Starter For Ten Part 25

Thankfully I stumble down the corridor to the bathroom just in time, but when I look up from the sink, wet-lipped, pale and shaking, at my reflection in the mirror, I nearly throw up again because it becomes clear that I have transformed in the night into some kind of freakishly hideous man-lizard, with a diamond-shaped pattern of scales all down one side of my face. I cover my mouth to suppress my scream, and then realise that it's just the imprint of the bed-frame's wire mesh on my face, so I go back to bed.

The alarm goes off at 8.15, like an ice-pick in my ear, and I lie in bed and listen to the rain pelt against the window. G.o.d knows I've had hangovers before, most days in fact, but this is a strange new kind; almost hallucinatory. It's as if my whole nervous system has been re-calibrated, so the slightest sensation - the rain outside, the light from the anglepoise, the smell from the empty can of Special Brew that's rolled under the bed-frame - all have a grotesquely exaggerated effect. All my nerve endings seem uncomfortably alive and twitching, even the ones inside my body, so that if I lie still and concentrate, I can actually feel the shape and location of my internal organs; the lungs bellowing wetly, the exhausted, 331.

DAVID NICHOLLS j * .

perspiring yellow-grey ma.s.s of my liver slumped against my backbone, the engorged, aching, bruised purple kidneys, the hot, spasming lower intestine. I try to move, to physically shake this last image out of my head, but the noise of my hair rustling against the pillowcase sounds ma.s.sively amplified too, so I lie very still on my side and look at Spencer, lying a few ]

feet away, his mouth pouting open slightly, a damp patch of opaque saliva soaking into my pillow. I'm lying close enough to smell his breath, which is stale, muggy and warm. G.o.d, I'd forgotten about the skinhead haircut. He looks like a fascist; a good-looking, charismatic fascist, but they're the worst kind, as history tells us. What if people see me with him at the party tonight, and think that I'm friends with a fascist? Maybe he won't be here tonight. Maybe he'll have gone home. Maybe that'll be for the best.

Getting up and sitting on the edge of the bed-frame feels Herculean, and I can actually hear the contents of my stomach shift and settle, like a thin plastic bin-bag full of warm, gently effervescing custard. The idea of changing out of last night's clothes seems frankly untenable, so I don't, and I'm not even sure if I can lace up my shoes without throwing up on them, but I manage somehow, then pull on my coat/blanket and manage to leave the house with Spencer still asleep, and walk up the hill towards the English department. There's a steady drizzle, and a squally wind. I had this fanciful idea that I'd be able to read The Rape of The Lock as I walk, but the pages are getting soaked, and besides it's all my nervous system can handle just to walk without falling over.

Outside the lecture hall, I lean against the wall and rub my hands briskly over my face to try and give it some colour other than grey, when I see Rebecca Epstein striding out through the gate. For a second I imagine that she's seen me but decided to just walk away, but that can't be right, because that would mean that she's ignoring me.

'Rebecca!' I shout, but she's stomping off down the street, 232.

the collar of her black vinyl coat turned up, head down against the rain. 'Rebecca . . . ?' I hold on to the bag of fizzy custard, and try to run without moving my head.

'Rebecca, it's Brian!'

'So it is. h.e.l.lo, Jackson,' she says blankly.

'How are you?'

'Fine.'

And we walk on a little further.

'Good lecture?' I ask.

'Uh-huh.'

'What was it on?'

'Do you really want to know or are you just making conversation?'

'I'm just making conversation.'

I think I see the ghost of a smile, but maybe I imagine it because the next thing she says is: 'Shouldn't you be heading off to a lecture yourself?'

'Well, I was meant to, but I'm not sure if I'm up to it somehow . . .'

'What's it on?'

'Do you really want to know or are you just . . . ?'

'You look like s.h.i.te by the way.'

'I feel like s.h.i.te.'

'Good. I'm glad.'

She seems hostile. She always seems hostile of course, but more so today. We walk on a little further, with me just behind her, and I wonder how someone with such short legs can manage to walk so much faster than me.

