ERWAN MOVES TO THE HALLS
Halls of Residence. Where people live. What do people do there? Twelve weeks of term, home again; then three weeks of exams and another fifteen weeks of term and home again. That is life in the Halls of Residence. People come and people go. Erwan came and went quite frequently. He went with more enthusiasm than he returned, never feeling quite that the halls held any attachment for him. He preferred the Pink House. That comes later.
He moved in on the twentieth September of that fateful year, 2001. It was sadly not as Clark/Kubrick imagined it. There were fewer encounters with extraordinary aliens. This taught Erwan a valuable lesson: you have to make your own entertainment.
He brought stuff up with him. A guitar, electric, and an amp, 15W. Posters (Itchy and Scratchy, and one of Homer). An Apple desktop with TV card insert and monitor. Clothes, other shit. As he sat talking to his mother he felt consumed by two dominant emotions. One was a desire that she just go and let him get on with it; impatience. The other was fear and terror. Perhaps it was like the Space Odyssey after all.
His mother said to him, ‘So you’ll be all right here, for the year?’
‘Yes of course I will,’ he said, feeling chafed and threatened.
Really he didn’t listen to a word, and nor she to his words; but when they separated (and he was left alone in his room) he felt the tearing wrench as his entire past existence was ripped from him. He had no personality left. No possessions. Everything was left behind in Portstewart: the (few) people he knew; the buildings he liked; his mother, his father, his brothers, his sister. His destiny was his own. He lacked inspiration what to do with it.
All right, he thought, and stuck on the computer and idled ten minutes while it took the thing to load.
Right, I’ll read some philosophy.
It was Erwan’s plan to devote his energies to becoming the greatest philosopher of all time. This suggests he was confident: no, he had doubts that he was that great philosopher. Nevertheless he was certain he had chosen the right course. If any study was important, then the study of what was important and why was the most important. Otherwise we wouldn’t know whether what we were doing was really important or not. But just to hedge his bets he was going to do a module in physics as well. It looked exciting. Special relativity was amongst the topics of study.
He read through some of the lecture notes he’d downloaded from the lecturers’ websites.
At 6pm it was time to go for dinner.
Advancing down a hill, in that way that is slightly painful to the shins, he turned a corner into the Halls of Residence dining hall. He was faced with a long glass-sided corridor. People were walking down it in groups of two or three. He thought it probable they were seeking dinner like him, so he followed.
He took a tray like the others and selected a sloppy bolognaise for his main. Blancmange for dessert. Neither looked good but Erwan wasn’t particularly concerned about food quality. As long as he didn’t have to cook. He intended to eat as much as physically possible at breakfast and dinner. The less of his spare money he spent on food the more money he would have left over. Erwan was aware of the inverse relationship between the amount of money spent on stuff and the amount of free time available to read, study and enjoy life. The link was work. Employment was a beast Erwan was determined to avoid or even slay. It ruined a person’s life, especially of a devotee of learning.
Hunger! Time to eat. He gobbled down the spaghetti greedily and then attempted the blancmange. It was inedible so he finished it only with great effort. He sat back. Well, he thought, here I am. He took a brief look about him. Students sitting in groups or else alone, eating. He wondered what the point of it all was. That’s what I am here to find out.
Later in the week (after failing a driving test, taken rather inconveniently at the same time as his first scheduled philosophy class) he went to an automated telling machine. The device gave him £20 on command. He lost it on the way home. Where did my £20 go?! Feelings of grief and inadequacy. Also fear and self-doubt. It was possible, for all Erwan knew, that the £20 had been stolen from him. After all, it was the city, were crime was reported to exist at higher levels than in towns. Some enterprising pick-pocket had perhaps pilfered the note when the opportunity (Erwan stuffing it in his pocket) arose. It was possible. Erwan decided that a rational response was implementing more secure mechanisms of withdrawal; such as putting notes in his wallet and taking tenners at a time.
The problem of loose money was resolved. He did not think he would experience this difficulty a second time. Something beyond his control happened earlier that week though. It was a fire alarm. This went off at approximately 3.30 of the morning of the twenty-first September. Yuck, he thought. What the hell is going on? My attempts to stay in bed appear to be futile. The noise is physically impossible to withstand. Nevertheless I will attempt to stay in bed. No, I can’t. Right, got to get up. So dark, where are my clothes? Where is my light? Where is the doorway? Jesus, what a racket. Right, out the door since I’ve located it. Fuck! The noise is even worse out here! Ok, down this corridor, to the stairs, got it. Shitloads of people on the stairs. Can I even get onto this stairwell? I’ll try. Ok, I’m submerged in a tide of rapidly descending individuals. I’m one. Down, down, two flights, noise isn’t so bad here, out the stairwell, through the livingroom area on the ground floor, out the livingroom area, past an alarm that is sounding ear-splittingly to my left, and out. Fucking hell. What time is it? 3.30am. Fuck me. How long will this take? I should have taken my notebooks, they could go on fire. A loss to posterity. As well as to myself. The halls burn down on my first night here, not expected. Who’s shouting at me? They can’t tell how utterly tired I am. Jesus, we’ve got to go somewhere else? Right I’ll just follow these guys. I’ll be fucked tomorrow. Got a ten a.m. class to go to. Maybe skip it. No, Erwan, don’t, be disciplined. Well, let’s do a quick calculation. I can probably learn everything I would learn from the lecture in a book. Or maybe not. All right, I’ll see tomorrow morning. So they are crowding us into this corridor that leads to the dining room. Suits me, might be less chilly. We’re spending the night here then. Looking around I don’t see any indication that anyone knows what the fuck is going on. I like those guys who are on their own shivering and miserable. I hate those guys who are in groups laughing about this. They probably set the alarm off in the first place. I’ll kill them. There’s a few pretty girls. I wonder if I could get to know them? Oh, there’s the fire engines coming down.
The fire engines arrived and weary firemen scowled at their time being wasted yet again in the first of a long series of year-long useless call-outs to the Elms Village. Erwan and the other students crowded back in fifteen minutes later. The fire engines drove off with blue lights circling. Bleary students hardly knew how to move off the road to let them through. This is halls life, thought Erwan. For some reason he was cheered by the incident.
Later in the week he met an old school mate, Daniel, for a game of snooker. He phoned his parents every night for a week. Then he met Emmett.
‘Emmett! How are ye?’
‘Ach! Not so bad sir. How are ye?’
‘Doing all right. Just moved into halls. Started class. Good to bump into you.’
‘Cool! So how’s the philosophy?’
Erwan told him how the philosophy was. Emmett told Erwan that he should call over to the house. He gave precise instructions: pink; at the end of an avenue; opposite a big church with noisy bells.
‘Cool!’ said Erwan. ‘I’ll call over in a few days.’
He did.
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