Starter for Ten

by David Nicholls

  Mum comes in, then knocks.

  “Morning, sleepyhead. Big day today!”

  “Don't you ever knock, Mum?”

  “I do knock!”

  “No, you come in, and then you knock. That's not knocking….”

  “So? You're not doing anything are you?” She leers.

  “No, but—”

  “Don't say you've got a girl in there with you,” and she tugs at the corner of the duvet. “Come on, sweetheart, don't be embarrassed, let's talk about it. Come out, come out, whoever you are.”

  I yank the duvet back over my head. “I'll be down in a minute.”

  “It smells in here, actually smells, did you know that?”

  “Can't hear you, Mum….”

  “Smells like boys. What do boys actually do to make a smell like that?”

  “Just as well I'm leaving then, isn't it?”

  “What time's your train?”

  “Twelve-fifteen.”

  “So why are you still in bed, then? Here; a going-away present for you …” And she throws a carrier bag onto the duvet cover. I open it; inside is a see-through plastic tube, the kind you get tennis balls in, but here containing three tightly balled-up pairs of men's cotton briefs in red, white and black, the colors of the Nazi flag.

  “Mum, you shouldn't have.…”

  “Oh, it's only little.”

  “No, I mean I wish you hadn't.”

  “Don't be clever, young man. Just get up. You've got packing to do. And open a window please.”

  After she's gone, I shake the underpants out of the plastic tube onto the duvet, relishing the potent solemnity of the occasion. For, truly, these are the Last Underpants My Mother Will Ever Buy Me. The white ones are okay, and I can see the black ones having a certain durability, but red? Are they meant to seem a bit racy or something? To me, red underpants are underpants that say “Stop” and “Danger.”

  But in a bold spirit of adventure, I get out of bed and pull on the red underpants. What if they're like The Red Shoes, and I can never take them off ? I hope not, because when I check the effect in the wardrobe mirror it looks as if I've been shot in the groin. I pull on yesterday's trousers anyway, and with woolly teeth and sweet-and-sour breath, and still a little woozy from last night's Skol, I head downstairs for breakfast. Then I'll just have a bath, then pack, then go. I can't believe I'm actually leaving. I can't believe that I'm allowed.

  But of course the big challenge today is to pack, leave the house and get on the train without Mum saying the words, “Your dad would have been proud of you.”

  A Tuesday night in July, still bright outside, and the curtains are half-drawn so we can see the telly properly. I'm in my pajamas and dressing gown after a bath, smelling slightly of Dettol, concentrating hard on the Airfix 1/72 scale Lancaster Bomber on a tea tray in front of me. Dad's just got in from work, he's drinking a can of bitter, and the smoke from his cigarette hangs in the evening sunlight.

  “Your starter question for ten points: Which British sovereign was the last to see active military combat?”

  “George the Fifth,” says Dad.

  “George the Third,” says Wheeler, Jesus College, Cambridge.

  “Correct. Your bonus round begins with a question on geology.”

  “Know anything about geology, Bri?”

  “A bit,” I say boldly.

  “Crystalline or glassy in appearance, which of the three main classes of rock is formed by the cooling and solidification of molten earth matter?”

  I know this, I'm sure I know this. “Volcanic!” I say.

  “Igneous,” says Armstrong, Jesus, Cambridge.

  “Correct.”

  “Nearly,” says Dad.

  “Igneous rocks which contain large conspicuous crystals called phenocrysts are said to be what in texture?”

  Have a stab. “Granular,” I say.

  Johnson, Jesus, Cambridge, says, “Porphyritic?”

  “Correct.”

  “Almost,” says Dad.

  “Porphyria's Lover, in which the protagonist strangles his beloved with a braid of her hair …”—hang on, I do know this one—“is a narrative poem by which Victorian poet?” Robert Browning. We did it in English last week. It's Browning, I know it is.

  “Robert Browning!” I say, trying hard not to shout.

  “Robert Browning?” says Armstrong, Jesus, Cambridge.

  “Correct!” and there's applause for Armstrong, Jesus, Cambridge, from the studio audience, but we both know that the applause is really for me.

