Student (13 page)

‘Pretty much, yes.’

‘And ten per cent said yes?’

‘Better than ten per cent. One in seven, maybe, one in eight. And bear in mind, I never asked mingers.’

This is true. I met enough of his one night women to recognise that he has taste. And Steve is well above average himself.

‘Would you go out with a girl who’s slept with as many men as you have women?’

‘Not if she was stupid enough to tell me.’

On the way back from the pub, we stop at Zoe’s. Three drinks in, I’m reckless, don’t care if we run into her dad, not with Steve here to protect me. But we don’t. Steve’s not met Zoe before and, the way he flirts and teases, it’s obvious he fancies her. Zoe is impressed.

‘I wouldn’t have thought he was your type,’ she says when Steve’s in the loo. ‘He’s so different from Mark and Aidan.’

‘He wore me down,’ I tell her. ‘What about you? Seeing anyone?’

She hesitates, then tells me in a rush. ‘After you finished with him, Aidan started texting me. I’d just quit uni, most of my friends were away, so I went to see him. Aidan, he’s kind of like a project. He’s much better than he was, more like his old self.’

‘I wouldn’t know how to tell.’

‘He’s even holding down a job, getting up in the mornings.’

‘And are the two of you... you know?’

‘He’s not very pushy that way. Did you..?’

‘I can count the times on the fingers of one hand. Maybe you could slip some Viagra in with all the other meds he takes.’

‘What are you two giggling about?’ Steve asks as he returns.

‘Nothing,’ I tell him.

‘Literally,’ Zoe adds.

‘Show me,’ I say later, when we’re home.

‘Show you what?’

‘What you do to pick up women. Pretend you’ve never met me before. Think of it as role-play.’

‘You did drama at school. I didn’t.’

‘Go on, try to pick me up.’

He puts on a ham movie actor voice. ‘I’m Steve. Would you like to come back to mine and fuck?’

‘You’ll have to do better than that.’

‘I don’t always say “fuck”. Sometimes I say “I’d really like to take you home with me. How about it?”’

‘Better. What lines worked best?’

‘The ones I made up on the spur of the moment. I’d start asking where we’d met before.’

‘Come on,’ I say. ‘Do it properly.’

He leans forward and gives me an admiring look.

‘Are you in my seminar group?’

‘I don’t think so. What course are you on?’

‘Economics.’ He grins. ‘I was wondering...’

‘What?’

‘Whether you’d let me come home with you tonight. Or, if you prefer, we could go back to mine. I’d really like to go to bed with you.’

‘I’ll bet you would,’ I say, and figure this is the nearest I’ll get to finding out how he operates. ‘OK, then.’

‘Not convincing,’ he says.

‘Pardon?’

‘They always do a double take. Sometimes they ask their mate over, get me to repeat myself.’

‘And do you?’

‘Of course. Except I add that I’d happily service them both, if they want.’

‘And do they want?’

‘That’d be telling.’

‘And how do they say “yes” when they do say “yes”?’

‘Most look me up and down, the way a man would. You can see them thinking about it. Sometimes they snog me, like it’s a trial rental. I’ve ended up doing it in a toilet a couple of times.’

‘Some must say “no”. Do you get your face slapped a lot?’

‘Never. Usually, they say “this is a wind-up, isn’t it?” or “so and so put you up to this, didn’t she?” They want to turn it into a laugh and I let them.’

I take him into my bedroom, onto the single, unmade bed. Thinking of all the women he’s been with, far more than I guessed, is turning me on. It’s not just him I’m undressing, it’s all of them too. I like his honesty, his bravery about sex. Get it while you’re young. Get it while you can.

Later, when he’s sleeping, I do my email. There’s one from Mark, checking to see if I’m around. He’s seeing Helen again. No surprise there. Her new bloke gave her the end of term elbow and, reading between the lines, Mark immediately did the same to Rowena. If Steve is like my dad, as Mark once said, then Mark is like me — a little uncertain about things, private, lonely a lot of the time, anxious not to hurt anyone. He’ll cling to Helen and treat her well, but she’ll dump him again. This is one of the things nobody tells you about going out with people at university. You’re allowed to experiment with sex the same as you are with drugs — different class, colour, sex, age, intellectual agility. But when you come out at the other end, the old rules still apply. People pair off with someone of their own social class. If you’re exceptionally bright or beautiful, like Helen, you’re allowed to trade up as  high as you can get away with. Helen’s parents belong to the golf club. Mark lives on a former council estate. He works as a caddy at the golf club. Enough said.

