The State of Me

Jana and Piedro had sex in the greenhouse. Jana sat on some bulbs and came back into the house with mud on her white jeans. Shit, my good jeans are ruined, she said. D’you think this’ll come out? That guy Callum’s weird. He was watching us having sex. He had his head pressed up against the glass the whole time. And he had a rose between his teeth.

Don’t mind Callum, I said. He’s harmless. Weird but harmless. Are the bulbs okay? Rita will go mad if you’ve ruined them.

She grinned. I had to re-pot them but they’re fine.

Jana, I hope you’re joking! I said.

Later, I found Callum stoned, lying on top of the coats in Sean’s bedroom. Why did you watch my friends having sex in the greenhouse? I asked.

Och, I was just having a laugh, he said. I couldn’t really see much. It was all steamed up.

Jana said you had a rose between your teeth.

I stole it from next door, he said. It just tempted me. Do you mind?

You’re mad, I said. Where’s Roquia got to?

I think she’s in the huff with me for flirting with Rachel. She’s away chatting up your boyfriend to get me back. He’s a handsome boy, by the way. I could shag him myself. Here, d’you fancy a draw? He handed me a soggy joint.

No thanks. (You could never be sure what Callum was smoking. It was probably mixed with dung or something.) I’m away to mingle. Don’t be sick on the coats.

D’you fancy a snog before you go?

Behave yourself, I said.

Has anyone ever told you you’ve got a dancer’s legs?

When the party started to fizzle out, Ivan and his friends got their guitars out. Callum kept requesting Bohemian Rhapsody but they ignored him so he paraded around singing all the parts himself. It’s too operatic for you, he said. That’s your problem, boys. Too fucking operatic.

We got to bed about five and Ivan and I had sex, jammed together in my single bed. He said he’d miss me like hell when I went away. Me too, I said. He hummed my favourite Leonard Cohen song and I fell asleep. The next morning I was up by eleven, opening all the windows and cleaning up. The others would’ve slept all day if I hadn’t woken them.

Piedro had sleeping bag zip marks on his face and was mooching around the kitchen. Sean was pretending that he had a hang-over to act tough – he’d hardly drunk a thing – and said he couldn’t eat anything. He went into the garden to get some air and came back and said the hollyhocks were broken. I went into the front garden to check. It looked like someone had gone over them on a bike. I snapped off the broken flowers and tried to ruffle up the leaves to get rid of the flatness and tyre marks. I knew it was Callum.

Mum’ll go mad, I said. And you can still see a stain where your friend was sick in the hall. You’ll need to put more disinfectant on it.

It’s stinking, said Sean.

I’m glad I’m going away next week, I said. Mum’ll have her stony face for days after this.

I went upstairs to finish hoovering, and Piedro made omelettes for everyone. He wasn’t as glaikit as he looked.

We’d filled six bin bags with rubbish from the party. I hoped the squirrels wouldn’t get them. It was the only thing that made Nab angry, litter strewn in the garden when the squirrels chewed the bags. He was always shouting at them, You bloody rodents with no respect!

I loved the squirrels. I loved the way they’d skite up the trees and along branches and down again.

Diarrhoea the day before we left. Pain like sharp sticks. A heavy headache that hurt my eyes. You’ll be fine, said Rita. It’s just nerves. Drink lots of water so you don’t get dehydrated.

Ivan and Rita and Nab saw us off at Central Station. I was worried the diarrhoea would come back when I was on the train. Rita went off to John Menzies to get me some Pan Drops. Peppermint’s good for you, she said, it’ll settle your stomach. You sound like Granny, I said.

A Polaroid snap of the occasion: me clinging to Ivan. See you at Christmas. I love you. Nab like a wall round me with his polar bear hug. Rita pressing the Pan Drops into my hand. Remember we love you. Phone us when you get there. Ivan whispering in my ear, Don’t shit yourself on the train. My mother wiping a tear away as the train jolts out. Nab’s arm round her. Ivan making a face, trying not to show emotion in front of them.

I was homesick by Preston and wanted to go back. You can’t be serious, said Jana. We are going to have a ball over there, my girl. This time next week you’ll be asking yourself, Who is Ivan anyway?

I doubt it, I said. Did I tell you we’ve agreed that we can kiss other people while I’m away, as long as we tell each other about it?

