The Making of Us

by Debbie McGowan

  “Can I say something, please, Jesse?” Neema asked. I nodded. “I agree with your proposal in principle, but I wondered if you’d considered the requirements of students with different religious backgrounds? For example, Muslim students who need somewhere private to wash before prayer.”

  That threw me a bit. I remembered the washrooms I’d seen when we went to Turkey on holiday. Was that what she meant? I admitted, “I’m sorry, I don’t know very much about Islam, Neema, so I’d consult with you or someone before putting any proposals together. Could we build in something like…a cubicle with a sink and whatever else was needed?”

  “That could work,” Neema said, although I sensed it would need a lot more discussion before we figured out how to make gender-neutral bathrooms universally inclusive and politically palatable. We didn’t currently have the kind of facilities Neema was talking about, so any change would surely be a positive one.

  “Neema, do you have anything further to add?”

  “No, thanks, Carlos. Jesse and I have already discussed future consultations, if either of us are elected.”

  “OK. Thank you. Danny?”

  Danny gave a short, rapid shake of his head. The look on his face…he thought this was rigged. The irony was, if his PR guy hadn’t played dirty, we wouldn’t be doing this now, and based on his online campaign—which was no more his than mine was mine—Danny would’ve walked the election.

  “Our final question this evening is: How will you ensure people with disabilities and from different ethnic and religious backgrounds are included in Pride and treated equally? Before I put this to our panel, I’d like to invite Matty Reed up on stage. Matty is a learning mentor and works with Student Support as well as our acting inclusion officer.”

  “Thanks, Carlos. Good evening, everyone. I thought it would be a good idea to outline the university’s policy on equality and diversity, which is basically…”

  Matty gave a nervous cough and stared at the sheets of paper in his hand. “The university is…” He glanced over at me. “I should’ve put it on my phone. Jesse, would you mind reading this out for me, please?”

  “Not at all.”

  Matty dodged in front of Danny to hand me the papers, and I caught Danny’s judgemental leer.

  I read out the equal opps statement on the first page, which I was pretty sure Matty knew by heart. I flicked over to the next page, and the next—all blank.

  My high school English teacher once told us we should always have a few sheets of paper in our hands when presenting to the class, even if our notes only took one sheet or we knew what we needed to say. That way, people were pleasantly surprised when it was over more quickly than they’d anticipated, with the added bonus that our nerves wouldn’t be as obvious. Then she’d demonstrated with a sheet of paper, shaking her hands so much it ripped in half. She was an awesome teacher—my reason for falling in love with English lit. So maybe that was all Matty was doing—hiding his nerves. That or it was some clever ploy to make it look like I knew what I was talking about.

  “Thanks, Jesse.” Matty took back his blank papers. “In short, Pride is obligated to not only be inclusive, but to actively promote inclusion, and the inclusion officer is responsible for making sure it fulfils its obligations.”

  “Thank you, Matty,” Carlos said whilst giving a thumbs up to the poor cleaner who had come in twice already. There again, it was gone seven p.m. and we should’ve been out of there half an hour ago. “I’m going to open this to the three of you. Keep it short.”

  Danny jumped straight in with, “We already include everyone, don’t we?” and then looked pointedly at Neema. Someone booed, and I hid my gasp of delight with my hand. It was Leigh, and other students had joined in.

  “Order, please!” Carlos said.

  As the booing continued, I glanced at Neema to see if she wanted to say anything. They were getting rowdy.

  “Are you going to talk about positive action?” she asked. I nodded. “Then speak for both of us.”

  The cleaner was actively loitering in the doorway—I could see Carlos coming to an untimely end with a mop this evening. But then Sarah jumped up on stage and whistled into one of the mics, which sent feedback through the PA system. That got their attention.

  “Over to you, Jesse,” she said.

  “Um…yeah, just really quickly. Neema and I are both in agreement on this point. If either of us is elected, we’d change Pride election policy so we could select candidates from under-represented groups. We’d also offer discounted membership to those students and basically get out there and talk directly to them.” And I was waffling. I zipped it and gave Carlos a nod.