  “Bloody hell, Bri, how d'you know that?” says Dad.

  “I just know it,” I say. I want to look around and see his face, to see if he's smiling—he doesn't smile much, not after work, anyway—but I don't want to look smug, so I just stay still and watch his sunlit reflection in the telly screen. He draws on his fag, then lays his cigarette hand lightly on the top of my head, like a cardinal, smooths my hair down with his long, yellow-tipped fingers, and says:

  “You'll be on there one day if you're not careful,” and I smile to myself and feel clever and smart and right about something for a change.

  Of course, then I get cocky, and try answering every question, and get every question wrong, but it doesn't matter because for once I got something right, and I know one day I'll get it right again.

  I think it's fair to say that I've never been a slave to the fickle vagaries of fashion. It's not that I'm antifashion, it's just that of all the major youth movements I've lived through so far, none have really fitted. At the end of the day, the harsh reality is that if you're a fan of Kate Bush, Charles Dickens, Scrabble and University Challenge, then there's not much out there for you in terms of a youth movement.

  That's not to say I haven't tried. For a while I used to lie awake and worry that I might be a Goth, but I think that was just a phase. Besides, being a male Goth basically means dressing up as an aristocratic vampire, and if there's one thing that I'm never going to convince as, it's an aristocratic vampire. I just don't have the cheekbones. Also, being a Goth means that you have to listen to the music, which is unspeakable.

  So that was pretty much my only brush with youth culture. I suppose you could say that my own personal sense of style might best be described as informal yet classic. I favor the pleated cotton slack over denim, but dark denim over light. Overcoats should be heavy, long and with the collar worn up, scarves should be lightly tasseled, black or burgundy, and are essential from early September through to late May. Shoes must be thinsoled and not too pointy, and (very important, this) only black or brown shoes to be worn with jeans.

  But I'm also not afraid to experiment, especially now I'm getting my chance to reinvent myself. So with Mum and Dad's old suitcase lying open on the bed, I go through some of the new purchases that I've been saving for this special day. First up is my new donkey jacket, an incredibly dense, black heavy thing that's a bit like wearing a donkey. I'm pretty pleased with it, and the implied mix of artiness and rough-handed labor—“Enough of this Shelley, I'm off to Tarmac something.”

  Then there's the five granddad shirts, assorted shades of white and blue, which I got for £1.99 each on a day-trip up to Carnaby Street with Tone and Spencer. Spencer hates these, but I think they're great, especially combined with the black waistcoat, which I got secondhand for three quid from Help the Aged. I've had to hide the waistcoat from Mum, not because she's got anything against The Aged as such, but because she thinks secondhand is common and one step away from picking up food off the floor. What I'm aiming for with this waistcoat/granddad shirt/round spectacles combination is the look of a shell-shocked young army officer with a stammer and a notebook full of poetry who's been sent back from the brutalities of The Front, but is fulfilling his patriotic duty by working on a farm in a remote Gloucestershire village, where he's treated with gruff suspicion by the locals, but secretly loved from afar by the vicar's beautiful, bookish, suffragette daughter, who's into pacifism, vegetarianism and bisexuality. T
his really is a great waistcoat. And, besides, it's not secondhand, it's vintage.

  Then there's Dad's brown corduroy jacket. I lay it flat on the bed and fold the arms carefully across the chest. There's a slight tea stain on the front from a couple of years ago, when I made the mistake of wearing it to a school disco. I know that could be seen as a bit morbid, but I thought it might be a nice gesture, a sort of tribute. I probably should have asked Mum first, though, because when she saw me standing in front of the mirror dressed in Dad's jacket, she screamed and threw a mug of tea at me. When she finally realized it was just me, she burst into tears and lay on the bed weeping for half an hour, which I have to tell you is a real boost just before a party. And when she'd calmed down, and I actually got to the disco, I had the following conversation with the love-of-my-life that week, Janet Parks.

  ME: Slow-dance, Janet?

  JANET PARKS: Nice jacket, Bri.

  ME: Thanks!

  JANET PARKS: Where d'you get it?

  ME: It's my dad's!

