The stiff breeze that drove the cold rain onto my skin, hit me like needles as I waited for the bus that was going to take me back to my shared student house. Vehicles of all sorts large and small swished past, throwing up spray from the wet road surface. I was seated under a bus shelter that gave little to no protection from the rain so I shivered in my soaked anorak, looking out at the miserable weather. I adjusted the strap of my hold-all, which hung over my shoulder. I watched as trams trundled past on the recently constructed metrolink system, the words of the conversation with my supervisor, Professor Brown still ringing in my ears.
We’d been seated in his cramped, untidy, stuffy, overheated little office. Professor Brown seated at his untidy desk. The contents of which included an empty cup and saucer, files, books, an ancient computer and an unlit pipe resting precariously on the brim of a full ashtray, which was placed right on the edge of the untidy desk. His wooden swivel chair creaked and strained under his weight with his tweed jacket slung carelessly over the back, the whole office smelt of pipe smoke. The once white walls are now a dirty brown. He had part of my nearly finished thesis in front of him. I was seated in a battered old brown armchair. It was, I surmised a nod to his surname. He is, after all, a rather eccentric fellow and is loved and admired by students and his fellow Professors alike.
He looked like a mad professor, which I suppose, in a way he was. He sported a rather scruffy unfashionable black beard peppered with gray, his untidy collar length hair was likewise salt and pepper and looked like it hadn’t seen a comb in years. His eyes are dark and full of knowledge. His blue shirt was open at the neck, its buttons straining under the weight and girth of his paunch. His trousers black, shoes, brown brogues. He was red faced and unfit with a love for real ale, debating and pies, though his debates were held in the tap room of the Black Dog, his favourite pub, whilst drinking a pint of real ale and munching on a pie. It was rumored by my fellow students that his deep knowledge of the humble pie was unmatched. He was about 55 but looked older. He looked at me over the edge of his half rimmed glasses with an unsettling gaze from his mischievous dark eyes and broke the silence mopping his perspiring brow with a handkerchief.
“Andrew my boy, this thesis, if finished and argued correctly, will be an outstanding piece of work. I fully intend that it be published by Manchester University Press''. His deep, gravelly voice filled the cramped space. He continued.
“Now as you know. Your viva voce isn’t that far off, so I propose that you start looking at your thesis and bookmark paragraphs and chapters so you’re completely clued up to defend your work. I will help you, we will meet weekly to discuss your viva voce.
“Thankyou Professor. I don’t quite know what to say. I never thought that it would be worth publishing and I must admit I’m not looking forward to my viva voce, it makes me nervous just thinking of it.
Professor Brown ignored my comment about my nerves. His chair creaked alarmingly as he swung around, he carried on speaking.
“Andrew, my boy you do yourself an injustice. The thought that the 1906 general Election started the downfall of the Liberal party, has been bandied about and debated for years. This is the 1st time, ( to my knowledge ) that a Student has studied it in the detail that you have. Now I want you to help me in a lecture next week. I'm lecturing to political students and their course requires them to have a semester on political history. I want you,my boy, to guest in my Lecture on this subject next week.”
My heart sank as I spoke. “I’m not sure I can. I’m not that confident. Do I have to?”
“You don’t have to. But it will help massively towards your final doctorate, and a possible future career” he leaned forward in his chair. It creaked alarmingly again.
“ It would be a shame to let all that knowledge go to waste. Your confidence will come from that knowledge, the knowledge that you have gained in the last few years, it’s time you put that knowledge to work. Write a script about 5 to 10 minutes long. And then knock them dead”.
I jumped as the professor's clenched fist banged on the desk, driving his point home in his expressive but rather eccentric manner. The empty cup rattled on its saucer and his pipe fell off the ashtray and onto the floor as did a pile of books and folders, scattering notes all over the floor. He looked over the rims of his glasses at my startled face, ignoring the mess on the floor. He swiveled around in his creaking chair and stood. Looking away from me. He spoke as he looked out of his grimy window.
“Sorry my boy. Didn’t mean to startle you. See you next Wednesday at noon. And don’t forget to make your script interesting”. He turned to face me and held out his hand, I stood as well, shaking his warm and fat clammy hand, then left.
I looked up to find a double decker bus in front of me, its engine idling, and the door open. I got up, adjusted my shoulder strap and hurriedly got on.
“Laburnum street please”. I said to the driver.
“£1.30 mate,” he told me.I handed him the money.
The stink of cigarettes hung in the air of the damp and overheated atmosphere of the old bus, the seated passengers all looked at me as I walked up the central aisle. I felt self conscious and looked down at the floor avoiding eye contact and lurched into a seat near the back as it set off, throwing my hold-all onto the seat next to me.