Jana rolled her eyes.

Won’t you miss Piedro at all? I asked. Won’t you miss his omelettes?

She started to laugh and couldn’t stop. Speaking of Piedro, she said, snorting, how are your skitters?

Poor Piedro. He’ll be pining for you all next term. And since you asked, the skitters seem to have dried up for the time being.

Great, she said. Everything’s just hunky dory. Yes, we are going to have a ball, my girl. A veritable ball!

We stayed overnight in Weymouth at a B&B. I cried in the toilet because I was missing Ivan. I was scared he’d get back with Gail, his ex. She was still after him.

We went out and had fish and chips, and scones with clotted cream. Jana found a hair in her cream. That’s fucking gross, she said. I told her about the time I was wee and we were at a dentist friend’s of Peter’s for dinner and I’d found a hair in my fruit cocktail. I’d been too shy to say anything and had just eaten it. I could feel it in my throat for ages afterwards.

The next morning we missed the ferry to Cherbourg because we slept in. We got to the docks just as the Sealink ferry was floating off. We could have reached out and touched it. Looks like we’ve missed the boat, said Jana. I sent Ivan a postcard. I love you. Jana was scathing.

We got lodgings with a family in Caen. The mother Simone looked like Jeanne Moreau. She warned us that electricity was very expensive and we should never leave the lights on. She had a lock on the phone. Her husband Vincent was a lot older. He’d had a stroke and taken early retirement from his factory job. He shuffled around the house, eating grapes. Their son Jean-Paul had just done his army service and lived in the basement.

That’ll have to go, Jana said, pointing to the poster in our bedroom – Entre Les Trous de la Mémoire, a montage of some anaemic girl and her memories, featuring a cruise ship with symbolic waves; the leaning tower of Pisa; a tree; a pile of books (one of them in flames); a hot air balloon and a mirror. It was horrible but I persuaded Jana to leave it there ‘til we’d ingratiated ourselves a bit more with Simone.

We had to register at la préfecture and get ID cards. Le préfet was like a Peter Sellers character. He glared at us while he stamped our cartes de séjour with a hundred different stamps. We started to giggle and he glimmered us a smile.

We didn’t have any exams and our attendance wasn’t being checked, so there was no incentive for Jana to go to classes. I’d lugged over my huge Collins dictionary and planned to get through everything on next year’s reading list. Jana had started sleeping with Jean-Paul in our third week and preferred to spend her mornings in the basement. She’d roll into the student canteen at lunchtime, boasting that Jean-Paul had asked her to fais-moi la pipe. At first she hadn’t understood what he meant. Jean-Paul grinned. Comme une sucette, like a lollipop.

Louis de Funès, a French comedy actor, had just died, and they were showing all his films. We would sit around the TV, en famille, guffawing at his antics. Vincent would cry and snort with joy. It was the only time he was ever animated.

At the end of September, Abas came to lodge with us. He was from Morocco. He would invite me into his room to eat oranges and help him with his English. He said he was missing his wife. His eyes would fill up and he’d try and sit a bit nearer me on the bed.

In the evenings, we’d go to the Bar de la Fac and eat crepes and get drunk on kir royal with Esther, a student from Cork. Esther was plump and breathless and beautiful. She wanted to lose her virginity before Christmas. Abas was at the top of her list. She thought he was lovely.

One weekend, we went skating. I could skate backwards better than I could skate forwards. I had more control going backwards.

Abas had never skated. He clung to Esther like a toddler, terrified to leave the side of the rink. Jean-Paul and his friend, a lorry driver from Ouistreham, with a thuggish crew-cut, sped round, pissing themselves at Abas every time he fell. I didn’t like the lorry driver and wished someone would skate over his hands.

I had to sit down after twenty minutes because my legs felt weak. I spectated for the rest of the afternoon. The smell of the rink reminded me of learning to skate in Aviemore, Nab skating round effortlessly with his hands clasped behind his back.

I shivered. I felt I was coming down with something.

Nagging pain in spine for last two weeks. Feeling stoned all the time. When I bend down, I feel dizzy.

I’ve only had one letter from Ivan in a month. I’ve written to him every week.

Something isn’t right.

When I go outside, the light hurts my eyes.

