Student (12 page)

‘I’ll take you again, if you want,’ he offers.

‘I can drive myself in future. It’s just that, the other day, I was so upset.’

‘We could go over in a week or two. I’m due a home visit before the summer break anyway. We could share the driving.’

‘That’d be good.’

He finishes his drink. ‘Do you want me to stop the night?’

I hesitate. There is no sexual nuance to his offer, but where Mark and I are concerned, sex is always an open question. If Mark stops the night, and Steve finds out, he will assume that Mark and I are lovers, and that will do for me and Steve. I would be better off with Mark than with Steve. But how would I feel if Mark dumped me for Ro, or the return of Helen? We are better off as we are. Every girl needs at least one good male friend, one she will never sleep with or — even better — has already slept with, so the sexual tension is out of the way.

There’s a whining noise from the basket in the corner of my bedroom. I let the cat out. It has long, wild hair streaked red and black and bares its teeth before seeming to recognise me. Tentatively, I reach to stroke its neck.

‘It’s all right,’ I tell Mark. ‘I’ve got company.’

Two months after the stroke, there’s little change in Mum. When I visit, she barely knows I’m there. I keep going. I talk to her, more than I have talked to her for years. Not that I have much to say. I tell her about the cat. Monsta had no flea collar or name tag until practical Tessa insisted on both. She got named by default, after a PJ Harvey song, since I don’t know what Mum called her. She can’t take in a word I say, so the name of the cat is irrelevant.

The first three visits took me a week to recover from. Now my depressive dips last anything between an hour and a couple of days. You can get used to anything, they say. I’m not so sure. My mum was an attractive woman, even when she’d been drinking. You expect to see a pretty face fade, not vanish in an instant. You try to make sense of it to yourself. I keep seeing that cliché from TV shows and public safety ads, the one where a central character steps out into the road without looking and is immediately hit by a car or a van. But at least they get to die instantly. Whereas Mum...

It’s good that Aidan and me are finished, because he’d be no use at the moment. There’s only room for one patient in my life. What’s happening to Mum is at the back of my mind all the time. It’s hard to remember it’s not on other people’s minds and act accordingly. Finn and Tessa have each asked how things are. Once. After that, they acted as though they’d done their duty and it’s selfish of me to keep acting depressed. Vic has been better, but she has a new girlfriend, called Liz. Her recent crush on the guy in her seminar group is forgotten. When I want to talk about Mum, Vic encourages (or at least allows) me to talk, but her fake concern frown says I’m spoiling the party. So I’ve stopped talking to her about it.

That leaves Steve. He’s solicitous, without being pushy. I see less of him than I do of Vic, because his course is nearly full time and he works three nights a week. But when I do see him, he tries to cheer me up. We go out for drinks and movies — he always lets me choose. And he never tries it on. Which is odd, because his endless run of one night stands has either ground to a halt, or, if he has conquests, they happen elsewhere. It’s like he’s waiting, with infinite patience, for me to come round to being his girlfriend.

I keep Steve and Mark apart, as much as possible, but when they brush into each other — like when Mark turns up half an hour early to drive to West Kirby — they bristle the way Monsta does when another cat appears in our back yard. Mark behaves likes this even though (he’s let slip) he’s still sleeping with Rowena, from his corridor, and has managed to stay friendly with Helen. It’s not like I’m the only game in town. I’m not even in play.

Love’s not a game. Rubbish metaphor. The sort of thing blokes say. What’s that song on ‘Back To Black’? If love is a game, then it’s a losing one. My brain has been on autopilot since Mum’s stroke. Brilliant preparation for my second year exams. Fearing them, I work as hard as I can. Even on half brain power, revising is the best displacement activity going.

Women are meant to care more about feelings than fucking, but my libido returns before my emotions. Last week in West Kirby, I asked Mark to make love to me. He obliged. I was grateful afterwards, but felt... diminished, somehow. He should be the grateful one, isn’t that how it’s meant to work? I’m not being PC, am I? Blokes aren’t PC. Neither am I. But I don’t think I’ll ask him again. It felt wrong, sharing him. You shouldn’t have to share lovers. Or share yourself.

Monsta sleeps in my room, curled up on the edge of the duvet. Often, when I’m revising, she nestles up in the warm spot between my tummy and my groin, nuzzles me. I can see why some women prefer cats to men. They’re more reliable, for a start. And their eyes make them look enigmatic, intelligent. Which is more than you can say for most men.

