With my mum waiting in the car with my suitcase while I ‘dropped off a book I’d borrowed’, I kissed Matthew passionately in his kitchen.
He grabbed my wrist firmly and growled in my ear, ‘You’re mine. Don’t forget it.’
I giggled nervously and pecked butterflies on his cheek in reassurance. ‘I’ll call you tonight. I miss you already.’
Back on the street, I slithered into the passenger seat and my mum asked how Matthew was.
‘Fine.’
‘He seemed distracted at the meal; I do hope he and Annabelle aren’t having problems.’
‘Yeah, me too.’
‘They’re such a lovely couple.’
‘Yep.’
She drove me back to the train station and I hugged her before the ticket office.
‘Thanks for a lovely Christmas, Natty.’
‘No, thanks for having me. I had a great time.’
‘Yes, it was fun doing it with friends, wasn’t it?’
‘Yeah, we should do that every year. Bye Mum. Safe drive back.’
‘I don’t want to be a neurotic mother, but do give me a quick call just to let me know you arrived safely.’
‘Sure. Love you.’
‘Love you too, darling.’
With a wave, I turned to find my platform. Exchanges like that made my stomach churn. I hadn’t lied; I had had a great Christmas and I did love my mother, enormously. There were just a hundred other things woven between those words, clinging like the most vigorous ivy and poisoning any light, true sentiment with their tar-like deception. I was a bad person. Lying to everyone had become second nature and I viewed it as a necessity for survival, but lying to my mother still left a bitterness on my tongue. I felt she still looked at me with incomprehension; whenever we were tender, she’d search my face questioningly, asking what had happened to the little girl who would tug her jumper to whisper ‘I love you’ and who asked to be read The Tale of Peter Rabbit over and over again? I couldn’t answer her. I didn’t know myself.
By the time my train pulled into Durham, I’d mulled my way through such thoughts and justified my guilt away with quotes from Uncles, images of Matthew and, of course, the anthology of poetry in my handbag. I stepped into my city with an armour of persona protecting my flesh and a curl on my lips betraying my conviction that I knew the truth about love and life and that those around me were mere ghosts, floating aimlessly beneath the parapet.
I marched through the city, dragging my wheeled suitcase over cobbles and kerbs, up the hill to my college. Relieved to find no one in my kitchen, I raced to the third floor, fiddled with my lock, slammed the door and opened my laptop. I was feeling confident. I was feeling sexy and in control. I was feeling debauched and desirous. I logged on to Gaydar.
10
I waited for Gemma in a pool of lamplight on a cobbled corner, imagining that the atmosphere was so charged this must be the night I’d fall in love. After sifting through profiles, rejecting the sordid, the butch, the old, the couples and the frankly weird, I’d been left with a petite girl with vociferous opinions about gay rights and a love for Grace Jones. Seeing she studied in Durham too, but on the Stockton campus, I’d sent a nervous email suggesting we meet, imagining she wouldn’t pick it up for a week, but hoping she’d like my artistic black-and-white profile picture.
She’d replied immediately. She was online. She’d love to meet me. How about tomorrow?
I’d gone to bed dreaming of yellow days holding hands in parks and scarlet nights under silk sheets. I wore Doc Martens and an elastic rainbow belt. She was late, but that was okay; she’d have a perfect excuse. Every time someone approached, my heart beat faster as I imagined their shadowy lips on mine, then slowed as they passed and turned the corner.
Finally, as I was fiddling with my bag in the hopes of feeling less stupid for standing there doing nothing, I heard someone squeak, ‘Harriet?’
A ‘Yes’ was out of my lips in an anticipatory pant before I’d even managed to look up. My eyes settled on a girl who looked about twelve; my heart found its way to my socks.
She was a good three or four inches shorter than me – quite something as I’m only 5'1". And her arms somehow reached to her knees, making her look like a primate.
I could imagine Matthew’s cruel laugh in my ear: ‘Oh Baba, what are you doing with that?!’
