Student

by David Belbin

  But I’m not that desperate. At a hall party last weekend, I went back to what I thought was a girl’s room to smoke some weed, but the girl (name forgotten) disappeared into the adjoining room and I found myself with a long-haired biker type, who gave me a slim line of coke, then got his prick out and asked me to lick it. I was out of there faster than you can say eeugh. I had other offers that night but the coke made me edgy and I think I must have slagged off the guys who tried to chat me up. I had to drink loads before I came down enough to sleep. Vic says I was advocating compulsory castration for even the mildest forms of sexual harassment.

  ‘I don’t think speed agrees with you,’ Vic told me.

  ‘He said it was coke.’

  ‘I know that greaser. He’s too hard up to fork out for coke. It would have been sulphate.’

  ‘Perhaps I’d better avoid both in future.’

  ‘I would if I were you. You turned pretty scary.’

  May’s nearly over. The exams are a week away and neither of us have a place to live next year. Vic knows this guy called Paul. They met at Gaysoc. He seems all right and is in the same position as us, but three’s an even more awkward number. There are small houses we could rent a fair way out, in places like Long Eaton, but the ones near University Park all have five or six bedrooms. Vic and I go to an agency, who offer us bedsits: city centre, purpose-built, pile-’em-high, student cages. Paul contacts an old school Asian landlord who has houses in Lenton. There’s one, he’s told, where only a couple of people are staying on next year. We say we’ll see it that evening.

  The Derby Road runs from the university to the edge of the city, a long, steep hill. Albert Grove is near the top, in Lenton Sands. We get there early and walk past the house, which is halfway down on the left, to the pub, the Old Peacock, at the bottom of the street. There are a few shops, including a supermarket and a chippy.

  ‘This could suit,’ Paul says. We agree to check out the pub after we’ve seen the house.

  The guy who lets us in has a beard and a slight stoop, probably due to his height. He’s at least a foot taller than me. ‘Mr Soar told me to expect you,’ he says. ‘Shall I make us a brew while we wait for him?’

  He’s a second year called Finn. I want to quiz him about why he hasn’t got three mates of his own to invite into the house. While I’m trying to think of a tactful way to do this, Vic wades in.

  ‘You say three people are leaving. Why haven’t you got some mates lined up to move in?’

  ‘Tess is a fourth year medic, like me. Our friends have already got houses.’

  My mother would be impressed if she knew I was living with doctors, even trainee ones.

  ‘Can you take us round?’ Paul asks.

  ‘I don’t suppose the others would mind.’

  The house is on the shabby side of dingy. Finn explains that he and Tess plan to move into the two downstairs rooms next year. We nod as though this is the most natural thing in the world, although I’m not sure I’d want a front-facing, ground floor bedroom. At the moment, the front room seems to be a living room, with a sofa, telly and DVD player.

  The landlord arrives when we’re up in the attic room, which isn’t too big, but has a skylight and a window looking out onto the street and the house opposite. You can lean out and see who’s at the front door. I want it.

  ‘What do you think?’ Mr Soar asks.

  ‘How long can we have to think about it?’ Paul wants to know.

  ‘I show another group round tomorrow evening,’ Mr Soar says. If you call my mobile before then, the rooms are yours. If not...’ He shrugs theatrically.

  We would like to meet Tess, our other putative housemate, but she’s not back from university yet, Finn says. He gives us his mobile number, so we can call him if there’s anything else we want to know, then we go down to the pub to talk it over.

  It’s one of those pubs that must have once been a proper local only now students have taken it over, on both sides of the bar. The beer is cheap and so is the food. There’s a queue for the pool table. As Paul is buying the drinks, I overhear the people at the next table.

  ‘Think they’ll have gone by now?’ the woman says. I assume, wildly but, as it turns out, correctly, that they are talking about us.

  ‘Give it another five minutes,’ a bloke says.

  Vic starts to say something. I put a finger to my lips and jerk my head in their direction.

  ‘I hope he changed his socks before they turned up,’ a bloke says.

  ‘God, I won’t miss the smell of his feet,’ says the girl.

