The Insect Farm

by Stuart Prebble

  Among this otherwise rather homogeneous group was the man who was eventually going to change all of our lives for ever. He was called Brendan Harcourt, and from the very first he was not quite like the rest of us.

  When most of us were keen, within limits, to conform within our group, Brendan did not seem to care. If we all wore denims, he wore cords. If we were wearing T-shirts and granddad vests, he wore a polo shirt. We all wore scruffy-looking walking shoes known as desert boots, and Brendan would think nothing of turning up in a pair of business shoes that even my dad would have thought were a bit old-fashioned. While most of the kids with a talent for music were trying their best to play Bob Dylan songs on the guitar, we heard that Brendan was learning to play the cello.

  I have saved to the last the main differentiating factor which made Brendan Harcourt so different from everyone else in our group. While most of us had brown hair or black hair, and one or two had blond hair, Brendan’s hair was red. I don’t mean just auburn in the run-of-the-mill kind of way. Brendan’s was bright red, the sort of colour that if you saw it in a TV advertisement for hair dye you’d say it looked obviously artificial. It seemed implausible that it had occurred in nature, and yet it had. I never liked Brendan too much from the beginning, and no doubt this was partly due to the fact that he did not seem to care much about fitting in. However, I should admit straight away that much more of it was because Brendan fancied Harriet. Even that might have been OK – others in our group fancied her too – but the problem with Brendan was that he made no secret of the fact, even after the point where it was clear and public that she and I were an item.

  If a group of us were hanging together drinking espresso in the Prompt Corner coffee bar on Croydon High Street and Harriet walked in, Brendan would be the first to stand up and offer her his chair. If she wore a new shirt or shawl that she had found in one of her favourite vintage-clothes shops, he was always the one to notice and compliment her on her originality. Any time I arrived late to a gathering, I would find that he had taken the seat beside her and showed no inclination to allow me to sit next to my girlfriend.

  “You should take it as a compliment,” I can remember Harriet saying to me.

  “A compliment? How the hell am I supposed to do that?”

  “Because if other blokes fancy me, it’s because they find me attractive, and the fact that I choose you over them means that you are the best of the bunch.”

  “Isn’t that what is known as ‘damning with faint praise’?”

  “What?”

  “‘The best of the bunch’. It sounds very much like ‘not great, but at least better than all that lot’.”

  “If you are determined to turn something nice into something horrible, no doubt you can find a way to do so,” she said. “I was just trying to make you feel good about yourself.”

  It was so effective a put-down that I’d have preferred to have received a slap in the face. As it was, it felt like one.

  “OK, OK, I know I’m acting like a schmuck, but I thought you’d want to know how I feel about it.”

  “I do know what you feel about it. You make it so obvious that I would imagine that most of south London knows how you feel about it. Which means that Brendan also knows how you feel about it, which has probably made his day.”

  It seems obvious in hindsight that part of my special sensitivity to what might otherwise have been written off as a bit of harmless flirting was the realization that both Brendan and Harriet were, in their own ways, outsiders. Neither seemed to feel any obligation to follow the trends adopted by just about everyone else of our age. I, on the other hand, was acutely aware that any style I might have was entirely interchangeable with everyone else’s. I guess I just lacked the self-assurance which was no doubt essential in anyone who dared to make a statement of individuality.

  Meanwhile Harriet seemed at ease with herself and her surroundings in a way that I could only envy. She showed no signs of the teenage angst that everyone else seemed to have about adolescent spots or an inch more or less on her waist size. She did not get freaked out over studying for exams, or interviewing for university. She did not make a big deal of overreacting to stories in the world news that others seemed to find unduly shocking, as if the starving of Biafra were somehow doing it just to upset the teenage girls of south London.

  So despite what must have seemed to much of the rest of the world to be something of a mismatch, when we sat down to discuss how we would approach the question of further education, I was delighted to learn that she was taking it for granted that she and I would apply for the same universities. She planned to study Music while I did Politics, so we carefully went through every prospectus to find places which could cater for both of us. One day Harriet and I were sitting on the floor of the living room in Croydon, surrounded by brochures, when my father came in and began thumbing through one of them.

  “So are you two determined to go to the same city to study even if the courses aren’t exactly what you want?”

  Until that point my dad had never taken much interest in the subject, and so I was surprised by the question, and all the more so since it seemed to imply some reservation. Harriet started to reply, but I interrupted her.

  “That’s the plan,” I said. “Any reason it shouldn’t be?”

  “No, not really,” he said. “It’s just that I would have given my eyeteeth for this kind of opportunity at your age, and I suppose my instinct would be to go for whichever is the best course, come what may.”

  “We plan to do that, Mr Maguire,” said Harriet, “but Jonathan and I want to be together, and I’m sure we can find a way to achieve both things.”

  Harriet had a way of just coming out with stuff that other people might have been shy about, and I absolutely loved to hear her say what she said. My dad grunted, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, and I didn’t feel like pursuing the matter right then. Later though, when Harriet was reading a book in the garden, I found my mother alone in the kitchen.

