With Nothing Guaranteed: Four Lives, Fours Truths

By R Mark Hayhurst

The opportunities offered by university were seized by some as a road to a career; for others, it may have been a stepping stone into adulthood. With Nothing Guaranteed explores how experiences change quickly ideas with the journey into the real world; the comfortable norms of late teenage years and turning twenty-one are swiftly replaced by fresh and challenged ideals.

In With Nothing Guaranteed, four characters arrive with their own baggage and a varying degree of expectation.

David Chambers is the ultimate underachiever in an eclectic group. A journalist from a relatively ordinary family, Davids agenda is always steered by short-term personal satisfaction; he remains confident in his belief that one day a big journalistic scoop will come his way, but how will he react if his break doesnt come?

Privately educated, Fiona Phillips plays down her privileged background, seeing her qualification as a dentist as being down to hard work. She doesnt rebel against her parents or their ideals and, certainly, follows her own path in life.

Amanda McIntyre feels that she lives partly in the shadow of her academically more successful cousin, Fiona. The well-meaning Amanda is a sensitive woman who shied away from a career as a social worker after graduating; but does she come to realise that she can achieve more than life behind a desk?

According to Simon Carpenters CV, hes an ambitious lawyer, but its clear that he rarely focuses solely on what he wants to achieve in the legal profession. He is a capable pair of hands, but as with his peers, his development is shaped in no small measure by those around him.

For all of their individual strengths, none of the characters grasps the opportunity to break away from those around them and/or each other until they are affected by the wider world, and their perspectives begin to change.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Nov 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496993625

R Mark Hayhurst

R. Mark Hayhurst The author, born in the mid-1960s, has a varied background. A secondary school teacher, he taught Geography, Economics, and the Humanities in London and South East England. He has a keen interest in current affairs and has served as both a borough and a county councillor, focusing on education and social issues. He is fascinated by genealogy and is a keen follower of cricket. He now lives in Cumbria with his wife and stepsons.

Book preview

1

STEPPING OUT

Simon

Napoli, 8.35am, June 19th. Or more accurately, Napoli Campi Flegrei Railway Station an hour and a half before we were due to check into the hotel we’d booked in pigeon Italian over the phone.

David Chambers stood in the queue for coffee. This was his third queue since I’d sat down because he hadn’t paid the cashier in the first place.

My job at that moment was rucksack supervision and staring suspiciously at any Italian who cast so much as a passing glance at the mountain of youth hostelling type gear we’d created in a corner of the café and have been lugging around for a week and a half so far.

This was a trickier task than you might imagine - lots of people were staring at me presumably because I hadn’t showered for two days and spent the previous night in the corridor of a first class carriage. This wasn’t entirely our fault because we couldn’t find a seat, although we could have reserved seats in advance. I had carpet burns on my left cheek as a result; David smelt worse although we were both coated in a layer of grime made up of sweat, dust and the residue from cigarette smoke.

This all went to make the extra task set by David more challenging. The unrealistic chore was to attract (and maintain) the attention of the two kiwi girls who were sitting across from us. At least I thought that they were New Zealanders, although David offered the suggestion on his return that the blonde was, in fact, a fat, posh Aussie who doesn’t appear to care much for our sweaty, dusty look either. David had enhanced his appearance by reversing away from the coffee counter into a woman carrying a coffee which spilled onto his bum, making my task harder.

He had managed to get some pastries but I struggled with mine as I could almost taste the grime in which we’d been living in for two days. I was dreaming of a clean hotel rather than chancing it in the loos downstairs, which have probably been devoid of paper since 1976. Ten o’clock was what we had agreed with the manager, but our intention was to try to bluff our way in at a quarter past nine. I took another bite of the pastry and then pushed it to one side while David carried on tucking into his.