Dear Ivan,

I am missing you so much, sweet boy. I think about you all the time and want to kiss you right now. Jana and Abas have gone to Bayeux today but I didn’t feel up to going. I’ve been feeling ill and weird. I might have picked something up in the university canteen. The food is fucking horrible. I’m sure they gave us pigeon last week. They covered it with grated carrots to make it seem healthy. Did I tell you that Simone, the landlady, has arranged a wee party for my birthday? It’s funny, ‘cos she’s really tight-fisted. We’re not allowed to use her real coffee, we have to drink the chicory stuff! We’re scared she finds out we’ve binned that poster she had up in our room. It was really ugly and the drawing pins kept falling out. We’ve also hidden the vase with the plastic flowers behind the wardrobe. We couldn’t stand looking at them anymore. I don’t have much more news, I told you everything in last letter. I’m sending you lots of kisses.

Helen xxx

PS. I am wearing your cosy purple tartan shirt and sandalwood oil. It makes me feel near you. PPS. How’s the band going?

I put the letter in my bedside drawer. I wouldn’t send it ‘til I got a reply to my last two.

One morning during a lecture on Voltaire, it just came over me.

Hot twisting cramps.

I thought I was going to shit myself. I bolted out of the lecture hall and ran to the toilet. I sat there for almost an hour ‘til there was nothing left.

I got the bus home and went to bed. I cried myself to sleep. Jana woke me up rummaging for cigarettes in her bedside cabinet.

There’s something wrong with me, Jana, I said. I almost shat myself today in the Voltaire lecture, and the other weird feelings are getting worse. My head keeps going numb.

She came over and sat on the side of the bed. Maybe it’s hormonal ‘cos you came off the pill. We’ll go to the uni doctor tomorrow.

The next day the university doctor took a urine sample and gave me antibiotics for a urinary tract infection that I knew I didn’t have. He assured me that I didn’t have appendicitis and asked if British people had their appendix on the left side like their cars. He told me to come back in a week if I wasn’t better.

We picked up the prescription and Jana talked me into buying a pink lambswool sweater from Au Printemps that I couldn’t afford. You need something to cheer yourself up, she said.

I felt dizzy in the changing room. The spot-light glared above me. It looks great, said Jana, swooshing the curtain back. You’re so lucky you’ve got breasts.

You’re so lucky you’ve got hips, I replied out of habit.

You’re so lucky you’re tall.

You’re so lucky you don’t feel as if you’re dying.

Is it so bad?

Yes. I want to go home.

I’ll come with you.

No, don’t. I’m just going to go to bed.

She went to the Bar de la Fac to meet some Americans she’d befriended and I went home with the nagging pain circling me and the pink sweater folded preciously in floral tissue paper.

I took the antibiotics anyway, Doctor’s orders! When I went back to see him he said my urine was clear and took some blood. He patted my head and said I looked pale. It’s inside my muscle, I said, pointing to the nagging in my spine. I struggled for the correct French preposition. We’ll know more when we get the blood results, he said. Come back in two weeks.

Later, I lay in the bath, scrunching up my eyes, wishing that when I unscrunched them I could be home with Rita and Nab – like Dorothy clicking her magic slippers.

Ivan phoned in the middle of my party and sang Happy Birthday down the phone. He’d sent a card too.

Simone had bought cheap pate from Carrefour that looked like cat food. Abas had bought a cake with bright green icing. Simone’s eyes lit up when he brought it to the table. She was like a magpie. He had made thick black coffee which he poured ceremoniously into tiny cups. It was almost undrinkable. When Abas wasn’t looking Jean-Paul threw his in the yucca plant. I thought Jana would explode. Esther guzzled the sparkling wine she’d brought and told Abas his coffee was trés bon. He beamed.

Why do you sound so sad? said Ivan.

I’m still feeling ill, I said. I’ve been staying in bed. The pain’s still there and the funny feelings. I’m going back to the doctor’s a week on Tuesday.

Hang in there, he said. You’ll soon be home for Christmas. By the way, I’ve got a surprise for you, I got my ear pierced. We used ice and potatoes. It was agony!

You’re crazy, I said. You should have done it properly. It could get infected. Who’s we?

Rez and me.

Abas had put on his favourite tape, an awful, wailing Middle Eastern woman. (He was always singing along to her in his room, completely out of tune.)

What the hell’s that racket? said Ivan

Abas’s music, I said.