  JANET PARKS: But isn't your dad … dead?

  ME: Yep!

  JANET PARKS: So you're wearing your dead dad's jacket?

  ME: That is correct. So, about that dance?

  … And at this point Janet put her hand in front of her mouth, and drifted off and started pointing and whispering in the corner with Michelle Thomas and Sam Dobson, then went and got off with Spencer Lewis. Not that I bear a grudge about it or anything. Besides, at university, none of this history will matter. No one will know any of this, except me. At university, it will just be a nice corduroy jacket. I fold it up and put it in the case.

  Mum comes in, then knocks, and I close the case quickly. She looks teary enough as it is, without Dad's jacket starting her off again. She has, after all, taken the morning off work especially so that she can cry.

  “Nearly done then?”

  “Nearly.”

  “D'you want to take a deep-fat fryer with you?”

  “No, I'll be fine without, Mum.”

  “But what are you going to eat?”

  “I do eat things other than fried food, you know!”

  “No, you don't.”

  “Well, maybe I'll start. Anyway, there's always oven chips.” I look around to see that she's almost smiling.

  “You'd better get going, hadn't you?” The train's not for ages yet, but Mum thinks catching a train is a bit like international air travel, and that you should check in four hours before departure. Not that we've been on a plane or anything, but, still, it's a wonder that she hasn't made me go and get inoculated against diphtheria.

  “I'll go in half an hour,” I say, and there's a silence. Mum says something but can't quite get the words out, which means it's probably along the lines of Dad being proud or something, but she decides to save it for later, and turns and goes. I sit on the suitcase to close it, and then lie on my bed and look round my room for the last time—the kind of moment where, if I smoked, I'd smoke.

  I can't believe it's actually happening. This is independent adulthood, this is what it feels like. Shouldn't there be some sort of ritual? In certain remote African tribes there'd be some incredible four-day rites-of-passage ceremony involving tattooing and potent hallucinogenic drugs extracted from tree frogs, and village elders smearing my body with monkey blood, but, here, rites of passage is all about three new pairs of underpants and stuffing your duvet in a refuse sack.

  When I get downstairs I find that Mum's made a package for me, two large cardboard boxes containing most of the house's contents. Sure enough, the chip pan's in there, craftily hidden under a full dinner service, the toaster that I nicked from Ashworth Electricals, a kettle, a copy of Marvellous Meals with Mince, and a bread bin complete with six floured baps and a loaf of Mighty White. There's even a cheese grater, and she knows I don't eat cheese. “I can't really carry all this stuff, Mum,” I say, and so the symbolic and touching final moments of my life in my childhood home are spent bickering with Mum about whether or not I'm going to need an egg whisk—yes, there will be a grill to make toast; yes, I do need the record player and the speakers—and when negotiations are finally over, we've narrowed it down to a suitcase, a rucksack with my stereo and books in, two bin liners full of duvet and pillows and, on Mum's insistence, a vast number of tea towels.

  Finally it's time. I'm very insistent that Mum doesn't walk me to the train station because it somehow feels more potent and symbolic this way. I stand on the doorstep while she goes to get her purse, and solemnly presses a ten-quid note, folded very small, into my hand, like a ruby.

  “Mum—”

  “Go on, take it.”

  “I'll be all right, really—”

  “Go on. You take care of yourself—”

  “I will—”

  “Try and eat a piece of fresh fruit every now and then—”

  “I'll try—”

  “And …” Here it comes. She gulps and says, “… you do know Dad would have been proud of you, don't you?” and I kiss her quickly on her dry, pursed lips, and run, in short bursts, as best as I can, to the train station.

  On the train journey I put on my headphones and listen to my own specially prepared compilation tape of absolute, all-time favorite Kate Bush tracks. It's a pretty good collection, but we don't have a proper hi-fi at home, so you can hear Mum shouting upstairs to tell me the chops are ready halfway through “The Man with the Child in His Eyes.”

