9

Three weeks before the end of my first term at university, an email arrived in my inbox.

From: Office of International Studies

To: First-Year English Literature Undergraduates

RE: North American Study Abroad Programme

Date: 2 December 2002, 13.07

Dear Undergraduates

An exciting opportunity has arisen within our North American Study Abroad Programme (NASAP). As you will know, for many years, we have been offering a select number of students the opportunity to spend part or all of their second years at institutions across the USA, including Columbia, UCLA, UC Berkeley and Northwestern.

The deadline for these schemes was last month and we are busy reading the applications and selecting candidates for interview. However, our international liaison team has recently secured another unique initiative for one more individual.

Unlike the other placements, this one will be run as an exchange programme with Rosella Liberal Arts College in Delaware County, NY. Beginning in September 2003, it will last one year and, on condition of relevant courses being studied and grades achieved, will count as the student’s second year of study with full credit.

For more information, click here.

Applications to be handed in to the Office of International Studies by noon on Friday, week 10.

Yours

Sandra Pilson

The Office of International Studies

Having ignored a dozen previous emails about NASAP, the ERASMUS study abroad programme and opportunities to build schools in Namibia over the summer, it was for no particular reason that I read this one. But I did. And I clicked the link for more information.

I scanned the details about paying fees to Durham and having to maintain appropriate credits, being an ambassador for the university and agreeing to participate in promotional activities upon your return, and with only a vague idea of where Delaware County could be found on a map, I filled in the application form. I didn’t read about the college and I didn’t tell anyone I was applying, but on the last Friday of term, I found the Office of International Studies and handed my four neat pages of block capitals to the pregnant lady at reception.

Sitting on the train heading south, I felt tired. Not the sleepy tired that might have enabled me to snooze despite the woman with her three-year-old child in the seat across the aisle, but the tired that made me want to draw my knees up to my chest and cry. I had made it through my first term at university.

I had played at being normal: I’d had paranoia-inducing, not-very-satisfactory sex with two boys my own age; I’d got an A- for an essay about Virginia Woolf; I’d felt my shoes stick to nightclub floors on three occasions; I’d thrown up at my college’s winter ball; I’d watched my first full-length porno with Tim; I’d established a regular Neighbours-viewing schedule; I’d formed a first-names bond with the Costcutter staff; I’d avoided consuming the pink and blue mould that had festered in our kitchen throughout November; I’d slept in for a 9.15, and I’d winged a presentation on Paradise Lost after three hours of sleep and six espressos.

I had also filtered stories about my ‘gambler’ and my ‘porn star’ into conversations so that my housemates naturally accepted I was disappearing to Newcastle for the weekend or had to take an important phone call about form and odds; I’d lied to NHS employees about my sexual history; alienated a drag king; told Tim I’d got back together with my fictional nineteen-year-old boyfriend from home; filmed myself masturbating and emailed it to a sexagenarian; allowed – nay begged – said sexagenarian to spank me as atonement for the sin of thinking I could live a normal life without him; chosen a Camus module for my third year not because of a teenage interest in existentialism but because I truly believed the sixties doctrine and used it to justify the quirks in my life; lied to all around me; and applied to move 3,000 miles away for nine months without uttering a word to anyone.

One term at university and I was exhausted.

My mum met me at the station and helped me load my bag into her boot.

‘How was your journey?’ she asked with a smile as we ducked into the car.

‘Okay. Just a few screaming children.’

‘It’s good to have you back.’ She touched my knee before turning the ignition. ‘I’ve missed you.’

‘I’ve missed you too,’ I ping-ponged as we reversed out of the space.

‘You sound sleepy.’ She flicked the indicator before pulling out of the car park.

‘Yeah, I guess I am. How’s James?’

‘Fine. He’s looking forward to seeing you too. I’ve made up a bed if you’d like to stay with us,’ she said in the meek half-whisper she still adopted for all references to my having moved out.

‘Oh, that’s sweet, but all my stuff’s at Dad’s,’ I replied, feeling a twang of guilt but thinking I could pop in to see Matthew before heading across town if I opted for my father’s house.

Familiar roundabouts and concrete buildings began to zip by my window and after only a brief hurt pause my mum launched us into chatter about Christmas plans, the latest episode of ER and which shops in town had closed since I left.

