The Cupid Effect (6 page)

The forty or so chairs with little desks attached to one side were set out in a kind of arc. Behind me hung a white board which I had to bring my own non-permanent markers for. Above and behind the chairs was a wall to wall two-way mirror because this room doubled as a psychology lab and next door was an observation room. Thankfully, there was a heavyweight blue curtain that could be drawn across the mirror so I wouldn't have to worry about looking at myself for two hours or there being someone else observing me lecture for two hours.

I sat on the edge of my desk. Just stopped. For a second, stopped. Took time to breathe. To breathe and think about what I was doing. What was to come.

And it happened. Total peace descended upon me. At the very core of my soul, a celestial being touched me and I felt peace. I was peace. Pure peace. Suddenly I was flooded with power and joy and happiness. All I'd yearned for when I'd accepted this job. I was complete. Whole. This was it. I was there, on the brink of it. On the brink of a life orgasm. I'd only ever felt this sense of pureness when I'd orgasmed. Right in the middle of an orgasm, you are nothing but pure emotion. Nothing else exists except that one moment of sheer, unadulterated bliss; when your body and mind give themselves up to immaculate pleasure. That's what I'd been chasing when I gave up my life in London. For that moment, sat on the desk, I felt it. How life was meant to be. How life could be if I carried on with this.

The first student arrived five minutes before the lecture was due to start. Tall, malnourished thin, long greasy hair, wearing a baggy jumper. He was the type of guy you'd expect to come in last to the lecture, but no, he came wandering in, nodded a hello at me then sat himself at the back of the class.

Next came a girl who was very money. Chatting on a chrome phone, dark brown hair cut with very expensive scissors, the kind of clothes I used to see all the time on the pages of the pricier magazines I worked for. She smiled at me, but wasn't going to finish her conversation until the lecture started. A chunky lad came next, Scouse, again with long hair, surrounded by a gaggle of good-looking women, all of them laughing at something he'd obviously just said. He grinned at me as he walked over to the far corner of the room, sat himself under the large window, and the women sat at other seats around the room.

More of them poured through the open gash of the door: a blonde with a tight perm; an older woman with short blonde hair and petite body; an older man who had ‘pervert' scrawled across his scraggly beard; another older man who had ‘narrowminded Thatcher lover' written in his eyes; a woman with black plaits right down to her bum; a man who put me in mind of a Wham-era George Michael, more and more until the room was full with about forty students.

I put on a charming, welcoming smile for them all. Hoping I looked confident, a natural, as if I'd been doing this for millennia.

OH SHITE! my brain screeched.

I'd lectured before, but that had been on the understanding I wouldn't see those people again. I'd be like hundreds of guest lecturers they'd encounter in their lives: transitional, flibbertigibbety. Nothing more than the sum of notes on the page, a voice on a tape recorder, a name in a handbook. It was like a one-night stand. You tried to enjoy it while you were there, but you could be someone else, flamboyant, tarty, even dominant because you'd never see them again. It didn't matter how you behaved because it was only ever going to be for a few hours. Whereas I'd be expected to bond with this lot. I had to leave my phone number, answer their calls, reveal more and more of who I was. Form some kind of lasting relationship with them over the coming year.

I was about to be found out as the fraud I was. I didn't know jack about anything and I'd sure as anything couldn't impart it, ensure it entered other people's minds and stayed there long enough for them to write about it in essays and exams. I was going to be publicly ridiculed. Laughed and pointed at in the street. Tarred and feathered, branded a liar and cheat then sent packing through the streets of Leeds with my rucksack on my back.

OK D'Altroy, back away from that panic. Calm down. If you don't calm down you'll start getting sweat patches all over your lovely white top and then it'll be see-through. They'll all be able to see your bra
. . .

OH MY GOD, WHAT THE HELL HAVE I DONE!

I should be sat in London, reading about make-up
, I thought. This thought was swiftly followed by
Run away! Very fast. Just leave everything where it is and leg it.

I smiled at each and every one of them, waiting until almost all the seats were occupied. Most of them talked with each other until a natural hush, then a silence fell upon the room.

Ms Money flipped shut her phone.

