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.
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.)
Ivan had got me a ticket for Daft Friday, the all-night student Christmas ball.
I stayed in bed all day to make sure I could go, even though I knew I couldn’t. I was cloaked in nausea, my head felt inflated with a bicycle pump. My fairy godmother whispered, You shall go to the ball, while the ugly sisters stuck the boot in, Sick people don’t go to balls, you’re going nowhere!
In the middle of the night, while Gail was tempting Ivan in her black cocktail dress, I was dreaming about bluebells: Ivan was an old man in a wheelchair. He was wearing a red leather jockstrap and I was pushing him through the bluebells in the park.
In and out of the dusty bluebells. I am the master! Helen’s getting a bit dull, isn’t she? She was hoping she could go back to France after Christmas and have an affair with one of those young Moroccans, put Ivan in his place, but alas she’s going nowhere!
She’s staying put.
It snowed on New Year’s Day. I liked the way the snow blanked everything out. Ivan and Rez had gone to a friend’s parents’ cottage in Tighnabruaich for a few days. They’d invited me but I couldn’t go. They got in a fight with some neds