  I solemnly open my crisp new edition of Spenser's The Faerie Queene, which we're doing in the first term. I like to think I'm a pretty good reader, and open-minded and everything, but this just seems like nonsense to me, so I put down The Faerie Queene after the first eighteen lines, and instead concentrate on Kate Bush, and the English countryside speeding by, and on looking brooding and complex and interesting. I've got a big window, four seats and a table to myself, a can of Coke and a Twix, and the only thing that could make life any better for me now would be if an attractive woman came and sat opposite me, and said something like …

  “Excuse me, but I can't help noticing you're reading The Faerie Queene. You're not by any chance on your way to read English at university are you?”

  “Yes, yes, I am!” I'd say.

  “That's wonderful! Do you mind if I join you? My name's Emily, by the way. Tell me, are you familiar with the work of Kate Bush … ?”

  And my conversation is so sophisticated and urbane and witty, and there's such tangible sexual electricity arcing between us, that by the time we pull into the station, Emily is leaning over the table, and coyly biting her plump bottom lip, and saying, “Look, Brian, I barely know you, and I've never said this to a man before, but maybe we could go to … a hotel or something? It's just I don't think I can fight it any longer” and I acquiesce with a weary smile, as if to say, “Why must this happen every time I get on a train?” and take her hand and lead her to the nearest hotel.…

  Hang on a minute, though. For a start, what am I going to do with all my luggage? I can hardly turn up at the hotel with two black bin liners, can I? And then there's the cost. My money from the summer job's already gone on accommodation, my grant check doesn't arrive till next week, and though I've never actually stayed in a hotel before, I know it's not going to be cheap—forty, fifty quid maybe—and, let's face it, the whole thing's going to last, what, ten minutes if I'm lucky, fifteen, tops, and I don't want to be approaching the moment of ecstatic sexual crisis, and simultaneously worrying about value for money. I suppose Emily might suggest we go halvesies on the room, but I'll have to refuse or she'll think I'm cheap. And even if she does insist and I agree, she'll still have to hand over cash, and whether we do that before or after we've made love, it's bound to take some of the melancholy, bittersweet longing out of the encounter. Will she think I'm weird if I stay on afterward, to make the most of the hotel facilities? “Darling Emily, our lovemaking was both beautiful and strangely poignant. Now can you help me get the towels in my rucksack?” Also, is it a good idea to leap s
traight into bed with someone I'm going to be studying with? What if the sexual tension between us gets in the way of our academic work? In fact, maybe it's not such a good idea, after all. Maybe I should wait till I know Emily a bit better before we get into a physical relationship.

  And by the time the train pulls into the station, I find myself actually relieved that Emily's only a figment of my imagination.

  I drag my bin bags and suitcase out of the station, which is on a hill overlooking the city. It's only the second time I've been here since my interview, and, okay, it's not Oxford or Cambridge, but it's the next best thing. The important thing is it's got spires. The dreaming kind.

  3

  QUESTION: Which popular novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett, written in 1886 and dramatized many times since, inspired a fashion among young boys for long curly hair and velvet suits with lace collars?

  ANSWER: Little Lord Fauntleroy.

  This is what I put in the “Hobbies and Interests” section of my application to the university Accommodation Office: reading, cinema, music, theater, swimming, badminton, socializing!

  It's not a very revealing list, obviously. It's not even entirely true. “Reading” is true, but everyone puts reading. Likewise “cinema” and “music.” “Theater” is a lie, I hate the theater. Actually, I've done plays, I've just never really seen much theater, except for a touring educational show about road safety which, whilst performed with élan, brio and panache, didn't really do it for me aesthetically. But you have to pretend you like theater—it's the law. “Swimming” isn't strictly true either. I can swim, but only in the same way that any drowning animal can swim. I just thought I ought to put in something a bit sporty. Likewise “badminton.” When I say I'm interested in badminton what I really mean is that if someone held a gun to my head and forced me, on pain of death, to play one sport, and they were refusing to accept Scrabble as a sport, then that sport would be badminton. I mean, how hard can it be? “Socializing!” is a euphemism too. “Lonely and sexually frustrated” would be more accurate, but also more weird. Incidentally, the exclamation mark at the end of “socializing!” is meant to convey an irreverent, insouciant, devil-may-care outlook on life.