OH MY GOOD GOD.

All right, smile. Smile, goddamn you.
Now open your mouth, say: ‘Hi.'

Expectant faces gazed upon me as though I was about to impart the meaning of life, the universe and everything. That I was going to explain it wasn't, in fact, forty-two, but ninety-eight – and I had proof. Or maybe they thought I was going to give them next week's lottery numbers. Whatever it was, each face was so expectant my voice dried up as I croaked, ‘I'm Ceri. Ceri D'Altroy. It's written on th—'

The door slammed open, and ‘I'm sooooo sorry,' a voice cried out from nowhere, as a woman hurried in. ‘I'm so sorry I'm late. The bus didn't turn up. I ran all the way here from the bus stop.'

She rushed off to her seat across the room, no one blinked, she obviously did this all the time. I, meanwhile, having leapt in shock, leant with one hand on the desk, the other hand clutching my chest, and breathed like
I'd
been running.

The class weren't sure whether to laugh or be scared.

I laughed. Couldn't help myself when I'd tried so hard to get the lecturer look right and it all fell apart when someone made me jump. The room erupted into uneasy laughter with me, until we all relaxed into normal laughter.

OK, this is better. I can work with laughter. Didn't they always say you should start a presentation or speech with a joke? And you don't get much funnier than old lecturer lady having a coronary cos someone comes late. ‘All right,' I said, feeling my body relax a fraction, ‘as I was saying, I'm Ceri. Ceri D'Altroy. I'm taking over Eva's teaching for the rest of the year. I'll be teaching you the history of psychology as well as taking tutorials and doing all the other things that Eva did and I don't know about yet.

‘On the sheets in front of you, I've written out a brief rundown of the modules as I see it. Before we get into a more detailed discussion about what you should have done as told to me by Gwen and what you've
actually
done, I wanted to get something clear.'

I took a deep breath. ‘I'm here to help you learn. If you don't want to do the reading or prepare stuff for tutorials, that's fine with me. I'm not your parent or God, I can't make you do it. But, what you do or don't do will be reflected in your marks. And, to be very honest, I've got my degrees so feel free to piss about, make excuses, not do your work. I'm not open to bribes so it'll only hurt you in the end. I really hope, though, that you get into the learning stuff and if not enjoy it then at least understand the History of Psychology.'

This all sounded very cool and very laid-back, I'd fancied myself as a cross between Robin Williams in
Dead Poets' Society
and Miss Jean Brodie in her prime. Experienced, but ‘down with the people'; friendly, but worthy of respect. Which was clearly why I delivered my speech with sweat trickling down my back, making the white v-neck top cling to me.

Thankfully, I'd stopped short of writing it down before prattling it off –
prat
probably being the operative part of that word – because I'd be triply sad if I had to read my cool and laid-back attitude to the class. An audience of faces gazed back at me. It was still to be seen if my speech had worked, but for now, no one looked as though they were about to leave. Which, when it came down to it, was the important thing.

chapter six

Ed's World

‘Someone called for you,' Ed, my new flatmate, said, with only his head stuck around my bedroom door. His long blond hair hung like grease-sodden chips around his thin face, his eyes watched me like I was an alien species.

I'd been living here a week and was still becoming acclimatised to the houseshare experience, so spent a lot of time in my bedroom, reading, working on seminar stuff or watching TV. I didn't want to get in their way, what with being new girl in the house and all.

Ed and Jake, my two flatmates, seemed nice. From what I remember of being a flatmate, though, a week wasn't enough to tell. Most flatmates were fine, friendly and fun – until you borrowed a splash of their milk and suddenly you'd been bashed over the head and buried before you could say ‘carpet that doesn't show bloodstains'.

I hadn't done the housesharing thing since I left Leeds, six years earlier. I'd lived with Whashisface Tosspot for a year when I was in London, but that was different, I felt at home there. It was ‘our place'. When I bought my own place and our relationship finally ended, I'd had over two years of being able to walk around naked, if I so wished, and as it turned out, I did so wish, quite often. I was no weirdo naturalist/naturist/flasher, it was simply easier to know I could roll out of bed and answer a call of nature or put on the kettle without scrabbling about for a dressing gown. Especially since I lived on the first floor and most of my windows were obscured by trees. That'd all changed the day I went to fill the kettle wearing only a pair of black knickers and a casual glance to my left, out of the six-foot sash window, had shocked me twice over.