Feeling terrible for having such a shallow reaction to her appearance, I followed her to a pub. It was full of students she knew and I was paraded around, mortified to be introduced as her date, especially to the dozens of truly attractive women that seemed to be swamping the bar.
I made excruciating small talk for the duration of one pint, my horror mounting exponentially as I noted her hideous leather jacket, 1980s mullet and single stud earring. With an over-the-top yawn, I lied that I had a 9.15 seminar and bolted to the door before she could offer to walk me home or hug me goodbye. On the way back, I flicked from guilt to amusement to despair and back again. Matthew would laugh and I might even tell Tim that I’d seriously thought monkeys were invading, but for all the future entertainment the night might provide, I was still heading home alone, still stuck staring at women in magazines and never getting close to them.
Term started a week later, and logging-in to my email at 8am on the first Monday, I found a message from the Office of International Studies asking me to attend an interview for the Durham–Rosella exchange scheme.
The porter directed me through a narrow door and up a shadowy staircase to a long corridor of academic offices I’d never seen before. Four minutes early, I knocked nervously at Professor Beck’s door.
‘Come in.’
I turned the metal knob and stepped into a cramped but well-lit office with bookcases on three walls, a solid desk by the window and two worn yellow armchairs filling the rest of the floor-space.
‘You must be Natalie.’
‘Yes,’ I smiled. I hesitated, then held out my hand.
Professor Beck was in his late fifties; a skinny, suited man with a white beard and white hair, both flecked with their original black. ‘Thank you so much for your application. I don’t know if you know, but we didn’t get a huge response. In fact, it’s just between you and one other girl.’
‘Oh,’ I was surprised. My pride at being selected for interview plummeted, but the simultaneous realisation that my odds were as good as a coin toss balanced my nervous excitement.
‘Yes, quite disappointing really, but no matter. I’m just going to interview you very informally about what you’d like to get out of the exchange and what you think you can bring to it. Then we hope to have a decision within a couple of weeks.’
‘Great.’ I smiled dumbly once more. My mind was rebelling and dredging mortifying memories of my Cambridge interview, reminding me that despite all my As and my perfection on paper, I had never actually won anything I’d been interviewed for. What would it be like to be rejected even when the odds were 50:50?
‘The first thing I need to ask you is how much you know about where you’re going?’ Professor Beck began.
‘Oh, well, I looked on a map of course, um, and I read some of Rosella’s website,’ I lied, thinking those were exactly the sorts of things I should have done and realising I’d probably blown it already.
‘Oh good,’ Professor Beck smiled. ‘Because one of the things we’re worried about is how the student will adjust to the location. It’s very rural, not like being in Durham at all. How do you think you’ll cope with that?’
‘Oh, not a problem. I grew up in a tiny town of 5,000.’ You hated growing up in the countryside, I argued silently with myself, do you really want to apply for this? ‘I mean, I like being in Durham, being in a city, but I certainly don’t need it, especially if there’s a campus full of activities going on.’
‘Right, excellent. And how do you think you’ll cope with being at a women’s college?’
You what?! How did you miss that?! ‘I-I don’t think it will be a probl
em.’ I swallowed. ‘I get on with both sexes anyway.’ Not really true. All your friends are boys; you just wish you got on with girls so you could date them. ‘And I think it would be interesting to see a different kind of academic environment.’ It’s probably going to be horrific and bitchy. Full of prissy public school kids with rich parents. Do you even like Americans? You’ve never wanted to go to America before. What if they’re all like Kirsten Dunst in Mona Lisa Smile? You haven’t thought this through at all.
‘Yes. Very good. And academically, you’d have to do some classes that would relate to those you would be doing if you stayed here in your second year.’
‘Of course, that’s fine.’
‘Our students who study in America tend to find the workload is much heavier there, but perhaps not as vigorous – there seems to be less onus on you to do individual research, but you’ll take up to four classes per semester. The school day at Rosella runs from 8am to 9pm and you’d probably have one or two classes every day. How do you think you would find that after the schedule here?’
