Study Years

Welcome to Edinburgh

From the train, I could see the suburbs stretching out through the landscape, sandstone houses with small front yards and Chimneys as flat as boxes in which you would gift sweaters and such. I had decided to go up to Edinburgh as soon as my room was ready, not wanting to endure the stiff and heavy atmosphere any longer that had been lingering around the house ever since I’d got accepted into university. It had taken me more than six tiresome hours of switching trains and delays, and I felt a wave of relief when the voice of the conductor finally announced Waverley Station.

I was out of breath, breaking into a sweat, when I made it out into fresh air, the wind throwing a curtain of faint rain at me like a welcome gift. Princes Street was crowded as ever. People rushing home with shopping bags, tourists strolling at an unbearably low speed, blocking the way of people who were busier getting on with their lives instead of stopping every other second to look around as if they were at the zoo.

Tall old buildings were lining the street, still wearing the dark stain of Victorian age when coal burning fireplaces were to be found in every house and home. There was something grim, yet intriguing in the atmosphere, with the rain and the wind, then again so utterly impressive, lavish decorations on the exterior of the buildings, next to me the Balmoral Hotel like a giant, a monument of Victorian architecture, with white rimed windows looking at me like hundreds of eyes. Behind the clock tower, pigeons were rising into the grey sky with a rush, just the way you would imagine a picture from 19th century London, the London of Jekyll and Hyde or Jack the Ripper.

I’d been smart enough to bring a rain jacket with me, and throwing it over, I turned right. In front of the Balmoral, a man in a kilt was hurrying from the entrance to the street where an old Rolls Royce was parking. A group of people dressed in suits and cocktail dresses was stepping out, the next moment a bride climbing clumsily outside, held at both sides. She wasn’t pretty, heavy in makeup, hair in a blonde tone that looked more like yellow. She threw me a nervous smile and I smiled awkwardly back, hurrying away from the scene.

With two large suitcases and a giant backpack, I started heading down North Bridge, thrown into a bustling crowd, busses driving back and forth past me, letting out swarms of people. It was only until High Street crossed that I gave up and realized what a foolish idea it was to walk down the entire road with all the luggage I was carrying.

I called a cab, and within another seven minutes I had managed to be down in Newington. The landlord’s son had sent me pictures of the room, it was all so last minute, but I was just grateful that I’d have a place to sleep whose price was manageable since my father’s attitude towards my studies didn’t offer me the budget my parents could’ve afforded. Plus, it was close to the university, while not being on campus, and I was happy not having to get into the bustle of dormitories.

The house was a strange complex of a new building annexed to the old classic townhouses, set in a charming little street where the facades of the shops were painted in different colours on the ground floor, from red, to emerald green and indigo blue, a funny small door in turquoise in between. Without any effort to make it look nice, and an irritatingly one and half floors shorter, the newer house had been jammed onto the old buildings, disrupting the picture.

The turquoise door was open. I stepped inside and managed to heft all my luggage up the narrow staircase to the first floor where the landlord was supposedly living. Out of breath, I searched for a bell to ring, but eventually knocked on the door.

As I stood there waiting, I could hear the sound of a marching band blasting from inside, then a chair being thrust aside, steps. Finally, the door opened a small crack, the chain still in its lock.

“Yes?” A voice that reminded me of a cat, with a suspicious undertone as if it was expecting a fraud at the door. All I could see was a pair of glasses in a wrinkled face scrutinizing me from head to toe.

“The door downstairs was open,” I said quickly, while the uncomfortable scanning kept going, “so I wasn’t sure whether I should ring or just let myself in, I’m really sorry about that, um, I’m…”

“Oh, yes!” was all I heard, the door being shut the next moment. Then I heard the chain unlock and the door opened again. “You’re the literature student, right?”

A small man, perhaps in his early seventies, with rimless glasses and a grey moustache was standing in front of me, in a plaid sweater vest. In the back, the sound of the marching band was still flowing through the flat.

“Yes.”

“So, it’s Charles then?”

“I, uh—” But I stopped right there. All of my life I had been Fynn, my middle name, which I preferred a lot more compared to ‘Charles’, which sounded old and stale and traditional. But here in Edinburgh, at university, I was soon to realize that I would become Charles since it was too confusing and time-consuming to explain to everyone why I wasn’t Charles though it said it right there on the papers.

