A Girl's Guide to Modern European Philosophy

by Charlotte Greig

  In the late afternoon, I had a bath and washed my hair, putting the ends in a cupful of conditioner and then rinsing it in the basin. I combed it out wet so it dried flat and straight down my back. I put some make-up on, very carefully, so it didn't look as though I was wearing any make-up at all. When my hair was dry, I put on clean white pants and a clean brown T-shirt. The T-shirt had long sleeves and a low neck with a string you tied together in the middle, casually, so it looked as though you just happened to see the shape of your breasts underneath it. I put my new jeans back on and wore my highest platforms under the flares. Then I slipped on my old dark blue velvet jacket, which was very tight and coming apart at the seams and had a button hanging off a thread at the front.

  It all took hours. By the time I'd finished, it was time to go out. Before I did, I glanced in the hall mirror. I looked fine. I'd got it right. The main thing was, I didn't look as though I'd tried too hard. I looked as though I'd just thrown my clothes on to go out for the evening. I looked cool, but as though it came naturally to me. I looked like a free spirit: someone with something to do, somewhere to go, possibly even a secret destiny to fulfill.

  *

  When I got to campus, the Falmer bar was buzzing. I fought my way to the bar and got myself a drink, which I didn't like doing—normally, I got some bloke to do it for me. Then I wandered upstairs to the hall, looking for Rob, or anyone else I knew. Inside, it was jam-packed with students sitting cross-legged on the floor blowing out clouds of smoke and kicking over plastic beakers of beer by mistake. I peered about in the gloom, recognizing a few people on my course but no one I much wanted to talk to. If things got bad and nobody better came along, I'd go and talk to one of them. But for now I'd wait and see if Rob and his crowd turned up.

  I went back downstairs and then up again, so I'd look as though I'd come in after him. This time, he was there, in a group on the floor near the door. I could tell he'd been looking out for me, because he jumped up immediately as soon as he saw me, and came over.

  “Hi, Susannah. How's it going?”

  “Fine. You OK?”

  “OK. Good. Yes. Fine.” He seemed nervous. “I didn't know if you were coming or not.”

  “Nor did I. But I really like John Martyn, so I thought I would.” I said it as though I had been a fan for years.

  “Great. Are you with anyone? There's some space over here if you like.”

  I didn't answer his question about whether I was with anyone or not. I just walked over with him and nodded to his friends. One of them was a good-looking, dark-haired girl I'd seen on campus before. She ignored me as I sat down next to Rob, trying to avoid the beer puddles on the floor. The group were all passing round a joint. When it came to me, I took a quick drag, held it in my mouth rather than taking it down to my lungs, and passed it on. I didn't want to get stoned. In this kind of mood, with people I'd only just met, I knew it would make me paranoid.

  The lights went down, the talking stopped, and John Martyn came on stage. He was older than us, maybe in his late twenties, with curly hair and a red scarf tied round his neck. He was holding a bottle of beer and looking confused, as though he'd wandered on stage by accident and suddenly found himself under the bright lights. He went over to his guitar, swaying slightly, and sat down on a chair. There was a feeling of tension in the hall as he fiddled with his leads and his electronic boxes. He seemed not to notice us sitting there watching him. I wondered if he was pissed. There were a few crackling noises. Then he plugged the guitar in and started playing.

  The guitar wasn't like a normal guitar. All these loops of sound were coming out, layer upon layer, as though he was playing ten guitars at once, and a load of other instruments as well. You couldn't quite follow what was happening. There was only this one guy on stage, sitting there with all these little boxes around him, weaving all these complicated patterns on just one guitar. After a while, I stopped trying to work out how he was doing it and just listened. And as I did, I stopped thinking about me, about Jason, about the flat, about Rob, about what was going to happen tonight. I stopped thinking about anything at all.

  The hall went dead silent as we all drifted off with John Martyn's guitar. It went on building up, layer by layer, until I felt dizzy. Then he started singing. His voice came in waves, like on the record. He slurred his words, maybe because he was drunk, but I got the feeling he would have done the same thing sober. Curl around me …

  “I love this one,” I whispered to Rob before I could stop myself.