Christ, eight in the morning?! ‘Oh, I’m sure that would be fine. I enjoy the personal research assigned here, but I’d also enjoy a wider range of subjects. I think I’d like taking four classes a semester.’
‘And they wouldn’t all have to be in the English department, or even necessarily at Rosella. As I’m sure you’ve discovered in your research, there’s a free bus connecting Rosella to a neighbouring college. There’s some kind of alliance, so students can study at both. There really are many benefits to the Liberal Arts system.’
‘Excellent.’ You have no idea what he was just talking about, do you?
‘Do you have any questions for me?’
‘Um.’ Shit, you should have prepared something; they told you that in the careers workshop. You’re crap at this. ‘Well, is there support for getting out there? Applying for a visa and such? Because I’ve no idea how that works.’
‘Oh yes, should you be successful, you’ll work closely with the Office of International Studies to sort all of that out. Part of the terms of the exchange dictates that the student must use a specific medical insurer, and we’ll sort it out so the candidate pays tuition fees and accommodation here in Durham, plus probably a stipend for food for the exchanging student because over there you’d be on a meal plan. So, really, most of it is laid out for you.’
‘Great. As long as there are people to talk to.’
‘Yes, and you’d have a liaison while you’re out there. We don’t want you just running off and never getting in touch.’
‘Sure.’
‘We also have to ask you to prove you can afford it.’
‘Right.’
‘Though most of the fees will be paid to Durham, there will be other expenses like flights and things, so you’ll need a little more than you’d require for a year here. Do you have the funds?’
‘Um, yes, I mean I have student loans and everything, but I’ve also got some savings from an inheritance from my grandparents.’
‘Great. Well, should you be successful, we’ll need to see a bank statement just to prove you won’t run out of money halfway through the year and not be able to afford your flight home.’
‘Of course.’
‘Okay, well I think that’s sufficient for now. I’ll be in touch in the next couple of weeks.’
‘Yes, thank you. Goodbye.’
I left Professor Beck’s office feeling deflated. How bland could an interview be? Had I said anything remotely intelligent? Surely the other girl would shine and prove her perfection. Would it matter? Did I really want to go to a place in the middle of nowhere full of spoilt girls? So what if I just stayed at Durham?
But, as unprepared as I’d been for the interview and as little as I knew about Rosella, part of me was truly disappointed. For some reason I wasn’t telling myself, I really did want to go. I wanted to fly a long way away to a place no one knew me, a place I could start again.
‘Hiya,’ I said softly, knowing only Matthew, my mum and my dad knew my halls phone number and that neither of my parents ever called unless I rang them first.
‘Natalie?’ It was a man’s voice but not Matthew’s.
‘Yes,’ I tried to rectify my previous informality by standing up straight beside my desk, flattening my pyjamas over my stomach.
‘It’s Professor Beck.’
‘Oh, hello.’ It’s only been two days, I thought. He must have hated you and decided to reject you already.
‘I have good news. We’ve made a decision and you’re going to America next year.’
‘Oh.’ It slipped out before I could form a thought. ‘Wow.’ Shit. What are you going to tell Matthew?
‘Yes, I hope you’re pleased. Listen, I won’t keep you long. Why don’t you pop in to see me during office hours tomorrow and we’ll discuss what needs to be organised first.’
‘Uh, okay. Thanks.’
‘Congratulations, Natalie. See you tomorrow.’
And with that, I was alone in my bedroom, holding a dial tone to my ear and wondering what I was meant to be feeling.
‘Wow Natty, that’s great. I can’t believe you kept that a secret. I’m so happy for you,’ my mum trilled into the receiver.
‘New York State, that’s where I worked for a few years back in the eighties. Very nice,’ my dad’s voice betrayed a sense of pride that his words did not.
‘You what? Are you fucking with us? What about housing for next year?’ muttered my housemates collectively.
