A Year in Fife Park (6 page)

‘Hi,’ Craig’s mother waved, unenthusiastically. Her eyes dropped to the tray on my lap.

‘Yeah,’ I said, in answer to the silence, but the conversation was already over.

They took the mattress next door, dropped off Craig’s takeaway, and solemnly left. I mentioned it to Craig later, but he was nonchalant.

‘I’ve already told them that you smoke loads of gear.’

‘Betrayed,’ McQueen pronounced, authoritatively. ‘You are
not
the Eggman.’

Then he picked up Craig’s old mattress, dragged it into the hallway, and threw it downstairs.

The mattresses in FifePark were a joke. They were stuffed with harsh, revolting horsehair. [We know, because Frank jumped on one, and split it down the side, spewing the coarse, hairy mess onto the floor of my room.] The real irritation, though, was that they were laminated in some kind of waterproof plastic which made it almost impossible to keep a sheet on. FifePark must have seen a lot of bedwetters the year before, because they’d all been bought to order. The whole Park had these things, brand spanking new, brand spanking awful. You could pour a whole can of Irn Bru onto one of those mattresses, and it would just run off. We know, because we saw it done. [Ah, who am I kidding? It was us.]

The worst thing about them was that they were sticky, clammy, and foul smelling – even through a sheet or two, which would invariably ride up and come off during the night, in any case. No matter what preventative measures you resorted to – doubling the sheets up, taping them down, or covering the bed with an oriental throw – still you were virtually guaranteed to wake up with your face stuck to plastic. We hated those mattresses, but we all made shift with them – all except Craig.

Craig’s parents visited him every Tuesday night. They lived in Dundee, only fifteen miles away. [I say ‘only’.  It turns out that this can be quite a long way, depending on the circumstances.] They collected his laundry, and invariably brought him some form of takeaway – usually a Chinese. By the second week of the semester, they had also brought him a new mattress, because he didn’t like the old one. They brought a standard single mattress, but it hung an unreasonable distance over the side of the bed beneath it, just going to show how small those FifePark beds were.

McQueen spent at least an hour in the stairwell with the old mattress, proceeding to repeatedly launch himself down the stairs on it with little regard for self-preservation, before clambering back up to the top for another go.

One time, he veered too far to the right with one of his parasuicidal leaps, and wound up wedged between planks of the thin wooden banister. He gave a couple of high pitched squeals of surprise, and managed to struggle out from his lodgement – but to no avail, because the mattress was too slippery for him to gain any purchase. In the end, he had to pull himself up the length of half the staircase on the banisters alone, all the while laying on his side. He referred to this as a ‘superb commando effort’ and redoubled his attempts to do himself massive internal injury on the stairwell. I know, because I stood and watched – I was the very picture of vicarious maternal concern.

These hijinks were brought to a sudden end when one misjudged gauntlet run had him slide down the stairs, rather than the mattress, on his belly, before cracking his head into the fire extinguisher at the bottom of the flight. The sound of this went something like
Thump, Thump, Thump, Thump, Ding!

‘Ow,’ he reported placidly, and then wandered into the kitchen.

That’s one thing worth mentioning about Frank; his tolerance for pain is exceptional. He took a lot worse than that before the end of the year, and never voiced more than a passing concern.

For my part, I tried to avoid pain at all costs. I took the mattress back to my room, and stacked it on top of my own. A double thickness of Fife Park’s best probably wasn’t as good as a single, ordinary honest-to-goodness mattress intended for people with shoulders and bladder control, but it did mean that I could just pull the spare one out and have an extra bed on the floor of my room, which came in handy on countless occasions.

[Well, it came in handy twice, then Frank jumped on it with both feet, and the resulting explosion covered us in dust and hair, and made my room smell like a stable at mucking out time.]

The Glow

More and more, as I’m writing, I remember the feeling. I’m talking about that special, particular flavour of the time; that joy, that passion. I don’t know what brought it out. I don’t know why it went away. I don’t know how I let that happen. By inches, probably.

Sometimes, even these days, I catch a trace of it in thoughts. It reminds me of how different my life is, now. If it lingers long enough, and it hardly ever does, it makes me achingly sad. Not just with the touch of bittersweet sadness that is inherent in nostalgia, but a deeper, harder, aimless sadness.

