Starter For Ten Part 2

'Marcus and I are quite the moonshiners, ran an illicit still in the dorms, made quite a tidy profit actually. Though we did accidentally blind a couple of day-boys!'

'You were at school together?'

'Absolutely. Joined at the hip, aren't we, Marcus?' Marcus snuffles. 'Where did you go to school?'

'Oh, you wouldn't have heard of it . . .'

'Try me.'

'Langley Street?'

Nothing.

'Langley Street Comprehensive?'

Nothing.

'Southend?' I offer. 'Ess.e.x?'

'Nope! You're absolutely right, never heard of it! Want me to show you to your quarters?'

I follow Josh upstairs, with Marcus slouching behind, along 24.a battleship-grey hallway decorated with instructions about what to do in case of a fire. We pa.s.s their new rooms, full of boxes and suitcases but still clearly s.p.a.cious, and at the end of the corridor, Josh flings open the door to what at first glance looks like a prison cell.

'Da-da! Hope you don't mind, but we allocated for the rooms before you got here.'

'Oh. Right. . .'

'Tossed for them. We wanted to start unpacking, get settled, you see.'

'Of course! Right!' I sense I've been taken for a ride here, and resolve never again to trust a man in a velvet waistcoat. The trick now is to a.s.sert myself without being noticeably a.s.sertive.

'Quite small, isn't it?' I say.

'Well they're all small, Brian. And we did toss, fair and square.'

'How do you toss between three people?'

Silence. Josh frowns, his mouth working silently.

'We can always toss again if you don't trust us,' snuffles Marcus indignantly.

'No, it's not that, it's just . . .'

'Well, we'll leave you to get settled then. Glad to have you on board!' and they run back to their home-brew, whispering.

My digs look as if they've been dug. The room has the appeal and ambience of a murder scene; a single mattress on a metal frame, a matching plywood wardrobe and desk, and two small wood-effect Formica shelves. The carpets are mud-brown and seem to have been woven from compacted pubic hair. A dirty window above the desk looks out on to the dustbins below, whilst a framed sign warns that using Blu-Tack on the walls is punishable by death. Still, I wanted a garret, and I got a garret. Better get on with it, I suppose.

The first thing I do is set up the stereo, and put on Never for Ever, Kate Bush's triumphant third alb.u.m. The rest of the records are stacked next to the turntable, and there's a bit of an 25.internal debate as to which alb.u.m should go face-out into the room; I experiment with The Beatles' Revolver, Joni Mitch.e.l.l's Blue, Diana Ross and the Supremes, and Ella Fitzgerald before settling on my brand-new recording of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos on the Music For Pleasure label, a snip at 2.49.

Next I unpack my books, and experiment with different ways of arranging them on the Formica shelves; alphabetically by author, alphabetically by author but sub-divided by subject; genre; nationality; size; and finally, and most effectively, by colour - black Penguin cla.s.sics at one end, fading through to white Picadors at the other, with two inches of green Viragos, which I haven't got round to reading yet but definitely will, in the middle of the spectrum. This takes some time, obviously, and by the time I've finished it's dark, so I set up the anglepoise on the desk.

Next I decide to turn my bed into a futon. I've been wanting to do this for some time actually, but Mum just laughed at me when I tried it at home, so I'm going to give it a go here. I manhandle the mattress, mysteriously stained and damp enough to grow cress, on to the floor without letting it come into contact with my face, then with some difficulty I up-end the metal bed frame. It weighs a ton, but I eventually get it stowed safely away behind the wardrobe. Obviously this means I lose a couple of feet of valuable floor s.p.a.ce, but the finished effect is worth it - a kind of minimal, contemplative, oriental atmosphere that's only marginally undermined by the bold navy, red and white stripes on the British Home Stores duvet cover.

In keeping with the Zen-like minimalism of the futon, I want to limit decoration to a montage of postcards of favourite paintings and photographs, a kind of pictorial manifesto of heroes and the things I love, on the wall above my pillow. I lie on my futon, and get out the Blu-Tack; Henry Wallis's The Death of Chatterton, Millais' Ophelia Drowning, Da Vinci's Madonna and Child, Van Gogh's Starry, Starry Night, an 26.Edward Hoppei; Marilyn Monroe in a tutu looking mournfully into the camera; James Dean in a long overcoat in New York; Dustin Hoffman in Marathon Man; Woody Allen; a photograph of Mum and Dad asleep in deckchairs at Butlins, Charles d.i.c.kens, Karl Marx, Che Guevara, Laurence Olivier as Hamlet, Samuel Beckett, Anton Chekhov, me as Jesus in the sixth-form production of G.o.dspell, Jack Kerouac, Burton and Taylor in Who's Afraid of Virginia Wool ft and a photograph of Spencer, Tone and me on a school trip to Dover Castle. Spencer is posing slightly, head tilted down and to the side, looking cool and bored and clever. Tone, as usual, is flicking the 'Vs.

