Chapter 6: Wintersmith

Thursday was a bit of a blur, to be honest—guess I might have been feeling some of the thrill of retail therapy that girls feel. I met up with Emily at Lisa’s house so we could see her off for her return to Cambridge. They shared a tearful hug and promised to text each other regularly. Then Lisa turned to me and gave me a very firm hug indeed.

“Thank you for yesterday,” she whispered in my ear.

“You’re very welcome,” I whispered back. “It was my pleasure.”

“And mine.” She giggled and pulled away but took hold of my hands and looked me in the eye. “Promise me something.”

“What?”

“Make the most of it.”

“Of what?”

“You know what. Westmouth. Uni. And the fresh start it offers.”

“I’ll try.”

“Make sure you do.” She turned to Emily. “You make sure he does too.”

Emily smiled. “I’ll do my best.”

“That’s all I ask.”

Emily and I spent the morning hitting just about every menswear shop in Westmouth and I blew close to five hundred pounds on new clothes, underwear, shoes and accessories before Emily persuaded me that it would be worthwhile buying a new formal suit, just in case I needed it. Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it, was her argument. I think she just got a thrill from seeing me drop another two hundred and fifty quid.

After lunch, which I paid for again—I think Emily was starting to like spending my money—she drove me to Walminster to pick up the new car, which, obviously, I then had to give a thoroughly good test drive, just to be sure it was working properly.

I met Emily back at my house in the early evening. She was waiting outside, leaning against her car with her arms folded across her chest and smirking as I parked up and got out wearing probably the biggest smile I’d had for a long, long time. It was a really nice car. We went inside, ordered pizza delivery and watched a couple of movies that I’d not entirely legally downloaded a couple of days before.

She once again kissed my forehead (she had to stand on tiptoes to do so) before she left for the night, and promised she’d arrange to meet me somewhere in Westmouth on Saturday evening once I was settled into whichever hall of residence I’d been placed. She was moving into her new campus flat the next morning.

That meant I had all day Friday to sort through my old clothes and decide which I wanted to keep. In the end, I kept less than half of them. The rest went into black bags, and I took them to a charity shop in town. Clothes weren’t the only things that went to the charity shop either. I had a good sort through my things and everything from old books, CDs and DVDs to knick-knacks and trinkets that I’d collected over the years got bagged up and taken into town. A fresh start. Perhaps I’d regret throwing some things away, but I doubted it.

I thought I did pretty well to pack up just about my whole life into one suitcase and a couple of holdalls, in addition to my laptop, speaker dock, and TV. That was about all I needed. At least, I thought it was. And if I needed anything else, hell, I could always go out and buy it.

“Name?” asked the guard who stopped me at the entrance to the campus.

“Paul Robertson.”

He looked at his clipboard, ran his finger down it until he reached the bottom and then turned the page. He flicked over several more pages before tapping a spot about halfway down. “Ah, here we are. P. Robertson. You’re in Wintersmith. Nice hall. That’s where I stayed when I was a student. I never graduated mind. Too much beer and sex, know what I mean.” He actually winked at me at that point. “Anyways. Go to the end of this road, take a right and keep going. Wintersmith is at the end. You’ll need this—” He handed me a parking permit. “They’ll take it off you after you’ve unloaded. If you’re keeping the car here, you’ll need a permanent one. Apply via Student Services. Sweet car, by the way.”

“Thanks.”

“No problems. Enjoy Westmouth.”

I put the car in gear, eased through the gate, and followed the guard’s directions. So I was in Wintersmith. At least that meant Emily wouldn’t have a problem with coming to visit me. I’ll admit, I was relieved to finally make it to the campus. It had taken twice as long to get from the edge of Westmouth to the campus than it had to go from Micester to the edge of Westmouth. The town centre’s one-way system was bad enough, but the university had asked that all new students arrive on the same day, and the sheer weight of traffic had snarled everything up. The town centre was even more chaotic than usual and it took me nearly an hour to make it through and crawl up Westmouth Hill to the campus. Now I knew why Emily had come the day before.

Wintersmith turned out to be a dull, modern, four-storey, rectangular red-brick building, devoid of any notable features other than a logo made up of the outline of a stylised “W” with the word “Wintersmith” written across it by the entrance. I grabbed a parking space as close to the entrance as I could and, as I got out of the car, a man in a shockingly bright yellow T-shirt walked over. His T-shirt bore the Wintersmith logo on the right breast.

“Hi, I’m Jem, Wintersmith Committee. I take it you’re with us?”

I nodded.

“Great. Well, follow me and we’ll go and see which room you’re in.”

Jem led me inside, up a flight of stairs, along a corridor and into one of the bedrooms where a tall blonde girl was standing by the study desk on which bunches of keys were laid out.

“This is Pippa, she’s on the committee too. She’ll sort you out. Welcome to Wintersmith.” He gave me a friendly slap on the back and left in a hurry while Pippa looked me up on her list and found my keys.

