Farewell Trip. Gary Twynam

the middle of nowhere. Where, hopefully, you are reading this.

       I’ve thought all through this undertaking that you’re more likely to simply open all the envelopes and read the letters, without actually bothering to go to each place. I could hardly blame you. It does seem a lot to ask, a bit much. But if you’re there — perhaps just to try the first one, to suck it and see — if you are there, how’s it going so far?

       Lampeter was our great good fortune, wasn’t it, proximity-wise? The size of the place meant we got to know everyone. Other universities, all other universities, may be bigger; but I bet it’s much easier to become isolated in the crowd, end up meeting far fewer people. We were allowed to grow up in a nice, safe environment — on a full grant, in your case. A three-year pupation from adolescent to adult, and it certainly was for you; a maturing, a growing.

       I’m not sure I changed much. But then, as we know, I was born older than you.

       Still, the point is we were ideally proximate. We had three years in a place where we didn’t have to hang onto the first people we came across for fear of crushing loneliness. We could take the whole university and grow friendships wherever we felt comfortable. We could pick and choose. And that’s what I think you were doing during our college years, Ruth, I think you were choosing.

       Choosing your future life …

       I don’t think you were fully aware of it at the time, but some part of you knew you weren’t going back home afterwards, so you had to be going somewhere new. And you didn’t want to do it alone. So the three years had an element of a selection programme about them and, looked at that way, eventually I was the one.

       And I always thought: why me, Ruth? Why me?

      * * *

      Why indeed? You’re right, though I hate to admit it, and I’d never have told you. I did choose you.

      The first time I saw your face I knew you were someone special. There was a voice that said, ‘He’s the one’. Although, to be fair, I had that voice about other people too. As though I had a list, which I suppose I did in a way, and you were definitely on it from that moment. Pow! Toby ‘Trip’ Masterson, in with a bullet. You went to the top of the list, Number 1 on my internal league table, right from the start.

      Oh, you were good-looking for sure, with all that dark, too long hair flopping into your wide blue eyes. And the fact you didn’t know it was appealing. But it wasn’t your looks that got me. There was something about you.

      I’ve never really been able to define what it was, not entirely, but I think part of the pull was your sheer happiness; so different to me, all Shropshire wilderness, like the Stiperstones in winter. You reminded me of my dad’s laugh. It’s quite pleasing you thought I made the choice. It implies a sense of control and decisiveness, as if I knew what I wanted, went out and grabbed it.

      The reality couldn’t have been more different. And the choice seems even more accidental now. You were attracted to me because of the exam walkout?

      I didn’t know that.

      I didn’t even realise you were in the room because we never discussed it. Thank God. Because your memory is almost completely wrong. The whole episode was an innocent mistake, a question of timing. It was nothing to do with me. Even before the exam the hall was full of would-be rebellion.

      There were a few empty threats, ‘Let’s strike’ and the like, but I was just, well, an unwitting catalyst, to be honest. I actually put my hand up to ask to go to the toilet — like a schoolgirl — and was on my way to the door. But it was so early on that other people must have assumed I was walking out. I reached the doors and heard a scraping chair behind me as someone stood up and I looked around to see what was happening. And for some reason, some weird reason, everyone took that look as a signal to get up and go. Everyone. It was mad.

      As for the first time we spoke, oh, that I remember. Even at the time it felt like the start of something, though it wasn’t much of a start. There you were, waiting for Brideshead Revisited in the TV room, with a bottle of white wine secreted under your seat because you thought it was against the rules to take in alcohol.

      Warm Liebfraumilch.

      What a wanker, I thought, trying to pretend to myself my tummy wasn’t flip-flopping all over the place. Then Laura pointed you out. ‘What kind of a twat,’ she muttered, ‘drinks wine in the TV room when everyone else brings a couple of cans of beer?’ Sally gave her a big elbow shove. ‘Sshhh, they’ll hear you.’ But Laura just laughed.

      You were dismissive of the programme before it even began, you and your friends. But, in spite of the wine and your running criticism, I couldn’t take my eyes off you. You were so relaxed, so confident, so at home. You laughed and laughed, that’s what I noticed: the sheer glee with which you inhabited the world.

      It was magnetic.

      I spent the entire hour concentrating more on the back of your head than I did on Sebastian Flyte. And I didn’t watch the final ten minutes at all, being completely occupied in trying to think of something clever to say to you then trying to summon up the courage to actually say it. All I could manage in the end was some inane comment to Laura about public schoolboys not recognising their own kind when they saw them.

      You heard, though, and you knew I was talking about you, didn’t you? You turned round, grinned your grin and offered me a swig. ‘Hallo, Totty, want to come to the bar so I can put you right about my schooling?’ You sounded quite, quite posh to me. And so arrogant.

      Of course, it turned out you weren’t arrogant at all, just young and clumsy and full of warm white wine. And you weren’t nearly as posh as I thought you were, just well brought up and well educated. But for a village girl from the back of beyond you seemed the height of sophistication. You might have landed from another planet. And though it didn’t appeal in itself, it didn’t put me off either. I had to pretend it did though, and I said something stupid, spluttered it really, about not being totty and then realised what I’d said and blushed and had to drag Sal and Laura off before I made even more of a fool of myself.

      We went to the bar, obviously.

      My heart hurts. I can feel the sound of your voice deep inside me. Nothing seems to make it better, and I keep catching myself rubbing my chest in public like I could make it better — makes me feel like an idiot. No one tells you about missing a voice, its timbre, its particular phrasing.

      I can hear you so clearly here, here where we met, as if you’re back in your room at college waiting for me. As if the words in your letter have brought you back to me. Maybe I will open all the letters, right here, right now. If I open them, you’ll be here, you’ll talk to me.

      If I shut my eyes I can imagine you sitting in the plastic seat opposite, stirring a second crafty sugar into your coffee, making the noisy clinking of teaspoon against cup that gets on my nerves. Your hair will be too long and you’ll have a cut on your chin from shaving. I want to hear your voice. I want to see you.

      Student Union Bar, Lampeter, October 1981

      She ducks into the Ladies, pretending she needs a pee, and peers at herself in the mirror, frowning. One friend produces a hairbrush and the other a tube of mascara which she uses, feeling a bit better about the whole effect. When they go in he’s leaning back against the bar waiting to be served, watching the door. She blushes as their eyes meet and pulls her glance away, but her friend pushes her towards him and she walks over to queue beside him. He turns to her with a big smile, pleased she came over.

      ‘So, you have a name, I suppose?’

      ‘Of course, but I don’t give it to every Tom, Dick or Sebastian; especially if they refer to me as totty.’ She knows she should be outraged by the term.

      ‘Easy, tiger, Totty’s your nickname. Didn’t you know? We’ve got no clue what your real names are, so we make them up so we can talk about you behind