Finally, just by my pillow, I put up a picture of Dad, looking whippet-thin and vaguely menacing, like Pinky in Brighton Rock, but on Southend sea front, with a bottle of beer and a cigarette smouldering in the long fingers of one hand. He's got a black quiff, high, sharp cheek-bones, a long thin nose, and a sharp, slim-collared three-b.u.t.ton suit, and though he's half-smiling at the camera, he still looks pretty intimidating. It was taken around 1962, four years before I was born, so he must have been the same age as I am now. I love this photograph, but I still have a nagging feeling that if my nineteen-year-old dad had met the nineteen-year-old me on Southend pier on a Sat.u.r.day night, there's a pretty good chance he'd have tried to beat me up.

There's a knock on the door, and instinctively I hide the Blu-Tack behind my back. I a.s.sume it's Josh, asking me to f.a.g for him or something, but instead in walks a huge blonde woman with Viking hair and a milky blonde moustache.

'How are you getting on? Alright?' says Josh in drag.

'Fine, fine.'

'Why's your mattress on the floor?'

'Oh, I thought I'd try it as a futon for a while.'

'A futon? Really?' says Josh, pursing his lipstick-ed mouth as if it's the most exotic thing he's ever heard in his life, which 27.is pretty rich, coming from a man in drag. 'Marcus, come and have a look at Jackson's futon!' and Marcus, in a curly black nylon wig, hockey skirt and laddered stockings, sticks his nose into the room, snuffles, then disappears.

'Anyway, we're off now - are you coming along or what?'

'Sorry, coming . . . ?'

'Tarts and Vicars Party, Kenwood Manor. Should be a laugh.'

'Right, well, maybe. It's just I thought I might stay in and read . . .'

'Oh, don't be so wet . . .'

'But I don't have anything to wear . . .'

'You've got a dark shirt, haven't you?'

'Uh-huh.'

'Well, there you go then. Stick a bit of white cardboard under the collar and away you go. See you in five minutes. Oh, and don't forget that tenner for the home-brew, yeah? Love what you've done to the room, by the way . . .'

28.QUESTION The interaction energy of two protons relates to the separation between them What are the forces between the protons when the separation between them is respectively a) small and b) intermediate?

ANSWER Repulsive and attractive.

As a man of sophistication and experience, I know the value of 'lining your stomach' before an evening out, so for supper I buy a bag of chips and a battered sausage, and eat them on the way to the party. It starts to rain quite steadily, but I eat as many chips as I can before they get too cold and wet. Marcus and Josh stride self-confidently on ahead in their high heels, seemingly indifferent to the mirthless glances of pa.s.sers-by. I suppose that posh-boys-in-drag must be one of the inevitable miseries of living in a university town. For soon it will be rag-week, the leaves will turn to bronze, the swallows will fly south, and the shopping arcade will be full of male medics dressed as s.e.xy nurses.

On the way, Josh bombards me with questions.

'What are you studying, Brian?'

'English.'

'Poems eh? I'm Politics and Economics, Marcus is Law. Play any sports, Brian?'

'Only Scrabble,' I quip.

'Scrabble's not a sport,' sniffles Marcus.

'You haven't seen the way I play it!' I say, quick as a flash.

29.But he doesn't seem to find this funny, because he just scowls and says, 'Doesn't matter how you play it, it's still not a sport.'

'No, I know, I was just . . .'

'Are you soccer, cricket or rugby?' says Josh.

'Well, none of them really . . .'

'Not a sportsman, then?'

'Not at all.' I can't help feeling that I'm being a.s.sessed for admission into some un-named private club, and failing.

'How's your squash? I need a partner.'

'Not squash. Badminton occasionally.'

'Badminton's a girls' game,' says Marcus, adjusting the straps on his slingbacks.

'Take a year out?' asks Josh.

'No . . .'

'Go anywhere nice this summer?'

'No . . .'

'What do your parents do?'

'Well, Mum works on the tills in Woolworths. Dad sold double-glazing, but he's dead now.' Josh squeezes me on the arm and says, 'I'm so sorry,' though it's unclear whether he means Dad's death or Mum's job.

'How about yours?'

'Oh, Dad's Foreign Office, Mum's Department of Transport.' Oh my G.o.d, he's a Tory. Or at least I a.s.sume Josh is Tory if his parents are Tory, it does tend to run in families. As for Marcus I wouldn't be surprised to discover that he's in the Hitler Youth.

Finally we arrive at Kenwood Manor. I'd avoided the halls of residence as I'd been advised on the university open-day that they were dull and inst.i.tutional and packed full of Christians. The reality is somewhere between a lunatic asylum and a minor public school - long echoing corridors, parquet floors, the smell of damp underwear drying on a luke-warm radiator, so and the sense that sumevvheie, something teiiible ib happening in a toilet.

The distant thud of Dexys Midnight Runners beckons us along a corridor to a large, wood-panelled room, with high windows and spa.r.s.ely populated with students - about seven parts Tart to three parts Vicar, and with a roughly fifty-fifty split between female and male Tarts. It's not a pretty sight. Burly men and quite a few women, in artfully torn tights with sports socks stuffed in their bras, leaning against the walls like, well, Tarts, whilst patrician Edwardian vice-chancellors peer down from their portraits in despair.

