17 August 2000
A. B. C.
I close my eyes but the letters are burned into my brain.
A for Biology, B for Chemistry, C for Physics. It might as well be three Fs.
Around me, I hear squeals of delight. Everyone else is off to uni. I am not.
‘Kerry? What does yours say?’ Tim’s hand is on my shoulder, anchoring me. I open my eyes and try to read his face because he’s opened his envelope too.
‘You first.’ I hold out my hand and he passes me his results slip. I brace myself to cope with his disappointment as well as my own. If I’ve failed, he must have done too.
A. A. A.
Wow. He did it. His hard work paid off. Thank God: one of us is going to be a doctor.
‘Bloody hell, Tim, you pulled it out of the bag.’ I reach my arms around him so he can’t see my face, giving me time to recover so I can celebrate with him. He deserves this. He’s such a decent person – he’s forgiven me completely for the weeks when I avoided him, though he has no idea it was because I had been seeing Joel.
‘Hold on.’ He breaks away. ‘What about you?’
‘Don’t spoil the moment.’
But he snatches the slip from me and stares at it.
Even though I half expected failure, it’s still shocking to see it in writing.
‘This is a mistake.’ Tim’s face is the picture of righteous indignation.
‘It’s not. If anything, they’re better than I feared. I did warn you.’
‘But you weren’t being serious. Everyone says they did worse than they actually did.’ He stares intently at the paper, as though he can change the letters by willpower alone.
‘Nope. I really did fuck them up.’
He starts pacing the playground like one of those polar bears cooped up for too long in the zoo. ‘We’ll appeal . . .’ When I don’t respond, he tries something else. ‘Or call the university and see if they’d take these grades. Or you can resit, apply for next year . . .’
I shake my head. ‘I needed three As, nothing less. And they won’t consider resits for medicine with those grades, you know that. I’m OK, though, Tim. It’s OK.’
‘No. It’s not OK!’
I hate seeing him so distressed. ‘Tim, there’s more to life than being a doctor.’
‘For other people, Kerry. But not for you. There’s no reason for you to fail.’
Except there is a reason; just not one I can ever tell him, or anyone else.
‘We can’t let it spoil your celebrations! Come on. Let’s get to the Arsehole before they run out of booze.’
We follow the crocodile of sixth formers towards the seafront.
Tim still hasn’t called his mum about his results, though she’ll be on edge waiting to find out.
I make him use a call box by the pier to phone her and while I wait outside, I imagine what this day would have been like if I’d made the grades, too. The alternate reality where I wasn’t on Hove Lawns on Millennium Eve, where Joel would have died and we would never have slept together and he would never have broken my heart.
And the results slip tucked into my jeans would read A. A. A . . .
‘All done,’ Tim says, coming out of the call box.
‘What did she say?’ I ask.
‘She was thrilled.’ But he seems down.
‘What’s the matter?’
He hesitates. ‘I . . . I don’t know. I didn’t expect to get these results. I thought I’d be calling clearing now, or thinking about resits myself. It’ll take me a while to adjust.’
You and me both.
Except there’s something in his tone that makes me wonder if there’s more to this.
‘But in a good way, right?’ I give him a look, the raised eyebrows tight-lipped expression that always makes him tell me the truth. ‘I mean, you do still want to do medicine?’
Tim seems frozen, exactly as he was on the Lawns eight months ago. If he’s having doubts, it’s better that he faces them now. ‘You know, nothing’s set in stone. You could still do biochemistry. Your mum’ll get over it. It’s not the end of the world. Tell me what you want.’
He says nothing. A gull swoops towards us, as though it’s about to dive bomb, and we both duck, sensing the air moving as it passes only inches from the tops of our heads.
‘I want to get drunk, Kerry. Because we both need to! But before that, there’s something else I have to do . . .’ For a moment I think he’s going to kiss me.
And I wonder what it might be like. ‘What’s that?’
But now he’s frowning. ‘It can wait.’ He links his arm in mine and we cross over to the cafe. We haven’t been here since my birthday and I cling on tighter to Tim.
We have to fight to get inside and up to the counter. Ant is serving, throwing bottles in the air like he’s a cocktail barman, nodding his head along to Eminem.
‘We’re out of Estrella!’ he shouts towards the kitchen. ‘Oi, Joel, did you hear me, we need MORE ESTRELLA!’
Joel.
I need to leave. I twist around but more people are already backing up behind me. I try to push my way out but the wall of drunk sixth formers doesn’t budge.
