Chapter 10: Routine

I’ve said before that I’ve never been one for sleeping late, but that Saturday was an exception. It was after nine when I woke but it seemed I was still the first one up. Or so I thought.

I had a shower, got dressed then went over to the canteen for breakfast. I’ve slagged off the canteen, but one thing they did get right was breakfast. Okay, it’s difficult to get bacon, sausage, egg, hash browns and beans wrong, but even in that first week, I’d very much gotten used to starting the day that way.

The canteen was even emptier than it was during the week but sitting alone at one table was Steve, so I decided to join him. I really needed to make the effort to get to know more people, so this seemed like as good a chance as any.

To be honest, he struck me as a bit on the dull side, not quite as stereotypical as you think a Computer Science undergraduate would be, but not far off. We didn’t have very much in common but being relatively early risers was one thing. So I agreed to meet him for breakfast the next day, and every day after that. I suppose it was better than eating alone.

I spent a couple of hours going over some of my lecture notes and hit the books again after lunch. Law certainly required a lot of reading.

Emily popped in for a visit and she didn’t seem all that perturbed by what had happened the previous night. We had a good long chat, mostly about how I’d coped during the first week. She didn’t mention Phil, and neither did I.

Lisa also called me in the afternoon. We’d been exchanging text messages all week, but it was nice to talk to her even if I did have to go over what I’d done to Amanda the weekend before—damn Emily for telling her. Lisa actually thought it was pretty funny and helped me see the funny side. She also asked if the voice in my head had quietened down, and I admitted it hadn’t. I then made her promise not to say anything to Emily about that, to which she very reluctantly agreed.

We went out again on Saturday night, but not as a whole hall this time. Mark, Jem, Phil and I met up with Emily and the girls, with some of the other boys from the hall tagging along for good measure. We went dancing, but not to Central Pier which Amanda said charged too high an entrance fee on a Saturday. Of course, I could have easily afforded to pay the cover for everyone in our group, but since none of them but Emily knew about my financial situation, I didn’t think it was a good idea. It’s not that I didn’t want anyone to find out but more that they didn’t need to know. I hadn’t been splashing the cash or anything, but I hadn’t been as frugal as some of my new friends either.

So we ended up in a club called Porky’s. It was chock full of students and after buying the first round of drinks it was obvious why. The beer was dirt cheap and almost certainly watered down and the rack behind the bar contained low-quality generic spirits rather than premium brands. The floor was a little bit sticky and the room was dimly lit, but it served its purpose by pumping loud dance music through speakers dotted around the room.

The whole group danced, drank and flirted and Libby hung off me like I was going out of fashion, so it was no surprise when she suggested we leave early.

On our way out, Amanda grabbed herself a handful of my arse cheek and whispered in my ear, “She thinks I was making it up, so promise me you’ll knock her the fuck out too.”

I kept that promise. In fact, making Libby pass out was even easier than it had been turning Amanda’s lights out.

Aside from waking up next to Libby and so missing my planned breakfast with Steve as she kept me otherwise occupied, Sunday followed much the same pattern as Saturday until the evening meal. I studied, re-reading some of what I’d read the day before and going over notes I’d made during the lectures. Mark did persuade me to seek out Sunday lunch in a pub with some of the other guys instead of going to the canteen, but I hit the books again in the afternoon while most of the guys went up to the common room to watch the live football match on the big screen there.

After the evening meal, the committee had arranged to show some movies in the common room. I don’t know if they’d hired them, they belonged to someone or if they’d been acquired in some other way, and honestly, I didn’t really care. I’d already seen the three films they’d advertised on posters dotted around the hall, but they weren’t bad and I didn’t mind seeing them again if it gave me a break from study.

By the time I got up to the common room, most of the seats had been taken, but there were odd places scattered around. I scanned the room for someone I recognised next to one of the spare places and, with luck, found someone. My course-mate, Imogen, and her blonde friend, Vanessa.

“Hi,” I said. The trailers were showing so I didn’t worry about whispering. “Mind if I sit here?”

She blushed, but it quickly faded. “Sure.”

“Thanks.”

I’d barely sat down when a voice from the other side of Imogen said, “Where were you?”

I leaned forward to see Steve, who was sitting on the other side of the two girls, staring at me.

“Huh?” There I go again, eloquent as ever.

“Breakfast? You were going to meet me for breakfast.”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry. I ... er ... Yeah. Sorry.”

“So what happened? You oversleep or something?”

“Or something.”

I glanced at Imogen who smirked. She obviously knew, or thought she did, what I’d been up to. It’s not like I could hide it with Amanda and now Libby bragging to the world. And I was certain that Mark hadn’t exactly kept his mouth shut about my sleeping arrangements the night before. Or Jem for that matter.