Ella had a perfume. They don’t make it any more. I have an empty flask she gave to me.

Sometimes I wave it and breathe deep to catch the last trails of scent. It is still there. It makes me feel hope, and love, and young, and energy – not just energy, but
my
energy. It is so similar to this
glow
, I used to have. There will never be any more of it, and one day soon there will be nothing left to trace in the air.

This glow, I don’t even know if I trust it. Embers glow, and it can mean nothing at all.

The Dark Room

It was almost always dark in my room; there were no working lights after the third week of term. This was because Mart,  on a  visit from DRH, had broken the lightbulb. And, more importantly, the fitting. [David Russell Hall was also a shithole, but most residents believed it had the best community spirit in St. Andrews. People certainly do seem to band together in adversity.] In his defence, he was being an excitable drunk for a change, rather than a miserable one. He was celebrating Frank’s failure to break his record, for the fourth time in a row, by dancing with a five foot tall inflatable alien.

When the lightbulb shattered, we were instantly treated to the near ideal combination of darkness and strewn broken glass.

‘Oh fuck,’ Mart said, miserable again.

‘Someone fetch my shoes,’ I sighed.

‘Shit,’ Frank said, from the hotseat at the computer. He brightened almost immediately. ‘Guess I’ll have to have another go, since I’ve only got my socks on.’

We were emulating Track and Field, the arcade version from 1983, and my keyboard was taking a pounding from all the button mashing. Frank didn’t
only
have his socks on – he was also wearing a pair of red and blue plaid boxer shorts, and an old grey T-shirt.

‘Fuck you,’ Lance said, pulling from his Stella. ‘It’s been my go for about an hour.’

Frank kept playing. Lance didn’t care, as long as nobody took his Stella away.

‘Dude,’ Mart said. ‘I don’t think you should drink that. It might have broken glass in it.’

Even in the glow from the monitor, you could see Lance’s knuckles whiten against the side of his pub-style pint glass. [All of our pint glasses were ‘pub-style’, because they were all stolen from pubs.]

‘You…
fuckers
,’ he said.

‘Get the dustpan from the kitchen, would you Mart?’ Frank said, dismissively.

‘And grab a stubby for Lance,’ I added. ‘There’s still a few in the fridge.’

‘And one for me,’ Frank chanced.

‘Come on, let’s go out,’ Lance growled, impatiently. ‘Get some jars in.’

‘If I get you the kit, can you just hook him up to one of those stubbys?’ I asked Frank.

‘We haven’t covered intravenous stuff, yet,’ Frank said, cautiously.

‘Can’t hurt to be ahead of the curve this year,’ I said, meaningfully.

‘We’re going out,’ Craig announced, tugging at his shirt cuffs as he entered the room.

‘Finally,’ Lance said.

‘Watch it, Craig,’ I said. ‘There’s broken glass everywhere.’

‘Then why are the fucking lights off?’

‘That’s what’s broken,’ Lance said. ‘It went in my beer.’

‘Now it’s a light beer,’ Frank told him. ‘Drink up. Bit of broken glass never hurt anyone.’

Lance looked down at the beer. It was touch and go. I reached over and took the pint away from him; the glass came free from his hand on the third try.

‘Shouldn’t you be the responsible one?’ I asked Frank, a bit harshly. He looked at me, quizzically.

‘Why?’ he said, like I’d just asked if he wanted to fuck a Husky.

‘Because you’re a fucking doctor,’ I said. ‘Or you will be.’

‘Might be,’ Craig interjected.

‘…might be a doctor,’ I finished, corrected. ‘People are going to take you seriously!’

‘We can’t all be philosophers, Quinn.’

Mart walked in with an armful of stubby bottles, and passed them around. Lance was not placated.

‘Are we fucking going out?’ Lance asked. ‘Or are we going to sit here chinwagging all night, with beers in our hands?’

I sighed. I don’t know the significance of out. I don’t know as there’s ever been a night I’d have rather gone out with friends than stay in with them. The beer’s cheaper, the seats are comfier, the video games don’t cost a quid a go. But I’ve always been boring like that.

‘What exactly do you think is going to be different about the Vic tonight?’ I asked. ‘Because what we do there, we’re doing here, only without some cunty drunk caddy spitting in your ear and pishing down his leg.’

That incident was still fresh and it was going to stick with us.

