Student

by David Belbin

  ‘It was very hot in there.’

  ‘That’s not what I asked.’

  ‘We went as mates, not... you know.’

  ‘But did you finish with Aidan, like you said were going to?’

  I tell her about Aidan, and about Mark, and by the time we’re done, Steve has returned.

  ‘I’m shattered,’ I say. ‘I’ll leave you two to catch up.’

  I half expect Steve to come upstairs after me, but he doesn’t. I lie in bed reading for what feels like an age, knowing he’s just below me and it’s down to me to make the move, not him. It feels like power. It feels like growing up.

  Exam Season

  I used to knock myself out at exam times in West Kirby, but then I had an incentive: to get away. Now I’m here, I don’t know what I want to do in eighteen months’ time. I only know that it doesn’t involve going back home.

  Finn and Tessa are moving out next month, getting a flat together. So Steve, Vic and I have to decide about the lease. There are a glut of new-build student flats all over the city. The others reckon on getting something cheap, though this house is about as cheap as it gets.

  Steve has a friend who’d like to move in, which would only leave us one short. I’m not sure. Once Finn and Tessa go, we won’t be able to use Tessa’s room as the living room (the big shared kitchen is fine, but you wouldn’t want to spend whole evenings in there). A lot depends on what Vic does. If she stays, then I’ll stay. If she decides to get a place on her own, I’ll do the same.

  As summer term starts, I work late at the library, catch the last bus back from the campus. Sometimes, Steve’s on it. We talk about work. He’s asked me to a couple more gigs and I’ve turned them down. I’m working three nights a week at the bar and need the money too much to switch. But if he asks a third time, I’ll say ‘yes’, whoever the band is. I don’t want to give him the wrong signal. I am interested, but I’m also distracted.

  Tonight, when I get home, Steve’s about to go out, work a late shift at the ticket agency. He’s making tea and does one for me. We sit in the kitchen with the house to ourselves, something that rarely happens in term time. I consider ribbing him about how his one night stands seem to have come to a halt. I rehearse my inquiry. Is he working hard for exams or just going through a bad patch? But he manages to throw me.

  ‘It’s my birthday next week.’

  ‘Really? How are you going to celebrate? Do you want us to throw you a party?’

  ‘Nah. Wrong time of year. Have dinner with me.’

  ‘Where?’ I say, which, I immediately realise, amounts to acceptance.

  ‘Somewhere good. I’ll book a table. Thursday. OK?’

  ‘I can hardly say “no”, can I? But it has to be my treat.’

  ‘No. I choose the restaurant, I pay. If you have a good time, you can take me out and pay the next time. How about that?’

  ‘It’s a deal.’

  As he leaves to go to work, he kisses me. Not on the forehead, but on the cheek, which is a move in the right direction.

  I have to rearrange my shifts to make the date, but they’re OK when I explain it’s my boyfriend’s birthday. I buy Steve a DVD I know he wants to see. And a card with a cool quotation from Frank Sinatra. Then I buy myself new underwear.

  ‘Do you want your present now, or tonight?’ I ask at ten in the morning. I have a lecture to go to. He is making scrambled eggs.

  ‘Depends what it is,’ he says.

  ‘Here.’

  He laughs at the card and gives me a big hug after opening the DVD, a short but moist kiss on the lips.

  ‘See you tonight,’ he says. Vic comes for her lift. I’d offered to take her in the car because she has to return some video equipment she’s been using for a project.

  ‘What was all that about?’ Vic asks in the car. ‘You’re not having a thing with Steve, are you?’

  ‘I’m having dinner with him tonight. It’s his birthday.’

  ‘Oh God, you are having a thing with Steve.’

  ‘I don’t know what I’m doing,’ I say, and it’s the God’s honest truth.

  ‘Me neither,’ Vic says, and starts to tell me about her love life. She’s got a crush on this guy in one of her seminars.

  ‘Guy? Has he got a thing for you?’

  ‘It’s sort of crept up on both of us.’

  ‘And does he know you’re gay?’

  ‘He knows I have leanings both ways and he’s cool with it.’

  ‘You never told me you were bisexual,’ I point out.

