Chapter Three

DOWN THE PUB

It is raining outside now and in some strange way this seems to add weight to my hangover. I’ve got to wonder if I have that Seasonal Affective Disorder because as soon as the sun comes out my mood tends to brighten up. Living in the north west of England though, this happens very rarely and I spend most of the year depressed for no reason. That, I suppose, is why I find myself in the pub more often than not. More than living a typical university student’s life, I find I am depressed and then head of to the pub on a daily basis. Hell, I even have my own table at The Moon Under The Water on Deansgate. Upstairs, pass the bar and head into the corner and you will see me there most of the time when I am not in lectures. Sad isn’t it? But hey, that’s the name of my mood disorder. I’ve tried the happy pills but the only thing that brings me out of my depressive daze is the sun. I’d make a rubbish vampire.
I’m here now, sitting at my booth reading through the comments dad wrote on my essay when Paul walks upstairs and makes his way over.
“Alright pal?” he asks and sits down across from me, sliding over a pint and then hissing.
“What?”
He nods in front of me at the glass, “don’t you think it’s a bit early for the whiskey?”
I shake my head in response, “ I blame the weather.”
“Oh yeah, right,” he laughs, “the weather, the perfect excuse to drink hard spirits on your own in a badly lit booth in a pub in the middle of the day.”
He’s just trying to get a reaction out of me but I’m not biting, not today, I’m too depressed. Did you know that this year there were just eighteen days of sunshine? Eighteen! What kind of a joke is that!
“I’ve just come from speaking to your dad,” Paul tells me and this time I do bite.
“My dad or Professor Johnson?” I ask, because there’s a difference. My dad taught me how to swim and ride my bike; Professor Johnson simply teaches me that my essays aren’t worth the paper they’re printed out upon.
“Urh...well both, kind of. Professor Johnson seemed a bit distant when I asked him a question about Charles Darwin but then your dad kind of took over, swinging our conversation around to you.”
“Me? Why, what was he saying?”
Paul shrugs, “I don’t know, he asked me if I’d read your essay and I told him I had and I thought it was good, and then somehow we got onto your sleeping pattern.”
“My sleeping? You didn’t tell him about my nightly falling sessions did you?”
I grimace on Paul’s part followed by a slight nod and then, “yeah I mentioned them, and he appeared concerned.”
“Of course he did. He’s wants to know if I’m pissing all of Granddad Johnson’s hard earned money I inherited last year up the wall.”
“Your Granddad died last year? Shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t know, you didn’t mention it at the time.”
I smile, “I never met the guy, dad told me he died when he was young and left a load of money, some of which I inherited upon my twentieth birthday, in his will.”
Paul shakes his head, “but how does your sleeping patterns tell him you’re on the piss all of the time?”
“It doesn’t, but he’ll assume my interrupted sleep patterns are because of drinking. What exactly did you tell him?”
A shrug, a sip of his pint, and then, “just that there was a point when you were jumping, or falling, a lot in your sleep and that it has calmed down a lot recently. Anyway, have you got that sorted yet? You said you were going to go and see someone.”
I nod a yes to this but the truth is I haven’t seen anyone. I don’t know what causes my slip from almost sleeping back into real life and usually a heap on the floor. There was a point during what pitiful summer we had that it was happening every night, ten times a night. I hardly slept a wink for weeks but it didn’t matter because there was sunshine and those warm rays seemed to energize me.
“He also asked if you’d give him a ring this weekend.”
I frown at this and Paul lifts his hands to his face in defence, muttering something about a gun and a messenger. Why the hell would he want me to ring him? We don’t do phone conversations. Usually it’s a voicemail asking me to give my mum a ring, that she hasn’t spoken to me for a while and she’d like to hear my voice. What on earth would I have to talk about to dad? Genetics? Biology? Charles bloody Darwin?
“Anything else?” I ask a little too harshly. That’s another thing about me when it rains, I can be a right twat with people.
“Well,” Paul says, reaching into his satchel, “I was going to put something across to you which I think you’d like, but if you’re in your twatty mood then I’ll ask someone else if they’d like to go accompany me and my family to our Christmas retreat in Cape Town.”
I grin. Despite the rain Paul has managed to drag me out of my SAD depression and my hangover in one swoop. Christmas in Cape Town, South Africa, sun, ohh glorious sun!
“When?” I ask eagerly.
“Next Saturday. Straight after we break up for the Christmas holidays. One of Lisa’s mates couldn’t make it so there is a free first class ticket going if you fancy it?”
I laugh out loud, “of course...Christmas in the sun, first class all the way, and the prospect of seeing your sister in a bikini on the beach, what more could any red blooded male ask for?”
“Fuck of Billy, she’s too young and innocent and you’re trying to use the fact that you know he has a soft spot for you to piss me off.”
I laugh again, “no mate, Lisa is madly in love with me and she’s not too young at all. She’s nineteen, and contrary to what you might think with those brotherly blinkers on she is not a virgin.”
“Don’t,” he tells me with a smirk as I embark upon our age old argument.
“How old were you when you lot your virginity?”
“Fifteen,” he sighs, bored already because we have echoed this conversation a million times before.
“And how old was the girl you scarred for life with your tiny pickle?”
“The same,” he adds.
“And she probably wasn’t half as fit as your...”
“Okay, I’ve heard it all before,” he interrupts, putting up his hands to stop me. “Yes or no right now, are you coming?”
I nod.
“That’s fantastic because now you can be my winger.”
I raise my eyebrow, “winger?”
Paul nods. “Lisa’s mate is an absolute stunner and I reckon I can get in there.”
“That is fantastic Paul,” I tell him, “because then we can double date. You and this bird and me and...”
“You’re not shagging my sister Billy. No way, no how, she’s my baby sister, you’re my best mate, and I don’t want to have to choose sides when you eventually get bored and dump another one.”
“Ok, ok, I’ll leave her alone; I won’t speak to her, or look at her, ok?”
Paul nods, “Good. You can have anyone else, the bikini clad world is your oyster, but if I find out you’ve shagged Lisa while we’re away I’ll burn your passport and return ticket on a barbecue and you’ll have to figure out another way of flying home.”
Charming, I think, and then I shake on it. Lisa will be disappointed though, especially since we have spent the past two months seeing each other in secret. Paul will come around eventually, I mean, it’s not as if he’d really try to kill me if he caught me in bed with his little sister.