I suspect that Steve and I are even. I don’t know what his parents are like. He never talks about them, or says much about the village he’s from. I wonder when he’ll take me home. If he does, I’ll know he’s serious about me. He’d say that renewing the lease on the house we share shows he’s serious. We’re moving into the rooms that Finn and Tessa share. Our turn to be the couple of the house.

I reply to Mark, agreeing to meet, saying I’ll bring Steve with me, and it’ll be nice to see Helen again. I don’t want to see Mark alone, for he is my reserve guy, the one I will turn to when Steve bails out. And I am Mark’s back-up girl. Neither of us needs to articulate this. All over the world, there are reserves waiting for their call up to the first team, the Love Eleven. Only nobody calls it “love”. They don’t know what to call it. I like Mark more than I like Steve but Steve excites me, and I like him about as much as I like myself. If he were a stranger and came up to me in a bar offering no strings sex, I might say “yes”. We’re not strangers, so I’ve no way of knowing. But we’ve both got strings now. Sooner or later, one of us is going to start pulling them.

It was Zoe’s idea.

‘I can’t go on holiday with Aidan on his own. You know what he’s like.’

‘You’re the one going out with him.’

‘I’ve already persuaded Mark and Helen to come.’

‘Jesus, Zoe. I’d be going on holiday with my two exboyfriends.’

‘But you finished with both of them. And Mark was so long ago. Steve doesn’t look like the jealous type to me.’

‘I’ll discuss it with him,’ I said. ‘See what he thinks.’

‘Persuade him,’ Zoe said. ‘It’ll be like the old gang.’

‘And I’ll be the odd one out,’ Steve says, when I put it to him.

‘We were never really a gang. Zoe and Mark were at primary school together, but I’ve only known Aidan a year. And Helen, well...’

‘I don’t know.’

‘We wouldn’t have to spend all our time with them.’

I’m nervous about going on holiday with Steve on his own. Out of bed, we don’t have that much in common. Anyway, he hasn’t suggested that we go on holiday together. And I need to. I’ve had a crap year and I need to get away. Home is my mum. Nottingham is finals. I need to be elsewhere.

‘It’s not for long. A week, ten days at most. That’s all any of us can afford.’

Steve’s tight-fisted. It’s taken me a while to work this out, but the signs are clear. The meals in restaurants haven’t happened. He doesn’t drive, and never offers to pay for petrol. He lives in the cheapest house going, has a decent part time job and is usually the last to buy a round. I have to make this holiday worth his while.

After three days, he agrees to go. What impresses me most is that he doesn’t once display any anxiety about us being in close proximity to my two ex-boyfriends. They’re no threat to him. That’s how sure of himself he is.

How sure am I? On the plane, I can’t help but make comparisons. Steve, while the shortest of the three guys, only four inches taller than me, is the most conventionally good looking. Aidan, even with his curly hair cut short, looks coolest. Enigmatic. Unlike Mark, whose open face is more footballer than rock star, and whose haircut is dated: mid-90’s Britpop. Helen should tell him this, but to her he has become a comfort figure, a favourite family pet.

We girls compete too. Helen is way ahead in the tits and legs department, though Zoe, with her funky feather cut and artificial tan, competes in the glam stakes. She’s already been mistaken for a travel rep, a career she has considered. I’m the odd one out here, prone to dressing down, with breasts you’d only notice if I went topless, which I have no intention of doing. Steve says I’m his ideal body type, that I look like a model (I’m not tall enough to be one), but I’ve already seen him ogling Helen’s low top, hoping to chance on a nipple slip. On holiday, he might revert to type. I’ll have to watch him.

Mark’s brought some weed with him. It’s double wrapped and concealed in a trouser pocket somewhere in his suitcase. No e’s. He says they’re easy to get on the island. And no need to be nervous. The ‘nothing to declare’ line at Customs isn’t staffed. Within half an hour of our reaching the hotel, Mark’s skinning up and passing the spliff along the balcony to me and then to Aidan, on my left.

‘Should you be doing that?’ I hear Zoe say.

