My Da came into my room to wake me, but I was already awake. I had been for some time. It was just a little past 5am and hardly light.
"Come on, Tess. Time to get up."
"OK, Da. I'm awake."
I got out of bed and went next door to the bathroom. When I had finished I went back to my room taking my toothbrush with me and packing it in my small bag. It was time, the day had finally arrived. I took one last look around my room. The room I had shared with my younger sister for most of my life. She had moved upstairs a few months ago when the last of our older brothers had left home and freeing up an upstairs room. I had opted to stay down here in my room. It was cold in the winters but it was next to our only bathroom. And it was the room that one night a few years ago, Bryn, my first lover had sneaked into through the window. Happy memories. I closed the door and walked into the kitchen.
Mam was there already, making bacon sandwiches and a big pot of tea. I looked around at our kitchen, at the table where I had had breakfast, lunch and dinner since ... well as long as I could remember. I thought about the family meals we had shared around that table. Mam, Da, my three brothers and my little sister. The Christmases, the Easters, the highs and the lows. The baking Mam and I had done, not to mention the years of homework. The history held within the grain of the wood. The stories told by the stains, the chips and gouges. My sister came sleepily into the kitchen and we stood there hugging each other. It was then the tears started. She was crying, I was crying. Mam just rolled her eyes at us and carried on frying bacon.
I had been so excited the past few weeks. Getting my things sorted and packed. It was finally here, time to go, time to say goodbye to the house, the only house, I had ever known. Small, cold and damp though it was, it was still home and I was leaving. Not permanently, just for now. I was going to college. No one back then ever called it university, or uni. It was college. Mine was in London. Not only a long way from the hills and moors of west Wales in terms of distance, but also in every other measure. Life here was rural and slow. I had had a wonderful childhood here on our farm. I had lived (and recently loved) here forever.
I had worked hard at school to get the grades I needed to go to college and study for a degree. I was to study Spanish and Latin American Studies. I had been accepted. I was delighted, ecstatic in fact and so excited. The past couple of months had be a very long wait. But now, as it was time to set off, the sadness overtook me. Da had put all my bags and boxes into the back of the family car. Mam had wrapped some sandwiches and filled a thermos flask with tea. It was after all a very long way to London. I stood by the car taking one last look at the hills, the barns, the stables and Mam. She gave me a big hug and slipped £100 pounds into my hand and said,
"Here, just in case. Don't tell your Da!"
I felt the tears well up again as I looked into her face, her tired face. She was looking more than her age lately. Dad started the engine and urged me to hurry up. I got in and we pulled away. I looked back to see Mam and my sister waving, and I'm sure Mam had something in her eye as she was wiping away at them. Would never be a tear surely?
The journey was a long one. We stopped to get more fuel just before the Motorway. It would take 5 to 6 hours to get to the house in London I was to share with some other students. But first we had to go to the Accommodation Office at the college to sign some papers and be given a couple of keys. They also gave me a map to show where it was, which was not very far. This was going to be the tricky bit. I had opted on my form for mixed accommodation rather than single sex. A fact that until then my parents were unaware of.
We pulled up outside a big old Victorian, three storey house, set in a street of identical terraces. I walked up to the door and was about to put my key into the lock when it swung open. I was met by a pretty, young blonde woman of my own age.
"Oh Hi!" She greeted me. "You must be the last housemate. I'm Lydia."
"Hi, yes I'm to live here too. I'm Tessa, or just Tess."
Lydia led Da and me into the hall. It was very bland, not at all homely and seemed to be mostly used as a bicycle park. The walls were covered in woodchip wallpaper which was painted a rather horrid flesh colour.
"The others are all out at the minute, so it's fairly quiet. I'll show you both around."
Da said something to me in Welsh, the language we always spoke at home. Lydia looked rather puzzled at us. I told her we were Welsh, and reminded my Da to speak English. She showed us the kitchen, the dining room and the sitting room. All of it furnished in a very institutional manner. It looked more like a factory canteen than a home. Not that I would have known what a factory looked like back then. She then lead the way upstairs and opened a bedroom door at the rear of the house.
"This is your room. I know mine is a bit bigger, but that's what happens if you are the last one to arrive, sorry. And across the landing there is our bathroom, and that's my room there. And that is Sarah's room there. But she is out with the rest of them. Upstairs again are two more rooms and another bathroom."
My room was much bigger than I had expected! It was certainly bigger than my room back at home. And it had a radiator! Central heating was a luxury unknown to me. There was also a single bed that seemed rather small in such a big room. A small desk with a reading light and a couple of drawers. Beside that was the wardrobe and chest of drawers. The carpet was exactly the same as in the rest of the house. It would have looked not out of place in an office. My Da went down stairs to start unloading the car. I took the chance to ask Lydia about the other two tenants. She told me their names. There was Simon (Si), an English guy and Alexandre (Sandy) who was a Scot. They were both out at the minute, but would be back later. The lads had rooms on the top floor. I asked her not to mention to my Da that there were guys living here too. She just nodded in an understanding way, bless her.
