Bright Stars Read online

  He returned after a minute, waving an envelope, handed it over. Gran’s old-school handwriting on the front. I got a knife to slice it open cleanly.

  A card. A twenty pound note. I held the money reverently between my fingers, held it up to the light, that’s what people did. And a brief message: Make the most of your time in the big wide world. Be proud of who you are.

  I recited those words for the rest of the day, all through the rushed packing, grabbing socks from the airing cupboard, hunting down jumpers, scouting under beds, gathering pens, books, antiperspirant, everything I could think of, shoving them in the trunk, saying awkward goodbyes to my brothers, Andy having called back briefly from work to see me off, which was almost enough to send me over the edge, tumbling into the waiting sea of emotions – my oldest brother never did anything like this. Andy was the hard man. The tough one. The one who lived closer to the dark side than I would ever dare. (Or so I thought.)

  Be proud of who you are.

  I was the first and only one of the brothers to go to

  university. My mother had started a history degree, here in Edinburgh, but never finished – she’d fallen with Andy, having met Dad, recently down from Orkney, in a local pub.* But they’d worked hard, my parents, bought a large tumble-down terrace for us brood of boys, bought it cheap in the Seventies and with help from both grannies. They nurtured our talents, our passions. Bikes, exercise equipment, golf clubs, drum kits. For me it was books. Christmas, birthdays, treats, rewards, encouragement. I couldn’t have asked for more – except, of course, I could ask for my mum back.

  Time to leave. My brothers lugged the trunk to the old Volvo estate, pushed the seats down, loaded it up. I had this brief image – a coffin, a hearse – but I blinked it away as they patted me on the back, extra hard and manly, hands and arms and deep booming voices coming at me from all directions. I got in with Dad, belted up. Clunk click. Dad wound down the window, shouted, ‘No parties, no boozing. Mary’s checking in on you, remember.’

  Then we were away, leaving Edinburgh behind, the city of my birth, childhood, schooldays. The grand Georgian buildings, the old crooked tenements and cramped dark closes, the looming volcanic rock holding up the ever-present castle, softening in the dusk now, dimming. Away to live a new life down south, England, the city of the red rose: Lancaster.

  ‘Open those travel sweets will you, son.’

  I opened the travel sweets, the icing sugar puffing over my face. Dad lobbed a yellow one in his gob. And a Rothman’s. My brothers at home, me and Dad on the road. The Lost Boys.

  Be proud of who you are.

  _________________________

  *A weegie. I didn’t like it when people called her that.

  †But my maternal grandmother wouldn’t let me forget I was a Brown. Hence the red Brown kilt.

  *This was appropriate as Dad was employed by one of the breweries in town. One of several alcoholic connections in my story.

  Lancaster University, Michaelmas Term, 1985

  Damp

  It was your typical student accommodation. Cell-like, stripped back, bare. A basic desk, a built-in wardrobe with an ill-fitting door that rattled in the draught, metal coat hangers clinking like chains. The constant, persistent, relentless drone of the M6, even in the dead of night, cars, trucks, juggernauts trundling north and south while I lay in my bed, my hard monastic bed, shivering under my inadequate sheet and blanket – shivering even though I was a hardened-off Scot, bred in Edinburgh’s granite-cold climate. Even the haar off the Forth had nothing on this Lancashire damp that seeped through clothes and shoes, crept through windows, walls and closed doors, and hung in the air like the breath of a ghost.

  We’d left it so late, been so disorganised that Dad had to stay over that first night, in a guest room close by. The following morning, before heading back home, he took me into town. We found a sad wee carpet shop and Dad haggled down the cost of an off-cut that would do as a rug on the cold lino floor. He got me slippers too as I’d forgotten mine. And he picked up an alarm clock in the indoor market. ‘So you’ve no excuse for being late for those lectures of yours.’

  At least the tick distracted from the M6.

  As Dad made to leave, I found myself getting weepy and I didn’t want to upset him or let him down somehow. I was the bookish, quiet, weak, young son. I wanted him to see me as independent and grown up. I couldn’t cry. But I felt a trickle of snot bubble out of my left nostril.

  ‘Thanks for bringing me, Dad. And for the rug and the slippers and the clock.’