So, day eleven! After nine months at the University of Leeds we’d decided to do Europe by train and via Paris and Rome we’d arrived in Naples ready for more of our adventure. We’d promised ourselves Vesuvius and Pompeii and then we were off - possibly to Sardinia, then Spain or east to Greece. We had few plans, fewer commitments, and no worries except a date to re-register in Leeds in the first week in October for second year studies - David in English, me in Law.

David thought he’d caught the eye of the blonde, but I reckon she’d spotted his grubby rear end. They were backpacking too, and although it was clear that they hadn’t just emerged from the shower, they weren’t as unkempt as we were.

I’m usually better at attracting someone’s attention over on a pretense, whereas David’s skill is sorting out details such as whether they’re arriving or shipping out, as well as trying to establish where they were heading.

It turned out that their next step would be Sicily because Mary, the large blonde, is ‘fascinated by the influence of the Arab world on Southern European architecture,’ and because Louise (dark bob, virtually nothing to say for herself) appeared to drift on Mary’s whim. True to form we got their country of origin wrong; they both studied in Bath, and Mary dropped into conversation that she was from Leicester.

‘Sicily! Really?’ I leapt to take interest in their plans.

‘Oh yes, we’re almost certain to head there towards the end of the week.’ David did his best in throwing out his bare knowledge of the island. He got Palermo right and mentioned Etna. ‘We thought we’d pop over to Sardinia for the day,’ he added, instantly revealing his flimsy knowledge.

‘Sardinia? That’s too far for one day!’ Mary looked perplexed and intense; Louise still refused to hint at where she was from.

‘A few days I mean,’ David picked himself up unconvincingly, and the conversation fizzled out as I became increasingly focused on the thought of getting cleaned up.

We were in the hotel by ten, and after we’d both made full use of the bathroom slept in proper beds for the first time in a couple of nights.

I woke soon after two o’clock in the afternoon. The room was cheap and cheerful and was furnished with what looked like second hand odds and ends. Aesthetically the problem was less that things didn’t match, but rather that the décor positively clashed with mauve floral curtains against pale green shutters.

David was still asleep. I poured a cup of mineral water and downed it straight away, followed by two more before paying another visit to the bathroom. Perched on the loo I took in the scene across outside of the street.

An ageing man sat on a balcony in a wicker chair, outside a third floor room wearing a grey vest and blue trousers; even from a distance his skin appeared leathery. The shops below were closed for siesta and the windows of many apartments were shut; most of the windows above the old man were obscured by shutters. Even the traffic in the street below was lighter than it was when we had finally collapsed after our journey at ten thirty that morning.

Once I’d finished in the toilet I woke David. He didn’t want to get up so I finished getting dressed and decided to have a wander around the city without him. In the evening we spent a couple of hours planning a trip to Sorrento the next day.

It took David very little time in Naples before he attempted to sleep with someone; this may seem shocking to the casual observer, but as David’s travelling companion, days of celibacy can represent an indescribable hell of pent up emotions and testosterone. I wouldn’t describe him as obsessed by sex, but his moral code was certainly questionable.

The train to Sorrento was a small, posh suburban arrangement. David sat opposite a stylishly dressed Italian woman wearing a long dark skirt. To be fair she was incredibly slender and tanned, and she had had her hair highlighted, making her sparkle a little more. David noticed her but she continued reading her book.

It was thick book and she seemed to be only halfway through it; David intervened to relieve the tension on his part.

‘What’s it about love?’

She ignored him. ‘The book, Gorgeous, what’s it about?’

Again, she completely blanked him. Unusually for him he gave up and said nothing more. An older couple stared disapprovingly at him for a moment or two and before looking away. We had missed breakfast, so when we arrived in Sorrento at half past twelve we were starving and found the nearest bar for a snack and a coffee. We each ordered large baguettes and coffee was replaced by lager in tall glasses.

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Approximately forty five seconds after we sat down, Margherita, the woman from the train, sat down at the next table. I distinctly remember that she sat down after us; Margherita was a name we’d conjured up because we had no idea of her name at the time.