  “God, so do I,” he whispered back. Then he put his arm around me, squeezed my shoulder, and let go again. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the dark-haired girl get up quietly and leave.

  As the singing went on, a huge relief started to come over me, like it had the night before when I'd been in the flat on my own. Tears started rolling silently down my face, so I put my hair forward to hide them until they dried. It wasn't that I felt paranoid. I wasn't really stoned, but the dope was having an effect. And the music seemed to be loosening my mind. I felt as though I'd been in danger, but now the danger was past, and everything was going to be all right. Without thinking, I laid my head on Rob's shoulder and closed my eyes. Then I realized what I was doing and jerked my head back up. He put his arm round me and this time, he left it there. And I laid my head back down on his shoulder. And left it there.

  We stayed like that for the rest of the gig. At the end, when the lights came up, we let go of each other quickly. John Martyn was trying to get off the stage while everyone was clapping but he couldn't find the exit and came through the audience instead. He passed right in front of us, still looking confused. He didn't seem to know where he was. And, for a moment, neither had we.

  “Do you fancy a drink, then?” asked Rob, as everyone was getting up to leave.

  “Where?” I said. “There's nowhere to go. The bar'll be closed by now.”

  “Well, I've got a car. Everyone's coming back to ours, we've got some cans in at home.”

  “OK,” I said. At least I could get a lift in to Brighton. Then maybe I could take a cab back to mine.

  We went out to the car park, with a bunch of his friends. Rob's car turned out to be an old A40 with those little orange indicators that popped up out of the roof when you wanted to turn left or right. It had leather seats inside, and a wooden dashboard. We managed to get four people in the back, and one in the front, besides Rob, who was driving. I sat on this bloke's knee in the back, with my head bent over to one side under the roof. The car groaned along the road really slowly. It probably wouldn't have gone very fast at the best of times, but with six people in, it hardly moved at all. To make matters worse, the bloke smelt a bit. His hair and clothes had that musty smell of men who don't wash much but aren't naturally that smelly. It could have been worse, I suppose. But on the way, I thought of Jason and his yellow Morgan, with just the two of us in it bombing up to London in the fast lane.

  When we got to the house by the London Unity, it was just as I had expected. Cold, tatty rooms with blankets instead of curtains in the windows and red light bulbs screwed in to the ceiling sockets. We all huddled round the gas fire in the living room and drank beer. Then out came the joints and the cups of tea. After that, it was slices of toast and margarine and squares of Cadbury's milk chocolate for the munchies.

  I'd relaxed a bit by this time and started taking a few drags of the joints. I didn't want to go back to the flat in my normal frame of mind, and have to face all those red plaster lips pouting at me. I thought maybe it would be a good idea to get a little bit stoned after all. Besides, Rob's friends were nice. They weren't threatening at all, apart from the dark-haired girl who had left during the gig. There was Dino, who was good-looking and worked as a postman, and Mark and Jan, who were a couple, and Hervé, who was French and doing International Relations, and sat playing the guitar along with the music on the stereo, not very well as far as I could make out.

  Mark and Jan eventually went off to bed, leaving
me with Rob, Dino and Hervé. I sensed they were all interested in me. Dino, I knew, wouldn't make a play for me. He had long fair hair and a pretty face, and was used to women making the first move, you could tell. So he just sat there watching me for a while, to give me a chance to show some interest, and when I didn't, he went to bed. He had to be up at five in the morning for his postman job, he said. That left Hervé and Rob.

  Rob went into the kitchen to make some more tea. While he was in there, Hervé took the opportunity to play me a song he'd written. The minute he started, I realized he was hopeless. I didn't know much about songwriting, but it sounded terrible. The chords all seemed wrong and his voice wandered about over them, with no recognizable tune. It seemed to be a love song of some kind with a chorus that went, I'll be your lover man, any way that I can. Any way that I can, I'll be your lover man. Yeah! The words sounded wrong, the way you'd write if you couldn't speak English very well. But when he'd finished, he sat back looking very pleased with himself.