  ‘Take this too.’ He handed over another twenty pound note. I held it up to the light.

  ‘You can do it, son,’ he said. And he was gone.

  That night I focused on the tick as I tried to sleep, as I tried to keep my thoughts from jumping on that runaway train that would take me back home, to a time when Mum was waiting there for me after school with a batch of biscuits. A no-hope destination.

  My room was at least my own. No more sharing with Edward who breathed like an old miner and whose socks smelt of fertiliser. My own space. I could walk around naked. I could sit at my wobbly desk, doing my coursework naked. I could do press-ups on the cold, unforgiving floor, naked. I could.

  I lay in bed, listening to the boozy shouts of other Freshers that the sad wee clock had no hope of drowning out.

  The Wednesday of Freshers’ Week I took myself to a poster sale in the Great Hall. It was like Athena on acid. I only had money for one poster so I took my time to consider. Did I want a band? The Smiths? The Cure? The Cult? Did I want to wake up to a Hollywood legend? Marilyn? James Dean? Marlon Brando on a motorbike? Or did I want to go political? If so, I could have CND, Greenpeace, Anti-Apartheid. I went political. I bought a three by four of Che Guevara. I wasn’t entirely sure who Che Guevara was (I was yet to meet Bex who idolised him) but I knew he represented something heroic, anarchic, the anti-thesis of whatever it was I represented.

  Be proud of who you are.

  Rule-keeper, safe plodder, head-down Cameron.

  Lying in bed, listening to the traffic, to the clock, to my thoughts squelching around in my brain like feet in a peat bog, I would gaze at that poster, gaze and gaze, and imagine myself a rule-breaker, a rebel, a man at whose feet women fell. Only I’d need new shoes. Clark’s Commandos were very practical and hard-wearing, not to mention incredibly comfortable, but let’s face it, they were never going to fell women.

  My room was on the ground floor of Block 4, Fylde College, the Oxbridge ring to ‘Fylde College’ barely balancing the Stalinist Gulag clang of ‘Block 4’. I shared a kitchen with ten other lads. Hygiene levels soon plummeted to those of the Nor Loch during the Plague, where the contents of the Old Town’s slop buckets ended up. I stuck with Pot Noodles, which I could prepare in my room. Steak and tatty pies from Birkett’s. Chips.

  I was on nodding terms with one or two of the others as we bypassed each other in the corridor. I’d endured a conversation with Jim from Hull, an engineer who wore the same Black Sabbath T-shirt for days at a time. Groups were already forming – Sport Billies, Dungeons and Dragons, Christians – but I was reluctant to ease myself into any of these. I was clumsy and cack-handed, not quite a nerd, and my faith was seriously damaged having seen my mum die a drawn-out, painful death. My Calvinist, all-boys’ schooling didn’t believe in Sport for All, or fantasy, and my mother’s time on earth had been predetermined before she was even knit in my Granny Brown’s womb.* So, I remained those first few days, on my own.

  It wasn’t until the Thursday night – actually the early hours of the Friday – that I met Tommo. I was in bed, drifting off, when there was this knock on my window. I tried to ignore it, guessing it was either the wrong window or a drunken prank. The knocking continued. I should have ignored it. But I switched on my light, opened the window and let this man in. I’ve often wondered what would have happened if I had been more persistent. If I had put my fingers in my ears, my head under my pillow. Would he have given up
and knocked on the next window along? We would no doubt have met at some point but the point would have been different. Things would have been different.

  ‘Let me in, will you? I’ve locked myself out and the porter’s lodge is closed.’

  I glanced from my clock – ten to two – to Tommo who at this point I didn’t know was Tommo though I recognised him all right, as the poseur whose room was next to mine. I’d only seen him the once, Billy Idol but with black hair, on his way out the door just as I was coming in. He’d nodded his head at me and his towering quiff didn’t move. He said all right and I said all right back and that was the end of our interaction.

  And now here he was, one skinny leg hooked over the sill, the other lagging behind, fag gripped between his teeth and a guitar strapped to his back.

  ‘You’re a gent. Cheers, squire.’ He looked around for somewhere to stub out his roll-up. ‘A kettle. You gonna offer me some tea?’