The old bus lumbered out into the road, the engine roaring loudly as it spewed dirty, smelly diesel fumes out of its exhaust, continuing on its slow journey through the busy traffic. I wiped the condensation from the window with the sleeve of my soaked Anorak and peered out into the gloom from my uncomfortable graffiti covered and knife slashed seat.
I looked at the building sites that had appeared in the years following the outrage of the Manchester bombing. Of the Phoenix literally rising from the ashes through my raindrop spattered glasses. Fishing through my pocket for my handkerchief, I took them off and proceeded to clean them. Squinting through the raindrop spattered window at the passing vista outside while I did so.
As the bus lumbered away, the driver with seemingly unending patience manoeuvred the bus through the busy traffic. I noticed how central Manchester was changing from a former industrial city, full of dark satanic mills with their smoking chimneys, factories and warehouses, boarded up and abandoned. Into a modern urban heartland full of the beginnings of glass fronted skyscrapers reaching to the heavens that promised expensive apartments, offices and its rumored, restaurants for highly educated and well paid young professionals.
Scruffy students with hold-alls and business people in smart suits, holding briefcases and mobile phones to their ears, walked the bustling pavements alongside the retired, loud and laughing children on their way home from school and shoppers carrying bags of provisions. I wondered what it was like to own a mobile phone. My stipend after all would only go so far. I had managed to procure a Dell laptop to help me write and research my thesis but the World Wide Web was still relatively new to me.
As I rode I couldn’t help but notice the large cranes that dominated the Manchester skyline, helping to erect the new skyscrapers that will dominate the city center in the 21st century alongside building sites creating the new breed of trendy bars, restaurants and apartments from closed factories and warehouses that will attract the up and coming young professionals. But all that is for the future.
As the bus journey continued the vista slowly changed from the busy city center to the terraced houses and backstreets of the more run down part of Manchester called Salford. Here and there some small corner shops clung on, their lights shining through the windows and glass fronted doors illuminating the gloom outside, alongside the street lights that were flickering into life, to light the way home for shoppers and workers with heads bowed carrying shopping bags or with their hands in their pockets, trudging their way home in the cold early evening rain.
Other shops were permanently closed with their steel shutters down, covered in dirt
and graffiti, their padlocks rusted beyond use. Here and there, people wearing filthy, scruffy clothes looking forlorn living off the state benefits that the government handed out to those less fortunate than me, walking to and fro on business only they knew.
Boarded up terraced houses, that held drug dens, squatters, the homeless or turned into glue sniffing dens, vied for space between those more habitable, all this made up the tapestry of life in the modern urban sprawl and decay of any city, let alone Manchester.
I stood and swayed as I made my way down the central aisle of the bus. I rang the bell, it stopped and thanking the driver I stepped out into the cold stinging rain and stiff breeze. Adjusting the strap of my hold-all and the hood of my soaked Anorak I started the final leg of my homeward journey back to 21 Laburnum street.
It had gone dark by the time I arrived home. It is a student house, with me and 2 other occupants. I had lived there for over 2 ½ years whilst doing my PhD. I lived with Melissa Banks, otherwise known as Mel, a 20 year old physics student with a cute round pixie like face, dyed red shoulder length hair, round rimmed glasses and pierced ears with a taste for socialism and dressing in the grunge fashion. And Sam Bailey, a 6ft Adonis with strong cheekbones, sandy blond hair, blue eyes, an athletic build which he worked on almost daily and long fit legs that seemed to go on for miles, although he was an inch shorter than my 6ft 1. He was also openly and proudly gay, he was good looking and confident and was in the final year of his mathematics and accounting degree. And in short was everything I wasn’t. And, it had been rumoured, been touted for modeling jobs on more than one occasion.
His parents had been supportive throughout, unlike mine. I don't consider myself good looking, I’m aloof, shy and quiet. While Sam studies hard he also likes to party, mostly down Canal street, he also works behind the bar of the local pub called the Red Lion. I prefer to concentrate on my studies, but I find time for a few pints on a Sunday evening, usually in the Red Lion which is a short distance from our digs.
I unlocked the front door and stepped over the threshold. The light was on in the hall. A Staircase was opposite the front door, the kitchen and dining room, from which could be heard loud music was on the left and a long sitting room was on the right, which was in darkness. I quickly went up the stairs trying to stay out of the way of whichever occupant was in the kitchen. At the top of the landing was the shared bathroom, with its toilet, sink, bath and overhead shower. There were 3 bedrooms, 2 smaller rooms on the left of the landing which Mel and Sam had and me on the right. I, being the oldest and longest-served occupant, had the largest room.