  “So what do you think?” he asked. “Be honest.”

  I didn't know what to say. “Very nice,” I lied.

  “You liked it?” he persisted.

  I wasn't prepared to go that far. So I mumbled something and looked down at the floor.

  “Don't be shy,” he said. Then he leaned forward over his guitar, as though he was going to kiss me.

  It wasn't that he was a bad-looking guy. In fact, he was better looking than the average student, dark-haired with an earring in one ear and a French, gypsy sort of look about him. It was just that the song was so awful. There was no question of fancying anyone who could write a song like that.

  “Excuse me, I've just got to go to the loo,” I said, and jumped up. I went out to the hallway, which was freezing, and climbed up the wooden stairs, which had no carpet and made a banging noise, even though I was trying to tiptoe. On the landing I found a small toilet, separate from the bathroom. Inside it was lit by a very bright bare light bulb. You could see layers of dust on the pipes and in the corners of the floorboards. There was a pile of newspaper on the floor instead of loo paper, and the window was jammed open.

  If it had been warm in there, and clean, I could have sat down for a moment and collected my thoughts. I could have decided what to do next. Go downstairs, call for a taxi, drink my tea and go. As it was, I stood there and started shivering. I didn't know what to do. Hervé was down there in the living room, limbering up to kiss me or to sing me another of his songs. Rob would be in there as well, waiting for Hervé to go to bed, which he obviously wasn't going to do in a hurry. And I was waiting it out up here, I wasn't sure why.

  I started feeling very sick. I turned the light off because the brightness was hurting my eyes. I crouched down on the floor, hoping the nausea would pass. But it didn't. So I stayed there, with my back against the wall and my arms around my knees, in the cold and dark. And, as long as I didn't move, I felt better.

  I stayed there for a long time. I don't know how long. But after a while, someone started banging on the door. It was Rob.

  “Suse?” He sounded worried. “Are you OK?”

  “I don't know.”

  “Can I come in? I mean, can you come out?”

  “OK.” My eyes had adjusted to the dark and I could see the door, so I unbolted it and stepped out into the corridor. Rob tried to peer into my face, but I kept my head down with my hair covering it.

  “What's the matter?” he asked.

  “I don't know.” We were whispering so as not to wake up Dino and the couple.

  “Well, come and sit down a minute. I'll get you a glass of water.”

  He led me to his room down the corridor and sat me down on the bed. Then he nipped off and came back with the water. I drank it but I still felt dizzy. He put a coat round my shoulders and then sat holding my hand, saying nothing.

  Eventually, I said, “Where's Hervé?”

  “Gone to bed, I think. Why, was he hassling you?”

  “No, no. Well a bit, maybe.” I paused. “It must have been the dope or something. I just started feeling weird.” I paused again. “And there are some things going on … that are a bit … heavy.”

  I waited for him to start asking questions, but he didn't. He just went on holding my hand.

  “Try to breathe slowly,” he said. “Take a deep breath through your nose and let it out through your mouth. Like this.”

  He took a deep breath in, held it for a few seconds, and then gradually let it out. As he showed me, I thought, how ridiculous, but to humor him I fell in with his breathing. I shut my eyes and concentrated. Then he told me to tense and relax each part of my body in turn, from my toes up. I did what he said, feeling a bit of an idiot. But after a few minutes, I started feeling better. The sick feeling had passed, and I could think straight again.

  I didn't say anything, but he seemed to sense that the worst was over. He let go of my hand. We sat in silence for a few moments. I knew I should make a move to leave, but I felt too tired.

  Then, as if he could read my thoughts, he said, “Do you want to stay here? You could sleep in my bed. I can stay downstairs on the sofa if you want.”

  I looked around the room, noticing it for the first time. It was completely different from the rest of the house. Rob had hung Indian fabric with a red and brown pattern on it around the walls and ceiling so that the room looked like a cozy tent. In the middle, over the light fitting, hung a Chinese parasol. The bed had a thick eiderdown on it, and the pillows were fat and white. By the bed was what looked like an old-fashioned hurricane lamp, which cast a soft light over the bed.