Vic is talking about getting a flat with her girlfriend. They’ve been together, what? Five minutes. OK, three weeks. A month at most.

‘It’s only limerance,’ I tease her. ‘It won’t last.’

‘Nothing lasts,’ she tells me. ‘Get it while it’s hot.’

That leaves Steve and me, working out what to do next year. Tonight, when I bring this up, he avoids the subject, asks if I want to go a festival. I say ‘no’.

‘I don’t think I could do it, three days in a field, no showers, far more rubbish band than ones you want to see. It’s probably OK if you take enough drugs, but neither of us are that into getting out of our heads.’

‘You’re right.’ He hesitates. ‘Any change with your mum?’

‘No. Any sudden change will be for the worse, the doctors say.’

‘Are you going back there this weekend?’

‘Can’t. Got one more exam to revise for. You working?’

‘Only on Sunday evening. Want to do something Saturday night?’

‘Yeah. Whatever. That’d be nice.’

‘I’ll see what’s on.’

‘It’s a date,’ I say, pointedly. For you can only be miserable for so long. After that, you have to get on with life or be dragged under. This weekend, I probably ought to sleep with Steve. And if it only lasts a night, or a week, so be it. Steve’s fun, and I need fun right now. Mark comes with too much baggage. Everything about him reminds me of home. Which isn’t to say that I won’t end up marrying him one day. I often think that. Other times I think that I’ll never marry anyone, certainly won’t have children. I’m far too selfish. Best to know that about yourself early on.

At nights I cry myself to sleep, but the pillow doesn’t get as wet as it used to. I’ve even started talking to my dad on the phone, every week or so. Strange to be brought together by the woman that both of us couldn’t wait to get away from. I’ll never stop blaming Dad — he should have waited until I was older before he left. But I don’t think about that much any more. You can’t spend your life focussing on blame. Mark says the people who are happiest are the ones who think about themselves the least, who are more interested in other people. Yeah, right. I’ll go off to do VSO for a year. When I come back, I’ll be so grateful that I don’t live in some hot as hell, poverty-stricken shithole that I’ll spend the rest of my days ecstatically happy I’m not poor or ill. Unless, of course, I get poor or ill.

Maybe volunteering would do me good, but I can’t do VSO when Mum’s the way she is. She could linger like this for decades. Is it wrong to worry about where that leaves me? I often feel like I’ve spent my whole life on hold, waiting for the next thing to come along, forgetting to live. So fuck it, yes, I will sleep with Steve.

My father likes Steve. He sees a well groomed guy who doesn’t wear ripped jeans, desert boots or trainers, and has outgrown the adolescent acne that still plagues both Mark and me.

‘How long have you two been seeing each other?’ he asks.

‘Not that long,’ I mumble.

‘We’ve been living in the same house all year,’ Steve explains, ‘but it took me until June to persuade Allison to go out with me.’

‘I was seeing someone else most of that time,’ I remind him.

‘He wasn’t right for her,’ Steve says.

I wonder what Aidan’s up to. The conversation shifts to my mum, who is still hospitalised. She has dysarthria, dyspraxia and dysphonia, the full range of tricks that a brain attack plays on its victims. The doctors now say she’s unlikely to go home again. Dad thinks she should sell the house, but what does it have to do with him? I’m against it.

‘Maybe she could rent it out,’ I say.

‘Then you’d have nowhere to stay when you come home,’ Steve says.

‘There’re always friends.’

‘And me, of course,’ Dad says.

I have stayed in his house a grand total of two nights since the divorce. Neither went well.

‘Another pint?’ Steve offers. Dad insists on buying. He’ll be over the limit, but that isn’t my problem. I left the car at home.

‘He’s not so bad, your dad,’ Steve says when we’re alone. ‘From what you told me I was expecting someone... sleazier.’

‘Maybe you don’t notice how sleazy he is because you’re a bit that way yourself,’ I say, and regret the words as soon as they’re out of my mouth. Steve’s not good at taking criticism.

‘I’m only sleazy in ways you like,’ Steve says, running his fingers beneath my shirt, lightly tracing a path from my bra strap to my knickers.

‘Not here,’ I tell him, though it excites me.