David started twittering on about her shoes - a pair of black sling backs: for sure they were sexy, but her hair and the pearl earrings against tanned skin were more of an attraction in my eyes. I’d only recently ended a relationship and wasn’t even window shopping; David displayed little hesitation.

The woman turned out to be from Salzburg and was called Nina and spoke almost perfect English. This was a nuisance as David then chose not to speak to me for several hours.

This time his advances were acknowledged by her, despite the weakness of his line: ‘What flavour’s your ice cream?’

It was a spectacularly poor opening, but she fell for it. They talked like long lost friends reunited at last.

I sat watching across the table, pondering what we were going to for the afternoon. I can’t remember Nina’s precise reaction to David, but I can remember that she reacted positively towards him. Feeling that I was surplus to requirements, I politely left them to soak up the atmosphere in the square. I arranged to meet them back at the bar later in the afternoon and wandered down to the sea.

I wasn’t present for the next bit, so what follows is a mixture of David’s recollection and conjecture on my part. David has a knack of pulling off scams and this was one of his craftier ones. Midway through his second beer he slipped into a hotel and used its toilets, taking care to look at the pigeon holes with keys in. The occupants of room 207 had left their key and David made a careful note.

Back in the bar, Nina was still waiting; her English was substantially better than David’s German. As he was enjoying a beer near the cliffs, David had persuaded her that he was staying at the Hotel Ginevre and that she would like to see how lovely the room was…and also that she would like to see his etchings. I’m not sure what yarn he spun to convince her that he was staying there after she’d seen him travelling into Sorrento on the morning train. Perhaps she was simply naïve.

It seems that he wandered into the Ginevre with Nina in tow, smirking at the teenager as he asked for the key to 207.

Clearly the next part of the story is entirely relayed by David; although I say this having taken care to remove the more sordid of the details. It seems they found time to shower, and by the time she had freshened up and returned he had opened a bottle of Frascati from the minibar fridge.

He poured into the two plastic beakers from the bathroom which he had taken the trouble to rinse after his shower. My understanding is that they then chatted for a few moments before knuckling down to what some people knuckle down to in hotel rooms while on holiday.

However distasteful, dishonest or disgusting his move, I have to admit that it was a clever trick.

It is a shame he hadn’t thought things through a little further though. If he’d taken only five minutes to watch someone leave with beach towels and all of their paraphernalia he could have been confident that the room was going to be vacated for a while.

His report suggested that following their activity, David and Nina finished the wine and lay cuddling and talking. Nina was a buyer for a large Austrian company which he had never heard of. She was attending a business conference in Naples and had a free day. Sorrento seemed an interesting day out away from the excitement of the city.

David has a knack of over-romanticising situations, but let’s gives them the benefit of the doubt. It seems that there was a type of chemical magnetism which drew their bodies together again and that passions were rekindled a matter of minutes later, although not before the minibar had been raided of a large bottle of mineral water.

Perhaps he should have quit while he was ahead.

The elderly couple who were staying in (and paying for) room 207 spent the morning and early afternoon shopping for gifts - a collection of bits of glass, pottery, sweets, and postcards. They needed to return to leave their presents in the room before going for a stroll. As their key was no longer at reception, they borrowed the duplicate, thinking they must have left the original key behind.

What they found must have been one of the greatest surprises of their holiday. David later charged the man with the wearing of open toed sandals with white sports socks stretched close to the knee, and claimed that she sported a pair of garish flip-flops with a pink floral arrangement above the toes. It seems that they were so startled that they froze while David and Nina got dressed rapidly. I don’t know what the penalty for squatting in someone else’s hotel room is in Italy or if such an offence exists, but the romantic couple managed to dress and leave so quickly that the elderly couple were too traumatised to report the matter soon enough. Altruistically, as ever, David threw down some Euros to cover, or at least partially cover, the cost of the Frascati.

When I got back to the bar, David was waiting wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap. He said very little to begin with, but Nina had clearly had enough of David’s company and had left him.

