The Last Supper

“Well, I know my main aim is to make as many friends as geographically diverse as I can, so that I’ll have a floor to sleep on in all the towns in England. I could end up in somewhere like, I dunno, Bedford, and have somewhere to stay for free.”

Such is Dom’s deep philosophy on the matter of going to university in a week’s time. Out of all of us, he certainly seems the calmest about the prospect of living away from home, making new friends and starting a degree. But then, I can’t imagine Dom ever panicking. My most vivid high school memory of him, for example, is Dom attempting to steal the ten-foot Christmas tree from the school hall and being caught by the head-teacher. Was he phased? Ha! He thought it was hilarious.

He’s off to Birmingham to study to be a doctor. A very noble profession, you might think, for a former Christmas tree thief. In three months time, when we reunite, he shall entertain us with wild stories of slicing up dead bodies, joining the Hindu, Jewish and Sikh societies (for the free food) and already being put on academic probation. He shall also tell us the story of how, after a heavy night, he turned up for work experience at a hospital with “PRICK” painted on his forehead. That’s Dom for you.

This is our Last Supper, the last time we shall all be together before we go our separate ways. OK, maybe this event is not quite deserving of religious connotations; it’s taking place in a cheap Indian restaurant, for a start. I doubt Jesus and the disciples ever went out for a curry, though maybe they would have done, given the opportunity.

I can’t help but feel tearful, though I’m not usually one to cry. For years I’ve seen these people every day, and although school was always a chore, spending time with them never was. Well, except Tom; Tom I haven’t known for years. In fact, I find myself wondering why he’s here at all, which is strange, given the fact that he’s my boyfriend. He sits there, saying nothing, shy beyond redemption. My friends are slightly odd and very loud, so I don’t blame him for feeling intimidated, but his silence and his seriousness aggravate me all the same. He’s vowed to visit me in Aberystwyth, to make ‘us’ work, but already I doubt it will. And it won’t. Two months down the line, I will have stopped answering his incessant phone calls before finally telling him to bugger off. But he’s not important. It’s the other people at the table who I really care about.

There’s Jude and Caz, my absolute bestest friends since before the dawn of time. We grew up as an inseparable trio, going through nursery, primary school and high school together. It seems unnatural that now, after so many years, we’re to be torn away in three separate directions. Jude sits opposite me, picking at her vegetable biriani, talking animatedly about her latest business venture with her father: a web-site, selling kinky underwear and sex-toys. She relishes in the anti-bourgeois, anti-conservative, anti-normal nature of her choice of career path, finding it hysterical to talk loudly about thongs and vibrators in a crowded restaurant. This obscene ranting is occasionally intermitted as she bickers with her boyfriend of two and a half years, Jon.

“Did you take the washing out of the machine before we came out, Jon?”

“Err, no. I thought you did.”

“Oh, great. Bloody fantastic. I ask you to do one thing…”

An outsider might think this exchange bitter, but I know for a fact that Jude basks in the domesticity of their relationship, playing at being grown-ups. They have lived together with Jude’s family since they were sixteen; my mother seems to find this scandalous, but to the rest of us they are just like a married couple, adding stability to our friendship circle. I’ve already been named Jude’s head bridesmaid.

None of us would have guessed that Jon was imminently going to leave Jude. He doesn’t love her any more, and she won’t learn this for another three weeks yet, when he storms out of the house at two o’ clock in the morning, never to return. I’m sure, in time though, Jude will get over it. She’s made of strong stuff. It’ll be good for her to learn to be more independent.

Caz is boyfriendless tonight, but ironically she and her boyfriend Chris are the only couple who shall survive past Christmas. Ironic also since, pre-Chris, Caz had not been the most monogamous of creatures. I seem to remember her losing her virginity in a bush, for example, but that’s another story.

She has found true love in Chris, a super-cool, slightly bohemian lead singer of a rock band with very odd friends who seem to always be taking their clothes off. Caz and Chris are about to go to uni together in Northampton; Caz seems terrified at the thought of leaving home, so it’s reassuring to know that Chris will be there to take care of her. Although I suspect having an on-campus boyfriend will prevent Caz from making new friends, they will be happy enough. Perhaps I can be her head bridesmaid instead.

Then, of course, there’s Sazzle. I haven’t known her as long as Caz and Jude, but over the last two years she has become one of my best friends, mostly through suffering A Level French together. It’s amazing how much bonding can occur through learning vocab and verb endings together. She is going to Aber with me, and has promised to feed me, as I am about as useful in the kitchen as alcohol-free beer. This will be more helpful to me than she will ever realise.

I’d not told a soul, but I’d lost a lot of weight over the summer. My summer job really stressed me out, I missed my friends, and there was the prospect of my A Level results… Being with a boyfriend I didn’t particularly like didn’t help, and I was just very unhappy. Of course I only realise this retrospectively. At the time, it seemed food just repulsed me, so I stopped eating; it was as simple as that. Without Sazzle’s support I’m sure it would have got worse.

As we said our goodbyes in the car park that evening, there was something in the night air that told us this was a momentous moment.

“It’s the end of an era!” declared Jude, dramatically flinging her arms around me.

“No, it’s just the beginning of a new one,” I assured her.

“Tuh. Eternal optimist,” she scoffed, but she was still smiling.

Yes, even then I sensed that change was good. I had my secret demons to leave behind, and I’m sure they all did, too.