'By the way, Bri, I don't suppose you've got that tenner . . . ?' says Josh, frowning '. . . for the home-brew?'

I can't really afford it of course, and it's the tenner that Mum pressed into my hand, but in the spirit of new friendship I hand over the money, and Josh and Marcus skip off like dogs on a beach, leaving me to make some more of these friendships that will last me a lifetime. I decide that, generally speaking, at this early stage of the evening it's best to go for a vicar, rather than a tart.

On the way to the makeshift bar, a trestle table selling Red Stripe for a very reasonable 50p a can, I put on my talk-to-me please face, a simple-minded close-mouthed grin accompanied by tentative nods and hopeful glances. Standing waiting to be served is a lanky hippie with a matching village-idiot grin to mine and, remarkably, an even worse complexion. He glances around the room, and in a high Brummie accent says, 'Absolutely looooony, isn't it!'

'Insane!' I say, and we both roll our eyes as if to say 'Teh, kids today!' His name's Chris, and it soon transpires that he's studying English too; 'Synchronicity!' exclaims Chris, and then proceeds to tell me the whole of his A-level syllabus, and the precise contents of his UCCA form, and the plot of every book he's ever read in his whole life, before embarking on a description of his summer spent travelling round India, in real 31.time, and I pa.s.s the days and nights that follow by nodding, and drinking three cans of Red Stripe, and wondering whether his skin really is worse than mine, when all of a sudden I realise that he's saying . . .

'. . . and d'you know what? I never used toilet paper once in all that time.'

'Really?'

'Nope. And I don't think I'll ever use it again either. It's much fresher this way, and much more environmentally friendly.'

'So what do you . . . ?'

'Oh, just my hand, and a bucket of water. This hand!' and he thrusts it under my nose. 'Trust me, it's loads more hygienic.'

'But I thought you said you kept getting dysentery?'

'Well, yes, but that's different. Everyone gets dysentery.'

I decide not to pursue the point, and say, 'Great! Well, well done you . . .' and we're off again, travelling on bare wooden benches by rickety bus from Hyderabad to Bangalore until, somewhere in the Erramala Hills, the Red Stripe does its work and I realise with joy that my bladder's full and that I'm really sorry but I have to go to the toilet - 'Don't go away, I'll be right back, stay right where you are' - and as I'm leaving he grabs me by the shoulder, holds his left hand up in front of my face and says, evangelically, 'And don't forget! No need for toilet paper!' I smile and head off briskly.

When I come back I realise with relief that he has gone away, so I go and sit on the edge of the wooden stage, next to a small, neat woman dressed neither as tart nor vicar, but as a member of the KGB Youth Wing - a heavy black coat, black tights, a short denim shirt, and a black soviet-style cap, pushed back behind an oily black quiff. I give her a 'mind-if-I-sit-here?' smile and she gives me a 'yes-go-away' smile, a tight little spasm, and there's a glimpse of tiny, sharp white teeth, all the same size, behind an incongruous smear of crimson lipstick. I 32."i should probably just go, of course, but the lager's made me fearless and over-friendly, and so I sit next to her, anyway. Even over the gurgling ba.s.s-line of 'Two Tribes', you can still hear the muscles in her face tightening.

After a while, I turn and glance at her. She's smoking a rollie in nervous little puffs, and staring doggedly out at the dance-floor. I have two choices, speak or leave. Maybe I'll try speaking. 'The ironic thing is, I actually am a vicar!'

No response.

The haven't seen this many prost.i.tutes since my sixteenth birthday!'

No response. Maybe she didn't hear me. I offer her a swig of my can of Red Stripe.

'You're too kind. I'll pa.s.s though, thanks very much,' and she picks up the can by her side, and waggles it at me. Her voice precisely fits her face, hard and sharp; Scottish, Glaswegian I think.

'So! What did you come as?' I say brightly, nodding at her clothes.

'I came as a normal person,' she says, unsmilingly.

'You could at least have made an effort! Just put on a dog-collar or something!'

'Maybe. Except I'm Jewish.' She takes a swig from her own can. 'Funnily enough, fancy-dress has never really taken off amongst the Jewish Community.'

'You know, I sometimes wish I was Jewish,' I say. As a conversational gambit, I realise that this is pretty bold, and I'm not entirely sure why I say it; partly because I think it's important to be up-front about issues of race, gender and ident.i.ty, and also because by this stage I'm pretty p.i.s.sed.

She narrows her eyes, and looks at me for a moment, a spaghetti-western look, sucking on her rollie, deciding whether to take offence or not, then says quietly: 'Is that right?'

'I'm sorry, I'm not being racist, I just mean that a lot of my heroes are Jewish, so . . .'

33.'Well, I'm glad that my people meet with your approval. Who are these heroes, then?'

'Oh, you know, Einstein, Freud, Marx . . .'