  “Is there any reason why Dad might disapprove of Harriet and me being together?” I asked her.

  “I don’t think so.” She had not had to pause to consider before replying, which made me think that it was not a new idea. “It’s just that you are both very young, and he doesn’t want you to make a mistake. He only wants what’s best for you.” She paused. “And then of course there’s always Roger to think about.”

  “How so?” I was confused. “What’s any of that got to do with him?”

  “Nothing directly,” she said. “It’s just that your brother has probably always thought of himself and you as inseparable, and it wouldn’t be all that surprising if he felt just a little bit jealous of you and Harriet.”

  It was a new thought for me, and my face showed it. “Really? Has he said anything to suggest that?”

  “It’s not anything he has said. More that he gets these moods. Nothing to worry about, I’m sure, but you know what we’re like. No doubt your dad and I are destined to worry about Roger till the day we die.”

  * * *

  Our first choice of university was Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and we were lucky to be accepted onto our chosen courses. The letters dropped on both of our doormats on the same morning, and reinforced our feelings of what increasingly seemed to be our destiny.

  It was the start of Freshers’ week, and the train going north was packed with kids making what felt at the time to be the important transition from being pupils to being students. We were “undergraduates”, and it seemed and sounded so grown-up. For me, though not of course for Harriet, this was my first time to be living away from home. My departure from the house in Croydon had been awkward. I had waited at the window, suitcases packed, for a taxi to come to take me to the station. I was due to meet Harriet on the train. When the car arrived, we all ran around as though there was an emergency; we were not a “keep the taxi waiting” kind of family. Out on the front porch my father and I faced each other clumsily. Neither of us, it seemed, were q
uite sure what was the appropriate procedure for such an occasion, and certainly we were not going to hug. For what I feel sure was the first time in our lives, my dad gripped my forearm with his left hand and brought it level, so that we clamped our right hands together in a manly grip. Later I could not get the feel of that handshake, and the look in his slightly watery grey eyes, out of my mind.

  My mother also made an effort at restraint, but was less successful than my dad. I could smell her make-up as she pressed her cheek against mine and embraced me, her arms tight and urgent. I think I felt embarrassed by the duration of the hug, but did not want to seem to be first to pull away. As we did so I could see the tears trickling down her face.

  “Don’t forget to phone as soon as you get there,” she said. Suddenly I felt once again like the tiny cub going off to camp, and a rush of memories filled my head. They reminded me that my brother Roger was nowhere to be seen, but the driver was waiting, and I could almost feel the tension rising in concert with the meter indicating the increasing fare.

  “Does Roger know I’m heading off this morning?”

  My parents exchanged a glance before my dad spoke. “I have told him a few times – just to get him used to the idea, so that not having you around won’t be too big a shock. But who knows what goes on? Last I saw of him was a couple of hours ago, heading for the shed.”

  “I need to go to see him,” I said. “I can’t go away for months on end without saying goodbye.”

  I turned towards the cab driver and held up my fingers to indicate five minutes, and was about to go back towards the house when my father took me by the arm.

  “Don’t do that, son.” There was a further moment of awkwardness, as though he was trying to find the best way to explain what was going through his mind. “There’s no time to talk about it now. The taxi is waiting. Just take it from me that it would be best if you leave it to us to let him know you have gone.”

  Still I didn’t really understand, but there was no time for discussion. I had a train to catch and a new life to begin. “Tell him I said goodbye then. I will phone when I get there and write as soon as I’ve got my bearings.”

  Harriet had brought no food for the journey, and we had shared the cheese-and-pickle sandwiches which my mother had made before we got halfway. There was nothing further to eat on the train, so that by the time we arrived at Newcastle both of us were famished. We went to the station buffet, but did not recognize the shapes of the bread or the names against them. “Stotty” and “barm cake” and “bap” clogged the tongue like the floury-white dough they were made of.

  Everything at the railway station seemed monumental and uninviting, and we had no idea how to transport all the baggage to the halls of residence where we had both been allocated rooms. Each of us had a trunk and suitcases which were too heavy to carry, and there was no sign of any porters.

  “You wait with the luggage and I’ll go and see if I can find a trolley.” A chill wind took my breath away as I rounded the corner and into an arch that led to a main street. A few yards farther on I saw a man in British Rail uniform who spoke some words to me in an accent which I was at a loss to decode, but more helpfully pointed to the place where I could see a line of trolleys stacked together. It was with some difficulty that I freed one from a tangle of twisted metal and set off to return to where I had left Harriet.

  I turned the corner and scanned the concourse, expecting her to be standing alone with our luggage. Instead I was surprised to see a group of three people in the place where she had been. Harriet was helping a station porter to manhandle our trunks and cases onto a heavy-duty trolley. Standing on the other side, and lifting a large case I recognized as my own was another figure, and it took a few moments for me to compute that the shape was familiar. I felt as though someone had kicked me in the stomach. It was Brendan Harcourt.