  ‘How do you think Tessa stands it?’ A second bloke asks. ‘I was sitting next to him in the cinema last week. It was like stale gorgonzola wafting at me all evening. I nearly puked.’

  ‘Tess told me she got him to wear odour eaters,’ the girl says, ‘but that doesn’t work in bed. She has to change the sheets twice a week.’

  ‘Is that why they’re always down the laundrette? I assumed they were having lots of...’

  ‘I thought Tessa was one of those women who liked to sit on the washing machine with her legs wide open when it was on full spin and, you know...’ the first bloke says and the girl cackles loudly so that some people look round, which gives me an excuse to do the same. The second bloke, who has a goatee, isn’t laughing. The first guy is squeezing the woman’s knee beneath the table. These three look like medics, in that they’re more middle class and seem better off than most students. They have a supercilious sheen that makes me want to smack them. I didn’t get that vibe from Finn (or notice any smell coming from his feet). He’s more of a hippy. And if Tess or Tessa goes out with him, presumably she’s OK too. Paul returns with the drinks. Vic puts a finger to her mouth and hisses, ‘Next table. The other people from the house.’

  They’ve gone quiet. I’m consumed by an urge to confront them. Or at least embarrass them a little. I do that sometimes. Mark calls these my fuckitall moments.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I say, and the woman looks in my direction. She can’t be more than two years older than me but her expression says I don’t belong in her world. I haven’t decided what I’m going to say to her. Vic and Paul are having kittens. They really want this house, I can tell.

  ‘Do you live round here? Only we’re thinking of moving up the hill.’

  ‘Which road?’ Guy number one wants to know.

  ‘Albert Grove.’

  ‘Good street,’ he says. ‘Not too busy. Some of them are used as cut throughs by, you know, commuters.’

  ‘Which university are you at?’ the woman asks.

  ‘The one down the road.’

  ‘It’s walkable. Bit of a drag in winter.’

  ‘I’m getting a car,’ I say. ‘That’s the main thing I’m worried about. Is it likely to get broken into, nicked?’

  ‘I’d get an alarm if I were you,’ says bloke number one. ‘I got my window smashed in once, but that could happen just about anywhere.’

  ‘I guess you’re right.’

  They leave, without volunteering that they live up the road or offering us any unsolicited advice.

  ‘Condescending prats,’ Vic says.

  ‘They seemed all right to me,’ Paul responds. ‘Why should they tell us any more than we asked?’

  ‘Think they realised what we were doing here?’ I ask.

  ‘Don’t suppose they care,’ Paul says. ‘So what do you reckon? House seems all right to me.’

  ‘I’d like to meet Tessa,’ Vic says.

  ‘She’s straight,’ Paul says. ‘Why do you care what she’s like?’

  ‘She might be a psycho.’

  ‘Or a smelly foot fetishist,’ I point out. ‘I’d like to invite her and Finn down for a drink. Think she’s back yet?’

  Finn said earlier that he was expecting her. It’s been twenty minutes. I dial his number.

  ‘We’re in the Old Peacock,’ I say, ‘talking about your house. We wondered if Tessa was back and we could buy you both a drink.’

&nb
sp; He umms and ahs for a moment. ‘Hang on, I’ll speak to Tess.’

  There’s speech in the background. The other three must have just come back. Then Finn’s back on the line. ‘We’ll be ten minutes.’

  While we’re waiting, we discuss our situation. We want this house, provided Tessa turns out to be halfway sane and Finn’s feet don’t turn out to be so toxic they drive us away before we’ve finished our drinks. Vic is keenest. Paul and I spar over who gets the attic room.

  ‘I need my privacy,’ he says. ‘I need to know that nobody’s going to walk past my door and accidentally stumble in.’

  ‘You’re more likely to pick up drunken one night stands than I am. And you might have trouble getting them up the extra flight of stairs. Anyway, if you or Vic has the top room, I’ll be woken up by your bedroom gymnastics.’

  ‘Celibate, are you?’ Paul teases.

  ‘I don’t do one nighters,’ I lie, for the only sex I’ve had so far has been one night stands. ‘And when I do have sex, I’m very quiet.’