“I’m sure he had something better to do at the time,” she said, still smirking.

“Like what? I mean, breakfast is, like, the most important meal of the day, man. You know that, Gen. And besides, he said he’d be there, it’s not cool to let someone down like that. Not cool at all, man.”

“Erm, do you two know each other?”

Imogen looked at me with a half-smile that spoke volumes.

“We went to the same school,” Vanessa said.

Which probably meant that Steve had been hanging around Vanessa, and by extension, Imogen.

“So how come, and don’t take this the wrong way, how come you have an accent, and he doesn’t?”

“Ha!” said Steve.

Vanessa shot him a look that I’d have been scared of had it been directed at me, but he didn’t seem to notice. “My family had to move south about four years ago,” she said. “Dad got a new job.”

I nodded my understanding. That might have explained her initial brashness—she’d probably been the outsider for all of those four years since being displaced. I was willing to bet she’d learned to be so outgoing to feel a little less like an outsider.

I settled back to watch the remaining trailers, all of which Steve felt the need to comment on. I really hoped he didn’t do that throughout the film once it started. However, he did. At least he lowered his voice though so that only Vanessa, Imogen, me and the people behind could hear. He also leaned towards Vanessa with every comment. It was pretty obvious even to me—and I’m no expert at reading women’s reactions—that she was uncomfortable with this but, again, he seemed oblivious.

After half an hour, I was getting pretty damn tired of Steve’s Director’s Commentary. I think the two girls behind us were too judging by the way they tutted or groaned each time he spoke—not that Steve seemed to notice. Or maybe he just didn’t care.

I nudged Imogen’s arm gently to get her attention. When she looked at me, I whispered so quietly that I made almost no sound at all, “He always like this?”

She smiled and nodded. “From what I can tell. I don’t know how or why she puts up with him.”

I rolled my eyes and turned my attention back to the screen.

A few seconds later, after a comment from Steve about how the director framed the last shot on screen all wrong, I nudged her arm again and said, “I’m going to get a Coke. Back in a sec.”

She nodded. Then said, “Wait. I’ll come with.”

We got up, crept along the wall then behind the back row of seats and over to the vending machines over by the pool tables.

“He is seriously annoying,” I said when we were out of earshot.

“Tell me about it.” She grinned. “Plus, he creeps me out. I mean, he’s okay, sort of, I suppose, but there’s something about him...” She shivered.

“Perhaps he needs to get laid,” I said.

“Yeah, right. Like any girl in her right mind...” She smiled. “Sorry. That’s mean. And besides, I’m sure there’s someone, somewhere...” There was a mischievous glint in her eye then she started laughing. “No, I was right the first time.”

I laughed too.

“Of course,” she said as we got to the Coke machine. “You don’t seem to have that problem from what I’ve heard, do you?”

“Don’t know what you mean.”

“Yeah, right. I hear there’s a waiting list.”

I shrugged and shook my head. “Don’t know what you mean.”

She smirked and slapped my arm.

We got our drinks, but instead of returning to our seats, we stood by the pool table. I picked up the white ball and sent it flying around the table for no particular reason.

“I’m not sure I want to go and spend the rest of the evening next to him,” she said. “I might go back to my room. Read a book or something.”

“I’ve got a DVD player in my room,” I said, “If you still fancy watching a film.”

She grinned. “Am I safe? You’re not going to seduce me and make me miss breakfast, are you?”

I held my hands up. “No funny business. I swear. I’ll even leave the door open.”

She nodded. “I was joking, you know.”

“I know. Do you think your friend will want to come?”

“Probably. But if I go get her, Steve will probably follow. Best leave it.”

I grinned. “Will she be pissed?”

“Probably. But she’ll get over it.”

“Come on then, let’s go.”

I sat on the bed, she sat on the chair. Before the film she’d picked had really gotten going, Mark joined us, bringing a bean bag in from his room to sit on. Not long after that, I had a room full. And not one of them offered a commentary on the film. Which was good.

Life settled into something of a routine after that first week. Breakfast with Imogen became a regular thing, even when we didn’t have a nine o’clock lecture we still had breakfast together. Steve tagged along too, much to Imogen’s slowly increasing annoyance. She commented on it quite often as we walked to our lectures but she never said anything to him, which I found odd. She was always polite to him even if it was followed up with some snide comment once he’d left.

We discovered very early on that we had the same attitude towards our course—and a different attitude than a lot of our hall-mates. We were both pretty serious-minded about our studies, almost treating it like a nine-to-five job. On days when we weren’t committed to a nine o’clock lecture, we headed to the Law section of the library instead to do some reading, researching or to work on essays and assignments. We did the same thing between lectures and seminars and very rarely did we head back to Wintersmith at all during the working day.