  “Unfortunately, we’re out of time this evening, but thank you to our three panellists: Neema Panda, Jesse Thomas and Danny Goodman.”

  No applause. People were already up out of their seats and leaving. Carlos came over to talk to us. “220 here, 314 on the live stream.”

  “Wow!”

  “Yeah. Nice work, guys.” Carlos jumped down to ground level and disappeared into the departing crowd.

  Only then did I realise Danny had gone. I’d been expecting fisticuffs, but it seemed he’d given up the fight. Nonetheless, I wasn’t counting my chickens. It was still two weeks until the election, and with Matty, Leigh and me off-campus, there was no telling what damage he and his PR guy could do.

  I turned to Neema. “Are you coming to the bar?”

  “Yeah. I just need to see where my girlfriend is first.” She already had her phone in her hand, so I left her to it. Using the steps to leave the stage—unlike everyone else—I set off across the hall towards Leigh, Noah and Matty.

  “Jesse. Can I have a quick word?”

  Damn it.

  ***

  “What did she say?” Matty asked when I finally made it to the bar half an hour after everyone else.

  “I’ll tell you later.” My priorities were to kiss Leigh, find beer…the beer could wait.

  “Told you you’d be amazing,” Leigh said.

  “Did I do OK?”

  “Hell, yes!” Leigh tilted their head back slightly to indicate behind them. “I’ve been talking to Ryan.”

  “Ry…” I peered at him over Leigh’s shoulder. “Hello, stranger!”

  “Alright, mate?”

  “I thought you’d been abducted by aliens.”

  “Just been, er, busy.”

  “Oh?” Noah made a neck-slicing motion, so I let it be. “What’s everyone drinking?” I asked instead.

  “It’s my round,” Leigh said quickly.

  “I’ll give you a hand,” Matty offered and pretty much vaulted the table to go with them.

  “O…K…then.” I sat down in the space next to where Leigh had been sitting. “What’s up?”

  Ryan gestured for Noah to explain.

  “He got dumped,” Noah said.

  “Dumped?”

  “’Fraid so,” Ryan confirmed.

  “I didn’t know you were seeing anyone.”

  “Likewise,” he retorted.

  “Ah, yeah. Sorry. I’ve been busy?” I grinned.

  “Lucky bastard.”

  “So you’ve met Leigh?”

  “Yep.” Ryan picked up his empty glass and frowned into it. “I thought you were straight.”

  My stomach lurched, for no real reason. Noah, Ryan and I had known each other since the start of uni, and he didn’t care about Noah being gay, so why would he care about me? It was still new, though, or maybe this was how it would always feel. I guessed time would tell on that one.

  “I’m not,” I confirmed, not that it was necessary. “I’m bi.”

  “God, I wish I was,” Ryan muttered. Noah looked at me with eyebrows raised. I laughed, not sure quite what to say or if I should challenge him. “It’s not funny,” Ryan complained. “I’m in a minority here.”

  “Yeah. How does it feel to be the only knobhead?”

  “Fuck off,” he spat, but we were both laughing.

&nb
sp; Leigh and Matty returned with the drinks, and it was like always, for the most part, but talking to Ryan for the first time since I’d met Leigh, I realised how much I’d changed, because he hadn’t.

  Matty didn’t ask again what Sarah had wanted. She’d accused me of being flaky; I thanked her for her feedback and walked away. Leigh was right. I could’ve made Sarah like me—if I’d still cared what she thought. She said she had her reasons, but she wasn’t exactly eager to share them. Well, it was her problem, not mine. She’d never respected me, and now she’d lost my respect, too.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “Whose idea was this again?” I muttered as I handed my bag to the crew member who was loading the hold at the back of the bus.

  “Pretty sure it was yours, mate,” Noah said.

  “I wasn’t expecting an answer.” But it had been my idea. Seriously, it was easier to plan an around-the-world trip than get from Norwich to Newquay on public transport. Norwich to anywhere, actually. So, in a moment of atypical bravery, I asked Adam if there was any chance of him giving us a lift to London. He’d said yes—along with something that didn’t sound very complimentary about Sol—and was taking the opportunity to visit friends, whilst we were about to embark on a six-hour coach ride. Better still, we got NUS discount on our tickets.

