Obsession with Ewan MacGregor
Occasional marujana habit that I fully intend to upgrade to ‘moderate’
possibly be sharing a room with Victoria Peddlar, owner of:
Fluffy penguin slippers
Fake designer sweatshirts worn over stone washed jeans (various)
Entire works of Take That
That’s What I Call Power Ballads 1, 2 and 3
Poster of Patrick Swayze (because nobody puts Vicky Peddlar in the corner)
Obsession with Dirty Dancing
Moderate horoscope-reading habit (soon to be upgraded to borderline obsessional).
But it was true and I was utterly gutted. Especially since I’d just met a girl called Gina who had already designated her room as Smoking HQ. A room I wished I was sharing more than anything else in the world. Gina was the coolest girl in our halls and a guaranteed route to mischief, every night of the week. She had big curly hair that she wore in low bunches, boasted a dragon tattoo that snaked across her stomach, said ‘wicked’ a lot and owned a bong. And as if that wasn’t enough to make your average eighteen-year-old fresher practically pay to be her friend, she had about a million of her own friends from boarding school who were all as cool as she was.
It’s easy to see how this Peddlar girl didn’t even get a look in during those first few days at university.
‘Rich says I can go out…I just need someone to go with and guess-what? You’re the lucky lady!’ Vicky shouted over Dylan. I don’t mind really, Vicks often inspires in me selfless acts of love. When she was holed up in hospital, thirty-seven weeks pregnant, ankles as fat as an elephant’s, blood pressure soaring, I travelled half way across London to bring her the only thing that would satiate her queer, hormonal taste buds. Deep fried aubergines served up on a silver platter (well, a polystyrene tray, anyway).
I’d soon found out there was far more to this girl from Huddersfield than first met the eye. She could really put it away, for one. A childhood spent pulling pints in her parents’ pub saw to that. She had real talent too, which whoever you are, I’ve always thought, can only add to your credibility.
I will never forget the last night of Freshers’ Week, the night of the Owens Park talent competition. Vicky stood up, dressed in her Benetton sweatshirt, swinging her mousy ponytail. She took the mike in one hand and holding a pint of cider in the other, she began to sing. It was ‘Cry Me a River’, and it was utterly brilliant. Nobody moved or spoke, everyone just stared at this girl, this Big Bird of a girl who was suddenly possessed by the ghost of Ella Fitzgerald. She finished the song, put the mike down on the table, gulped down the rest of her cider and sat down. There were five seconds of dumbfounded silence, save for Gina whispering ‘fucking hell’ next to me. Then we began to clap, first slowly and then uproarious applause. It was brilliant, mind-blowing, made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and even then, as stupid and self-absorbed and inexperienced at life as I was, I knew that you didn’t sing a song with soul like that if you hadn’t experienced things which, I knew instinctively, I hadn’t. Things like your mum walking out on your dad for a man half her age and then dying of ovarian cancer two months later; things like watching your dad go from jovial pub landlord to suicidal recluse; things like bringing up two little brothers pretty much single-handed as well as singing in your dad’s pub in the evenings for the tips. So yes, there was a lot more to Victoria Peddlar. Gina got the Vicky thing too, eventually, and we had things to teach each other back then. Gina and I taught Vicky how to skin up, accentuate that splendid bosom with something other than sweatshirts and basically be an irresponsible teenager – something she’d kind of missed. And Vicky was our surrogate mother when we needed one most, I suppose. Always the one with the plan of action, the best hangover cures. And the fact she’d seen a lot in her short life meant you waking up in some inappropriate bloke’s bed with no recollection of the night before was no big deal. ‘Look, nobody died, did they?’ Vicky would say, sitting on my bed as I growled under the duvet with shame. ‘And look on the bright side, at least you didn’t get so drunk you shat yourself.’ (Ever since a girl called Julianne Breeze had, actually, got so drunk she shat herself, this had been the scale against which we measured all mortifying events. After all, nothing could ever, ever be that bad.)
A fortnight into term one, Gina, Vicky and I were pretty much inseparable. By late November I’d brought Jim into the fold and we’d became a proper gang. Or as my dad put it, ‘A foursome to be reckoned with.’
And I loved my friends, I idolized them, still do. Tonight one of them is simply asking me to accompany her to a public house, her first baby-free night for weeks, for a couple of quiet beers on a Thursday night. I can usually think of nothing I’d rather do, it’s just tonight, I could do with a little help. I need Jim.
From: [email protected]
Peddlar needs beer. I need bed. Help?
It only takes a few seconds for the reply to pop into my inbox which means Jim must be in the staff room.
From: [email protected]
No can do, have hot date. I can come for the first hour to ease the pain but then I have to shoot. Going to see Swan Lake??! (help)
The thought of Jim watching the Dying Swan, whilst wondering when he’s going to fit in a pint and a snog brings a smile to my face. Still, an hour of his support is better than nothing so I call Vicks back and say, ‘You’re on.’
‘The day we brought Jen and Ming home from China was the happiest day of our lives. I was forty-four. We’d been trying to become parents for almost two decades, and had travelled half way across the world to adopt a baby. Three months later, I had a routine scan about my polycystic ovaries. “Mrs Freed,” said the doctor his face waxy white. “Were you aware you were pregnant? With twins”?’
Jenny, 46, Southampton
So here I am again, fifth night out on the trot, in the Coach and Horses, Soho, a warm smoky pub that smells of damp coats and stale beer, with Vicky and Jim, my very best mates.
‘Wine for the lady, Stella for Sir in the corner,’ I say, passing Jim his pint.
‘Aw thanks, you’re a beauty.’ He downs half of it in one go. ‘Chaucer and fourteen-year-olds, I tell you, it does me in every time.’
‘So Jimbo,’ says Vicky, pouring herself a bowlful of wine. ‘How come your “loverrrr”, or is she your girlfriend?’ Jim groans at this. ‘How come she’s managed to drag you to Swan Lake? When we went to see Les Miserables you said – and I quote – “It was just a load of old women with massive jugs, bounding about the stage for what felt like days.”’
Jim looks up at me from his pint, a moustache of froth on his top lip. I raise an eyebrow.
‘Did I?’ he says,
