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