'Bees, are you angry with me or something?'

'"Bees"? Who the f.u.c.k is "Bees"?'

'Rebecca, I mean. Well, are you?'

'Not angry. Just . . . disappointed.'

'G.o.d, not you as well.' She looks me in the eye, for the first time. 'I just seem to be disappointing everyone at the moment. I don't know why. I'm trying hard not to, really I 233.

am.' She stops at this, and we stand in the street in the rain for a moment while she looks me up and down.

'You do know your face is completely grey, don't you?'

'I know.'

'And you've got white stuff in the corner of your mouth.'

I wipe it away with my coat sleeve and say, 'Toothpaste,' though I'm not sure if it is. 'Look, have you had breakfast?'

'What about your lecture?'

I remember my resolution, to attend every single possible lecture, but Rebecca feels more important than resolutions, so I say, 'I think I'll skip the lecture,' and she thinks for a moment, then says, 'Come on then' and we walk back down the hill.

The steam and grease from the breakfast specials fog the cafe window, condensing on the cold gla.s.s, and dripping down and pooling on our red Formica table. Rebecca and I have got a booth to ourselves, with a mug of tea for her, and milky coffee, a can of c.o.ke, a crispy bacon roll with brown sauce and a Mars bar for me. Rebecca's doodling in the steam on the window with her finger, while I say,'. . . he's getting done for fiddling his dole, which I think is outrageous, personally. I mean, if you think about the huge amounts that all those fat-cat businesses get to fiddle in tax evasion, and no one bats an eyelid . . .'

'. . . hmmm . . .'

'. . . I mean, what is it, a measly twenty-three quid a week or something? No one can live on that. And what do they expect people to do anyway, if there's no proper work around . . . ?'

'Uh-huh . . .'

'. . . I'd like to see some of those b.a.s.t.a.r.d Tories survive on that money. Anyway, I'm worried that he's going to ask if he can borrow money from me, because I can't afford to lend him money, not with grants at this level . . .'

. . . and here I stop talking because I realise that Rebecca's 234.

written the words 'Heeeelp meeeef backwards in the steam on the window.

'Sorry. I'm being a bit boring, aren't I?'

'Well, Jackson, you know me, usually I'd love nothing better than to discuss Tory social policy of a morning, it's just, well, it's not really the important issue here. Is it?'

'No, I suppose not.' I take a deep breath. 'Sorry about the other night.'

'And do you know exactly what you're apologising for?'

Do I? 'Not exactly, no.'

'Not really an apology then, is it?'

'No. No, I suppose not.' Looking back on that evening, I suppose it was a little like getting caught up in a drunken scuffle outside a pub on a Friday night; exciting and vivid and scary at the time, but afterwards you're not sure exactly who did what to whom, or even who started it. I contemplate communicating this a.n.a.logy to Rebecca, but no one likes being told that kissing them is like being beaten up outside a pub, so instead I just say, 'I presumed it was just, you know, the usual.'

'What's the usual?'

'You know, just me being useless.'

'Och, well, you're no worse than me . . .'

'I'm much worse than you.'

'You're not . . .'

'I am . . .'

'No, you're not . . .'

'I am, I'm appalling . . .'

'All right, Jackson, let's not get into a dialectic about it, yeah?' and she sips her tea, and seems to chew it, then says, 'Look, I got a bit drunk and made a mistake, "misread the signals" or whatever the phrase is, and I'm not particularly angry with you, I'm just embarra.s.sed really. It's not very often that I make myself . . .' and she gives a little, bitter laugh, '. . . vulnerable, is that the right word?' Then she licks the tip of her finger, and uses it to swab the crumbs 235.

of my bacon roll from my plate. 'Still, I'm sure I'll learn to love again.'

The conversation is clearly taking on a new and intriguing personal dimension here, so I lean forward on the table and rest my head at an angle against the wet window in a style that I believe denotes a kind of wistful sensitivity, and in a low voice say, 'So, have you had, you know, bad emotional experiences, in the past then, emotionally speaking?' Rebecca pauses, mug halfway to her mouth, then looks over both shoulders. 'Sorry, but are you talking to me?'