  ‘Everyone’s somewhere on the straight-gay continuum. If you grade it one to nine, I’m a six or seven.’

  ‘What would that make Steve?’

  ‘A one or two.’

  I’m forced to agree.

  ‘Not sure about you though,’ Vic says. ‘Where would you place yourself?’

  ‘Dunno. Four maybe.’

  ‘I won’t rule you out then. Four and six make ten, a good number.’

  ‘What are we talking about here? Bisexuality or numerology?’

  After we’ve gone our separate ways, I think about what it would be like to go to bed with Vic. It’s not that I’m bi-curious, as such. But I’ve thought about what it would be like to be with another woman, specifically Helen Kent, though I think that may have a little to do with wanting to go places that Mark has been. Maybe I ought to try it sometime, but I don’t want to spoil my friendship with Vic. Whereas I won’t miss Steve’s company should things go wrong between us. Vic isn’t worked up by the possibility of my sleeping with Steve, so why should I be? Maybe tonight will be his lucky night.

  I’m walking to my lecture, revising my plans about what to wear, when my phone rings. My dad, probably pissed off that I didn’t find time to visit him over Easter, despite the car he bought me. For a moment, I consider rejecting the call, but Dad rings so rarely, I figure this might be important.

  ‘Dad, I’ve got a lecture in two minutes. Sorry I...’

  ‘This is about your mother,’ he interrupts. ‘She’s in hospital.’

  It’s touch and go, Dad says. Driving home, I have to pull over because I can’t concentrate. Crying, I ring Steve.

  ‘Bummer,’ is all he says.

  ‘I’m going to the hospital now,’ I tell him. ‘I’m sorry about the meal.’

  ‘S’OK.’ He doesn’t offer to come with me. Why should he? We’re not going out.

  I don’t know if I can do this. Maybe if I take the train instead. It’s all I can do to drive up the road, pack a bag. Dad said he’d meet me at the hospital. He reminded me that he has a young family to get back to. As if I needed reminding that Mum only has me.

  I don’t know how long to pack for. I have exams round the corner and feel guilty for thinking about them. I put a couple of academic books in the bag anyway.

  I get in the car and start to drive towards the motorway.

  I’m crying again and can’t see properly. I pull over on a double yellow line. Cars hoot as they pass me. I’m blocking a lane. I can’t drive to West Kirby like this, yet I must. I don’t know anyone who can drive me. No, wait. I do.

  Mark is already outside when I get to the hall of residence, his bag packed. A tall girl watches us go and, although I am upset, I wonder if she is Ro, the one he’s been seeing on the side. But I don’t ask.

  We hardly talk on the drive. The weather is foul, with heavy winds and mucky rain. Mark has to concentrate hard.

  I wish the car radio worked. Halfway there the phone rings. I tell my dad where we are.

  ‘Mark’s driving me. Remember...? No, he’s not. OK, so I won’t see you there. Is there any change?’

  ‘How is she?’ Marks asks when he rings off.

  ‘She’s recovered consciousness. It’s too early to say how serious the stroke was. Dad’s going home. Mum recognised him when she came round and his presence agitated her.’

  ‘I’ll bet.’

  ‘Maybe mine will, too.’

  ‘Don’t be daft.’


  Mark has known my mum for three years, since the first year of sixth form, but he only ever sees her on her best behaviour. I have plenty of good memories of Mum, but none are from the last five years. Dad’s affair, the divorce, the aftermath: these things might have brought us together, but Mum’s closest relationship recently has been with the bottle. I always thought she would come through it, that she would sober up and I would finish growing up and we would become whatever an adult mother and daughter should be. Now I don’t even know if she will survive the night.

  I’m not ready to say any of this to Mark. All I can think about is whether she will still be alive when I get there. I am the only child of an only child. Her latest boyfriend fizzled out before Christmas. I am all she has. At least I have somebody who was prepared to drop everything else and come with me. Does my mum have a friend who would do that for her?

  Even in sleep, my mother’s face sags on the left side. Not yet fifty, she looks like an old woman. It’s a cruel caricature. The doctor tells me she might make an eighty percent recovery. It all depends on her, how much she wants it, how hard she works at the rehabilitation, how willing she is to fight. I don’t tell him that all the fight went out of her five years ago. All I ask is: ‘How long before she can go home?’