It had only been a few months since I’d left, but with my bedroom mostly empty and my CD collection a few hundred miles away, I already felt that I only half-belonged at home. As if to underline this, I woke on Christmas morning to find my dad blasting techno through the walls. Though we shared our inability to play music in just one room without turning the dial to ensure it could be heard halfway up the garden, my father and I had little else in common in terms of music, popular culture or social conformity. After a quick shower to a noise no one should be subjected to before breakfast, I exchanged hastily wrapped presents with him over coffee from his expensive espresso machine. I gave him six different types of Thornton’s chocolate and Stephen Hawking’s latest hardback. He handed me a card with a penguin on the front and a wad of £10 notes, as requested. We made stilted conversation as he ate muesli and I munched toast with olive oil because he’d forgotten to go shopping, then he wandered off to his computer.

Having fulfilled my duty to spend part of Christmas Day with him, I pulled a coat over my woollen dress and sparkly tights and left him to his Christmas DIY rituals. I shouted a goodbye over the music and crossed town to knock on my mum’s door, which, despite her yearly threats ‘not to bother with Christmas this time’, had an actual living wreath attached to the knocker. As I waited, I checked my phone for a message from Matthew. Nothing.

My mum opened the door in a floaty black jumper and a festive scarf. ‘Merry Christmas, sweetie!’ She closed the door behind me and I gave her a thick, guilt-ridden hug, wondering if I’d be able to sneak over to Matthew’s before this evening and whether he’d be able to get away from Annabelle’s parents, if he’d like the DVD I’d found for him and if we really would be able to stay in Swindon for New Year’s.

Peeling myself from the embrace, I placed the bag of presents I’d brought under the tree in the living room. James sat cross-legged on the floor assembling some electrical-looking contraption. They’d exchanged one present each but were waiting for me for the rest. My mum handed me a cup of tea and we began.

James opened a mini pool table while my mum unwrapped a heavy wooden chopping board and I tore open a companion to English Literature; James got a PlayStation game, my mum an Anita Shreve and me a scarf; James a computer mouse shaped as a rodent, my mum a collection of pens, me a jewellery box; James money, my mum chilli-flavoured olive oils, me a vegetable steamer; James chocolate, my mum bookends and me earrings; James a fart machine, my mum pillowcases and me a visual history of the twentieth century.

The last presents we opened were in dark blue paper that was dotted with moons and stars. I recognised the loops of our nametags before I opened my card and saw the neat ‘Love Annabelle and Uncle Matthew x.’ I smiled and fingered the writing. James ripped his unceremoniously and found a collection of funny postcards. My mum undid the paper neatly along the Sellotape lines and exposed a cardigan in green and brown velvet. When they were done, I tentatively tore into a thick volume of poetry.

With a pile of multi-coloured wrapping paper now sitting in the centre of our triangle, we paused. The tree looked sad.

‘I’ll make another pot of tea,’ my mother said and wandered out of the room.

‘D’you mind if I play my new game?’ asked James.

I nodded that it was fine and turned to my pile of gifts. Lifting the anthology, I fanned my thumb over the pages and chose a random poem. After doing this a couple of times, I came across a small pencil mark beside one of the titles. My mum returned with the tea and, seeing James firing at some zombie-like creature on the screen, took her cup into her office and booted up her computer. Left alone with my book, I searched the whole volume for Matthew’s selections, mouthing the words and imagining his arms as I read.

At 7pm, guests began to arrive. The previous year, which had been the first Christmas since my nana had died, I’d complained to my mum that Christmas was depressing in a nuclear family and that it should really be about friends – the family you choose – rather than locking yourself up with blood relatives. She agreed and we’d tentatively started a tradition of a friends-and-family meal.

Our doorbell began to ring and in trickled Beatrice, Valerie, Hannah and Lydia, Barbara and Richard, Dick and Jemima, and, finally, Matthew and Annabelle.

‘What lovely table decorations.’

‘Your turkey is divine, not at all dry.’

‘Did you see the Queen’s speech?’

‘Thank you, Richard gave it to me. Doesn’t he have good taste?’

‘I’m not an EastEnders fan, but I do like to watch the Christmas episode.’

‘We’re going to the Cotswolds for New Year, just a quiet one, you know?’

‘Matthew’s got to work tomorrow unfortunately.’

‘I bought Dinner for One on video if you fancy a viewing after we’ve eaten?’

‘How on earth do you get your potatoes so fluffy, Heloise?’

‘Oh, I’ve probably had too much already, but why not?’

‘Red please.’

‘Mmm, coffee sounds lovely.’

‘We’re hoping to get to Italy again this year, but it depends on work.’