A few minutes later, on my right, I can hear Mark and Helen making love. So can Steve. He feels me up. I’m not comfortable, having sex in such close proximity to the others, and, for once, I don’t finish. Steve hardly notices. Mark is going to get some whiz so that we can hit the ground running. I hear him go out and come back. It takes him all of ten minutes. Everyone has some. Even Steve has a dab, but it doesn’t suit him. He’s even more confident than usual, annoyingly hyper. I thought speed might make Aidan more loquacious, but it has no visible effect.

From night one, a pattern establishes itself. We eat badly, neck a few beers and a couple of pills, then hit the clubs around midnight. Before dawn, we chill out on the beach or the balcony. Then we sleep until at least noon. Wander around, get a tan and/or screw in the afternoon, followed by a little more sleep, then the whole things starts up again. On the third day, I try to persuade Steve to rent a bike and explore the island, but he’s not keen. Helen agrees to come with me instead.

‘I wonder how Mark and Steve will get on without us,’ Helen says as we leave the bike hire place.

‘Me too.’

Then she swears. Her period has started and she needs to go back to her room.

‘I’m sorry. It’s early. This always happens when I go on holiday. I guess I’ll have to cry off.’

I don’t want to cycle alone, so I head to the beach to see if I can find one of the others. Aidan is on his own. I ask where Zoe is and he gives me a ‘don’t know, don’t care’ look.

‘Helen’s got her period and she won’t cycle. Do you want to come with me instead?’

‘All right,’ he says. ‘Give me five minutes.’

He drapes his towel around shiny shoulders and leads the way. I look at his wiry frame, his flat bum, and wonder how I ever fancied him. His eyes are duller these days, perhaps because the drugs he’s on are working.

When we get to the road I start to worry. Aidan wobbles a lot and takes a while to find his pace. I haven’t used my bike much since Dad bought me the car, but it’s not a skill that deserts you. That said, Aidan, with his driving ban, isn’t used to roads. I cycle cautiously, keeping a constant eye on him. He doesn’t seem worried, or aware of my concern, but we can’t have done more than a couple of miles when he suggests that we stop for a beer.

‘I think it was somewhere round here that Nico died,’ he says. ‘She had a heart attack while she was riding her bike and fell off, hit her head on a rock. It was the rock, not the heart attack or heroin, that killed her.’

This is the longest speech he’s uttered all holiday. I get him to explain who Nico was. He gets quite enthusiastic when he talks about the Velvet Underground, although not the way Mark does when he’s talking about music. Maybe Zoe’s right and Aidan is becoming his old self again. Only I never knew his old self and everybody keeps changing, all the time. Other people rarely notice this, because they’re so wrapped up in themselves.

‘You and Zoe seem good together,’ I tell him.

‘Zoe and Aidan,’ he says, slurping Becks. ‘We sound like a children’s picture book. Zoe’s great. I thought you and Steve would get together. That party at yours, I could see how much he wanted you. Even the next morning, when he was with that Persia girl, it was you he looked at.’

‘She was more interested in you than him. I got Steve to take her off your hands. Maybe we should have swapped that night.’

‘I wouldn’t have done that to you.’

This is the most open conversation I’ve ever had with Aidan. He isn’t like this with the others (except, I hope, Zoe, when they’re alone).

‘What about you, Aidan. What do you really want?’

He lights a cigarette and his eyes seem to focus on the middle distance.

‘Not this,’ is all he finally says, stubbing out his cigarette, half smoked.

Without discussion we get back on our bikes and head back to the beach, reconnoitring clubs and bars as we cycle past them. We’ve done the best ones in walking distance, but spot a couple which look smart enough to justify forking out for a taxi. By the time I’m back in my room, I feel like I’ve made progress with Aidan. We’re mates, insofar as Aidan has mates.From my room, I can hear Zoe giving Aidan a hard time for going off without telling her.

‘You could have been anywhere! I was worried sick. No, I didn’t think that. I trust you both. I thought Allison was with Steve, I thought... I don’t know what I thought.’

Aidan’s voice in reply is calm, soothing. I can barely make out the sound, never mind the words. Of Steve, there is no sign. Maybe he’s out on the pull, checking his average ‘yes’ rate. The place is full of single women, so he should do well. I doze off. When I wake, he’s in bed with me, his instant hardon a sign that he’s not been straying. I decide to relax and trust him.

Afterwards, we shower together and he produces fresh drugs. For an abstainer, he’s discovered a strong affection for e’s and whiz. By midnight, we’re flying. Even Aidan, never much of a dancer, is making shapes. Zoe, who usually restricts herself to a few puffs of spliff or half an e, is speeding like crazy.