  He hesitates before replying. ‘A long time. Months, at least. And, you have to prepare yourself, maybe never.’

  I sit with her for an age that, when I look at my watch, turns out to have been half an hour. I am guilty. Guilty for not loving her enough. Guilty for not making her look after herself better. All the drink, no exercise, bad diet, they all contribute, no doctor needs to explain that to me. Her father died early, after two strokes in quick succession.

  ‘I hate hospitals,’ Mark says when I find him in the waiting room. ‘The smell, that tired green colour everywhere, the noise.’

  ‘What noise?’

  ‘It’s more the absence of noise. All the good sounds are missing, you know? Gossip, music, laughter. How is she?’

  I tell him. ‘Will you come home with me?’

  I don’t have to tell him that I don’t want to be alone. He hugs me.

  ‘We can stay at mine if you can’t face home.’

  ‘I have to go. There’ll be things I need to sort out.’

  Mum had the stroke at work, which is how come they were able to get her to the hospital quickly, which saved her life.

  The house is as she left it. Mail waits uncollected on the doorstep. Circulars. A postcard from someone called Jill. Croatia is lovely. A black cat scurries to the side of the fridge and starts whining. There are two empty bowls. I fill one with water, the other with horsemeat from the fridge. How long has Mum had a cat? Next to the cat food, there’s a bottle of white wine, half full. I pour Mark and I a large glass. We’re both hungry. He makes beans on toast while I phone Vic, who’d heard the news from Steve and left me a message. No messages from Steve. I think about ringing Dad but don’t.

  ‘Where do you want me to sleep?’ Mark asks, later.

  The spare bed isn’t made up, and neither is the one in my room. I change the sheets on my mother’s double bed. It’s my bed for now. I ask Mark to sleep with me.

  ‘Just sleep. Just hold me, please. I need to be held tonight.’

  I’m not sure if I really mean this, but Mark takes me at my word. We cuddle for a minute or two, him in boxer shorts, me in T-shirt and knickers. He falls asleep with my left breast as his pillow. I don’t. My mind races. After a while, he’s heavy on me. I turn over, pulling myself from beneath him, then drag his free arm around me. He seems to understand what I want and snuggles up to me without waking. His warm, steady breathing on my neck soothes me, but I still can’t sleep. After a long while, the door squeaks, and I curse myself for not closing it properly. I will have to get up, or it will bug me, but if I do, I will lose Mark’s tender embrace.

  There’s another noise, a rapid, heavy padding, then the cat jumps onto the bed. Mark doesn’t stir. The cat curls itself into a ball on top of the covers, beside my tummy. It begins to purr.

  Protected on both sides, I cry for a while, then something inside me clicks and I am able to fall into numb, dreamless sleep.

  In the morning, Mum is awake but doesn’t recognise me. She seems more familiar with Mark, although it’s hard to tell her smile from her grimace. I try to talk to her but we were never too good at casual conversations even when she was all there.

  ‘This is hopeless,’ I tell Mark outside the hospital. ‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.’

  ‘You ought to talk to your dad. There’s stuff to sort out.’

  He’s right. I need to talk to my dad or a solicitor and since my dad works with lawyers I’d be foolish not to call him. I haven’t got the money to pay a solicitor or the time to queue for an appointment at the Citizens Advice Bureau. I phone Dad at the office and he agrees to come over in his lunch hour.

  ‘What’s he like, your dad?’ Mark asks. ‘You never talk about him.’

  ‘Not a bit like you.’

  I mean this as a compliment but Mark takes it weirdly so I elaborate.

  ‘He’s a couple of years younger than my mum. They had an affair when she was my dad’s secretary at this firm of accountants in Hoylake. Dad was with his first wife, who he met at uni. Then Mum got pregnant with me and he did the decent thing. He got a divorce and married Mum as soon as he could, when I was six months old. Fourteen years later, he did the same thing all over again, although this time he waited to marry his secretary before he got her pregnant.’

  ‘You told me some of that before. But what’s he actually like?’