  Tea? Was he teasing? Surely his type only drunk Jack Daniels or lager.

  ‘Tea? You want tea?’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, finally acknowledging my pyjamas. He lobbed his fag butt out into the night, smiled one of his charming smiles at me. ‘Did I wake you?’

  ‘Aye, but not to worry,’ I said, shutting the window, shutting out the cold and the noise. ‘I’ll make you that tea, shall I,’ I said. ‘I’m awake now,’ I said.

  That’s what I said, when what I should have said was get lost, get out of my room, and never trouble me again. Because trouble was Tommo’s middle name. If I had demanded to see his birth certificate right then, it would have been there in black and white. Ptolomy Trouble Dulac.

  ‘Milky with two sugars, cheers.’

  I busied myself, making his tea while he made himself at home, shedding his black pointy boots on my rug and flinging his black leather jacket across my bed. I couldn’t bring myself to make eye contact because I half thought I was dreaming. Why was this creature in my room at ten to two of a morning? I didn’t know whether to be flattered or annoyed. I suppose I was both of those things. And that would become the pattern of our relationship: Tommo taking me for granted, me being both flattered and annoyed.

  I should have stuck my fingers in my ears, my head under my pillow, gone la-la-la-la-la, and ignored the rapping on my window until Tommo gave up and chose someone else.

  _________________________

  *Not a Fair Isle pattern, but an intricate and beautiful one all the same.

  Ball

  I had my ticket. I made myself buy it because I knew I had to start meeting people. The only person I felt drawn to so far was Tommo. He’d ‘slept’ over in my room that night, spouting his all-over-the-place political beliefs, not a moment’s respite till the dawn chorus. I knew he’d never be friends with shy, quiet, boring me.

  Maybe that’s why I put on my kilt.

  I’d packed it in my trunk, on the off chance, not really thinking there would be an opportunity to wear it. But I thought, hell, why not? I’m a Scot and this is my clan.

  I didn’t go for the whole regalia. Just the kilt, sporran, hose, flashes, brogues. A black ghillie shirt on top. I checked myself in the mirror above my sink, balancing and contorting myself on a chair to get the full effect, wished my hair would do something other than curl and that my legs would look something other than spaghetti-like.

  I’d never be cool. But I could be different.

  I felt like fetching up my tea.

  Be proud, be proud, be proud of who you are.

  They called it a ball. I’d not been to a ball before. We didn’t have balls in Scotland. We had ceilidhs in the country and at school we had discos, where girls* and boys lingered in the dark corners of the gym, snogging and groping until disengaged by a passion-killing teacher. There weren’t any ball gowns here, in the Great Hall, though there were puffy dresses with shoulder pads and gold buttons. The lads were for the most part wearing suits, or Farah trousers and tucked-in shirts, thin ties with the smallest knots possible. One or two bucked the trend and wore jeans and Docs and leather jackets. Actually just one. Tommo. I saw him chatting up some hapless girl who was laughing at everything he said. He was smoking and drinking a pint and still managing to gesticulate everywhere.

  But he was soon eclipsed by someone else.

  I was standing on my own, trying to avoid Jim from Hull who was yet again sporting his Black Sabbath T-shirt although, to give him his dues, he had ironed it, and then this girl – woman – comes towards me, why me, I have no idea, well I do. It was my kilt. It gave me super powers. It made me different.

  And she bought me a drink and we had a laugh and we sat together, ate together, danced together and that night when I went back to my room, I shut my eyes and I didn’t hear the motorway. I didn’t hear my clock or the drunken shouts of first years having a better time than me. I heard the sound of Bex’s loud throaty laugh and I saw her wild hair and her long legs and I felt like the world was an okay place to be.

  Flexible Study

  Lancaster prides itself on having a flexible approach to undergraduate study, particularly in your first year, and is one of only a handful of universities within the UK that allow students to study additional minor subjects alongside their major subject.*

  _________________________

  *Invited from the girls’ school

  *http://www.lancaster.ac.uk

  Library

  The world never stops still. It keeps on spinning, shifting, nauseatingly and dizzyingly. Tommo wanted to be friends with me for some reason. I made him look better, I knew that, but Tommo didn’t need me to reflect his shine. He glittered enough on his own, with his dark, brooding looks and with – what would be referred to in the talent shows of the future – his ‘star quality’.