  I had made it my business in recent months to have as little to do with Brendan as I could, and indeed had no idea even that he was attending a university at all. This, then, was a complete and unwelcome surprise. The prospect of having him near to me and, more importantly, near to Harriet, for the next three years, left me reeling. I closed the last few yards and caught the end of what he was saying.

  “…and so my dad has arranged for a local driver to collect me. He has a minibus so I’d be glad to offer you both a lift.” Of course it was the effect of my prejudice distorting the moment in retrospect, but did the tip of his tongue in that split second end in just a hint of a fork? Such a silly notion. Nor did the bright red hair and matching eyebrows evoke any spectre from the underworld in any reality beyond that inhabited by my screwed-up brain. I was about to refuse his offer, but Harriet had the advantage of me and responded before I could collect my wits.

  “That would be lovely. Thanks, Brendan.” She seemed far less surprised by his presence than I was. “Are you going to Havelock Hall?” He was. We all were. Our destiny was unfolding.

  * * *

  Harriet and I were both housed conveniently close to each other on different wings of halls of residence situated on the Town Moor close to the centre of the city. Havelock Hall was a purpose-built block, maybe only three or four years old at that time, about a mile from the university. Each student had a small room with a single bed, a desk, a lamp and a tiny cubicle at one end where there was a wardrobe and drawers, and a small sink and mirror. There were a dozen rooms on a corridor with a kitchen and shower at the end of each one. Three different halls of residence on one site, each accommodating about 330 students, making just short of one thousand in total.

  Notwithstanding the strictures on free circulation on the girls’ corridors, this was the first time in our young lives that we had been able to make love at more or less any time of the day or night, and to be together every night if we wanted to. The restriction of a single bed, if it interrupted our sleep, was a small price to pay for such freedom. We felt lucky to be born into these times, in this age, with these privileges and this amount of adventure still ahead of us. Like the pictures from my parents’ photo album, the snapshots from the time suggest no cloud anywhere on our horizons.

  Even in paradise, however, there can be wisps which temporarily obscure the warmth of the sun, and I, as I have already confessed, was prone to jealousy. Sometimes Harriet and I would arrange to meet in between lectures, and when I arrived at our rendezvous I would find her chatting to a group of mates from her department. Though I could never identify anything specifically untoward, frequently I felt a sense of discomfort. Maybe it was because it seemed that all of the new friends she was making were men, and I thought back to earlier times and realized that her circle always seemed to be made up of male friends rather than women.

  When, from a short distance, I saw her laugh her uninhibited laugh, I felt a twinge of anxiety that it was possible for her to laugh so easily without me being close by. How stupid that must seem. No doubt it was possible to interpret her demeanour simply as friendly, open and outgoing. What I saw, however, or thought I saw, seemed rather more like flirting. There was never anything serious or overt, but perhaps just a level of intimacy which made me uncomfortable. Maybe it was just the realization that not everything in Harriet’s life revolved one hundred per cent around me.

  I do not wish to leave the impression that at this time I was consumed by jealousy. Not at all. It’s only that as I look back from my current vantage point at the progression of events that led to what lay ahead, I must identify those days as a significant part of the process.

  There was, to take one example, Jed. Tall, slim, good-looking, black hair and a perpetual three days’ growth of beard. I remember the beard – so obviously far more full and coarse than the barely post-adolescent fluff which sprouted unevenly on my chin. These things seemed to matter, to me at least, but I never had the insight or wit to learn whether they mattered a hoot to Harriet. There was another one called Martin, the same sort of thing actually. I had seen them together in a group, walking along a corrido
r way ahead of me, probably not actually touching, but with hands by their sides so that a smallest twist of the wrist would spell the difference between innocence and agony. Just two inches of empty space separated an innocuous exchange from the end of my world. The smallest touch, maybe accidental, would make my house of cards come tumbling down.

  Perhaps it was the common bond they found in their adherence to music that brought them together. While Jed rather unexpectedly majored in violin, Martin’s instrument was the viola. I recall the day that Harriet first told me that she had agreed to become part of a small collective of students who would play regularly together. They were encouraged to do so by the course tutors, and probably they could earn a bit of spare money. Naturally I was horrified.

  “Who else will be in your collection?” – as though I didn’t already know the answer.

  “Martin and Jed. We’re still looking for a fourth.”

  “Any chance that could be another woman?” I heard myself saying. “That way you’ll make a lovely foursome.”

  I remember it so well because for a long time I had been trying to remain silent on the subject of my feelings of jealousy, and this was the first occasion in a while that I had broken my resolve. Also, I still have within my mental hard drive a precise snapshot of the expression on Harriet’s face: a perfect mix of surprise and disbelief, with the slightest hint of indignation thrown in. The indignation, however, was growing by the second.

  “What?” There was no doubting that she was genuinely amazed. “What on earth are you talking about? You don’t?…” I could see that she was working hard in trying to process the thought, and seemed undecided whether to laugh or to cry.

  “I’m just saying that you already seem to spend a lot of time with these guys, and this’ll mean spending a whole lot more.”