‘She refused to give me a phone number or her business card,’ he lamented; it was a hypocritical lament as he would have had no intentions of contacting her again anyway.

We had a meander down to the foot of the cliffs; David took some photos and we headed back to Naples. You must understand that I had no idea of the goings on at the hotel at this point. We decided that we had time to take in a couple of sights back in Naples before heading back to our hotel.

Supper was cheap pizza followed by a quick drink. We put together plans to see Vesuvius and Pompeii, and spent two days absorbing being tourists in the sun.

Two days later we’d decided that we’d seen enough of the area. We chose to take the night train to Sicily the following evening and we packed our things, ready for the morning.

We checked out of the hotel and the owner allowed us to leave our back packs until the evening. We had coffee and a roll for breakfast in a café around the corner which we had grown to like. The train didn’t leave until nearly ten in the evening so we had lots of time to spare and we set off for the Duomo.

I enjoy cathedrals, churches and castles but David is more of a theme park man, so as my head bobbed up and down between guidebook and sights, David ambled through the sights almost as if he was wandering through a Saturday morning market.

By late August, funds were beginning to run low and we decided to head back. I’d some loose ends to tie up before returning to Leeds and the house I shared with David and three others.

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Of course this was all a far cry from the previous summer.

An August Wednesday in the mid-1990s, and I’d tumbled out of the train at Sheffield with a rucksack and a disintegrating carrier bag.

I had up to three days to float between Sheffield and my new home city of Leeds to find somewhere to live. Three ‘B’s at ‘A’ level and I have to say that I felt rather smug with myself. You have to understand that from the perspective of an eighteen year old, 3 ‘B’s at that time was a virtual guarantee of employment for life - or at least it ought to have been. My prospects could only improve when I achieved a first from a traditional Uni.

The Law Faculty was likely to be discussing my potential before I’d even arrived I thought, as I struggled to cope with the carrier bags’ stretching and tearing handles.

So, enough of my probable fame and fortune, and back to matters in hand. The next couple of days were going to be hectic because I was crashing at Matthew’s house. Matthew is the son of Roy and Veronica - they go to the same church as my parents near Windsor. The offer of a couple of days to find a room before term started was possible because Matthew was a first class boffin, a year or two older than me, and was about to take an excellent first degree and begin a PhD in a branch of Physics which I’d never understand. He’d returned to Sheffield early to start or continue reading for his third year. None of his housemates, oddly enough, had returned from their hols so there were spare rooms free. I was there because my parents had brokered a deal which avoided me having to fork out the costs of a B&B from my meagre savings from part-time work.

This presented a problem really. Here I was, supposedly trying to be breaking free, but my parent’s hands, however well-intentioned were constraining. I suppose I accepted the offer of a short break in Sheffield because otherwise I’d have had to argue against Derek and Joan accompanying me to Leeds. The indignity of being followed by my father seeking value for money, while my mother glared at cobwebs would have made me cringe.

Fortunately I’d seen off that spectre. Matthew was a sound bloke and I’d known him as a peripheral member of my social scene at home. The main difference between us was that I saw studying it as a means to an end, while he seemed to enjoy studying for its own sake. I remember him saying as much at a Christmas party.

‘Simon!’ Matthew’s voice across the station concourse interrupted my train of thought.

‘How are you?’ I asked as he shook my hand unnecessarily formally.’

‘Oh, very well, thank you.’ I released his hand and he grasped the opportunity to push his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. On the bus back to his digs he made me feel much more settled. He was generous in the extreme in congratulating me on my results, asking me about my course and I felt excited by the prospect of university life in Yorkshire, by the time reached his house in Hessle Terrace.

I learned that one of his housemates had returned after all, and my apprehension lifted a little, only for my spirits to be dampened by the news that Christophe, not Christopher, as I’d first thought, played the flute.