'It's a fair question, isn't it?'

'It's also none of your f.u.c.king business. What d'you want me to say? It's because Daddy never let me have a pony? I got drunk, and I fancied a bit of, human, whatever, contact, and I made a pa.s.s, and I got rejected. It's not that big a deal. Just because everyone else at this f.u.c.king place is emotionally f.u.c.king incontinent, doesn't mean I have to be . . .'

'I think you swear too much.'

'b.o.l.l.o.c.ks I do . . .'

'I think if you swear all the time, then you're going to devalue the effectiveness of the swear words.'

'And who are you, Mary-f.u.c.king-Poppins?' she says, but smiling ever so slightly, which is as much as I can hope for, I suppose. Then she sips her tea, looks out the window, and says casually, 'Anyway, if you must know, the last relationship I had ended up in an abortion clinic, so ... well . . . anyway, I'm not quite as free and easy about these things as some people are. That's all.'

I don't know how to react to this. Or rather, I know how to react from a political point of view, but I'm just not sure how I'm meant to react as a human being. I don't know what to do with my face. Perhaps the thing is not to get too sombre, not to make too big a deal about it.

'Who was he?'

'Just some guy from home, some guy I made the mistake of 236.

s.h.a.gging. No one you know,' she says, picking holes in my balled-up serviette.

'And he packed you in because you . . . ?'

'No, of course not. Well, not immediately. Not at all. It was complicated . . .' then she sighs, glances at me, then back down to the serviette. 'Guy called Gordon, who I was at sixth form with. First-true-love, all that c.r.a.p. We'd been going out about six months, and we were going to go inter-railing together that summer, after our Highers, then take a year out and go and live somewhere abroad, see how things worked out, see if we wanted to, you know, whatever. So we set off round Europe, seeing the sights, sleeping on beaches, all very love's-young-dream, then halfway round Spain, turned out I was pregnant. So we talked it through, decided what to do, came straight back, sorted things out. And he said that we'd get through it together and he'd stick by me, which he did. But only for a week and a half. So. There you go.'

'And did you, you know, love him?' She frowns, purses her lips, but doesn't reply, just looks out the window, then back to the balled-up serviette. I don't know what to say, but feel like I ought to say something. 'Well I'm sure you did the right thing at the time.'

Rebecca's eyes flash back at me; 'Brian, I know I did the right thing. I wasn't asking for your approval. . .'

'No, I know . . .'

'. . . and there's no need to start talking in that dopey voice either . . .'

'What voice?'

'You know what voice. It does happen you know, abortion, a lot, more than you know . . .'

'I do know . . .'

'. . . and we don't all curl up into a little ball about it either, we don't all crawl away into a corner with a copy of The Bell Jar you know. Most women just get on with things . . .'

'I'm sure 237.

'. . . so let's just change the subject then, shall we?'

'Okay.'

'Is that your Mars bar?' she says, and I have a tiny little moment of anxiety, because I can't remember whether or not we're meant to be boycotting Mars bars.

'Uh-huh.'

'Give it here, then.' I dutifully hand it over to her, and she takes a bite, chews it for a moment or two. 'Why's everything you eat and drink brown} I've never seen so much brown food. It wouldn't hurt you to eat the odd piece of fruit and veg every now and then, you know . . .'

'You sound like my mum,' I say.

'Well, she's a wise lady. You should listen to her. And me.' She takes another bite. 'So, have you seen her, then?' she says with her mouth full.

'Who? My mum?'

'No, not your mum . . .'

'Who, then?'

'You know who; Farrahf.u.c.kingFawcett.'

'Oh, just a couple of times.'

She takes another bite, then tosses the Mars bar back across the table at me, where it lands sticky-end down. 'And do you still . . . like her then?'

I recognise that there's a very real danger that I could end up with a teaspoon in my eye, so I choose my words very carefully, and just say, 'I think so.'

'And what do you think she thinks about you?'