‘That’s cool and everything, but I’ll miss you,’ said Tim, squeezing my knee.
‘Cool. By the way, I got past the robot at the end of level four last night,’ my brother responded via email.
‘When were you going to tell me?’ This was the conversation I had been dreading. ‘Did nothing you said over Christmas mean anything? You knew this might be happening, yet you came into my house and told me you wanted to be with me always. You can’t even cope with being on a campus a few hundred miles away without me ringing you every night, what do you think you’re doing moving to America? Do you have no regard for my feelings at all? You selfish little child. I keep beginning to think you might be an Uncle, then you go off and do something like this, or fuck puny little Rudolph or whatever his name is. Are you ever going to learn?’
He went on. We argued for days and he sent me regular updates about how our fight was affecting his health, how he’d spent the afternoon in bed because his back had seized up through stress, how Annabelle was wailing at him to see a doctor.
Rose joined in. She told me I was selfish and disrespectful, hurtful and cruel. Among her chastisements, however, were smatterings of excitement, including: ‘Rosella? I’ve heard of those places. Along with Smith and the other girly colleges. They’re meant to be full of hot little lesbians. God, you’re going to have an amazing time, you’ll be eaten alive. I’m so jealous – you’re still a little bitch, though, and you should have thought about how this would affect Matthew.’
Of course, eventually we made up. It took another trip to the nearest Travelodge and a few more digital pictures of my vagina flashed from beneath a pleated mini-skirt, but Matthew forgave me and we began to plan how we could spend my holidays hiring a car and tracing Jack Kerouac’s route. Obviously it would be difficult for Matthew to leave England for a whole year to be with me, but he would shuffle things and find a couple of months in the summer, perhaps a few weeks over Christmas too. Rosella wasn’t far from Manhattan: we could stay there and see shows, then jet off to LA to meet Rose and hang out in her plush showbiz world.
Making plans was exciting. We told Rose. She repeated that Rosella would be full of little girls gagging for me, and Matthew laughed that it was okay as long as I saved some for him. I was quiet at these moments. I wasn’t sure if Rose meant what she was saying. I couldn’t imagine any place having open lesbians like she described and, anyway, on the map I’d finally consulted, the college was in the middle of a bun
ch of fields and forests, so it seemed more likely to resemble Treyford than Tipping the Velvet. I talked myself out of believing her, but I still fantasised that she might be right; that at this strange place I might find a girl to touch lips, hold hands and play under duvets with.
11
The rest of my term was spent filling in visa application forms and discussing payment plans with the registrar and the housing office. I handed in an essay about Keats and Shelley, then headed home for the long Easter break. Thinking about the flights I’d soon have to book, I got a job at the local pub. My holiday would be spent serving IPA to sad saggy old men at 11.30 in the morning before they plodded off to their factory jobs, glasses of house red to the secretaries being bought lunch by their bosses and Smirnoff Ices to kids who might not have been eighteen but looked older than me.
For my first day off from the pub, my mum booked tickets to see Hedda Gabler in London. Early in the morning, five of us piled into her red Fiesta. Matthew and Annabelle were meant to come and we would have taken two cars, but Matthew’s back had played up in the night and they’d called off. Instead of perching happily in the back seat of their car, gossiping about the neighbours or making crude comments about the people in passing cars, I found myself sandwiched between Beatrice and Valerie, while Bob occupied the passenger seat.
We probably had lunch and maybe saw some art; it’d be safe to say Bob ordered a large glass of wine and Beatrice joined him; and perhaps we discussed what a shame it was that Matthew and Annabelle hadn’t come and whether we’d be able to give their tickets to the box office for resale. But none of that really sticks in my head. What I remember from the day is climbing the plush stairs to the dress circle and peering through the half-light at the letters on the sides of the seats, then picking my way to the centre of row B and briefly meeting the eye of a wavy-haired blonde as I lowered myself into my seat.
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