  Then I looked at Rob. He looked beautiful in the light of the hurricane lamp, his face framed by his long, dark hair. He had a big, holey sweater on, with sleeves that were unraveling at the cuffs. Underneath, I could see his silver bangle. I thought, I do fancy him. But he hadn't made any move towards me. Perhaps he wasn't interested in me. I wondered for a moment whether he was a poof, what with the Indian fabrics and the silver bangle and everything. Or maybe it was just that he was an unusual kind of person. Or very young. Or something.

  I lay down on the bed and closed my eyes. I couldn't think any more. I couldn't imagine getting up and going home now. All I knew was, I wanted to sleep.

  “All right,” I said. “Thanks.”

  Rob got up to go. He stood hovering by the bed.

  “OK, then. Goodnight.”

  “Night.”

  “Is there anything you need?”

  “No thanks. I'm fine.”

  I waited for him to go, but he didn't.

  “Will you be all right on your own?”

  “Yes, of course. Really, I'm fine now.”

  There was a pause. He still didn't go.

  “Are you sure?”

  I lay there looking up at him, and he stood there looking down at me.

  Then I said, “No, I'm not sure. I'm not sure at all. I think you'd better stay.”

  chapter 4

  I WAS IN THE DREAM AGAIN, trying to get out. I was in bed, and the room was pitch black, so I stretched my arm out to turn on the bedside light, but then I remembered it was a hurricane lamp, and I didn't know how to light it. So I got up and moved about the room, knocking into the furniture like a blind man, feeling my way towards the window. When I got there, I pulled open the curtain and saw the white road snaking into the distance again, with the black cars traveling up and down it. When I saw that, I knew I had failed and I'd have to try to wake up again, so I felt my way back to the bed, got in, and summoned up my voice. But this time, I couldn't find it. I couldn't scream my way out. It was hopeless. This time, I was stuck.

  Then I heard someone else's voice, a man's voice, calling my name. It seemed to be coming from far away, down a long corridor. I knew I had to call back, so I took a deep breath and tried to shout, but nothing came out. Nothing, except a silent shudder, but to my amazement it did the trick, and there I was all of a sudden, wide awake. In Rob's bed. And it was broad daylight.


  Rob was propped up on one elbow beside me, naked, his hair tangled and his eyes wide, leaning over me and looking at me intently.

  “What is it? What is it?” he was saying.

  “What is what?” I replied, once I'd realized where I was.

  “You were thrashing about as though someone was strangling you or something. Look, you're covered in sweat. Are you all right, Susannah? What the hell's going on?”

  “Nothing's going on,” I said. I never had this trouble with Jason in the mornings. “I just had a bad dream, that's all. I sometimes do.”

  “What's bothering you? What's going on?” he repeated. “Are you in some kind of trouble? Tell me.”

  “For God's sake, Rob, it was just a nightmare,” I said, my voice rising. “People have them all the time, you know. No, I'm not in trouble. There's nothing wrong with me at all. Stop going on about it, I've only just woken up. Bloody hell.”

  My words came out harshly. I didn't mean them to. I was just embarrassed about lying in Rob's bed the first time I'd ever slept with him, sweating away and thrashing about like a lunatic. And scared, because being with Rob made me realize it wasn't normal to wake up like this in the mornings. Not that I did every morning, but lately it had been getting worse.

  Rob looked upset. “Sorry, it's just … what with last night, and everything …”

  He looked into my eyes. I could see at that moment how vulnerable he was, how much he wanted me to reassure him. I had a dim memory of what had happened in the night. We had woken up and made love, me pretending to be only half awake, and it had been strange and intense, like a vivid dream. Now he wanted to know whether I still liked him, whether we would stay together, become lovers, or whether I'd just get up out of bed in a minute and go.

  His eyes seemed to darken as he looked at me. With tenderness, or pain, or both. He began to stroke my hair. I couldn't stand it. I moved my head and looked away.