I entered my room and sanctuary from the outside world and placed my hold-all on the floor. Unlike the other 2 I kept my room tidy, I was proud to have this room, which I’d only just moved into this year, Mel and Sam were new occupants, only moving in at the start of September. My room was tastefully decorated in gray and white with white furniture and a queen size bed at the end of the room opposite the window,a book case was on one wall, with a sound system, cds, a small portable television and books placed on the shelves, a comfy chair was opposite the bookcase next to the radiator, and a work desk with various notebooks on it and an old office chair neatly pushed into the desk nearby. The carpet was a red patterned thing which was well past its best. There were no posters on the wall and no nic nacs, overall it was a functional space fit for the modern phd student.
Having the largest room and being the longest-served resident, came with responsibility. It was my job to liaise with the Landlord, Mr Patel, notifying him of any problems and also to make sure it was kept tidy. Luckily there was no outside space, just a small yard big enough for a small washing line and the bins.
I took off my Anorak and hung it on a coat hanger on a specially placed hook above the radiator to dry. I placed an old newspaper on the floor so water could drip onto the grinning face of the Prime Minister, Tony Blair. I stripped and threw my clothes into a washing basket, donned a dressing gown, picked up my wash bag and went for a shower.
The shower was above the bath, I never bathed, only showered. I honestly can’t see the point of trying to clean yourself in the water that holds the dirt and sweat that you have just cleaned off your skin. Mel, though, bathed. She loved to soak for what seemed like hours surrounded by candles and sipping on a glass of wine, so Sam and I had to make sure the Bathroom was free beforehand, we didn’t want to suffer the wrath of Mel when she was in the middle of her soak. It was her way of relaxing, like Sam’s way of relaxing was to party down Canal Street. My way of relaxing was to read my newly found wheel of time series of books by Robert Jordan, or listening to music. My intention tonight was to listen to the new Album by Blur called 13 which had just been released, while working on my thesis.
The front slammed and I heard footsteps climbing the stairs in a rush. The Bathroom door burst open.
“Fucks sake, can’t a guy have any peace in this place?”
“Sorry Andy”. Said a loud voice. “ But I’m just busting for a piss.”
“Sam you should know I like my privacy when I’m in the shower, you wouldn’t burst in on Mel, so why burst in on me”? I asked loudly whilst hot water ran down my body as I soaped off the day's grime.
“Do you really want me to piss myself Andy”?
I couldn’t resist my retort, it deserved to be said so I replied.
“It all depends on your kinks Sam. And stop calling me Andy”.
The sound of urine hitting water assaulted my ears as Sam relieved himself, and then running water in the sink as he washed his hands making the shower run cold for a few seconds making me curse.
Then the curtain slid back, to reveal a sandy blond head of hair and a body covered in a green Parka coat.
“What the fuck Sam”, I blustered as I covered my privates.
Sam’s handsome face was covered in a smile.
Sam looked me up and down as he spoke. “Did I hear the infamously shy and conservative Andy correctly? I would if that’s what you’d like Andy”.
I blushed a deep crimson. “You know that’s not what I meant Sam”. I said still covering my privates. “I was only teasing”.
“That’s ok Andy I was only teasing you back. Oh by the way you look good, wet and naked”.
With that he disappeared.
“Fuck off Sam”. I shouted, throwing a bar of soap at the door.
“And stop calling me Andy” I shouted. All I heard was loud laughter and Sam’s bedroom door slam.
“Why does he always have to slam the door?” I muttered.
I’d changed into blue Adidas joggers, a t- shirt and jumper, with my washing basket in front of me I went down the stairs and into the kitchen. The smell of vegetarian Lasagna wafted in the air and loud grunge music assaulted my ears.
“What’s that music”? I asked, shouting over the music, I placed my washing basket on the floor near the washing machine. And put said washing into the washing machine. Then set it running.
“Yield by Pearl Jam. Do you like it?”
“Erm, do I have to answer that”. I asked, leaning on the washing machine, arms folded in front of me and with a slight smile on my face. Despite our difference of opinion in clothes, music and politics. Mel and I got along pretty well.
“Now you’ve asked, then yes you do Mr Roberts”. Mel turned around to look at me smiling. Her attire was for her quite conservative. Her dyed Red hair was tied in a ponytail. She wore a black sweatshirt, baggy trousers in blues, whites, yellows and greens. On her feet she wore Black doc Martens.
“It's a bit random for my taste, it’s ok I suppose, better than some of the music you listen to. But remember the neighbors we don’t want them complaining or pounding on the front door again do we”?