I’ve nothing against flautists, it was just that at my age, on a list of instruments I’d like to learn to play, flute fell well down the list after guitar, keyboard and even bagpipes. This is hypothetical talk anyway as my greatest musical moment was in a primary school production about a Peruvian bloke in a poncho who was played by one of the school governor’s sons. The pinnacle for me was playing two chime bars – a role I was given after creating a stink after being offered a triangle.

Once at his house, Matthew put the kettle on, showed me to my room and suggested that we go for a bite to eat. ‘That would be good,’ I replied enthusiastically at the thought of going out.

I had expected Matthew’s place in Sheffield to be archetypal student digs. I prepared myself for full ashtrays on the sides, washing up waiting to be washed and dust laying half an inch deep on the stair carpet. I found nothing of the sort; instead the shared living areas were spotless with virtually no clutter in the lounge, and a single pot plant placed on the windowsill.

In the kitchen there was a discrete note on the side of the fridge with the kitchen rota. There wasn’t an ashtray in sight and I assumed that this was a non-smoking household.

We had a cup of tea and watched Countdown; Matthew found an eight letter word before the clock started to tick. ‘ANALOGUE’. He announced, looking up casually.

I’d spotted ’GALE’, giggled at ’ANAL’ and peaked at ’GLEAN’; it was time for the numbers game and the target was 875 using 75, 9, 8, 5, 4, and 1. In my head I tried it…

9 + 4 = 13

13 x 75 = 975

I was all over the place, as Einstein rocked back on the settee confidently. I gave up any hope of striking 875. The clock finished ticking as he threw a piece of paper onto the coffee table.

9 - 1 = 8

75 - 8 = 67

67 x (8 + 5) = 871

871 + 4 = 875

‘Excellent.’ It was sorted and although I felt a bit inadequate, I consoled myself that he was scientifically and mathematically minded and that there were lots of ways in which I felt superior to him.

Inevitably he got the conundrum and we got up to leave. We agreed on a pizza restaurant and he gave me lots of advice on finding somewhere to live. I could have opted for a place in halls of residence but I feared any form of institutionalised life.

After eating, we popped across the road for a couple of pints. Matt turned out to be fairly good company after all and I felt a bit guilty for prejudging him; he phoned Christophe who then joined us for an hour or two.

We ambled back to the house and after more television, with no quizzes this time; I made my excuses and went to bed.

Unsurprisingly, Christophe was as bright as a button in the morning and was pouring fresh coffee and buttering toast when I surfaced. It didn’t escape my attention that there was a physics textbook lying open next to the kettle with strategic pencil markings against the text. At first glance it hadn’t necessarily struck me as a physics text because it didn’t have any drawings of levers or pictures of prisms or weights on strings. It was all numbers and letters jumbled together instead.

After breakfast we set out for the city centre together - he was off to the library; I headed for the train station.

I took the train to Leeds and headed straight to the University’s accommodation office and picked up a list of properties before starting to phone landlords. The first was a room in a house a bus ride away. Having been brought up in leafy Berkshire I didn’t know that back-to-backs still existed, but then I felt dreadfully guilty about being such a snob.

I met the first landlord in a street at the end of the M1. ‘There’s some damp on one bedroom wall,’ he offered, pointing to a patch by the sofa which I would have missed if he hadn’t pointed it out. ‘The council dug up the street a couple of weeks ago and think it’s helped.’ He folded his arms and stood back looking satisfied.

My mother would have had plenty to say if she’d seen it, but it was fine by me and she wouldn’t ever be staying. The other three tenants were girls and he showed me their rooms which I thought was rather intrusive. I noticed that one of them had photos displayed of attractive friends and possibly, one of her. The thought of three girls was very appealing but the damp problem troubled me.

Then I was ushered into the last room to let. It was eight feet by six feet, and there was no way I could have survived in it with the amount of baggage I would need. Politely, I told him I that I had one more room to see and that I’d call back. I had lunch and scribbled on my list of potential new homes.