Shock one: The creepy man who lived downstairs had cut down all the trees that obscured the view of my windows.

Shock two: A queue of people at the bus stop below were staring open-mouthed at my floppy tits and black tanga briefs.

I'd developed a closer relationship with my dressing gown after that.

Flashing the neighbourhood not withstanding, I enjoyed living alone. I could leave the bathroom door open to hear the stereo or TV when I was in the shower; I could talk to myself out loud all the time, and I didn't have to rely on other people to pass on my messages.

At the time of Ed's appearance with my message, I was curled up in bed, watching an episode of
Angel
on video.' (This, of course, meant drawing the curtains, putting on my side lights, changing into my pyjamas, surrounding myself with junk food and beer. Watching
Angel
was like taking part in a ritual. Ed was privileged, I was usually out to callers when it started.)

‘Oh? Who?' I said to Ed, having pressed the mute button on the TV remote.

‘A bloke. Dan? Um . . . Derek? Drew? Yeah, Drew. Said he'd call you back later or you should call him back when you'd stopped, er,' colour rose in Ed's cheeks, ‘stopped, er, creaming yourself over, er, Angel.'

‘The git!' I replied. Was too outraged to be embarrassed by my outing by my so-called mate. Ed was obviously going to find out about the man in my life at some point, he wasn't meant to be told that said man only existed in the nineteen-inch world of my telly so soon into our living relationship.

‘When did he call?' I asked Ed.

Ed coloured some more, his eyes shifted about. ‘Um, this afternoon. Meant to, uh, write you a note but couldn't find a pen. Then I forgot. Sorry.'

‘Don't worry about it. Come in,' I shifted up to make room on the bed for him to sit, ‘if you want.'

Ed pushed open the door, came in, perched himself on the very edge of the bed, only a fraction of an inch of his butt was on the bed. Ed was doing a PhD in English at The Met and he was into heavy metal. His clothes suited his hair and his heavy metal reputation: dirty blue jeans, black T-shirt with a lurid, heavy metal band picture on the front. Over the top he wore a red and black lumberjack shirt. But, under the dirt and grease, under the clothes, he was the cutest boy. Young and untouched by life. It showed in his clear green eyes, his smooth skin and the contours of his face. He just needed a wash and blow-dry all over.

Ed glanced at my TV screen, smiled when he saw what I was watching. ‘Is he your boyfriend? This Drew bloke,' Ed asked, refocusing on me.

‘No,' I replied. ‘Just an old mate. That's a mate I've known for a long time, not a mate who's old.'

I was rewarded with one of Ed's blank stares. They were a natural miracle: his clear green eyes would glaze over, his face would become flat as he stared at you. Maybe he was computing something behind that look or maybe he was wondering if he should make a run for it. ‘Do you have a boyfriend?' he asked, coming out of his stare.

‘No, I'm currently between relationships and boyfriends. What about you? Are you seeing someone?'

He nodded grimly. ‘No.'

I inhaled deeply.

Ed was on the verge of confessing something deeply personal to me. He was going to do to me what people had done to me on buses, trains and in cafés and pubs for years: invite me into their world. Drag me into their life; their innermost secrets.

On one level, it was flattering, I was trustworthy enough to know people's secrets. But on almost every other level it was bizarre. Perfect strangers giving me flashes of their hearts. Telling me things they didn't even tell their best mates. It was also exhausting because I couldn't just listen, walk away. I had to listen, then I had to give my opinion, advise,
get involved
. Hence my Commandments. Hence walking around without making eye contact. It was easier all round to appear miserable and moody than to start getting involved.

At this point in the night, though, I was too tired to fight it. I had to go with it. Take one giant leap into Edness. And besides, he'd earned the use of my ear, by bringing my bags upstairs on the day I'd moved in. I'd just not get involved. Listen. No involvement. I could do that.