20-ish (Ages of David, Part 4 of 8)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The sun is coming up as I walk home.   One of the things I love about Sheffield is the hills.  I love how they shape the view of the city.  The natural contours scarred with civilisation.  The sun rises, sprinkling morning light over the tower blocks on the far side of the city as the steep incline takes me away from the party, off, at last to bed.

I wish I could stay here forever.

The Crookes’ terraces fade into Broomhill’s tall Victoriana, the houses using the hillside to leer across the streets towards the distant slopes, evidence of life scratching away at the dawn.  I’m unsteady on my feet, but the calm gentleness of the new morning gives me a sense of belonging.  I feel the city speak to me, as though it holds me amongst its bricks and mortar, its parks and lights, its epic and small lives, the morning milk collected and the broken dreams of the night before, the hope of youth and the drudgery of all other ages.  Its faded tiredness of the previous fifteen year’s economic onslaught is finally ebbing and the first roots of a new life, a different tomorrow, are showing and it wants me to share in them.  But I know I am going to abandon it.

I realise, as I turn the corner, that I am not alone.

‘Hello Dave.’

‘Hello Mad Andy,’ I reply.

‘You’re up very early.’

‘Or late.  Going home now, Andy.’

‘Did I miss something last night?  I came round, but no-one answered the door.’  He looks genuinely crest-fallen and I feel, momentarily, guilty.  Most of us have taken to avoiding Mad Andy as we reach the end of our third year at university.  It’s not that we dislike him, it’s just that he’s somewhat inconvenient.  He’s hard to get rid of when he settles in.

‘We were just down the pub.  Bit of a lock-in.  Then back to Kris and Simon’s house for a bit.  Nothing special.’

‘It’s not even five thirty,’ he says and I’m not sure what that is supposed to mean.  That anything which had lasted to five thirty must have been special, perhaps.  Or is it a prelude to some sort of announcement as to what he’s doing out and about at this time?

‘Just a Thursday night, Andy,’ I say, which is true.  Staying out all night and drinking too much beer, that’s sort of the point.  Not planning anything.  There will be time for plans later.  Now is just spontaneity.

Andy is wearing his regulation uniform of over-sized trainers, light blue scuffed jeans, a grubby off-white t-shirt and green wax jacket.  His long greasy hair straggles his equally long face and remind me of the extended locks I have recently shorn.  It is warm, even so early, as summer kicks into high gear.  He doesn’t need his jacket.  Mad Andy isn’t really mad.  Not truly.  But he is eccentric and somewhat socially awkward.  He’s intense with a concentrated stare and a disconcerting habit of fiddling with his genitals while talking to you.  He’s currently telling me about the Who’s 1970 Live at Leeds album and I’ve largely tuned out.

We round another corner and the view sprawls out towards the city centre.  We pause, taking in the collective waking.  Things are coming to life.  A man is jogging further down the hill.  There is the sound of car engines firing.  Most curtains remain staunchly drawn, but a fragment of the city is up early, breathing in the new day.

‘I’ve loved my time here,’ Mad Andy suddenly says.  ‘I don’t think I’ll ever leave.’

‘Yeah, me too,’ I reply.  ‘But it’s hard to hold onto these days, right?  It won’t be the same being here after we graduate.  Everything will be too different.  We’ll start to resent it for letting us down.’

‘I don’t think I could leave.  I can’t imagine living anywhere else.  I’ve discovered who I really am here.’

‘And who’s that then?’

‘Why, it’s me.  Of course.’  He smiles and barks a sort of laugh and I think, of course you’re right.  None of us can be anyone else, after all, can we?  If Mad Andy can be comfortable in his own skin and accept that everyone thinks he’s a little odd for having different thoughts, then I should be able too.  Convention is just a mask.  ‘Where are you going, Dave?’

‘Eh?  Oh, London, eventually.’

‘Why London?’

Good question and I don’t really know the answer.  I don’t particularly like the capital.  It’s too flat, too busy, too big to wrap my head around and yet I know I’ll be moving there.  ‘It’s where my girlfriend lives.’

‘You should insist she comes here.’

‘It doesn’t really work like that Andy.  You can’t just insist.’

‘But she’s making you move there.’

‘Sort of,’ I pause.  ‘I want to as well.’  I’m defensive because I’m not certain I do.

‘What are you going to do there that you can’t do here?’

Andy’s constant questioning is spoiling my drunken elegiac mood.  He’s right, of course.  Like him, I owe the previous three years more than can be explained.  They’ve helped me decide that who I am is not defined by anyone or anything.  I don’t have to listen to what people expect of me.

So why am I running away?

‘I don’t know,’ I concede.

‘Well then,’ he says looking triumphant.

I have been thinking about what I will do in London, but I am still none the wiser.  I’m not sure what a medieval history degree will have prepared me for.  My inability to grapple foreign languages means that an academic career does not beckon and other related jobs are few and far between.  In my head, when I imagine the future I can see where I am and who I am with but not what I am doing.

I hope to write, I guess.  I have been lazy over the past few years.  I’ve concentrated on my studies, my drinking, my terrible dancing and my daytime television watching and have neglected constructing fiction.  A dozen or more short stories, scraps of ideas for things, remain incomplete or barely worked up in notebooks discarded at the back of my desk draw.  But life will be different in the capital.  I will be creative, amongst other creatives.  There won’t be easy distractions.

But, then again, neither will there be hills or my friends or beautiful mornings after a heavy night’s drinking that help you edge your soul closer to heaven, that bring a sense of lightness whereby anything could be possible.

We reach my house and I put the key in the lock. 

‘What are you doing, Andy?’ I ask, realising he is standing too close, right behind me.

‘Coming in,’ he replies decisively.

‘I’m going to bed.’

‘So?’

‘Good morning, Andy.’  I close the door on his crestfallen face and realise I never did ask where he’d been all night.  Maybe he’d just been wandering the streets hoping to bump into someone he knew.  Or, rather, knowing that if he kept at it, he’d bump into someone.  Eventually.  ‘And good luck never being mundane,’ I add quietly.