“This one’s to your room and this one is for the entrance to the hall, which gets locked at midnight,” she said as she handed them over. “You’re in room A4—on the ground floor. Go back the way you came, down to the entrance, but instead of going outside, go through the door opposite. I think A4 is to the left as you go through. But I might be wrong. I didn’t go down there very much last year. Jem’ll know though if you see him. He was a ground floor boy last year. Is this year too.”

I went back down the stairs, jumping the last few for some reason. I don’t know, maybe Lisa’s words before she left for Cambridge and this whole new adventure of student life was starting to hit me. I actually felt pretty excited all of a sudden. Sure, I’d just spent a year travelling around one of the most interesting countries in the world—one of the most exciting countries in the world—but that hadn’t been real. I’d been running away. It was a different life. This, though, this was real. Starting university was real. Starting the journey that would lead to a career and a new life was real. And it was exciting. Yeah, it wasn’t how I’d originally planned it, but Lisa was right, if I was here, I had to make the most of it.

I followed Pippa’s directions through the door opposite the entrance and then to the left. The first room was marked A2, the next was A3. My room was the third and last door on this side of the dimly lit corridor. I unlocked it and went in to find a reasonably large room. Well, larger than I expected, at least.

Directly opposite the door was a picture window with a view over the car park, so at least I’d be able to park the car where I could see it. Under the window, one side of it against the wall, was a single bed. There was also bedside table and a large, wood-frame lounge chair upholstered in a pretty garish shade of bright red. Against the wall to the right was a large desk and next to that, a wardrobe. In the corner of the room behind the door was a wash basin with a mirror above it. At least the floor was carpeted, even if the carpet was a horrid shade of brown. Some of the rooms I’d seen on the first open day I’d been to almost two years ago had ugly, broken, red tiles.

“Pretty basic,” said a voice from behind. I turned around to see a chap with short dark hair standing in the doorway of the room opposite. “But I did find this.” He held up a small red book. “New Testament. Guess the Gideons left it, huh? But what if I’d been Muslim or Hindu or something? Did they think of that? Bet they didn’t. I’m Mark by the way.” He held out a hand, which I duly shook as I introduced myself.

“Still,” he said, nodding towards his room. “I got a sea view, which is better than what you’ve got.”

I shrugged. “You can keep the view. And the weather that goes with it.”

“Huh?

“I’ve lived in Westmouthshire my whole life and as lovely as the scenery is, when the winter sets in around the end of October or beginning of November, the wind is going to blow in from the sea, rush up the hill and slam against your sea view. Man, I hope the heating in this place works well, ‘cause if it doesn’t...” I slowly shook my head and sucked in a breath.

“Oh. Shit.” His face fell and I grinned to show him I was joking. Or slightly joking. It wouldn’t be quite as bad as I described, but I certainly wouldn’t want to try and sleep in a south-facing room any night we had a storm. He must have picked up on my jest, because he grinned back and said, “Don’t suppose you want to swap?”

I shook my head. “Not on your life.” I started laughing and he soon joined me. “This isn’t too bad,” I said. “I’ve stayed in worse places.”

“I suppose. It’ll be better when I can get some posters up. I’ve got this one of Chloe Goodman on a beach—”

“The Ladz shoot from a few years ago?”

“Nah, man, she did another one at the start of the summer. Didn’t you see it?”

I shook my head. “I’ve been out of the country.”

“Gap year?”

“Something like that.”

“Cool. Wish I’d gone abroad, but I worked my gap year. Need the money. Anyway, with Chloe and Tina Thomson on the walls, I’m pretty sure I can put up with this place.” He grinned. “Look, you want a hand moving in?”

“Sure, if you’re not busy?”

He shook his head. “Nothing doing until we have that meeting with the warden later.”

“Then thanks. Many hands and all that.”

“Okay, but I’ll go put the kettle on first. What d’you want? Tea or coffee?”

“Tea, please. After a year in The States, I’m sick to death of coffee.”

He nodded then walked down the corridor and through the double doors at the end. I took my keys out of my pocket and went to unlock my car and collect the first load of things—my suitcase and laptop bag. Mark met me back in my room with a mug of steaming tea, which I left on the desk while we went back to the car for the second load.

With Mark’s help, it only took that one extra trip. When Jem saw we’d emptied the car, he swapped my Wintersmith parking permit for one that allowed me to keep the car in the main campus car park for the rest of the week—although he did suggest I make sure to get the Wintersmith one back as soon as Student Services opened on Monday as there was only a limited number available.

I moved my car and walked back to the hall of residence hoping to thank Mark for his help but he was busy getting someone else moved in when I got there. I would have offered to help as well but they looked like they were coping and I wanted to make a start on unpacking.

I shut the door behind me, sat on the bed and heaved a massive sigh. Walking back from parking the car had reminded me what a big deal this all was. The campus was huge, and it was hectic. And there was I, on my own, not knowing anyone or anything. Okay, so I knew Emily, but she didn’t really count—I didn’t know the people I’d be living with or the people I’d end up working with. But what really scared me was that I had no idea what was in store for me. This wasn’t going to be like school. The teachers weren’t going to be there to help and hold my hand as they guided me towards the exams. I’d be working under my own supervision. I’d be on my own. The prospect had gone from exciting to intimidating during that short walk.