  It turned out we were both studying English as a minor subject. We were doing British post-modern literature. Lucky Jim. Memoirs of a Survivor. The Spire. And although Tommo didn’t seem the studious type, he did turn up to the first lecture.

  I was sitting maybe halfway down the Faraday lecture theatre, next to Bex,* relieved to have someone I knew beside me, ecstatic that it was her. Week Two of Term One, the first week completed and Freshers’ Week a memory, and I had someone like Bex to go to lectures with. Bex whose long legs were close to mine, whose hair dripped onto her notepad, who chewed her biro in a way that made me quite, quite dizzy.

  The lecture had got underway, Professor Proctor was introducing the major literary theories, getting into the flow, talking about the death of the author when there was an almighty bang followed by a ‘crap’ and a ‘sorry’. Everyone turned round. Professor Proctor glared, sighed, tapped her fingers on the rostrum. Tommo. He put his hand up in a gesture of what was presumably apology, although you might not be mistaken in thinking it was a wave to his adoring fans.

  And did he sit down in a nearby seat and get on with it? No. We had to wait for his prolonged entrance of the Queen of Sheba, mincing down the steps until he draped himself over a chair next to, of course, Bex. He leant forward and saluted me then proceeded to make a fuss out of finding a notebook and pen.

  ‘Rather than trying every zip in those trousers, I suggest you ask your neighbour to lend you a pen.’ Professor Proctor paused to allow sniggers.* ‘Then perhaps I may continue?’

  Bex released the biro from between her teeth and handed it over with a sour look. Tommo ignored the sour look, gestured to Professor Proctor that she may continue and began writing with a flourish Oscar Wilde would have been proud of.

  ‘Wanker,’ Bex hissed.

  ‘Why, thank you,’ he replied.

  I could feel the burning coming off her cheeks, the wound up tension in her body. At that moment I wished my brothers were here to sort him out.

  Tommo was waiting for us after the lecture. He made it look like it was chance that we were heading the same way, but I knew full well he was trying to cut in on Bex.

  She didn’t like him. Either that, or she was pretending she didn’t l
ike him.

  By the time we’d made it back to the JCR*, he was beginning to win her round. Did you read that article in the Guardian yesterday? Did you hear about the student union meeting? Are you going to Glastonbury this year? Will you sleep with me, I’ve got a massive bagpipe?

  He didn’t actually say that last thing but I know he was thinking it. He might as well have said it. If he had said it then Bex would’ve wiped the floor clean with him, the filthy dirty floor, shiny shiny clean.

  As it happens, she did wipe the floor clean with him. Once in the JCR, he offered to buy her a coffee and she said she’d buy her own, thank you very much.

  ‘Don’t be like that,’ he said.

  ‘I’m not being like anything.’

  ‘It’s okay for a bloke to buy a woman a coffee, you know.’

  ‘What if she doesn’t want him to buy her a coffee?’

  ‘Then she’s a silly bitch.’

  ‘A silly bitch?’

  ‘Just kidding. Lighten up.’

  ‘You think that’s funny? You think I should think that’s funny?’

  He shrugged, nonchalant, but I could see a glimmer of fear lurking in his eyes. ‘Prick,’ she said. Not her most articulate of speeches but she made her point quite succinctly.

  Tommo laughed, one of those I-don’t-care laughs that no one actually believes, not even the person actually doing the laugh. I thought she was going to hit him. I really did. But she spun round and stormed off, me following in her wake, ignoring Tommo’s jibes about lapdogs.

  I went to the library the following week, stood in line for a short-loan book. They were like gold dust. I needed the book overnight so I could get on with my essay. I’d been distracted. It wasn’t like me to leave my work to the last minute.* This English unit was harder than I thought it would be. There was so much reading and the reading was mostly re-reading and re-re-reading as the texts were so dense with meaning and metaphor and metonymy (whatever that was) that I couldn’t take it all in. I was muddling my Structuralists with my Russian Formalists and getting in a tangle that left me unable to wield a pen and make letters and words and sentences come out of it and onto the page. Frustration and angst and a shedload of Tippex.