L...

Oh L - you're still one of my dearest friends.  Twenty Two years later....

We met in the queue to register for my course.  Everyone's got a 'met in the queue' story from University.  L is my most notable one.  She didn't seem the chattiest of types.  Maybe it was my ghastly brown leather jacket from Wembley Market that put her off.  She has always been immaculately turned out to a degree well beyond her means - always.  Students are not known to have an in-depth appreciation for £300 shirts.  L did.  L does.



I knew where she was from rather well.  There was at least a connection there.  She didn't seem particularly happy.  She seemed, perhaps, a little sceptical of me. Perhaps it was the leather jacket.   She was going back home that weekend rather than the plethora of balls and parties that were being laid on to extract ££s from Freshers.  I'd see her again at the first lecture.

She, of course, quickly became a major feature of my University Life and my life in general.  In some respects it was a deeply imperfect match.  She liked designer clothes.  I liked baggy jumpers and yellow t-shirts.  She liked Lloyd Cole.  I liked musical theatre.  She liked that lecturer that gave me the Saussure assignment.  I hated him.

 

She was and is incredibly loyal.  Once you were friends you were friends.  She would call, daily.  She would call round, daily.  No complaints there.  She did and does like it when you see things her way!  Admittedly, so do I.

Our first major breakdown was, with hindsight, based upon whether or not we were going to get together.  I'm sure I sent out signals.  My version of them, at least.  She most certainly did too.  Her version.  It was clear, after a short amount of time, that it wasn't going to happen.  She decided, from thereon, that I was utterly hateful.  Something that she lovingly informed everyone who surrounded us of.  But she still called daily.  She still came round daily.

I went round one night, late at night, to tell her that enough was enough.  We'd had a disasterous evening.  She'd insisted that I walked her home.  We did so in fuming silence.  Enough was enough.  She went straight home for the rest of the week.  Things slowly improved from thereon.  They improved, also thanks to the fact that she moved into with R and a couple of other people.   She settled down.  She did, and does, take her time to settle down.

Still friends after 22 years.  We're going away together next week.

A fierce and determined intelligence.  A sad insecurity.  An impatiently high standard.  Procrastination dressed up as consultation.  A plethora of pointless regret.  A sense of style.  A sense of fun.  A sense of fun that's still there.  After twenty two years.

R...

 

I think, in honesty, R was going through a similar process of unacknowledged self-discovery as I was.  He was the slightly podgy, very speccy, adopted (as we later found out), son of a clergyman who'd had a variety of bases over the years.  Now the extra weight was off, the contact lenses were in and he was ready to GO!


And good for him.  He was undoubtedly, one of the best looking men in our year at university and he, unlike me, was going to make the most of it!

I met him through L - they lived in the same halls - and we all did the same course.  We soon - me, L, R and U became a 'mini gang' - and it was great fun - there's no denying it.

R would often put his foot in his mouth to great acclaim - the 'you're not bad looking yourself' line that he'd inadvertently come up with was often repeated in an attempt to bring him down a peg or two but his charm won out every single time.





I, occasionally, for some reason, seemed to take it upon myself to act as his moral guide and guardian.  Quite uninvited, it must be said.  I'd berate him for treading on other men's sexual territory (including my own) only to be ignored time and again.

His self-exloratory was as untempered as my own.  He has the 'rubbish hippy' phase too.  And one involving a leather jacket with Lenny Kravitz painted on the back.  And one where he was going to be a writer.  And another when he was going (at my invitation) going to be my guide into christianity.

 

The girlfriends came and went.  And came and went.  And a small smattering of men fell for him too.  I remember, one night, when he'd been out on the prowl, he came knocking on my window (I was on the ground floor) for a drink, a smoke and some sympathy for his unfruitful prowling.  I was in bed and answered the 'door/window' wrapped in just my duvet.  "Are you naked under there?" he said.   "Yes" I said.  "Give us a look then" he said.  Maybe I should have done.

He said, from the outset, that our friendships were going to be shortlived.  He saw this as pragmatism.  We saw it as desparately uncommitted and sad.  People move on.  They drift apart.  They remain friends for ever.  They lose touch.  I thought about him alot.  I probably fantasised about him too.  He came to visit me at home - he slept with two of my female friends.  Maybe more.  He told me, on the first visit, that my friends were more fun than I was.

He's married now and has three children.

We're still in touch.

Happy?

I find it difficult to evaluate whether I was happy in that first year.  I know that there were times when I wasn't - most notably when lying, cold in my bedroom on a Wednesday afternoon, smelling the cabbage-like emanations from the cafeteria below, listening to yet another godawful rehearsal by the Hall houseband, having nothing better to do and nowhere better to go.  I know I wasn't during the third 'getting to know you Ball' of the first week when the music was too loud to get to know anyone whatsoever and  the people I'd decided to get to know better left one by one.  I know I wasn't when wondering how on earth I was going to get out of living with the people on my corridor in the second year.  I know I wasn't when I was letting L down for not being as into her as she was into me.  I know I was most certainly not happy when a lecturer gave me the much-dreaded first presentation of the year as an assignment - he'd taken an immediate dislike to me - it was on Saussure.  I know I wasn't happy with the morons who 'ran' the JCR of my halls of residence - with their aloofness and fratboy humour and behaviour.  And I know I wasn't happy on the occasions when I arrived back at my ugly, souless building, and looked up and sighed.
I don't measure my happiness or lack thereof by the intellectual stimulation that I was receiving - as we will discover, the intellectual stimulation that was being transmitted from the English faculty was the least most important aspect of my university life - either in terms of happiness or any other deciding factor.

And I know I wasn't happy when during a break between terms, E turned up to the local pub and 'caught' me smoking - she fled back to her car saying that I should go back to my 'proper' friends and my cigarette and that she'd never felt more lonely in her life.

But I know that I treated my unhappiness with a large dose of detachment.  There wasn't any penchant, any more, for sitting in bathrooms with handfulls of pills.  And I know that there was a large amount of happiness (and booze) to contend with too.

 
I know I was happy being the 'life and soul' of my 'gang' on my floor.  I know I was happy meeting new people - people who surprised my old friends that they were my friends now too.  I know I was happy being the first in line for the bar of an evening, with the bonkers Welshman from my corridor in tow.  I know I was happy doing the 'usual' student things of fancydress three-legged pubcrawls and having friends to stay in their droves (sleeping on the floor in their masses and marvelling at the 'animal house'  nature of proceedings in some quarters).  I know I was happy playing music, going to gigs, eating at Fatty Arbuckles and staying out until dawn.  I know I was happy on RagRaids - being one of those ghastly tin-rattling students in white coats and getting plastered afterwards.  I jogged, I went to aerobics (I went to hospital after one particular session!).  I know I was happy, going to the movies in the debating chamber, making new discoveries and never forgetting "Thelma and Louise".  I know I loved singing in the choir, on occasions, and falling asleep in my music appreciation classes.  I know I was happy, cycling (on the occasions I cycled and didn't leave my bike to rest in the shed) down the hill from campus to the halls, sometimes with someone sitting on the parcelrack.   Sometimes, in the middle of the night after a midnight showing of "The Exorcist".

I'm sure, on reflection, that I was happy.