Da and I began to ferry up my bags and boxes. I told him I would take my time unpacking. One box however, we did unpack straight away. The food that Mam had sent with us. After a quick lunch Da was keen to be away. He had a very long drive back and would be tired by the time he got home. Just as he was about to leave my room and giving me a tight hug he slipped some money into my hand and said,
"Here, Tess, take this. It's not much but it might come in useful. But don't tell your Mam!"
I sat on the polythene covered mattress and surveyed my new world. Lydia knocked on my door to let me know she was going out too, and that the others should be back soon as the pubs were now closing!
I made up my bed. The familiar sheets and blankets smelling of Mam's washing and the feel of something so close to home caused me to feel a little homesick already. I pulled myself together and told myself that I was over 18 now and an adult. I unpacked my clothes, I had brought every single item of clothing that I owned. There was not very much, but why I had brought my farming clothes I had no idea! I was unlikely to be doing any shearing or lambing now! I slowly unpacked my books and the few photographs I had brought with me. I took a long look at the photograph of the boyfriend and lover I had left behind. He was about to go off to college in Bangor in north Wales. I heard the front door open and close with a loud slam and voices downstairs. I thought I had better go down and say hello.
Following the sound of the voices I had no trouble finding the two guys in the kitchen. I just said,
"Hi, I'm Tess."
"Oh yeah, hi, I'm Simon, just call me Si." Said one of them. He was really tall. He must have been six feet five or six inches tall. Dark, wavy shoulder length hair, very dark eyes. He was rather narrow in build, not at all broad like the young men I had known back in Wales.
"And I'm Alexandre, AKA Sandy. Nice to meet you. Welcome." His accent was so obviously Scots. He was very different to Si. He was shorter but very much broader than Si. And he had the most amazing hair I had ever seen. It was very ginger, something I was familiar with from some of my friends back home, but I had never seen anyone with their hair in dreadlocks before. He asked,
"You settled in OK?". I replied that I was doing just that, but thought I'd come and say hello. They had been to a pub just down the road for a "bevy or two." Said Sandy.
"Look, we are just grabbing a sandwich, you fancy one?" I said that I was fine. They then said that they had just rented a video and I was welcome to come and watch it with them if I wanted to. It seemed like a good way of breaking the ice so I said yes.
The three of us sat on the sofa and began to watch the film. It was Cocoon, with Steve Guttenburg. Si reached down to a carrier bag on the floor by his feet and pulled out four cans of lager. One he tossed to Sandy, one he opened and put in my hand, and took one for himself.
"Cheers!" he said.
"Slange!" was Sandy's reply. I just smiled and nudged my can on theirs in turn, and said thanks. Here I was, Sunday afternoon, watching a video, drinking lager. Yep! I had begun my student life! We had a couple more drinks during the film, and after it had ended we sat there chatting.
Over the next week I got to know my housemates, got to know where the shops were. Enrolled formally at college and received my timetable of lectures, seminars and loads of other stuff, ready for college starting in earnest the week after. All was well in the house, we got on together and had a few laughs. Maybe the only thing that rankled a little was the sound of Sarah and Lydia coming home rather late with their boyfriends. That in itself was not so bad, but the sound of them having prolonged sex coming through the walls was a bit more difficult to handle. But hey! That's students for you!
A couple of weeks later Si and Sandy said that they were going off to have a kick about in a park with some other lads, and did I want to come along?
"Oh yes please, I love to watch rugby!"
"Rugby, no Tess, football, we are playing football." Sandy told me in his wonderfully strong Scots accent. "I like rugby too, but it's no rugby, it's footy, OK?"
I said no thanks, I'll just stay here and do my washing. They changed into sports gear and went off with their boots over their shoulders. I watched them leave, looking at the pair of them and thinking how very different they were. One was very tall and narrow, the other very broad and rather muscular. One dark haired, the other a true Celt with red hair and blue eyes. Si was happy-go-lucky and Sandy was very earnest and serious, especially about politics.
About an hour later I heard the door slam, so I knew it was the guys. I was in the sitting room reading. Not hearing the loud gabble that usually came along with the pair of them I got up to see what was happening. Sandy was stood in the hall in his football gear, his boots now on the floor. He was alone. I saw that he was holding a load of tissues against his thigh. He was obviously bleeding.
"Oh my God!, Sandy, what's happened?"
"Ah, it's nothing, just a wee scratch. Got studded that's all. It's ok, just smarts a wee bit."
