Thank goodness I’d brought them. I’d grabbed them only as an after-thought, once my bags were packed and lined up by the front door. This was such a special opportunity and I didn’t want to be so overexcited that I didn’t get a wink of sleep. I’d never used the pills before. They were meant to be a last resort after I was mugged in September, but with the bang on my head yesterday, I don’t think I’d have had a decent night without them.
I put the heater on and huddled under the covers. I waited and waited; the heater clicked and rattled, but it felt like the temperature was still hovering around zero degrees.
My mind drifted back to the day Karen and I met. We didn’t share lectures or any of the same subjects. All we shared was a kitchen – known as B2 – with around twelve other students along the corridor. In fact, I didn’t even belong there; my designated kitchen was at the other end, but for some reason the reception I got in mine was standoffish, verging on hostile.
With nothing to lose, I’d tried my luck in B2.
‘I’ve not seen you before,’ said Karen, introducing herself with a show-stopping smile as she skimmed past with a tray of beers. ‘It’s all-comers here. Grab a seat. Fancy some noodles?’
I felt like a valued customer in an exclusive restaurant. Everyone was chatting, sharing jokes and even toasting marshmallows on that first visit. I found out that, in the evenings, students gathered with instruments to form an impromptu band, drawing in an audience from other floors in the block. While the concerts were underway, another group would put together a huge pile of food – spaghetti bolognese or risotto – and share it with anyone who turned up. Karen, I discovered, was the one who instigated this communal supper idea; her generosity was a revelation to me. She regularly handed round bottles of wine and pieces of cheesecake; she never seemed, like me, to buy any of those meals-for-one. I didn’t hesitate. I shifted over my tins and jars from one locker to another and made ‘B2’ kitchen my new home.
I’ve thanked fate a thousand times for that encounter. It was as though my life really began that day.
I blew on my hands and, gritting my teeth, planted my feet inside my furry slippers and pulled on my bathrobe. I glanced at my reflection in the speckled mirror on the wall and caught the frown on my face. I was still mystified that at such a poignant, delicate time, Karen had chosen me to be here.
At University, Karen had throngs of friends and they all seemed to have more in common with her than I ever had. She’d made a point of befriending me, but I wasn’t so naïve not to realise that there were plenty of others she was fond of. What about the friends she’d met since then, through her jobs or in Brixton? Why had she invited me?
Icicles had formed like dried glue on the inside of the window, but I didn’t marvel at them for long. A knock at the front door shook me and I stood still to listen. I heard Karen hurtle down the stairs to answer it, as if she was expecting someone.
‘Yay – they’re here!’ she squealed.
I ran out onto the landing.
‘Who’s here?’ I called, hurriedly tying the belt of my bathrobe, my mouth wide open.
‘The others…’
Others? Karen hadn’t mentioned any others…
There were whoops and screams at the front door. Karen’s arms were wrapped around a man’s neck, dislodging his backpack. She was jumping up and down, circling around the two of them like a puppy. I didn’t remember her face lighting up with such unbridled joy when I arrived on the doorstep.
‘Didn’t I say? You remember Jodie and Mark,’ she cried. I tried to raise a smile as I tentatively descended the stairs. I was crestfallen. I thought it was just going to be the three of us.
I stood still on the bottom step. I did know Jodie and Mark – we’d been at Leeds together for three years, but they’d always been Karen’s friends not mine.
‘Hi,’ I managed eventually, nodding in their direction.
Mark Leverton still looked about nineteen. He was tall and wiry like a bendy cartoon come to life. He’d created a stir with the female population at Uni – black shaggy hair, shifty eyes that made him appear inscrutable and out of reach. I’d never seen the attraction myself.
‘Hey – how’re you doing, Sugar?’ he said to me. I’d forgotten what he sounded like. I’d expected a squeaky voice to match his body, but it was deep and rumbling, like thunder was on the way. It all came back: the way he used to call me after anything sugary – as if he could never remember my name.
Mark had always been a ‘bad boy’; the dark, moody sort that girls seem to drool over. I remember asking Karen at the time why so many fell for blokes like him.