He steps through the door with a crate of beer, and it’s as if he knew I was there all along: he looks directly at me. Despite everything, I can’t take my eyes from his.
You made me fail. I saved your life and you ruined mine.
He drops the crate at Ant’s feet with a clatter and rushes back into the kitchen. Should he be carrying heavy bottles? Did he ever love me?
‘Stop,’ I say aloud, and Tim turns to me, concerned.
‘What’s up?’
I reach for his hand: solid in mine. My best friend, the person I can always rely on.
‘We’re never going to get served in here,’ I call out over the music and the clamour. ‘Let’s go to the beach and celebrate on our own. You’re going to be a doctor!’
‘I’ve got something to tell you,’ Tim says, hours later, when we’re lying on the beach at dusk, bloated by too much beer, and looking up at the clear lilac sky above. ‘I don’t think I am going to be a doctor.’
I turn onto my side to look at him. Is this a joke? I can usually guess his punchlines but not this time. Maybe my instinct was right and he’s only now plucked up the courage to admit to his doubts. ‘Go on.’
He sighs. ‘We’re broke.’
It’s the last thing I expected him to say. ‘Says who?’
‘The bank. And the bungalow, too. The roof is raising an objection and the drains are kicking up a stink.’ He laughs.
I sit up quickly and regret it as the whole beach spins. ‘This isn’t very funny.’
Tim sits up too; his laughter has stopped. ‘I can’t afford to go to medical school, Kerry. The builders came to look at the cracks I spotted a few weeks ago and they think it’s subsidence, which is going to cost thousands to fix, and the place is worthless without it. Plus, we haven’t been able to pay the mortgage for three months now and I can’t go to uni if we’re homeless.’
The beach continues to whirl around me. ‘Three months? Has your dad stopped paying maintenance?’
‘The minute I hit eighteen last October.’
‘OK, so you get a student loan.’
‘It wouldn’t be anywhere near enough.’
‘What does your mum say? She’d live in a cardboard box if it meant you could still study medicine.’
‘I haven’t told her about the arrears, you know she handed the bills over to me ages ago. I never thought I’d get the grades for medicine so why worry her?’ Tim stares out to sea. ‘I do have a plan, though I know she won’t like it.’
From the sideways glance he gives me, I have a hunch I won’t like it either. ‘Selling your body?’
He scoffs. ‘Yeah, that’d barely pay for fixing the bath tap. No. I need to earn some money and get on top of the repairs before the whole place falls down. Try doing the plastering and decorating myself. Then sell the bungalow, buy a flat somewhere further out.’
‘A flat? How would that work with your mum’s wheelchair? And – not being funny – but you can barely butter toast without making holes in the bread. Plastering?’
‘Flats have lifts. Or we could move up to Scotland, where Mum’s family are – it’s cheaper up there.’ He exhales. ‘Once I’ve started work, got on top of the debts, things will be clearer.’
It feels like we’re on a listing ship. ‘You’ve already got a job?’
‘No, but . . . There was an ad in the cadets newsletter, for ambulance control call-handlers. It’s not bad money once you’re trained up, plus my first aid training will be useful. Shift work, too, so I can be around a lot for Mum during the day. I’ve got an interview next week.’
‘How long have you been planning all this?’
‘A while.’
‘And this is the first time you mention it? The point of being best mates is you tell me everything.’ Although the moment the words are out of my mouth, I feel like a total hypocrite.
‘You’ve been preoccupied.’
Guilt consumes me. I should have realized he was in this mess. Should have done something to help. Instead, I was too busy feeling sad about Joel to see that my oldest friend was struggling.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Why? It’s not your fault, Kerry. Or your responsibility.’ He pushes his hands onto the pebbles, trying to get up, but the alcohol has affected his balance and he keeps falling back down.
As I reach out to steady him, I try to imagine Tim dealing with 999 calls. He hates talking on the phone, and I know he’d struggle to process garbled or inconsistent information.
There must be another way round this, if only I can figure it out. Money shouldn’t stop Tim becoming a doctor if it’s what he wants.
Tim grabs my hand and we pull each other upright. ‘Tim, listen. I will find a way to fix this.’ Doubt crosses his face, so I punch his arm, hard, and he winces. ‘Don’t you dare give up.’
He’s smiling again. ‘You’re drunk, Kerry Smith. And I’ve been through it a thousand times already. But even so, I’d never put it past you to achieve the impossible.’