  Vic leans over and whispers, sotto voce. ‘She doesn’t have orgasms.’

  Paul laughs and, before I can protest, Finn and Tessa walk in. Tessa is slight, despite her height, and wears a cheeky, face wrinkling grin which I at once suspect is permanent. Without it, she might be very pretty.

  I buy the drinks. Pint for him. Diet Coke for her. When I return to the table, they’re all deep in conversation.

  ‘That was them, the other housemates,’ Vic tells me on my return, as though we were in any doubt over the matter. ‘Tessa just explained why there might be a bit of an atmosphere.’

  I look at Tessa but it’s Finn who speaks. ‘Thing is, when we moved in together, Greg...’

  ‘That’s the one with the goatee,’ Paul says.

  ‘...and Tess were a couple. Then the other two — Jon and Kat — got together and that made things a bit awkward for me, being the singleton. Only, when Greg and Tess split up, she started seeing me and, for some reason, we became like the villains of the house. I didn’t want to explain earlier because it sounds incredibly childish.’

  Tessa looks embarrassed and I get the impression that the move from Greg to Finn wasn’t quite as civilised as Finn has described. A bit of overlap there, I’ll bet, although, if first impressions are enough to go by, she made the right choice.

  ‘Jon and Kat are buying a house together and Greg’s moving in as their lodger to help with the mortgage. Tess and I thought of getting a flat but it would cost a lot more than the house. Also, we like living with other people.’ He turns to Tessa and she nods, reignites the grin. ‘You three seem pretty cool.’

  ‘Vic and I are both gay,’ Paul says, in a slightly sanctimonious tone. ‘So if you’re going to have any problem with that...’

  ‘God no,’ Tessa says, revealing a Liverpudlian accent that I hadn’t been expecting, and wiping the embarrassed grin from her face to reveal a serious, compassionate trainee doctor apologising for the slight pain her rectal examination is about to cause you. ‘I mean, that’s the perfect combination isn’t it — one straight, two gay but of different sexes. It’s really not a good idea, getting off with your housemates, if you can avoid it. Though Finn and me, we’re not really coupley, honest.’

  ‘So it’s settled then,’ Finn says. ‘You’ll ring Mr Soar?’

  We agree that we’ll ring Mr Soar.

  ‘And we promise that none of us will change our sexualities or sleep with anybody in the house that we’re not already sleeping with,’ Paul says.

  Vic and I exchange a cynical glance before raising our glasses.

  ‘Cheers!’

  Keep Your Distance

  I’m not the sort of person who has parties. The last one was when I was thirteen, before my parents’ marriage fell apart. Now Mum’s gone to Spain for a fortnight with a man she met at Alcoholics Anonymous. She’s guilty about missing my birthday.

  ‘It’s OK,’ I tell her. ‘Nineteen’s not a big deal birthday.’

  ‘Go crazy,’ Mum says, knowing that I never would. ‘There’s not much for you to wreck. Just make sure you clean up afterwards.’

  There’s no booze in the house but Dad says he’ll float me. He offered to keep guard in case gatecrashers turn the place into a crack den.

  ‘I don’t want a party,’ I say on the phone. ‘The idea of throwing one turns my stomach.’

  When I see my mates, I keep quiet about Mum being away. Only Mark knows. I told him because I thought it might tempt him to come round. So far it hasn’t worked. He was working at the golf club every day, saving up money for university (presuming he gets a ‘C’ or above in his English retake) and the holiday he’s just taken Helen on. I’m working four days a week at the job centre in Hoylake and also saving up, theoretically, for a holiday. ‘Theoretically’ because I’ve got nobody to go with. Vic and I planned on doing something but she’s skint. The other day she phoned to say there was a crisis.

  ‘Paul’s decided not to move in with us. Someone dropped out of another house and they offered it to him and there are some blokes there who he really gets on with. He said he would have rung you only he knows you’d give him a hard time.’

  ‘Too right I would have done. What now?’

  ‘I’ll go to the accommodation office, maybe put some flyers on noticeboards. That’s if you’re happy to leave it with me.’