  ‘He’s my dad. I used to idolise him. Then I didn’t. I don’t know what he’s like, not really. Stick around. You’ll meet him.’

  Dad shows up and proceeds to treat Mark like he’s my boyfriend even though I said on the phone that he’s not. We talk about money, about means tests, power of attorney, disability allowance, pensions. Dad offers to look through all of Mum’s personal papers but I know how betrayed she’d feel if she found out that I’d let him.

  ‘I’ll do it. Just tell me what to look for.’

  Dad talks about how to hide money, if the worst comes to the worst, about forging signatures and closing down accounts so the government can’t take everything Mum has to pay for nursing home fees. It’s too much information, too soon.

  ‘There’s nothing we can do about the house, I’m afraid. Your mother could linger for years, until all the money’s gone. Do you know how much you’re allowed to have before the means test kicks in? Fuck all.’

  ‘Why are you writing her off so quickly?’

  ‘Somebody has to look at the dark side. It’s your interests I’m protecting.’

  He takes a look at the Mini he bought me, silently remarking the two scratches I got while trying to park. Then he makes polite conversation with Mark about his course, his parents, when we are going back to Nottingham. After he’s left, I ask Mark if Dad was what he was expecting.

  ‘Not really. He reminds me of that bloke in your house, the one who’s so sure of himself.’

  ‘Finn?’

  ‘No. The other one. Steve.’

  ‘Steve’s nothing like my dad.’

  ‘Your dad seems all right. I mean, obviously he cheated on your mum and all that, but if you damn all the people who’ve cheated, it wouldn’t leave many, would it?’

  We’re on shaky ground, for I know that Mark cheated on Helen with me, and with Ro, but I’m not going to let him defend my dad so easily.

  ‘If people make a promise not to cheat, they should stick to it.’

  ‘He was married to someone else when he got your mum pregnant with you. Would you rather he stayed with his first wife, persuaded your mum to have an abortion? You’re holding on to a lot of bitterness, Allison. You’ve got to let it go. One day, he might be all the family you have.’

  ‘Better to start from scratch, then.’

  Mark gives m
e a funny look. When we started going out I told him I never wanted kids. I used fear of accidental pregnancy as one of my main arguments for not sleeping with him.

  ‘Does that mean you want kids some day?’

  ‘I don’t know what I want.’ I use the tears tactic and he gives me a hug. Then I ask him to take me home.

  ‘To Nottingham or West Kirby?’

  ‘Both.’

  We get back to Nottingham just after ten. This was meant to be my first weekend going out with Steve, but he’s nowhere to be seen. I invite Mark in for a drink (I pilfered a bottle of brandy from Mum’s. She’ll hardly miss it.).

  ‘I’ll take you again, if you want,’ he offers.

  ‘I can drive myself in future. It’s just that, the other day, I was so upset.’

  ‘We could go over in a week or two. I’m due a home visit before the summer break anyway. We could share the driving.’

  ‘That’d be good.’

  He finishes his drink. ‘Do you want me to stop the night?’

  I hesitate. There is no sexual nuance to his offer, but where Mark and I are concerned, sex is always an open question. If Mark stops the night, and Steve finds out, he will assume that Mark and I are lovers, and that will do for me and Steve. I would be better off with Mark than with Steve. But how would I feel if Mark dumped me for Ro, or the return of Helen? We are better off as we are. Every girl needs at least one good male friend, one she will never sleep with or — even better — has already slept with, so the sexual tension is out of the way.

  There’s a whining noise from the basket in the corner of my bedroom. I let the cat out. It has long, wild hair streaked red and black and bares its teeth before seeming to recognise me. Tentatively, I reach to stroke its neck.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I tell Mark. ‘I’ve got company.’

  Meet ze Monsta

  Two months after the stroke, there’s little change in Mum. When I visit, she barely knows I’m there. I keep going. I talk to her, more than I have talked to her for years. Not that I have much to say. I tell her about the cat. Monsta had no flea collar or name tag until practical Tessa insisted on both. She got named by default, after a PJ Harvey song, since I don’t know what Mum called her. She can’t take in a word I say, so the name of the cat is irrelevant.