  With our bags loaded, we climbed on board and searched for our seats. We were on the lower deck, in double seats facing each other but without a table in between. With Noah opposite Leigh, and Matty opposite me, we could maximise leg room.

  Leigh extracted their tablet and passed their rucksack to me to put in the overhead locker.

  “Excuse me, young man…”

  I turned to find an older man standing behind me. “Hello,” I said.

  “Would you mind helping me with my bag, please?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Thanks so much.” With a fair bit of grimacing, he heaved the small bag in front of him. “Arthritis of the spine.”

  “Oh, dear. That must be very painful.”

  “It can be, yes.”

  “Which is your seat, sir?”

  “Just here.” He tapped the seat that backed onto mine.

  “I’ll put this up here, then.” I gestured to the locker above his seat and received a nod of confirmation. “There you go. Give me a shout when you need to get it down again.”

  “Thank you. That’s very kind.” I put my own bag up there, keeping an eye on the man whilst he settled in his seat before I settled into mine.

  “Aww, that was nice of you,” Matty said.

  I glanced at Leigh, anticipating an eye roll at Matty’s gush and instead got a kiss. “You’re a pretty cool dude, Jesse Thomas.”

  “Why, thank you,” I accepted bashfully. “You’re pretty cool yourself.”

  Leigh grinned. “I’m so excited about this holiday. A week of no uni work. Terrible, isn’t it? I’ve only been there five weeks.” Their eyes shifted in Noah’s direction. “He’s reading.”

  “Is he?” I leaned across so I could peer over the top of Noah’s Kindle. He tilted it away from me.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “What’re you reading?”

  “Dan Brown.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Seriously, the author’s name is Dan Brown. Look.” Noah showed me the book info.

  “Post-human theory.” I snatched his Kindle out of his hand, returned it to the homepage—more theory books and papers—and scrolled in search of some ‘light’ reading. Nada. “I’m officially barring you from working on your dissertation for the next seven days.”

  “Jess, mate…”

  “We’re on holiday, Noah.”

  “But—” He reached for his Kindle, I hoisted it above my head. “Compromise?” he pleaded.

  “I’m listening.”

  “I’ll read while we’re on the coach and you can confiscate it when we get there.”

  I clicked my teeth, pretending to think about it. “OK. I won’t confiscate it…unless I have to.” Putting on my sternest expression, I handed back Noah’s Kindle. Matty leaned over and squinted at the screen.

  “What’s post-human theory?” Leigh asked.

  “Zombies,” I said.

  Noah grunted. “Not zombies.”

  “Zombies, cyborgs, post-apocalyptic worlds…”

  “Sci-fi, then?” Leigh said.

  “Pretty much.”

  “I bet that’s a really interesting dissertation.”

  I tried very hard not to laugh. And failed. Noah glowered under his eyebrows.

  “Not interesting?” Leigh asked. I shrugged. I thought it was interesting, but Matty was fake snoring.

  Noah switched off his Kindle and explained, “I’m critiquing Cartesian dualism and resistance to cybernetic disembodiment.”

  “What’s that in English?”

  I was laughing far too much to explain.

  “Cartesian dualism is the theory that—” Noah began, but Matty interrupted.

  “Basically, some old Greek bloke said the mind and the body were two separate things. Other old Greek blokes thought he was talking tosh. But he wasn’t. Imagine we reach a point where when people die, we can upload their brain to the Cloud. Body dead, mind lives on in cyberspace.” Matty dug a bag of Starburst from his pocket and tugged them open. “That Greek dude was well ahead of his time. Anyone want a sweet?” He held out the bag.

  “Yes, please,” Leigh answered, and only Leigh, because Noah was staring at Matty, while I was watching Noah and by this point crying with laughter. He looked like he’d accidentally ingested a love potion.

