The State of Me Read online

  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 reaction: Gross me out the door! I climbed in and washed away the ferry and diarrhoea. I washed 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.

  5

  The Trial

  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 who called Rez Kunta Kinte, and Ivan ended up in Casualty with a broken nose. They’d been planning to visit me on their way back to Glasgow but the roads were too bad.

  Jana had stayed with Jean-Paul over the holidays. She’d phoned me on Hogmanay. Abas keeps asking when you’re coming back, she said. And your Frank Zappa compilation tape got mangled in the tape-recorder. I told her that I had an appointment to see Professor Pivot after the holidays. And Myra’s doing more tests, I said. I’ll write and tell you what’s happening. That reminds me, she said, a letter came for you from the university health centre. I’ll forward it with your other mail.

  I didn’t tell her that I’d sent her a poster of The Orange Blind by Cadell, one of the Scottish colourists. I thought she could do with a replacement and I wanted it to be a surprise.

  Rita ran me up to Glasgow and waited in the Grosvenor Cafe while I explained my return from France to Professor Pivot, the Head of the French Department. (He was very angular and pivoted along rather than walked.) It was pissing down. We were late because of the slush slowing down the traffic.

  I got drenched walking from the car and was dripping all over the professor’s floor. He offered to get me a towel. His head was small compared to the rest of him.

  I told him they hadn’t found out what was wrong with me yet but were doing more tests. I hope I can re-do my year abroad next year, I said. I’ve sent this term’s grant cheque back.

  You’re young, he said. Take time to think about things. We’ll have another chat next term. You might know what’s wrong by then.

  He was so understanding that I was tempted to list my symptoms.

  On the way out, I went to look at the noticeboard. I wished it was this time last year and all I had to worry about was an essay on Baudelaire.

  The Grosvenor was packed as usual. It smelled of wet coats and smoke mixed with coffee and fried onions. The geology lecturer, who was always on his own, was there.

  Rita looked worried. Well, how did it go?

  He was really nice, but I was dripping all over his floor.

  Can you go back to France next year?

  I think so, I said. He was quite vague about things.

  Ivan was dropping in before his three o’clock lecture to give me the keys of his flat. I’d hardly stayed with him since coming back from France. We’d only had sex once. Afterwards, I’d cried because I felt so crap and because I felt I was letting him down.

  That guy over there’s always in on his own, I said to Rita. It makes me sad, seeing him with his hamburger roll. I always want to invite him over.

  You’re being ridiculous, said my mother. He’s probably quite happy eating on his own.

  I don’t think so, I said. He doesn’t look happy.

  I just ate on my own, and I was perfectly happy!

  But you’ve got a husband, you’re not on your own. That guy’s not married.

  Here’s Ivan now, said Rita.

  The rain was sliding off him. He squashed himself into our booth.

  You’re soaked! I said, kissing his cheek. You look like a hamster with your hair clapped round your head like that. I wished Rita wasn’t there so I could kiss him properly, then I felt guilty for wishing she wasn’t there. I squeezed his hand tightly under the table.

  How’s your nose? I asked. You said it was squint. It doesn’t look squint.

  It’s okay, he said. It wasn’t actually broken.

  He’d just sat down when someone tapped me on the shoulder – a mature student from my English tutorial, whose name I could never remember. She had terrible facial hair. I thought it was you! she said. I thought you were in France doing your year abroad.

  I was, I said, but I’m home for a while. I’ve been ill.

  That’s a shame. Well, I better go, my car’s on a meter, I just thought I’d say hello. I hope you get better soon.

  Thanks, I said.

  Who was that? asked Rita.

  She was in my English tutorial last year. I can never remember her name.

  By the way, said Ivan, I got the Ian Dury tickets.

  I hope I can come, I said. I’ll be gutted if I can’t.

  Rez and his new girlfriend are going. Rez was saying he thinks you should get tested for brucellosis.

  What’s brucellosis?

  Something you get from milk.

  Myra’ll batter me, I said, if I even think of suggesting it. I’m having soup, do you want anything to eat?

  Nah, just hot chocolate.

  I’ll have another coffee, said Rita.

  So what did your Prof say? asked Ivan.

  I think he just thinks I’m anxious, but he was so nice about it.

  So you’re not chucked off the course?

  I don’t think so, I said.

  The camp ginger-haired guy came and took my order. He’d fallen off a wall last year when he was drunk, and broken his back, but he was fine now, fully recovered.

  He brought the soup straight away. I loved the comfort of being here with the two people who could make everything okay. I wanted this scene to play forever. I didn’t want my soup to finish.

  I have to go, said Ivan, I’m really late. He kissed me on the cheek (still shy in front of my mother). I’ll see you later. Here are my keys.

  I wanted to be like him, downing hot chocolate and going back to a class.

  Normal.

  When he’d gone, Rita said she’d have to be making tracks too. Are you sure you’ll be okay?

  Yes. I might go to the bookshop. I want to look at French dictionaries.

  Could Jana not send yours back?

  It’d probably cost less to buy a new one.

  My mother frowned. Okay, I’m away. See you tomorrow. We’ll pick you up from the station if you want. And don’t be filling your head with what Rez says. Medical students are known for being neurotic.


  She hugged me and left.

  I sat there for a while wondering what to do next. Choices were: go and look at dictionaries and pretend to be normal, or go to Ivan’s and lie down.

  I chose to pretend.

  It was still pissing down. The uni bookshop was only five minutes away but my arms were weak from holding the brolly by the time I got there.

  I went straight to the medical section and looked up brucellosis. You got it from unpasteurised milk and dairy products. Symptoms were backache, fever and fatigue. I could easily have it, God knows what I’d eaten in France. I looked up brain tumours too and had worried myself sick before heading round to the French section.

  I crouched down to look at the dictionaries. I knelt on the floor and looked up some words I’d written down from Germinal. As I scribbled down the meanings in the back of my chequebook, rain from my umbrella dripped onto a page of the dictionary. I snapped it shut, hoping no one had seen. When I stood up I felt dizzy and my face was going numb.

  I wanted something easier to read than Zola. I quickly chose Paroles by Prévert. His poems were simple and quite easy to understand and it was a bargain for £1.50.

  I had to get back to Ivan’s flat.

  It had finally stopped raining. I bumped into Gail coming up University Avenue, with her wide brown eyes, walking with her feet turned in because she thought it looked sexy. She looked like a knock-kneed foal.

  Hi, she said in her fakey voice. I heard you’d come home. I heard you were ill.

  I was just up seeing the Head of Department, I said. I’m on my way to Ivan’s now.

  What do you think of Ivan’s earring? He really suits it, doesn’t he? It was such a laugh when we did it! Rez was standing by with the cotton wool and TCP for emergencies. He wouldn’t let me do his though.

  She could feel me wither – she’d pierced Ivan’s ear, the bitch.