Is Abas deaf?

Ha ha. Very funny.

Tell Abas to change it. It’s shite. He laughed and sent a kiss down the phone before hanging up.

I went back to the party.

Ça va avec ton copain? Simone was blinking and beaming, hungry for details.

Oui, ça va, I said.

I hated Ivan for not believing how bad I felt and I hated him for being happy without me and I hated him for slagging Abas.

I wanted to phone him back and tell him how much I missed him.

Let’s go out tonight. It’ll cheer you up, Jana said, recently emerged from the basement. A couple of the Moroccans are having a party on the campus.

If I could go to a party that meant I was fine, so I forced myself to go just to pretend. I wore my new pink sweater. The hosts had made spicy hamburgers and boiled eggs. I sipped on a kir and tried to blend in with the noise, but it wasn’t working. I wasn’t part of this. I just wanted to lie down.

We got a taxi home. Jana went into the kitchen to get some bottled water. She screamed and jumped back from the fridge. Jesus Christ! Whatever you do, don’t look in the fridge, Helen. Just don’t look!

What is it?! Tell me!

The rabbit’s in the fridge! The bastards have killed their pet rabbit, can you believe it?! She was a bit drunk and kept saying, Pauvre fucking lapin over and over again.

I trudged upstairs and started to pack. The rabbit had decided me, I was going home. I couldn’t wait ‘til the Christmas break. I was going now. I packed everything except my French dictionary and umbrella. My case weighed a ton.

Jana and Abas came to the station with me. Abas, mournful in his blue anorak, tried to kiss me goodbye on the lips. Jana said she didn’t think I should be travelling on my own. I hadn’t told Rita and Nab I was coming back. I didn’t want to worry them. Remember to cancel my doctor’s appointment, I mouthed to her from the train.

On the way to Cherbourg, I thought I was having a heart attack. Chest pains, numb face, pins and needles in my legs. I kept staring at my feet to stay calm. I’d bought these blue desert boots for coming to France. I could see myself two months ago – a young woman in Schuh trying on a mountain of boots: I can never get shoes to fit, I’m not a six or a seven, I’m really a six and a half.

I met a French girl on the ferry. She was starting a job as a nanny in London. When she asked me where I was going, I told her I was going home for Christmas. But it’s only the fifth of December, she said.

I brushed my teeth in a trickle of water and tossed and turned all night in the grey cabin. I slept for two hours and smelled of sweat when I woke.

I called home at half eight in the morning, hoping that Nab would answer. He did.

Nab, I’m in Weymouth, I’m coming home. I’m ill.

Calm and Scandinavian, he said he’d meet me in Glasgow. Nab didn’t judge.

I got a taxi to Seaview, the B&B we’d stayed at on the way out. The landlady recognised me. You’re the ones that missed the boat, she said. Is your friend not with you?

I booked in and hauled my case into room six. She grudgingly made me breakfast. I had just made the deadline. The dining room was empty, just me and the dirty tables. I felt sick and hungry at the same time and forced down some toast and half a glistening sausage.

I got to the toilet just in time. The cramps had come from nowhere, clawing into me. The toilet seat was freezing. I was doubled over, groaning, my head in my hands, my gut in twisted loops. The toilet paper was like the chemical stuff you got at school. I must have used half the box. I was pulling up my jeans when I saw the spider on the ceiling. It was the size of a cup. I scraped my knuckles on the snib in my panic to get out. My jeans were still undone.

Back in the room, I sat on the floor, sucking my knuckles, trying to banish the image of what I’d seen, hoping no one could hear me crying.

I had to get clean.

I gathered up my toiletries and underwear and realised I didn’t have a towel – all I had was the skimpy grey B&B hand-towel. I’d need to use my dressing gown. I locked the room and went along the corridor to the bathroom. The corridor smelled of bacon.

I checked for spiders before going in. The radiator was boiling hot. I piled up my stuff beside it and rinsed the bath with the shower attachment. There was a pubic hair stuck on the side. I imagined Jana’s reaction: Gross me out the door! I climbed in and washed away the ferry and diarrhoea. I washed my hair with soap even though I knew it would give me dandruff.

I felt the cleanest I’d ever felt.

