Part 25 (1/2)

Thankfully I stumble down the corridor to the bathroom just in time, but when I look up from the sink, wet-lipped, pale and shaking, at my reflection in the mirror, I nearly throw up again because it becomes clear that I have transformed in the night into some kind of freakishly hideous man-lizard, with a diamond-shaped pattern of scales all down one side of my face. I cover my mouth to suppress my scream, and then realise that it's just the imprint of the bed-frame's wire mesh on my face, so I go back to bed.

The alarm goes off at 8.15, like an ice-pick in my ear, and I lie in bed and listen to the rain pelt against the window. G.o.d knows I've had hangovers before, most days in fact, but this is a strange new kind; almost hallucinatory. It's as if my whole nervous system has been re-calibrated, so the slightest sensation - the rain outside, the light from the anglepoise, the smell from the empty can of Special Brew that's rolled under the bed-frame - all have a grotesquely exaggerated effect. All my nerve endings seem uncomfortably alive and twitching, even the ones inside my body, so that if I lie still and concentrate, I can actually feel the shape and location of my internal organs; the lungs bellowing wetly, the exhausted, 331.

DAVID NICHOLLS

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perspiring yellow-grey ma.s.s of my liver slumped against my backbone, the engorged, aching, bruised purple kidneys, the hot, spasming lower intestine. I try to move, to physically shake this last image out of my head, but the noise of my hair rustling against the pillowcase sounds ma.s.sively amplified too, so I lie very still on my side and look at Spencer, lying a few ]

feet away, his mouth pouting open slightly, a damp patch of opaque saliva soaking into my pillow. I'm lying close enough to smell his breath, which is stale, muggy and warm. G.o.d, I'd forgotten about the skinhead haircut. He looks like a fascist; a good-looking, charismatic fascist, but they're the worst kind, as history tells us. What if people see me with him at the party tonight, and think that I'm friends with a fascist? Maybe he won't be here tonight. Maybe he'll have gone home. Maybe that'll be for the best.

Getting up and sitting on the edge of the bed-frame feels Herculean, and I can actually hear the contents of my stomach s.h.i.+ft and settle, like a thin plastic bin-bag full of warm, gently effervescing custard. The idea of changing out of last night's clothes seems frankly untenable, so I don't, and I'm not even sure if I can lace up my shoes without throwing up on them, but I manage somehow, then pull on my coat/blanket and manage to leave the house with Spencer still asleep, and walk up the hill towards the English department. There's a steady drizzle, and a squally wind. I had this fanciful idea that I'd be able to read The Rape of The Lock as I walk, but the pages are getting soaked, and besides it's all my nervous system can handle just to walk without falling over.

Outside the lecture hall, I lean against the wall and rub my hands briskly over my face to try and give it some colour other than grey, when I see Rebecca Epstein striding out through the gate. For a second I imagine that she's seen me but decided to just walk away, but that can't be right, because that would mean that she's ignoring me.

'Rebecca!' I shout, but she's stomping off down the street, 232.

the collar of her black vinyl coat turned up, head down against the rain. 'Rebecca . . . ?' I hold on to the bag of fizzy custard, and try to run without moving my head.

'Rebecca, it's Brian!'

'So it is. h.e.l.lo, Jackson,' she says blankly.

'How are you?'

'Fine.'

And we walk on a little further.

'Good lecture?' I ask.

'Uh-huh.'

'What was it on?'

'Do you really want to know or are you just making conversation?'

'I'm just making conversation.'

I think I see the ghost of a smile, but maybe I imagine it because the next thing she says is: 'Shouldn't you be heading off to a lecture yourself?'

'Well, I was meant to, but I'm not sure if I'm up to it somehow . . .'

'What's it on?'

'Do you really want to know or are you just . . . ?'

'You look like s.h.i.+te by the way.'

'I feel like s.h.i.+te.'

'Good. I'm glad.'

She seems hostile. She always seems hostile of course, but more so today. We walk on a little further, with me just behind her, and I wonder how someone with such short legs can manage to walk so much faster than me.

'Bees, are you angry with me or something?'

'”Bees”? Who the f.u.c.k is ”Bees”?'

'Rebecca, I mean. Well, are you?'

'Not angry. Just . . . disappointed.'

'G.o.d, not you as well.' She looks me in the eye, for the first time. 'I just seem to be disappointing everyone at the moment. I don't know why. I'm trying hard not to, really I 233.

am.' She stops at this, and we stand in the street in the rain for a moment while she looks me up and down.

'You do know your face is completely grey, don't you?'

'I know.'

'And you've got white stuff in the corner of your mouth.'

I wipe it away with my coat sleeve and say, 'Toothpaste,' though I'm not sure if it is. 'Look, have you had breakfast?'

'What about your lecture?'

I remember my resolution, to attend every single possible lecture, but Rebecca feels more important than resolutions, so I say, 'I think I'll skip the lecture,' and she thinks for a moment, then says, 'Come on then' and we walk back down the hill.

The steam and grease from the breakfast specials fog the cafe window, condensing on the cold gla.s.s, and dripping down and pooling on our red Formica table. Rebecca and I have got a booth to ourselves, with a mug of tea for her, and milky coffee, a can of c.o.ke, a crispy bacon roll with brown sauce and a Mars bar for me. Rebecca's doodling in the steam on the window with her finger, while I say,'. . . he's getting done for fiddling his dole, which I think is outrageous, personally. I mean, if you think about the huge amounts that all those fat-cat businesses get to fiddle in tax evasion, and no one bats an eyelid . . .'

'. . . hmmm . . .'

'. . . I mean, what is it, a measly twenty-three quid a week or something? No one can live on that. And what do they expect people to do anyway, if there's no proper work around . . . ?'

'Uh-huh . . .'

'. . . I'd like to see some of those b.a.s.t.a.r.d Tories survive on that money. Anyway, I'm worried that he's going to ask if he can borrow money from me, because I can't afford to lend him money, not with grants at this level . . .'

. . . and here I stop talking because I realise that Rebecca's 234.

written the words 'Heeeelp meeeef backwards in the steam on the window.

'Sorry. I'm being a bit boring, aren't I?'

'Well, Jackson, you know me, usually I'd love nothing better than to discuss Tory social policy of a morning, it's just, well, it's not really the important issue here. Is it?'

'No, I suppose not.' I take a deep breath. 'Sorry about the other night.'

'And do you know exactly what you're apologising for?'