  ‘I don’t have much choice.’ For a fleeting moment, I think of Mark, complaining about the cost of his hall of residence place and the inconvenience of living out at Clifton when Helen will be on the other side of the city. ‘You’d better check with Tessa and Finn. They might know someone.’

  ‘If they knew anyone, we wouldn’t be moving in.’

  I daydream of turning up in October to discover a handsome, long-haired prince who loves Kafka, PJ Harvey and me. Nearly nineteen years old and I still have girlish dreams that some guy will sweep me off my feet.

  Zoe Pritchard rings to tell me she’s having a party. Her parents are away so I don’t have to worry about running into her dad. We’ve never been big mates and, after what happened a year ago, I meant to steer clear of her so — naturally — she’s decided that she wants to pal up with me.

  Zoe lives on the other side of The Common, a short walk from the sea. I get a lift over with Joanne Ford. Once I would have walked, but after what happened last summer I’m not willing to risk a twilight stroll through The Common.

  Joanne’s dad drops us off. Zoe answers the door. She greets us with great enthusiasm and, when we get inside, I understand why. Her brother Dom’s mates outnumber hers two to one. The male to female ratio is similar. You can count the number of single women on the fingers of one hand. If I can’t pull tonight, there is something wrong with me.

  Dominic Pritchard, the proud possessor of a lower second in Chemistry, kisses me on the lips like we’re old friends. In the space of pouring me a glass of wine, he introduces me to about a dozen guys. Half of them are already out of it. One immediately offers me an e. I turn it down but accept a joint. Dope relaxes me. It also makes me more distant, less easy to get close to. And this is skunk, which always makes me feel like there’s a thick, dark green forest growing around my thought processes and leaves my clothes smelling like stale brussel sprouts left over from Christmas dinner.

  An hour drifts by. I dance a little. I like to dance. Guys hit on me but when you’re dancing it’s easy to avoid them without giving offence. Let them think I’m loved up and into the music. More people arrive. The lager’s run out but there are still wine boxes and spirits have started emerging. I fill a big glass with vodka, coke and ice, then wander outside. On a moonlight night, like tonight, you can see the sea from the garden. There’s a fresh breeze and my head no longer feels so cooked.

  ‘Allison!’ There’s a gaggle of people from my year in an unlit corner by the fence that separates the garden from The Common. They’re watching Tom Piper have a conversation with an over-sized gnome. This is what passes for
humour in my circle. Tom got popular playing the class clown at the beginning of sixth form (we were all in single sex schools before that) but his act is getting pretty old. Seeing me, he snaps out of it.

  ‘Hey, Allison! Where’s Mark?’

  ‘In Ibiza, with Helen Kent.’

  ‘She’s a gold-digger. It won’t last. He’ll come back to you, hon.’

  ‘Actually, I dumped him, Tom.’

  Jo Ford starts to bitch about Helen, but this is only because Pete Robben dumped her for Helen when she arrived in the lower sixth and Jo has never forgiven her, even though the blame clearly lies with Pete.

  ‘I like Helen,’ I lie. ‘She seems to be good for Mark.’

  ‘You’re always so balanced,’ Phil Jones says. ‘Even though Helen was always trying to get off with Mark when you were going out with him.’

  ‘If she was, I didn’t notice.’ Though Mark probably did. He has better romance radar than me, sussed that Phil and Tom were playing hide the banana long before either of them came out.

  ‘Oh Christ,’ Jo says. ‘Look who’s here!’

  Night is falling fast but that has nothing to do with the shadow that seems to fall across my friends. I recognise one of the two people who have just come through the French doors: Huw Evans, who was in the year above us. I recall there was a story about him when I came back at Easter, but can’t remember what it was. I’m more interested in hearing the story of the guy who’s with Huw. He’s stick thin with a mop of curly, jet black hair and sunken eyes.

  ‘Who’s that with Huw?’ I ask Jo.

  ‘Aidan Kinsale.’

  ‘He’s cute. I don’t remember him from Calday.’

  ‘No, he went to a public school.’

  They’re coming over. Aidan, with his rock star hair and gypsy eyes, has given a face to a long held but very blurred fantasy.