I gather up my gear and leave the lecture theatre. My last tutorial for the day is over: it’s now close to five o’clock in the afternoon. I have been in lectures since eight this morning. That’s enough to make the average person want to curl up and die, right? Not me: I love what I study. For example, I just had a really interesting session about the occurrence of Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma as an AIDS defining diagnosis. Did you know that the probability of suffering from – wait, I guess you aren’t too bothered.
It’s Wednesday: that means a night of waitressing at ‘The Belle Vue’. Tacky name, hey? It would work fine in Paris, but in Leeds city centre? It sounds pretentious, but it’s a bit of a snooty and highbrow place, so I guess it suits.
I check my watch as I reach the main doors of the medical school. Claire will have gone home hours ago (she’s an Art student: everyone knows that they doss around all day long), so I head to the bus stop to catch the number seventeen. I could bore you with superfluous and superficial details of my journey back to the apartment, but I’ll spare you the knowledge that Betty (eighty-four and completely senile) was onboard and rambling on about her son Timothy, who was abducted by the Scottish Mafia. Yeah right, because the Mafia are a prominent force in Scotland. Oops, I said I wasn’t going to go into the bus journey. You’ll have to forgive me, I tend to ramble. Sorry.
Claire is in when I get home. Actually, perhaps now is a good time to tell you a little about our place; give you some indication of my surroundings. It belongs to some friends of my Dad. They own several properties in Leeds, and lease them out as student accommodation. As cheap student apartments go, it’s fairly nice. There are two bedrooms, a kitchen and a bathroom, which surround a central living area. Everything is done out in these funky dark colours: my room is deep purple, for example, and the bathroom is maroon. Claire describes it as student-cum-Eastern-cum-occult influenced. Occasionally, we play up to this by burning incense and hanging bead curtains from the doorframes. On a good day there might even be some spiritual sounding music. Most of the time it is just a mess. Be careful, or you will fall over one of my million text-books or Claire’s latest project (currently, this is a giant yellow chicken-wire and plaster construction that is situated in the middle of the living room. I don’t like it much: it blocks the view of the television). And those mugs on the coffee table are best just left there: I think they have moulded themselves to the surface.
Claire and I met at Freshers’ Week when we first started here at the university. It turned out we were in the same hall, so we hung out and became friends pretty quickly. This was partly due to her sharing my twisted sense of humour (eggnog…cracks us up every time) and musical tastes (mutual hatred of Take That). Mostly it was because she was more interesting than any of the students I had met on my course (who managed to conform exactly to the introverted and hard-working medical student stereotype). I thought I had better explain: people question how on earth an art student and a medical student met, let alone managed to find any common ground.
Claire is dangerous to know. My parents, middle-class and condescending, are concerned by her. Physically, she is smaller than me, but has an intimidating aura that gives the impression that she is larger than life. Her hair is long, wavy and fire engine red; her eyes are a bewitching green. Her attire permanently consists of skin-tight black leather trousers and baby tees emblazoned with ‘unsuitable’ slogans. She took a gap year in India before coming to university, teaching English, and has decorated herself with intricate henna patterns and bejewelled bindis ever since. Most worryingly, her lip is pierced. It is clear why she concerns my parents: Claire is the sort of person I would be if my aesthetics weren’t dictated by my studies. Luckily for them, this is her final year here: she plans to move to Glasgow next summer. I’ll have to remember to warn her to steer clear of the underground movements of that elite and highly dangerous Scottish Mafia.
Back to the present. As I mentioned, Claire is in when I get home. She is experimenting with paint techniques. This appears to include flicking green paint evenly across everything in the room. Including me. I resign myself to the fact that it now appears to onlookers (i.e. you) that I have developed some previously undiscovered and rather disturbing disease with a history that includes a lime green rash. I sink into the enormous and somewhat lumpy couch that fills up the living room space not occupied by Claire’s giant yellow thing.
“Good day?” questions Claire cheerfully. God, she sounds like my mom. I point this out. She ignores the comment. “Did you hear about…”
The latest gossip ensues. Apparently (but sshhh, don’t tell anyone), Amanda slept with Dave, but told Rich (her university professor) that she was a virgin and waiting for the right man, which was a ploy to dissuade him from stalking her. It worked, but now Mark, who is ‘waiting for love’ (better described as ‘pathetic’, in Claire’s humble opinion), has latched onto her instead, because she allegedly shares the same beliefs as him. And now Jennie is jealous, because she liked Mark. I don’t even know who these people are. I mumble the appropriate words of shock/distaste/ridicule, while peering over the giant yellow thing to watch ‘Neighbours’.
As a result, I am only half-listening when Claire says something that sounds suspiciously like:
“…so if you are interested, you can come to America with me this summer.”
That wakes me up.
It turns out that Claire’s Dad (who’s American), is inviting her to stay with him in Tampa, Florida for a couple of months in the summer. Because they had only just reconciled (he had run off with a younger woman twelve years ago and left Claire and her Mum on their own), Claire isn’t sure she wants to spend long periods of time with him, so is inviting me, apparently because ‘I have always wanted to visit America’. Now, like every other Brit I have ever met, I harbour no desire to spend two months living, breathing and eating American. Hell, two minutes would be pushing it, and I know Claire is in agreement with me on this. But the tempting thought of a couple of months free holiday in the sunny climes of Florida is hard to refuse.
Free?
While Claire thinks her father is an arsehole, she doesn’t overlook the fact that he is a very rich arsehole. She played the guilt-trip well enough in the past to ensure that he is willing to pay all our expenses. First-class flights, rental car, spending money, new wardrobe of designer clothes (should we be tempted), the works. I think this is what sold Claire the idea: in her words, she’ll “take any chance to fleece that bastard”.
So, Florida here we come. Tacky, but true.
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