“Oh come on it’s not that loud, besides I don’t complain about your taste in music. I will deal with the neighbors. By the way I want the bathroom between 7 and 8, and I won’t be disturbed, ok”.
“Ok, but don’t forget to tell Sam you know what he’s like for barging in on people without a moment's thought”.
Mel ignored me. And instead asked me to lay the table, which I did without preamble.
A short time later, Sam wandered into the kitchen wearing only a dressing gown, where Mel and I were and explored the fridge for something to drink.
“Hi Andy”. Sam said, glass of water in hand and showing me a bit of his thigh. As he walked past.
Mel and I looked at each other.
“What was that about”? Asked Mel.
“He saw me naked in the shower when he burst in for a pee and told me I looked good naked”.
“Oh. And do you”?
“Do I what”?
“Look good naked”.
“Oh fuck off Mel. Don’t you start”.
Mel just laughed and gave me a dish with garlic bread in it.
When we were all seated, we helped ourselves to the Lasagne and a couple of slices of garlic bread. We tucked into the food. For a short time we ate in silence. Sam moaned.
“This is good what’s in this, I’d have it again, you're a better cook than you make yourself out to be.”
“Mel’s a better cook than you Sam”. I teased.
“I try Andy, I think my cooking has improved”.
“At least you’ve learned how to put jacket potatoes in the oven now”.
“It's time you learnt to cook something different Andy, it’s always curry, chili or meat and two veg. It’s Mel I feel sorry for your veggie options aren't all that great”.
“Pack it in you two, both your cooking is ok and Andrew’s vegetarian options aren’t all that bad, besides I’m not a strict vegetarian, this was really easy, just a courgette, mushrooms, tomatoes, a tin of sweet corn, an onion and various cooking sauces. What do you think Andrew?”
“Well as you know I’m a meat eater”. Before I could continue Sam almost choked and burst out laughing”.
“Andy, Mel asked you about the food, not your sex life”.
“Let me finish you idiot”. I answered shortly, then Mel cut in.
“Andrew he’s just trying to get a rise out of you, stop rising to the bait you know what a dick he can be”.
Sam gave Mel a cheeky wink.” That’s me girl, all dick”. He stood and gave his groin a shake to emphasize his point.
“You're such a prat, Samual”.
“I know he is Mel but you know what I’m like”. I answered.
“We know how you are," Andy. replied Sam. “you’re too boring to have a life”.
“Have you any realization as to how much work goes into a PhD? I’d love to go out partying but my research comes first. I do relax with my music and books, with a few pints on a Sunday night. I’m sorry if you think I’m Boring but it’s bloody hard work to get a PhD”. I said pointing my fork at Sam for emphasis.
Silence reigned for a while. The only sound was the chewing of food and the clink of cutlery on plates as we ate.
“Oh by the way Sam I want the bathroom between 7 and 8 so if you need the bathroom do it before, I won’t be disturbed ok”.
Sam saluted. “Yes ma’am”.
“So Andy. Prove to me you’re not boring and come down Canal street with me on Saturday. Have a few beers, then let’s go to a club and pull hot guys”.
“No way Sam, you know I’m terrible in crowds, besides I’ve got work to do. Professor Brown wants me to guest in a lecture next week. So I’ve a script to prepare as well as all my usual work and research. So sorry I have to turn down your request for my company on Saturday”.
Mel squealed, nearly knocking over our cups as she reached over to throw her arms around me.
“Oh god Andrew, you mean Professor Barry Brown, the pie munching expert wants you to lecture next week”?
I went red as I nervously patted her back startled by her antics. “Yes. He said it’s time I put my knowledge to work.”
“Wow, is that what you want to do for a career?. Be a lecturer.”
“I don’t know, I’ve never really thought about it, I’m not sure if I’ve the confidence to stand up in front of hundreds of students lecturing”.
“I think you’d be great at that. You love history and all the research that goes along with it.”
Sam who had remained quiet through our little exchange then said. “All the same, you should come out on Saturday”.
“Great idea”. Replied Mel. “I will come too. Let’s party and celebrate Andrew the future history lecturer”. She said, raising her glass of water in a mock toast.
I was trapped between a pincer movement orchestrated by my two housemates. What could I do? I felt like I couldn’t refuse their wanting me to go out with them, even though I wanted to. I groaned in frustration.
“Ok against my better judgment I will go, though nights out with me never end well”.
“That’s because you’ve never been out with us, Andy, you can trust us, it will be great, a few beers, then we go to Manto and pull some hot guys. Well we will, Mel will pull whoever she fancies on the night”. Andy replied with conviction.
I put my head in my hands
“Fuck”. I muttered.
End of chapter 1.
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