Dad returns with the drinks. He asks about my exams. The results were so-so. Nowhere near a first, which was understandable in the conditions, but respectable enough.

‘I think you did very well. Have you thought about what you’ll do when you graduate?’

‘That’s what? A year away? Get a job, I suppose. Start paying off my debts.’

He doesn’t press me further.

‘What about you, Steve?’

‘The ticket agency I’m with would like me to stay on, say they’d make it worth my while, but I’m not so sure. Some kind of marketing, probably.’

Dad’s mobile rings. He tells Ingrid that he’ll pick up whatever she’s asking for on the way home, then gets up to go, leaving half his pint.

‘It was great to meet you, Steve. You seem to be good for Allison. I’ve never seen her with such a healthy glow. You two are very welcome to come and stay with us next time you’re over.’

‘Thanks,’ I say, half-heartedly accepting his kiss on the cheek.

‘Waste not, want not,’ Steve says when he’s gone, topping up his drink with the remainder of my dad’s.

That’s right, Steve and I finally got together. That Saturday night, just before the exams, I caved in. There was no significant quantity of booze or drugs involved. Just lust. We’ve been all over each other ever since, more than two months now. I worried that Steve’s previous girlfriends never lasted more than a week, but he says that he was waiting to meet the right girl. Or, more to the point, waiting for me to realise that he was the right guy.

I don’t know if he is the right guy. All I know is that we have sex two, sometimes three times a day. It’s a standing joke with the others in the house. Even my period doesn’t bother Steve. My father thinks I’ve got over what happened to Mum because I’ve fallen in love. But I’m not ‘in love’ with Steve like I was with Aidan, like Vic is with Liz. I reckon romantic love, call it what you will, is over-rated. I’m happy because I’m getting laid.

‘What’s his wife like?’ Steve asks as we walk back to Beacon Drive.

‘Mid-thirties. Pretty. Comes from a well-off, Swedish family. Doesn’t talk much, at least not to me, maybe because she stole my dad off my mum.’

‘Women don’t steal. Men take.’

‘It takes two,’ I point out. ‘Otherwise, you would have got off with me far earlier.’

‘Not the same,’ Steve says. ‘If Ingrid hadn’t had your dad, somebody else would. There are blokes who are determined to stray. It’s hard-wired in.’

Steve doesn’t usually talk like this, but he gets drunk quickly and the three and a half pints have made him voluble.

‘Are you trying to give me a warning?’ I ask.

His smile is almost bashful. ‘I’ve got a high sex drive. That’s why I saw so many other women when you wouldn’t go out with me.’

‘You were seeing different women every week before you made any kind of move on me.’

‘What did you expect?’ Steve asks, swaying a little.

‘I expected you to find a girl you liked enough to stay with her, but basically, they were all one night stands. Oh, except for the black one. What was her name?’

‘Jessica. She stayed for a whole weekend.’

‘She was nice. Why couldn’t you go out with her?’

‘Jessica was great. She taught me a couple of things. I would have gone out with her, but her boyfriend was coming back. She only went out with me because she was pissed off with him.’

‘So when you say I would have gone out with her do you mean you didn’t go out with any of the others?’

‘Not for five minutes, no. You’re the only person I’ve been out with this year. You’re my first serious girlfriend, full stop.’

I ignore this compliment, if that’s what it is. ‘So what does sex count as, if not going out?’

‘It’s just sex. We’re young. We can do what we want. Don’t tell me you’ve never had a one night stand.’

‘I have. It was meaningless, in every sense, compared to what we have.’

‘Sure, but a lot more satisfying than a hand job.’

‘All you need is a hole to come in.’

‘Some girls are like that, too.’

‘How many? You’d know.’

‘You’ve heard the story. An average looking guy in a bar asks every single woman he sees to sleep with him. On average, one in ten say “yes”.’

‘Is that what you did?’

‘I come from a small village. Everybody there has known me all my life. There’s no casual sex to be had. Whereas in Nottingham, I’m anonymous. If a girl turns me down, I’ll never have to talk to her again. Most times, even if she says no, she’s flattered. At least I asked. There’ve been a couple who turned me down one night in Mooch but come on to me another night, said they changed their minds.’

‘Are you serious? You’ve spent all year going up to strange women and asking them to have sex with you? No chat up lines, no cosying up while you dance in a club, just straight up fancy a fuck??’