Student by David Belbin

playing me, or being a gentleman?
    Is there a difference?

    In West Kirby, it’s the dumping season. Helen has finished with Mark, just as they were on the verge of booking flights for a summer getaway. Mark’s upset, but hardly devastated. Turns out he’s been seeing a bit of this girl, Ro, who’s in his hall of residence. By ‘seeing’ he means ‘screwing’, once or twice a week. He tells me this in the Ring O’Bells on Easter Saturday. Then he has the nerve to make a pass at me. When I turn him down, he’s persistent.
    ‘We ought to get back together. We were great before.
    Now’s the right time.’
    ‘Too complicated,’ I say.
    ‘Because of Aidan?’
    ‘I don’t want to talk about Aidan.’
    So we talk about Helen instead. She has started seeing a third year — a public school, banking family bloke. Mark reckons he’ll dump her in the summer, when he graduates, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Helen’s a catch. Mark and I get very stoned together and watch the original version of Solaris until three in the morning, cuddled up on the sofa. He sleeps in the spare room.
    In the morning, after Mum has gone to work, he asks me to go out with him again. I say ‘no’. I’ve always liked Mark, a lot, but I’ve never obsessed over him, never felt that limerance thing Vic was on about. I was infatuated with Aidan for a while, but I’m not any more. Trouble is, I can feel myself going that way for Steve, which is crazy. If I were looking for a new boyfriend, I’d be much better off with Mark than I would be with Steve, but I couldn’t stand it if he dumped me to go back to Helen. After a few drinks, it’s obvious from his conversation: he’s still hung up on her.
    ‘I’m going to see Aidan,’ I tell him. ‘You can have a lift home if you want.’
    ‘To Nottingham?’
    ‘Do you think of Nottingham as home now?’
    ‘Home is wherever you are, Aly.’
    He’s the only person I ever let call me Aly. I give him a wry don’t pull that line on me smile, then take him to his parents’ home. It’s a warm day with a fresh sea breeze. For the first time since I got the car, I have the windows down.
    When I drop Mark off, he lingers by the car.
    ‘Finish with him,’ Mark says. ‘I’ll finish with Ro and we can start up properly. Go off somewhere over the summer.’
    Before I know it, he’ll be suggesting that we move in together.
    ‘You can’t go back,’ I tell him. ‘No matter how much you want to or how easy it looks. We wouldn’t last, you know. We’re much more use to each other as friends.’
    ‘Men and women can’t stay just friends,’ he says.

    Aidan’s mum and step-dad are surprised to see me. I haven’t phoned to say I’m coming, because Aidan will still be asleep.
    ‘He’s still out,’ Linda says. ‘Are you early?’
    ‘Out? It’s only noon.’
    ‘He’s gone to church with Anna,’ she says, cheerfully. ‘It’s the second time.’
    ‘Wow!’ Aidan’s parents are Church of England which, according to my Irish-Catholic mother, makes them practically atheists. But Aidan isn’t a practising Christian. We’ve had the secular conversation, the one where you establish common ground, that God doesn’t exist and a lot of the world’s troubles are caused by the misguided primitives who insist on believing in him yet won’t tolerate those who don’t believe in their own, bigoted way.
    ‘He’s come out of himself a bit,’ says Keith. ‘I managed to get him a job.’
    ‘What kind of job?’
    ‘Trainee Financial Adviser.’
    Again, all I can think of to say is ‘wow’. At university, Aidan did Philosophy and Psychology. He told me he wanted to be a don, or a poet. Or both. Not an accountant.
    ‘Here he is now,’ Linda says. ‘Aidan, look who’s here!’
    That’s when I get the real shock. Aidan’s had his hair cut. All the curls have gone. His deep eyes are too big for his face, and his jaw looks too long. I don’t fancy