I dried off with my dressing gown and went back to my room, slightly cheered up by clean pants. I went to bed wearing Ivan’s shirt. When I woke up it was four o’clock. I couldn’t be bothered moving but my bladder was nagging me to get up. I pulled on my jeans and went along the corridor. I opened the toilet door, keeping it at arm’s length. I forced myself to look inside. The spider had fucking moved! It was halfway down the wall now, spanned and waiting. I fled to the toilet upstairs, still shuddering at the thought of it looking down on me before.

I went back to the room and made some coffee. There was a tray on top of the dressing-table with two damp sachets of Nescafe and a kettle with a melted handle.

When I stirred in the powdered milk, it floated in clumps on the top. I threw it away. I tried to drink the second cup black, but it was too bitter.

I was feeling hungry again and went to ask the landlady if I could have some toast. She said the kitchen was closed. I told her I wasn’t feeling well. There’s an Indian takeaway round the corner, she said. I asked if she could get rid of the spider in the toilet. She said they were harmless and that they ate flies. There are no flies, I wanted to say. It’s winter.

I trudged back to my room and found half a packet of peanuts at the bottom of my bag. I ate them and lay down again. By six o’clock, I was starving. I got dressed and went round the corner to the Taj Mahal. They were just opening. I thought I could manage some pakora but they didn’t have any. The flock wallpaper and Indian music made me think of Ivan. He loved Indian food. I ended up with chicken biryani and boiled rice and a plastic knife and fork. I went back to Seaview and sat on the bed and ate from the foil trays. I could only eat half of it. I got up and opened the window. The air was cold and sharp. The room was stinking of curry and I’d spilled biryani on the bedspread.

I lay on the bed with my year-abroad boots on, wondering what Ivan would say. I was dying to speak to him but he didn’t have a phone in his flat. I thought of calling his parents but his dad could be a bit gruff and I didn’t know what to say.

I saw Nab before he saw me. I saw him from the window of the train. He was wearing his sheepskin jacket.

He hugged me tightly on the platform and said, You’ve been feeling a bit scruffy, Helen?

Scruffy. Nab’s word for ill.

I scrunch up my eyes. When I open them I am in the bath at home, Rita and Nab in the next room. Safe.

5 The Trial

I KNEW RITA would think I was pregnant. She’d made me an appointment with Myra Finlay, our family doctor.

Beginning of the trial.

Sitting opposite Myra, I presented my evidence.

She wrote it all down.

You’re not pregnant are you?

I shook my head.

You haven’t been taking drugs over in France?

No, I said.

Are you worried about anything?

I’m worried about what’s wrong with me.

She took some blood and told me to come back in a week. On the way out, I peed into a tube and handed it in at reception. It was still warm.

Results all negative.

It’s common for young women your age to have aches and pains. Being homesick’s a terrible thing. Go back to France and stop worrying.

What about the diarrhoea?

It’s anxiety.

What about the pain in my spine and the pressure in my head?

She smiled weakly and didn’t answer.

I told everyone I’d go back after Christmas, I had to keep up appearances. I was trying to read Zola’s Germinal without my dictionary. There were lots of mining terms that I didn’t understand.

Ivan said, This year abroad’s a great opportunity. Don’t screw it up because you’re missing me. Later, he apologised and said he’d been stressed by his end of term exams. He looked gorgeous with his earring. I’d been too scared to ask if he’d kissed Gail.

Rita took me Christmas shopping and I wandered round John Menzies wondering if I had something wrong with my kidneys. I shopped half-heartedly:

Boxers with red hearts and a sweater for Ivan;

Midnight’s Children for Rita;

Stranglers album for Sean.

I didn’t know what to get Nab. I’d probably go halfers with Sean on a bottle of Glenmorangie. Brian was easy. Whenever you asked him what he wanted for Christmas, he’d beam and say, A big giant selection box.

I helped Rita with the Christmas tree, trying to ignore the expanding headaches and ever-present gnawing in my spine. Our Christmas decorations had become Scandinavian since Nab: glass angels on the tree, wooden trolls under the tree, all white lights, and he’d taught us to curl the ribbons on presents with the edge of the scissors. (Nab’s advent had also brought a Bang & Olufsen hi-fi, a huge chunky Lisa Larson lion, a couple of Greenlandic paintings, a set of orange and black almanacs called Hvem, Hvad, Hvor and duty-free Firkløver chocolate.)