Josh Howsmann, my landlord, welcomed me with a rush of words, so much that at some point I didn’t know whether he was still talking to me or to himself or what he was even talking about as he seemed to be jumping from one topic to the next without transition, “you know it’s like Houseman, quite funny, yes, yes, me being a man who owns houses around here,” giving a funny chuckle—“oh, I’ve found some old bed sheets, if you haven’t brought any, I don’t need them anymore, but make sure you leave them here when you move out one day—” shoving the pile of grey and purple fabrics right into my hands that were actually occupied with the two suitcases.

“Laundry room is in the basement, here—” turning around to a chest of drawers—“coins, coins, where are they? ah, here you are— well,” pressing two big coins with a little hole in the middle into my hand—“three pounds for two hours of washing time, you just throw them into that little machine on the wall, and off you go. You have some money on you?”

I was a bit overwhelmed by the blabber of his words and the sheets in my arms and the coins in my hands. But he was giving me a scrutinizing look through those glasses that made me realize that he was no man to let you pay your six pounds later, after you’d had a look at your room or got settled in after a six-hour-journey, let alone offering you his precious laundry marks as a welcome gift.

“Sure,” I said hastily, fumbling for my wallet with one hand while trying to keep the sheets and coins in my other arm. Howsman didn’t avert his eyes from me, like a strange bird, a budgie perhaps, that has tilted its head, just less colourful than the animal. “Um—” eventually, resting all of those things on my suitcase, I managed to fumble out the money, “there you go.”

Finally, when Howsman was done with his incoherent blubbering, I made my way through the hallway which seemed to be connecting the old house to the new house (I was living in the new house) and then up another floor.

Musty air confronted me as I stepped into my room, a subtle, irritatingly sweet smell if you paid attention just close enough, and I was sure it must’ve been coming from the carpeted floor, with stains I didn’t want to know what had been spilled upon there. The ceiling was lower as you would’ve expected, and at first I thought I was just imagining it, but later I realized that the wall was in fact not quite straight, but going to the left in a ninety-three degree angle or something. It was generally dark in the room with all the windows facing North, out to the street, to the house just across so you could look inside the old couple’s flat when their light was on in the evenings. A lightbulb hanging from the ceiling I somehow never got a proper shade for. There was a small pantry kitchen (still carpeted floor in this area too), a French bed, a desk, a small table, wardrobe, a couple of shelves. Ragged curtains.

I was so exhausted I managed to throw my trousers off and fall into the unmade bed and drift off right into sleep.

When I woke up, I had no idea where I was. Around me an unfamiliar, empty room, not enough light coming through the windows to figure out what time of day it was. Groggily, I stepped up to the windows. The sun was already setting.

I didn’t have anything to eat so I put my trousers back on and stumbled outside into the dusky light of the city. The rain had faded a bit, but the wind seemed stronger now.

For a while, I was wandering around aimlessly, car lights growing stronger, until I felt waves of dizziness flooding through my body, and I remembered that the last time I’d had something to eat had been on the train, more than ten hours ago. At a Tesco, I grabbed two packs of sandwiches and kept wandering more into the Old Town.

Now the sky was becoming more pleasant, fading into a warm and comforting blue that was glimmering through the clouds. Windows were lighting up, the insides of town houses hidden behind white curtains making you imagine cosy living rooms and kitchens where families and couples were preparing dinner. Pubs were filling, letters in gold on their black facades, baskets with flowers hanging next to brass signs, and streetlamps with coronas of soft air. There was something more comforting about the world now, less gloomy, reminding you more of a picture book, or a life in which you’d be strolling down the streets with someone by your side, arms linked, reminding you of good old days you never lived, good old days that in hindsight must’ve been biased, but which you still kept in your mind as what the world should be like, slower, more personal, less anonymous, less quick.

I kept walking up and down the streets, all the steps, and was surprised how easily I got out of breath (I hadn’t known Edinburgh was such a hilly city). Eventually, the castle lit up, giving a warm bronze look. I walked down again, made my way through Victoria Street with its colourful shops and houses—really looking like a real-life version of Diagon Alley—all the way down to Grassmarket.

For a moment I stood in front of a pub, looking inside where people were laughing and drinking, men slapping each other on the back, laughing again, and out of every door there seemed to be music coming through.

Longing to be in there too, in the warmth, with people I cared about. Picturing myself inside, amongst them. But then again, just the thought of going into a pub or a bar all on my own filled me with anxiety. Soon, I thought to myself. Soon university would start, and I’d be meeting a whole bunch of new people, and I’d finally be able to tell life: get it started.