From Jester To King CIV

When I went up to Leeds I felt cleansed and primed for another year in the sticks. It was like escaping a drudgery, something you’d become all too familiar with, but it was only when I actually got there that I realised how hemmed in I’d been in my house, how much I’d been dying to leave it. And most of the time I didn’t even realise where I was, I mean I knew I was at university, but the fact that I was in good old Leeds somehow escaped me. The fact remained that Leeds was Leeds and not just any old place; I should be grateful for it, more appreciative of its gifts and not just relegate it in my mind to the status of some random town

This time there were a couple of people I knew still up there and I bumped into them straight off the bat in one of the common rooms. They were sitting round a table ostensibly working, and they seemed so precious about it because when I asked this girl what she was studying she read out the title of her thesis word for word as if anyone was remotely interested, but it was the way she said it more than anything, she seemed so defeated but desperate to disguise it, and I wondered whether this inclination towards academic work years past graduation was not just a bit of a smokescreen. And I knew I wanted to love them and leave them, I wasn’t going to hang around with these bores and these crusts with their pale doctoral faces, me I was buoyant and happy and I didn’t want them to infect me.

I didn’t get much done that day and when we were leaving I wondered about all the bunching up by the exit gates and how this chimed with social-distancing, and when I got to the exit there were two gates, two forms to fill in, and since I didn’t know which one the car permit was, if indeed either of them, I went to the left since there was more space to just hang and wait and ask a question that didn’t fit into one of the gates. But as soon as I ask I get that sense I’m not well received – was it because of the car perhaps – but I’d asked nicely, and openly, and it was the girl behind the desk who had the problem -- sometimes people take one look at you and can’t stand the sight of you -- plus it didn’t help that a girl behind thought it perfectly acceptable to barge in in front so that when I opened my mouth before this girl got her chance to do so, desk girl just said ‘Don’t fight’, and I must admit this irritated me precisely because I was fighting and had been forced into doing by something not of my choosing. The two girls looked similar and perhaps there had been a natural communing between them. And then desk girl knew nothing about the permits and another posh-looking student came up from behind, and I figured her for a driver, and it turns out she was and she pointed to the parking restriction signs outside and just told me I needed one of those, and I assume she meant a regular plain old parking permit that didn’t fall foul of the restrictions.

And here’s where it gets freaky. You have to walk all round the union after the barriers, round the shop, the canteen, the bank, the German bookshop and everything is in one space anyway, so I get past the barriers, leap down the stairs, and there are hordes of students everywhere, and I rub shoulders with everyone, smiling, but I sense that something is up, something has turned them against me, they seem to move away from me, and as much as this could be the completely normal disinterest of 18 year olds in a mature student, I wonder whether they have caught wind of my run-in, and though I want to stay and carouse, they are being a bit cold, so I check for all my belongings, making sure I’ve got everything and head towards the door.

Like I say this is a bank. And as I walk out I feel my coat is laden with things I don’t remember having when I came in. So I put my hand inside one of the pockets and find this bank stuff inside, one thing I pull out is that cardboard cut-out marketing material they display on the counters, and initially I think nothing of it, but when I check my other pockets I find more and more substantial stuff, desk ornaments with the bank’s logo on it, stuff you’re definitely not allowed to take, and then one of the calculator’s that they give you free if you open up an account, and I cannot work out why someone would go to the bother of sticking all this stuff in my pocket to get me in trouble, I mean what I have done to hurt them, and I have to go through all my other pockets emptying them of all this stuff before I can leave without being held for a thief.

When I left the weather was awful, the rain was heavy and squally and I could hardly see, and it was dark already, and I had no idea how I would find my way home, but fortunately I still had my mobile and it was just about working and after just about two seconds of trying to work out exactly where I was on Google Maps, I had the brainwave of calling an Uber, subverting the whole problem, and though I couldn’t afford to splurge I thought I’d worry about it all later when the bill eventually came through.