‘Who made this trifle? It’s gorgeous.’

‘Oooh, choccies. The diet starts tomorrow!’

‘Yes, let’s adjourn upstairs.’

‘Thank you so much, Heloise, you’re a wonderful host.’

‘Yes, I’ll give you a ring about the theatre.’

‘Goodnight.’

‘Merry Christmas.’

‘Sleep well.’

‘Thanks again.’

‘Bye.’

The evening was ordinary except for a few stolen glances and a brush of toes beneath the table. I drank every glass of wine poured for me and accepted a challenge from Matthew to give up coffee for New Year’s, deciding to get my fix in advance and drinking a cafetière to myself while everyone passed around the Matchmakers. I fell asleep leaning against an armchair while the rest giggled to Freddie Frinton and May Warden’s black-and-white antics, then stumbled up the stairs. Finding my bed, I opened a text message that read ‘My darling, you were wonderful tonight,’ before collapsing fully-clothed into a half sleep, leaning over the edge of the mattress and regurgitating dark-red, mint-flavoured vomit onto my mum’s copy of I, Claudius. Then sleep found me.

A few days later, before departing for university once more, I lay in Matthew’s arms and then on his chaise and then in my own bed cradling the phone, each time whispering ‘I love you’ and promising I’d got my desire for normalcy out of my system, that I would be true to him forever more, that I knew how awful I had been, that I was sorry, and had I mentioned I love him? He still had a slight bend in his penis, a broken blood vessel that could no longer inflate, perhaps from too-ferocious fellatio he told me, but it was no longer painful. I emailed Rose constantly over the holidays, and Matthew and I spoke of meeting her, of the incredible sparks that would ignite our shared bed. We spoke of girls again and he asked about the students I lived with, enquired whether Chrissy could be bent over a banister or if Jane would kneel to receive a thick cock while I lapped at her cunt. These were normal conversations and made me laugh as well as moan, but they also filled me with despair at the impossibility of being bi even at university.

With my mum waiting in the car with my suitcase while I ‘dropped off a book I’d borrowed’, I kissed Matthew passionately in his kitchen.

He grabbed my wrist firmly and growled in my ear, ‘You’re mine. Don’t forget it.’

I giggled nervously and pecked butterflies on his cheek in reassurance. ‘I’ll call you tonight. I miss you already.’

Back on the street, I slithered into the passenger seat and my mum asked how Matthew was.

‘Fine.’

‘He seemed distracted at the meal; I do hope he and Annabelle aren’t having problems.’

‘Yeah, me too.’

‘They’re such a lovely couple.’

‘Yep.’

She drove me back to the train station and I hugged her before the ticket office.

‘Thanks for a lovely Christmas, Natty.’

‘No, thanks for having me. I had a great time.’

‘Yes, it was fun doing it with friends, wasn’t it?’

‘Yeah, we should do that every year. Bye Mum. Safe drive back.’

‘I don’t want to be a neurotic mother, but do give me a quick call just to let me know you arrived safely.’

‘Sure. Love you.’

‘Love you too, darling.’

With a wave, I turned to find my platform. Exchanges like that made my stomach churn. I hadn’t lied; I had had a great Christmas and I did love my mother, enormously. There were just a hundred other things woven between those words, clinging like the most vigorous ivy and poisoning any light, true sentiment with their tar-like deception. I was a bad person. Lying to everyone had become second nature and I viewed it as a necessity for survival, but lying to my mother still left a bitterness on my tongue. I felt she still looked at me with incomprehension; whenever we were tender, she’d search my face questioningly, asking what had happened to the little girl who would tug her jumper to whisper ‘I love you’ and who asked to be read The Tale of Peter Rabbit over and over again? I couldn’t answer her. I didn’t know myself.

By the time my train pulled into Durham, I’d mulled my way through such thoughts and justified my guilt away with quotes from Uncles, images of Matthew and, of course, the anthology of poetry in my handbag. I stepped into my city with an armour of persona protecting my flesh and a curl on my lips betraying my conviction that I knew the truth about love and life and that those around me were mere ghosts, floating aimlessly beneath the parapet.

I marched through the city, dragging my wheeled suitcase over cobbles and kerbs, up the hill to my college. Relieved to find no one in my kitchen, I raced to the third floor, fiddled with my lock, slammed the door and opened my laptop. I was feeling confident. I was feeling sexy and in control. I was feeling debauched and desirous. I logged on to Gaydar.