunity of the cyber stalker, nudging his way towards some kind of revelation, reassurance of a satisfactory life ahead.
0
Another day in paradise, Luke said, as we walked through campus, ready to sign up for our classes. And although perhaps it’s impossible to recognise an idyll if there isn’t a note of unease to throw it into relief, the shady groves and glistering spires seemed intact. We skirted round them on cobbled paths, past those photogenic archways and vennels, until we reached a prospectus-perfect quad. The faint strain of the choir drifting through the chapel walls was almost de trop, like an overcoordinated outfit. Stephanie when she’d waved me goodbye; lips and nails painted peach, matching plastic hairband restraining her first spiral perm.
The mild, early October evening lulled me. Being used to the truly nerve-wracking process of crossing the secondary school playground with its uneven asphalt and myriad no-go areas, I felt entitled here, as though I’d done my penance in advance and could now reap the pleasures. (Me, who’d stuttered my way through the open day at Glasgow, too shy to ask the way to theatre studies.) The central sundial showed it was already gone half four, but we dawdled to the seminar room where we were supposed to meet our new teachers and colleagues.