‘There’s other reasons to be out,’ Lance said, genuinely affronted. ‘Puppies!’

I looked to Mart. It sounded like a London thing, he was close enough.

‘Boobs,’ he explained. ‘Lance wants to
make it with the ladies
.’

‘Lance is going to sit and drink beer and smoke fags,’ Craig said.

‘And it wouldn’t be much of a reason to go out anyway, since none of us ever score.’

‘Ella’s going out apparently,’ Craig told me. ‘Heard it from Kate.’

‘That’s different,’ I said, getting up and calmly walking out of the room.

‘He’s getting his coat,’ Frank called after me.

‘I’m taking a piss,’ I shouted back, guiltily.

I locked the bathroom door behind me and looked into the mirror. It would have to do. Shaving wasn’t an option, given the state of my razor. Not unless I wanted to look like a meth addict.

Not for Ella. Ella was special. Ella was beautiful, she was talkative – very talkative, as it happens. There were no awkward pauses with Ella, which had led me to feel almost comfortable talking with her. She had long straight auburn hair, pale skin, and an attractive and consistent smile. She had a beautiful voice. Fortunately.

Coincidentally, she also happened to have lots of other more than appealing qualities which I didn’t notice at the time because, on the face of it, Ella was another irrational crush.

‘They all start that way,’ I said to myself, rationalising. ‘It’s what you make of it that counts.’

I was making a hash of it. But it was going better than any other attempt so far. At that time of course, I had no idea that it was going to be such a significant crush, or how significant my walk of shame would eventually be. Back then, I just was hoping things would go well. Not that I expected them to, but I was damn well keeping my sheets clean.

‘I think there’s glass in your bed,’ Mart called through the door.

‘Thanks, Mart,’ I called back. ‘I’ll be sure to remember that when I get in half-cut at three in the morning.’

‘Yeah, you want to hurry up in there?’ Mart said. ‘I’ve got business to take care of.’

Mart has legendary bowels.

‘Downstairs, you stinky fucker,’ Frank shouted from his room. Mart ignored him, and bombed into the john as I left. Craig was pacing in the hallway. He was impatient – not because he was in a hurry for anything in particular, but because waiting for people burns Craig like holy water.

‘Where’s Frank?’ Craig asked.

‘Changing his shirt,’ I said.

‘Change yours?’ he asked. I shook my head.

‘It’s my lucky shirt,’ I lied. It wasn’t, of course. I’m not sure if I had a lucky shirt. Probably just all the ones I nearly died in, but didn’t.

‘No blouse tonight?’ Frank asked, emerging in a laid back stripy number.

‘I lent it to Paedo,’ I said.

‘You hear he’s going out with Vikki, now?’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘He may not realise it’s a blouse.’

‘Come ooooonnnn,’ Lance said, waving his empty stubby in the doorway. It was time to go out.

‘Mart’s in the can,’ Craig said.

Unbidden, we went downstairs and waited for Mart outside. In the rain.

Ella wasn’t in the Vic, and neither was Kate. The Vic had just exactly everyone who was always in the Vic, including all of us. There were locals fighting over the pool table, and drunk mutton wandering around them in miniskirts looking for a nasty lay. We sat drinking beers, not playing track and field. Lance was happy.

‘Alright,’ I said, to total indifference. ‘Let’s go to the union after this one.’

‘What’s so different about the union?’ Lance asked. ‘We’re just going to sit around and drink beers there, only they’ll be worse beers.’

‘Damn your logic,’ I said. To be fair, the union was the only place on earth that Lance wouldn’t settle for the house lager. Union Carlsberg was 1.45 a pint, and smelled like eggy farts and chip fat.

‘Yeah, I’m happy here,’ Mart said. This was a lie. Mart was never happy after five pints. In another pint he’d start talking about how shit St. Andrews was, and two further down the line it would all get political. It wouldn’t be Saturday if he didn’t call
someone
a fascist.

‘This man wants a bit of Ella,’ Craig said, eventually.

I nodded, at last. Grateful not to be the one bringing it up.

‘Come on guys,’ I said. ‘She’s bound to be there, and I’m really pulling out the stops this time.’

‘He’s hardly been annoying about it at all,’ Craig said, in admirable defence.

‘Sounds like this could be the one,’ Frank said, chuckling.