I moved on and saw several other properties, but at three in the afternoon I landed on my feet. A terraced house in Headingley with a decent sized room; I jumped at the chance of a large clean house with central heating, despite the high rent. With Headingley being the focus of the student community in Leeds it proved a sound choice.

I took the room and returned to Sheffield; I spent the evening with Matthew and Christophe enthusing about my find. I headed home the following morning to see out the end of the summer.

I ended up living in the same house in Headingley for three years, and by the time I graduated and moved on it proved to be a real wrench. I’d become as attached to the house as I had to some of those I’d shared with.

I dated a girl called Marie for almost four months during my first year; she was my first sexual encounter of my time in Leeds and was good company – enjoying much of the student social scene together. I once confided to a colleague that I’d learned more from her in the bedroom in a couple of months than I had in the whole of the first year of my degree; it was a confidence which lived to haunt me.

From what she had said she was not particularly experienced in the bedroom, but she was certainly keen to experiment and initiate. I wouldn’t be so crude as to discuss the details, but she certainly maintained my interest; it was fairly obvious that the relationship relied too heavily on an intense level of sexual activity and when the sex faded, we had little else in common.

The other downside to Marie was that sometimes she took her studies a little too seriously. She was reading Geography and once tried to explain the age profile of Headingley using population pyramids:

‘Look at this band here, it shows that 57% of the people in the census were between the ages of 15 and 25.’ She said.

‘Yes, but not all will be students as there will be children with parents and young people and couples who have never left. What you can’t tell is that there are lots of students living in Headingley.’ I pointed out helpfully.

It’s funny how as few as two sentences can end a beautiful relationship! She bored me with her sentence and I offended her with mine. I still can’t work out why we needed to turn graphs into barely legible pyramids to work out that Headingley was full of students - you only have to go and have a look to see. Friday night outside a selection of pubs was testament to the fact that Headingley teeming with students.

My last significant words to her were ‘Geography is a needless subject.’ It went down badly, but in my heart I don’t really regret it.

The conversation trailed on but the damage had been inflicted below the ship’s waterline.

2

TAKING CONTROL

Fiona

I don’t like to dwell on my childhood because I don’t want to sound as if I’m griping. I’m certainly not complaining as I had a happy childhood; I can’t say that I consider myself to have been spoiled, although I rarely wanted for much.

My friendships developed at a private non-boarding school; although private, it was not particularly exclusive and my friends came from varied backgrounds. I had a small number of close friends such as Tania and Carolyn who I maintained links with into adulthood.

One of my closest friends was my cousin, Amanda who didn’t attend the same school, but with whom I spent a considerable amount of time, particularly during holidays. Even during term time she lived a short drive away in Hampshire and we spent some enjoyable weekends in each other’s company. Two months older than me, she shared similar interests in terms of music, fashion, television and life as a whole.

A great bonus for me was that Amanda had access to boys as she attended a mixed secondary school. Mixing with boys was much more acceptable in my mother’s eyes when Amanda was involved as it meant that I was being overseen to an extent. If our parents believed that controls were in place to ensure that our activities were entirely honorable, then they were mistaken, but I’ll return to this later.

At home, life was rather more complex. My father was elected to Parliament when I was eleven years of age; it changed our home life to a degree, but the fact that he always seemed to be busy was something which I had come to accept, and on occasions, exploit.

William, my brother, was nine years older than me and so we spent very little time together developing our relationship as siblings. He was always there for me and I looked up to him, but our interests were separated by our age difference.

In many ways, William had set out his own agenda in response to our parents’ expectations of him. He had graduated and taken a first in Political Economy; much to our father’s delight, he had been active in party politics and looked likely to follow a political career one day.

He started out briefly on a career path in industry, but unexpectedly underwent a Saul-like conversion on the ‘Road to Westminster’. After only months he was reading for a degree in Theology and he eventually responded to God’s calling and was ordained.