  We both clicked out of it as the driver’s voice came through the speakers to tell us the coach was about to depart. The guy was hilarious—probably more so for my giggles—and gave us a completely made-up route that included ‘stopping at Calais, Amsterdam…’ and a few other locations in Central Europe, ‘arriving at Newquay sometime in the middle of next week’, followed by ‘only joking’ and our real route.

  Noah frowned. “I thought you said it was six hours.”

  I nodded but waited until the driver had done all the safety stuff before I answered. “Yeah. Sorry. Twenty-four-hour clock, man.” My brain had done its usual trick of translating 1900 into five p.m. instead of seven p.m., but no one had questioned it or double-checked our itinerary. I wasn’t even sure how I’d ended up booking the tickets. We were here now, anyway. For the next eight hours.

  “I wonder if Adam would’ve taken us all the way to Newquay?” I accidentally thought aloud.

  “He would’ve,” Noah confirmed.

  “Damn. Wish I’d known.”

  “It’d have caused World War Three, mind you. Ad wanted to hire a seven-seater, find a hotel for the week, sneak in a bit of a holiday. Sol was all for it at first, but changed his tune—said he had too much work on.”

  “Ah. So, that’s why he called Sol a bloody…something.”

  “Piker?” Noah guessed.

  “I think so.”

  “That’d be right.”

  What a bummer. At least I knew for next time, and the coach wasn’t so bad. There were quite a few empty seats, and a movie to watch once we were on the motorway. I sent a text to my mum to let her know we’d safely made it on board. She replied with traffic updates, then the weather forecast, followed by ‘you forgot your toothbrush’, and then a list of pharmacies and convenience stores in Newquay. I said thank you and pasted the info onto the end of the list I’d already compiled—nearest A&E, walk-in centre, emergency dentist, coastguard… No prizes for guessing which parent I took after.

  The coach stopped at Heathrow, and all those free seats filled up with grumpy-looking tanned people overplaying how cold they were. I peered past Leigh and out the window. It was far from Mediterranean, but it wasn’t that bad, and it was warm on the coach.

  A couple stopped in the aisle next to us, one of whom had a walking frame. The other helped them into the seat
and collapsed the frame then attempted to lift it up to the luggage compartment. They were struggling.

  “Would you like a hand?” I asked.

  “If you wouldn’t mind.”

  I’d already unfastened my seat belt in preparation.

  Gotta say, that frame was a lot heavier than it looked, and the wheels kept rolling to the side as I tried to wedge the thing in front of the bags already up there. I managed, eventually, with a fair bit of sweating and silent swearing, and sat down again.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” I busied myself with my seat belt while our aisle mates held a too-loud-to-not-be-heard conversation about me—all good things. The person whose frame it was leaned forward in their seat and smiled. I smiled back, as did Matty and—I presumed, but I couldn’t see them—Noah and Leigh.

  “What lovely young men,” one of them said.

  I clenched my teeth and kept on smiling. Leigh tapped my shoulder.

  “Hmm?” I swivelled to face them.

  “Let it go.”

  “Couldn’t they just have said ‘people’?”

  “Jesse…”

  I snuffed, annoyed, but nodded. “OK. Letting it go.”

  “You’re not. You’re super tense.”

  I forced myself to not be ‘super tense’. I was working hard to avoid assuming gender, including that of our aisle mates. It was tough to undo twenty-one years of socialisation, and OK, they had many more years to undo than I did, and maybe they didn’t realise they were doing it, but…I let it go before Leigh started calling me ‘Padawan’.

  The coach set off again. Next stop: Bristol, in two hours. Noah was deep into his book; Leigh put in their earbuds; Matty was playing on his phone. I dug the ratty old paperback of The Importance of Being Earnest from where it was propped, between my and Leigh’s thighs, and picked up from where I’d left off last time.

  Last time… I was still in sixth form, yet as soon as I opened the book at my bookmark, the time shrank away, and all the sounds, smells, the flicker of that one light in the study centre that drove us crazy…it was so vivid it could’ve been just yesterday. The same, however, could not be said for my recollection of the story. I flipped the book shut and closed my eyes.